THE COUP: ILLEGAL SEIZURE OF POWER

Maybelline sound asleep.  She loves her crate.  Makes her feel safe and secure.

I don’t know if I can write this post.  I feel extremely dissociative at this very moment despite taking my medication.

I don’t know why it’s important to write this, but last night’s experience was so bizarre, disruptive, and disturbing that I need to make sense of it.  

Last night wreaked havoc on me, and I’m not sure I can adequately give voice to it.  

I think something was triggered in our session with Therapist yesterday.  We came home, journaled, and then went to our place of worship.  I was so emotional through the services that I sat in my seat and cried.  When time was up, we had a congregation prayer, and it dawned on me my eyes were open during it.  Then I had a flashback to a time when I might have been eight years old, and I refused to close my eyes during prayer and hadn't been for a long while.  Closed eyes do not equal safety.  You must always keep your eyes open to remain vigilant and safe from people hurting you.  

When I remembered this, I began to dissociate and switch.  It was like the light switch was being turned off and on, off and on, over and over.  The switching was constant, and I had to leave quickly.  

Meanwhile, I came home around 9:30 pm and my lower extremities were in such pain, but I had no clue why.  I hadn't done anything differently to cause such pain. It baffled me, but I took pain medication that never worked.  I doubled the dosage and nothing even came close to alleviating the pain.  

Meantime, Husband left to go to bed around this time of 10:00, but I wasn’t sleepy so I stayed in the living room to catch up on social media, pay bills, etc.  But I kept noticing I couldn’t remembering what I was supposed to be doing.  I would start a task and then forget what I was supposed to do.  It felt like I was flitting from one thing to another, but I couldn’t make sense out of anything I was trying to accomplish.  

I can not overstate it when I say I couldn’t remember from one moment to the next.  It was like being in a dense, thick fog, and I couldn’t process anything.  I was confounded, but couldn’t untangle the mental mess.

I decided to take my night meds and go to bed, but the dissociation had other plans for me.  I wasn’t tired or sleepy despite taking sleeping pills.  

It honestly felt like someone was overriding my medication or it just didn’t affect them.  It never felt like true insomnia.  This felt totally different, like my members were just wide awake.  Almost manic but without the hyperactivity.  I was simply awake and not able to think clearly.

Hours later, I took a muscle relaxer and laid in bed feeling very strange and out of sorts

Sleep finally found me but in bits and pieces, tossing and turning.  

I’ve had insomnia frequently in life but never before did it feel like the hostile takeover of last night.

Today has been similiar.  I’ve been spacey, dissociative, and I have an unrelenting migraine.  

I write this experience because I’m trying to make sense of it, and I’m wondering if anyone reading this might have had a similiar experience because this was way out of the spectrum of normal for me.

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.

Writing, Therapy, and Flashbacks

I don’t feel like conspiring to write brilliantly.  I don’t want to care that the creativity has gone out of me like a candle in the wind.  I think I shall never write again because we are not in the blackouts of depression, despair, or constant self-damnation to write from the heart and soul again.

There’s a website I’m linking here called Writing Forward that has creative writing prompts, but I haven’t been doing them.  Maybe because I’m lazy, maybe because there’s no audience to which to write, maybe the prompts just don’t speak to me like writing about the dark side of life.  

But if I can’t write about things other than me and World War III, then what kind of writer am I?

Maybe I’m afraid.  Writing never comes easily anymore, and I think I’m afraid of failure.  Insert failure/success cliches.  

I bought a book for $4.00 full of creative writing exercises that I hope will inspire me. Perhaps this is a ghost I will always be pursuing.

____________________________________________________

So we met with Therapist 2x this week instead of the usual once-a-week session.  I think as a group we were in a better mood and there wasn’t such a self-imposed hurry or demand to get everything said and covered we could because we know there’s another session coming soon.  So I think we were more relaxed.  Today we exchanged first bumps, which is somewhat innocuous on the human “touch” scale.  

___________________________________________________

We had a flashback tonight.  I’m scared to think about it, but we can not let fear dictate which insiders we help and which ones we don’t .  What if the girl in the flashback is fleeing towards us? Are we going to close our minds to her and the help she needs?

I don’t know what you expect me to say.  

Nothing really.  I just think we need to be open to sights, sounds, and feelings and not abandon insiders.  Why so angry?

B L O C K

____________________________________________________

I'm sad. a teardrop falls in my hand.

I don’t feel well.  I have been dissociative, spacey, and dizzy all evening.  There’s a sense of urgency to write, and I can’t escape it.  I must, I must, I must eject what’s in this crazy, demanding  head.

I was anxious this morning, but I knew I would be taking my dog Maybelline for a walk and that would help dissipate some anxiety, and it did.  After our walk, my anxiety lessened until this evening.

But this evening the anxiety shot back up, and the dissociation made it impossible to think and speak clearly.  I’ve had some things on my mind today, and I’m wondering if there is any correlation to my dissociation and anxiety.  These are not things of which I want to write, and I’m angry that I’m being pushed into doing it.

I don’t know if I’ve written about it before on this blog, but these memories came crashing into my head today, fresh and new, and I feel the need to document it.  I don’t know why it’s necessary to write on it, but I feel something  propelling me forward.  

What has my brain so rattled is the memory of me as a child sleeping on the floor because I was afraid of my bed. Stupid, right?  I don’t know exactly when it started, but I was somewhere between the ages of 7 through 9.  But that’s just a guess.  My memory just starts with me sleeping on the floor because I didn’t want to sleep in my bed.  The bed seemed scary.  I just remember finding sleeping on the floor comforting.  The next thing I remember is sleeping on the floor in the bathroom.  I honestly don’t know why I moved from sleeping on my bedroom floor to the bathroom floor, but something made me seek shelter in the bathroom.  

For years I slept anywhere other than a bed until I got married; of course then I started sleeping in the same bed as my husband, although there are still some nights that the couch is safer than the bed.

Why does this matter?  I don’t know.  Perhaps it doesn’t.  I don’t attach meaning to it, but somewhere inside I felt the desperate need to share it.  I know the writing is paltry, skimpy and scattered.  It is very dispassionate and non-descriptive, and it doesn’t really paint a picture of what was going on at the time.   But I don’t have a clear picture, and I don’t understand why it was so important to write about it tonight.  But I couldn’t not write.  As stupid as it sounds, writing this tonight was for survival.

I hate myself.

I would love to hear from those reading this.  Am I alone here?  Have you ever experienced your bed being scary, or  would you sleep in strange places?   

Whispers Heard as Screams

I'm going on record declaring this complete bull shit.

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I don't know what to say really.  I don't know what to feel either.

Maybe I am really okay, and it didn't hurt as badly as it seems.  Or, maybe I'm covering up the greatest pain we've ever known throughout the gift of numbness.

I'm sure I am being dramatic.  It's true; I'm not crying.  No, I'm not overly anxious.  Surely there is nothing wrong.

I mean, what damage has been done? 

Maybe the lack of feelings are because the damage is more intellectual, more cerebral.  Emotionally it's no big deal, but in my head and my thoughts I know I have been betrayed by others, and I have also betrayed myself, and by extension . . . .  Shhh.  The wind whispers:  dirty, unclean, contaminated.

You may address me as "Whore."

I may never whisper again. 

I know why you whisper, and I am sorry.  I know who you are, little one.  You are someone who doesn't want to be here anymore.  I don't blame you.  But why don't you want to be here? 

People will see my dirtiness.  Some put on an act that they enjoy it.  Maybe that is why she is confused.  What she knows and what she feels are at war with one another, and I am collateral damage.  Someone is always sacrificed. 

I sense you staring into space.  Where are you going in your mind?

Escape while I can.  Things are calm for now, but soon it will either be complete anxiety or a crushing depression that will descend upon you, and I can't survive another blow tonight.

Did you take over with Daniel?

I took over afterwards when no one else would, just like back then.

I AM the Old Struggle

This weekend was an exercise in futility.  Still reeling from the session with Therapist written about  here,  I unsuccessfully navigated a weekend that was filled with meaning and importance for me, and I failed.

I keep going over it in my mind, twisting it, turning it, unknotting it, what was said by Therapist  and I'm starting to feel angry about the session.

I don't know. I don't know.  I don't know. I. don't. know.

My guard is up.  My mind is closed clam shut.

I reverted back to whom I don't want to be.

Fuck all that.

These words are ramble letters for others, but they mean something to me.

I am struggling like old times again, a place I had every reason to think I escaped.

And now I embrace the notion of death.  I welcome him, I dare him to visit me.  He will not be disappointed.

Please someone rescue me from this hell.  I am drowning and can not make it myself out of the water.
Perhaps that indicates I want to live.  Shit fuck hell, maybe I do.  but certainly not like this.  and if this is all there is, no matter what that fucking therapist says, I don't want to do it.

I need to  be rescued.  I want to be rescued, but I'm afraid desire alone won't make it possible.

Big Fat Lies

It's been a few years since I've been on here.  Don't really know what I've been up to except teaching high school and going off to treatment.

Tonight I was looking at the very first entry in an incomplete journal book, beginning date of 10-15-2008.  I was in residential treatment at the time.

There was a line written in that entry that I found poignant as I reviewed it.  It read: My eating disorder cares more about me than I do about myself.  

Nine years later, that's probably still true.

On the opposite page of the journal entry, I was responding to the assigned question: If I can't be the weight I want, then . . .

So last night I looked at the "what's", and here is what I discovered and evaluated to see if the fears I hd written have come true because currently, according to my treatment team, I'm at a healthy weight.

At first glance, I was surprised that it didn't seem these fears had come true.  Then I thought and wrote more, and here's what I found.

First fear: 

My first fear of not being anorexic is that I would gain too much weight and lose any self control.  I feel I definitely live in that fear and reality day and night.  We are in a dryer, spinning and tumbling around in our fear with no escape signs or promises of it ever stopping, not matter what weight we are.

Second fear:  The second fears is that if I gained the weight back I would be average, not special, droll, inferior.  Reality or fear?  REALITY.

Other fears that came true were not feeling that sense of emptiness and weightlessness you find when you are skinny.  *I should probably write more on why being empty in invisible is important.*

The fears that didn't necessarily come true but at the same time did not go away are about people caring for me.  I don't really feel cared for, but I can acknowledge that I have made some connections.  Whether they'd grieve if I'd die, I know not.

Another fear I can't write about with authority is the fear that I'll be dirty, fat, and shameful from the abuse. I don't feel as . . . I don't know.  Do I feel dirty since I gained all my weight back?  My first answer is no.  I am truly blank and non descriptive.  I don't carry around any feelings, but others do, and they feel dirty and shameful, but I honestly don't know if weighing 80lbs would put that feeling away.  I think it's worse at being this size because some are more active, but we'll always feel fat, dirty, and ashamed, regardless of our weight.

Keturah

I don't know what to do with myself. I hate nights like these. Empty. Spoiled. Long. I am a child. And I can't breathe. My brain hurts. It's not a headache. My brain is itchy and scratchy and needs to be soothed and calmed.

Everything feels wrong. My hands hold my head. I need comfort, but I don't know where to go, as if there was some place to turn.

I get desperate. I need to go.

These nights are the hardest to suffer. They make me ache like nothing else can. The nights make me feel lonely and helpless and vacuous. I need to feel complete.

The voices in my head try to race to completion, as if there were a finish line. Who can scream the loudest. Who can talk the fastest.

Don't you know how much this hurts. I'm not as strong as you think. I'm cracking. I'm breaking. You refuse to see it.

I don't want to rescue myself anymore. For tonight, I need you to pick me up off the ground, hold me and hug me, protect me, and make me feel everything will be alright.

They are in my head right now. In 3-D. Coming at me. I can see them. They can see me.  I can hear them.  They won't hear me.

Please don't be one of them. 

grasping at air

there are f e w words.

went through R.A.D. self defense simulations yesterday

flashbacks    terror     crying

13 hours later still not okay

still crying  still scared    still terrified

need safe hugs   need peace    need for it all to go away

need to cope   bad ideas in mind  

need help   need to talk     but there are no words

i’m silenced just like then

oh, god, how i need help

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.

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.

Avoiding

Pardon us while we wax philosophical. We are in the middle of a switch...

It is dark in my room. I've succumbed to the internal pressure of my members to blog. It's been a while since we blogged but no worries here. New insights have been gained and a new committal to therapy has taken place. A new attitude had developed that therapy has to be uncomfortable, it isn't pretty, it's going to hurt, but I will heal and be able to live a better life.

Our T. keeps telling us how we avoid the topics that we need to explore in order to heal. That is somewhat true, although we've done a much better job of owning up and sharing the painful and embarassing details we'd rather leave out. It's hard to NOT avoid. For ex, we've been avoiding this blog since October because it's so hard to figure out just what to say. We get nervous going to Randy's, our T. Despite reassurances from him, we worry if he'll judge us, think negatively of us, not want to help us anymore. Our husband sees a T. and we've asked him if he gets nervous when he goes and he says no. Maybe it's just us.

Randy gave us an assignment in our last session and we haven't done it. We're avoiding it. :)

Anger times infinity

Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment."

This was the quote for my daily mediation today. I have to admit I've fallen prey to resenting the majority of my life and those who've played a role in its demise.

It's natural to resent being hurt, but if I'm TRULY honest with myself, I've made a career out of resenting those that have dishonored me and abused me. But I don't know how to not be angry and resentful.

Those people hurt me deeply, seemingly irrevocably. How do you get over that? How do you get beyond the anger and resentment? More therapy, indeed.

I'm calling myself out about being eaten alive with hate, anger and resentment. I realize this only halts my progress into a world where I can fully live without being triggered by the anything and everything. People on the outside would never know how damaged I am inside because I put on a front. I have members who are responsible for interacting in the real world. But I'm not at peace and never will be until we can let go.

As I write this it sounds to familiar to the post we wrote about forgiveness. Bad topic. I won't forgive, so if forgiveness means I have to let go of the anger and resentment, then tough shit.

But maybe it's not mutually exclusive. Maybe we can still let go of anger and not forgive. Anger is just a warning sign that something has hurt us. I don't even know what I'm angry at, just that I'm angry. To be honest, and I know some of the blogging community thinks this is bull shit, but I have a member dedicated to anger. It is her job to hold the anger; it's her defense mechanism and the way she keeps people at arms length.

I know she can protect us through other means, but the anger is so much easier for her to revert to. Not everybody is out to get us.

But I'm off track and my thoughts are easily being tumbled and foggy. The issue on the table is letting go of anger and resentment. Anger is a message that something isn't right, and we've gotten the message. The abuse wasn't right, but we can't go back in time. And anger can't be fixed just by acknowleding that the abuse wasn't our fault. So we honestly don't know where to go with this post. We don't know how to get rid of the anger.

Maybe it's something time takes care of. Maybe acknowledging the abuse wasn't our fault will stop us from punishing ourselves, but that takes time. Feelings of guilt, anger, resentment are all tied together. How to untie them is a good question. Moving forward depends on handling the anger towards our abusers, ourselves, and the world.

I find this post flabbergasting. I started it out with one angle on anger, feeling I had answers, and now I've done a 180 degree turn. I don't know how I feel or what it will take to let the anger go. I've confused myself.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Forgiveness or regret

I'm not sure how to begin this post. I've debated on whether to write this, sweep it under the rug, or dive full force into the topic of forgiveness/regret. For us, forgiveness is a four letter word and we rage against people that think you have to forgive to heal.

So yesterday we came face to face with the topic of forgiveness. In our daily meditation book, the topic was forgiveness. Ron Palmer is quoted as saying, "Forgiveness or regret are the only choices we have." It closes with the affirmation, "Forgiveness unties the knot that binds me to resentment and regret."

AAAAHHHH!!!!!!!

First of all, forgiveness is not an either/or choice that people have to make. How the hell can you forgive someone who ruined your life, who abused you as a little girl, who left you with a legacy of hurt, pain, tears, dissociation, ect...? Forgiveness is not a choice and that doesn't mean the only other choice I have is regret, although I sure as hell regret my childhood. I regret the bitch of a mother that didn't protect me from the perps. I regret being different my whole childhood into my adolescence. I regret being different now, not always knowing conversations that have taken place, or whether I paid a bill or not, or what I did five minutes ago. Those are regrets I have, but there is no way on earth that forgiving the people that stole my innocence is going to to make that go away. If I chose to forgive, I would still dissociate, I would still have an eating disorder, I would still be f*ck*ng crazy.

Regret doesn't have to be a by-product of not forgiving. Working hard at therapy, sharing my story, opening myself up to friendships, treating myself well, not perpetuating the abuse by hurting myself, these are things that will heal me and regret is not in there anywhere. I can be whole without forgiveness and regret doesn't occupy any place in my journey of healing.

I'm not destined to a life of regret, or ruined self-esteem, or anger, or sadness.

I am not prolonging my injuries and wounds by not forgiving my perpetrators.

They don't deserve the time of day. I'm not going to spend my precious life and time forgiving the sins of others who ruined me for good.

Hell yes, I'm angry. But forgiveness won't change that. It won't usher in a peacefulness and soak up all the atrocities committed against us.

As far at the affirmation goes, forgiveness doesn't untie anything. I will always resent being abused; I will always resent being dissociative; Mostly, I willl always resent the insuation that if we don't forgive we will have a life of misery and regrets.

B*ll Sh*t.

Sadness over chaos

I wish I was sad, then I wouldn't feel so chaotic in the head. The members are all crawling over each other like puppies nudging up to the mama to nurse. I wish I could explain it all, but I can't. There is so much resignation right now because we hurt so bad. We are still in residential treatment and taking more chances than we are used to. Everything hurts so badly. There are definite links between the eating disorder and sexual abuse. We still have only a small cluster of parts/members, fifteen or so. Some that have been in hiding have recently come out. I find it fascinating that there is one member who is a protector and when things get too difficult she lulls us to sleep and then another member who gives us thoughts and feelings and can also take them away. I don't know how much longer we will be here. I should find out more on Wednesday, October 22.

We assembled a Communications Map, showing how the parts communicate with each other and communicate with the outside world. We listen more closely to each other, at least when another will talk. This is progress, because before we need listened to anybody but ourselves. Most recognize the need to better communicate with each other and work together in order to achieve an inner and outer world that is workable for us.

We have a protector member who is made of much anger and sadness but lately she has been able to tolerate the idea that there might be more to her than just her anger and sadness. She takes care of our littles and has a most important job, but it would be nice to lift some of the heavy responsibility off her shoulders. It would be nice if she could feel some happiness and joy. Same goes for all the members. Shielding each other from the abuse is a heavy responsibility and it would be nice for everyone to know the littles are safe and they are free to pursue things that would make them feel happy. As for the angry member, it's all justified and she's done an incredible job at keeping the littles safe. Our residential T. keeps telling us the world we grew up in is not as dangerous as the world that necessitated our beginning. I want to believe him so badly.

Life in treatment is extremely hard and I am so homesick. I haven't been home since February.

Even with all this treatment it is still a battle to lose the anoretic mind set. We have someone in treatment with us who is probably 65% of her ideal body weight. She is skin and bones and some of us long for that. Not everyone is on board with staying at our current weight. They also feel that food is dirty, obscene, disgusting and makes us unclean, impure, and damaged. It is irrational; how can food make someone dirty? But that thought is there and it screams at every meal to the point we want to shower after meal.

We had psycho drama today that was really heavy. I was playing a role as the eating disordered daughter of a chaotic Jewish family who are degrading to women, argue about business affairs at the table, and shun the daughter who is lesbian and bulimic. They way they were "therapeutically" talking about women sent me out of the room. I felt retraumatized and victimized and objectified. I felt violated.

I guess another area we have progressed in our treatment is our vocabulary. We now use the real words for sexual assault. I won't type them here. Even though we use them it's not easy.

The level of chaos is decreasing in the head. There were some important things I wanted to write about but Victoria is taking them away.

My husband comes to visit next week. I can't wait to see him. The littles are excited because they are going to get stickers for their sticker book.

I hope some of this made sense and that it offers comfort or identification for someone out there. Life is hard. Life with an eating disorder or a dissociative disorder is almost unbearable. I am waiting to exhale. I hope I get there soon. I miss life.