therapy

Group workshop

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I had a group therapy workshop today for my survivor group.

I wish I could have been fully there, but I wasn’t.

I hadn’t slept much the night before. I was fighting off the urge to self-destruct. There was so much commotion going on inside and I couldn’t quiet it down enough to sleep. Before I knew it, it was 4 AM and I had to get up for work. Then the commotion decided to quiet down. I managed to make it through the disastrous work day (everything that could go wrong, went wrong), changed my clothes, and caught the bus to make it to group just in time.

I made it through the first session okay. The next session was a mess. One of the therapists made a statement that no one is 100% evil, and that set something off. The commotion came back. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t even come up with answers. My therapist came over to check on me, but I told her I was okay. I wasn’t. I must have been drifting because she came back with a cup of water and told me to drink. I didn’t want to drink. I wanted the clusterfuck in my head to go away.

We had a break after session and the other therapist told me to stand up and walk around to help get me back to the present. I walked out to the waiting area and my therapist came out and checked on me. I told her I was fine (my default response to any question asking how I am doing). But she knew I wasn’t. She saw me struggling. I told her the voices were back and calling me evil, but that I was just going to ignore them. Then she reminded me that ignoring them hasn’t worked in the past, it only makes them worse.

My therapist didn’t think I was ready to go back to group, so I ended up missing most of the next group session talking to her one-on-one. She told me that I should tell the inside that they can be heard tomorrow during our therapy session, but that right now I had something really important I needed to focus on to help us all get better. I’m not very good at communicating with the inside. I tend to respond out of anger and frustration or ignore them because I just don’t have the energy to negotiate. I also still have trouble acknowledging that I am conversing with intangible parts that exist in my head. How does this not make me crazy?

I eventually went back to session, but my focus still wasn’t there. I was going in and out of it. I was feeling very negative overall and I didn’t want to share my negativity with the group. I couldn’t even think anymore. I just wanted some peace. I just wanted to go to sleep. All I could feel was the nausea that has become so normal for me. I couldn’t even connect to my own body. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to feel anything. I didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that my mother still affects me. I didn’t want to acknowledge that my mother broke me as a child and completely shattered me as an adult.

We ended the group with coloring. Normally I love coloring. This time, I couldn’t get myself to enjoy it. It was too mentally draining. I ended up coloring in a picture of flowers with the word HOPE in the middle. I colored it black, the least hopeful color there is. I don’t even know why I did it. The therapist noticed and asked me about the reason for my color choice, and I shrugged my shoulders. If I could, I would have colored everything black right then.

As I was making sure I had everything before I left, the therapist came out and handed me the coloring set she got for us to color with in the last session. She told me she wanted me to have it. She knew my financial situation isn’t the best. It was such a small gesture but extremely difficult for me to accept. I don’t like receiving help from anyone. That wasn’t the end of it, either. I was so overwhelmed with everything – the session, the gestures of kindness – that when the therapist gave me a hug, I just started to cry. I tried to keep it in, but I couldn’t. I stood there, crying and sniffling into her shoulder as she tried to comfort me. I tried to wipe my tears away before anyone else saw me. Then my therapist came over and asked to hug me and I lost it again. I was such an emotional mess, I was shaking. I had to let go and leave before I completely broke down.

I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t know where I wanted to go. But it was getting late and I knew it was dangerous for me to be walking around in the dark half out of it, so I walked home.

I’m still an emotional mess. I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep. I want to cry, but I’m too tired. I’m hungry, but the nausea is so bad that I can’t eat.

This is another example of how my life changes day by day. I was functioning fine yesterday. Today has been a train wreck. Now I have to see how therapy goes tomorrow. I almost considered not going because I just don’t want to deal right now. But deep down, I know avoiding will get me nowhere.

Without a name

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I’m disappointed in myself.

Apparently a new part came out to my therapist today. I don’t know her (my therapist is assuming she is a girl) name, only that she is 12 years old. I guess she and my therapist talked for a long time because my session ran over two hours. I wish I was there for the conversation.

She told my therapist she thought I was mad at her. I guess she heard(?) my increasing frustration over the last week or so about peeing my pants. I didn’t blame anyone but myself – it’s an issue I’ve dealt with for most of my life, and just as likely for those time periods in which I have no memories of. She took my self-criticizing and I presume believed that I was criticizing her; she told my therapist that she pees herself out of fear.

As my therapist is relaying some of the conversation back to me, I’m sitting on the couch across from her thinking how horrible of a person I am. In criticizing myself, I hurt another part of me in the process. I still have difficulty acknowledging that these parts can hear me. I forget that they are there. I lied. It’s not that I have forgotten. I purposely try to ignore their existence at times because I just don’t want to deal with it. I still refer to myself as I and not we. I don’t talk about my system. I haven’t yet owned my DID. And now, I’ve become just another person who has hurt these parts. I’m sure they’ve been hurt enough. I hate that I have added to their burden. It’s no wonder most of them are in hiding. I’d hide from me, too.

With my background in psychology, I should know better. Yet here I am, damaging my own parts as if they haven’t been damaged enough. There’s no handbook for this. I could read all the books in the world and still not have all the answers. This shit isn’t easy.

I just want a simple life.

She always knows

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

Today’s therapy session included quite a bit of discussion about my mother. Fortunately, I was able to stay present through the entire session. Progress.

My therapist asked if I would have ever started this blog while I was still living with my family. I quickly answered no. The risk was too great for my mother finding out, and when she did find out, I would have had nowhere to hide. I knew there was spyware on my computer; that had been an ongoing practice for a long time. I learned to do most things on my phone so she wouldn’t be able to trace anything.

Then mentioning the phone led me to bring up the first time I tried to have my own phone. I was in my 20s, and didn’t want my mother knowing everything I had done and everyone I had contacted on my phone and going through interrogations about it, so I bought a cheap Tracfone and did the majority of my texting and calling on that phone. I thought I hid it well; I actually bought a phone small enough that I could hide it behind my other phone and have them both in one holster case. But then one day, I went with my brother to pick up food after work and he said “we know you have another phone; we found the empty package in your room.” My heart started racing, because I knew this meant trouble. My mother was not going to be happy. I was in for it. What is even more sad is that I became angry with myself for not hiding the package well enough. It was wrapped inside of plastic bags, then put inside of a book bag underneath some other things, which means my mother had to go through several obstacles just to find that empty phone package.

My therapist seemed surprised at first that my mother would go to such lengths. But this was a regular part of my existence. She would inspect my room and my things regularly. My brother participated right alongside her, as if he were her sidekick. I always knew when they were in my room because they could never put anything back right, and it annoyed me just as much as them going through my things. My desk, drawers, bags, and my nightstand. They would even go through the clothes in my dresser, and my laundry hamper; even my trash was inspected. I tried to hide things wherever I could. I’d cut sections out of books to hide cash in. I’d stuff things inside of pillows. I had to get creative. When I wanted to throw something away and needed to avoid interrogation, I’d hide it in my purse and bring it to work to throw away there. It was an exhausting way to live. It was, almost literally, a home prison.

After I disclosed some of my mother’s controlling ways, my therapist seemed to understand where my fears of my mother finding things out came from. My therapist told me that a few of my parts have this intense fear of mother finding out that they’ve talked or that they’ve done something, and now she sees exactly where that stems from. My mother has been that way for as long as I can remember. As an adult, obviously I knew how she found everything out because I knew more and was aware of her ways. As a child, I believed she had some magical power that caused her to know everything I said or did. It’s why I was so fearful. I’m guessing that’s why my parts are fearful, too.

My therapist asked if I see my mother’s seeming ability to know everything differently now than I did as a child. Obviously I don’t think she has magical powers anymore. Looking back, I have to wonder if she just got lucky those times she did find things out. There were so many times she falsely accused me of talking or of doing something that I never actually did. Did she just consistently make accusations and when they happened to be true, they stuck with me? I’ll probably never have a real answer to that question. I’m forever trying to rationalize the irrational.

Therapy Thursday

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

My therapy sessions on Thursdays always seem to be the most intense compared to the other sessions during the week. This week was no exception. My general exhaustion probably didn’t make it any easier on myself or on my therapist. It was a disaster.

It started out okay. I talked about work. Both my jobs seem to be going really well. I am getting a lot of positive feedback which is a little surprising to me, because I spent ten and a half years at a job where I was made to feel as if they were doing me a favor by keeping me. I had mentioned in an e-mail to my therapist that I was working on grad school applications in between job shifts. She asked me about it in session today. I told her I didn’t get far, I still had to write the essay. She asked where I was applying to, and for what program. I’m not striving for much, just the bare minimum. Then she asked me if I would consider doing a doctorate program instead of just a masters. What? Me? I can barely function as it is now and I’m not even in school yet. I don’t even know if I can handle a masters program, and now you’re throwing the idea of a doctorate at me? Do you know who I am? I’m in therapy so much it feels like a part-time job sometimes. How am I supposed to function in a doctorate program?

Then she had to go and say it. “You’re smart enough for it.” No. No. I’m not smart. Please, let’s pretend I’m not smart. Let’s pretend I’m of average intelligence, or better yet, below average. My mother hated that I was more intelligent than she was. She always made me feel like shit about it from an early age, whether it be through negative comments or smacks to the face. She resented me for being intelligent. I think I ended up internalizing that negativity.

I knew what was going to happen once my therapist went down that road. Initiate downward spiral. Cue the negative voices in my head. Here comes the nausea. I sat there and tried to listen to my therapist the best I could, but it’s hard to focus when all I could really hear is the commotion going on inside my head. My therapist could tell I was struggling so she came and sat next to me to hold my hand and help keep me connected to the real world. She asked me what the voices were saying, but I didn’t want to tell her. They were saying horrible things. Then she asked who was saying them, if it was my voice or Charlie’s voice. But it was neither of ours. Then she asked if I thought I had other parts besides Charlie and Anna and K. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t need any more parts. I can’t handle any more parts, especially parts that seem to act just like the abusive people in my life. No. Just no.

Then I told my therapist I should have stayed home. She thought I meant stay home from therapy. I really meant stay home and not move away. I wouldn’t be struggling to keep myself together, to keep a roof over my head, and be minimally fed if I had just stayed home. I’m slowly killing myself here. How is it any different? I’m making progress, but at what cost? I don’t know.

If that wasn’t enough, I reverted back into what I call my “evil child syndrome”. I tried fervently to convince my therapist that I was evil, but she just didn’t get it. I told her she couldn’t see it because it was inside of me, but she had to trust me that it was there. She couldn’t see it yet because she doesn’t know me well enough. But she wouldn’t listen to me. I turned away from her in frustration. She said that those things my mother told me were lies. But mothers don’t lie. One day my therapist will see the evil in me.

I went out of it for a little after that. I remember getting really angry and pulling away from my therapist because I didn’t want to hurt her. I came back holding a black crayon. Not a surprising choice at all. Black is my color of choice when it comes to anger. I wish I remember what I colored. Maybe it will come to me later. Does my therapist keep these things? Does she have a folder with these monstrosities I create in therapy? My God, how embarrassing. I need to stop.

No more therapy.

A question of worth

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

I fell into a dark place while in therapy yesterday.

I’m still sort of there, hanging on with one arm, with my head turned over my shoulder and looking into the darkness, waiting for the moment I lose my grip.

My therapist asked me to come up with some positive things I could do for myself, and some things we could do in therapy to help transition from dealing with trauma to going back into the real world. My mind just went blank. I looked around the room aimlessly, stared at my hands, stared at the floor…I even closed my eyes hoping an answer would come into my mind. But nothing came. This wasn’t the first time. Any time she asks me these types of questions, I draw a blank. It shouldn’t be this hard to come up with answers. What is wrong with me?

After several sighs and “I don’t know”s, my therapist finally asked me if I believed I was worthy of these things. No. Sometimes I struggle with believing I am worthy enough to be breathing, let alone to be engaging in any remotely positive things. Then I felt myself sinking. I managed to stay grounded for the most part, but I felt like I reverted right back to being my mother’s child. I apologized profusely, which is a habit of mine. I feel like I am constantly bothering other people, and am compelled to apologize for it. I just kept telling my therapist that it was all my fault. Something was wrong with me. Something must be wrong with me. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. My therapist kept trying to convince me that it wasn’t, but I know it was. She mentioned the possibility of my parents being mentally ill. Could a person (specifically my mother) be mentally ill and still appear so normal on the outside? That doesn’t even matter anyway. It was still my fault. I was the only one treated that badly. The defect lies in me.

I grew up believing my purpose in this life was to be abused. I had no self-worth. I have no self-worth now. It’s hard for me to accept when people say something positive because I question their intentions; it’s just not something I’m used to. My therapist asked me if I believed the things she said about me. I said she had to say those things because she was my therapist. When she said that she said those things because they were true and because she cared, my immediate response was “please don’t care about me.” I don’t want people to care. I needed people to care years ago when I was a child in desperate need of saving. Now I am adult who has lost the ability to trust people. Part of that is due to being raised to believe no one could be trusted, and part of that is due to witnessing the actions (or lack thereof) of people in my life when it came to what was happening to me.

Trust no one, fear everything, don’t talk, you’re evil…these are programs that have been downloaded into me since childhood that I have yet to be able to delete. They are like those programs on your computer that run in the background and you don’t even realize that they’re there; they are automatic, and they’re always taking up space. How can I ever feel like I am worth anything when these thoughts are constantly running in the background of my mind? How can I be worth anything when I am so incredibly damaged?

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.

Dreams

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

I had my first series of dreams last night.

It’s funny because ever since I started taking Prazosin for nightmares and sleep disturbances, I haven’t even had any dreams.  I brought it up to my therapist a couple of weeks ago.  I sort of missed having dreams.  While I appreciate not having nightmares, dreams had provided a nice escape…a break up of the monotony of sleep.  I actually contemplated writing a blog post about it a few days ago, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

I will say, my sleep the past week or so has been increasingly worse.  While I’m not having nightmares (that I can recall, at least), my startle response is extremely heightened.  I wake up at every little noise.  I wake up every time the cat meows.  Sometimes I wake up and I don’t even know why.  Then it takes what seems like forever to get back to sleep before I’m startled again.  I’m not sure if my PTSD is just getting worse or the medication is not working as efficiently.  I know the psychiatrist in the hospital told me both medications (Prazosin and Topamax) have to be slowly increased because they stop working.  I didn’t expect that to happen in less than two months.  I’ve been horrible at getting in contact with the social worker to get an appointment with the psychiatrist scheduled.  I really need to work on that since I’m out of refills after this month.

I can’t remember all of the details of my dreams now that I’ve been awake and about. But I remember deciphering that the meaning had a lot to do with me undertaking the blogging job and speaking out against my mother.  I got the impression from my dreams that this was something I was meant to do.  I’ve probably been reading too much Carl Jung in my free time.  Here I am analyzing my own dreams, now.  Lord, help me.  If only I could be my own therapist.