child abuse

Daddy’s gone and he took my hope with him

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Fuck you, grief, and your shitty timing.

I finally managed to quiet the internal chaos sparked by my father’s death. There’s no longer any fear that the police are coming to get us, there’s no more thinking that we caused his death, and thankfully, no more asking to be with daddy in heaven (because that was hard for me on multiple levels). So all is good, right?

Wrong. I sat down the other day to write an article that was due the next morning, when I was suddenly overwhelmed with grief. I couldn’t stop crying. I tried to distract myself, but it would only work for a few minutes before I would start crying again. I was a mess. At the most random, inconvenient time, my mind decided it was time to grieve.

But why? I don’t miss my father. I hadn’t seen him in nearly a year, and for good reason. He was an asshole. A fucking asshole. I don’t care that some think it rude to speak ill of the dead. I am speaking the truth; a person’s life status does not affect that.

I brought up my emotional struggle to my therapist on Thursday. She assured me it was okay to grieve his death, but I was sure I wasn’t sad about his physical death at all. I was starting to get frustrated because I couldn’t figure out how to put my thoughts into words (another problem I will write about later). My therapist encouraged me to just say what was inside.

After a few more moments of frustration, I stomped my feet on the floor, and through tears, shouted, “I’ll never know why he did it. Maybe my mom made him do it, maybe he didn’t want to. Now I’ll never know because he’s dead.”

That was the loss I was grieving. Not the loss of my father, but the loss of the truth. The loss of knowing why. The loss of the hope that maybe, just maybe, my father loved me. Maybe he just hurt me because she made him do it. Maybe he really didn’t hate me. Maybe he was just doing her bidding because he had no other choice.

I will never know anything. That is why I cry. I want to believe that if my father was alive, he would be honest about his role in the abuse. In some way, I want to believe that knowing would make a difference, that it in some way would change something.

I know it doesn’t change anything.

But there is a part of me that has spent decades holding onto hope that my father loved me. A child needs someone to love them, and I knew from very early on that person was not my mother. So I put all of my hope in my father, even when his actions showed the opposite of love. I needed to hold on to that possibility. I needed that to survive my childhood.

But do I still need that hope now?

I am that little girl, and that little girl is me.

~ KJ ~ 10 Comments

When my therapist asked me last week to write a letter to my younger self, you would have thought she had just asked me to write a dissertation on behavioral neuroscience. It was the last thing I wanted to do. Actually, at that moment, I probably would have rather written that dissertation. Or stuck my head down the toilet. Or both. I didn’t want to write about feelings. I didn’t want to acknowledge any reasons for having any feelings. Blah.

But I knew I couldn’t get away with not writing it. My therapist and I have worked out an agreement so I could stay out of the hospital, and it requires that I participate fully in therapy. I waited until the night before our next session to write it, not expecting that it would turn into the letter that it did.

While I was writing it, I did get emotional. But it was a different kind of emotional. I felt genuine empathy for the child who experienced this pain. I felt the anger she felt. I felt sad for her. But there was a huge disconnect between me and this child. In my brain, we were two different people. I wasn’t yet connecting that we were one in the same.

My therapist asked if I would be comfortable sharing the letter with her in our session on Monday. At first, I was afraid. I didn’t think I did it right. I asked her if she was going to be mad if it was wrong. She explained that there wasn’t really a wrong way to do it, so I said it was okay. She asked if there was anything I needed first. Needs. What are those? For the first time, I did ask for something. I asked if she could sit next to me instead of across from me in her usual spot. It would make me feel less alone. And she obliged.

I started to read the letter. It had been the first time I read it all at once, and the first time I spoke it out loud. As I was reading it, I started to realize that this wasn’t another person. The words on this paper, these words I wrote to this little girl, those words were written for me.

I was the confused little girl who didn’t understand why mommy and daddy kept hurting her.

I was the little girl afraid of her own parents, with nowhere to hide because mommy blocked all the closets and underneath the beds.

I was the scared girl who thought everyone was just meant to hurt her.

I was the empty little girl who believed the only thing inside of her was evil.

I was the little girl who felt so alone, even when she was surrounded by people.

I was the little girl who felt invisible, who tried so desperately to get someone to help her, but no one listened, no one cared.

I was the little girl who tried to kill herself at six years old because she had lost any sense of hope of a life without pain.

I started to read the paragraph about feeling hurt. I felt the heaviness in my heart. As I read the words “I wish there was a Band-aid I could give you that could make your hurt go away”, I broke down entirely. It was like I found out someone I loved just died. I cried so hard I was blinded by my own tears. I needed comfort. I reached out to my therapist and she allowed me to hug her. She held me as I cried (and covered her in tears, drool and nasal discharge), until I calmed down enough that I could see again.

I took a few more minutes fighting through tears, trying to catch my breath so I could finish the letter. After a few failed attempts, I picked up where I left off, and finished reading. I even managed to laugh at the part where I wrote that “something was wrong with mommy and daddy and I guess they missed that memo.” Something was surely wrong with them to say the least, but I know that they shouldn’t need a memo to remind them that they were supposed to love their children.

My therapist encouraged me to keep reading the letter. She said that younger part of me needs to hear all of those things, and that I need to hear it as well.

And as I kept reading the letter, the more I realize that everything she went through was real. The more I realize that everything that happened wasn’t fair. The more I realize that something could have been done to stop the damage.

The more I read, the more I realize I am that little girl, and that little girl is me.

I’ve been such an emotional mess these past few days because of this. I saw it as a bad thing, but my therapist did not. For the first time, I am letting myself feel. After a year in therapy, I am finally feeling sad about my abuse. Apparently, that’s progress.

Letter to My Younger Self

~ KJ ~ 13 Comments

Dear younger self,

I’m so sorry for all the feelings you’ve been having all this time. I’m sorry no one listened to you. It must have been so hard to keep it all inside. But I want you to know now that it’s okay to feel. You deserve to have feelings. Your feelings are valid, and they are yours. No one can take them from you anymore.

It’s okay to feel confused. Mommies and daddies aren’t supposed to hurt their children. There’s nothing wrong with you. There never was. Mommy and daddy told you that so they could keep hurting you. It was all lies.  I’m so sorry they confused you. You may never understand why all those times, daddy chose to hold your hand instead of pushing hers away. He was wrong. She was wrong. But you were not wrong. You were just a child.

It’s okay to feel afraid. Instead of fearing monsters, you feared mom and dad. It must have been so scary for you. You had nowhere to hide. I’m so sorry you had to live in constant fear. But you were always so strong, even when you felt afraid. You are one brave little girl.

It’s okay to feel scared. Mommy and daddy made you believe that the world was scary and full of bad people who were going to hurt you. That wasn’t the truth. That’s what mommy and daddy told you to make you stay. The real scary place was home, and the scariest people were mommy and daddy. I’m sorry you feel so scared. It’s not fair. You don’t ever have to go back home again.

I know you feel empty. Mommy and daddy made you believe that you had no purpose, that you were worthless. That must have hurt your heart so much. I’m so sorry for your pain. But the truth is, there are so many good things inside of you that mommy and daddy never wanted you to see. Now you can let those good things free.

I know you feel lonely. Mommy and daddy kept you away from everyone. You were never allowed to talk to outsiders. Mommy and daddy told you that no one would ever understand you, that no one could be trusted. But that was all lies. I’m so sorry they lied you. It hurts to be alone. But there are people here to help you now, to help you feel less lonely. You don’t have to hide anymore.

I know you feel small. All of the bigger people around you didn’t help you. They didn’t notice you were desperate to be saved. It must have hurt so much to feel invisible, to have no one see your pain. I’m so sorry no one let you know how important you were. I see you, and you’re not small. You’re a little girl with a big heart, and you matter. You always have.

It’s okay to feel angry. You can be mad at mommy and daddy. They hurt you, and you didn’t deserve to be hurt, ever. You can be mad at the other adults who didn’t listen to you. They should have helped you. You can be mad at world. You deserved to have good parents, and you didn’t get that. I am so sorry for all of the hurt they caused you. I’m so sorry for all of the anger you’ve had to keep inside. But it’s okay to be angry. You deserve to be angry. I’m angry, too.

It’s okay to feel sad. Mommy and daddy told you it wasn’t okay to cry. They told you that you had no reason to be sad. They hurt you. But they were wrong. I’m so sorry. It must be so hard to hold that hurt in your heart for so long. But it’s okay to be sad now. No one will punish you. It’s okay to cry. You won’t get hurt. You can cry for the childhood you didn’t have. You can cry for the mommy and daddy you wished you had. You can cry for all the times they hurt you. You can cry. You can be sad.

It’s okay to feel hurt. You were wronged, in so many ways you were wronged. The grownups in your life failed you. Your mommy and daddy hurt your heart as much as they did your body. You had to learn to live with the pain. You deserved to be comforted and supported and nurtured, and instead you were hurt over and over again. It wasn’t fair. I’m so sorry that you are hurting.  I wish there was a Band-Aid I could give you that could make your hurt go away. I want you to know now that mommy and daddy can’t hurt you anymore.

I know you feel hopeless. Mommy told you that you would never be away from her. You thought that she would keep hurting you forever. I’m so sorry that you were hurting so badly that you wanted to die. You were just a little girl, in so much pain. Someone saved you from drowning, but no one saved you from what led you there to begin with.  I want you to know that you are safe now. Mommy can’t hurt you. You don’t have to die anymore.

I know your heart is broken. My heart breaks for you. You are just a little girl. A beautiful, intelligent, strong, kind, amazingly courageous little girl.

I know you feel unloved. Children are supposed to be loved by their parents. But something was wrong with mommy and daddy and I guess they missed that memo. It’s not your fault they didn’t know how to love. It doesn’t mean you are unlovable. You are so loved. There are good people out there who want to love and care for you. You deserve love and care. You deserve to feel good feelings, too. You deserve so much, and I want you to know that.

Thank you for being so strong. Thank you for being you. Thank you for helping me get here. I love you.

Emotionally Illiterate

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

There is an enormous amount of learning that occurs in the first years of life. I’m not just talking about the usual: learning how to talk, learning how to feed, and learning how to the use the potty. I’m talking about the things that people don’t realize: how children learn emotions.

Infants emulate their parents, including facial expressions. As they grow, they learn to associate emotion words with their expressions, with the help of their caretakers. Toddlers learn to identity emotions, and children learn to regulate emotions in the early years of schooling.

But what happens when a child’s caretakers are emotionally empty?

An infant can’t emulate emotions she doesn’t see. A mother who is never happy or joyful cannot show her baby how to show happiness or joy. This hinders the development of emotional literacy. Children can learn about emotions in school, but when there is no emotional learning going on at home from an early age, the child misses out considerably, and the effects are long-lasting.

My mother was (and still is) a sociopath. She cannot express genuine emotion. She never has. The only emotion she ever expresses is anger. She is void of happiness (and a lot of other things, but we won’t go there right now). It is no surprise, then, that I grew up emotionally illiterate.

Of course, as a child, I didn’t know what emotional literacy was or what it entailed. I remember people defining their emotions: happy, sad, surprised, mad. I knew they were emotions, but I didn’t really comprehend anything beyond that. I never felt them, or at least understood that I felt them. I knew what anger was, because I experienced it through my mother and father regularly. And as a result of their anger, I knew fear like it was my best friend. The rest was a mystery.

My facial expression has been consistently “muted anger” since I was a child. Many people accused me of being angry, and I didn’t understand because I wasn’t feeling angry at all. But my natural facial expression was typically angry. Because that is the only facial expression I experienced as an infant. It’s the only facial expression I was able to emulate, and I carried that with me through life.

I learned quite a bit about emotions when I was around my peers in school. I finally started to identify feelings within myself, only to have them trampled upon by both of my parents.

I remember one time, I had an About Me project in elementary school. I chose to write with the marker colored bittersweet, because I said my life made me feel bitter. My mother became enraged when she heard, and I was punished severely. She told me I had no reason to feel bitter, and that I should be grateful for the life she was giving me. A 9(ish) year-old who identifies feeling bitter about life should be a red flag for anybody. But of course, my mother believed she did no wrong, so she just burned that flag to the ground.

Then there was the incident when I was a teenager. My high school guidance counselor called my parents, concerned that I was significantly depressed. I was. But feeling depressed was not allowed in our family. Feelings in general were not allowed. And I was punished severely for it. For years after that incident, I became emotionally constipated. I made myself numb to protect myself from my parents. I showed or felt no emotion because I did not want to experience the pain I felt that night ever again. The little bit of emotional knowledge I had was buried deep inside of me, never wanting to be dug up.

My issues are complex (!). First, I had a rough start in life being raised by a sociopath, so I spent a good portion of my childhood emotionally illiterate. Second, what little emotional knowledge I did have became muddled in my adolescence, and pushed down into the crevices of my semi-conscious mind.

So now, at the age of 30, I find myself needing to learn emotions all over again. And yes, sometimes I feel like a five year-old. I read children’s books on feelings. I have charts with emotion words and flashcards with feelings on them. My therapist draws faces depicting different emotions that I try to guess.

Whenever I correctly identify a feeling in myself, my therapist praises me like you would praise a small child. Because that’s what I need. Because I am so emotionally inept. I am an emotional illiterate.

But I’m learning what it means to have feelings again.

Hold on, let go

~ KJ ~ 19 Comments

I’ve still been struggling with the reality that I am without a family. Which is weird, because on some level, I know I never had a family to begin with.

Did I have a mother? Sure. Half of my DNA comes from her. She gave birth to me. But that’s where her mother-ness ends.

Did I have a father? I guess. It’s questionable where I share his DNA, but he was a man who identified himself as my father, so I guess he was. He provided financially for the family. And that’s where his father-ness ends.

Was I a member of that family? No. I was an involuntary member of my mother’s cult. I was a pawn in my mother’s chess game. I was a servant to the almighty queen. But I was never a real part of that family.

Yet for some reason, I am still holding on to the emotional connection to that family. In the absence of my mother, I have taken on her criticisms and her hatred and continue to punish myself, just as she would do when she was there next to me.

I give in to the voice inside of me that tells me I am nothing without her. I listen as she tells me I am worthless, that I will never amount to anything, that I can’t do anything right. I believe her when she says I will never survive without her.

It doesn’t matter that she is no longer with me, because her voice is still inside of me, programmed into my brain, telling me all of the things I’ve heard all of my life, continuing to poison my thoughts, continuing to destroy my sense of self.

So why do I keep listening? Why do I keep holding on to something so toxic and so damaging? Because it’s all that remains of what I knew to be my family. That toxicity is all I have left. In a sick way, I keep my family alive by continuing to act on my mother’s toxic legacy.

I find comfort in familiarity. I find validation for my mother’s truths in my current life circumstances. When something doesn’t work out, when I’m struggling financially, when I can’t handle my life, I tell myself “See, my mother was right. I can’t live without her.”

I’m so afraid of losing that last connection. As damaging as it is, I keep holding on. I keep giving in.

My therapist showed me this meme in session today. She said it reminded her of me. At first, the person is holding on to the rope, as it tears and cuts into his hand. Then, as he starts to let go of the rope, his hand starts to get better. When he lets go completely, his hand is no longer being damaged by the rope at all; he is free from harm.

therapymeme

I’m still holding on to that rope, so very tightly. I’m holding on to all the shit my mother programmed into me, even though it’s hurting me and causing me pain. My therapist is trying to pull me away from that rope, telling me I don’t need to hold on to that anymore, trying to stop the emotional bleeding I am putting myself through. But I pull away from her and instead keep holding on to the rope.

I need to let go.

Father’s Day

~ KJ ~ 12 Comments

I went to the card shop the other day to pick out a card for my father for Father’s Day. I did the same thing on Mother’s Day, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do it again.

After a few minutes of reading the fronts of several cards, I picked up one that instantly made me cry. There were so many people around and I couldn’t stop crying, so I bolted out of the store empty-handed.

I sat with my thoughts outside for a bit, gathered up my strength, and went back into the store to buy that card.

Over the next two days, I wrote everything I had wanted to say to my father in that card. It was more difficult writing to him than it was to my mother. With my mother, I have consistently held the same feelings towards her for a long time. It’s been different for my father. For a long time, I held on to hope that he was better, and only recently did I lose that in him.

As I was writing, I went from feeling confusion, to sadness, to anger. I filled up the card until there was no space left to write. I didn’t read it over again; I was afraid of being emotionally overwhelmed. So I put the card back in its envelope and it sat in my backpack until therapy this morning.

I told my therapist about the card. She asked if it would be helpful to talk about it. I didn’t want to at first, because I didn’t want to go through the emotions again. I didn’t want to cry. But my therapist reassured me that crying was okay, and that crying can be helpful.

My therapist asked if there was a reason I chose that particular card. I read what it said on the cover: No matter how small you were – when Dad said, “I love you, kid,” you’d feel bigger than the sky. I started crying as I read it. They were tears of grief, the loss of something I never had. I never had that experience of feeling bigger than the sky. I never had that experience of a loving father. I wanted it so desperately; I wanted to be the kid on the cover of this card.

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After I composed myself, I read the card out loud.

Daddy,

I don’t know where I went wrong. I don’t know what I ever did for you not to love me. You never once said those words to me. You never once showed that you cared about me. I should have been daddy’s little girl, and instead I was your big mistake.

Why didn’t you protect me? Fathers are supposed to protect their children, and keep them from harm. But you didn’t. You threw me right into the fire, and left me to burn.

You knew what mom was doing and you did nothing to stop it. I understand that she is your wife, but I was your child. I didn’t have a say. I couldn’t stop her. But you could have, so many times you could have. You didn’t. You let her destroy my childhood, you let her hurt me day in and day out. And you helped her do it.

I grew up thinking that all feathers hit their children, that was just normal. I held on to hope that you were just doing what fathers do. Then I realized that’s not what being a father is, that’s not what loving your child is. Were you ever a father?

I know you worked hard, and maybe you didn’t know what she was doing while you were gone. But that’s just the lie that I told myself because I wanted to believe you had a shred of decency inside you somewhere. I think you knew everything. You knew all along. But I guess you just didn’t care about me enough for it to matter.

I can forgive you for hurting me with your fists. I can forgive you horrible things you told me my whole life. I can’t forgive you for not protecting me from my mother.

I was relieved when you got sick. As horrible as that sounds, you lost your strength to hurt me. I watched you slowly lose your strength, your heart, and your will to live. You wanted to give up because you couldn’t tolerate being in pain. Yet you made me live in pain every day of my life. You appeared strong all that time, but you were always weak. You preyed on your own children because they were the only ones weaker than you.

I watched you wither away. I stood aside as your wife abandoned you, as she put her own son in your place. You were no longer of use to her, so she put you off to the side and treated you like garbage…treated you the same way you both treated me. I thought for once you would see how it felt to be unwanted, to be told you were a burden, to be treated like you were worthless. But it didn’t seem to affect you at all.

Unlike my mother, I cared for you. I made sure you had what you needed. I made sure you had money because your wife continued to take everything from you and you were too weak to stand against her. I watched as she hit you in her fits of rage, exactly like you used to do to me. And you sat there and took it without fighting back. You always let her win.

I felt horrible leaving you behind. I didn’t know what was going to happen to you. And then I found out that you didn’t even care that I left. Your only concern was moving all of my stuff out so you could have my room. You replaced me, without a thought, you replaced me. I was just there taking up space, and now you had your space back. My existence didn’t matter to you. Now you don’t even speak of me. You go about your last days of life as if you didn’t have a daughter. You erased me.

But you know what? I can’t erase you. I can’t erase the shit you did to me. I can’t erase the memories. I can’t erase the fear you instilled in me. I can’t erase the feel of my head hitting the wall that night you broke me forever. The bruises are gone, but the marks you’ve left behind on my heart and mind will never fade away. I can’t erase any of that. I have to live with it all, every hour of every day.

You’re lucky you get to die soon. Your pain will end. You get it easy. I’m here, left on earth, to pick up the pieces of the shattered mess you and your wife left behind.

You were never a father. Fathers don’t do what you’ve done. You’re a weak man, and a pitiful excuse for a human being. I can’t love you anymore.

I had to stop twice while reading to wipe away the tears. By the time I finished reading, I completely broke down. It was the first time I had processed everything I was feeling all at once. And I just let it all out.

My father will never read my card, because I will never send it. My words will never matter to him; they never did before. But I will hold on to this, just as I have held on to the card I wrote to my mother last month. They are reminders of where I came from, and where I’ve ended up.

The loss of safety

~ KJ ~ 7 Comments

I am still living my life as a runaway.

I am still living my life in constant fear.

Every time the doorbell rings, I panic. Sometimes, I freeze. Other times, I barricade my bedroom door and hide in the closet. Never I am able to just see who is at the door. The thought alone is terrifying. Why? Because I am so afraid that my mother will be at the door. I’m so afraid she will find me and take me back to prison.

Many times I go to therapy in fear that my mother will find me there. I’ll sit on the chair at the farthest end of the waiting room. I’ll sit on the farthest end of the couch in my therapist’s office. The farther I am away from the door, the more time I have to hide.

Every time my phone rings, I am overcome with panic. She’s found out I told. I’m in trouble now. I worry that any number that appears on my phone could be hers, so I don’t answer. I never answer.

Every time someone calls me by my birth name in just such a way, I am filled with fear and anxiety. Nothing good ever came from being called in that way. It has always been a precedent for pain.

Every bump in the night startles me awake and I freeze with fear. She’s coming for me. I’m never safe. Because I never felt safe as a child, and I’m reliving that still as an adult. I am still, in many ways, a scared child living in an adult body.

I thought it would get better by now, but it hasn’t. I live on high alert. I never feel safe. I have never felt safe a day in my life. Why can’t I get past this? I am in a better place now, but am I really? My feet are in safe zone, but my mind is still locked away in prison, and my mother holds the keys.

I’ve been trying to work through the fear and safety issues in therapy, but they are still coming up. My therapist wrote me a note to help me remind myself that I am here now, and away from that hell. I carry it in pocket everywhere I go.

You are safe now.  You got out.

You survived places and people that were physically and emotionally dangerous, and it made you feel that the whole world was dangerous — that you would never be free. 
But with your adult understanding and resources, you proved that philosophy wrong.  You escaped, and you are now free.

Those who harmed you are not here.  You are separate from them.

If they were here, you could lock the door and tell them to leave.  If they didn’t listen to you, you could call law enforcement and they would make them leave.  You have power now.  You get to make the decisions.  They can’t hurt you anymore.  
You can find safe environments and surround yourself with safe people.

You can care for yourself and protect yourself.  And you should.

Every day, you can choose freedom again.
When the world feels frightening, remind yourself that you got out.  And you are safe now.

How can I feel safe when they took that sense of safety away from me? They stole it. I need it back.

 

When pain becomes your normal

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

When you’ve been hurt repeatedly for so long, that hurt becomes normal, almost natural, to you.

Wake up, feel pain. Breathe air, feel pain.

You learn to anticipate it. You wake up every day as a child and know that you’re going to be hurt in some way; you just don’t know exactly how and when. But you find a sick sort of comfort in knowing that it’s coming. The familiarity with routine makes you feel more secure. You’re unsure of yourself, you’re unsure of the people around you, but you are sure you’re going to be hurt.

The hurt becomes so much your normal that when you go so long without it, you start to panic. They let me off easy today. Something isn’t right. It’s as if you’re hoping for that pain just to feel yourself again. And sure enough, the pain comes, and everything is back to normal.

Then you become desensitized. You get to a point where you become an expert at hiding the pain from the world. You smile and laugh to cover your crying. You wear clothes to cover the marks left behind. No evidence of pain. They can’t see it, so it must not be there.

But the pain has always been there, like a best friend that never leaves your side. It knows everything that goes on. It holds all of your secrets. You hold on to it, because you need it to survive. It’s the only constant in your life, the only stability in your unstable world. Pain becomes as much a part of your life as food and water.

Then your life changes. You finally get away from those who were causing you pain. You are free. But you can’t be  free from the pain. The emotional damage is still there, deeply rooted in your heart and soul, still killing you from the inside.

Pain has always been your normal. It has become a part of you so strongly that you need it to survive. So you become your own abuser. You find a sense of comfort and release in feeling normal again. You become so blinded with feeling the pain, that you don’t even realize what’s happening. You are perpetuating the cycle of your own abuse.

You can’t run away from yourself. Now you’ve become your own worst enemy.

Polyfragmented

~ KJ ~ 13 Comments

I have been avoiding my DID again. Sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. In therapy, the topic has barely been brought up because I always have so many issues going on, that managing my DID drops down on the priority list.

I think that it is clear, given the events of the last few weeks, that DID is a problem, and a problem that isn’t going away.

My therapist used a metaphor of a daycare to explain what was going on inside. There are some daycare centers that are clean, organized, running on a schedule, and everyone knows what to do. Then there are daycare centers that are a mess, with no planning in place, children running around screaming, and poop on the walls (I contributed to that part).

My system is like that second daycare. There’s no order, just chaos. My parts are running around, confused and out of control. The caretakers have left the building. It’s a mess. My system is a mess. But it doesn’t have to be, and I know that. I am just so incredibly exhausted from life that I don’t have any energy left to work on myself.

My therapist asked about my long-term goals, if I wanted integration or to live as a multiple. The choice was completely up to me, and my therapist has worked with people successfully on both sides. I hadn’t really thought about it enough, because I still like to wake up and tell myself I don’t have DID, so then I won’t have to think about these things.

I just want to be normal, but I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed at this point.

At one point, my therapist asked me how many parts I thought I had. “Dozens, hundreds, thousands?”

My immediate (denial) reaction in my head was well, I don’t have any parts.

I found myself say out loud, “hundreds…”, but not as an answer. I was surprised that hundreds was even an option. Why does this woman think I have parts at all?

Before I could finish my thought statement, my therapist confirmed, “Hundreds? Okay.”

She said it like she wasn’t surprised at all that I would have hundreds of parts. She confirmed it like it was a normal, expected answer.

I quickly jumped on the defensive. “No, no, I don’t have hundreds of parts. I’m not polyfragmented. I’m not that bad.” Polyfragmented DID results from prolonged, systematic, severe trauma. I didn’t go through that. My life wasn’t that bad. I don’t have any parts. I am not broken. Having that many parts means you are just that much more broken. I’m okay.

I can’t help but wonder why my therapist was so quick to accept my statement as reality. Does she think I am so broken? Does she know more than I do?

I don’t want to be fragmented. I want to be whole.

The return home, Part 1

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Last Friday, I took a train back to the  city I fled 11 months ago.

I didn’t have much of a choice. The graduate schools I am applying to require the GRE for admission – I had never taken it before because it wasn’t required for my first graduate school. The application deadlines are fast approaching (and in one case, very much past) and I needed to take the exam as soon as possible. I tried registering online, only to find out that almost every test location was either closed down, or did not have any available test dates for the next three months. The only option left just happened to be the farthest from my current location, and the closest to my home of origin.

Scrambling, I tried to figure out a way I could even get there. I asked an old friend, out of desperation, if he could take me. He agreed. Because of timing (the test appointment was at 8:00 AM Saturday morning) and distance (an additional 30+ minutes of travel), I had to take the train the day before and stay overnight. It definitely caused some panic.

I was worried about my arrival, because I would be stopping in the center of the city, where all of the buses pass through. Many of my former coworkers travel by bus, and a few of them live in the area. I was worried about someone seeing me and alerting  my mother. But during my therapy session last Monday, my therapist reassured me that the likelihood that someone would recognize me was low. My hair was completely different, and I had lost a significant amount of weight. She encouraged me to work out a plan so I would be out in the open as little as possible. I felt a little better, and less panicked.

And then my week went to shit. Tuesday, I withdrew from graduate school and essentially lost my dream of being a counselor. I was denied for a personal loan, one that I needed in order to get through the summer until I started a new graduate school in the Fall. I had a realization that the people I thought I could depend on were not dependable at all; actually, they ended up hurting me more. I wanted just to go to sleep to avoid the pain, but even that ended up impossible because I was startled awake by nonsense going on close by.

So I spent Tuesday night into Wednesday morning crying. I felt my life crumbling around me. At that point, I decided I should just go home for good. I’m losing everything in the life I was building here, so what else could I do? I decided. Friday, we were going home, and we weren’t coming back.

I walked to work early and sat outside, crying. I felt lost. I was also exhausted, and crying only magnified that exhaustion. I couldn’t deal with the emotional pain combined with the physical pain I am still in, and I ended up leaving work early. Then, cue my emotional break and dissociative chaos I wrote about here.

Somehow I managed to get myself to therapy on Thursday, though I will admit I am not even sure if it was all me. I was a mess. I tried (and failed) to hold it together.

My therapist and I went over what happened in the days leading up to session. I told her how I ended up the closet, which is something that has happened quite a few times before. I reluctantly told her about my plan to return home. I knew it could go one of two ways. My mother would take me in and help me, and I’d have a home and family again. Or she would kill me. That’s what I really wanted. I wanted to go home so my mother would kill me, and I wouldn’t have to worry about doing it myself.

I reached the point of dire hopelessness. There was nothing else left to lose.