I seem to be functioning in a very, as it were, multi-leveled way lately.
Things that must be done – working as an analyst, teaching classes, observing classes, editing a volume, meetings, being in analysis, planning, conferences, Jung-Institut homework – even: vacuuming the apartment, buying groceries – are functioning in often brisk and sharpy outlined ways: slightly hyper-conscious, as it were. A bit of impatience and pushing of students and colleagues – I do feel these days as though I don't have time for anyone around me to dither... and some real successes: students lately seem so focused, so far ahead of where they were even two months ago.
But grief, more than depression, is also easily available – and recurrent, and not necessarily tied to particular memories or events. Some remarkably painful sessions with B., my new analyst down in Leicester: he is very good indeed – and, even more than with S., we communicate very well. In fact, in my entire history of analysts and therapists, B. is probably more on my wavelength than anyone, ever. Which is very interesting: it feels as though I don't even need to waste time being embarrassed about my usual mental games, or working through my standard patterns in order to show them to him – we both see them instantly, with clarity: as though they are on a PowerPoint slide in the analysis room.
Which means that we have moved rather quickly beyond the usual topics into something startling and, at first, alarming – a world of fragmentation, mildly schizoid, incoherent. The other day, in analysis, I was speaking in a torrent (DSM: "pressure of speech"?), trying to explain everything at once, leaping from topic to topic, memory to imagination to event – but, because of that multi-leveled status I seem to be operating in these days, was also able to stop after some minutes and say, it seems as though I am getting across a river by leaping from log to log, but of course the logs move with the water as I leave them behind, and it becomes impossible to go back, to retrace my steps: to remember the linear progression toward what I am saying....
From a theoretical perspective, I'm glad I heard Philip Kime talk about fragmentation and the shadow in February – a remarkable lecture that stirred up some irritable resistance and bewildered questions from the students. As I said in a previous post, Philip hasn't published yet, so I won't go into detail – but essentially he was reminding us, and proving, that the shadow isn't the big dark threatening aspect of our unconscious – it is more properly the incoherent, fragmented parts, the ones that aren't quite developed, that are tied to anxeity and confusion because they don't even have their own definable identities.
Because of that lecture, I was able to go with this weird, incoherent experience without feeling as though I had to draw back from it. B. is also a psychiatrist, and very, very well read (he and J., my new supervisor, both suggest one or two new books every session – I assume they don't have secret contracts with Amazon); and so he had not only an instinctive but also an educated appreciation of what was happening with me, and he was perfectly comfortable supporting it, letting it go wherever it needed to....
Which is especially good, as there is yet another part of this tangled experience. My health, in minor ways – though ones that mirror major concerns – is not good: this may not be a serious problem, but it has definitely spooked me over the past few weeks. An infection, erratic and painful periods of IBS – when my GP called me in for an appointment to tell me my liver function wasn't doing well, I easily explained that I am supposed to have yet another round of Hep C medications, probably this fall; medications that are supposedly fairly successful (a 60% success rate, or is it even better than that?).
But, both before and after that visit, increasing digestive problems, things that reflect minor toxic crises, allergic reactions shifting in different directions, a slightly 'off' skin tone – I am clearly not in great shape. No reason to expect disaster (except in the middle of the night, when I am once again having hospital/death fantasies and plans flashing through my head, almost too fast for me to follow them); but feeling toxic is not fun.
And it pushes me out towards more fragmentation, when I'm having those ol' illness-and-death anxieties confusing my plans, my hopes – I will admit to those background thought processes, which were once very familiar to me, where I think of how I have to plan a funeral, get rid of books and clothese so they aren't a burden to whoever has to clear up this apartment. Dump projects and expectations out the window, figure out what to do with whatever time is left.
Body and mind: an endless chicken-and-egg problem.
It's tricky because, of course, these are fantasies, projections: and ones that carry the whole burden of my anxieties since the age of three, my guilt and unhappiness over things not finished, my sense of isolation and failure. (Indeed, the biggest fantasy of all: that, if I fell ill and died, I wouldn't need to finish projects – including the book on S. that I am, again, finally, editing: because when this project was supposed to be done, years ago, I can assure you that fantasies of dying before the project was completed were very familiar. And so we're returning, in an unwelcome way, to the past.) And from one angle I can treat them as fantasies and projections: the world of ways that I have made life difficult for myself –
but they also have, if only slightly at this point, real and plausible aspects. It would not be impossible to fall ill, not at all; and then, though these things are not extremely probable any time soon, it would not be impossible to die, more plausibly of liver failure than HIV problems....
And so the body is of course fretful: difficult, uncomfortable, at times itching, in pain or misery, especially at three in the morning. Which makes all my experience feel slightly difficult, out of focus....
fragmented.
I am willing to accept that I am in the midst of a psychological process: but I can't help – how could I help? – but wonder if, while I am working through processes, my body is demanding some sort of attention, some solutions that I am not giving it – and so, at the moment, my multi-leveled approach feels as though it may be as much a problem as a strength: as though I might be working my way up to more awareness, but the real world of the body could collapse, while my attention is focused on the cloudy sky of the mind....
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