DID

Missing pieces

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

When I first moved here, I would go out on my back porch every night and sit and look at the stars. It was something I was never able to do back home. There was just something so amazing about looking into a vast sky with millions (billions?) of stars, wondering how many people were out there looking at the same stars as I was. But I don’t go out on the porch at night anymore, and I stopped looking at the stars.

In the beginning, I was full of hope and excitement, and running on a rush of adrenaline. Now, I’m coming to realize all that I’ve lost along the way during this transition. Pieces of me are missing. I feel incomplete.

It may be hard for some to understand, but when I was at home, I always held out hope that someday something would change…that someday, my family would become different people and the void in my heart would be filled and I would finally be whole. But now that I’ve moved away, I’ve lost that chance forever. I’ve been trying to fill the void with things that just can’t occupy that space in someone’s heart that is meant for family. I left them. I walked away and I took that chance to fill that void away from myself for good.

It’s not just the loss of my parents. It’s the loss of my entire family. It will never be the same again. I can never see my grandmother; she’s already fallen for their lies about me. My brother is too far brainwashed. Other members of my family don’t want to get involved. They don’t come to visit me, even if they are a quick drive away. I feel incredibly isolated from the people I should be closest to. Your family makes up part of your identity. So what do you do when that part of you is gone? I don’t even feel like I belong in this name anymore.

Then there are my friends. The ones I was closest to back home. The ones that now barely reach out to me, and the ones that haven’t bothered to visit me. I can feel what were once my strongest relationships now fading farther and farther away into the distance. I didn’t expect our friendships to remain the same, but I didn’t expect them to grow so far apart so quickly, either.

Then there are the quiet supporter friends: the ones that support me in private, but when I need them to stand up and fight with me, they are nowhere to be found. Then I am left alone to fight battles I don’t want to fight. It reminds me of the people in my life that knew I was being abused and chose to do nothing because they “didn’t want to get involved.” Not getting involved never solves anything.

People have changed the way they treat me. I’m not a child. I’m not made of glass that can be easily broken at the slightest touch. I’m perfectly capable of making my own decisions. I haven’t been able to make real decisions for the last 29 years of my life. Now I want to make them. I need to learn for myself how to make them. It doesn’t matter that they aren’t all good; no one’s decisions are all good. That’s called life. I’m no different from anyone else; I just have a little catching up to do.

It’s a little sad that the only person that I’ve come to depend on (aside from my therapist) is my roommate. My roommate…a woman I met off of Craigslist right before I moved. She barely knows me. She has no obligation to know me. Yet hers is the shoulder I cry on when I become overwhelmed. She is the one who holds my arms down when I dissociate and start scratching myself. And she is the one who sits with me when I don’t feel safe enough to be alone. She, a person unrelated to me and completely unknown to me until a few months ago, now burdened with dealing with me.

The nights that my roommate is not here, I have no one. Those nights are the worst for me; tonight is one of those nights. I often wonder if this is what my life will be like forever. Loneliness. Even Charlie is quiet. It makes me miss his angry ramblings just a little. He probably feels just as lonely as I do.

For so long, I defined myself based on the relationships I had with others. It was part of who I was. Those relationships mattered. And now those pieces of me are going missing, and I don’t know what to do. No family, dwindling friendships, and a lack of identity. I feel empty. It’s no wonder I don’t know who my parts really are. I don’t even know who I am.

A day with Courage

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I had another thrilling 2 hour therapy session.  It started out okay.  We talked about my upcoming job interview (tomorrow – I haven’t had a chance to mention it), about my blogging orientation for HealthyPlace on Wednesday, and about my inability to set up an appointment with the social worker so I can get my medications adjusted and refilled.  Yep.  Mind you, I’ve been back and forth over the phone with the social worker since I got out of the hospital back in the beginning of August and she has yet to set up an appointment with me or get me set up with the psychiatrist.  Now I have two weeks of medication before I am left with nothing.  So, that’s going to be an issue.  Something is always an issue.

Then we started to color and just talk about whatever came to mind.  I started talking about why there were so many mushrooms on children’s coloring pages.  I wanted to know why.  There was a dog and a mushroom.  A mouse hiding under a mushroom.  A frog on a mushroom.  Why so many mushrooms?  I’m not sure I knew what a mushroom even was as a child.  Very strange.

As I finished the picture, I started to hate it.  My therapist asked me what was wrong.  I said it wasn’t perfect.  She came over next to me and looked at it, and like a typical therapist said “nope, I don’t see anything wrong with it.”  Then Charlie started to chime in.  Of course it’s not perfect.  It looks like shit.  Everything is shit.  So then I was having an argument with Charlie in my head while simultaneously trying to listen and interact with my therapist.  For the record, that is just not possible for very long.  Charlie ended up winning that battle.  When I came back to the present, and my therapist began to talk about him (he did not tell her his name – she asked what letter his name started with and he told her a ‘C’), I knew right away who it was because I remembered arguing with him internally right before.  And it was funny because my therapist said how he didn’t say much.  He certainly doesn’t shut up when he talks to me.  Weird.  Boys.

My therapist told me to try to think about what a 15 year-old boy would want.  I…well…I don’t know.  I’m not sure I want to know.  That’s entering a dangerous zone.  I don’t want to know about teenage boys.  How did I end up with a teenage boy part anyway?  The teenage boys I knew in high school were atypical bookworm types.  I doubt that’s who Charlie is.  I don’t know how to be a boy.  Not that I’m a girly girl in any sense either, but…I don’t know.  This is going to be hard work.

My therapist also brought up Charlie’s and Anna’s self-injurious tendencies.  She asked me if I wanted her to stop those behaviors or allow them to continue (within reason).  Shit.  I don’t know.  I mean, is there a right answer?  No one wants to hurt.  She asked me what I thought the reasons behind the self-injury were.  Do I think they are doing it to try to get people to see that they are hurting, or is it something else?  I don’t know.  Why would a seven year-old self-injure?  How does a seven year-old even know how to self-injure?  I don’t think Anna knows what she’s doing is self-injury.  I remember writing down that she told my therapist she was scratching to get the bad out.  I would imagine she developed that somehow from seeing my mother’s techniques of cleansing me from evil.  Charlie is another story, though.  Charlie is angry and wants everyone to know it.  I don’t think I (or my therapist, or anyone for that matter) could approach the two the same, because their motivations are completely different.  I’m too exhausted to think about this more than I already have.

At the end of our session, my therapist asked if I’d be able to carry something home.  Confused, I told her “yeah, I guess.”  Then she took Courage, the stuffed lion, from the other side of the couch and handed him to me.  Courage has been sitting on that couch through many sessions.  He’s seen and heard it all.  He’s helped me come back to the present many times.  I thought at first she wanted me to take him for the day; then I realized she was giving him to me to keep.

“Don’t you need him here for your other clients?” I asked.

“I can always train a new therapy animal if I need to.”

Then I realized I would have to walk around town with a stuffed lion.  He was too big to fit in my bag entirely.  I managed to stuff him in there, but his head and upper body stuck out.  Maybe this was some kind of test.  What is my therapist doing to me?!  I was going to go straight home out of pure embarrassment.  Then as I was sitting at the bus stop, I told myself fuck it, I’m going to the store.  So I took the bus to a nearby retail store to scope out a new bike.  It’s an idea I had been going back and forth with for a while; with the possibility of now having two out-of-the-home jobs, I can’t rely on public transportation all of the time.  So Courage and I went and tried out some bicycles.  I quickly realized, upon sitting upon the first bicycle I tried, that I could not remember how to ride a bike.  I know that I must have ridden in childhood at some point.  But my mind and body did not want to do it.  I couldn’t put both feet on the pedals.  I tried another bike, and another.  My body started to shake and I knew it wasn’t going to work, so I left before I ended up having a full-blown anxiety attack.  I should know how to ride a damn bike.

I was disappointed, but I didn’t feel like going home and wallowing in anger or self-pity.  So Courage and I waited for the bus and then we went to the mall.  By now, it was mid-afternoon and I had yet to eat, so I stopped at Chick-Fil-A because they happen to sell chicken nuggets, the most delicious food on earth.  I had my bag on the table with Courage hanging out lopsided.  I felt kind of bad, so I took him out and stood him up on the table, right next to my bag of food.  I didn’t even care what people thought.  I even snapped a picture and posted it on Facebook, as if this stuffed lion and I were on some kind of adventure.
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We even went for ice cream.
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By this point, I was completely over the weirdness of being an adult and carrying around a stuffed lion.  I realized that I now had a stuffed animal, and my strong part had a stuffed animal, but I didn’t have anything for Charlie or Anna.  So, with time to kill, I ventured to the nearest store that sold stuffed animals – the Disney Store.  I managed to find a variety of dogs – perfect for Anna.  I must have circled the display three to four times trying to find something that screamed teenage boy.  Then, on my last round, I saw Baymax from Big Hero 6 hiding at the bottom of the display.  Robot, super hero, teenage boy…sounds good to me.  So now my parts and I each have something.  And if any new parts make themselves known, they will get one, too.
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Maybe I’m not so terrible at this DID business as I thought I was.

Ten weeks

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

Here I am, ten weeks past my escape; ten weeks into freedom.

I’m exhausted, physically and emotionally.  It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get a decent night’s sleep.  My anxiety is so overwhelming.  I check the locks on the doors so many times.  Then I go upstairs to my bedroom and get in bed for five minutes before I’m compelled to go downstairs and check the locks again.  It’s hard to feel safe.  My mind races at night.  I can’t calm it down.  I can lay in bed for hours just staring at the ceiling.  I get startled at every noise.  I just want to be able to sleep.

Emotionally, I’m drained.  I cried a lot this week.  Perhaps it was needed.  I’ve spent the last ten weeks trying to show how strong I am, despite how I feel on the inside.  That is a job in itself.

I’ve started to open up more to people at work.  People seem to be inclined to open up and talk to me about things, and my coworkers are no different.  I’ve listened to them, and I’ve opened up to them as well.  We regularly talk about our therapy experiences and have an open dialogue about mental health.  It’s actually kind of nice.  While I haven’t revealed much of my story, I have told one coworker (who shared his own experiences in therapy with me) that I am in therapy several times a week.  He asked why so much; I told him I had a lot of issues.  Then he said how I seemed so level-headed and put-together at work, he would have never thought that about me.  For me, that was a testament to my ability to act strong and stable.  At least I have that.

I had a conversation with my parts yesterday.  I don’t know if they heard me.  I don’t even know if I did it right.  I could have just been talking to the ceiling.  I told them I didn’t want to be in pain anymore.  I know it’s not their fault.  It’s not my fault.  It’s not anyone’s fault.  I’m just tired of being in pain.  I don’t deserve it.  I don’t know what I did to burn myself, but it hurts.  It hurts to sleep, it hurts to shower, it hurts to sit down, it hurts to bend.  I don’t know how I managed to deal with this as a child.  Maybe it is better that I don’t remember much.  I know they want to protect me.  It’s just so complicated.

I’m looking for a third job.  I don’t know how I’m going to manage it, but I need more work.  I sent in a few applications yesterday.  I was too tired to do any today.  I’ve been checking Craigslist to see if anything close by comes up.  I’d prefer to find something in walking distance, because public transportation doesn’t really run past dinner time.  I thought about buying a bike.  It would save me money in the long run so I wouldn’t have to pay for the bus or cab fares, but I also have to consider whether or not I can physically handle bicycling everywhere.  I am not the most in shape person.  I also managed to break my foot walking, so imagine what I could do riding a bike.

I’m trying to pull myself over back onto the side of positive thinking.  I think I’m in the middle right now.  I’m trying to think of how far I’ve come, and how much further I can go.  I was clearing out my e-mails today and I came across a copy of the letter I was going to send my mother once I moved out; I had e-mailed it to myself in case I ever lost it.  I read it over and couldn’t believe what I wrote.  A strong person wrote that.  I could never have written those words in the position I am in now.  It’s like I sunk back into weakness the last week or so.

I wonder what would have happened if I sent that letter when I left.  Even now, ten weeks later, my family is still going out of their way to infiltrate my life.  They are telling anyone who will listen all of these lies about me, and I am not there to defend myself.  I have to realize that the life (if I can even call it that) that I had there, the connections that I had there…I can’t get those back.  I have to severe ties.  My family is poison, and they have infected everyone there.  No one is safe.  As if they were ever safe in the first place.

To end on a positive note, every day this past week, a butterfly has followed me as I walked home from work.  I didn’t think anything of it the first two times.  But on the third day, I thought to myself, this is just weird.  I was wearing a different color shirt each time, so it wasn’t that it was attracted to a certain color.  I don’t know why it (they?) followed me.  I’m usually not into symbolic things at all, but I have to wonder this time, with all of the spiritual and transformative meaning behind the butterfly, if there was a reason it was with me.  And this week, of all weeks, when I was at my lowest.  Whatever it was, it helped.

A break

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

Don’t worry, I’m not taking a break from blogging.

I am, however, taking a bit of a break from trauma therapy.  I’ll still be going to therapy as usual, but my therapist thinks it’s best to stop any trauma-related work for the time being.

I’ve been very off since my appointment on Monday.  It’s been difficult to turn off that “evil child” mentality that was activated as old memories were rehashed and I experienced that flashback during Monday’s session.  I’ve been extremely low and it’s been difficult to bring myself back up.  I also ended up dissociating and injuring myself in the same way my mother injured me as a child.  I re-enacted the same traumatic event.  Why?  I don’t understand it.

I didn’t even want to tell my therapist what happened.  I didn’t even want to go to therapy today.  But I went.  And I was in so much pain just sitting there that my facial expressions started to give my secret away.  She started asking if I was in pain and I tried to shut her out.  But she was (and always is) persistent.  Eventually I told her what I had done, and after a brief discussion, she came to the conclusion that it was best to take a break from the trauma for a while.

I felt like a therapy failure.  I asked her, “doesn’t this mean I’m weak?  I can’t even handle therapy.”  She tried to convince me that it actually took strength to admit what I did and that these things take time.  It’s not worth being re-traumatized.  I lived through this shit for 25 years, I can’t expect to jump into recovery in just two months.  I guess she is right, it was just not something I wanted to hear.

Everyone keeps telling me how strong I am, and how great I am doing.  All I can think is how weak I am and how close I am to failing.  A strong person doesn’t feel like dying on the inside.  A strong person doesn’t hurt themselves because some part of them still feels like they are an evil child that needs to be punished.  A strong person doesn’t need to take a break from trauma therapy.  Where’s this strength people see?  I’m having trouble finding it.  Sometimes I feel like I am so close to drowning.  I’m doing these things that people think are great, and I guess they are – but a part of me is dying, and nothing can stop that.  I can do all the great things in the world, but that won’t change who I am and what happened to me.

My therapist brought up my strong part.  I’ve talked briefly about her in therapy before, but not much.  I believe she is the part that got me through my escape.  My therapist started to ask me questions about that part and I shut down.  I don’t really know enough about her.  She doesn’t come out very often.  My therapist mentioned if I was self-sabotaging myself by not letting that part out more or getting to know that part.  I don’t know.  I feel that Charlie runs the show and doesn’t really let anyone else have a say, so it’s difficult for me to really know any of my other parts.  Maybe Charlie needs an Ativan.  Or a timeout.

I don’t know where therapy will go from here.  I’m just going to have to trust that it’s the right decision.

Dissociation, flashbacks, and suicidal thoughts all wrapped up into one day of therapy.

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

Today was supposed to be a good day.

I told myself I wasn’t going to dissociate today.  I was going to be normal.  I had an iced coffee before therapy, which calmed my nerves and made me less jittery (it also tends to make me sleepy – yes, I am not normal).  It was going to be a good day.

Ha.  Ha ha ha.  Ha ha ha ha.  Why did I think that was possible?  I should have known better.  I mean, therapy started out fine.  I felt okay.  I was comfortable talking about things that had come up over the weekend.  I even brought up how i threw away my old house keys and how my mother used them to keep me under control.  Then the conversation developed into how some mother-daughter sexual abusers tend to be pathological liars.  Yep.  My mother certainly fit that mold.  And you always had to believe everything she said, no matter how wild it was, no matter how wrong it was.  If you defied her truth, you were punished for it.  Eventually I learned to just go along with whatever she said, even though intellectually I knew she was wrong (even at a young age).  I think that’s where my brother and I differ.  He never had the intelligence and know-better to realize her lies were really lies; that’s why he’s still brainwashed, and I’ve been able to take a different path.  I told my therapist I sometimes see my intelligence as a bad thing, because I think understanding so much of what went on hurts more than just living in ignorance.  Then she said if I wasn’t intelligent enough to have those realizations, I would have been brainwashed, and where would I be now?  Still at home, still a victim.  I guess she’s right.

My therapist asked me what things my mother would say that I knew weren’t true.  I told her I didn’t want to think about that.  I was trying to think about anyone else but my mother and her bullshit.  But it wasn’t working.  And the thoughts came.  And then I remembered how she believed I was the devil’s child.  I guess she treated me like one, too.  And I remember reaching an age where I knew the devil couldn’t be my father.  All this time she lied to me.  But it’s like she believed it.  She believed I was evil.  But in reality, I was born from her.  So evil breeds evil, doesn’t it?

And then I went off to dissociation land.  I’m not sure for how long.  It was Anna again.  I guess my therapist convinced her to color instead of scratching her (my?) skin off (thankfully only minimal damage this time).  She drew flowers and a yellow dog.  My therapist asked me if I wanted to keep it, or have her keep it.  I said she should keep it, since Anna likes her better.  I realize now that was kind of a hurtful response towards Anna, but it’s how I felt at the time.  I still feel disconnected with her.  It’s something I am still working on.

Shortly after coming back to reality, I was hit with a flashback.  Out of nowhere.  Why?  Why is this happening now?  I pulled my hood over my face and tried to hide.  My therapist had no idea what was going on.  She sat next to me and tried to comfort me, but I was still hiding in my hood, trying not to cry, trying to find words, trying just to breathe.  Finally she asked if I was having a flashback and I was able to tell her yes.  I was trying to regulate my breathing so I wouldn’t throw myself into a panic.  My therapist was breathing with me.  Despite my efforts, that shit was still in my head.  I didn’t know why.  Why is my mother burning me?  My therapist kept telling me it’s over now, she’s not going to do it again.  In that moment, I was just waiting for her to come through the door and do it again.  I’m a bad child.  Here comes my punishment.

Sometimes I think I fail at therapy.  What if it’s better to just keep all of these things suppressed so I don’t have to deal with them?  What good is this doing?  Therapy ran over two hours, and I missed the bus back home.  So my therapist told me I could wait out in the waiting room until the bus.  She gave me some water, some snacks, and a couple of books to read.  My mind was still out of it, but I felt safe.  Then when it got closer to the time I had to leave, I started to panic again.  I didn’t want to go home and be alone with my thoughts.  Being alone is dangerous.  I went to say goodbye to my therapist and went to give her a hug, and had such mixed feelings.  I literally went from “I can’t hug you anymore” to “Please don’t let go” within 20 seconds.  My mind was racing and I didn’t really know what to do.  She asked me what she could do to help me.  I said I didn’t know.  I said I didn’t want to leave.  So she gave me another book to read and I went and sat back down.

I soon felt myself dissociating again.  I didn’t have the energy to stop it.  I was in a weird place, as if I had gone back to believing I was that evil child that needed to be punished.  And something was telling me I needed to be punished.  But yet part of me was aware of what was going on.  Part of me knew that by going home, I was putting myself at risk.  I knew I would do something dangerous.  I was thinking of different ways I could seriously hurt or kill myself, all of which were fully accessible at home.  So I did what I could to stay out and about.  I even waited in the lobby for another two hours (once my therapist left), going in and out of dissociation (I only know because I saw the marks from me clawing at myself) before I left the building.

I left the house at 9:30 in the morning to get to therapy and didn’t get home until nearly 8 hours later.  But it’s what I needed to do to stay safe.  I’m not the most mentally stable right now, but I’m not where I was before.  Some part of me fights endlessly to live, even when another part insists on my ultimate death.  And here I am, stuck in the middle of the tug-of-war.  This happens all of the time.  I should be used to it by now.  At least I managed to stay out of a hospital (for now).  I do have to e-mail my therapist, though.  She needs to make sure I am safe.  Even though I tell her I’m fine, she knows when I’m really not fine.  I just struggle with describing all the shit that goes through my head all of the time.

Some books for Anna, some books for me.

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I went to the bookstore for Anna today.

I was exhausted after work, but I knew that it was something that I should do for her.  I walked around the children’s section for a while to see if anything jumped out at me.  They really didn’t have anything with doggies.  Then I found the coloring and activity section.  I saw Press Out Pets book with dogs.  I didn’t know what it was at first, I just saw dogs and picked it up.  Apparently they are like paper dolls, but in dog form.  I thought Anna would like it, so I held onto it.  Then I started sorting through the coloring books trying to find something with doggies.  I thought this task would be a lot easier than it was.  I went through the entire aisle and didn’t find anything with just doggies.  Then I went over it one more time and noticed something that said Paw Patrol.  I guess it’s a cartoon or something.  Perfect.  A coloring book full of doggies.  Anna will love it.  Oddly enough, hidden behind it was a beaten up Sesame Street coloring book that looked like it was from the 90s.  I remembered my therapist mentioning that Anna liked Sesame Street.  So I picked that up, too.  Hopefully Anna will be happy.  Maybe she can help me with the Sesame Street, because aside from Elmo being red, I’m not sure I know anyone else.

I have a short day at work tomorrow, so I am going to spend the rest of the day doing things that Anna would want to do.  Maybe it will help me connect with her.  I don’t really know how this works.  I hope I’m doing this right.  I’m trying.

In an effort to educate myself, I ordered a dozen or so books on DID and dissociation.  What I know is what I’ve learned through psychology courses.  I feel that now since I have it, and that I will be blogging on an open forum about it, I should educate myself as much as possible about it.  How can I expect others to look to me for help when I don’t know what I’m talking about?  I wish I had an alter that liked to read.  THAT would be helpful.

Doggies and flowers

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Anna made a request today.

She wants to color doggies and flowers.  She told my therapist to tell me that.

Apparently she likes to color.  Which is odd, because I go through periods where I just need to sit down and color.  I haven’t in a while, though.  Luckily for Anna, I packed my crayons and a few coloring books when I moved.  I don’t think I have doggies, but I know I have flowers.  I hope that will be enough to make her happy.

I’m not sure why she came out today.  I really wanted to get through a session without dissociating.  Hell, I want to get through a day without dissociating.  I started to talk about how the past week or so has been very low for me.  I didn’t even get into the increased dissociation, just the emotional numbness, brain fog, and wanting to die.  I find it extremely frustrating/exhausting/confusing how I can be taking so many steps forward, and then within minutes, thoughts of dying take over inside my head.  Then it takes a massive effort to suppress those thoughts and not act on them.  I’m tired.  I don’t have the energy for this.  Why?  Why do I have to go through this all the time?  I told my therapist that no one cares.  Then she asked me if I thought that she didn’t care.  I corrected myself and told her I didn’t want anyone to care.  She asked me why, and I kept telling her it didn’t matter.  The reality is that it is easier to completely self-destruct when you know that no one cares about you anyway.  What scares me is that there are parts of me that believe that no one cares about them; there is nothing to stop them from total self-destruction.

I remember trying to keep myself present, but it was a struggle at that point.  My mind was reaching that clusterfuck stage and I was starting to lose my sense of reality.  I remember my therapist coming to sit next to me and that was it.  When I came back, my therapist was kneeling next to me holding a pillow up to my hands, asking if I was back.  Sometimes it feels like I’m waking up from a dream.  Sometimes it feels like I’m just way too drunk and lose sense of what’s going on.  It’s hard to explain.  I must have been fighting her off somewhat because she joked that I was too strong for her.  Then I saw my hand, swollen and raw.  The blood was still under my fingernails.  I’m sure she was trying her hardest to stop me, but I was a 7 year-old in a 29 year-old’s body.  What was she supposed to do?

I guess Anna is still afraid of talking too much.  My therapist did say that Anna feels like I am ignoring her.  I am ignoring her, I guess.  I don’t even really know her.  I don’t talk to her.  The only way she makes herself known to me is when I find missing patches of skin on my arms; then I know she was here.  How am I supposed to not ignore someone I don’t know?  I’m sorry, Anna.  I’ll try harder, I guess.  I’m still new to this.  I’m still learning.

Wandering in dissociation

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

My therapist was so happy to hear of my small accomplishments over the weekend: spending the day at the movies, going grocery shopping, buying vitamins, and trying carrots for the first time.  I also told her I went to the book store on Sunday and spent hours going through the Psychology section and picking out whatever books interested me.  I even picked up a book on writing and a GRE prep book.  She said it’s all a part of self-care and doing positive things for myself.

Then I told her how I just find places to go because I don’t want to go home.  I told her I didn’t really have a reason not to want to be home, but I just didn’t feel safe there.  Nothing specific happened, although there have been incidents in the past.  My therapist reminded me that even though it may seem physically safe in the moment, it hasn’t been in the past and it hasn’t been an emotionally safe place, either.  I guess I’ve just assumed that any place that is not my family home is a safe place.

Some days I leave the house at 5 AM and don’t get home until dark.  I try to hang around in stores or in public places.  If it’s late, I wander the streets.  Somehow, I always end up home.  Even if I end up in a place I don’t know, I have my phone and can map out a way back home.  I was trying to avoid going into detail because I knew what was coming.  She asked if I was present during all these times.  I looked around the room trying to avoid answering the question.  I didn’t want to get into it.  The truth is I know that I dissociate during those times.  I end up in places and I don’t know how I got there.  But at least I got there in one piece and I’ve been able to get home.  I don’t want to hear how dangerous it is.  Just let me wander.

My dissociation has been a little out of control lately, and I know that.  I took a 40 minute shower yesterday.  I was only present for about five minutes of it.  This morning I dissociated at work, thankfully not long enough for anyone to notice.  One day, I’m not going to be that lucky.

I am hoping the increase is temporary.  I have been under a lot of stress lately.  My anxiety is a little high (and I am sans good anxiety medication), my sleep has been shitty, I’ve been stressing about the new blog opportunity, about my friend issues, and about work.  It’s just a lot.  My mind is on overload.  I became so overwhelmed at therapy yesterday that I just wanted to give up.  I told my therapist I didn’t need therapy anymore.  The truth was that I was exhausted.  I just wanted to cry, but I didn’t even have the energy to do that.  Part of me was giving up.  But another part of me started to fight back.  The battle continues.

Eight Weeks

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

It’s been eight weeks now.  I’m still free.  I’m still alive.

I have bad days.  I have okay days.  I never really have good days, but that’s okay; there’s still time for those.

Physically, I could be better.  I’ve lost over 30 pounds.  I know it’s from a combination of not eating enough and being sick.  It’s not that I can’t afford to lose it, because I can, but that’s a lot to lose in a short period of time.  I’m trying to make a conscious effort to eat, but it’s difficult.  My roommate does her best to try to get me to eat.  She’s even tried to memorize the foods I eat and the foods I absolutely will not touch.  The other night, my roommate’s boyfriend asked if I wanted a garlic knot.  I reluctantly obliged.  He was so genuinely happy that I wanted to eat something that he shouted out in celebration.  Small steps.  I also made a promise to my therapist that I would at least start taking vitamins.  She actually found a vitamin for me that was chewable and non-fruit-flavored, so I have no excuses not to take it.

My foot is feeling a little better.  I’ve been upgraded to a space boot that goes up to my calf.  I’m supposed to wear the boot for at least two more weeks until I go back to the orthopedist again.  I’m also supposed to use crutches, but I was a little rebellious today and decided at the last second to go without.  I did fine.  I walked a lot slower than I would have if I used the crutches, but that’s okay.  But I didn’t fall.  I’m still standing.  The orthopedist mentioned I had quite a few old fractures show on x-ray.  All I could think was yea, I’m sure there are old fractures all over my body.  It’s probably why I have so many issues with bone pain now, and why I have random bone spurs throughout my body.  I guess my body wants to remind me of that pain again.

I had a bit of a meltdown last night.  I had this weekend off of work (which never happens, and will likely never happen again for a long time), so I was planning to go back and visit my very good friends back home (Is it really home?  I don’t know what to call it.).  I had mentioned it to my therapist in yesterday’s session and told her that I worked out all the possible scenarios in my head and it still seemed like it would be more of a positive thing for me.  I miss them more than anything.  Aside from my therapist and my roommate, I am alone here.  I told my friend and he seemed happy.  Then I text my other friend about it.  She said that was great, then she said “so are you visiting your parents?”  My heart sank and I became overwhelmed with emotions.  Why would I visit the very people I ran away from?  It’s not like my friend is not aware of the situation; she knows, though not in detail, what my mother has done to me.  Is that not enough of a reason for me to leave?  Does she not believe me?  I don’t understand it.  I shouldn’t have to justify why I want nothing to do with them.  I feel like she is on their side and not on mine.  I also felt, at that point, that by visiting her, I could be risking my own safety if she told my mother I was coming.

I had so much running through my head last night and couldn’t get myself together, so I e-mailed my therapist.  That in itself is a big step for me, because I rarely if ever reach out when I need it.  She e-mailed me back in the middle of the night.  I checked my e-mail around 3 AM and read her thorough response, and I knew that going back wasn’t the right thing to do.  Ultimately, she said if I had any doubt in my mind about my ability to trust these friends, that it is most important to protect myself and my new life here.  Unfortunately, when I hear/read comments like I did from my friend, my ability to trust that friend becomes damaged.  There is a disconnect somewhere and I don’t know how to fix it.  I can’t make someone understand something they are choosing not to accept.  My therapist told me I need to advocate for myself if this friend continues to play devil’s advocate; if that doesn’t work, the relationship may just not be worth the effort.  I have to put energy into my new life.  I don’t want to have to waste energy in unnecessarily deflecting dangers from my past when they can just as easily be avoided.  It’s sad.  It makes me cry just thinking about it (I’m crying as I type this damn sentence).  But I have to do what’s best for me for once.  It just bothers me that in the end, I’m once again going to look like the shitty person.

It just sucks because I feel alone as it is.  I can’t afford to lose more people.  While I have made a couple new friends, it takes a lot of time and effort to build strong relationships.  I turned down spending time with a friend today because I thought I was going to visit back home, and instead I ended up by myself.  Maybe I needed it.  Who knows.  I’m not really sure what I need.

I’m still having trouble coming to terms with my diagnosis.  I mean, I’m getting there…slowly…reluctantly.  My therapist told me that my prognosis is good.  She could have just been trying to make me feel better.  Who knows.  She said I’m intelligent and functioning; I guess that plays in my favor.  It’d just be so much easier if I didn’t dissociate.  Most ‘normal’ people don’t even understand dissociation.  How are they going to understand me?