LIVING A MYSTERY

Maybelline snuggling up with my bear on a road trip.  

Worth Wondering.

WHO'S ON FIRST?

So my session with Therapist was interesting yesterday.  At one point he mentioned an alter, Tina, but she was already and participating in the session, but he didn't know it.  And I'm like, "Dude, don't you know after all these years who you talkin' to?"  Made me lose confidence that he really knows who we are and aren't.  Does he not know us by now?  You can't tell I'm in the room?  I HATE being talked about in 3rd person.

JOB TALK

We discussed things like obtaining my Masters degree for writing and also doing some tutoring on the side since I used to be a teacher.  I've decided to begin the arduous and probably disappointing process of using services from Vocational Rehabilitation.  If tutoring is something I consider pursuing, they would help me out by finding me jobs and places that are looking for tutors. 

THE BROKEN BRAIN

He also didn't give much merit to what was said about the mind losing energy with the smallest work and needs a nap frequently to reset.  He didn't understand what I meant when I said our brain was broken.  It's when much of your coping skills are gone.  When you revert back to the person you were before you made progress.  A broken brain is where every little task seems overwhelming and you almost feel child-like and can't do anything.  A broken brain is like being in a coma, able to hear and feel your surroundings, but unable to communicate anything from the bottom of the coma in which you are encased.  My brain broke in 2015 for good.  Since then, it's just about piecing moments and thoughts together to make a semblance of a life.

DISCUSSING CHILDHOOD

Therapist also wanted to talk about the happy times of childhood.  I shut that shit down fast.  I don't want to discuss any aspect of being a child.  If there were good times, I don't want to know about it. There is nothing worth remembering, nothing about being a child that I want any knowledge of. 

What are your thoughts?  

1)How do you hand your therapist talking to and about your parts?

2) Have you ever thought something inside you broke?

3)  Do you avoid talking about childhood altogether, or can you appreciate happy times if they existed?

Safety is as Stupid Does

Maybelline taking a long nap after a walk.

I feel uneasy and unsettled, and a lot has to do with our session with Therapist.  The clock revealed only 30 minutes had elapsed, so I must have lost time in there.  I remember talking about Husband’s violent behavior and about how others cope who don’t cut, which I find interesting because the cutting isn’t what Therapist should be worried about.  Burning and my restrictive thoughts and behaviors should concern him more.  But with satisfaction I digress.  

Always looking for safe places.

So I’m supposed to blog about what would make me feel safe; what in my present life would make me feel safe.  

LOL.  I’m more likely to find the 8th World Wonder.

SAFETY: the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury. Security.

Ironically, what has made me feel the most unsafe is the only thing that can make me feel safe again.  Men.  I remember how safe Former Psychiatrist made me feel.  He spoke softly and tenderly to us.  He even allowed me to see how my poetry made him cry.  

Some have said they feel safe with Therapist.  I can’t say that.  I don’t feel he’s warm, soft, or caring, and that’s what we need.

Safety should be a one-way street.  There should be other things to make me feel safe.  But the truth is that what destroyed me is the only thing that can resurrect me.  

But in a perfect world, what would keep me safe?

I can’t answer that.  Nothing will or would.  I’m constantly aware of the dangers around me.  I wonder if you can be both.  Can you be aware of danger but be safe at the same time?

I have no concept of safety.  I’ve always wanted to feel taken care of and protected.  To the core and by the core, we’ve never felt safe.

This subject is bringing out my self-harm inclincations.

I hate this fucking topic of safety.  No where in the world is it safe.  Danger lies in everyone’s thoughts and behind everyone’s perverted fucking eyes.  

I don’t wanna write anymore.  

But we didn’t find the answers.  

Except for one: it’s not safe even inside.  

(There is a child talking to me with a British accent and I hear Victoria trying to calm her)

Why is she upset?   Is she upset because there’s no safety anywhere?

*Realization*

Words.  Words make Victoria feel safe, especially when she can artfully craft them and express them just how she wants them to be.  She’s protected by her words.  They are her defenses.

The rest of us don’t have one.

Good Enough

I’m in a bit of a slump right now. I haven’t written much lately because I haven’t been in a good place. I’ve been feeling down about myself. I’ve been feeling insufficient.

This spring, Husband and I purchased season passes from Water Park and thought a splash of the water, a ray of the sun, the chimes of laughter would do well to get rid of the winter blues and help us relax a bit. But for me, relaxation hasn’t been the story. At Water Park, I’m dangerously playing the comparison game, and I always end up the loser. I compare myself with every girl there. Every girl who is thinner than I am, every girl who is darker than I am, or every girl who is just different than I am, becomes better than me. And I end up hating myself. I never measure up. It doesn’t matter what the other girls look like: fat/skinny, pale/tan, tall/short, old/young. I will always feel second best in every respect. I am never good enough for myself.

Yesterday was a particularly bad day for comparisons and self-hatred. I was at Water Park and because I didn’t measure up to the comparisons between myself and the other girls, I felt the commanding need to injure myself, to punish myself for not being better. Not having the “normal” tools I might need to self-injure at Water Park, I decided to burn myself in the sun. I stretched myself out on the lounge chair, opened myself up to the sun, and collected all of his powerful beams of light in my skin.

In this instance, sun burning myself was like agreeing with the world, “Yes, I know I’m inferior.” It’s as if I want the world to know that I know that I’m not good enough, I know I’m ugly. I have to put myself down before other people can do it.

The redness of a sun burn goes away, but the feeling of being secondary stays behind. I am embarrassed to be me. I know I’m hideous; I just want to say it before others can.

The Reveal

Today Husband, my daughter, her brother, and I went to a water park, which meant bathing suit time, which meant The Reveal.

Breakfast this morning was different. I've heard good things about steel cut oats so I decided to try them. I like the oats themselves. They are chewy and a bit grainy. I didn't like the toppings I threw in, such as the soy milk. However, oats and almond butter is always an exceptional choice together.

I felt incredibly self-conscious. I could feel everyone’s eyes boring into me, passing judgment on my hideous form. Still, I tried not to care. I told myself that what everyone thinks of me is none of my business, but the self-talk didn’t last long.

After a long, hot day at the water park, all I wanted was something cool and refreshing. A goat cheese and cucumber sandwich was all the trick, in addition to my salad monster and mango.

Standing in line for the rides, I felt as if I were on display. The crowds come pushing in to take a look, to stake their claim on a good stare at me. I tried to reassure myself that they weren’t staring at my generous scars or my “healthy” body weight. I tried to think of everything else they could be looking at. Maybe they were looking at my flawless fair skin or my awesome tattoos or my highly coveted muscles or my tricked out swimsuit.

But I couldn’t make myself believe it. I know why they were looking at me, and I have no one else to blame.

I was all over my snack tonight. Oikos honey yogurt, and Pumpkin seed and Flax granola. Someone else enjoyed the Oikos, too.

My doggie.

Make way! New thoughts coming through

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about how much do I want to get better. I’ve been feeling that as much time as we’ve put in therapy we should be further along in the process than we are now. I’ve done fairly well at stopping some of those self-destructive behaviors that used to plague my existence. However, the eating disorder is what gets me stuck in time. I don’t understand how I could still be struggling with those behaviors based on how much inpatient, residential, and outpatient treatment we’ve had. But I’ve realized that one of the reasons recovery didn’t stick before was that I didn’t commit to it. I didn’t do everything I needed to in order to resist falling back into old, destructive coping habits.

An area that I can pinpoint is the way we think about ourselves.

When I first forayed into recovery, I did what my treatment team suggested. I gained weight. I followed a meal plan. I took my meds. By my actions it looked like I was in recovery, but in my head it was a different story. Not once did I stop to work on what I thought about myself. I thought I was fat, ugly, and repulsive. I didn’t even want to change my thinking. I wanted to hate myself. I felt better if I hated myself. If I liked myself then it was as if I was giving myself permission to love something worthless, defective, and damaged. In a sense, it was like I was protecting myself by letting myself think I was despicable. If I hated myself enough, if I called myself enough names, if I drank/cut/burned/purged/restricted enough maybe I would eventually change.

Don’t get me wrong. I am nowhere near to accepting myself, much less loving myself. When I look in the mirror I see flaws, not fierceness. But what’s changed is that now I’m open to the idea of not hating myself. I’m open to the idea of changing the way I think and view myself. I finally see that in order to truly recover this time we are going to have to start thinking of ourselves differently and start accepting us.

Days like this I don't know what to do with myself

I don't know what to say. I hate feeling like this. I feel uninspired and rather ineffectual right now. The sad music plays and soothes my brain. I'm sorry, dear reader. I would rather post a positive blog, but I'm not so positive right now.

I'm at Panera, as usual, but this time I'm writing from Tenneessee, where my in-laws live. It's hard to have a good visit with them because I'm so far out of my f*cki*ng mind. I'm not okay and I don't know how to get okay. I can't wait to get back into town so I can see my shitty psychiatrist and get a change on my meds. I really think I need a med change. I hate my psychiatrist; before I left I called another psychiatrist that is supposed to be really good with D.I.D. and eating disorders but she's on vaca. this week, so I couldn't even schedule an appt. with her. So next week I'll see my usual psycho-iatrist and still schedule an appt. with the new one.

I feel so utterly sad. I'm starting to get daily affirmations and mediations on my cell phone. However, I came across this one on the Internet. http://www.deeshan.com/ It doesn't really apply to me today, but it is something to think about when we are dissecting our own self-worth.

Secret Shadows has had some blogs lately about parenting with D.I.D. that at the time didn't apply to me, but I read them anyway since I have god-children. I never thought I would be telling my story when reading hers, but I have to.

I never thought I would tell my god-children about my condition but the need arose lately and I was amazed at their maturity in accepting my condition.

My god-children , C. and O. are twin, thirteen years old, just shy of fourteen. They've had a very difficult life but it has taught them resilency. We had custody of them for five years, between the ages of six and eleven. I never wanted to have children but they needed a home and what was I supposed to do? Throw children I already loved into foster care? Nopie. So we took them in. It was difficult, to be sure. Now they "live" with their bio-parents but, even though we don't have custody of them, we are still their parents. They call us "mom" and "dad."

With that sad, I have some members that are starting to relish coming out and the freedom it entails. They are all about self-expression and even got a nose piercing. My family is ultra, ultra, ultra conservative so I had to explain to my children that we all have parts to ourselves. "Part" of us likes Disney World, part of us like Busch Gardens. Part of us likes "abc", and another part likes "def".

Then, one of my daughters who has some severe learning challenges from being a premie asks me," Mom, are you talking about identities?" I was floored. Apparently she heard me and D. talking about it and looked it up on the Internet. She had been sitting with partial knowledge for a year.

So of course they had a lot of questions, most of which I was unprepared for but we answered. I couldn't believe how grown up and understanding they were being. I was upset that one of my members got the piercing and C., my daughter, said, "Don't worry. It wasn't your fault. We know it wasn't you." What a blessing.

I could finally take a deep breath around them. Now, one of my members wants to get a tattoo. Our arms are so scared and we have most recent burn marks on our left wrist and it looks like a cuff. It is bright red and it gave the member the idea to have "Love" tattooed on her wrist. It is in part because of TWLOHA, the grassroots organization to demythitize self-harm. So by tattooing "Love" on her arms, she believes we will never self-harm again. Would that it were. If that would be the trick, I'd go get the tattoo myself.

We have an appt. with a dietician next week. I'm so relieved. We need to get on a program. We are feeling so desperate. We ordered diet pills on-line last night. I know that was a bad move but the feelings of desperation are so high. We haven't been this heavy in a long time. Just months ago, we were severly underweight. It is hard to mentally wrap our head around what is provoking this response from the eating disorder.

I'm really reaching out to the world today. I'm accepting hugs if you're offering. I feel so down in the dumps. Mostly because I can't stand the way I feel inside this body. But enough of that. So this is so random.

Stay strong and take care.

Time after time

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 18 years old, institutionalized on the mental health floor, and trying to justify my suicide attempt in group therapy. Another woman, about twenty years older than me, scolded me out because I wanted to kill myself and told me how lucky I should feel because I was getting psychiatric help at such a young age and that she had to live with her illness longer than I had been alive.

Well, here I am, woman almost fifteen year later, and still getting psychiatric help. I'm still in therapy and have been in the looney bin several times since I was 18. So what does that make me? A failure? Worthless? Wasteful? Shouldn't early intervention mean that my life would be a panacea and I would have no problems?

If that's the case then I have failed miserably. I've been in therapy for a long time and I've been to alot of groups with varying ages. I never tell someone younger than me that they are lucky to get help early in life. I never feel jealous because they are getting help as a teenager.

Just because you receive help doesn't mean you are helped, and that is the difference. And the help you get may not be what you really need, but it may just keep you alive for the moment.

I remember all my therapists. Some of them were great, some not so great. I've still got some of the same problems I had when I first started therapy fifteen years ago. I still dissociate; I still am depressed; I still have an eating disorder; I still self harm. If I wanted to I could throw a pity party and mope and mourn all the years wasted and sacrificed to ineffectual therapy. But even though I still have a long way to go to achieve mental health, I know that I've made progress.

Every stage of my life has given me opportunities to grow. I've done the best I can do at any given moment. The wear and tear I've experienced in my life has afforded me the opportunity to gain wisdom, so the therapy wasn't a waste. And I'm not a waste because I'm not the poster child for mental health.

So to the woman that told me 15 years ago how lucky I was to get help early, I say fuck off. By saying that you invalidate me and how I've been scraping and clawing and scratching my way up the mountain for help. I'm not going to let myself feel like a waste and a disaster just because I'm not "fixed."

To the rest of the world that might look at me and say "what the fuck is wrong with you that fifteen years of therapy won't fix?, I try to tell myself, "Big deal." So what that I've been in therapy for 15 years. That shows a sign of hope. At least I haven't given up. At least I still try.

I know that one day my smile will be genuine and my laughter authentic. Then will I celebrate all the years, whether it's 15 or 25, that I struggled and battled to be happy and free.

Crowd of people

My head hurts. I just don't feel right. My alters have been all over the board today; even now, I feel them hovering around. There's not a moments peace or a moment alone.

I am proud of myself for getting out of bed and taking the documents up to our university so we may begin classes again in the Fall. Sounds weird saying that. Just earlier one of our more depressed alters was out and she was talking of death. We have the means available to us and she was playing with the patches. She seems to have cried her tears and gone back into hiding.

They've been like helicopters all day; always hovering. It wasn't that there was one or two presenting or sitting beside me, but there was a whole crowd of them inside my head, making my head swimmy and dizzy. I was by myself and taking my items up to my university, so I couldn't stop and ask D. for help.

I made it through, which is if you are looking for the bright side of things, there it is.

I feel so alone. I haven't felt well all day and so I'm missing my god-daughters orchestra recital. I hate to miss it, but I don't have the mental energy for it.

I was talking to my therapist yesterday about mental energy and she thought the fatigue might be from the depression, but I am of a different opinion. It is exhausting when the alters are coming and going and sending their thoughts and feelings and you don't know what's real and what's warbly. That's were my mental fatigue comes from, I believe. Although I do think my medication needs to be changed, I think being so tired is all about the alters coming and going. I think that's why I'm out of commission tonight: I forged ahead all day with the alters buzzine about my head.

As for last night, did I go off with Leah and work on building a friendship? No. I copped out and ran some errands with D. We ended up fighting, or someone fought with him because he apologized today and I was like, "What fight?", so I might have been better suited going to get coffee. But we made a definite date for next Wednesday,

That's all for tonight.

Friendship for sale

Here I am at Panera Bread Co. I've just finished my therapy session and I'm waiting for my movie to start. I'm going to the dollar theater to see Gran Torino. I'm just trying to add structure to my day. Depression has a ravenous hold on me, chomping away at me. This is such an effort. Also a torture. All I want to do is find the safety of my living room couch. The bed in and of itself is unsafe.

Panera Bread Co. is packed. I peek out over the top of my screen and see tables filled with people, all laughing and sharing stories, smiling and giggling, nodding heads in agreement, consuming the meal that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole without being able to purge it. I want the life that they have. I want to be able to go out to eat and consume my meal with no worries. I want to sit at a table that's filled with people all caring about each other. I want friends.

I have my chance tonight. I am supposed to go out for coffee with Leah after our A.N.A.D. meeting. I'm scared to death. Leah and I were in treatment together last year. Due to my Dissociative Identity Disorder, she knows more about me than I do about her. A couple of meetings ago, she asked me about a project I had been working on. I asked her how she ever knew about that and she told me I told her. I feel she has one up on me. I don't remember anything about her life and its going to seem rude that she knows about mine but I'm asking her rudimentary questions that I should already know b/c we were in treatment and groups together.

I guess I could brave it for the sake of a new friendship. Friendships have always scared me. I don't have the energy for them. Having to remember details like does she like pop music or is she a hard core rock fan, does she like Diet Coke or Coke Zero. These little details drive me nuts. It's embarassing.

And having to come up with conversation and making sure there aren't any of those awkard lulls where we look around and finally peek at our watches and each sheepishly speak of an early morning so we need to leave. And I'm not ready to offer up my diagnosis to her. She doesn't know about my D.I.D. and I don't want her to. I do know she doesn't have many friends in her life and she finds it hard to make friends as I do. So it's the perfect scenario. I kind of just want to run from it. But as my favorite affirmation goes: I am willing to risk change for the sake of a new, safe life.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if I want things to change, I have to change.

8th world wonder

I'm the 8th world wonder. No one can figure me out. I defy explanation. I'm either immersed in anorexia or burning my arm off. I've gained weight. I can see it, I can feel it, I can sense it, and I detest myself for it. Burning is a way of cleansing myself from my badness. Eating is bad, and I must be punished. I truly detest myself and death has transferred my thought process more than once.

This past weekend was Mother's Day and I completely forgot until I was at the mall buying my thirteen year old god-daughter a swimsuit. I saw lots of "happy" families together, all dressed in their Sunday best, coming or going to church or a resteraunt. The day has no meaning for me. For one, our birth mother is in another country and we don't speak unless she comes into town, which is about twice a year. Second, if she were here, there would be no fanfare. In fact, as I write this, I am reminded that they have an anniversary next week: I think it's their 39th year of hell together. I used to pretend I loved them by throwing them parties on the special anniversaries. For their 25th anniversary, I threw them a huge party, catered food, a gorgeous cake, lots of presents, games, party favors. I'm good at throwing parties. I should have gone into the party planning business. For their 30th anniversary, I threw them a stellar backyard barb-e-cue that was cute, quaint, and loads of fun, courtesy of the alcohol. In between years I would get them a bottle of wine and a card or some such nonsense.

What did I ever get from them? Nothing. Zip. Nada. Not even a card. I never did anything for them because I expected something back, but let's be real. An acknowledgement of my anniversary would be nice. Did I ever get it? No. Not even a quickly picked out card.

So Mother's Day and thier ensuing anniversary mean and meant nothing to me.

I did go see Star Trek with my husband and god-daughters this weekend. I'm always dragging D. around to see a chik flick with me, so I thought I would see Star Trek with him, which before seeing I was incredibly unenthusiastic about it. But the movie was really good, and I suggest seeing it even if you've never watched one episode of Star Trek before.

I hurt. What a non-sequiter. I hurt, but I can't feel it. Does anyone relate to that? It's moments like these that the fire matches seem most inviting. If I can't feel emotionally, I can feel something physically. It's an itch that much be scratched. But I don't want it. However, I feel a drive, a compulsion, a mandate that it must be this way. There is no room for negotiation. Do it or suffer the consequences. If I thought I was in pain now, just try to defy the one that calls for suffering and aches.

And the battle leaves me feeling extremely defeated, hopeless, and dead inside. If the eating disorder can't be fixed, what hope do I have that my alternate addiction, self harm, can be fixed. My body is so disfigured from self inflicted cutting and burning. But I don't stop. I did for a while, but the eating disorder is juxtaposed with the self harm and I'm still in the trenches. I call out for help, but either I'm just not heard, I don't deserve to be heard, or I'm heard and no one is in a position to help me.

I know at this point I can't help myself. And the world feels like its given up on me. What a lonely place to be.

I left and did it. I can breath again. If G*d exists, may he please forgive me.