Hard

 I don’t really know what to say. It was a tough week capped off by a tough situation. Last week I found out my cousin died and E was having difficulty at home. Then this week I ran into a bunch of business crap with insurance -kind of felt like an idiot and had to keep reassuring myself that I could figure things out. 

Today was a mostly good day. I feel like I didn’t get everything I wanted accomplished, but it’s all gonna be OK and then E called me from the hospital because her family had hospitalized her last weekend shortly after I had seen her. So I went to the psych ward tonight, I guess it was the intensive inpatient. I’m not sure if it was me or if there’s something going on there, but getting off the elevator, I felt dizzy and kind of foggy. It honestly felt a little like I was getting just waves of that feeling that you get when you’re around somebody whose perception is off/different. Like personality disorders or people experiencing hallucinations -it was very unnerving. But it also just maybe my own emotions and -feeling kind of panicky. 

So I went in to see her and the actual unit wasn’t very interesting -a lot of empty quiet space I guess. I chatted with her for like a hour and a half. Kind of found out that she freaked out on her family last weekend and made a scene. And that because she doesn’t trust them, she doesn’t wanna leave the hospital yet, which makes sense for all sorts of reasons. but I didn’t actually get the impression that she was needing to be there.  Like she did not seem to be actively manic, or delusional, or experiencing psychosis or difficulty functioning or anything. A little on edge maybe, but nothing harmful to anyone. I’ve seen her far worse I guess.  

But I kind of had to say to her that I wasn’t gonna take her in, or maybe I didn’t need to say it, but I did because I was trying to set my boundaries. But it was really hard because my mind does wanna solve this for her. I wanna make things better. And it’s not my responsibility to do so but it’s really hard to go to sleep tonight knowing that she’s stuck in a hospital. And she’s safe and everything is fine. And she could probably leave and go back to her family whenever she wants. But it’s just uncomfortable. It’s really uncomfortable to know that she is struggling and that she’s experiencing the consequences of kind of like - not pretending to be OK. When everyone around her is also not OK, but they want to pretend.   It just feels really weird. There’s been a lot of nights in my life where I’ve gone to sleep in places that I didn’t necessarily want to be -where it was uncomfortable. Or dirty or maybe I didn’t feel like it was clean or safe or there were bugs or all sorts of things, sometimes as simple as a really uncomfortable mattress, and I know that none of these things in themselves is horrible, and that in a little while it’ll mean nothing. But some part of me does feel like I’m letting her down. Like it’s my fault. And it really sucks when I know I have the ability or capacity to swoop in and rescue her. But I can’t do that. But I’m not always sure why I can’t do that.  And part of it really is that like she has to fight her own fights and figure out her own life, her family will always be her family. But I wish there was a way that I could give her a leg up. Without feeling like I’m extending myself. I’m not sure what that is right now. She is thinking a little more outside the box, like how do I get to Costa Rica? And it kind of bothers me how many of the little things I’ve said to her -are becoming her fantasies. Like i worry that maybe I’m influencing her in a bad way. But also, I do think she needs a more adventurous life but like in a good way, not a hard way. So I don’t know I’ll probably go by again tomorrow bring her some stuff, but I kind of feel like shit.