I feel so utterly lost. I keep thinking, ‘I’ll talk it all over tomorrow when we see the relationship counsellor,’ but then I realise I don’t even know where to begin. It’s not really all about our relationship, even. Some of it’s about me. And then it’s about how he has no idea how much I’m actually dealing with. And then it’s really about how I don’t allow even myself to know how much I’m actually dealing with.[br][br]After a vicious argument, I decided yesterday I was going to stay with my mother for a couple days. After an evening with her last night, I’d calmed down enough to be able to call George and leave a message saying I’m coming tonight after work today, instead. I’m still not ready to talk, though. I feel like I don’t ever want to talk.  I don’t want to try to make people understand. It’s exhausting. I just want to be alone. I have this image in my head of a nice cave to run off too, and as time passes it seems like more details are being added to that cave. I’m starting to put all my possessions into it, now, to move in.[br][br]Not that I really want to leave, most of the time. It’s just this is how I am. When I don’t know what to do, when I get scared, mentally I run to this cave, as if it really exists, as if it would be easy for to drop my whole life and flee…as if that would change anything, as if that would make me happy.[br][br]So I was at the train station yesterday, on my way up to my mom’s, and my head was filled with these racing thoughts, furious, raging thoughts, all culminating in this one idea: imagine if I killed myself; no one could control that. That’s the ONE thing NO ONE has the power to dominate, about my life. I don’t at all want to die, I need to emphasise that. But Hermann Hesse once said most ‘suicides’ don’t want to die; it’s more like a mental exit clause.[br][br]These thoughts started out directed at George, but of course, as with anything like this, eventually I realised it wasn’t George, it was everything. It’s being a mother, it’s work, it’s money, it’s my health, my body, my mind, my emotions…it’s everything. It’s not like I’m miserable, because I’m not. But I really spend a lot of time in heavy denial over how out of my control everything actually feels.[br][br]I didn’t realise this at the station, though. At the station I was just trying to calm down. After all, a ‘favourite’ suicidal thought of mine is leaping onto a train track (I blame ‘Anna Karenina’). So I bought junk food, turned up Einsturzende Neubauten loudly on my headphones and settled down into ‘Shopaholic Ties the Knot’ and, after about a half hour, I was in a totally different state of mind.[br][br]Then I got off the train and met my mom and said I didn’t want to talk about it, and I rattled on about totally empty things, and then somehow of course I did end up talking about my argument with George, and perhaps George would be surprised at what I was actually saying – I think he’s rather convinced I just think he’s ‘horrible’ (his common phrasing, not mind – his own insecurities) and don’t ever take any notice of my own mistakes. It’s simply not true. I talk about my flaws and mistakes all the time. I think I’ve only heard George admit he has any kind of problem maybe once? He’ll change, he’ll do his best, he’ll make up with me, etc. sure…but just because the behaviour’s changing doesn’t mean the emotions behind it have changed. And I see it when he lets slip and explodes, like he did yesterday. He thinks he can do it all on his own. He won’t listen to me when I say he needs to talk to someone. He won’t even talk to me. It has to change. I wonder if he realises just how shut out I feel, sometimes.[br][br]Anyway. So I’m talking. Then before I know it, my voice is rising, and I’m shouting things, and it feels so good because at home I’m not allowed to shout. If I shout, I’m a failure, that’s how I feel. If I shout, I’m this terrible bitch, because George is really so over-sensitive and panicky, I realise now. I can’t just be emotional. And at my mom’s I could finally shout out all the frustration, and it was one of those moments where you have no inkling that you’re going to cry, and then suddenly you’re just collapsing in a split-second. And she came over and hugged me and let me cry and shout and you know, the surprising thing to me was that I wasn’t even talking about George anymore, I was talking about all my health problems, about the past, about how much I resent the fact that no one could diagnose me when I was five, about how my life could have been s different if only someone had known, had told me.[br][br]I mean, even now I feel like I’m about to burst into tears again, just thinking about it. I guess I hadn’t realised how much I was holding in, carrying with me. I don’t feel like I can talk about it at home. Not because George wouldn’t care…but because he’d care so much it’d scare him and I think he’d react the wrong way, out of his own fear, his own desire to help me but his own knowledge that I guess no one really can. I mean…one thing I was shouting yesterday was, ‘Don’t tell me you understand – you don’t – no one really does!’[br][br]I feel like I’m in ‘Steel Magnolias’.  Like I’m always trying to carry on, to be strong, because I know when I break it terrifies George, he can’t handle it, he doesn’t know what to do.  But then I get so caught up in the illusion of how strong and brave I am, I forget how desperately I need to break from time to time. I mean, after that outpouring yesterday, followed by some nice Indian takeaway and an evening of staying up way too late listening to music…yeah, I feel better.  But…I feel like I need more of it, and I’m hoping I can have that at home.  I’m thinking I’ll just shut myself away on my own. If I can. [br][br]On another note, though…it was so strange being with my mom, staying up with her like old times, having her tuck me into bed and make me tea, that kind of thing.  Her flat looks so different to when we lived together in the old house in Norwood.  But then she gave me this blanket to use, and it was this old blue thing that’s been around since before I was born.  I used to cuddle up in it as a teenager, on the futon, when I was watching TV.  It was strange seeing it in the context of her new place.  I almost started crying all over again. It felt…I don’t know.  It’s very hard to put into words.  It felt a bit like… I kept feeling like a guest all evening, and then that blanket…it was like I’d forgotten I was her daughter and wasn’t imposing and she’d actually been missing me and wanting me to visit. I wasn’t some outsider, I was her child, I AM her child. It made me realise…I have no idea how to amalgamate my past with my present. I can’t make sense of how Vrinda the mother can be the same person as Vrinda the daughter. [br][br]Maybe this is part of the problem when I try to put George and my mother together and go out as a trio. Maybe he’s right and it IS me. I slip back into daughter mode, and I like it. But it’s not a person he’s familiar with. And then I slip into wife and mother mode, and I like that too. But my mom feels outside. And I just feel confused. Who the hell am I, anyway? And come to think of it…then there’s Vrinda the Arizonan, when I see old friends if they visit. And that’s another person yet again. And George feels outside of that, too, and I’m always left with the feeling that my friends haven’t seen what George and I are really like. And really…this might all be my problem…because I seem to be having a lifelong identity crisis.  [br][br]I just don’t know how to be with more than one person.  Really, I’ve never known. And it’s worse now. I can’t combine all these facets of my life, because I don’t know how to be one consistent creature.  And really…I probably don’t treat anyone like I’m proud of them, when I put them in a group with someone from another side of my life.  I spend a lot of time worrying each person is going to say the ‘wrong’ thing, or something like that.  I’m just…too many people. And every single one of them is so hopelessly confused.