Mouth Moth Movie

I did do LI about watching films in therapy and I think it helped. At least part of it is about the way I abandoned social film when I fled my family of origin. The people I did it with were part of what I had to give up and I never made it work right again. I built lots of spaces for it to happen in person and remotely and could never get anyone to join me on a regular basis.

But also I had exciting film talks with you today. And watched a movie with Shanda last weekend. And we have all been working on storytelling in various ways. So it’s sort of working. Part of the reason I can’t have it is because getting it makes me feel bad. Makes me remember a part of the loss I never felt.

There’s also the bit where movies were a reliable distraction from my life being intolerable, both with my FoO and later when I was alone. I could watch a movie – be engaged with any movie that was happening, even if it wasn’t good – as a way to put in my hours of supervising the Kids in Mother’s proximity. It helped protect me from being so badly hurt by this responsibility I could not refuse and could never do well enough to satisfy her. So it’s easy for me to be triggered into that mindspace when I’m watching a movie in a group of people, even if I’m otherwise having a good time.

I bought my first movie in 2000 (American Beauty (1999)) on the day after I got dropped off at undergrad and was so proud to have a collection. Of anything. To own an item that was merely for my entertainment and to not have to worry about it being confiscated or destroyed. But it’s never a thing I’ve been able to share effectively even when I do it out loud. And so it feels very alone to me, to watch my movies on my giant TV in my automated theater. Just like it did when I was alone in the basement murder den in Ames. Or in my dorm room in Westgate. Distraction from the depression that was trying to kill me, alone in my room, with my 21″ monitor and my movie. I missed the abuse because at least it wasn’t alone

I stashed all that away with the time I chopped off my arm to escape my old life. It’s not quite the same pain ¹There’s also the pain from where more than a couple of them died after I ran away. Or the ones that had to flee themselves and were thereby lost. That all gets taped to the side of the pain of fleeing and mostly ignored for the same reasons. but it’s from the same time, and I’ve lumped it all into the past I don’t want to remember. That I had to give up. That I couldn’t want because wanting it would kill me.

I’m still sick. Better than yesterday but still super tired. Went to my noon meeting and did email but not a lot of SR research. Got my box packed and made plans to send it. Figured out what I’m bringing on Saturday. Shanda got more socks, with better fits than yesterday. I got two hip bags and like them both.

Shanda had hard feels about the way its going to be stressful and painful to see your 8-year-younger sibling – the one your brain associates with the hardest times of hard parts of your childhood, and with parenting. It can be good, but it’s going to involve feeling old bad feels. We did get to talk about it in advance though, which is a big improvement and should help a lot.

ZiB

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Sent from a phone.