Thinking of the past

I keep starting this post and deleting it. There's so much noise and confusion in my head that I'm not quite sure what I want to write about. For most of today I kept thinking of the past. Even read back thru some of my blog posts for this year. It was a depressing trip back in time. Made me feel like I'm just spinning around in one spot. Getting very dizzy but unable to stop until I reach the point of collapse. Surprisingly, even with all the hospital stays, the suicide attempts, those don't feel like collapse to me. Kind of scares me to think what collapse might actually mean for me, what it would feel like.

The T also had me thinking in the past because she asked about my history with the ex. While it was a subject I desperately needed to address, I was unprepared for the anger and sadness that accompanied it. I could feel myself trying to stuff these emotions, trying to keep my affect as flat as possible. I'm not sure exactly why. Could be that I don't think of her as a safe person to talk to yet. We talk, but there is no emotional connection being made. So many details left out of the conversation. Useful tidbits, but parts of me and my thinking that can't yet be revealed to a stranger.

Didn't help that I was lost inside my own head. Trapped by the confusion and unable to come up with answers to some of her questions. She had some book, a journal of sorts, that had all these different sections, things to be filled out by the owner. She wouldn't let me look at it because she's already filled some of it out, but she thought it would be a good place to start looking inward at myself. So she wrote down a bunch of statements from the "emotions" section which I'm suppose to complete for my homework this week. They are...
1. Emotion I tend to hide the most
2. Emotion I seem to experience the most
3. Predominant emotion lately
4. A moment when I achieved absolute happiness
5. I have a great amount of guilt regarding
6. I would feel envious right now if
7. A piece of music that makes me feel sentimental
8. The music reminds me of

In addition to finishing these statements, I'm also supposed to answer the following question. If I were to enter into a contract with my ex, what would I be willing to do and what would I want from him? Her theory is that if he's going to use emotional blackmail on me and if I'm going to loan him money from time to time or do other things (usually out of guilt), that there should be limits to what I'm willing to do.

I told her about the letter I'd given him awhile back. Setting boundaries as to what I was willing to do, which was basically nothing above and beyond things that had a direct connection with our daughter. But I wasn't able to adhere to what I'd told him because of unresolved emotions. A feeling of culpability, that I owe him something. I know that is in direct conflict with the feelings I have that he deserted me and therefore I owe him nothing, but that's just how my mind works.

No wonder I never make any progression forward. My being is one big contradiction. My thoughts, my actions, are constantly in direct conflict with themselves. An ever raging battle of my own wits.