Because I thought up a poem (of more than four lines) first thing yesterday, I ducked out of writing anything else for the rest of the day. I guess that’s cheating really, but it’s not the first time I’ve done it. Today I’m clueless as regards poetry, but we’ll see how the day develops. I write spontaneously or not at all. If there isn’t that voice in my head telling me what to write, it’s all much too stressful. Of course, when I start writing, I often get into a flow, but usually what flows out is more of the same; hard to spot the gold dust, however fine the sieve.
Last week I sent the link for my blog to my therapist (we’d discussed it the week before and I asked if she’d mind or if it would be professionally inappropriate). It made our weekly Skype session a bit odd, as we started talking about poetry and writing in general and bizarrely I felt a bit awkward. She said she liked my poetry, but the rest not so much, because of the way I write about myself – which I found quite surprising, because I thought I’d been remarkably chipper recently. She commented that she could understand why my friends get exasperated with me over it, but that’s inevitable, isn’t it? When I write I’m writing about the real me, the person I am inside, the person I live with first thing in the morning and last thing at night, the woman I wake up in bed with at four in the morning, not the fantasy Melinda or Cassandra they have in their heads, so of course they’re not going to like this woman with all her self-loathing and insecurities – she’s hardly an attractive person. Isn’t that why I write about it? Because I can explain who I am without being shouted down and told not to say those things, like my brother reducing me to tears in a curry house or the ‘friend’ who rang when I was very depressed and then hung up the phone because she didn’t want to hear me talking about how I felt.
The therapist wants me to stop judging myself but how is that even possible? How can I think honestly about myself and the things I do and the thoughts I have without making implicit judgements – the language doesn’t exist. I can say: ‘I know I’m lazy, disorganised, chaotic, forgetful – most of that is down to dyspraxia, and I accept that that is who I am and I can’t change’ – but I can’t say any of those things are not true. Are there any words to describe those characteristics of my personality that don’t carry some negative charge? There have always been two choices: to become a better person, or to accept who I am and say it doesn’t matter. This is the dilemma which has torn me apart psychologically and emotionally all my life, and still does.