trauma

Flee, Part 2

~ KJ ~ 7 Comments

“Are you protecting them or are you protecting you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t understand this.”

“You don’t need to protect them anymore.”

I know that; intellectually I know that. But I was still so afraid to say out loud what happened. We were trained not to tell anyone anything. She told us they wouldn’t understand. So I kept quiet. I never told. And even though she’s not here now, I’m still not telling. I’m still living in fear of a threat that is no longer valid.

I think I am protecting her. I am still protecting both of them. I can still hear her voice inside my head sometimes. Don’t tell. Don’t tell. Don’t tell.

“Look around. You are safe here. They are not here. No one can hurt you here.”

I knew where I was. But I was somewhere else in my mind. I was existing within two worlds at the same time: the world of now and the world of my childhood. It was as if I were standing on an invisible line, with one foot on either side: the past to my left, and the present to my right. I can see both worlds, but I can’t pick a side. So I stand there, existing in limbo.

“What was your mother doing?”

The pressure built up inside my head again. I could feel my insides shaking and I started to panic. Why is it so hard for me to tell? I want so badly just to let it out and I can’t. I can’t do it.

“Do we need to take a break?”

I wanted so badly to say no. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to fight through the chaos inside. But I knew in that moment that I couldn’t go on. I wanted to flee from my own body. I wanted to escape right then and there. But why? I was in a safe place. I was with a safe person. So why do I still want to run away?

I want to run away from the truth. I want everything to be okay. But it’s too late for that.

I told her yes. I didn’t acknowledge in that moment how powerful it was for me to admit that I needed a break. I never did that before.

My therapist asked what I had for breakfast. Nothing. She asked what I had for lunch. Nothing. She asked about coffee. I always have coffee before therapy, even if I don’t eat anything. I used to drink it black, but now I get it with cream and sugar for the added calories. It all tastes the same to me.

I’m in therapy now, talking about coffee. I was slowly crossing over the invisible line into the present, no longer teetering into the past. We talked about my school situation. We talked about the GRE, and how I cried over the phone because the person registering me could not understand me. But I wasn’t crying about the misunderstanding or about the GRE; I was crying because I couldn’t handle everything that was going on in my mind.

We talked about TV. I bought a TV back in February and have watched it twice since then. I don’t know why. She asked what kinds of television shows I like to watch. She mentioned reality shows. “I can’t watch them, my father watches them.” She mentioned another type. “I can’t watch them, either. He liked them, too.”

I have disconnected myself from anything that reminds me of my abusers. I told my therapist about the Poptart incident from the week before. I told her how I can’t wear headbands because my mother wore them, how I can’t eat certain candies because my mother ate them. I don’t want to be like her. I don’t want to be like my father, either.

“That doesn’t make you anything like them. You need to reclaim those things. You can eat a chocolate Poptart because you like to eat them. It doesn’t make you your mother.”

“It’s alright, I switched to peanut butter. My mother hates peanut butter.“ But I knew that wasn’t my therapist’s point. I’m still avoiding. I’m still restricting myself from things that I could enjoy just because those other people enjoyed them, too. It’s not fair.

By the time the coffee and Poptart conversation was done, we were nearing the end of session. It didn’t feel like all that time had passed. I was sitting there, still very much unresolved. I knew the memories were going to come back. I knew I failed again.

I want to stay here. I don’t want to flee anymore. Help me get through this. Help me stop this.

Flee, Part 1

~ KJ ~ 17 Comments

I sat in the waiting room of my therapist’s office this afternoon, fighting the urge to get up and leave. I looked at the door, then looked at the clock, debating if I could dash out without running into her. I can’t leave. She’ll worry. I have to leave. I can’t do this today. I spent so much time debating with myself, that before I knew it, my therapist came out of her office and my option to flee was gone.

I was scared. I wanted to run away because I was scared of what was going to happen. I knew my therapist would know something was wrong. It doesn’t matter how many times I say “I’m okay.” My face always tells the truth, and today my face was telling the world that something was wrong.

Sure enough, my therapist knew I was not okay. She asked when it all started. I told her. I told her how I couldn’t stop crying. I told her I couldn’t sleep. I told her about the memories that were (are) not stopping. I told her I didn’t want to remember anymore. I couldn’t take anymore heartbreak.

My therapist talked about memories and what memory loops mean, and all the things I already knew. Therapy was a safe place to talk about it. I knew that. But I was still scared. I tried to process it anyway. I knew that hiding it and avoiding it was not working; that was obvious to me given how I’ve been the last few days.

He knew. He was there. I started crying. Uncontrollably. I felt the pain in my heart come back. My head was hurting in a weird sort of way, like a pressure was building up inside with no way to release it. And I just kept crying. I didn’t want it to be true. I wanted that little bit of hope I had been holding on to that my father was just the tiniest bit of a decent person. But that is shattered now. That hope is lost.

It was too much for me to accept. I started doubting everything. Maybe these memories aren’t real. Maybe I’ve just made this all up in my head. I knew in part that these memories were real, but I didn’t want to accept them. I wanted my hope back. I wanted my innocence back. I wanted my father back.

I’ve had memories before where he is there, but not really there. This was different. It was clear what was going on. There is no doubt in my mind. He knew. And he didn’t protect me. He didn’t help me. He helped her.

Why? I don’t understand. My therapist says not to focus on the why, not to stress myself out trying to understand people who cannot be understood. But I can’t help it. I don’t like it when I don’t understand something. I don’t understand my life. I don’t understand the people who raised me, although I’m not sure saying “raised” is really accurate at all.

I struggled to stay connected to the present. The difficulty of working through flashbacks and memories is realizing that you are in the here and now, and not back when the trauma happened. Sometimes I am afraid of reliving it, so I push it down and try to forget about it. For the record, that never works.

My therapist has to constantly remind me that I am safe there, that no one is going to hurt me. So why is it so hard for me still? I want to feel safe. I just want to feel safe for once in my life.

Why?

~ KJ ~ 13 Comments

I’m exhausted, but I’m too scared to close my eyes. I’m afraid to go to sleep.

Last night was horrible. Nightmare after nightmare. At one point I woke up doused in sweat; my skin felt like it was on fire. It wasn’t even hot in the house. The heat was coming from inside me, like a fire burning whatever was left of my soul.

Whatever sleep I had was ruined by the nightmares, the memories, the pain. The day hadn’t even started and I was already drained. I cried walking to the bus stop. I cried at work. I cried on the bus going home from work. I cried at home. The tears don’t even help. They can’t take away the pain in my heart. They don’t stop the memories from invading my mind. They just give me a headache.

I don’t have time to cry. I have a job to do. I have essays to write. I have bills to pay, money to pull from the sky, and people to check on. There’s no time to cry. Suck it up.

Why can’t I just get over it?

PAFPAC blog

~ Crystalie ~ 4 Comments

I have created a separate blog for PAFPAC: pafpacorg.wordpress.com

From now on, any PAFPAC-related posts will be on that blog, in order to separate my professional identity from my personal story.

I will also be focusing more on posting about female-perpetrated abuse there: facts and figures, research, education, etc.

I would also consider sharing blogs and posts from survivors who would like to be featured on PAFPAC’s blog.

(I will be deleting this post in a few days).

No-pamax

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I am, once again, off medication.

I probably shouldn’t have started back in the first place. I’ve struggled with finding medications that were more beneficial than harmful. I’ve talked about my issues with psychotropic medications before in this post. I cannot take antidepressants because they cause an adverse reaction. I actually seem to function quite decently on no medication at all (and that’s not just me saying that – others agree).

My migraines were getting so bothersome that I agreed to give Topamax a try when my doctor suggested it back in March. I had been on Topamax before – last year to be exact – and had considerable side effects and ended up weaning off. But I was so desperate for relief, and my doctor was confident that Topamax would work for my migraines and would help me stop smoking – killing two birds with one stone.

It worked. My migraines significantly diminished, and after a week or two, I had no migraines at all. Headaches, yes, but they were tolerable in comparison to the migraines I had been experiencing for so long. I found relief.

Unfortunately, I also found a shitload of side effects. Gastrointestinal issues (I will spare you the details) just worsened as the dosage increased. While my cravings for cigarettes decreased (I actually managed to go 10 days without smoking), my cravings for everything else – including food – also decreased. The mere act of drinking water required a massive amount of effort, because anything that would go near my mouth would make me instantly sick.

Even so, I continued to take the Topamax. But then the scary side effects started to creep up. I would be having an okay day and suicidal thoughts would come out of nowhere. I didn’t put two and two together until the thoughts continued to get worse as my dosage continued to increase.

I’ve had similar reactions before, but that was when I was taking antidepressants. I knew Topamax was not an anti-depressant. Out of curiosity, I googled Topamax and suicide and came across countless others who had experienced the same side effects. I read at least a dozen accounts that were eerily similar to mine: being okay one minute, then having troubling – at times graphic – thoughts of suicide just moments later.

I knew then that maybe this medication was just not worth it for me. I really wanted it to work out, because my migraines were gone. But I also knew that I needed to be alive and functional, and the medication was sending me on a path in the opposite direction. I told my therapist what was going on. I told my close friends to watch out for the signs. And after two more weeks with no improvement, I started to wean off of the medication.

So now I am sans medication. My migraines are back, but I am treating them with OTC migraine medication for now. My mind is not as foggy. I feel more mentally balanced. My mood is more stabilized now that I am off of the medication (which is ironic, because Topamax is used off-label as a mood stabilizer). I feel more connected to reality and to living.

I am not advocating anyone going off of their medication. I have done it in the past under close guidance. I just happen to be one of the small percentage of people who experience adverse reactions/side effects from psychotropic medications.

I wish there was a pill I could take to make me better. Unfortunately, with trauma-based disorders like PTSD and DID, treatment relies more on therapy than on medication. That’s why I go to therapy a few times a week, every week. Healing happens from there, not from a pill.

Why Feeling Suicidal Isn’t Being Suicidal

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I want to share an article I came across a short time ago:

When You’re in the Gray Area of Being Suicidal

The author (Taylor Jones) does an excellent job of putting into words what so many of us experience on a regular basis: feeling suicidal but not wanting to die.

You can’t fault someone for having suicidal feelings. But there is a key difference between feeling suicidal and being suicidal. When you are suicidal and want to die, you make a plan, and may even go so far as to put that plan into action.

When you are feeling suicidal, it remains a feeling. You don’t act on it. You may even forget that it’s there for a while before it creeps up again. You go about living your life because you really don’t want to die, but you can’t help what you’re feeling.

If I wanted to die, I would be dead. I would not be sitting at my computer right now, typing up this blog post. I could have overdosed on something. I could have jumped in front of a train or a bus. But I have not. Because I don’t want to die.

If I wanted to die, I would have just stayed in home prison. My mother would have killed me soon enough. Instead, I knew that there was life outside of those walls, a life that was probably worth living.

If I wanted to die, I wouldn’t be dragging my ass to work every day to earn a paycheck. I wouldn’t even be getting out of bed. What would be the point?

If I wanted to die, I wouldn’t be spending the majority of the money I earn paying for my therapy sessions each week. In fact, I wouldn’t even bother going to therapy. There would be no point. Instead, I have continued to go to therapy every few days for the last 10 months.

And if I was in danger, I know how to get help. I admitted myself to the hospital all of those times, and even though I probably didn’t need to be in the hospital, I knew in my heart it was better for me to be there (especially while I was still living with my abusers).

So yes, I often feel suicidal, but no, I’m not suicidal. It’s not the same thing.

I live to live

~ KJ ~ 6 Comments

No matter how shitty (or great) I feel, I wake up at 4:30 every morning, take a shower, get dressed, and go to work. I could have slept two hours; I could have slept eight hours. It doesn’t matter. I continue to do it because I need to, and because I want to.

When I fell in the street at the end of last August, I picked myself back up, wiped the blood off of my hands and knees, walked to the bus stop and went to work. I didn’t stop. I went to the hospital afterwards, where I found out I had fractured my right foot (and sprained my left knee). Even then, in a cast and crutches, I woke up at 4:00 the next morning, took a shower, got dressed, and hobbled my way to the bus stop to get to work.

When I neared the end of my undergraduate career last August, I put my heart and soul into my work. Despite moving out, being hospitalized, working, and being officially diagnosed with DID within the course of a month, I managed to complete a research project and thesis and receive a near-perfect score (99). I graduated with top honors, despite the chaos going on around me.

When I ended up in the hospital in the beginning of August, I worked my ass off to get out. Right after I was released, I walked right to my therapist’s office and had a session. I went home, unpacked my things, and worked on my thesis, a chapter of which had then been overdue. Then the next morning, I woke up at 4:30, took a shower, got dressed, and started my first day at work, less than 24 hours after being released from the hospital.

When I ran away from home prison on July 10th, 2015, I did so against impossible odds. I managed to hide money away in separate online bank accounts that my mother didn’t know about. I managed to find a place far enough away to keep me safe, but close enough to a competent therapist and to a school where I could fulfill my dream of being a counselor. I managed to free myself and physically leave through the front door of the apartment, the same door that my mother slept just feet away from every night, as if she were a prison guard on duty. I could have been hurt. But I escaped. Despite everything, I found freedom.

I have consistently shown that I do not give up. Life seems to knock me down quite a bit. Sometimes it really gets to me, but I have never stopped living. Even in the darkest times, I continue to live.

I can’t change some of my circumstances.

I can’t give myself a biological family; that’s gone forever. But I have a family that consists of my friends from the new life I have built here.

I can’t grow money on trees. But I can keep working and find ways to survive until I find success someday.

I can’t cure my DID or take a pill and forget everything that happened to me. But I can keep going to therapy, even if I have to go for the rest of my life.

I may not be the best at life. Considering where and what I came from, I think I am doing a damn good job. I am living. Despite everything, I am living.

And I have died so many times, but I am still alive.

I am a work in progress, just like anyone else.

Alone

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

In times of struggle, I realize that I am essentially alone.

I’ve been playing out this scenario in my head for the last few days. I pack my bags and go back home, knock on my mother’s door, beg for her forgiveness, and she takes me in and I have a family again. But she wouldn’t do that, because I broke her rules and betrayed her. I ran away from home and let people know what she did to her children. I’ll never be her daughter again.

I’m just so desperate. I’m alone.

When others are struggling, they have people to turn to, family to lean on, a significant other to cry with. I don’t have any of that. My family is gone, and I am alone. I struggle alone. I cry alone. I suffer alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.

I’m constantly reminded of why I can’t trust people. Then I feel even more alone. Trapped and alone. Living life, barely scraping by, and by the end of the day I am completely drained. I’m not even sure why I keep going through the motions. Does any of this even have a point?

I’m drowning in debt, some of it that isn’t even mine. I’m in school for something that I’m not even sure I can handle. I spend most nights wondering when it will all end. When will my struggle end?

Yes, I’m being selfish and pitiful right now. I’m tired of getting shat on in life while undeserving fuckheads get shit handed to them that they don’t even need or deserve. What the fuck. This is not a life I want.

I have no stable home base. I have no family. I’m losing all of my connections to the life I lived for so long.

What did I do wrong?

Why can’t I feel anything?

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

I had therapy this morning.

It started out okay. But I knew my therapist wanted to talk about my parts, a topic we haven’t been able to delve into much because my life has been a clusterfuck lately. Talking about parts is not the most comfortable thing for me, because parts come out and I hear things that I am sometimes not quite ready to deal with, or things I don’t want to deal with.

There has been an issue with some of my parts and therapy. Parts don’t want other parts talking. One part doesn’t want anyone (including me) talking about a particular event that several of us happen to share experience and memory of. It’s so complicated. And the problem is that this particular event was so traumatic even for me, that it is very prevalent in my life and I need to talk about it. But every time it comes up, it causes chaos on the inside.

I tried to explain to my therapist a little bit of what was going on without going into specifics, because I didn’t want to trigger myself into a switch. That didn’t work for too long, because I realized I was thinking about the event in question and it brought up feelings and feelings get you in trouble and off I went.

When you come out of dissociation, you ground yourself. You try to engage your senses. My therapist always tells me to put my feet on the floor. I’m able to bounce back pretty quickly at this point, without going through the entire process. She told me to feel the water bottle I had near me, and asked me what the temperature of the water was. I held the bottle in the palm of my hand, but I couldn’t really feel it. I tried to close off everything else going on around me and focus on just the bottle and my hand. I still couldn’t feel it. I think my therapist sensed my frustration. She asked me what was wrong. I told her, “I don’t know, I can’t feel the water.”

She got up from her chair, took the bottle from my hand, felt it, held it out in her hand, then held out her other hand towards me.

“Touch the bottle and my hand and tell me which is warmer.”

I grabbed the bottom of the bottle with my left hand, and reached out and held my right hand against her palm. I tried, and I still could not feel anything. I was frustrated. My therapist played it off like it was okay. She told me she thought her hand was warmer, and went and sat back down in her chair. I sat back and started to cry.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

I was hesitant to answer at first. I just wanted to tell her I was okay. My go-to answer. But she knew by my expression and my tears that I was not okay.

“Why can’t I feel anything?”

She asked me if I really wanted to know her thoughts. I already knew. I developed parts that shut off feelings because that is what they needed to do in order to survive. They believed that feelings were wrong. They believed that feelings resulted in pain and hurt (because they did). How horrible it must be to still be stuck in a world where you believe you cannot feel. The sadness I experience with not being able to feel the water, or my therapist’s hand…that doesn’t come anywhere close to what my parts (and I) have experienced in childhood.

While I was crying over not being able to feel a bottle of water, I was actually crying over a whole lot more.