Elaborate (phone) notes

Will jot down some phone notes, then elaborate, cos I think of stuff, then forget to write (about) it.

"Keep forgetting to mention I haven't taken any painkillers for... I want to say months but am not sure that would be correct. Feels like months."

This doesn't mean I have no back or neck pain which usually is the kind of excruciating pain that prompts me into taking painkillers (Ibuprofen) for one day, sometimes a few days.
It doesn't seem to have been a conscious choice to not take them at all anymore, but I do appreciate my clarity of mind, and since I'm very sensitive to 'substances', even taking a painkiller produces some kind of fog in my head. It makes my thinking jumbled and confused. Also there is a reason I can't put into words, but it has something to do with authenticity, along the lines of 'you can't fix what you don't know'. Something about it being real. True. And then working with what I got. Which I can't do if I numb the symptoms. Yeah, that's it. How can I fix a problem when I'm numbing the symptoms? They could be helpful in pinpointing the cause.

"Am over rape. At times think I 'shouldn't' be, playing it over in my head, but no, I'm pretty much over it and am fine with it."

I told the psychology lady about this. At times I replay the chain of events in my head out of a sense of what would be expected by society, what would be done by 'normal' people who have experienced something violent and intrusive. Still looking for a way to be normal, a way to fit in, by adapting behaviour I think is sort of expected. There are moments I do feel a bit of a shock, when on TV a woman gets choked and/or raped, that's authentic, but the rest is fake.
At times I think of the rape as a dance. We danced a dance we were supposed to dance, which was written in the script and we would both walk away from and use in the rest of our lives. I didn't exactly say that to the psychology lady, but I did tell her about behaving in a way my mind thought would be 'appropriate' for a rape 'victim'.
I can't say I was a rape 'participator', because when it happened I feared for my life and did NOT want to be raped, but it is one of those episodes in my life I feel was preordained (never mind that probably ALL is preordained).
Also, I feel that I did everything right, I played my part well, I did everything my smarty pants mind could think of doing to save my own life and I even knew to take back some of the power over the situation.
Afterwards I took and shook his hand, telling him to have a good life, looking him in the eyes. Yes, in order to save my life, cos we were so close to the road, but it also made the experience 'well-rounded' - I do not know how else to put it. I wanted to be the best I could be in that experience. It's easy to be spiritual and good when you're rich and well taken care of. Even though I didn't entirely mean it, not with all of myself, cos of well, being raped and such, there was a detached part which was thinking quite clearly and lifting me up to another level of dealing with what was. Dealing with the moment at hand.
Maybe at some other point in time I will be making more sense, trying to put this into words.

"Sometimes I radiate vulnerability, victim-like seeking approval, begging for it, pretending to be weaker than I really am."

Usually when I'm cycling through town, going to get groceries or coming back from it. It's one of those things I do, then realise I'm doing them. It's also the reason I don't go for those long walks anymore, which hopefully is a temporary thing. I walk around like that little, insecure girl I have been since my youth and it attracts mean behaviour in others.
All the old fear and insecurity have been provoked into coming to the surface since living here, next to this person who much resembles my mother's ex boyfriend in mean, calculated, aggressive behaviour, intimidation and self righteousness. In the years since I've been living here, all the old fear has been coming to the surface in a steady stream of anxiety and nerves.
Yesterday was a day of such extreme fear my belly started hurting like crazy, and still does. Headache is calming down a bit, but it felt like a ball of molten lead was in my gut; the oldest, deepest, worst fear (I hope, cos that means it's being worked through and will be dispersed).
Perk of this was I couldn't sleep and was awake when a thunderstorm started around 4a.m.; I could see the flashes through my bedroom window and it was awesome just lying there listening!

"Smiling, laughing, then realizing it's fake, wondering why I do that. Do I need to?"

Even when I visited my best friend I found myself laughing at moments when there really was nothing funny. It was nice talking and chatting with her, as always, but I laughed out of habit, out of hiding my real face. In a way, laughing and joking is a mask, which is common knowledge of course, especially among comedians.
Maybe now I start noticing it in the moment because I'm getting ready to let that go.
I don't do big fat masks anymore, but there's still some masking going on in the way I talk to people. It's more out of habit sometimes than out of fear. Which is good. Conscious as I try to be about stuff like this, a habit is something I can handle, that can be changed quite easily compared to a fear.
A fear is not a thing onto itself, it's merely a tentacle sprouted from the big fear-beasty. All fears are Fear. If there is no fear connected to this behaviour anymore, then it is definitely something that can be changed, all it takes is noticing it when it happens.