Dear Diary

Yesterday, I did something I haven't done in a while.

I went down into our basement, and into the boxes of my childhood stuff I've kept over the years.  I went down there looking for a journal. It was a specific purple spiral notebook, one I'd filled with quotes from poems and songs, and a few fiction stories I wrote in high school. I was looking for some inspiration for writing. As soon as I opened the first box, I felt a slight twinge that said this might be a mistake. There were so many pictures from high school in that box. Pictures of a young, smiling, goofy teenager. One who was so good at hiding the pain. Too good. There were stuffed animals, candles, dance awards, and trophies. I lovingly, delicately ran my fingers over the spine of a white teddy bear. I picked up the bear, and there it was. My childhood diary. Thoughts and events from my life from the time I was in 6th grade till I was a sophomore in high school.  Maybe I thought the purple journal would be in that big, black binder that was my diary, but nevertheless, I grabbed it and brought it upstairs.

I set the somewhat-crumbling binder down on the kitchen counter, and opened it. There was a clump of small pieces of paper tucked in the front cover. I smiled when I found $5 in McDonald's gift certificates, circa 1997, and a $10 Applebees gift certificate from my high school best friend. 'No expiration date' it claimed on the front. I imagined taking that certificate to the Applebees in my hometown during my next visit, just to see if they would take it. Nestled behind those certificates was a letter with my name on it. My dad's handwriting. It was an apology he had wrote me after "The Toilet Paper Incident". I was crying by the time I got to the end of letter and the words that moved me the most. At the end he had wrote,

"I'm going through a confusing time right now; something I don't understand, but am determined to resolve no matter what. I know it's tearing our family apart right now, but my hope is that it's temporary, and will lead to me becoming a better, more centered person. I have to do this because I don't see any other way right now. If I discover what's going on with me, I'll be home that day, that hour, that minute, but until then I have to keep searching."

That paragraph hit me hard. I didn't understand the letter when I received it, how could I? After all, I was only 17. It sure means a lot now, though. I completely understand what he went through, because that's what I'm going through. Complete and total personal upheaval.  The only difference is I don't have a family that I'm responsible for. I honestly believe that that makes my journey 100% easier than whatever my dad went through. Another thing was made clear by this letter- "the toilet paper incident" occurred when my parents were separated, not when I was in middle school being chased home from the bus. Memory is a tricky thing, isn't it? I'm trying not to beat myself up over not remembering something perfectly, I spend way too much time doing that as it it. And that in itself can cause more pain. More on that another time, though.

I wiped away tears with the back of my hand, and settled in to read the actual diary. The first thing that struck me, that always strikes me on reading that diary, is how much pain is inferred through the passages. The main reoccurring theme throughout the first handful of pages is how unhappy I am. I hate school, my friends don't like me and talk about me behind my back, and I am angry. Lots of scrawling, hateful epithets written in all capital letters. Lots of anger with my mom, and with my brother. The second thing that knocked the wind out of me was a passage written on 12-16-95. It was regarding an incident that was one of the first traumatic memories to boil over in EMDR. My mom was taking me to my first concert that day, a Reba McEntire concert in Portland, OR. On our way, my mom and I saw a German Shepherd get hit by a car. In the entry, I described the scene exactly how it's been burned into my brain since that day. That memory used to cause so much distress, pain, and depression, and it struck me how much that has changed since EMDR. Recalling that memory yesterday was a good way to evaluate that that memory still feels less disturbing since the onset of EMDR. Even though it's been almost a year since we reprocessed that memory. Which is the purpose of EMDR, so that's very positive. Another important issue regarding this memory was that I never remembered the date. I never remembered it was around the holidays. December is, by far, my worst month. I spend the entire month in a funk, every year. I always thought it was just because of the holidays, the pressure, my birthday... Now I'm wondering if this traumatic memory is also involved a bit in my holiday madness?

Another thing became transparent to me upon reading the diary. I've quite clearly had dysfunctional relationships with the opposite sex since the beginning. It was interesting to read about the onset of my first relationship and all the flawed thinking I've always displayed. I saw how elated I was when the relationship became physical, when I was 13. I saw how unstable in the relationship I was- always complaining about how he was obsessed with me and way too nice, so I ended the relationship. At which time, I became panicked and all I could write about was getting him back. And I did get him back. And the relationship became more physical. I noted that I didn't include in my diary that I lost my viriginity to him. I remember my mindset at that age. It was always in the back of my mind that my mom could find my diary, so I never included that. Reading through the entries though, I knew where it had happened.

The on-again/off-again relationship came to its inevitable end. And I wrote about the loss for no less than 1 year, truly fixated and unable to move on. I was in eighth grade. What 13-year old mourns the loss of a boyfriend for a year? I wrote that I felt like I'd lost a best friend, that I missed the closeness, that I felt lost. Empty. Alone.

And then, one year later, I met someone else. And the exact same process started over. Except this time, there were a few more detailed entries to go off of. This time, the boy I was dating went to a different school so I only saw him on the weekends. It was obvious, from reading the entires, that I was ok with the relationship when we were together (fooling around, being touched, etc.) but during our time apart, I got squirrely. I would start to doubt the relationship and how much he cared for me. I would think about breaking up with him, but then if we did break up, he would be all I would think about. And yes, this relationship became on-again/off-again too.

It was obvious. Written in front of me, in black and white. Only, I'd never seen it before. In my young brain, things were only balanced in these "relationships" when they were physical. Sex= Love. That's where I felt right. That's where I felt safe. And let's face it- when you are 13, you don't get a whole lot of time to do these things. So, I spent most of my relationships feeling depressed. Like things were wrong. Like I wasn't good enough.

And how does a young girl come right out of the gate, and behave this way?

The answer is plain and straight-forward- programming. I was taught to think this way, yet I had no inkling of what had happened to me as a child. Not one thought, not one time. Ever. I never thought, "Maybe I'm this way because something happened to me?". I remember how I felt at the time-

Born broken. I would be forever broken. Possibly just bad genetics. Possibly I was just a terrible person.

These revelations have put a lot into perspective. I realize now why my college relationship was so difficult, and why so many other relationships were. I (subconsciously) became paranoid over my relationships if they weren't physical. And during college, I was on Depo-Provera and had zero sex-drive. With the lack of physical closeness, I became even nuttier. More paranoid. Needy. And no successful relationship exists in harmony with that much negative emotion. I was more unlike myself than I've ever been during that relationship.

It's clear to me now why I feel my marriage is in trouble if we haven't had sex in a couple of days.

And while these things are evident to me, now I'm left wondering,

"How do I change this?" How do I break the association of love and sex? As A has mentioned many times, we are only getting older. Both of our sex drives will naturally decrease, and am I going to be thinking he doesn't love me for larger and larger amount of times?

I don't want this to be the case.