It's hard

being at my parents' house all of a sudden. I regress into eating. Become immobile. Smoke even though I have been explictly told, not only by my doctors but also by an expert on thebody.com that I shouldn't. It's been just one day, and asides from sleeping, eating wayyy too much (and I want to lose weight) & getting depressed, as well as trying to contact my 3 remaining friends here and sending some emails that weren't replied, and getting into a stupid fight(?) with my mum over some curtains she wants to buy for my place, which I am embarassed about, and feeling too embarassed and out of place to leave the house to go anywhere, and too nervous to drive in the hectic Israeli traffic, I have done fuck all. Niks. Nada.Nothing useful or productive or even life-affirming in the most basic sense. What a crap day. And I brought it all on myself.

I am posting something I wrote last week, I think it was on the 9th, when I went to the hospital. That's only... 5 days ago, and already feels like ancient history. Since then my brother and sister in law visited me, which was great, in a nutshell, I mean in retrospect, but also hard while they were there. I found myself dealing with a lot of the usual feelings of envy and jealously, accompanied by guilt. On my last night I got into one of these awful discussions with P, who won't say that he loves me... worse, who just won't love me. Not in the way that I want. But I knew he was like this and I got into the relationship with my eyes open, knowing he was problematic that way (who isn't? I certainly am), and thinking this is the very best I could do, and it is bloody awsome, our relationship is just RARE, except... not perfect at all. Because I am scared, scared he will nevere love me "for real", scared he will leave, when the time comes or even before then. scared of my condition. Scared of my age. Scared of loneliness. Scared of everything really. And I really try to get a hold over my panic, and a lot of times I succeed, but a lot of times I fail, and regress into addictive, even destructive behavior, which no one knows about. And even when I fess up to it with a friend or so, every time I have to make the effort to explain my problems to another being, I fall in the trap again, and nothing lasts... I was so irritated with my sister in law for her very apparent neurosis and eating disorder, when it's so obvious that I was simply projecting my own problem, which is a lot more serious. I am glad for this time off from P, glad he doesn't have to see me like this, which is really the addict in my glad for the out of sight corner where my addiction can manifest without disturbance, which is sick. So I am sick, I have a problem, and I really should join some kind of 12 step program if I can find one.

Anyway, here is what I wrote on the 9th of August:
From an email I sent this morning, to one of the participants on the "love & hurt" forum:

First of all thanks... although on a day to day basis I don't feel that I deserve all these compliments. rather, I feel that I only show a certain "public" face on the forums, which I know will get approval.
I don't know why you choose to focus on the negative (and quite unsophisticated) comments you get, when there are so many positive ones as well as neutral ones. But that is a question you must ask yourself (lama li lakachat lalev?)

I am a bit down today. Yesterday as you know was tu beav & I guess that affected me, and for some reason after me and my BF had (great) sex he asked me what time I think it was and all of a sudden it popped out of my mind to my mouth, without thinking, "it's time you say that you love me". That's b/c I am always the one who says it, so far. In fact, I have to ask other people if they think he loves me or not. Then we had a whole conversation about love and what it means, which I continue to think about today as I write you from the hospital (have had x-rays for broken arm and am waiting for meeting with my social worker at the hiv ward). We didn't develop it much because we both slipped into our respective roles in the relationship, but I thought a lot this morning and realized our ideas of love were very different. I know that he loves me, but I don't know if he knows that (or I think he isn't sure) b/c his idea of love is the "Titanic" type. Of course, I was very angry with myself for being so needy... so there you go. Nothing is perfect.

I hope to see you on the forums again. i sometimes get bashed on the hiv forum. Don't let it get to you. Focus on the positive (no pun intended).

All the best, write anytime...

Ane here is what I wrote while waiting for the x-ray and afterwards:

{since I was 7 years old, I have been in love almost constantly, excluding a few days (of depression) in between]

Observe (dedicated to JP of the ABC A-dam)

Observe how scared and quiet you become, retreating into the silent, wordless nook inside you, when you think that you are not loved, because you are not told that you are loved. In fact, are denied that knowledge even though you practically (you feel) beg for it. Observe something that is beyond fear, depression or desperation settle in, a quiet hurt and in the silence you slowly lick your wounds. Observe how you become impatient, like with your arm, when something happens that isn't what you want, dream of or recognize that you need that very moment, and how you feel as if it has always been like that, THAT it has always been like that, unchangable, and you fear deterioration so badly. You try to convey that to P but you fail becasue P at least on the surface is so optimistic and beleives things will only get better, why shouldn't they? The kind of selfless love that he described - I have never felt that. Maybe it's what parents feel for children, or what you see in movies like the Titanic. For me love is just a feeling, a craving that isn't fulfilled or only half-fulfilled or momentarily fulfilled. For me love is a need, a void, a gap. Insatiable hunger. But on the other had, a healthier side of me, or stronger or whatever, sees loveas a feeling of joy which fills your heatr when you see that the person you love is happy, and you want to see them happy [so who is the immature one, me or P? and does that change anything, b/c he doesn't think that he loves me, he doesn't even reply my email asking him about a mundane thing, a conference posted in his department]. & that you would be miserable if you lost him. But there is also the other kind of love, the anxious, fearful love, the love that dreads loss to the point of paralysis, the love that freezes your heart over till all you feel is a sliver of pain, the love that fears not being good enough, not being loved back or worse, the tables turning, and the loved one suddenly and painfully retreating.
I have to surrender to love, but remebering that loveis a choice, it is a way of living life, and that even wihtout the person whom I love, I can choose to experience it. That's why they say "only love brings love".
The biting fear, the self-doubt, the anxiety - all that isn't love, it's just an obssession of the ego. A screaming need of the inner child. But the inner parent is the one who chooses love, who loves the inner chikld back, who takes control over hurt emotion, soothes and calms. Not clams up like I did since last night, freezes in fear, afraid to move, afraid that even being treated kindly, considerately and warmly by P is a sign of sorrow and pity on his part. Becasue teh love that he described is pathetic, in every sense of the word, as in full of pathos. An "I'd die for you" kind of love.
I think that he wants this kind of love but is also deathly afraid of it and he interprets things I do for him, like cooking, which I actually enjoy, as manifestations of this kind of eternal willingness to sacrifice (no wonder he believes in the Holy Mother, but not in God!), and that's why he always places me in the wanting, yearning position.
I am not particularly sane, but I think I am saner than he is! I am probabaly more down to earth than him when it comes to this. But I do have a tendency, like him, to please, and I confuse that and the anxiety it brings about - when you aren't sure, and don't beleive, there will ever be a place for you as you are. In short, rejection is confused with love. When in fact love is all about acceptance, of you and others, of life and God, and this acceptance is the choice made to love.
I do have th needy, childish side, but I won't let P unintentionally play on that. I know that I am accepted but the universe, even if rejected because of what I have (rejection makes us stronger), and don't need him to tell me that, or anybody. My value as a human being is unquestionable. Maybe that's the kind of love the weaker parts of both of us don't believe in, the love that allows both or all to grow, a mutual, unconditional acceptance. Not self-sacrifycing but accepting. I have to accept that he - just like everyone else around me, the whole world population - is different and separate than myself, and that i am unique & therefore ultimately alone (save for God). And if I accept this, I can let it all go, feel the warmth, the halo spreading through, not the pressing anxiety tagging at my heart, diffusing my blood with fear. When I do that, let go like that, I feel a pleasure at others' pleasure, instinctively, like I feel watching a girl eat a white chocolate Magnum besides me, absorbed in the taste, I almost feel the texture melting in my mouth through sensing her. That's why I guess we humans feel like laughing when someone laughs, like crying when someone cries, aroused when watching others have sex. It is a natural instinct. And only when we have a firmer sense of self (which P might not have; who knows the kind of overbearing love he'd had to endure) can we afford to feel that kind of diffusion, that fuzzy area where we end and others begin.