Doctor’s Appointment

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I had my doctor’s appointment on Monday.

It was full of a lot of disappointment.

I am proud of myself for sticking through it and not backing out, despite terrible anxiety.

I sat in the waiting room filling out endless paperwork. I’m pretty sure my legs were shaking the entire time. I considered walking out twice, but I couldn’t.

I finally got in the room and the doctor came in. She seemed a nice. A little upbeat. I’m weary of upbeat people. Perhaps she drank too much coffee. She looked over my paperwork, then focused on my lengthy list of hospitalizations. Panic attacks, psychiatric, psychiatric, malnutrition, psychiatric, psychiatric, and then at least six hospitalizations for pneumonia that I could remember in the last decade. Then she noticed the name of the hospital and asked me where it was.

“Oh, I delivered babies at that hospital. I used to live there!”

My heart sank a little. Of the hundreds of cities and towns in this state, this doctor happened to live in my hometown, just a few minutes away from where I used to live. It’s not even a major city, which makes it even more weird. A part of me instantly put a guard up. Anyone from back home is a possible threat in my mind, even though the actual likelihood that they are is slim to none. Tell my brain that.

She did a mental health/depression screening. I failed. I should have known better. Because then, of course, she wanted to put me on psych meds. No thanks. She named several antidepressants that her patients had shown success on. That’s great. Except a) I don’t have clinical depression and b) I can’t take anti-depressants. I am part of the small percentage of people who have reverse reactions to SSRIs and SNRIs and end up more depressed and suicidal. There are no medications for DID. I didn’t come here for psych meds. I started to get frustrated and lost hope in the rest of the appointment.

Then she suggested a medication for my migraines, and said it would also help me stop smoking. I recognized the name as a medication I had taken before and had to stop taking because I couldn’t handle the nausea and complete loss of appetite. But she was a little insistent, even after I subtly mentioned a few times that eating enough is already a problem for me. But I’m fat, so most doctors don’t see past that and assume I could benefit from a loss in appetite. They don’t realize that, just two years ago, I weighed 160 pounds more than I do now. I just gave in and let her write the prescription, telling myself I could decide later on if I wanted to take it. Then I realized that her dosage is 4X the dose I was taking when I stopped taking it some time ago. So I’m certain taking this medication will not go over well.

She was especially concerned with my respiratory problems. I have a history of asthma, chronic pneumonia, and respiratory failure. I smoke. I have a family history of heart disease. She wanted an EKG, but by the end of the appointment I just couldn’t do it. She listened to my lungs. I hate taking deep breaths, because I can hear and feel the air struggling to get out of my lungs when I exhale. It is not a good sound. It is not a good feeling. This was no different.

She tried to explain, using her hands, what was happening to my lungs. She mentioned COPD – and this wasn’t the first time I had heard that. My long history of respiratory problems and consistent pattern of breathing difficulties had been pushing me towards a COPD diagnosis, but no doctors had ever made it official and never made it a priority. She prescribed me a few different inhalers, which she said would treat both asthma and COPD. And in my mind, it hadn’t yet clicked that she was insinuating that I had COPD. I thought she was just saying it was a risk to try to get me to stop smoking.

But then, the next day, I checked my medical record online to make sure all of my information went through, and right there, towards the top of my chart, was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, unspecified – Active – Diagnosis Date 03212016. For some reason, in that moment, it hit me. This diagnosis was on my medical record. What the fuck.

I was angry. I was enraged. Not at myself. But AT THE DOCTOR. How could she do this to me? I am 30 years old. COPD is for old people. I am not old. I do not have COPD. And being the irrational person that I am sometimes, I responded by going to the store and buying MORE cigarettes – because in my mind, if I already have the diagnosis, why the fuck should I care now? It’s just been a whirlwind of emotions about this that I still haven’t processed yet.

Going back to the appointment, she took a lot of blood. Probably more than I’ve ever had taken before. She is testing my vitamin levels, thyroid, blood titers, all the usual shit and then some. And that was it. There was so much focus on my mental health and my breathing, issues that I thought I had under control, and nothing about my constant pain. I was disappointed. I have to go back and see her next month, but I just don’t know if it’s worth the travel to get there. It did not go as we (me and my therapist) had hoped. I will talk to my therapist more about it in our session tomorrow, but I just don’t know. I need to take some time and think it over. As I smoke more cigarettes. With my new inhalers.

I’m sad that so many doctors don’t consider the past, only the present. Of course I have trouble sleeping and hate life sometimes. If you knew what I experienced the last 30 years, my present makes sense. Yes, I’m overweight now. But I lost a tremendous amount of weight in a relatively short amount of time and got sick from it. So while yes, I need to lose weight, I don’t need to promote my eating disorder to do so.

I know that some of my health issues are my own fault. Smoking does not help my cause. But I also had severe respiratory problems well before I started smoking. I started because at that point, I didn’t care. Part of me still doesn’t. But still. I’m only fucking 30. Where the fuck did I go wrong in life?

Meanwhile, the shittiest fucking people alive are still living. My mother will probably outlive me. My father has had several heart attacks, a stroke, and congestive heart failure for years and he is STILL hanging on. What the fuck.

Life is a cruel joke sometimes.

My birthday, a name change, and various life events of the past few weeks

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I took a short hiatus from blogging. There has been a lot going on in my life the last week or two and I just needed to refocus. Things should be returning to my normal soon.

I turned 30 last Sunday. I knew it was going to be a rough time for me, just being away from everyone (the good people, not my family). It was also the 10th anniversary of my friend’s death, which always brings up feelings for me.

Thirty was (is) a significant age for me. For years, I promised myself that if I hadn’t gotten out by the day I turned 30, I was going to end my life. I went through most of my late 20s waiting for that day. I had very little hope that my life would ever change; I just knew that 30 years was enough for me and that was going to be it.

But that’s not how turning 30 played out. I spent my 30th birthday as a free person. I may not have had a party or celebrated very much, but I was free. It was the best gift I could have ever gotten.

I did have a few small celebrations. I had a group therapy session two weeks prior to my birthday. During the break, the therapist walked in with a cake, candles lit and everything. I was completely surprised and overwhelmed with emotions. I got a beautiful card that everyone signed, and a butterfly nightlight (which is perfect). At one point, I had to hide my face in my hoodie because I started crying and didn’t want anyone to see me. I’m starting to cry now just writing about it.

For the first time ever, I blew out the candles on my birthday cake and made a wish that didn’t involve anyone’s death. In the years that I can remember, my wish was to die. I wished someone would kill me. A few times, I wished my mother would die; then I could be free. But I didn’t have to make those wishes anymore. I didn’t have to die.

The experience reinforced for me that I have support. Even though a good chunk of that support is coming from my therapists, it’s still support. It is the support that has allowed me to escape and to begin to heal. It is the support that brings me together with others who understand. It’s the support I need to glue my pieces back together.

I had to work on my birthday. That was okay with me, because I didn’t want to stay home and be miserable. My coworker bought in an ice cream cake. At 9 o’clock in the morning, our team gathered and sang happy birthday to me, and we all devoured the cake (with the excuse that ice cream is good for energy and increases work productivity, yes). This was my work family. People that I care for, and that care for me. It didn’t matter what happened the rest of the day.

As a gift to myself, and something I promised myself I would do during the new year, I decided to proceed with legally changing my name. A few people have been referring to me as Kyra for some time now, but I haven’t bothered explaining to most people why I want to change my name, so I let them use my birth name. I hate my birth name, though. I don’t think I should have to keep a name that was given to me by the very people that destroyed me. They don’t deserve that.

While I’ve been sure my first name will be Kyra, I’ve been back and forth about a middle and last name. For my last name, I wanted something with meaning, but not complicated either (my legal last name is a mouthful). I was open for suggestions, and received quite the array of responses. Finally, one suggestion sat well with me. It wasn’t too complicated of a name, and translated to courage, which is something I’d like to think I have.

For my middle name, I actually chose a name some time back, but didn’t tell anyone because I thought that people would be very judgmental about it. I “tried on” other middle names, but I didn’t like them the way I liked my original choice. Once I had figured out my last name, I decided to open up about the middle name I wanted – Jack. And everyone was supportive of it (at least to my face). I feel like it fits me.

I started filing the legal papers, but it’s time consuming and expensive, so the whole process will likely take months. For now, I am answering to any name someone happens to throw at me. I hope that once my name is changed legally, people will be receptive to calling me by my new legal name.

I’ve been a little overwhelmed with schoolwork. This week is Spring Break, so I am trying to catch up with the reading I am behind in. I also have a presentation due in two weeks, a paper due Sunday, a midterm due next week, and another paper due next week. Normally I use the weekends to get everything done, but these next few weeks are going to be hectic. This coming Sunday, I have to work from 6 AM to midnight, so there won’t be time for me to write my paper then (because I am definitely a procrastinator and do my best work in the hours before something is due). I really need to work on planning ahead.

I have a doctor’s appointment coming up next Monday. It has brought up a lot of anxiety. My therapist has been working with me the last few weeks in preparation, but I still feel scared about going. I don’t want to panic and shut down. I know I need to go, because my health is shit, but part of me just wants to avoid all the trouble, physically and mentally, that this whole ordeal is going to involve.

Perhaps it’s a good thing, but I’ve been asleep more than I’ve been awake. The other day I slept at least 16 hours within a 24-hour time span. It’s a welcome change in a way, since I had been suffering from insomnia so badly in the weeks before that I had slept just five hours over the course of three days. Maybe my body is finally catching up. Maybe I’m getting sick. Maybe my nutrition has gone to shit. Who knows. It’s probably better that I’ve slept through most of this past week, anyway. I just wish I could do my schoolwork in my sleep. Then I wouldn’t be so behind right now.

Oh yea, this past weekend marked 8 months of freedom.

Life is progressing a little too quickly for me.

 

239 Days

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

Today is the 239th day of my freedom. 34 weeks. Nearly 8 months. I’m still alive and kicking (although sometimes, I’m kicking myself).

For anyone that assumes that life is easy once you escape a trauma…it’s not. Thanks to PTSD, I oftentimes feel like I am reliving my past over and over again. I still get panic attacks. I still have parts that think we are living back home, and are scared of our mother. I still, in some sick way, miss being home.

It’s hard for people to understand why I do the things I do. In some ways, I am still a scared child stuck in an adult body. I lock the bathroom door because I feel safe that way. I lock my bedroom door at night for the same reason. I could live in the safest neighborhood on the planet, and I would still lock the door. I sometimes hide in my closet. No one can see me in there. I still wear 3-4 shirts and three pairs of underwear (simultaneously) every day. It is a habit I have had since I was young and even though I know I am no longer in danger, it still helps me feel protected. As an adult I should know better, but it’s not that simple.

I’m exhausted. I sleep for two hours and twenty minutes each night. Then I wake up, completely disoriented and not even sure WHY I am awake. If I’m lucky, I’ll doze off a couple of times before I have to wake up for work. My exhaustion is evident. My therapist even asked if I had considered taking my Ambien again. I realized at that point it must be bad, as we both believe that I have been better sans medication (in general).

Half the time, I’m battling a migraine. My feet are causing me excruciating pain. I go to the bathroom at work sometimes just to get a break for a few minutes. I hibernate in my room at night because I can’t physically handle going up and down the stairs.

A couple of weeks ago, my therapist called countless doctors, trying to find someone experienced in dealing with trauma patients. I give her a lot of credit. She worked her ass off trying to get me care, because we both know I need it, even though I deny it a lot of the time. Fortunately, she found a doctor who is experienced and is willing to take me on as a patient. The doctor is not even in my county, but I am sort of at a desperation point. My therapist has already filled her in on some of my problems and she seemed eager to help. I have an appointment on March 21st and I’m scared as fuck. My therapist keeps telling me that I deserve not to be in pain; but pain is something I’ve known my entire life.

Me and denial have been best friends lately. I still at times find myself denying my DID. My therapist talks about my parts and I go on as if they didn’t exist. I told my therapist in our session yesterday that I just wanted to be normal. I want to have a normal childhood. I want to have a normal life. I want to feel normal. I don’t want DID.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I am denying my past. Memories come up and I discredit them. That never happened. My mother would never do that. My therapist brought up a memory that came up in our session on Monday and I told her that it wasn’t true. I denied it. I didn’t want to acknowledge something so sick, something so vile. Even though on some level, nothing my mother did, does, or will do surprises me. But it’s just so much easier to deny it. Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen. Let’s just pretend I had a happy life. Please.

But we all know that never works out that way.

Denying my memories will only make them come to the surface more. Denying my parts will only make them louder in vying for attention.

But yet here I am, on day 239, still denying most of my life.

Twelve

~ KJ ~ 11 Comments

I haven’t written much lately.

I’ve been stuck between two worlds. Sometimes, I am 29 year-old, adult me. Other times, I am 12 year-old, child me.

This has been going on for a couple of weeks now, but more in the last week or so. It is confusing because I know that I am a grownup, but I don’t feel like one.

While I know that I am free from harm now, my 12 year-old self is still frozen in time and constantly in fear that mother is coming.

As a result, I am in an ongoing battle in my head between what I know and how I feel. I know mother isn’t coming, but I feel unsafe. I’m on high alert, just waiting for her to come through the door. I panicked in school the other night because I was scared she was going to find me. I’ve been scared to go to sleep at night because I fear that she will find me and hurt me.

Irrational fears. I know they are irrational to me. But my 12 year-old self doesn’t know they are irrational. For her, they are valid.

My therapist said that there is dissonance between what my adult self wants and does and what some of my others parts want. While I don’t care whether or not my mother looks for me or knows what I’m doing, some of my parts are still too scared of her and feel unsafe that I am so open. It creates a chaotic experience, both inside and out, and ends up causing a downward spiral much like I’ve been experiencing over the last week.

I just want to be an adult again.

 

Trust

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I’ve never been able to trust anyone completely.

It’s not surprising. Every survivor of child abuse I have ever met has had the same difficulty with trusting people.

Why is it so difficult for me to trust? Because the first people I met, the first people I ever formed relationships with – my parents – were also the people that abused me for my entire childhood. The very person that a child is supposed to be able to trust was the very person that shattered my ability to trust anyone.

In my healing process, I have come a long way. I have learned, to an extent, to trust other people. But I have never been able to put my full trust in anyone. There are things I keep inside, never feeling comfortable enough with anyone to let them out, never trusting anyone enough to be able to give those things a voice. And in the long run, it drains me.

I have so badly wanted to be able to trust someone enough to let everything out. And I think, just maybe, I finally found that person in my therapist.

I have been avoiding telling my therapist something that has been eating away at me. It has been eating away at me for years, really, but even more so in the recent months. I have made passive comments about it, but whenever she probed further, I said it was something that I couldn’t talk about. It came up again on Monday. I don’t remember everything because I had dissociated towards the end of our session, but it must have been significant because she brought it up again in our Thursday session.

By this time, I think she had an idea about what I was hiding. She asked if we could talk more about it. She asked if there was anything she could do to make it easier to talk about. I really wanted to say let’s forget this ever happened but on some level, I knew that wouldn’t help anyone.

My words were there but I was still so afraid to let them out. I sat there with my head down, staring at the rug beneath my feet, contemplating all of the possibilities that could come out of this. I must have told my therapist at least a dozen times that I was scared. She continued to reassure me that it was okay to be scared, that she understood. She told me that she would continue to care about me no matter what I told her, that no matter how bad I thought my secret was, we would work on managing it together. I told her that no one would understand the darkness within me. She wanted to try to understand.

After a half hour (though it seemed like hours) of inner turmoil and resistance, I finally broke down. I started crying and just blurted it out. The secret that I never told another person. The secret that I never even wrote on paper. The secret I will likely never tell another soul.

Now it was out there, out in the world, and I could never take it back.

I immediately turned away from her and hid my face. I was so disgusted with myself, so ashamed of what I had done. I couldn’t face her.

But she didn’t run away. She sat next to me, comforting me, asking me questions. I asked her if she hated me now that she knew the truth about me. I asked her if I was just like my mother.

“Your mother would never be sitting in therapy like this, feeling this intensely about anything she ever did. But you’re here, feeling all of these things because you care so deeply. You’ll never be like her.”

That still didn’t change what I had done. I still felt sick. I still felt unresolved. But in a way, I felt different. I didn’t feel weighed down. I felt like I could breathe a little deeper. I felt a release.

I realized, after our session, that my therapist is the first and only person I have complete trust in.

I never thought it would ever be possible for me to trust another human being like that.

The response

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

My grandmother answered my letter.

I emailed it to her, so there would be no trace of my location. I wasn’t sure if she was a fully trustworthy person.

She didn’t acknowledge anything I wanted her to. In fact, she completely ignored most of my letter.

She updated me about herself, about how no one visits her, about how she gave my father a car so they could come over and they still didn’t visit, about how she could have sold the car to someone else instead.

Then at the end, she asked what school I was going to, and what I did for work. And that was that. No acknowledgement of anything else I wrote. No apology, no further questions, not even a mention of the word abuse.

I was disheartened. I realized that she is likely in denial. I said all I could. There’s nothing more I can do. I can’t force people to accept a reality they don’t want to face.

I was angry. She’s continuing to enable my family. She got them a car. A fucking car. All the while they’re still driving the Jeep that I bought them years ago. And they get a car, too. You know what I get? Nothing. I continue to get nothing. I’m the only one in the family that’s not a complete asshole, and I get shit. I struggle to be on my own and they get consistently get handouts. They get rewarded for being horrible people. Ain’t it funny how life works?

I didn’t reply back to her. I sat with my emotions for awhile. I emailed my therapist about it, and she reminded me that I don’t owe my grandmother anything, and I’m not obligated to send her a reply. The fact that my grandmother is still actively enabling my family makes her an unsafe person. I’m not quite sure it’s worth the added stress to go through a relationship that will never be genuine.

It hurts, but I’m actually so used to the hurt now that it doesn’t affect me like it should.

At least I tried.

Secrets

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Secrets are dangerous.

They eat away at you, slowly, from the inside, like a slow-acting poison.

The shame takes residence in the pit of your stomach, where it causes a nausea that never seems to subside.

The guilt takes residence in your chest, where it weighs you down so immensely that you can feel your heart hurting from the pressure, you can feel yourself slowly suffocating.

The memories take residence in your mind, where they replay over and over, reminding you of things you can never take back, things you can never change.

These secrets can never come to the surface, so you push them further and further down, hoping that one day, they will just go away.

But they never go away. You push them and you push them as far as they will go. They jounce back, beating you up, ripping you apart from the inside out.

No one can see the damage. No one can see the poison flowing through you. You look okay on the outside. No one suspects a thing.

So you learn to live with your secrets. You let them overtake you, control you, because the alternative seems so much worse.

You can never tell anyone. You can never even write it out because then the paper will know. No one, no thing, can ever know. No one will ever understand the darkness that lives inside of you.

You become a slave to your secrets until the day there’s nothing left of you. Your mind is shattered. Your heart is broken. Your soul is gone forever.

And now you’re just a shell. One final tap and you’ll finally crack, you’ll finally fall to pieces.

But your secrets fall with you, too. No one ever has to know the truth. No one ever has to see the darkness.

Your secrets die with you.

Why I’ve Been Crying

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I’m so used to being able to shut down my emotions, to numb myself entirely of feeling. But for the last couple of weeks, I find myself crying. Consistently crying. I cry in the shower. I cry at work. I cry in the bathroom. I cry walking home. Most nights I cry so much that I end up falling asleep from exhaustion. Normally that would be a bad thing, except that has been the only sleep I’ve been able to get.

Crying gets you in trouble. Crying gets you beat. Crying creates more pain.

I hate crying. I hate feeling weak. I want people to think I am strong and put-together.

I hate crying.

I’m not even crying over one thing. I’m crying over everything.

I’m crying because I’m alone.

I’m crying because I want to belong to a family. I want my family.

I’m crying because I never had the childhood I deserved.

I’m crying because for 29 years, all I was was a pawn in my mother’s game. I was never a person.

I’m crying because the home I am living in doesn’t really feel safe.

I’m crying over all of the relationships I could have had with people, the relationships my mother stopped from happening.

I’m crying because I will never experience the joy of bearing a child.

I’m crying because I’m still so scared of the world.

I’m crying because my father will die before I ever tell him how I feel.

I’m crying because my brother is so far brainwashed, he will never experience true freedom.

I’m crying because so many people could have helped me, but chose to look away.

I’m crying because my mother will never get the justice she deserves.

I’m crying for the children my mother will hurt because I’ve allowed her to roam free.

I’m crying for the people that I’ve hurt because I didn’t know any better.

I’m crying for my younger parts, the ones who miss our mother, the ones who don’t understand why we had to leave.

I’m crying for my younger parts, the ones who got hurt instead of me, the ones still in so much pain.

I’m crying because I’m exhausted. I just want to be able to sleep.

I’m crying because of the pain in my heart.

I’m crying because I fear that a piece of my mother lives inside me, making me just like her.

I don’t want to cry anymore.

The letter to my grandmother

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

Grams,
I am sorry I haven’t reached out to you sooner. I had to make sure that I was safe, and that meant cutting contact with anyone who was still in contact with my immediate family.

I am safe now. I graduated from college (with high honors) and already started graduate school. I’m working at a great job, I write semi-professionally, and I recently started an organization to help others that have been through circumstances that no one should ever have to face. I am doing great things now.

I am not sure what my family has told you regarding my sudden disappearance, but I can be certain it hasn’t been the truth. I left to escape. I realized that I didn’t deserve to be controlled, hurt, taken advantage of, and abused any longer. I made the decision to leave on my own. No one made me leave. No one helped me except for a close friend. I left with two bags of clothes and shoes, my computer, and whatever money I managed to hide away. I left everything and everyone else behind.

I left because my mother is not a good person. She lies, manipulates, and controls people. She has abused her own children since childhood. She is dangerous. That is why I left. She will never change. I deserved better. R deserves better, too, but I worry that he is far too controlled to escape her.

I won’t get into too many details, because that doesn’t matter. I just want you to know the truth. My mother tries to discredit me by telling people that I am bipolar and a liar. I am neither. I have post-traumatic stress disorder, which is why I was hospitalized so many times in the past 18 months. I wanted to die because the memories of what happened to me were too painful to handle.

My mother has no genuine concern about me or why I left. She was and always has been only worried about herself. My mother sent me one text message a few days after I left. No one – not her, or my father, or Robin – has contacted me since. I have the same phone number and the same e-mail address I’ve had for the last decade. No one is blocked from contacting me.  I specifically didn’t change my number because I knew my mother would make this claim. They are lying when they say that they have tried to contact me.

I worry that they are using you to create rifts in the family, and it’s not fair. They aren’t concerned, they are using you and others to get to me. If they really needed to contact me, they would have. It’s been seven months of nothing. My mother is playing a game. Please don’t be a part of it.

You don’t have to respond to me. You don’t have to believe me. I know the truth because I have lived it. Others know the truth because they have seen it, but they are too afraid to come forward, too scared to stand against my mother. I am not afraid. She can’t hurt me anymore.

I’m sorry that it came to this. If you take anything from this, know that I am safe and well. I am healing now. I struggle every day, but I am getting by. It’s better than the life I had before. I will be okay, and I will love you regardless.

I read the letter out loud to my therapist in our session yesterday. When I finished reading and looked up, I could see the emotion written all over my therapist’s face and I immediately turned away.

She told me my strength really comes through in my writing…the same strength that I so often have difficulty finding when I need it the most. I know I am strong, but I still feel so weak.

I could have said a lot more. But what would that have done? I didn’t even mention my father’s involvement. That’s her son. I am not doing this to hurt her; I am doing this to protect her. I don’t want her to be among my mother’s countless victims.

I don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into. This can be the beginning of something. I just don’t know what that something is yet.