PAINKILLER

Things are quiet and subdued tonight.  Though I feel the need to write, words scurry away. I can’t wrap my mind around what is happening to me.

 

I listen to music; it is a salve to my soul.

Music speaks to me and comforts me, and I need all the comfort I can obtain now.  

I wish I could use my own words to kill my pain, but they do not evolve, so I borrow other’s.  

I am empty, tired, drained.  I’ve cried so much today that my eyes burn.  

I’ll put it on the list of things not to discuss with Therapist.

We went crazy due to this blog post we wrote here to which Therapist has access.  Things were said that never should have been and fighting amongst the parts ensued.  We will never be able to look Therapist in the eye again.  Then we spent Friday frantically e-mailing him, trying to intercept the blog post.  His response to the last email brought us some serenity again.  It was so simple: He wrote: “It’s not a problem.”  That seemed to calm us down.

Tonight I’ve hit a low key.  And I just want to walk away, disappear, and never look back.    I just need to walk away.   Heaven help me walk away.

Emotional

I feel so emotional. The least little thing is provoking tears. I never cry, so why are these tears so special?

I'm living in a dark place where no one can see me or touch me. I do not feel safe.

I had an MRI today to help determine the cause of my dizziness and fatigue. I hope they find an answer soon because I am so miserable. I didn't have the physical or mental energy to get off my couch and walk to the kitchen for a cool drink.

I use to go to the gym for that release, but there is absolutely no energy for the gym, which is also causing me great mental and emotional stress.

Just thought I would throw these words into the universe and hope somebody can relate.

Breakfast was my new granola, soy milk, and an orange.

It's a tradition that I take my girls to Dunkin Donuts on Fridays. I had already enjoyed my breakfast above so I just sat and sipped an iced coffee.

I was having a craving for sushi since Lea and I went out to a Japanese restaurant. So I bought some from Whole Foods. It was good, but restaurant was much better.

Tinkering on the edge of sanity

As I was lying in bed waiting for the elusive sleep to descend upon me last night I was thinking about how I relate to food and how eating it makes me feel. It’s been staring me in the face all this time but it wasn’t until last night that I fully recognized that my struggle is not about the weight. It’s doesn’t matter what I weigh. My fight is not that I want to weigh X amount of pounds; it’s about how the abuse made me feel and my attempts to distance myself from it through restricting food.

The inner war is more about feeling clean and whole and I thought resisting food would do that for me. In truth, I need to find different ways to make myself clean, although it can be argued that I’m not dirty. What was dirty was the way we were treated and what people did to us. However, it is still hard to buy into the line of thinking that we weren’t to blame and we are clean.

Something made me so sad last night. One of the member’s of my system that has the eating disorder is afraid that if we conquer our preoccupation with food and weight she will no longer be needed. She has done her job well at keeping us distracted from the real issues. Her desire to be thin and symptomatic is to ensure that people and Therapist know that she is not okay. She is afraid if she lets go of her disordered thinking and disordered thoughts that no one will see her pain. Even though we know that the real issue is the abuse and not our weight, she still wants to lose. Just as cutting is a cry for help so is her eating disorder.

My heart breaks for her because she feels unwanted and disposable; like if we get better she will be unneeded and expendable. She has been vital to keeping us alive and “functioning,” for a lack of a better word. She will need a new job in our system. Even though we know this, it doesn’t make recovery better. As I write this she sends me memories that she harbors. The pain is overwhelming. We are still sad.

This is all bull sh*t. I hate myself.

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.

If we weren't all crazy we'd just go insane.

That's a quote by Jimmy Buffet. I'm not sure that I'm not crazy AND insane, or if they are even mutually exclusive. I'm so lost inside the mess and dissociation that cradles my life. Having Dissociative Identity Disorder is like having a broken mind. My thoughts are disorganized. I remember face but not names of people I'm in treatment with for weeks. Time is totally distorted. My mind doesn't document events or happenings, and inevitably I get the fatal "Do you remember when you/we...?" My mind is so broken I can't adequately describe it.

You should have seen me in the grocery store this evening. I left my grocery list at home (I was pissed off!) and I was trying to remember the ingredients I needed to make tonight's dinner. I had a complete meltdown. I couldn't find the sauce mix my dietitian said would fit into my meal plan, I couldn't figure out if I wanted frozen veggies or if I wanted to steam veggies I have at home, and lastly I just threw some apples in a bag without inspecting them for bugs or bruises. If that's not crazy then I don't know what is.

So it's been an exhausting day. It started off by going to Eating Disorders Anonymous . Then D. and I went to Costco to keep my apple addiction alive and kicking. Still eating apples with salt. I keep being told it is eating disordered behavior. I don't care. It's good.

Went back to the homestead for lunch. I didn't want another veggie burger (I eat so many it's not even funny) so I stumbled upon an Amy's vegetarian dish in the freezer. Into the microwave it went and my painstaking dilemma about what to eat went with it.


The dissociation had been really bad since the 10:00am EDA meeting. I knew that my alters had been triggered and had "bothered" me since. I finally found some Imitrex and laid down for a while. When my head became only a moderately thumping pulse, D. drove me to get a full body wax which always relaxes me and makes me feel better. It didn't help with the switching, which has been switching constantly and bearing down behind my eyes since this morning. Even as I type I can sense them behind my eyes, peering over my shoulder, watching what I'm typing.

It stirs up an explosion with in me. I just want to go freakin' crazy or insane, something to give me relief. Seroquel just doesn't work and I'm suffering too much not to have something stronger.

I can say that I haven't binged so far, which is an improvement; however, I must admit to restricting. D. is too blind to notice. I didn't have my a.m. snack or my p.m. snack. I'm supposed to be having my night time snack now. But NOPE. I have no logical reason to restrict.

I just don't fucking want to eat. I don't want to pollute my body and today I will take my stand.

I've felt strong urgings to burn. I've been good so far. Relatively good. Tomorrow, Sunday, D. and I are going to the movies, which we never do fun couple stuff anymore. Probably because I'm such a wreck. I just hope my head is not this chaotic, disorganized, confusing, and haphazard. It is really, really, bothersome. That's probably why there's been the urge to burn; I need something to distract from the pain of having my head pulling me in different directions at the same time.

I agree with Buffet: if we all weren't crazy we'd go insane...and I'd be the first one there.