therapy

It could be worse

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

I woke up this morning feeling the most neutral I had felt in days. I didn’t have to wake up early for work, so I slept in. I took my time getting dressed and ready for my therapy appointment in the afternoon. I wasn’t in a rush. I wasn’t feeling anxious. I wasn’t crying. I just was.

Until I found myself lying on the ground surrounded by strangers.

I don’t really know what happened. I got off the bus, just like I always do, and somehow ended up on the ground ten feet away. I didn’t realize that I fell until I saw the scrapes on the palms of my hands. Then I noticed the people. I didn’t see their faces, just their legs. And so many voices. Are you okay? Do you need help? What happened? They kept reaching out to help me, but I didn’t want their help. I wanted them to go away.

One of the bystanders was about to call an ambulance, but I shook my head no. That was enough motivation to get me out of my head well enough to get up off the ground (with the help of two or three people). I hobbled over to the bench and just sat there, trying to figure out what to do. My therapy appointment was in an hour. I couldn’t miss it. There was no way I could make it home to clean up and back in time for session.

So I sat on the bench and I tried not to cry. I tried not to feel. I told myself I was okay. I have to be strong. There is no time to be hurt.

After ten minutes or so, a man came by and asked to sit. I didn’t feel ready to get up. This man didn’t know anything, and I couldn’t tell him. So without saying a word, I got up and let him sit. I managed to walk across the street to the coffee shop, hoping to find a seat there, only to realize that school was out early, and the shop was overrun by teenagers. I propped myself up against the wall, unable to ask if someone would give up their chair. Within the span of minutes, I failed to assert my needs not only once, but twice.

I thought about how I was going to explain this to my therapist. I didn’t really know what happened. I just spaced out. Or tripped. Or got dizzy. I don’t know. I hadn’t eaten. I was afraid she would ask about that. I know I didn’t fall out of hunger. I’ve gone much longer without eating and I’ve been fine. I didn’t want that to come up as a possibility. I just wanted it to be a fall. Everyone falls. And I am fine.

I was so disconnected, I didn’t notice the blood on my shirt sleeve. My elbow was bleeding the whole time. This should be hurting. I should feel this hurting.

When I got to therapy, I stopped in the bathroom. I saw my knee, already swollen and bruising. I didn’t want to panic. I told myself it could be worse. I told myself that if I could walk on it, it must be fine.

Then all I could think about was what could go wrong. I thought about last year, when I fell in the street. How I dragged myself to the corner, got back up, and walked the rest of the way to the bus stop and went to work. I thought I was fine. Until I found out I had broken my foot. I spent the day walking on a broken foot like it was nothing. And that scares me.

I didn’t want to tell my therapist at all. I didn’t have enough time to process all of it. But I started to break down before I even stepped in to her office. I had to pull myself together. I told her I was okay. I’m always okay. I didn’t want her to see that I wasn’t. I didn’t even want to see that I wasn’t.

I cleaned myself up when I got home. I looked at my knee. More bruising. More swelling. But I couldn’t connect with the pain. Why can’t I always connect with pain? It’s easy when my emotions are activated. Then I feel everything. But when I am numb, I am numb to everything. I need some kind of in between.

How could I explain that to a doctor? They ask about levels of pain and I find myself struggling between what I actually feel in the moment and what I know it should be. Tell a doctor you’re not in pain, and you’re automatically dismissed. It’s one reason I try to avoid emergency situations. They cause me more anxiety than the injuries themselves.

Now I am sitting here rationalizing my avoidance. It could be worse. This is nothing. I don’t really have the time to be in pain. This will go away.

I know these rationalizations well. They are the same lines I’ve told myself since childhood, all stemming from the belief that I am unworthy of care, the belief my parents taught me. The man at the bench. The kids at the coffee shop. Everyone else on earth. They all matter more than me.

I know better than this. So why am I still living my life by their rules?

The Cost of Silence, Part 1

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

When I was in first grade, my teacher gave me a small plush bunny. She told me to hold on to it, that it would help me feel safe. And I did. I held on to it for years. I never thought anything of it.

While I was shopping in a store awhile back, I came across a small plush bunny. The bunny looked just like the one my teacher had given me. I remembered. I remembered everything. Then I immediately pushed it all away.

It was not the sweet childhood memory it should have been. It was much more complicated than that. And I didn’t want to bring it all up, so I pushed it back down and buried it and pretended like that memory didn’t exist.

Until the memory came up again. I was sitting in therapy, trying to think of childhood memories, and that memory popped through once again. I smiled at first because I felt the care I was given when my teacher gave 7 year-old me that bunny. Then my smile disappeared and I remembered things I didn’t want to remember. I had thoughts I didn’t want to think about.

I wanted to bury it all again. I didn’t want to think about what that memory meant. I didn’t want to feel the pain in my heart. But I did. And all I could do was cry.

Why did that teacher give me that bunny? Why did she tell me it would help me feel safe? Why did she think I needed to feel safe?

Those were the questions I thought of when that memory first came up, and I immediately pushed it all back down. In my adult mind, I knew the answers, and they were the answers that I did not want to hear. They were the answers I could not handle. And here they were, coming up again. I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t want to face the reality of what it all meant. The possibility that my teacher knew the truth, that she knew I was being abused.

My child self may have thought that bunny helped, because my child self didn’t know any better. But my adult self knows that a bunny wasn’t going to help me. A bunny wasn’t what I needed to be safe. A bunny wasn’t going to stop my mother from hurting me. I needed someone to help me. I needed someone to be my voice. Instead all I got was a plush bunny.

That teacher wasn’t the only person to stay silent. There were others: teachers, family members, family friends. Some of them admitted that they knew something was going on but just didn’t want to get involved, they didn’t want to cross any lines. Then there were other people who had to have known, but just ignored the signs.

It hurts. Sometimes it hurts worse than what my mother and father did to me. I think that it’s hard for people to understand. It doesn’t make much logical sense. How could being ignored hurt worse than the actual abuse?

It’s a different type of pain. It’s not the sting from a cut or the ache from a bruise or shooting pain of a broken bone. It’s a deep pain in your heart. The pain of being invisible. The pain of being unworthy of anyone’s love or attention. The pain of being so worthless that no one would help you.

My parents always told me to stay silent. Did they tell all of those other people, too? Why did no one speak for me? Why didn’t they help? Why did they stay silent? How was I supposed to know I mattered if no one ever acted like I mattered?

I was a child who held out hope that someone would save me. I needed to matter to someone. I needed to be seen. But time and time again, people turned their backs on me. I wanted my parents to be wrong. Instead I grew up believing they must have been right.

Don’t shatter my fantasy

~ KJ ~ 7 Comments

I’m juggling a lot of emotions right now. Anger. Sadness. Mostly anger, though. I’m not really sure I want to feel any of it, but I think I have to. I’ve buried enough anger throughout the years to know that burying it doesn’t make it go away.

Anger is not a dead body that stays forgotten beneath the surface once you bury it.  Anger is a seed that grows into weeds that grow and take over until you dig them up. The anger seeps into everything you do, until the day you dig it back out. But by then it takes so much effort to get rid of the anger, that you start to question why you buried it in the first place. It takes much more effort to bury and dig than to embrace and release.

So I am letting myself be angry. I’m not burying anything. But now my problem is directing my anger in the right place.

At first, I directed the anger towards my therapist. I left our therapy session on Thursday uncomfortably angry. I felt the walls of my life breaking down and she was the one doing the breaking.

I shared a part of my childhood with her, a part that I had never connected to anything other than childhood oddity. I’ve shared it with other people over the years, largely because it was one of the very few parts of my childhood that I didn’t associate with anything bad, so never felt any pain in sharing it. Some people thought it was funny, and some were grossed out. But no one ever thought it was sad. That is, until Thursday.

Don’t you think that’s sad?

What? Why does she think this is sad? It’s not. Please laugh. Please be grossed out. Please be something, anything, but please, don’t make this sad.

The thoughts started running through my mind. Why didn’t I realize this all before?  This wasn’t just a weird childhood behavior. Healthy children don’t save their poop and hide it. But I did. I held on to it because I didn’t want to lose any more pieces of myself than I already lost. It is sad.

But I couldn’t connect with the sadness right away. Instead I connected with anger.

I spent all these years believing in the innocence of something only to have it all turned upside down. Why? Why is this being taken away from me? I’ve already lost so much, and now I’m losing things I didn’t even realize I never had to begin with. I lost my good family. Now I’m losing my good childhood. This wasn’t just about the poop. This was about all of the snippets of my childhood that I held onto as being good and innocent. They’ve all been ripped away from me.

I believed in a fantasy, much like children believe in Santa Claus. But children don’t believe in Santa forever. Eventually someone comes along, tells them the truth, and shatters the fantasy.

And there my therapist was, telling me the truth and shattering the fantasy of my childhood. And I was mad. Mad at her for taking this good away from me. Why did she want me to see the truth? Why couldn’t she just let me believe in the magic a little longer? Doesn’t she know I’ve lost enough already?

I didn’t say anything. I swallowed my anger and let it burn, because part of me knew that this really wasn’t my therapist’s fault. It was mine.

I didn’t see the connection all this time. It all became so obvious when my therapist started talking about it, but it was everything I should have already known, that I did already know but chose to ignore. It was my fault. The truth was there and I avoided it the whole time. I rationalized what shouldn’t have been rationalized. I minimized something that wasn’t minimal at all. This was my fault. Now I am angry at me.

I have been putting so much time and energy into holding onto pebbles, holding onto the smallest bits of seemingly neutral life experiences, that I’ve been ignoring the giant mountain of trauma right behind me. I don’t want to acknowledge that those pebbles aren’t really just pebbles; they are actually pieces of the mountain that managed to break off and roll down without hurting me.

The realization that those parts of my childhood that I have been holding on to for so long are not what I thought they were is hard to accept. It’s another loss, in  my already overwhelming abyss of all I’ve lost already. It’s a deep sadness that I am not sure I can ever get out of.

I am angry. I am sad. Now make it all go away.

Dear K Explained

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

After I posted the letter to K last night, I was emotionally exhausted. It was the first time I read the letter in its entirety, and the emotions I had experienced during the last three days of writing it had hit me all at once. I wanted to write more, I wanted to explain, but I couldn’t. I ended up crying myself to sleep, hoping that would be the last time that I had to feel it. But it wasn’t.

I didn’t want to write a letter at all. How do I write to a stranger? How do I write to someone who I’m not even sure is there?  I didn’t even really want to talk about K, let alone write a letter to her. But my therapist encouraged me to think about writing a letter to K after session last week, and since my therapist has yet to steer me in the wrong direction, I followed her suggestion.

I’ve had such a disconnect from K for so long, partly to protect myself, and partly because of the guilt I felt about her absence. Her loss is connected with one of the worst experiences in my life, an experience I end up reliving each time I think about her and what she went through.

I never knew K. She took care of my parts before I knew I had parts. She was there, protecting me and the others, as I spent my younger years in blissful ignorance of my DID. K was the reason I made it through childhood. 

But then K went away, on the night my father attacked me, the night I got beaten for being depressed. I don’t know all that happened. I still only remember small parts of that night. But I do know that’s when everything changed. That’s when the voices started. That’s when Charlie came to be. That’s when my life became chaos.

I learned who K was over the years, and I was able to put all of the pieces of who she was together. I missed her. I never knew her, but I missed what she did for me. My life before that night was vastly different from my life after. The difference was her.

I also felt an immense sense of guilt. She disappeared because of me. I couldn’t fight back my father. I couldn’t stand up for myself. I wasn’t strong enough, and I let her take all of the pain. I don’t even know what happened. That’s the frustrating part. I don’t even know why she had to go away.

I just know that, if that night never happened, K would still be here. If I just fought my father back, K would still be here. If I would have just acted normal, K would still be here. If I hadn’t been depressed, K would still be here. K is gone because of me.

It’s why I never talk about her much. I feel at fault. She existed because of me. She left because of me. Why couldn’t I just be better, stronger, and more courageous? Why did I have to be so weak?

As I started writing the letter, all I could think about was how sorry I was. I was sorry she had to exist. I was sorry she had to work so hard to protect us. I was sorry she had to endure something so horrible that she had to go away. I was overcome with so much guilt that I couldn’t see anything else. The first sentence I wrote down was not a “hello” or “thank you”. It was “I’m so sorry.”

It took me three days to finish that letter. The emotions were so overwhelming for me that I had to step away several times so I wouldn’t break down completely. I felt sadness. I felt guilt and shame. I felt a sense of loss over someone I didn’t even know was there. I felt for my parts, too. They lost a mother. Really, they lost two mothers; one I caused to go away and one I took us away from.

I thought I had got it all out. I thought that once I wrote those words down, the feelings and emotions would disappear. But they didn’t. As much as I wanted to read the letter to my therapist, I worried that speaking it out loud would make the feelings all come back. And they did come back, stronger than ever. Guilt. Shame. Sadness. Confusion. Loss. Hurt. Pain. I cried for her. I cried for my parts. I cried for me.

I didn’t understand why she left us. Why did she have to go?

I still need her. I can’t be her. I can’t love. I can’t nurture. I can’t be caring. I can’t protect anyone. I’m not K. My therapist says that I am all of those things. Those qualities were K, but they are me, too; they always have been. But I just can’t see it.

K was all of those good things. K got hurt and went away. I am not any of those good things. I wasn’t the one who got hurt.

K is not me, and I am not K.

I can’t be.

Dear K

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

Dear K,

You know me, but I don’t know you. Or at least I don’t remember knowing you. But I do know of you. I know you were there when I was young. I know you watched over me, over everyone.

Sometimes, I try to think about what you were like. The others said you were caring and kind. You were always nice and loving. You took care of everyone. You were like a mother, protecting everyone and keeping them safe. You were the mother they never got to have. You gave them all of the things that I couldn’t give to them. You gave them safety in a situation that was anything but safe.

I wish I got to know you. I wish I realized that you were there. I used to wonder why you never told me anything. Then I realized it was probably better that way. It would have been too much for me to handle. I was just a child.

You did so much for me. You kept things hidden from me that I wasn’t ready to face. You kept me from hearing voices I wasn’t ready to hear. You kept me from breaking apart into pieces I could never get back. You kept me safe, even when I was surrounded by danger.

It hurts me to know that you existed to keep me alive. If I had never been hurt, if I had never been broken, you wouldn’t have had to be there. It would have been just me. But that’s not what happened. I was broken into hundreds of pieces, and you were there trying to keep the pieces together.

It must have been so hard for you. You took care of so many of us, but no one ever took care of you. You deserved to be taken care of, too. But you were selfless. You endured the pain. You held it all together, and you gave all that you could until the day that you couldn’t.

I couldn’t fight my own battles. You helped fight them for me. You kept me alive. I didn’t know it at the time, but you were always there for me. You took the pain from me and hid it away. You won so many battles for me, but you didn’t win that last battle. None of us did.

I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to deal with life on my own. I’m sorry you had to watch over the others for so long because I didn’t. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you the night that you went away. I’m sorry I didn’t fight him back. If I did, maybe you would still be here. Maybe you wouldn’t have had to go away.

Everything changed. You went away and there was no one left to care for everyone. I lost you. We lost you.

I don’t know what I’m doing, K. I can’t even care for myself, let alone all of the others. I’m not you. Charlie isn’t you. I know he tries, but it’s not the same. I think ne needs you. They all need you. I need you.

I miss you. I miss the peace in my head. I miss believing that I was okay. I miss how everything was before that day. I miss everything that you did for me, and for us.

I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t even know if you’re still there somewhere. But if you are, and if you can hear, I want to thank you. Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for protecting my parts. Thank you for keeping us all alive. I needed you. I still do. 

Disaster

~ KJ ~ 7 Comments

I envy my mother.

She hid who she really was so perfectly. She was (and still is) a brilliant actress. No one suspected she was abusing her own children. They only saw what she presented to the world.

She was a true Catholic woman who went to Church every weekend.

She was a devoted mother who was involved in all of her children’s activities.

She was a kind, good-hearted, charitable person who never hesitated to give what she could to others.

The truth was that my mother only went to Church because membership was requires in order to get discounted tuition for the Catholic schools she sent her children to. Her stoic Catholicism  disappeared once her children finished school. The schools she sent her children to, not to give them a better education or strong faith, but because it made her look good. Bad parents don’t send their children to private school, right?

The truth was that my mother was involved in every activity not because she was devoted, but because she needed to be in control at all times. She was a Girl Scout troop leader not because she believed in what the organization stood for, but because it put her in an easily obtained power position.

The truth was that my mother brought gifts and donated to charities because it made her look good. She would buy lavish gifts for friends and extended family with money she didn’t have to spend. We’d often sit at home with no power because she spent all of the money she had buying things, and had no money left to pay the bills. But that didn’t bother her, because no one saw that our power was off, but they did see the nice things she bought for them (and for herself).

As an adult, I envied my mother’s ability to present whatever she wanted to the world, even when it was a lie. I could never do that. I wore the truth on my face without even trying.

But I’ve come to realize, I am pretending just like she did. I am hiding behind a false presentation I give to the world.

People see that I have it together. I go to work, I go to school, I write. I’m functioning so well. People read my articles, they see what I’ve done and they look up to me.

The truth is I am fucked up. I can barely get out of bed most mornings, and even though I manage to make it to work, it sucks up the little energy I have. I don’t even know how I’m making it through school because I have no fucking clue what’s going on. I know I’m reading English, but it might as well be Chinese because I just can’t understand it. I write articles that give people with DID hope, showing them that they can live a normal life, when I am spending so many of my days in a black hole of hopelessness, questioning if my life could get any more fucked up than it already is. I tell people to accept their diagnosis, while I wake up and tell myself I don’t have DID. I’m a fucking hypocrite.

And in the moments that someone sees that I am not together, I pretend like I am. I don’t want them seeing the mess that I am. So I tell them I am okay. I put on a smile. I do my work. They think I’m okay. There’s nothing to see here. Please go, and care about someone who matters.

People see that I look better. I’ve lost so much weight, but they assume it’s okay because I’m overweight. They give me compliments about my appearance, and tell me how great and healthy I look. I smile and thank them.

The truth is I am not healthy. I’ve lost so much weight because I starve myself. No one thinks anything of it, because they only think eating disorders happen to skinny people. It’s just like childhood. You don’t look like you’re starving. Oh, but I was. And I still am. The only difference is now I am the one in control, not my mother. I learned to shut off my hunger like a switch. If I don’t feel it, then it’s not a problem. I am in control now.

And in the moments that someone shows concern about my eating, I eat for them. I take their offers of food. I act like I enjoy it. Then I go in the bathroom and throw it all up. But they don’t see that. They see me eat and they think I’m okay. There’s nothing to see here. Please go, and care about someone who matters.

People see that I am planning a future. I’m working hard. I’m continuing my education. I’m going to therapy in order to heal. I must be working towards a better life.

The truth is that I’m just going through the motions. I am not planning my future any more than I am planning my death. I’m working because I have to. I’m going to school because I need the money. Therapy isn’t going to heal me. You can’t heal a person that’s been broken so many times, just like you can’t repair a shattered mug. I’m not working towards anything. I’m just waiting for the end.

And in the moments when someone sees my hopelessness, my depression, I tell them I’m fine. I tell them they’re wrong. If I were so hopeless and so lost, I wouldn’t be working,  going to school, or going to therapy. If I were so hopeless, I would have killed myself already. I make valid points. They think I must be okay. Please go, and care about someone who matters.

I am just like my mother. I’ve become so good at acting normal, that no one can see who I really am.

A fucking disaster.

Why do I write?

~ KJ ~ 9 Comments

When I was a senior in high school, a friend introduced me to DeadJournal. It was my first and only outlet at the time. I knew my mother would never allow it, so I created it in secret. I wrote very obscure posts about my pain. I never wrote anything specific, for fear of my mother finding out.

And sure enough, my mother walked into my bedroom one night and searched my computer. DeadJournal popped up. She interrogated me, asking what it was. I told her it was an online journal I was looking at. She flipped. She told me I was not allowed to write about feelings. I was punished, thankfully less severe as I would have been had she seen what I actually wrote. But I never wrote in it again.

That journal was supposed to be for me. It was my opportunity to write how I felt, and that was taken away from me. Just like everything else was taken away from me.

I started writing after I ran away, because I knew my mother wouldn’t be able to take that away from me again. I could write what I felt, without anyone telling me what I should or shouldn’t write.

I didn’t go into this blog expecting anyone to read it. I did it for me, as a way of getting things out that I held in for so long. That was the purpose.

Along the way, a lot more people started reading my blog. Mostly strangers, and people who started out as strangers that I now have come to care about. And then people from my real life started reading. Then I wasn’t so anonymous. I couldn’t hide in my writing anymore. I was exposed. I learned to be okay with that, because people were supportive. In some ways, it reconnected me with people from my old life who were forced away from me by my mother.

Even with all of that, my writing never changed its purpose. I wrote for me. I write for me. If you don’t like it, don’t read what I write. If you feel the need to decide what I should or shouldn’t be writing about, don’t read it. This is my writing. This is my life.I write about my struggles. I write about my PTSD and DID. I write about the things that affect me.

I don’t write about my morning coffee. I don’t write about mundane shit. That doesn’t affect me. My writing isn’t sunshine and rainbows, because I’m not sunshine and rainbows. I’m not here to make anyone look good. I don’t even make myself look good.

I don’t want to hear anyone telling me what I should write. I will not be controlled again. This is MY space. If my mother ever came to me and told me to stop writing so negatively about her, I would tell her to fuck off. Perhaps she should have not done the things she did in the first place that led me to write in such a way.

This sentiment applies to anyone who thinks the same. If you want to read my writing and be supportive, rock on. If you want to read my writing and criticize, you can go away. I have enough to deal with already.

Now, since I got that all out, I have a dilemma.

My therapist asked me last session if I thought it would be beneficial for her to read my blog before our sessions. On an intellectual level, I understood her reasons for suggesting that. I wrote about my issues with communication before. It’s still a problem. I can write much easier than I can speak out loud, even with my therapist.

My therapist knows about this blog; she has since the beginning. But she told me in the beginning that she would not read it, and I was okay with that. I didn’t really think my writing was all that substantive back then anyway.

For some reason, when my therapist brought it up this time, I had a strong negative reaction. Perhaps it was the timing. I have recently been dealing with some people who feel the need to dictate what I should and shouldn’t write in my blog (hence my mini-rant just before). I think I may have transferred my anger about that onto my therapist.

I know my therapist is not out to criticize or judge my writing, or even my life. But I feel like I am losing my safe space a bit. I started out being able to write whatever I wanted, and now I have people in my life trying to change that. What if I wanted to hide here? What if I wanted to write something really horrible? Can I do that without receiving backlash?

I trust my therapist more than any human being, past, present, and probably future. I have told her things I would never tell another person, things I would never even write about here. But what if something came up that I didn’t want to tell her? I wouldn’t have a place to put those thoughts anymore. I’d have to keep them inside, like I did for most of my life. I don’t want to do that anymore.

On a realistic level, I see the benefits. On an emotional level, I feel invaded.

I just want to be able to hide. But do I really need to?

Failure to communicate

~ KJ ~ 8 Comments

I struggle to get my words out of my mouth. People assume it’s easy for me. I’m decently intelligent, I can write well. But I can’t always speak. It’s hard for me to communicate.

I didn’t have the best resources growing up. My parents didn’t communicate anything to anybody, even within their own extended family. Little socialization gave me little opportunity to learn from others. I didn’t have very many options, and I ended up being socially stunted. Then there was the regular threats not to speak to outsiders, which after a while just made me fearful of speaking to anyone.

My brother was nonverbal for a few years. He had extra help in school to catch up. He eventually did catch up, but it really set him back quite a bit (and I think that, in many ways, it allowed him to be manipulated to the severe degree that he was). Even so, everyone sort of just accepted that he wasn’t the best or the brightest. He had that rough start. Whatever he tried, he would get coddled and encouraged.

But me, no, it was different for me. I was the smart kid. No excuses. Whenever I couldn’t get words out, I was called dumb and stupid. You think you’re so smart, but you can’t even speak. I’d freeze in school, not because I didn’t know the answer; the answer was in my head the whole time. But I couldn’t get the answer from my head and out through my mouth. It would get muddled up in something — I don’t know what exactly — and wouldn’t come out right.

People didn’t understand. They just made it worse because their words hurt so much and only made it harder to speak. I’d say things only to have people confused about what I was saying. Then I’d get frustrated and give up. I felt like I was speaking a language no one else spoke. I felt alone. I’d tell myself that my mother was right; no one understands me.

It’s no different now that I’m an adult. I can hold conversations sometimes, but other times, I am quiet and don’t respond. I’m not being rude, but unfortunately that’s how most people take it. I want to respond, I so badly want to respond. But I can’t get the words out and I don’t want people to think that I’m dumb. And seeming rude doesn’t hurt nearly as much as being dumb.

It’s a problem. Because no one wants to deal with my verbal vomit.

It’s a problem. Because I have so much to say and don’t know how to say it.

It’s a problem. Because I can’t ask for help when I need it, so I suffer in silence.

My therapist and I have been working on communication for some time now. There are many times I don’t speak in session because I don’t know how to say what’s inside of my head. My therapist knows that I’m thinking (apparently it shows on my face), and gently pushes me to speak about it. I tell her no, I can’t, it doesn’t make sense. She always assures me that it doesn’t always have to make sense.

Eventually I muster up the courage to talk out loud, but even still, I apologize profusely at the end of every sentence. My therapist sits and listens, and encourages me to keep going. But it’s dumb, I tell her. I’m not good at talking. She reminds me not to judge myself. She reminds me that there’s no such thing as being good at talking.

I’ve reached a minimal level of comfort with my therapist, a level at which I don’t always feel so afraid to speak out loud. She never judges me. She never calls me dumb. Sometimes it takes a while for us to translate what I’m saying, but other times she understands what I mean right away.

But how can I take that out in the real world? How can I get people to understand how hard it is for me to communicate my thoughts, to communicate my needs?

I need patience and understanding. Society doesn’t have time for that.

Asserting myself, Part 2

~ KJ ~ 6 Comments

I woke up the next morning, not looking much better than I did the night before. The swelling migrated downward, pushing my eyes outward towards the sides of my face. I looked like one of the aliens you see in movies. I put my glasses on and brushed my hair in front of my face. No one could see me. Though I couldn’t see anyone else, either.

My legs were shaking as I sat in the waiting area of my therapist’s office. My therapist came out to get me like usual. I kept my hair blocking my face, hiding the disaster underneath.

I don’t know how I thought I would get away with it. My therapist noticed the different style right away. She asked me if I was hiding. I told her I was. She thought I was hiding to hide. She didn’t know I was hiding the disaster on my head.

My therapist continued to prod. She needed to see my face, and I needed to be able to see hers. I told her I was scared. She said it was safe, that I didn’t need to hide. She asked if it was related to what happened on Monday, but I told her it wasn’t.

My therapist kept telling me it was okay. I told her I was afraid of getting in trouble, I was afraid of her sending me away. I started crying. She said she wasn’t going to send me away, and that I wasn’t in trouble. I finally told her I was hiding something on my head.

Now my therapist understood what was going on. She asked if it was a wound I was hiding, and I nodded yes. She asked if I could pull my hair back so she could see. I hesitated, took a breath, and pushed my hair over. I felt overcome with shame. I felt like a failure.

She assured me she wasn’t angry with me. My anxiety started to subside. She asked how it happened. I told her I didn’t remember it all. I told her everything that happened before. I told her that I finally stood up for myself. I finally did what my therapist had been encouraging me to do for so long.

But it failed. My therapist could sense my disappointment with the situation. I had this false sense of hope that I would assert myself and that it would work, and all would be right with the world. Instead, I asserted myself and it failed. I put all of the blame on myself.

My therapist reminded me that I can’t change other people’s behaviors. It’s not my fault that my roommate didn’t understand. I did what I needed to do. I stood up for myself.

Don’t let this be a reason to stop standing up for yourself. Yes, it didn’t work this time. That doesn’t mean you stop doing it. It won’t always work out this way.

As we continued to talk about it all, I noticed my therapist wasn’t focusing on the fact that I completely self-destructed. She focused on the positive. I finally asserted myself. One thing I have been struggling with for so long, and I overcame it.

Sure, I could have done without the likely concussion. I could have done without the bruises and scrapes, and the half-blackened eyes. I could have done with the horrible headache and eye pain. I could have done without that all, but I can’t change that it happened. I can only work through it and try to prevent it from happening again.

We discussed what led up to the issue, and how I could work on changing it. It’s difficult once I get in that place, to get myself back out. The reason I asked my roommate to stop is because those words are reminders of things my mother said to me. When I hear them, it triggers parts of me. I start to get confused, not realizing that it’s my roommate and not my mother saying those things. Younger parts can’t tell the difference. It causes chaos that I would rather not deal with (and I shouldn’t have to).

I know all of the things I can do to distract myself. I know how to ground. That’s not the problem I have. I just don’t know how to put that all into practice when I am already on the edge.

I wish my experience ended up a little less painful. But damnit, I asserted myself. Let’s focus on that.

Asserting myself, Part 1

~ KJ ~ 11 Comments

I have an issue being assertive.

Standing up for myself was never a possibility before. I had to bow down to my mother for 29 years. I had to stand there and take whatever she threw at me. I couldn’t fight back. I couldn’t be assertive, because my mother never viewed me as a person.

I’ve had to learn how to stand up for myself. You would think, at 30 years old, I would have figured it out on my own. But no. I am learning now what I should have been taught as a child: assertiveness.

It feels so wrong. It feels so dangerous. If I had stood up for myself while I was living at home, I would have ended up in pain. Even though I’m not at home anymore, it’s been difficult to get over that gut reaction. But I’ve been working on it.

There was a situation on Wednesday. I was eating my dinner. The cat used the litter box, which didn’t bother me because I couldn’t really smell it (certain smells don’t affect me much, and the smell of shit is one of them). My roommate started spraying air freshener, which then made my food taste like chemical and flowers. I kept eating, because I promised my therapist I would eat dinner every day and I knew I needed it. Someone had commented that the smell was better than smelling poop, and I said not really. It was the truth.

Apparently that warranted name-calling, because she then called me a name. I asked her to please stop. She persisted and called me something else. I felt the noise in my head increasing, so I got up, threw away my food, and went upstairs without saying anything.

This wasn’t the first time it happened. I knew it was going to happen again. I knew that me just saying STOP wasn’t enough. I went outside and grounded myself. I told myself I was not at home anymore, that she was not my mother, that I can stand up for myself and be okay.

So I took a deep breath and came back inside. I was doing to do it. I was going to be assertive.

And I did it. I told her when I say stop, it means stop. I told her when I’m telling her to stop, it’s for a reason. I told her she needs to respect my boundaries. I told her this wasn’t the first time, that it’s not fair and I can’t tolerate it anymore.

She didn’t absorb anything I was saying. She immediately defended herself, saying she didn’t keep calling me names, she used adjectives (as if that was any better — I don’t understand). She made it seem like I was in the wrong, saying that she was offended by my attitude and I should be sorry (as if that warranted being called names and adjectives — again I don’t understand). She told me to move out if I didn’t like it. She didn’t care at all about what I was saying or feeling.

I got frustrated and went to my room. I was angry. I was upset. I was walking the line between present and past. I felt myself slipping. Then I dissociated, and came back to find a disaster on my head.

My head had a lump the size of a softball. There was blood on my desk from the cut on my forehead. My head was scraped down the center, and bruised across the top and the side. I looked like a disaster. I couldn’t feel anything.

There was no way I could hide this. This is it. My therapist is surely going to send me away. I went outside, sat on my steps and smoked the last of my cigarettes. I could have stayed out there all night if I had more.

I may not have felt any pain, but I certainly felt the panic. I broke my therapy contract. And I don’t even remember doing it. All I could think about was how mad my therapist was going to be when I showed up at session looking like I did. I ruined everything. I was going to miss school. I wasn’t going to be able to finish the book. I was going to end up locked away somewhere.

And none of this would have happened if people just listened when I say stop.