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From my journal for September 1994, about a session with my therapist Karen:

I wanted to focus on that feeling that it’s not OK to protect myself from the noise of the planes by wearing the walkman.  We explored all parts of it, the intolerable pain, the invalidation of myself for being so sensitive.  She said she also reacts badly to a particular machine sound: the two-cycle engine of a four-wheeler drives her nuts, so that was validating.  Then I said that I enjoyed having fantasies about renting or buying the land and shutting down the airport, but that I also felt guilty.  (And why should I feel guilty for stopping their “innocent fun”?  They feel no compunction about torturing me.)  Karen said we should look at that, why do I feel guilty?  I groped around for a little bit, and then said “They’re more important than I am” and burst into tears.  That resonated with the knowledge, touched long ago, that anything at all is more important than I am, certainly other people’s pleasure is more important than my sanity.  Karen hugged me and said I was precious to her.  She also spoke about the one who speaks the truth on stage in Journey, who has moved people through her writing and her art.  But, I said, I’m not in touch with that one at all, all that’s here is a miserable wimp, who “fusses about nothing” and can’t even keep her house clean.  Karen pointed out that those judgements are introjected voices, and I “know” that, but can’t get the distance needed to make it real.  Karen asked me to talk to “them” — the ones who think I’m not important, and I couldn’t fight back or argue at all, all I could do is agree with them.  And I realized that I was tired of trying to justify myself to them, tired of trying to prove that I deserved to live because I could sometimes write things that move people. 

And finally I came to see (again again) that this miserable wimp is herself my task, this person who is so sensitive and precariously balanced, who can’t even keep her house clean, she’s the one that I’m committed, that I commit myself, to protect and nurture.  Yes that’s the difference.  It’s when I stop resisting the unfairness of God/universe, to have stuck me with this wretched body and damaged psyche, and accept the task, actively commit myself to her welfare, that’s when something changes, and I feel strengthened, and supported by ground under my feet.  Riding in the car on the way home, I realized that the hated task that I must stick with is not forcing myself to “live with” the planes, but learning to “live with” my sensitivity, and that understanding also turns it around to something I can do.

From my journal for September 1994

O gosh, I feel so sad and bummed out.  I see lots of things I “should” do, organizing house type things, and I feel “what’s the use.”  The planes haven’t been too bad so far, perhaps they’re flying the more tolerable pattern.  And what will I do with my day?  Downstairs, finishing breakfast, I noted that deadness in my muscles that comes from tension and lack of movement.  It would be good if I could do some dancing today.  Put on Mouth Music and dance around watering the plants — at least I can do that behavior, even if “what’s the use” kills the enjoyment.

For trouble with planes see Plane Phobia.

I see by reading through the exercise on cherishing myself, and trying to do it, how very difficult that is for me, and I become aware of how numbed-out I am, how my artist’s life is strangled by invisible “not allowed”s, and stiffened by disuse, how the soil of my artist’s life is not deep and rich, friable and fertile like good garden soil.  Instead it’s hard, dry, almost stony, the sort of stuff that blows away in the wind.  The only way to nourish my vocation as an artist is to nourish the soil, to do the sort of things that Cameron lists under “cherishing.”

I’m working with Julia Cameron’s Book: The Artist’s Way

I’m having a really bad time with the planes.  I tried to listen, telling myself that it was my “enemy”, the one in me who hates me for being so sensitive and vulnerable, I tried to hear the unmet need behind that, but couldn’t get anywhere.  Finally, it began to feel like I was listening to a freaked-out baby screaming, and its mother screaming back, and I couldn’t stand it any more, so I put on the walkman, and I’ve been under the earphones ever since.  The planes don’t stop long enough for me to take them off and I’m too freaked out to tolerate even the lower level of noise.  There’s one out there snarling right now, I can hear it through the music on the earphones.  I think what I’ll do is leave early for Cathy’s party, not come back til dark, just drive around in the car if nothing else works.  I’ll take this journal in case.

O gosh, I feel so sick, so physically weak, so helplessly angry.  I’ve got to get away.

Reading through something like this I realize how far I have come, and how much I was up against.  Helps me find some compassion and some admiration for that odd struggling creative person.

Hating myself for my reaction to the planes. Mother told me over and over “Don’t be so sensitive,” so I thought it was a choice. That’s why I thought that protecting myself was somehow cheating. But I’m a highly sensitive person, and I do need to protect myself from the toxic environment of the industrial world.