therapy

23 weeks

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

How did I end up here? What forces have driven me to be the person I am today?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past week. Like nature versus nurture, I wonder how much of an impact my experiences have had in shaping the person I am today.

If I was never told I wouldn’t amount to anything, would I still have striven for academic excellence, or would I have been complacent with being average?

If I never had to endure physical or emotional pain, would I still be working to alleviate this pain in others, or would I just be focused on my own needs?

If I never had to muddle through 14 years of therapy and a failing mental health system, would I still find it my purpose in life to become a therapist, or would I have ended up being a (much more financially stable) businesswoman?

If I never grew up being hurt by the very woman that gave me life, would I still be fighting for the countless others that have been abused by women, the countless others that have been ignored and disbelieved because our society doesn’t want to believe that women have the capacity to be abusive?

In many ways, I’ve beaten the odds. Despite being raised by a psychopath, I’ve developed a strong capacity for empathy. Despite experiencing abuse and violence, I’ve chosen to stop the cycle. Despite being programmed not to talk, I’ve become a voice not only for myself, but for others.

Perhaps innateness and experience aren’t that separate. I truly believe there had to have been something in me at birth that allowed me to survive. I know my DID helped me survive, but it had to be something else.

How did I learn what goodness was when my own parents were the complete opposite of goodness? How did I develop morals? How did I know that violence and abuse were not acceptable behavior?

During our last therapy session, my therapist and I talked about the role of my father in the family dynamic. I have realized in the last few months that, as a child, I idealized my father because he was the least horrible of my parents. I modeled some of my behaviors after him, especially the aggression and the physical violence. That probably explains why I never got along well with girls as a child. My rough nature fit in so much better with the boys. Then I guess there came a point when I realized that being like that wasn’t socially acceptable, so I changed.

My therapist asked what role models I had growing up. There had to have been someone positive in my life, someone that I modeled myself after. She asked if I remembered any television shows or movies that had an impact on me. I couldn’t think of anything. Truthfully, I can’t really remember a lot of my childhood. I wish I did.

Then my therapist told me “women who have experienced what you have end up in places like Chowchilla, but you haven’t.” (For background, Chowchilla is a women’s prison in California. The organization has worked with many of the inmates who were victims of mother-daughter sexual abuse as well as non-maternal female-perpetrated abuse). “I could have,” I responded as I thought about the countless times I imagined killing my mother and father, the countless times I researched how to kill a person without leaving evidence behind. I’m probably not that different from those women. The only difference lies in that I never carried out the action. My tendency to over-analyze and my anxiety saved me from ending up in a prison cell. Nothing more, nothing less.

This next week will surely be difficult for me. Holidays were a rough time for me before. I imagine they will still be difficult for me now, even though I’m no longer a prisoner of my own family. I’ve been trying to keep busy and not think about it, but that’s hard to do. I will get through it, though.

 

 

Gifts

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Gifts are complicated for me.

When I was younger, my mother would give me gifts and end up taking them away or destroying them soon after. I honestly believe that her intention each time was to leave me with nothing. It was like she was playing mind games with me. If I didn’t seem grateful enough, if I didn’t do something right, there went the “gift”. Bad girls don’t deserve nice things.

My mother continued that practice into my adulthood, except she would take away the gifts that other people would give me. It was always that I didn’t need it, or didn’t deserve it. Sometimes she even had the nerve to tell me I didn’t want the gift, and that’s why she took it. Everything was always about her.

One Christmas, my mother bought me clothes – sweatshirts, a jacket, shirts, pants – all in Men’s size 5XL. While I admit I was (and still am) overweight, I was nowhere near that size. I told her that none of the clothes were in my size, and she said “oh, just try them on. I’m sure they fit.” Yea, they’d fit two of me. When I told her I didn’t want them, she went on a tirade and started crying about how much I hated her.

Last Christmas was probably the most difficult for me. While the sexual abuse had stopped for months at this point, my mother continued to find subtle ways to remind me. She did it at first by showing me the shower picture. She continued it at Christmas by gifting me underwear, bras, and lingerie.

She wrapped them all just like they were any other Christmas gifts. I felt sick once I opened them and realized what they were. Even worse was that they were the correct size. My mother had no knowledge of my size, especially my bra size. She had gone through my drawers. I felt like my privacy was invaded, even though I knew privacy didn’t exist in our household. My mother knew no boundaries. I think she knew how it made me feel, how sick it made me. That’s why she did it. If she couldn’t abuse me anymore, she was just going to find other ways to get to me. And it worked.

Despite my shitty experiences with gifting, I really enjoyed picking out (or making) gifts for people, gifts with meaning and purpose. One Christmas, I bought gifts for all of my coworkers, even the ones I wasn’t very close to. Every gift had a reason behind it. I bought a 12-pack of diet coke for my manager who loved to drink it. I bought the human resource person two packages of Oreos because they were her favorite food. Small things, sure, but every gift was wrapped and adorned with decorative bows to make it special.

As I handed the customer service woman her gift, she started to cry. Confused, I started to apologize to her, thinking I had offended her in some way. She hugged me and thanked me through tears as she told me that no one had ever thought of her at Christmas before. She hadn’t even opened her gift yet and was already grateful. It was (and still is) a reminder for me that even small gestures can make a world of difference for another person.

My joy soon turned to frustration when I came home later that day and had to deal with my mother’s never-ending sense of entitlement.

“I hope you are as generous to your own family as you were to all these people at work. They don’t do anything for you. I give you everything. What do I get for it?”

I was quickly reminded of how obsessive my mother was about gifting. She believed that she should receive a gift for every occasion. I never wanted to give her a gift. I hated her. But if I didn’t, I’d get in trouble, even as an adult. I had to swallow my pride and get her something just to avoid further pain. And I couldn’t just get her something small. It had to be something good enough to meet her standards.

My mother made similar demands when it came to giving gifts to my brother. She was always on top of me in the weeks before my brother’s birthday, making sure that I bought him an adequate gift, telling me all of the things he wanted. If I told her I couldn’t afford any of those things, she’d tell me to find a way.

“If you didn’t buy so much for yourself, you would have enough for the people that matter.”

In her mind, gifts were associated with how much a person mattered. It made sense. It’s probably why she never demanded that I get my father any gifts; she treated him with disdain. It’s probably why she showered my brother with expensive gifts, gifts she couldn’t afford but bought anyway. Me? It was obvious I didn’t matter. Whenever my birthday came around, all I got were a bunch of excuses.

“Oh, I don’t have any money this week. I’ll get you something in a month or two.”

A month or two never happened. Despite her financial difficulties, she always found enough money to buy herself whatever she wanted. But when it came to me or my father, she was broke. There was no sense of celebration for my birthday. I was lucky for a few years and managed to find a birthday card thrown on my desk when I got home from work. No special message, just a cheap birthday card and a signature. There was no thoughtfulness. There was no love. It was merely an act to say she did something.

The last couple of years, I started to stand up for myself and refused to get gifts for people I cared nothing about. I dealt with the backlash. I dealt with my mother’s verbal assaults, all the horrible things she would say about me and the names she would call me. At times, it got physical. One time, she found out that I bought my best friend at work a Mother’s Day gift and she went on a rampage that ended with me in tears. I had to beg my friend not to tell my mother about anything I bought anymore.

Of course, my mother used that situation as a way to get people on her side, telling people that I bought this other woman a gift but wouldn’t even get anything for my own mother, how it breaks her heart and she just doesn’t understand why I hated her so. She was so manipulative, and people actually fell for it.

I am actually a little relieved that this is the first year that I won’t have to deal with any of the drama. I briefly thought about mailing my family a bill for my therapy (anonymously, of course). I’m not even sure that they are worth the effort of licking the envelope. Then there is a company that allows you to anonymously mail shit (literally) to anyone in the world. Some parts of me would thoroughly enjoy doing that, but I know it won’t serve a purpose in the end.

I did want to do something for my therapist. While I was browsing the local book store last week, I came across the same coloring book that I received a couple months back at a group therapy session.  I was in a bad place emotionally at that time and I made some apparently frightening color choices. It was a page with the word ‘HOPE’ in big letters, surrounded by flowers and a bird. I colored hope black, and scribbled over the rest. Both therapists noticed. Back then, I had no hope. It was dead.

I bought the coloring book. This time, there was no black. I colored in each flower with bright colors. I even colored the background sky blue, and colored hope white – the complete opposite of what I had colored just months before. I bought a basic frame and put my new art in it. After my therapy session today, I told my therapist I made her something. I preempted it with saying that it was kind of lame and that my coloring skills needed work. I handed it to her. I told her I have hope now. And that’s the truth.
It was the best gift I have ever given.

A much needed return to therapy

~ KJ ~ Leave a comment

I admit it.

I can barely handle going an entire week without a therapy session.

My wallet would certainly approve of one therapy session a week. But for right now, my life is still a little bit of a mess and I need more therapy than normal. And that’s okay.

I brought my list with me, but I ended up being able to remember most of what I wanted to discuss. We were able to tackle the most notable events of the past week. I saved a couple of topics for the next session, but they aren’t too serious so I can handle waiting a couple more days.

I told her about my experience on Black Friday that led to the panic attack and flashbacks. Even though it took hours, I managed to finally calm myself down completely. I told her how my coworkers reacted and responded to my needs. I guess I was fortunate in that way, because some people would not be understanding at all. It happens that there is another worker there with PTSD (combat-related), and people at work weren’t really knowledgeable about it. I used it as an opportunity to explain what PTSD is, what causes it, and what can happen, and I think that was helpful for all of us.

My therapist asked me if I had dissociated at all during the incident. I told her I didn’t think that I did, but I couldn’t be 100% sure because I was feeling so chaotic. She said I handled it well, that I knew what I needed to do so it wouldn’t get worse and I was able to assert my needs. I did tell her that I may have dissociated at work in the days prior. On Thursday, a few coworkers asked me if I was okay, because they said I was “out of it” and fumbling around the day before. I remember the earlier parts of my day just fine, and I remember walking to work and starting my shift. I don’t really remember anything specific after that, which makes me think that I did dissociate.

This prompted my therapist to ask if any of my coworkers know about the DID. I have one coworker that knows, only because he found my blog and read it. He doesn’t really know what DID is, and I haven’t made any wholehearted attempts to explain it to him or to anyone at work. My therapist reminded me that I was able to explain about PTSD and had positive results with that. I told her I found PTSD easier to explain than DID. I think that DID needs to be explained through a process. If you try to explain everything in one sitting, you are going to overwhelm a person. I feel like I would need to give out a few tidbits at a time and see how people react to them, and then go from there.

Disclosing and explaining DID is just not something I’m ready for yet. Oddly enough, one of the managers made a comment about her other personality coming out (which had a name) and made jokes about it the other day. I felt a little uncomfortable, but I tried to be understanding in that most people just don’t know about DID and how those comments could be offensive. With that being said, the only way they would know those comments could be offensive is if they knew the reality of DID. I just don’t want to be one of those people who are labelled as sensitive because they find everything offensive. I try to understand both sides, I really do. But I also recognize that, in my attempts at understanding, I am also perpetuating the lack of knowledge about DID by staying silent.

We moved on to discussing graduate school. I completed Monday night of last week and finalized my application that Tuesday night. I’m still stressing about how I am going to be able to handle everything, especially financially. I can use loans to help ease the financial burden, but it’s not going to be enough to live on. I will still have to work, and quite possibly get an extra job if I am cut back to part-time after the holidays. I’m pretty good at stretching a dollar. I can live on little food (one benefit of the bullshit I went through as a child), and have been managing quite well doing that. I’ve been selling some of my things for extra money. But I still know that realistically, I’m not that far away from financial hardship. It’s nearly impossible to get benefits or assistance when you are single and childless, so even if I wanted to go that route, I can’t. Maybe I just need to play the lottery.

Despite the chaos that I still see my life as being, my therapist thinks I have made so much progress, even in the last couple of months. She brought up possibly restarting the trauma-focused therapy, more specifically delving back into the mother-daughter sexual abuse…the same subject that led us to stop intense therapy more than two months ago. I wasn’t expecting her to bring it up. After thinking about it for a minute, I did agree that I was in a different place. I still don’t think I’ve made as much progress as she thinks I have, but I also know that my self-perception is a little distorted. I told her I would be okay with trying it and seeing how it affects me. If it sends me back to a bad place, then we can take another break. I don’t expect miracles. I don’t expect to be emotionless.

We’re starting next session.

This shit is hard.

Grit

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I managed to make some progress on my graduate school essay. I sat in front of my computer last night for an hour and managed to write three pages (the limit is five pages). I answered two of the four questions and then I hit a roadblock.

What skills, abilities, and personal qualities do you possess that prepare you to succeed in completing graduate-level work?

Oh no. This is one of those questions that requires you to think positively of yourself. Acknowledging positive qualities and strengths is still something I struggle with. I mean, I’ve made some progress over the last few months, but I’m definitely not in a place where I can just freely talk about myself in a positive light.

I mentioned my essay progress and subsequent roadblock to my therapist in our session today. She tried to help me, but for every positive thing she mentioned, I came up with an opposing, less positive answer. She brought up my thesis, and how in the weeks before it was due, I insisted that I was never going to finish it. But I did finish it, on time, with a near-perfect grade. She said that has to prove that I have some abilities. I told her it was just luck. She insisted that it was not luck that I managed to finish all of that work in such a limited amount of time.

“Well, you’re right. It was the Adderall I took that allowed me to finish.”

“Well don’t write that in your essay,” my therapist responded, as if it needed to be said. We both laughed a little and by that point I think we both realized that this back-and-forth battle could go on forever. I wanted her to give up, but she finally said something that rang true for me.

“You’ve got grit. Yes, you’re intelligent, but I’ve seen many of my intelligent students end up accomplishing very little because they lacked the ambition and the grit needed to succeed. You’ve got both. You continued to fight when the odds were against you, and it got you to where you are today.”

Damnit. She’s right. I do have grit. Grit got me through school. Grit got me through my thesis. Grit got me through life. I could have given up at so many points, but I didn’t. I struggled, sure, but I never gave up entirely. I’ve always had an end goal in mind. Sometimes it gets a little muddled in all of the bullshit, and sometimes some of my parts can’t or don’t want to acknowledge that goal, but it’s always been there. It will always be there.

Now let me go write about my grit.

Charlie and my (our?) misplaced anger

~ KJ ~ Leave a comment

I have mentioned before that Charlie is the most vocal part of me. He is also the most angry. It’s difficult to deal with him sometimes, and I admit I haven’t been responding to him in the best ways.

I’ve been back and forth with Charlie these last few days. He doesn’t trust the two people in my life who I hold closest. He hates when I talk to them. He hates when I talk about them. He keeps telling me they are not safe. I told him that for now, they are my friends and I’m not just going to cut ties with them because that is what he wants.

I told my therapist in session today about Charlie’s hatred of these particular people. She said it makes a lot of sense and explains what has happened in some of our past sessions. When we engaged in in-depth conversation about one person in particular, I would dissociate. It happened a few times, and neither of us realized that she was the trigger until now. It was probably Charlie’s way of getting me to stop talking.

My therapist talked about communicating better with Charlie. I admitted that I felt that most of the time, I responded to Charlie in ways that my parents responded to me – with anger, hate, and disinterest. I fear that in some ways, I am turning into my parents, that I am repeating the cycle. It’s not just my words that bother me. I have outbursts of anger. I have had them for a long time, since my later years in high school. I would physically hit my boyfriend for no reason. I was fortunate enough in that he understood and didn’t react to my outbursts negatively. The other day, I hit a coworker hard in the arm. Once again, I don’t even know why I did it. He didn’t do anything to provoke it. He was simply walking past me. He laughed it off, but it bothered me.

I hate hurting other people, physically or emotionally. I feel like I have no control when I do it. My therapist asked me if anything happened right before I hit him. But I couldn’t remember anything that happened, or how I felt. I just did it. Then my therapist asked me if I’ve only ever hit men. I thought about it for a couple of minutes, and couldn’t think of any incident in which I hit a female. My victims have always been men. My therapist told me that part of it may very well be learned behavior, but a huge part is likely misplaced anger. When I realized all of my targets have been men, I couldn’t help but think I was somehow misplacing the anger I feel towards my father and putting it on these other men; since I can’t hit my father, I take it out on the closest thing to him.

I also wonder if this anger is coming from Charlie in some ways. I am usually very good at containing my physical anger urges, whereas Charlie is constantly angry and likes to make it known. Is he taking his anger out on these people as well? Is he angry at our father for what he has done? While I don’t know Charlie’s exact age, he is a younger teenager, which is around the time the physical abuse against me increased significantly. It would make sense that he is angry. We all have a reason to be angry. But we need to be able to control that anger, not act out on it. I’m going to have to dig a little deeper into this. Maybe Charlie will feel more comfortable talking to my therapist instead of me, since I’m not so great at communicating right now. I feel so sad for him in a way. He’s just as lost as I am.

My therapist also mentioned that in some ways, it sounds as if Charlie is trying to be my protector. I said “Well he’s not doing a very good job of it.” We both laughed, but I did understand what she meant. He tells me that people cannot be trusted. He doesn’t want me to open up to people. He may very well be trying to protect me, it’s just that his methods are not the best (we have something in common, I guess). But then again, he’s a teenager, and probably doesn’t know any other way. I am starting to think of Charlie in a new way now. Maybe he is my protector. Maybe we both need to listen better.

I’m working on it, Charlie.

 

A Letter to My Father

~ KJ ~ 7 Comments

I managed to write that letter to my father yesterday.

I went through a whirlwind of emotions as I was writing it, but it didn’t stop me. I cried, I wanted to throw my pen at the wall out of anger, and then I cried again. And then it was finished. I didn’t read the letter over; I folded it in half and put it in my planner so I wouldn’t forget to bring it to therapy. Then I laid in bed for an hour and just let whatever was going on inside of me flow through. I was okay.

During our session today, my therapist asked if I wrote the letter. I told her I did. I told her that at first I was afraid that I would break down like I did so many months before, but that I did it and I was okay. She asked if I wanted to go over it, and I said yes. I thought I would be able to hand her the letter and she would read it to herself. But no. She wanted me to read it. My anxiety kicked in. I didn’t think I could do it. I started second-guessing everything. Writing the letter was one thing, but reading it out loud felt like I was putting everything out into the world, that I was voicing everything I felt. I struggle with having a voice because it still feels so inherently wrong to speak.

My therapist saw that I was struggling. She asked me why it was now so hard to talk. She knew why. She said I didn’t have to read it or talk about it if I wasn’t ready. I went back and forth in my mind for a few minutes. Then I told her I wanted to read it. I told her I didn’t want to be afraid of speaking for the rest of my life. I needed to start somewhere. We went over a plan to keep safe in case I started to dissociate or it got to be too much. Then I took a deep breath and started reading.

Dear father,

I have trouble just calling you father. Fathers are supposed to love their daughters. You never showed me love. You never hugged me or showed me that you cared. You only showed me disdain. How could you let me suffer for so long? I was hurting, and instead of making me better, you only added to my pain.

You and my mother should have never had children. Neither of you know how to be a parent. You brought me into this world to torture me. I don’t understand why you and she just didn’t drop me off in a ditch somewhere. Sometimes I think that I would have been better off if one of you just killed me. You would have saved me a lot of pain. But you couldn’t even do that. Instead, you killed my spirit. You made me dead on the inside.

It scares me that I can’t remember everything you did to me. I know that if I asked you, you would never admit to anything anyway. You and my mother choose to live in your own made-up world where everything is perfect and you are perfect. That is nowhere near reality. There is no way that you didn’t know what my mother was doing to me all those years. I have memories of you being there with her, but I told myself they couldn’t be real. How could you? You are no better than she is.

You’ve broken me, but none of that hurt more than that night you broke my spirit. Instead of being concerned about why I was feeling sad and depressed, you took all of your anger and hatred out on me. You told me I had nothing to be depressed about. Nothing to be depressed about? How could I NOT be depressed? I had every reason to be sad, to be angry, and to be depressed. But you told me you were going to give me something to be sad about, and you did. You broke me. The only way I could make you stop was to not feel at all. You made me believe that feelings meant pain, and I didn’t need any more pain.

I’ll never forget that night. I still cringe when anyone says I’m depressed because it reminds me of what you did to me. You taught me that feeling anything is a punishable offense. But you got your way. I wasn’t sad or depressed anymore. I couldn’t feel anything. I lived for years without feeling anything. It was the only way I knew how to survive.

Even after all of the shit you put me through, I dropped everything to take care of you when you got sick. Your wife didn’t care whether or not you died. But why? You would have never done the same for me. I still had hope that you would be a father, that you would see what a good daughter I was, that you would be proud. But you weren’t. I held out hope for something that would never be. But I know now that it is not my doing; it’s yours. You’ll never know what love is. You should have died years ago.

Now that you’re sick, I’m not sorry at all. I actually find it a little funny that your heart has been slowly dying all these years – I would have never known you had a heart. My heart may still be beating, but you broke it long ago. And now yours is broken, literally broken. At least my heart can be fixed with time. You’re shit out of luck.

I hope when you finally die, that it’s painful for you. Maybe you would feel just a fraction of the pain you caused me. You’re lucky in a way. You’ll die soon and you’ll no longer have to live with what you’ve done, as if you let it affect you anyway. Your pain will end while I will have to live with mine.

All I ever wanted was for you to love me. I never did anything wrong. I never deserved the pain you caused me. I did everything a daughter was supposed to do and more. It was never enough for you. I hate you now, and it bothers me to hate another human being. But you deserve my hate. You deserve my anger. You don’t deserve to be my father.

Thank you for showing me everything I never want to be.

Through tears and with shaking hands, I managed to read the entire letter out loud. By the end, I couldn’t stop crying. It was the first time I allowed myself to show my emotions to my therapist. As I folded the letter and looked up, I saw the sadness on my therapist’s face. Part of me felt bad. I’ve upset her. I knew this letter was horrible. I apologized, but there was nothing for me to be sorry for. There was nothing in that letter to be sorry for. Neither of our feelings were anything to be sorry for.

My therapist reminded me that all of my feelings were valid, but I had drifted back into my childhood beliefs that feelings were not allowed. I told her it was wrong not to love your parents. I’ve always felt intense shame and guilt for hating them, especially in childhood, when society seemed to push the idea that all parents must be loved and honored (an idea I still see presented way too often). My therapist told me I had every reason to be sad, and that I had every reason to be angry at him. She told me she was angry at him, too. And she doesn’t even know him. It was relieving to know that someone else was feeling what I felt towards him. It sort of pushed me out of that child-like state and back to my adult self.

I’ll never be able to get that validation from my father. Even in the extremely small chance he would ever provide it, I can never see him or my mother again. It will never be safe for me to go back. He’ll never know how I really feel. Maybe it’s better that way.

17 weeks

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

It’s been a tough week. There have been a lot of emotions and a lot of memories coming back to the surface, and I’ve been struggling with managing it all. But, as usual, I pulled myself together and got through it.

Therapy was difficult this week, but I was a lot better than I was the week before. Writing a letter to my therapist beforehand actually made discussing things much easier. We’ve been talking about some of the issues I have with my father; there’s a lot of shit to muddle through concerning that topic. I’m having trouble believing that my feelings towards him are valid. There are even times when I’m not even sure how to identify my feelings at all.

During our last session, my therapist suggested that I write a letter to my father. I actually knew that was what she was going to say before she even said it – I would have suggested the same thing to one of my clients (I guess I may not be so horrible at being a therapist after all). She said I can bring in the letter on Monday and we can work through it. I haven’t written the letter yet; I will probably write it tomorrow once I am done with work. I am hesitating a little because I know that I tend to let it all out on paper. At the retreat in April, I wrote a letter to my mother during a letter-writing session and I ended up having a mild breakdown. I had written so many things that I didn’t even realize until I read it over. Then I felt like a horrible person for thinking and writing the things that I did. I don’t want that same thing to happen when I write this letter to my father. I want to be able to handle my feelings without feeling guilty. We’ll see how it goes.

I’m also still struggling with the DID diagnosis. My therapist asked me in the beginning of our last session to ask my parts if they had anything that they needed to say. I couldn’t do it. One reason was because it meant acknowledging that my parts exist, which is an ongoing back-and-forth for me. The other reason was because of what happened on Tuesday; I didn’t want that child to come out and talk about missing our mother again. My therapist could tell that I wasn’t comfortable with it, so she didn’t press the issue any further. But I also wasn’t honest with her about why I didn’t want to do it.

I was having a rough time Thursday night. I had worked all morning, went straight to therapy, and then came home and had to process everything. Something happened that put me over the edge and I just had to go outside and breathe to try to gain back some stability. I ended up sitting outside for over an hour, contemplating whether or not I should cry, light something on fire, or go back inside and go to sleep.

As I was sitting outside, I decided to e-mail my therapist. She had e-mailed me a link to an article on DID disclosure after our session that day. As odd as it is, I am okay with disclosing the DID to the outside world. Because of my work with HealthyPlace, my name is now permanently associated with DID. I am less okay with disclosing the DID to myself. Internally, I am finding it difficult to accept, even though I know that I have it. I am trying to be in denial while at the same time being fully aware that I am trying to be in denial despite the reality. Denial doesn’t quite work out so well when you are aware of it; it only creates dissonance. I also have a tendency to tell myself that I failed somehow and that is why I have DID, that it’s just another one of my many failures.

I also revealed what happened with my younger part the other day, and why I was so afraid to get in touch with those parts during therapy. My therapist wrote back that even though it is unnerving to be able to sense their feelings and hear their voices, that it is actually a good sign. She also wrote that I may not have been ready to hear those younger parts before, but now my consciousness is allowing it for a reason. I know that she’s right. but it still scares me. I feel ill-prepared. It’s just been me and Charlie for so long, and I wasn’t even handling that relationship well. My therapist is going to work with me on how to respond to my parts, because I told her I don’t think I know what to do and it overwhelms me, like it did on Tuesday. I need to get myself to a point where I can just accept my DID and my parts, and realize that this is not an indication of failure. I feel horrible for not being able to protect all of my parts from their traumas, when the reality is that I have these parts because they were protecting me.

With all that’s been going on these last few weeks, I put grad school preparation off to the side. I have just over three weeks before the application is due. I am going to need to make it a priority to get everything finished. This is something I need to do, not only for financial reasons but because deep down, I feel like I have a purpose as a therapist. I feel that a lot of what has happened has happened for a reason. I moved to this specific location for a reason. I was chosen to write about living with DID for HealthyPlace for a reason. I started this blog for a reason, and it has evolved into so much more than I intended it to be. All of these things have helped me to grow, even though I have trouble seeing that sometimes. I think grad school will also help me grow. It will give me more purpose.

Thankfully, I’ve been given extra hours at work this coming week. It will help keep me busy, and I’ll have more money to pay my bills. I’m just hoping that I will be able to handle the extra work, and the blog, and the grad school prep, and therapy. It’s draining, but it’s what I need to do.

I’m sorry, I’m okay

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I managed at the last minute to drag myself to therapy today despite feeling like absolute shit.

Last night was difficult for me. I have had so much going on, and I’ve kept it all inside. Stress about home, about grad school applications, about how I’m going to afford grad school, about how I’m going to afford living. Then add issues about my family, an overall lack of sleep, and the seemingly constant chaos inside of my head, and I wonder how I am not locked up in an institution somewhere.

The pain was just too much for me that my heart was actually hurting. Yet I was completely unable to express any emotion. I was numb and in pain at the same time, and I know that is impossible but that is how I felt. I couldn’t take the pain any more. I ended up hurting myself just so I could feel something real. But that only works in the short-term. I woke up the next morning with the same emotional pain, plus the physical pain from what I had inflicted on myself the night before.

I didn’t really want to be in therapy. I didn’t want to be anywhere. But I knew I couldn’t skip out without causing alarm. So I went, sat in my usual spot on the couch, and looked at the floor. My therapist asked if there was anything I needed to talk about. I told her no, that she could talk. I didn’t really want to get into anything. I just wanted to sit there and pretend like everything was fine and dandy.

My therapist started talking about managing my DID better. It is something I know I need to do, but I’ve been at a point where I just want to ignore it and hope that it goes away. She said if I take time and communicate with my parts, it won’t be so chaotic inside. Right now, my parts are running amok like a child who is being ignored and wanting attention. I know that she’s right, I just don’t have the mindset to deal with all of that right now.

I wasn’t into the conversation, and my therapist could tell. I couldn’t tell her what was wrong, though. I tried to reveal minor things in order to avoid the major, but even that wasn’t working. I had put my walls up, and she was not getting through. She asked if she was the problem. I told her it wasn’t her. And it’s not. The problem is with me. Part of me is still scared to talk. Part of me is still afraid to say how I’m feeling.

Then, in the middle of the weak back-and-forth we were engaging in, my therapist asked if I could try to not apologize whenever I say how I am feeling. It is something she has brought up before; she tells me regularly that I don’t need to apologize, but I still keep doing it. I told her I couldn’t do that. She asked why it was so hard for me to stop. I told her I’m not supposed to have feelings. Feelings get you in trouble. Feelings get you punished. Then my therapist asked how I would be punished, and I managed to nod my head yes when she asked if it was physical.

I started to think about all of the times I had to suppress my feelings, and all the times I accidentally made them known. Whenever I was upset or cried, she’d make it hurt more. Whenever I showed my anger, she’d tell me anger was the devil coming through and I needed to be punished. Then there was the incident that finally broke me. When someone from my high school called my parents and told them I was feeling depressed, my father sat me down that night and told me he’d give me something to be depressed about. I sat there and took the beating and tried to be stoic, but after a few minutes, the tears came and all I could do was apologize and beg for mercy that never came. I never cried during a beating again.

On an intellectual level, I know my therapist isn’t going to hurt me for expressing my feelings. Yet, I still find myself apologizing dozens of times each session. I even apologized for crying after the group workshop the other day. Being sorry is part of my programming. I should be sorry for feeling. I should be sorry for expressing emotion. I should be sorry for breathing. My parents made me feel as if I should be sorry just for existing and taking up space in their lives. I am sorry. I am sorry I was born.

In addition to my apologetic programming, I also have a tendency to tell everyone I’m okay. In therapy, those words tend to follow right after I say I’m sorry. It’s almost as if I’m trying to convince myself that I’m okay as much as I’m trying to convince the other person.

Towards the end of our session today, I felt myself becoming overwhelmed with emotion. As a defense, I must have said “I’m okay” at least five times in succession. Then my therapist told me that I don’t have to say I’m okay when I’m not okay. She said knows I put up a facade and that’s how I’ve made it through life so far, but I don’t have to put that mask on anymore and I don’t have to put it up when I’m with her. She continued to talk about it and I finally just burst out and said “I’m not okay.”

I don’t think I’ve ever said those words out loud before. I don’t think my therapist expected me to say them right then, either. I don’t even think I expected to say them. But I did. And now the truth is out there.

Today in therapy…

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

My therapist sent me an e-mail this morning, even though I was going to see her within the next few hours. She e-mails me a few times a week. I save every one, because she always writes something useful or something I will need to remind myself of later.

This e-mail was full of links. Links to portable door locks for my room, links to apartment listings, and a link to an art and poetry site she thought would interest me. She actually took the time to look for these things for me.

I thought it was a little odd that she sent me apartment listings out of the blue. We have been discussing future living arrangements, but never in-depth and never as an immediate need. When we started the session today, she asked me if I read her e-mail. I told her I did, but that I read it on my phone on the bus so I didn’t get to look at everything. Then she got serious.

She doesn’t think I will be able to progress in therapy and in healing in my current living situation. She said she hadn’t made it a priority before, but I think after group yesterday, everyone realized how much the situation is affecting me. There are a lot of things that have gone on and continue to go on that I haven’t told anyone about except my therapist. I never want to be home. I never feel safe here. It is causing me to constantly be on the defense and have my alerts up and running. Those defenses are still in place even when I’m at therapy, so it prevents a lot of work from being done. I’m rarely able to sleep, I don’t eat much because my food goes missing, and it leaves me with little energy left for anything else. It’s just not good for me here.

The conversation eventually switched to yesterday’s group therapy. I told her I felt like a failure because I wasn’t able to be fully there. She tried to tell me I wasn’t a failure. I was doing fine until the session about the wise older self when I got triggered. She tried to tell me that being in therapy for so many hours talking about a subject like that has the potential to be triggering to anyone, and that it was okay. But it wasn’t okay to me.

Then she asked about what happened when I got triggered. She asked about the voices. I didn’t want to talk about the voices. I still have trouble admitting out loud that these voices even exist. I hid that from the world for so long because I didn’t want people to think I was crazy. In some ways I believe that if I don’t say it out loud, it won’t be true. I told her it didn’t matter, but she pushed on. I told her the voices had been bothering me for days, and I wanted them to go away. She asked if it would be alright to let them take control so she can talk with them. But I didn’t want to. I told her I didn’t want to deal with this anymore. I just want it to go away. I want to be normal.

I told my therapist I was having trouble feeling. A sense of physical numbness had taken over me. You could have smacked me in the face right then I wouldn’t feel a thing. She sat next to me and held my hand in hers and tried to get me to feel it, but nothing was there. It took a few minutes of pressure and concentration to get me to feel again. Even then I was still partially numb.

She continued to hold my hand and talk to me. I don’t even remember what we were talking about, when she stopped and asked me if I realized what I was doing just then. I told her no. I had been trying to pull my hand away. She said that it happens a lot when she holds my hand. I never noticed or even thought about it. I had been doing it unconsciously this whole time. She asked me if I had any memories involving my hand. I told her I didn’t. I don’t remember anything like that. Then she talked about body memories and how it could be related to that. I didn’t think I had any body memories. Why would I be pulling my hand away? Why can’t I remember anything about it, but my body does?

At one point, I had become so exhausted that I pulled away and rested my head on the arm of the couch. I don’t remember what my therapist was talking about, but I started to feel panicked so I reached out to hold her hand. I felt like my mother was coming for me. My therapist tried to comfort me and tell me that I was safe. We tried to get my breathing under control so I could relax, and I was eventually able to calm down. It usually takes me a while to get back because I’m used to managing panic attacks on my own. It’s better when someone is there beside you. It’s best if you don’t have them at all.

Towards the end of the session, my therapist brought up what I colored in group yesterday. She asked why I chose to color the word hope in black. I told her I just did. Then she explained that people sometimes try to send nonverbal cues when they aren’t able to or not sure how to say what they need to say out loud. Why can’t a color just be a color? Why does there have to be a meaning behind it?

She was right, though.

In that moment, I felt that hope was dead.