The Requiem

I need help. I am completely overwhelmed and irrational. The phantom menace has been after me in my day and night dreams. I exceptionally need to run outside of my skin. Time is pulled apart from reality. Help. Help. Help. I can’t find the next breath. I choke on my desperation.

There is an undercurrent of anxiety crashing along through the hardness of my veins. It refuses my independence. Please rescue me out of the skin and defend me from this brain.

Don’t you know,
Don’t you know,
Don’t you know,
That I hurt, I hurt, I hurt.

We are just alike, but no one can know me. Not even me. Things happen to me, not with me. My skin must come undone. There’s only one thing left to do.
I am not ignorant as to the thought the world shares of me. Some declare she’s strong, she’s made it this far, through difficulties before. She’ll do nothing.

I wrestle time to the ground. I design my fate. I decide when and what. And I’ve decided.

HIghlights from the antonym of heaven

Highlights from my hell:

• Anxious as hell. Possible reasons: I’ve become fearful of going to sleep again. OR I’m regreting eating dinner. I hate these feelings and it’s so late I don’t want to call anyone tonight.

• Saw new dietician. She was as good as any dietician can be for telling you to eat and keep it down. She was very generous with the amount of soda she is letting me drink, which I’m grateful for.

• Been having disturbing dreams again. The dreams don’t contain people, jus the house in which we grew up. The rooms have been preserved and left exactly as before. It’s as if I never left. (shudder)

• I had an epidural on my back today. The back pain has gotten so much worse I couldn’t cope with it anymore.

• I’ve an MRI scheduled on my left knee next week. They tried physical therapy but it only made the pain worse.

• I’m feeling quite alone. I don’t know how many people I have to allow into my life to get rid of feeling alone.

• I’ve been off work for two days. Good timing. I was exhausted and started becoming impatient with customers. I should feel better if I follow my meal plan.

• It’s my goal to jog a 5k. There is one New Years Day that Elle and I talked of running but I might be working.

• So I’m afraid to fall asleep again. I don’t like lying there in a dark room where my thoughts can be mean to me. I will probably fall asleep on the couch. When I was little, I refused to sleep in a bed. I always slept on the floor. So tonight I’ll sleep on the couch.

• I see Therapist tomorrow. He’s going to want to talk about the brother, but I will have to come up with something more urgent to discuss. The brother is a dead issue.

• The nighttime scares me. I feel small.

• I regret that I ate. I would have so much more power and be larger than life if I just stayed hungry.

• Boo me.

My own private detour

I wanted to begin by addressing some things Ivory wrote in her comment:

You are stuck, obviously. I don't want to sound harsh, but here is some reality that I want to share, hoping it will help get you jump-started and moving forward. . . . So, my advise to you is to close your eyes on the dream brother - he will never exist. Look, instead at the brother you have or you are part of the problem. You feel you don't have a relationship with your bro, but you DO have a relationship with him, just not the one you want.

I want to thank Ivory, for her comments, but I feel a bit misunderstood. It is true that I have a relationship with the brother, but I’m not sure that I don’t want that kind of relationship. I’m not mourning the fact that I’m not close with him. I don’t grieve that he’s not my “dream” brother. It would have been nice to have an ally in the house in which we grew up, but it is what it is and it can’t be changed. I don’t want any type of relationship with him. He is not the type of person with which I would see myself as friends. He doesn’t, nor do any members of his family, possess any qualities that are endearing or would breed friendship. So, thank you, Ivory, for the reality check. But I’m not stuck. I’m just empty.

On to other news, I got my grades back for the semester. Everyone would tell me that they are grades worth being proud of , but I got a B and I can’t be proud of that. I canceled my end-of-semester celebratory dinner because I didn’t think there was anything to be proud of or celebrate.

My seasonal job is going well. Just leaving me exhausted. I’m not used to working long shifts and so many days. I didn’t even have time to recoup from the all nighters I pulled working on my papers and finals. But there’s only a couple weeks left for the holiday season and then it will slow down. Either I’ll be let go, which is fine with me, or they’ll hire me on, which is fine with me.

I switched psychiatrists and he put me on Abilify to augment the Cymbalta and gave me tranquilizers, which have been very therapeutic. Some times the switches won’t simmer down and I will have trouble functioning, so the tranquilizers do a good job of calming down the switches and I feel human again.

I’ve also switched dieticians. Not officially, but I see a new one on Thursday. I felt old Dietician was simply monitoring my weight (and not doing a good job of that) and there was nothing else to the sessions. It just seemed dead space. So I’m seeing someone else Thursday with whom I saw a few times last year but left because I wanted to lose weight and she wouldn’t let me. I am at a point where I need someone to be strict with me regarding food and not let me get away with my usual shenanigans.

Life has been tough lately. Although there have been bright moments. Elle spent the night again on Friday after we had spent the afternoon together at the physical therapist and then walking a 5.5 mile trail. We ate out at our usual restaurant and came home to watch a movie. I must feel comfortable with her because I fell asleep on the couch during the movie. She was tired too so we called it an early night. We’re busy making plans for our next rendezvous, so if I were conscious that would be exciting. If my hours didn’t disintegrate into a life not lived.

Lastly, I e-mailed someone recently and I’m ashamed to admit it. Why can’t I just let it go? But I never heard back. I love the sound of his silence. May he rot in hell.

So much to write, so little to say. Angel asked for an update on what happened with the meeting with the brother, so I'll give it a stab. I must say that I haven’t processed it all yet, and my head still hasn’t organized it or wrapped it’s mind around what happened, or what didn’t happen shall we say, so I don't know how much I can say.

Just broaching this topic pulls a shift inside me. An altercation in mood. Not very pleasant. I feel the tears threatening their birth. And I need saving but I don’t know how to do it. I know I have to save myself, I just don’t know how to do it.

I don’t know what to say about the meeting with the brother. I don’t even know what the purpose of the meeting was or what I was hoping to get out of it. (I’m trying to think of what to write but my head just won’t go there.) Therapist claims I’ve said I want to have a relationship with the brother, but being in the same room with him makes me realize exactly why I don’t want it. The brother was physically abusive but never sexually abusive with me. But I still hate him. He denies there is animosity between us, but I disagree. He calls it ambivalence. Basically he doesn’t give a shit about me. Doesn’t care if I live or die. I can’t say I feel the same way. I almost wish he wasn’t around, that way there wouldn’t feel like such an open, gaping wound in my heart.

He claims he doesn’t remember much about our growing up. He says we played together. WTF? He was mean to me. And we played together, he says? Whatever. Says we had similar friends, although he felt some of his friends were using him to date me. There was one. But that’s it.

If I forced myself to think really hard about it I couldn’t tell you when my hatred for him grew. I just always remember hating him. I do remember an occasion when he surprised me for a nicety he did. It was my first hospital stay when I was eighteen. I had just tried to kill myself. In the hospital, he brought me and action toy of Catwoman, because he knew I loved Catwoman (still do! I am catwoman! Hear me roar!) I remember wondering why he was being so nice to me.

All this makes me want to starve the fuck out of myself.

The bottom line of the meeting was that he was open to a relationship developing between us, but, for me, I don’t’ share those sentiments. I have an idea in my head of a fictional brother I would like, one that I could love and one in which I could be close, but he doesn’t match it. I would want a brother that is warm, giving, friendly, and very protective. One that is reciprocating and interested in me, and that places an emphasis on the importance of family (ironically). I would love to have an older brother that looks out for the little sister. The brother just doesn’t fit that bill. The brother is a very closed off person, doesn’t reveal much, and it is clear to me that we don’t have that much in common. My life revolves recovery, feelings, getting better, introspection, making friends, and school. His life seems to be about privacy, movies, and himself. He’s very selfish, and I don’t need people in my life that don’t contribute to my happiness. There have been plenty of people who helped make me miserable; now I’m trying to find people that will compliment my pursuit of happiness. My philosophy right now is that if you bring me down, I don’t need you in my life.

That’s the best I can say about the meeting with the brother. For some reason I was more nervous talking to him than talking with abuser X. Speaking of whom I’ve been torturing myself with thinking of e-mailing him again. It seems like I just can’t let it go.

Please someone tell me how to breathe the rest of the day. I have to go to work, and I’m all out of happy faces.

Missing In Sight is unraveling and soon will be missing out of sight.

Disassembled.

I don’t know who I am today. I really don’t. Been going through the motions. I’m vacated.

I struggle to find a formal feeling. I am abandoned to the emptiness. It wasn’t what I expected it to be, and it totally has invalidated anything I felt about living in that house. He made it not seem so scary. But I make it seem scary. Am I wrong? Am I overdramatizing it? I didn’t want a relationship with him anyways. And that’s exactly what I got. Ambivalence. Indifference. An “it doesn’t matter to me” attitude.

I feel so empty and I know think what I have to do is stop the charade. If things weren’t as bad as they seem then I’m not as sick as I feel and I don’t need therapy anymore. I need to quit imagining things.

I don’t know but the whole thing has made me feel less connected, not more connected, if that was even possible. I know less of who I am, and that was a hard thing to accomplish. Dealing with the past is foolishness. I’m still picking out the shrapnel.

I was hoping time would make these creepy crawly skins go away. But they’re still here. A residual effect of the meeting.

I won’t believe anything I say ever again. I know I left looking like the fool.

I just feel the most vacuous hole in my heart ever, and I seriously wonder if I can breathe. The next breath seems misplaced and unimportant.

What's to come.

Today has been okay. It has been about secular work and school work. Secular work wasn’t too bad. I like working and feeling productive. Physically I felt better than I have in a while. Not too tired and my back didn’t bother me. I had comfy shoes on my feet so my knees were in good shape. I’m seasonal help, but my boss told me a couple of weeks ago they would like to bring me on permanently. They told me of a position open that fit me and my experience well. Well, last night they told me the night-time position wouldn’t be open, but there would be a day-time position. But because of school I can’t do daytime. So my feelings were dashed. But thinking about it, I realized it is probably a good thing, because I heard the people at the counter are bitchy and catty and not team oriented, and that would not be a good fit for me. So I’m trying to think positively and know it was for the best.

I’m working on my finals for school and my two papers. Wednesday or Thursday, depending on when I finish, will be my last days for the semester that feels like it will never end. I’m excited.

I also feel disturbed. Tomorrow I have a meeting with the biological brother and Therapist. I don’t know what there is to be afraid of. But I’m nervous. I really don’t know why we’re having this meeting. The brother and I don’t talk. I hate him and he hates me, although I don’t know why. I’ve asked him before why he hates me so much but he won’t answer me. He’s always been an unpleasant person. But now he’ll come in the room and see me and turn and walk out. Won’t even acknowledge me. Of course, I don’t acknowledge him either. It seems to me that we should be close. We both grew up with crazy parents. I think part of why I’m nervous about the meeting is that it might be successful. What if we do find a common ground and we become civil to each other? Does that make the “brother” I disowned my brother again? I don’t want to be associated with any members of that family. I want to be as separate from them as possible. Being close to anybody from that side makes me vulnerable, and I can’t have that. So this meeting tomorrow is a threat to me.

This is absurd and inventive, and I don’t know why I feel this way, but I almost feel as if I need physical protection. I’m literally hoping Therapist will protect me, will make sure the brother doesn’t hurt me. I don’t normally feel physically threatened when the brother and I are in the same room. So why this time? I’m just waiting for it to be over. I’m curious to see what will happen.

Lady Lazarus

I don’t know what I am tonight . . . or who I am. Sounds ambiguous. Good.

“I have done it again,

each year in every ten

I manage it ---

Soon, soon the flesh

The grave cave ate will be

At home on me

And I a smiling woman.

I am only thirty.

And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.

What a trash

To annihilate each decade. ~ Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus”

I don’t know why but I love that poem. It resonates with me. I’ve trashed my decades. What good can I show for them?

But as she begins by saying she’s done it again, so have I. I’ve done it twice now. Words won’t form to portray the unspeakable crime I’ve committed. But I’ve ruined myself and I can’t take it back.

There’s so much I wish I could say tonight, but I am the loser in the internal struggle and I don’t get my wish. All I can say is I’m not okay, and I’ve said that so many times I should get a parrot to repeat it for me. I wish I could just say everything on my brain, but then Therapist would see it and want to talk about it and I can’t have that. It isn’t possible. I wish he hated me. It would be easy to quit him.

I should quit anyway. I’m a waste. I was doing so much better up until the summer, and then I changed into something I can’t change back into. I’ve changed into a fragile, cracked, shell. Damaged without possible repair. I’ve changed into something bent on self-destruction, flirting with death, dancing with old demons. I’ll just say it. I’m starving myself again. Tonight for dinner was supposed to be an apple, and I’m afraid to eat it. I step on the scale several times a day when I find Husband’s hiding place for it. I thrive on the hunger. I want it. I need it. I don’t care so much about the weight; for me, it’s about the hunger. It’s about being clean and untainted. It’s about being whole and able to look myself in mirror each day.

I made an appointment with a new dietician. While I like old Dietician, I felt all I was getting out of it was her weighing me, which I can do better than her on my own. So I’m seeing new Dietician a week from Thursday.

I’m a bad example for my EDA group. I try to rally the troops by using phrases like “Go Team” and “100% Club” when everyone does well on their meal plan. Some have said I’m an inspiration. No. Not me. Just a hypocrite.

I’m ready to reveal the bad thing I’ve done. Therapist suggested I think about speaking with the bio-brother. I forget why. I don’t know what there is to talk about, but I called him and asked him if he wanted to get a bite to eat. We made plans for a few days later, but I thought about it and it didn’t sit right with me. The whole day I was foggy and detached. I was not clued in to my surroundings. And I got really scared. I don’t want to talk with the brother. So I called him back to see if he would go to a therapy session with me and he agreed. I don’t know why he’s agreeing or what his agenda is, but the two of us are supposed to go to Therapist’s office the next Monday we have session. I hope I will feel safe and protected with Therapist in the room.

Classes are over for Fall. I just have to take finals by Wednesday, and then I’m over for three and a half weeks. I am so excited. I’m also quite surprised I lasted the whole semester without any major breakdowns or any hospitalizations.

I wish I knew what else I could write because I certainly don’t feel relief from writing this. I am still an enigma, born for distraction. I get to focus on how bad I feel so no one else has to feel how bad they feel. Then who’s going to come save me? Who will protect me from the agony of numbness? I hurt as bad as everyone else; I just don’t know why. I would feel better if I just had a friend to come sit at home with me, not try to talk with me, and watch a movie with me. Friendship with no pressure. I’m working on it. I guess.

I regret everything I just typed, and I regret me.

“Dying

Is an art, like everything else,

I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.

I do it so it feels real.

I guess you could say I've a call.” ~ Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

And so I do.

My head is an extremely dangerous place to be. It's minute by minute.

To Sleep: Perchance to Dream

I am quite anxious and uneven. Forces are against me… or just in pain.

I have gone through a transformation, a metamorphosis of a dark kind. I am not the same me I was at the beginning of summer. Something happened to me to change me, and I can’t change back, though I need to. Seeing and talking with one of my abusers has damaged me in incomprehensible and enigmatic ways. It has consummately broken me. I don’t know how I’ve changed; I just know I’m not the same. Feelings of uselessness, worthlessness, and sadness are more profound than ever. There is no crack in the casing.

I had another dream of abuser X three nights ago. The damage still lingers, the hurt still staggers around inside my beleaguered soul. The dream is hard to recall now, but the stain of its imprint is irremovable. He is as close to me now as he was then.

I woke up sick on my stomach. The dream kept refreshing itself in my head, playing again and again. There was no escape. I went to an EDA meeting where the focus was on how to handle people and food for the holiday. Benign topic in its own right. But one of the group members brought up how she was to see her abuser over the holidays, and my dream came back to me with all the hurt and sadness with which it could dominate. I began to cry in the middle of group, in the middle of twenty people. I could not restrain the tears, so I left group to cry it out and then rejoin. I sat on the floor in a dark, private room and sobbed the most heart-wrenching tears to ever know an existence. Time elapsed and slipped into a trance. I don’t know for how long. I made my way back to the concluding group, make-up-less and empty. Fortunately I had plans with Elle who let me be myself and cry on the way to our lunch. I told her why. It didn’t matter much to me for her to know. Nothing mattered at the time.

As with all tears, they eventually found their stopping point and I was left alone till the next day when I was driving to work and all thoughts, memories, and tears flooded back. And even as I recall the recalling, I am tearful because I know I’ve lost something in all this mess. I’ve lost me, a me I didn’t even want, but a me I would rather have back. Something more than this broken limbed, empty stuffing, torn-apart rag doll.

And I don’t know that it even matters any more. I thought he couldn’t take anything else away. But even in my dreams he’s the winner, and the winner takes it all.

And I don’t know how to take my next breath. It won’t come naturally. I have to remind myself to breath.

And I don’t know what to do with all this. Therapist says to write about it, but what good does that do? There’s nothing to process. I don’t know why I’m crying. I don’t know why abuser X is bothering me now. I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

I don’t know.

“To sleep: perchance to dream” is from Hamlet and is about suicide, which is entering the crevices of my mind more and more.

In the end, it doesn’t even matter. I ’m already gone.

I see what I expect.

This would be funny if it weren't so true.

“I see what I expect.” ~ Annie Dillard.

I just read her for my American Lit class, and I love that line. I know if all I expect to “see” in me is the worst possible attributes, then that is exactly what I’ll see: the worst. All I expect of me is a big, fat, slutty failure, so when I look at myself that’s all I see. A fat, slutty failure who is chipping away time, pretending to be in recovery, until she fatally falls.

All my grades in school seem to be on the “A” side. I’ve learned my grade in American Lit. is going to be a “B”, and there is nothing I can do about it. I’ve opted not to write our third and optional paper, because it won’t improve my grade. There is a slim chance in hell I could get an “A” if I made a 100% on my last exam. And don’t you know I will try. But knowing this professor who NEVER gives 100% on an exam since it’s all subjective, I'll more than likely get a "B" and I’ll have my 3.95 GPA lowered. And I’ll feel like a failure. Like everybody is better than me. And I know in my deepest heart they are.

I really didn’t know when I began communicating and eventually meeting abuser A face to face that it would have the enormous impact it did on me. I finally feel like I’m coming out of the fog I was in for several months. I just felt sick all that time. Hard to explain. But my mind was letting my body know it was under immense stress, and I felt like my body was giving out on me. The switches were unforgivingly incessant. I thought I was going crazy. I believe if I hadn’t have met abuser A face to face my grades might be better, because for weeks after we met I was seriously distracted to the point of not even caring what grades I made or what material we were covering. And nothing good came from the meetings, except maybe to confirm through his denial what he did to me. But even that is relative. As I was sitting in class tonight, I was recanting what he did to me, denying that he ever laid a hand on me, explaining to myself that I got it wrong. I still haven’t come to a conclusion on the topic.

My weekend was extraordinary in the fact it was unusual. I had a record-setting two days in a row of socializing. Very scary for me. I keep trying to remember what I did Friday but that is no good. Friday is gone to someone else’s memory it seems. Saturday I woke up and went to bootcamp that a “friend” of mine runs. He and I went to elementary, middle, and high school together. I only recently found him on Facebook, although I wasn’t looking for him. I was looking for another friend that I went to all the schools with and was fortunate enough to find her, and, thusly, him. So this was the second time I’ve been to his bootcamp and got an amazing workout. I was weak though. I haven’t been nourishing my body according to its demands lately, and Saturday I was paying for it. I met six other women who like to talk and laugh and workout. Some are older than I, some are the same age. After bootcamp, N, the girl I went to school with, asked me if I wanted to go for coffee. I was stunned that someone would actually ask “ME” for coffee. Why would anyone want to spend time with me I don’t know, but we had a Starbuck’s and talked for an hour and a half before time got away and we had to part company. We promised to do it again, and I believe she is crazy enough to mean it. We talked of seeing a movie and having a meal. She’s a great conversationalist and I hope I see her again.

Sunday I met up with a friend with whom I have been meeting and socializing with every weekend, L. If we skip a weekend, we try to make up for it during the week. Again my mind goes to wondering why she wants to be friends with me. What does she see in me that keeps her coming back. One day I’ll have the nerve to ask her. But on Sunday we met up where she lives which is an hour away. She usually drives to my neck of the woods, but I thought it would be fair to drive where she lives. We met and parked at a restaurant and she drove us to a walking trail. We walked for 4.4 miles and talked the whole time. There weren’t any awkward silences and the conversation kept flowing. She is also in recovery from an eating disorder and we’ve learned that our ED’s have taken on a very similar character and look. I try not to comment on how she eats (she still does rituals) or how she looks healthier now, but she made a tragic mistake of commenting on how I look like I’m doing fine. I didn’t show it but her comment bothered me. I’m hiding a lot of things from a lot of people, and I wanted to tell her ‘no! I’m not doing as well as you think,” but I feel like I’m the cheerleader of our ED support group, so I can’t let people see how I struggle. Her comment backfired in a way and made me want to act out in a way so that people will see how hard food still is for me.

After we finished walking we went to our favorite safe restaurant and ordered our food. There were moments in the meal that were silent, and it felt okay. It was a comfortable silence where neither one of us felt the pressure to fill the space with words. It was comfortable and relaxing, like we could just be ourselves. We both had anxiety going into our walk and meal together, but neither of us could voice why because we’ve been hanging out for months now.

Then tonight, even though I wasn’t social with new people, Husband and I went to a college basket ball game, which was novel for me because any time I’m not in school I’m studying for school. But not tonight. I wanted to be at the game and it was great. My school had a victory and the crowd was wild and into it.

The dreams seem to be getting better. I was having vivid, disturbing dreams ever since abuser A and I met, but they are becoming less malignant and detrimental. I am still having dreams, but I can’t remember them. I just wake up in the morning and they are on my mind, the periphery of my mind, but I can’t remember exactly what I dreamed. There is mercy after all.

So I currently feel a mix of emotions. I feel like a failure for not getting an A in American Lit, but almost, barely proud of myself for having stuck with it and completing out the semester. I feel afraid as well. I know I’m engaging in behaviors that are unhealthy and I need to get back on track, but I don’t know if I can do that before I hit a bottom. I don’t want to normalize myself and treat myself better until I can get as bad as I can get; then, maybe I’ll do something about it, but not until then. I don’t understand this thinking.

Though school has gotten better, it is still difficult to keep focus and my mind on class work. I have two exams coming up and I worry that it will be just as traumatic as before for having to sit for four hours accomplishing a test others take in an hour. Somewhere, something in my brain just clicked off and decided not to cooperate anymore. I don’t know how to get her back.

Will I ever get any of me back? Do I really want any of me?

God, grant me serenity to accept the things I can not change.

********Trigger Warning for talk of sex and abuse*********

The world feels like a dream. There are things I wonder if I dreamed about, or if I actually did them. Such as feeding the dogs this morning. I thought I fed them, it felt like I felt them, but I couldn't remember at all if they were fed. It’s one o’clock p.m. as I write this. This morning doesn’t feel real. Did I got to the dermatologist or did I dream it? Did I have physical therapy today, or was that yesterday? I am accidental to this world, and my presence is not needed.

Sometimes I will make off-handed comments to Therapist about killing myself, but he really doesn’t know how often and seriously I think about it.

School is hard for everyone, but this semester has been a sheer, diaphanous nightmare for me. Every corner turned has been a hardship and I am so burned out. I’m not on top of my assignments like I need to be.

So Therapist and we talked about some serious issues last night. I can’t believe I told him what I did. I can’t believe I’m even broaching the subject with you. The topic of sex has been brought up and what is involved in receiving pleasure from sex. It’s always a miss with me. Sometimes one of the young ones just cries and cries inconsolably afterwards. I don’t know who she is, but even as I type this I feel her tears crawling fearfully down my cheeks. Her age seems to be young adolescence.

For me to receive any type of pleasurable feelings, I have to imagine that I’m being taken sexually assaulted and taken advantage of and abused. This makes me feel like a freak and ruins the sanctity of “love-making” with my partner. I haven’t had an orgasm in forever. And I think I might want to just to feel connected with my husband. But orgasms scare the hell out of me. It feels dirty and out of control. Sometimes I’ll get close, but stop myself. It’s not that I don’t feel like I deserve an orgasm, but I don’t want to deal with the guilt and other consequences.

I don’t think I’m fair to Husband. Sex is so complicated. I have a member that is gay, and a member that wants to cheat on Husband. I don’t know what to do with this. It all seems too overwhelming to untangle.

I told Therapist about a memory regarding abuser A. The way abuser A forced my legs apart. What am I supposed to do with that now? So now Therapist has a piece of the puzzle. What the fuck now? Does just verbalizing it make it any better? It doesn’t make it any easier to talk about it. I’m surprised I revealed it on here. It doesn’t make me feel any better. I’ve never felt like this before. True, I’ve had moments of hoplessness, but this seems like there really is not hope behind my past. I hear Therapist disagreeing with me. Tough shit. He truly doesn’t know what it’s like to live a particle of a life.

I’ve been thinking more about what I want to do when I get my undergrad. I think I would like to go on and get my Master’s in writing. I really want to write. Poetry to be specific. But I don’t know how I would do it. My words get lost in the head, sometimes taken for hostage, ransomed, and then maybe given back to me.

I have so much schoolwork to do but I can’t focus. The anxiety is too over bearable. And I feel nobody in this whole world has any idea what I’m going through. I know all who live with D.I.D. can relate on some level. But I feel so far gone. It feels I am completely and truly alone with my symptoms. Everyone struggles, but this defies the explanation of a struggle. To get through each day takes superhuman strength, and I don’t have it in me anymore to keep fighting.

Unfortunately, I have a dream ~ speech

Thank you to everyone who read and posted before! I truly didn't think anyone would remember me1 It reminds me of how much I love and miss my on-line community. Thanks, again.

I had a dream about abuser "A" last night. Birth-mother and birth-father were in the dream, and I think the girls may have been there also. In my dream abuser "A." was still trying to smooth things over without confessing what he did. I kept fast to my stand that he did it. I just couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t admit to it. I told him we both know he did it, but he denied. There was a sense of chumminess and a wanting him to like me in the dream. A sense of friendliness had developed between us. I wonder what the real life message is in that a. Did I give in to abuser "A." because I wanted him to like me the way he did the brother? Did I submit to him so he would like me, or maybe because it was affection and I liked feeling special? It sickens me.

In the dream we kept trying to go off by ourselves so to talk, but the “family” members would not let us. It wasn’t out of concern for me. It was because they were so damn nosy. The brother was in the dream. He kept eavesdropping, but that was his only role in the dream, other than being vicious to me.

These dreams are maddening. They wouldn’t be as bad if they stopped in the night but they carry over into the day and re-alert me to their presence. I will forget about the dreams and then suddenly something brings it back to mind. The internal switching is bad right now. I have taken a tranquilizer and sometimes that helps them calm down, but not so much right now.

I have noticed that a lot of the internal switching, which I mention here, happens when I’m doing schoolwork. Normally, schoolwork has been given to one of the members, but lately it seems a different member is helping out. Maybe that’s because of all the writing we have to do.

I am excited to say that on Thanksgiving I will be jogging a 5k with a friend, maybe two, from EDA. We just want to have fun with it. I’m not much of a runner or jogger, but I look at it more like a social experience than anything. I think we might dress up in costumes. It’s just another chance for me to be around people and try to be social. We can carb up the night before, that is if three people with intense fear of food will carb up. If I have to , I can run on adrenaline alone.

Internal Switching and Milestones

I’m trying to write through the anxiety. Right now I’m about to jump out of my skin. Not sure why. I was reading for school when I first noticed the anxiety welling up in my chest. Then come the switches. And these aren’t regular switches. They feel more internal than external. Like, I know when I’m switching on the outside because I feel my face change shapes; I notice my body language change; there is a different tone in my thoughts. But I have other switches that are less explanatory and more mystifying. They way I view them is more a conversation in my head that I’m not privy to. How I know this I can’t answer. It’s just a gut feeling. These “internal” switches are far more violent, jarring, and blazon their arrival and disruptiveness. Cold ice, heating pads, hot showers, and drives in the cars do nothing. I have to take a tranquilizer and then, mercifully, they quiet down. They have gotten worse of late. Everything has gotten worse of late.

Some might argue with me and tell me I had a milestone today, but it doesn’t really feel like it. I went out with a “friend” to the mall and shopped for work clothes and we then had lunch. This is a big deal on so many levels. It was nice to do something with a girlfriend. We tried on clothes and gave opinions on what we thought about what the other was wearing. The conversation flowed easily, and when there were gaps, it was an easy and comfortable silence. It scares me to death. I’m not used to starting to care about friends. And I could potentially see myself becoming close with her. I’m just not sure how she feels about me. The signs are there that she likes me, but there are always doubts with me. Why would she like me? What is there to like? I’m moody, temperamental, neurotic, wishy-washy, and when I feel someone getting close I put the brakes on and don’t let them in any farther. But on the other hand, I do think I’m caring (although I assign selfish motives to myself for that), concerned about others, and I can be thoughtful. But I am not experienced having friends so I hope I don’t blow this.

I have so much homework to do but can’t find the motivation. All I want to do is go to bed and not ever get up.

The Irrelevant

Since nobody reads this I feel I can be quite open and honest. I am doing better than I was, but still not okay. School is extremely difficult. I made a B on my test and it depressed me for the rest of the day. I hate feeling like this. It is really disheartening to try so hard and nothing good comes from my effort.

I fantasized about what I would write when I logged on here tonight, but now my courage has evaporated into nothing. There is something particularly bothering me and I can't tell anyone about it. I have been having disturbing sexual dreams about someone. These are dreams where I'm making out with someone I really don't want to, or dreams where this person is trying to have sex with me and I'm trying to stop it. These dreams include being spied on in the shower. I don't know why I would dream of this person. This person hates me and I hate him, although I don't know why.

I feel like I desperately need to reach for my eating disorder. It's the only one that can understand me. We're getting along okay. There are moments or restriction and moments of purging. Before this past summer I was getting to a place where I was growing more comfortable with my body and my eating was more normal. I was working-out and feeling good. I don't realize what's going on with me.

My life has become totally irrelevant to me. I don't live it; i just watch it. Watch in horror as someone else takes notes, does homework, cooks, drives, and plays social. I share this with no one. I ate tonight and now I must punish myself with fire.

If I just pretend nothing happened, then nothing happened. I want to reach out to somebody and cry right now and share my scary dreams, but I can't. What would it mean to tell? I would be wrong and look stupid for talking about something that didn't happen. It would make me look like I wanted something to happen, like I was trying to make things worse than they are. And I'm really not. I just want to find the me that got lost so long ago. I want to become pertinent, relevant to my life. I want to walk down the street and feel like I belong among the human race, and not some freak who can't cope or maintain friendships or fake like she is normal.

I feel a little left out and rejected right now. There are a group of ladies who seemed interested in me. We have some things in common. Every time I asked them for coffee there was a reason why they couldn't go. I don't bother asking them anymore. Now they don't seem interested in me at all.

That's all I have to say tonight. Just that I'm scared.

The Revival

Recently I was contacted to give an update to my blog, so here I am obliging. It has been difficult for me to get back to writing because I don't always remember the posts, and the last thing I need is to be reminded of events going on in my life of which I have no detail. I have also been arduously practicing denial of having D.I.D., and that is not easily done when the whole design and theme of said blog is about you missing somewhere in between the identity of "the others."

In my lapse of writing I returned to school, and by all outward accounts I am doing well. Grades are solid and there have been no missed classes. For the most part I am keeping up. But underneath the show things are grim. I anticipated my reaction to the stress, but I felt like I would be able to counter the anticipated backlash. And maybe I am still handling it. I don't know that I've abandoned all hope. But my historical mechanics of stress management have manifest again and self-destructive means are the end. For me, the smallest amount of negative stress makes me physically ill. I break out in fever blisters, endure hot and cold flashes, and an untamed panic wails from the abyss. I can't sleep, I'm too exhausted to blink, and my thoughts commit suicide in their infancy. This reaction is as natural to me as breathing.

When I last left you in the Summer, communication with one of my abusers was imminent. The disaster that was to be our correspondence didn't fail to disappoint and unnerve me. And even after I imploded, he exerted a continual presence in my madness and undoing. He continues to resurface in my daily thoughts, though how prolific the damage I am not willing to say at this moment.

One of my biggest obstacles is what to disclose to Therapist. My theme right now is denial, denial, denial. If I deny it long enough, loud enough, and hard enough, then it didn't happen, it doesn't exist, and the devil made me do it. (For future reference, reader, it is not a good regular practice of denial to overtly confess your thoughts to your therapist.) But I also don't want to sabotage myself, and I can see my epic denial failing me. Nevertheless, it is what it is, and for now, I'm just not ready.

Mary, Mary

I’m feeling quite sad. I found out my friend, Mary, lost her battle with Anorexia and passed away. Mary and I were good friends in treatment. Mary was a little naughty in the hospital and was not allowed to be away from the nurse’s station, so she always asked me to join her at the table and to play Uno with her. We talked a lot, and Mary would always make me laugh. She was spicy and colorful. She would make fun of the staff and the doctors till I was in stitches.

Since treatment, I had seen Mary at the support groups. She looked sickly and frail; I told her I was afraid for her. A few months ago the group therapist told Mary that if she didn’t get better she would die very soon. I remember Mary shaking her head in acknowledgement, saying, “I know. I know.” But I don’t think she truly believed it.

If Mary knew then why didn’t she get better? Most of us with eating disorders never think we’ll die from them. “That won’t happen to me”. Mary is proof that it can happen.

When I found out Mary had died I sobbed so hard I surprised myself. So many questions went through my head. Why Mary? Why not me? Why did Mary let this happen? Why am I so special that I can recover but Mary can’t? Why couldn’t I stop Mary from dying? Why wasn’t it enough to have so many people rooting for her and wanting her to live?

But I know the answers to those questions. At least some of them. When I am deep in my disorder it isn’t enough that people care about me; the only thing important is being in my disease and seeing how far I can take it. I know that nothing I could have said or done could have prevented Mary from dying, but I would like to believe it. What I don’t know is why Mary couldn’t be saved. Why did it have to happen like this?

I feel guilty. I feel like because Mary couldn’t get better, I don’t deserve to get better. And I don’t know what to do with that. The irony is that Mary’s death has made me want to get back in my eating disorder again. This disorder is so cruel and twisted.

Knowing that Mary is gone has left a black hole in my heart. I can’t believe this has happened. I will never see her again. I will never hug her again. I will never tell her I love her again. I miss her, and it will never go away. I don't know what to do with this, and something sick in me wants to punish myself with my eating disorder.

I'm sorry, Mary. I miss you.

Got Apology?

A couple of weeks ago I posted here about contacting one of my abusers demanding an apology. After listening to everyone’s feedback, I decided it would not be in our best interest to instigate any type of contact with him. I didn’t think he would ever apologize, and I didn’t want to set myself up to be even more hurt by him.

Last week I found out he contacted someone I know (hereafter called X). They discussed me, including how I had thought about contacting him. After discussion, the abuser apologized to X, but X told him his issue was with me. The abuser said he would contact me and would apologize. X said he never admitted to what he did, but said he would contact me, if I wanted him to, and he “would make it right.”

I was effing stunned. Was this man who made my life Hell really going to contact me and apologize? I checked outside to see if pigs were flying and to see if Hell had frozen over. It hadn’t. So I first told X to give him my phone number. I thought the asshole would be more inclined to contact me and apologize by phone, thinking he’s too much of a coward to apologize where there could be a record of it printed out as in e-mail. I figured he would be too afraid I would show it to people he knows.

But then I thought to myself, do I really want to hear the sound of his voice? How will my members/alters/parts feel at the sound of his voice? Will having my phone number give him some power over us, as if we were waiting with baited breath for him to call us when he wanted to? Will it give him control over us? Will it give him the upper hand, again? So I changed my mind and told X to give the bastard my e-mail address.

That was a week ago, and like all abusers, he is too selfish and cowardly to e-mail me an apology on my terms, when I want it. He knows I was thinking of contacting him, he knows I want an apology. So what’s he waiting for? Perhaps he’s waiting to get drunk on Jack Daniels again so he can muster up the liquid courage to write an apology.

Frankly, I don’t want his fucking apology. If he can’t ADMIT that he did it, then what the hell is he apologizing for! Freak!

When we first found out he would contact us, we checked our e-mail even when our phone wasn’t beeping. The anticipation that we would finally be validated was intense. But now that a week has gone by, there is a sense of resignation. We almost hope he doesn’t contact us and apologize. It brings forth a lot of questions.

Do we owe him anything if he apologizes? What about the F-word? Forgiveness. Do we have to forgive the m-f-er? How will our “relationship” change? Will we begin to sympathize with him? What about the people we mutually know? Will they want to start associating with the son of a bitch? Will they accept his apology and invite him to functions I might be attending? And most of all, will he be conciliatory enough to let us say what WE want to say? If he apologizes, we want and have the right to ask him questions and tell him how his actions hurt us. Will he refuse to listen?

IF we do get an apology, it will be a small victory for us. But it’s true you better be careful what you wish for. An apology brings up a slew of questions we just don’t have the answers to.

One thing is for sure, he’s a piece of shit and nothing can make up for what he did to us.

Tears, fears, and wasted years

She went to her A.N.A.D. meeting. She cried through the entire group. When she gets in these group situations, she can’t help but feel so hurt in her heart.

People entered the room of A.N.A.D. in groups of two’s, three’s, and four’s. She entered all alone. The roar of talking and laughter before the group started was deafening. But she sat there quietly in her shell, shrieking from every opportunity to break in.

The meeting started with a group check-in of everyone’s name. She had them all memorized, hoping for the courage to go up to someone and call them by name after the meeting. She introduced herself, but, to her, nobody seemed interested in who she was. The meeting began with someone sharing a funny story about recovery. Everyone laughed, except her. Shrunken inside her own private world, she could not relate to what was being discussed. Feeling isolated and alone, the tears began to flow. Her heart burst in pain. She wanted to stop the group and tell everyone how lonely she was feeling, but her bravery never materialized. She was afraid everyone would laugh at her.

She compares herself against every single body in the room. She believes she is alien, different. Her body is covered, head to foot, in scars and burns. There is no absence of self-abuse anywhere. Silently in group, she mourns the loss of unblemished skin, of a body not so damaged and ravaged by self-destruction. She studies the weights of the girls intently, hoping to find someone the size and shape of herself. Again, she is alone. No such group member exists.

She eyes the cliques of girls in the room, remembering the years in school when the popular girls shunned her. Some things never change. She again concentrates on the comparison of bodies. All the other recovering anorexics are smaller than her. What is she doing wrong, she wonders. Why is her body betraying her? She condemns herself to destruction because she can’t measure up.

She is wrapped in self-hatred, with no chance for self-esteem, self-worth, or self-confidence. She is a fragile shell, splitting and cracking each day. It really is pitiful and sad. The only thing she wants is the very thing that’s eluding her.

Her mind shifts to people in the blogging world. It is a mirror to her life. The “popular group,” who e-mail, call, and text each other, ignore her. She tries to reach out, share how she feels through her blog, but is afraid people will laugh at her. She wants to comment and reach out to other blogs, but she is stripped of anything valuable or worthwhile to say. She is alone in the blogging world as she is in real life.

Her mind comes back to the meeting. She is so scared to say how she feels that she sinks back into the imprisonment of her head. She thinks she may blog about her alienation but is sure no one could understand the depth of her sadness and hopelessness.

The meeting wraps up and she leaves behind the sound of friendships and laughter. Through the sting and blurriness of her tears, she finds her car and cries to herself all the way home.

The Resurrection of Anger

Today has been a different day for me. While I’m normally stoic and unemotional, today I’ve cried more than usual. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that my emotions have been a little sensitive since I’ve had one of the perpetrators on my mind today. In fact, the image of the closet I used to hide in has been flashing in my mind.

All of this turmoil is because of a decision we’re trying to make. One of the parts wants to stalk him and haunt him. She looked up his information on-line and found his address, phone number, e-mail, high school, the date of his 30-year reunion, and the name of the company his wife owns. So we’ve been thinking about sending him a letter or an e-mail telling him to give us an apology, fuck off, and drop dead.

This wouldn’t be the first letter we’d have sent him. About fifteen years ago we sent him a letter acknowledging what he did to us and scaring the shit out of him by telling him we told his family members what we did. Other circumstances later brought us face to face with him, and he refused to talk to me. .

I don’t know why there is this pursuit of him again. I am without doubt that he will refuse to talk to us and will NEVER give us an apology. But, for whatever reason, there is a resurrection of anger, and we can’t let this go. We want him to know we aren’t going away; we will stay after him until we get an apology.

But then again, we don’t want him to have the satisfaction that we are still bothered by him, that what he did to us still affects our lives.

So we wrestle with the decision: do we e-mail him, or just stay quiet.

Maybe we are trying to find our voice, trying to stand up for what was taken from us. We aren’t afraid of him. In fact, if we were ever face to face with him again, I would sort of worry for his safety. I know what some members/parts/ alters are capable of. But we just want some satisfaction when it comes to him; we NEED some sort of acknowledgement. Otherwise, we may never have peace.

What would you do? Letter, e-mail, or silence?

Silent Screams

Things are quiet, but they're not. There’s not much to talk about, but there’s so much to say. I haven’t been posting or taking photos of my food because the words aren’t there and neither is the food.

The eating disorder is a little bit louder these days, and I’m having a hard time with my food.

A dichotomy is growing inside: those who are pro life and those who are pro eating disorder.

The recovery voice is still speaking, alerting us there is life worth living outside of an eating disorder. I listen closely, praying she is right. She says there are things in life worth living for. She reminds us of school. We start back in August and she reminds us of the trouble we will face if we are still engaging in eating disorder behaviors. She tells of the good times we can have in our class if we aren’t focused on food and weight.

She reminds us of other things we want: laughter, friendships, teaching kids, exercise. She speaks of attaining things we don’t know we even want yet.

But there is the other side of me that can only speak the language of eating disorders. A lonely, broken, sad girl who relies on the eating disorder to say everything she cannot say. If she could, she would say that she’s scared, that bad men come and find her. She would say she’s hurt. She would say she feels lonely and no one would help her then. She would say there is nowhere else to hide, that she is not safe. She would say she wants someone to help her. She would like someone to notice her.

Her sadness gives birth to my tears. I don’t know where to go from here or what next to say. Hopefully, this is enough for now. The lonely, broken, sad girl is feeling her tears.

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.

Resurfacing

I am now able to breathe again. This past weekend was indescribable, involving all the temper tantrums, self-deprecating thoughts, and histrionics a lapse in recovery can bring. Lying in the abyss of hell, one doesn't feel that life can get better if you just hang on a little longer. Face down in despair, it feels like you will never find the other side of unbearable. I don’t feel the stirrings of hope today or the awakenings of promise, but I do know I’ve felt them before, and if I can keep working my recovery, I’ll feel them again.

I’ll post more soon on my lapse over the weekend, if I can bring myself to own up to things. Until then, I’m still hanging on.

I want to die, but I won't.

I want to cry, but I won't.

I need to laugh, but I can’t.

A curvy woman

The drama of this past weekend has subsided a little.

I met with Dietician today and explained to her how I felt I couldn’t trust her because she was making me fat. When she weighed me, my weight had maintained over the past month, so she may not be making me as fat as I feel she is.

An area we talked about was the subject of curves on a woman. I said to her I felt I was gaining weight primarily in my hips and thighs and she asked me what was wrong with having curves. When she asked this of me I sensed a great stirring inside my system. Then I heard a voice cry, “We don’t want curves!” I immediately recognized this voice when I heard her and when she gave me images of an eleven year old girl playing at the house of someone that would hurt her.

This is one of the members/alter/part that has the eating disorder. I am so frightened of her and what she has to tell me that I hardly want to think of it.

I don't know what to do with this.

Oops! I did it again...(Trigger Warning for ED talk)

Oops…I did it again. I binged and purged today.

I won’t lie; I felt better afterward. All my anxiety had been lifted, and I felt clean.

It all started this morning when I went shopping for a swimsuit and a dress. I took six dresses, 3 swimsuits, and what little self-esteem I had into the dressing room. I thought there was a conspiracy with the dresses to accentuate every ounce of fat on me. The swimsuits were even more malicious. Nothing fit like I thought it would. And I then I realized why; I was used to seeing myself with smaller eyes. I was used to trying on clothes for a smaller frame. When I looked in the fitting room mirror, I didn’t recognize the body staring back at me. I wasn’t prepared for the insult.

Coming out of the dressing room I felt as if I had been wearing blinders all these months, and they had finally come off. I was finally able to see myself for the size I really am. It was as if this past year I had bought into a lie. Everyone has been telling me I’m at an appropriate, healthy weight. And I started to believe it. I feel like such a fool. How could I not know what size I am? And I am wary of Dietician now. I trusted her not to make me fat. And now I’m the very thing I feared.

So after shopping I dejectedly came home, upset over my weight. I needed to eat lunch, but I was too tired to fix a meal and I wanted to restrict anyway; I decided to make myself a smoothie. The smoothie was good, but it didn’t satisfy me. So I nibbled on something else, then something else, and then another something else, never feeling satisfied. Then Husband went and took a nap and all of a sudden I realized what I could do: I could purge and he would never know. And so I did…and I finally felt satisfied.

I don’t know how I feel about it. I can’t say I’m sorry for it. I should have done the next right thing and eaten my afternoon snack, my dinner, and my bedtime snack. But I didn’t.

There’s a lot going on inside of me. I know we should use our words, not our symptoms, to express how we feel; I don’t know how I feel, so my symptoms will have to speak for me.