Hope springs eternal

Today in treatment has been relatively easy. If that is the case, why do I yearn to go home so badly? I didn't have any individual therapy today, and that was good. It was all group therapy and we could simply fade into the background. The food is getting harder, what we once thought conquered and could even assert we no longer had an eating disorder. Now, the urges are stronger than ever to hide food or cut corners or take any opportunity to shave off calories. Our body size was tolerable if only a month ago; now it has grown grotesque again, even though our weight has declined. I take no real or authentic pleasure in this controlled demise. This is not what I had in mind for treatment, but it seems that we've let certain behaviors back in and not been honest. Self-harm was usually about relief or feeling alive; today, putting the cigarette out on the arm, watching the flame on the end cauterize the tender flesh, was punitive. It was act of punishment. But for what I don't know. The images come after me as I write this. The neighbor, the hill, the garage, the laundry room. Stirring up the abuse has ignited the fire of our self-destruction, but we are in a treatment center to stop abusing ourselves.

I saw a great quote the other day that reminds me of the behavior in which we are engaged. It stated simply: If you commit suicide, you are killing the wrong person. It is trite and banal, but it caught my attention. And tomorrow I will have to do what I don't want: confess the struggles to our residential T.

I look at my arm. It looks pathetic, sick, scarred, and injured from burning it. But seeing the fresh wounds only makes me want to hurt myself more. I don't understand.

Yet how interesting that someone wrote in the journal earlier that we have no problems and don't need to be in treatment period, much less residential treatment. We haven't been home in seven months and what have we accomplished? My heavy heart confesses we are really no better. We will return to school, to work, and to every stress we had before, but we don't feel any better equipped to handle life. Are we permanently damaged goods? Will we be debilitated forever?

We have snack in nine minutes. How can we get out of it? I'm ashamed of the thought. There is anger and hatred directed at this body. It will not be inhibited.

I digress. There is still the faintest glimmer of hope. Why do I still hope when all evidence points to our vast and generous failures? I don't know anything but that I should give up entirely and without question or judgement. But I'm holding on to hope with everything I can... at least when my hand is not on the proverbial gun. I have to hope that we can accomplish something better than achieving madness. We've already done that brilliantly. Now it's time to hope. Hope springs eternal - Alexander Pope

Victoria (The Woman with the Words)

15 minutes of pain

We have fifteen minutes before we sit for breakfast, or what I consider fifteen minutes of pain. It is agonizing before the meals, knowing that in just minutes you are going to have to face your demons square in the face, tell them to fuck off, and then eat your food. Telling the eating disorder to step back is like telling Bush not to be two faced; it's just not realistic. And my eating disorder has been relishing in the delight of the meal plan. Up until yesterday there was flexibility. No more. M. changed my plan and I can get away with nothing. My plate must be completed.

I do not shrink back. I have secrets and because of them I can breathe. But also because of them I hate myself. I've been under the radar with cutting and the burning myself with the plethora of cigarettes laying around the center. It's not an everyday occurence, but I carry my stash around, my private selection. Which one will it be this time? Which tool, device, instrument, or utensil will it be today? None.

My hair is pink, at least some of it. I self-dyed the front strands and some of the middle. It is wild and ME is raving over it. I love the pink. Next step, nose ring.

Working on backsliding

It is a sad day. They are all sad days. We've finished our dinner, done our post, checked in, and like ants on a hill scurry around grabbing our belongings as we go to our private corners to blog, journal, smoke, and gripe about how fat we are. Emily took me away this afternoon and I numbed out by sleeping the afternoon away. I was grateful and even wanted to numb out, but when I woke up I had the same problems to deal with. The body memories and flashbacks are constant and give no respite. I still cling to hope, but I feel it fade away little by little. I can tell moments when my eating disorder is winning. Score 1 for ED, 0 for The Crew. I know that is to be expected. I could go my whole life battling this beast. I've already known life longer with an eating disorder than life without it. As I am, I fear I've only gotten better to the point of where I started my decline; I want recovery to be about getting PAST the point where I started my down hill spiral.

I am working on two pieces for group. One is about how it came about that we aren't able to trust others, and the other piece is about how we, Tina mostly, use anger to be shield us and protect us from being hurt. I dialogued with the some of the parts, trying for everyone to get on the same page. Both assignments I'm finding to be extremely difficult and triggering. On the plus side, we watched Pride and Prejudice, which makes Victoria happy because she longs for her country and to hear other people speak with her accent.

Some of the other clients went and saw a movie called The Women Friday night. Overrated. C-, at best.

The parents are still in China. I dreamt she came home. I woke up with a hole in my heart. Damn her.

I sip my coffee, nectar of the Gods, and a precious commodity around here.

I need friends.

Okay to fall down

I've got to get back to following my other blogs but there just isn't time in the day. Today has been miserable and emotional and the cutting screams at me to indulge and I can only turn down the noise.
Everything is after me at once and it seems we have more bad days than we have food. I realize how fortunate I am to be in residential treatment for so long, but I yearn to go home and I know my members do. They are ready to do the work and move on. I am almost hopeful it can happen.

School lingers on my mind and I can sense the feel of the new textbook, the smell of opening a brand new binder. I was created for academia.

Tonight the residents are going to a movie and I will most likely go with them. I am terrified of having flashbacks and body memories while there. They seem to grow stronger and I containment, grounding, and safe places don't always work. I broke down at lunch today. Had a session with my residential T. and it was rough. Who can eat right after that? I supplemented. Could barely choke down the white, milky substance. At home I would have restricted. The only thing making me feel better about my body image is the fact I weigh less than at the previous treatment center. But I'm at a better one now. Surrendering is not as difficult.

To the world, I miss you. I log on to CNN.com and other news magazines because I am so out of touch with world events. I'm late for group. Last one of the week. But even then I can't exhale. At least I'm in good hands. Save me.

Days like this

As I sit here on the lounge chair, I look out at the other women in the residential house. Some are crocheting, some are journaling, others are simply napping. I blog. I know that none of them know of my blog because none of them know of me. I hate days like I had today. I felt so invisible, inconsequential, and unimportant. I felt overlooked and tried so hard to keep myself in control. I can never allow myself to be in crisis like the other clients can. They break down, cry, wail, and scream. I wonder how much better I MIGHT be if that were me; maybe staff would know how I writhe in my skin and the hysterics and chorus of voices and thoughts in my head make me want to die. If I didn't have to maintain my perfect appearance and "togetherness" maybe people would see that I just hurt and ache and silently scream what others verbally yell out.

But that doesn't happen and it didn't happen today. I was no less than eight years old at almost any given moment today. How can that be? It certainly isn't logical, but make no mistake. All damn day I felt eight years old, but at the same time I felt so blank and empty. The eight year old kept sending me images of the old neighborhood. She's getting really good at that, I write with a slight smirk. Images of houses and yards I played in as a child. These aren't just images but feelings and emotions as well that she's sending me. It is so frustrating because I can't do much with them. There is no narrative or story with me; just fragmented images and feelings. These fragments bring up so much frustration which is why the day was so shitty. I felt like I was just being badgered inside and I was pummeled by my thoughts, yet I couldn't let anyone know. People asked, R., are you okay. A I could say no, but I couldn't verbalize what was wrong. I couldn't articulate it. Mostly because I can't lose control, can't give up the persona of perfection, can't let myself fall. This will be my death.

As hopeful as I've tried to become and slightly still am, I am by no means ignorant of the grip my eating disorder still has on me. I've almost forgotten about it because of the work on the trauma. But my food rituals and food categories and thoughts and exercises remind me I am very much of an anorexic mind set. I've even lost ten pounds that I restored from the first residential treatment center. That is how sly and cunning my eating disorder is. I keep forgetting it.

I know I have to get better now. There will be no other chances. I've been in and out of treatment too much. Angie is ready to get back to our school work. There is more to life than eating disorders and trauma. I know that. I just need help in parlaying that into the actual courage I need to fall, to be imperfect, to be messy, to heal. Today I couldn't do it. Tomorrow holds the promise of recovery that today sadly relinquished.

I hate days like this.

Unfamiliar territory

It's been a while since we posted. Feels like unfamiliar territory. It's been a while since we did anything. Since February we've been hospitalized. Since April we've been in residential. We got the weight restored on our body; mixed feelings about that. We have finally begun to work on the trauma. It is truly, truly scary, but it is also tolerable. The residential facility I am at now is really good with trauma, eating disorders, and dissociate disorders. I feel fortunate to be here. Tina is still around, cursing people out. Though there are mostly females here, there is one guy, through no fault of his own. :) But he got in our face today and Tina wasn't going to deal with it so she cursed him out. I was afraid she would lay a hand on him but I think she is smarter than that. Tomorrow the treatment center is taking us to Build-A-Bear Workshop where they will pay for us to build our own bear. I'm so excited. I've already decided that we will build an elephant because they are social and maternal creatures. They don't leave their offspring the way B. and D. left us. Left us all the way to fucking China.

Angie and some of the others miss school and feel we've blown our chance. There is a hughe vacuous hole in our cavity that is sucking the life from us. We've really tried hard. Please don't let it be for nothing. We finally felt a kernel of hope. Are we crazy?

Garbage

There's nothing much to write today. I've been in long term treatment for a complete week now and have settled in fairly well. I like my treatment team. I have yet to be compliant with anything; the purpose is not to be mean but the food seems like so much and I still want to lose weight, which are conflicting goals. At times I've questioned whether I want to give up the eating disorder but I know I don't want to live with it. I am miserable. It has contorted me into a creature I don't know and don't like what she does. I have become my own abuser. Why worry about the uncle or the neighbor or the boyfriend when I can just abuse myself?

I'm starting to get the routine down, but I'm still not able to go out on the outings like the two other members in my group. I feel alot of pressure to adhere to the mealplan so I can move up levels and go off with them. But we all know that I can come up with a million reasons in the world to eat and adhere to the plan but one thing and one thing only gets in the way and that is that I don't want to gain weight. I accept the face that if I don't gain weight I won't get better, I won't uncover the issues beneath the eating disorder and I would be squabbling an opportunity to get better. To get a full scholarship to treatment is pretty special and I don't want to waste.

I've had mini-flash backs lately. A lot of ones that take me back to the grandparents house. The two groups were doing karoke earlier and they sang a particular song that reminded me of one of my uncles, and I cried deeply inside, but I had my mask on outside so no one knew how much I was bothered. Why it bothered me I don't know because it wasn't the uncle that hurt me, that I know of. They tell me it was one particular uncle and the neighbor, but they let me feel that there are more secrets like the brother and the other uncle. I remember wrestling with the other uncle, but that was benign. And just because we were dumped off on them doesn't constitute a reason for abuse. I hope to escape the suspicions and deal with what really happened; I know the eating disorder and others are still protecting me from the truth, and I have to say I'm tired of living a half life.

I know things happened to me but happened to someone else. I know I'm a half life. I'm a partial. I would really like to pull the sheets back and find the rest of me underneath this eating disorder so that I can find myself and find out what happened to us.

The weekend is here and there are no groups to go to. So we just kind of find things to do like play games, write, watch movies, and eat. Those on the higher levels are playing miniature golf and going to the mall. My favorite store is here: Sephora. Even that is not a good enough reason to go follow my meal plan. I'm finding that my skinny clothes are getting a little bit bigger and I can't help but write that with a smile. I know how counterproductive it is. Some of the groups are going out for a walk, but I'm confined to the house. My psycho-iatrist said I was not allowed to leave the house for any reason. However, there is a candle light vigil tomorrow night that I might get to go to because there is no physical activity (I could find some) involved and it would be physically safe.

I’ve been very frustrated and anxious since lunch. The anxiety has only increased, despite imagery exercise, deep breathing, and medication. I felt guilty because I ate a piece of bread for dinner even though I only ate half my entrée. Why is weight gain so hard for me? What is lying beneath the surface? I'd give anything to know. It's later in the evening and the girls are playing karoke. I've declined to play. I would rather be alone with my thoughts, or lack thereof.

Gaining weight means that all these people that are paid to care about me won't care as much anymore. I know my husband cares about me. The birth parents might, depending on the day. But no one else in the world cares about me unless they I'm sick and I have to pay for attention. That's what the neighbor was all about: getting attention from inapporpriate sources and in inappropriate ways. But that's partly why I do it: I'm attention seeking. It's a little like being a prostitute; I sacrifice and violate my body just to get attention or something (anything!) out of the exchange. Even if it is the threat of a tube being shoved down my nose. I find it sad. A lost, lonely little girl searching for someone to take care of her and willing to sacrifice herself so someone can fill those needs.

But also, seeing bones in the mirror can be thrilling, a natural high just like the hunger. Like right now I'm hungry and snack is scheduled for twenty-five minutes from now and I plan on refusing it. Part of me is scared because I know I will still look in the pantry and take half of what I'm supposed to eat. I may eat it or not. If I eat it, I will be a loser, if I don't eat it I will be a loser because how can someone be in "recovery" yet not eat their assigned food. And my dietician added two more exchanges to my meal plan but failed to put it on my meal card so I'm happy as a clam that staff can't enforce the increase. They don't even know about it.

These are not the behaviors of someone who wants to get well. These are the behaviors of someone who desperately needs attention and help and doesn't want people to give up on her just because she struggles with what she knows her body needs but can't seem to convince her heart to follow through.

I also have some idiotic notion that starving myself will make me clean. I remember as a girl, maybe nine or ten years old, and I was showering and scrubbing so hard. I remembering feeling hungry and when I got out of the shower there was just a pure sensation all over me because I wasn't dirty, I was only clean and fresh and pure. I know it's all about that damn uncle. The eating disorder has so many layers, or maybe I started using it in the beginning to cope with one stressor in my life and then I started using it for all the stressors in my life as I got older.

I deserve more than this...I think. At least that's what I'm being told. Maybe I believe them. Maybe. I don't know for sure that I should keep hurting myself over what others did to me. According to them, I have a right to heal; however, I can only do it if I gain weight. Didn't we write earlier we can just lose the weight if we don't like the way we look. Losing the weight is fun; feeling hungry and relishing it is like what I imagine rolling a cigaratte between the fingers would be like or swishing around an age old brandy in a sniffer. If feels good and the release is incredible and indescribable. But if there could be other things that might make us feel better then why not just try them?

We colored yesterday. someone got angry with the kids because they weren't Koloring in the lines. I just let them continue. Then someone else played puzzles and others watched a movie on the computer.

The unit phone is ringing but I don't care. I don't want to answer it. I don't want to write anymore either.

Blue skies raining

So here we are in long-term residential treatment and it sucks. Today is not a good day. I just want to pull the hair out. How am I supposed to get any peace when they keep shovihg food at me? Why did I even bother to come here? I knew from the get go that I didn't want to gain weight, despite every one telling me that is what I had to do. I thought today that I would indulge them and gain the weight and relish in the high I get by losing it all again. Losing weight is half the fun. I had a dream last night that the scale said one figure and then I got back on it and the scale read a lower number. I was so relived.

But I can't help truly hating myself. I confess I've purged since I've been here and they don't keep a watchful eye like an inpatient setting so I've managed to throw away quite a few snacks and never been caught.

It all begs the question, why be here? Should I be patient and hope the switch will flip, or just pack it in?

My body is so tired. And I sleep alot. If I'm not in group, I'm sleeping in my bed. I miss my husband and my dogs. I would never tell anyone this but I wonder why go on. I doubt I will ever get better. They want me to gain weight and I want to lose it.

I'm just feeling depressed. It will pass. All good and bad does until all that remain is the hollow, numbed out soul you deceived yourself into believing.

i can't stand my own skin. i'm drowning. i've rotted at the computer, looking at my school work, staring blankly at the screen, and fighting back the tears. i don't know what i'm supposed to do. i can't read my assignments or write my paper. i'm sinking further and further.

make me disappear.

i feel like a bad person.

Compare and fall fast

I skipped work and school because I'm tired. So fucking tired.

As an English teacher, I am supposed to teach my students how to compare and contrast. Frankly, I'm sick of comparison. That's all I do and that's all that gets done to us. I fucking don't care if other people with D.I.D. made it through recovery. Don't fucking compare us to them. I am sick of my blog being compared to others, by me and by others. I just want to be an individual. We have our own ways and what worked for others to get "better" doesn't mean it will work for us.

I'm tired of our ex-Randy telling us everything we are doing is wrong. I am sick of hearing about avoidance and not trying and not believing. I'm sick of it. And then the tables get turned and if we don't believe it's not because our progress is genuinely questionable, it's because we have bad attitudes and can't see the impact we have on others.

Just because other people can get better doesn't mean we can do it, or that it will be the same way, or the same length of time, or the same anything. Quit comparing us to other people, to the literature, to what your colleagues say, to your experience with people "like us", and to what you think. You don't know anything. You weren't under the bed or hiding in the closet with us. Quit comparing!!! We can't live up to it and can't take the pressure of trying to be what people think we are. We've done that all our life and we are exhausted.

More comparisons!! I'm tired of our dismal, depressing blog being compared to everyobody else's. What a ocmmunity of happy D.I.D.'ers. No wonder no one reads us. It's depressing. But it's where we are. It's fucking where we are, and now that we are even more alone than we were 24 hours ago, it will probably be where we are for the rest of our life.

does anyone know how lonely and what a failure we feel like when people suppose we ought to be better by now. Point out what is different, it doesn't matter. Different isn't progress. It's just different.

I can't stand the empty shell that I am. I can't stand the emptiness. And if someone could take it away from me I would do anything, give anything, be anything just to make it stop. We are so disappointed in the process and the lonliness of our decisions it kills us. At least by ourselves, no one can compare how inferior we are, how we don't try, how other people could do what we don't, how worthless we are. We already knew that without your fucking comparison.

Just messy

i'm inside the mess of my bedroom inside the mess of my life crying the messiest tears wearing the messiest closthes with the messiest hair listening to unmessy music. the Music Maiden has on the saddest song she could find for me. Got to love that. I should be studying my American Lit. but I'm not. I called out of work because I can't answer phones with tears stuck in my throat; I rescheduled my test because I'm too crazy, volatile, and messy to take it right now. I would cry my messy tears all over the paper because I just can't help it. That's what messy people do. And my messy heart hurts so much right now I can't grab a breath to spare my life. I must have cried in my drug-induced sleep, because when I woke up and fearfully looked in the mirror my eyes were red and puffy and swollen. I'm flying off the hinges.

The last day to withdraw w/o academic penalty is in the second week of March, so I have a little time to make decisions.

I don't know where to go with this. Eventually, I'll have to look at my American Lit, I'll have to find my misplaced breath, I'll have to go to campus and mix in with the normal people. However, I know when I go to the Disabled Services Office to take my test she will ask me how I am and I will crumble and melt into a messy pile and then what will I do? How can I pretend then that I'm like everyone else?

The Music Maiden has my sad music on a loop, so every 2 minutes and 49 seconds it swings back and starts all over. What a sad metaphor for this life. It's repititve. Our sadness just loops and swings back ever so often, and in some disturbing, sacrificial way, we find comfort in this. Despite the tears, how would we manage in other way without our misery looping around like the saddest of music?

My coffee is good, at least. Our morning now is somewhat unstructured, so it will be interesting to see how our food manages because we had decided to take a punishment and not eat at all today, or at least have only 1 thing. It would be a lot easier if we had something to take our mind off of food. Not that I'm thinking about it. I feel fat and messy. Out of order and control. And if I never ate again it would be too soon. We're at the halfway point, I guess you could say. No one will know what that means, but I take comfort knowing it. And so the music loops.

There is so much shame to sink this deep. I shouldn't be like this. How much therapy? How many hospitalizations? Yet we think about the same? Each time we think we'll never come back to this space in our head, but we find it again, and the drive was quicker this time. It didn't take as long. I thought we would be indestructable with school. It would be our savior. Give us focus. Take our minds off things. Help us avoid.

i need to stop talking. there are more of us here than need be and the consequences are ugly. something she should realize about the music. eventually, it does stop.

That could be because people get sick of hearing it and turn it off themselves.

how will you turn off your history. how will you turn off your looping? i already know.

I'm just trying to justify it. Make it less shameful. Make it appropriate. Make an unarguable case to stop the music. This is the last loop of the music before I sign off.

Forgive me. It's just so dark in here. and I know the headlines. I know the rumors. I've predicted. I feel like I did last time. Shame drove me in, woke me up, drove me out. Shame drives me in again, like it's pet toy that can't make up its mind. Should I blame it? I can't make up mine either. I only know how guilty, shameful, and messy I feel for being back here. is is possible for others to hate me as much as i hate myself

"What do I do now?"

a short writing. i really can't see the screen through the tears. is that like seeing the forest from the trees? perhaps. more importantly, does it matter. i haven't been able to pull myself together all day. tried and tried and tried to study for this American Lit test but my head keeps bombing out. I am so overwhelmed and stressed. i purged. my eating has been so weired today and that has stressed me out. i'm so overwrought that my head will explode any minute.

i've gone mad. i am thinking of dropping my classes, maybe just one. my life is out of control. i am out of control and feel just like i did last year, and it wasn't a good time. i can't scrape myself together and i see really bad things happening. i want to cut so bad right now. what stops me? i need D. to leave the restroom so I can get the bandages. the razor is in the purpose. i can already feel the sweet relief cutting through my veins. i can envision the red climbing to the top. yet, i hear d. complain that he is cleaning the bathroom and nothing is going right.

i meant it when i said i've gone mad. i can't get it together. and the bed won't give me up. it perpetuates my cycle of feeling like a failure. i feel like a failure because i can't get out of bed and i can't get out of bed because i feel like a failure. i had so much homework to complete this weekend and got almost none of it done. if i drop my class, it will put me so far behind. you can only take certain classes in the education program at certain times. i will never finish. i always knew it was a dream. but a dream i wanted. now i can't even look at a book without dreaming of a razor. i'm paralyzed. can't move. can't think. what made me think i could do what everybody else was doing.

As Lieutenant Dan said in Forrest Gump on the hospital floor, "I was supposed to be a soldier. What do I do now? What do I do now?"

trust me?

spell check still diabled. dog nmad blogger.


We've been studying hard all day for the stupid American Lit test with the psychotic, meanie professor on Monday. He is a jerk and no body likes him. I got some stuff at Walmart to make bracelets today and when every one is done writing and studying then i get to make them. Rebecca asked d. to help us. he said he would. hopefully tomorrow we'll have some cool bracelets to wear.

The issue of trust has been on our mind a lot today, every since the psycho-trisist asked if we would trust her enough to call her if our suicidal thoughts escalated or we felt close to acting on our thoughts. She asked why we hadn't told Randy why we've been feeling more suicidal and that was when the issue of trust came up. It's not that we don't trust him; there is a surgace level of trust there, but not one that we feel is needed to grow, expand, and give him every thing we have so that we can get better. It's a good question: why wouldn't you tell your therapist you are seriously thinking of killing yourself, to the point you have a plan and note? I know for some of us, we don't want hospitalization, though, if truth be known and all cards are on the table, some do want to go to the hospital. Why, I don't know. I think because one of the only times in our life we felt safe and like people cared about our well-being and we didn't have to worry about the finances of the bill was when we were first hospitalized in 1992 and some want that back. Some want to go to the hospital, get better, feel cared for, and get it over. But we didn't tell Randy because others don't want to go to the hospital. We feel like a failure all over again for just having the feelings and dealing with food issues again. It's a major part of why we are always sad: guilt. We shouldn't be here.

Conversations have casually been made with D. but he is so f*ing clueless. He doesn't seem worried, which is good. But arrangements had to be made for music, cremation, who could attend, what he would do with the money, what he wouldn't do with the money, the issue of remarriage, and how he would get on with his life. He could finally get the boxer he always wanted. When it was discussed few tears were involved. It was like a business transaction. He even said he would understand. I reassured him there was nothing he could have said or done to stop it.

Why am I saying this? We hold it all in. What needs to be said never gets said for fear of everything. We don't want to hear how we are painting someone into a corner when all they care is losing their license. And it's dawned on us we've trusted Randy more than any of the other therapists we've seen, and that is saying a freakin* lot. There have been so many psychiatrists, therapists, counselors, social workers, nurses, and resident techs that it is beyond count. And out of all, Randy is the one we trust the most but can't submit to completely. And if there was a pill we could take, a class we could take (how to trust your therapist you've been seeing for ? years) we'd do it. What would get us over the hump? Is it not enough therapy? Is it too much therapy? Are we just incapable of trust? (it can happen) Are we too self-conscious? Do we care what he thinks too much? (NOOOOOO!!!!) Why can't Sheila talk in her Jamaican accent? Why can't Victoria speak in her British accent? Why can't the littles come out completely without a body guard? (Tina) All they why's tell it's not happening, especially after so long. Three years is a long time, isn't it? Hasn't it been three years? I've lost count. We are no better. I hear the arguement he would give, which is another reason we don't talk. But his opinion makes us feel like shit gone sour, and that's pretty fucking bad. i've lost my whole thought and my mind with it.

I get angry at someone like Britney Spears who has people all over the place fighting to get her the treatment she needs. And, even as I say that, I realize what a hypocrite I am when someone tells us we are painting him into a corner (God I hate it why IIIIIII have to fucking say it. Blah!!) Isn't that someone fighting for us? What is the poem we wrote? I don't know. We wrote a poem about years ago that if we don't shape up we would be carried off in a body bag. They would find our ashes and "HELP" us into the garbage bin. Maybe that's the only help we deserve.

Look, man. sometin' aint' workin'. we need more or less. and ain't nobody sure what to do. it's all 'bout 'da trust. ya' either got it or ya' don't. and, man, 'ya don't.

we have nothing but a gaping whole and a need and a feeling that we better run the hell the other way. D. said not to put too much emphasis on graduating, even though we are this close. it feels like if we don't burn ourselves out and fake it till people "THINK" we've made it we will lose everything. who wants a cutter, anorexic, bulimic, psycho to teach their children. but the thing is we would make a damn good teacher. maybe i should jest be a writer. everyone says we are good at writing. you woudn't know it from this crazy blog because it is incongruous and you never know who is speaking. the blog is rabid.

i hate writings like this because they only highlight the problem and never give a clear answer, or the answer I want. the answer i have may not be the answer that will bring us what we need. maybe that's okay. what will be will be, and that can't be changed. i can't automatically have members trusting. Randy said something, hard to remember, about running to the anxiety? he's not prepared for that. we can barely tolerate running away because it's fucking chasing us. it's written all into our writing class. anxiety is on the sylluus for fucking sake. it's one of the criteria. you fail the class if you don't have a complete meltdown which means i've passed several times over. laugh if you want. it's so close to the truth.

i jest but the elephant is still in the room. trust: how to give it, how to get it. all i know is something has to give. something different must be done. i hate change and can't believe i'm saying it. i'm all for self-destruction but if there is to be any hope for the littles this will not continue. we managed self-contained before our first private session with Randy. He didn't even know we had D.I.D., if that is indeed what we have, until he was told about two previous dr.'s dx'ing it to us. maybe i'm not giving him his due credit; i do that often. but we managed fine. life wasn't perfect but it's not perfect now.

trust. such an ambiguous word. a looming concept. and after almost twenty years of therapy we still haven't mastered it. trust, to me, i speak for only myself, is being able to share your heart, soul, thoughts, fears, feelings, anxieties, and everything and anything in between with someone. am i wrong on trust. is this the worng definition? i don't even know what trust is. how can i show it if i don't even have a concept of it?

trust or not, i feel guilty and ashamed of these feelings. there's so much more but i don't "trust" anyone enough to lay it out. add it up.

The Cold, Soft Truth

I guess it's been a while since writing. Don't know why. I do know that this weekend is reserved for studying for a major test on Monday, but we wanted to write anyway. You see, we have a problem. We aren't getting better. Can't find the voices that inspired us and motivated us to trudge on. Right now, and I can' only Whiisper this, we are dying and they have stolen my thoughts for the rest. I had something else to say and my thoughts have been broken. like me.

There is no trust and they makes us permanently ruined. It was mentioned by the pscho-iatrist yesterday. We haven't told Randy about our suicidal thoughts because we don't trust him, and if we can't trust him, what kind of therapuetic relationship can there be. and when we saw Randy yesterday, Lisa was shoved out because nobody wanted to talk. Lisa's too shy and blinded by everything to talk. She was perfect. It wasn't my choice, I only see the logic in it.

But I remember hearing Randy say something about it only being safe to write about issues and never discuss them in session. I have something to say about that. We get warmed up, usually, by writing. We rarely just come out with sensitive information unless we've been thinking about it already or writing about it. In a one hour time span, there is no time to develop a comfort and safety level to talk about anything. By the time we are warmed up, it seems like it's time to leave, so we don't even begin to say anything most of the time.

And damn right it's easier to write about things. There only questions to answer are the ones we ask ourselves. In Randy's office, when we talk, there are always questions, which can be a good thing, but sometimes we don't talk because we know there will be questions we don't have answers too and it doesn't seem plausible that a member may know x but not know y. We feel in a Catch-22.

We are losing ground and some worry, literally, for our lives. The sadness is equating into an inability to study, poor school performance. And we are so close to finishing school that if something were to happen, there could be no recovery from "something."

I only know we are in a downward spiral and stand to lose a lot. We aren't eating enough, purged 3 times yesterday, way less than we did last year when we were hospitalized, and have some members delighting in the self-desturction, rolling around in the idea, sadistically feeling happpy and free at our demise. I feel them on me now; I feel their satisfaction at taking us down. But my tears are only because they aren't really that mean and I understand it finally; they are just hurt. They hurt and so they hurt us. Still, improved knowledge doesn't change their goal and a hug doesn't change their purpose. It only makes them more determined to tear us down because if we are nice to them it only creates more distrust in them. They don't trust us, we don't trust Randy, nobody trusts anybody. (more flicks of the grandparents.)

Someone is hungry to see bones. feeling fat. dirty. worthless. unloved. uncared for. invisible. invisible. unimportant.

there is a deep dark hole inside me. no matter how empty or full it is, it always aches. it is a wound that doesn't heal because nobody, especially her, never loved me. nobody never cared and i felt scared and alone. i had nobody. and so i wouldn't eat to get her attention thinking she might care if i didn't eat. she got angry and tried to force me to eat a hamburger. i hate her almost as much as i hate me. what is wrong with me that i can't be loved. being hungry is a good feeling. i feel safe being hungry. i'm gettin upset.

There is a stillness inside now. and a coldness. the Music Maiden is playing "The Notebook" in her head. i am cold as a corpse. i fear for our lives. We have too much bumrushing us. I hear the music and it makes me sad. It's just so sad what we've lost, what we've become, and what we'll never be. It just makes me sad. Where and when will the spiral end?

Her hair is curled, her make-up on. Her clothes are nice, although a little loose. She wants to go home, but she does not have one. She is made of ash and what comes from ash returns to ash. It is becoming late late late. She suffocates on her hopelessness and despair. She looks in the mirror. The mirror will not look back. How did she slip so far again and why can't anyone see? I scoop her up to hug her but she falls to pieces in thy arms. To save her I try. She is too sick to be spared and too sick to care. We break off and leave her behind. It is not right, it is not fair. But we all die in some way. Which doll will be next? The silence gives away the answer.
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...and then some more

it is such a dark night. while there is so so much to say, nothing will extricate itself from our stubborn need to open the vault. there is wide spread panic, and while we've pulled through before, things are out of reach, out of control, out of time. we are lost. there is no music, no words, no insides, nothing to connect us to life.

we are in a dangerous place. we've been here before, underneath the bell jar that stole Sylvia. we are under the water, drowning, and OH! how embarrassing. how many times do we have to revisit the same dumping ground that reclaims us and spits us back out. even hell doesn't want us.

mark the finality. it's a dark secret, and you walk the halls and wonder if people realize the treasure you have in your pockets, that you can take something away from them they may want, something you tried to want, but didn't work out for you.

ALERT!!!! To all therapists: just because a patient mentions things that he or she would like to have in ones life does NOT indicate hope. You should be more fearful for their safety. There is NOTHING, almost nothing, worse than wanting something i can't have and knowing i will never be able to achieve or possess it.

yes, we are in a precarious position. what will the insiders do? who is the strongest?

it was the afternoon. we were walking the halls and realized we couldn't remember this morning. d. mentions a conversation he says we had recently, an extremely an important conversation. New clothes, piercing I don't know. Don't belong to me. I can't live split in to tiny fragments like this. I don't know who I am?

And the thought that brings comfort brings shame. why should it? you are just a person in an extraordinary amount of pain. But it's pain that is getting worse. I wanted the pain to go away, not intensify. I can't deal, cope, manage. everything is a struggle and no one can do anything about it. for one day, i would like to be free of this. for one day, i would like someone to take care of the me's.

i feel like a loser. so out of control. i didn't exercise today. i was too depressed. and i feel so lonely that i can't even finish that statement. if someone knew. if more than someone knew. if people asked and genuinely wanted to know how "i" am.. i am not okay. suffering of the worst kind imaginable.

are we there yet? if a hug could only take it away.

i feel ugly, loathsome, hideous, scary, revolting, ostracized, and just plain outcast. I don't i don't I don't feel a part of anything. there is no connection to me and this world. nothing to hold on to, nothing that tells me i was here.

i admit it, we have dissociative identity disorder. it doesn't change anything. i am so stuck and i don't want to try anymore. i won't say that anymore.

my spell check doesn't work and my eyes are closed. how many mistakes?

bar-b-cue, roses, shed, sunflower clock, bobbly GA head doll, concert tickets, cards, extra long twin beds, two windows with pull down shades, a t.v., hard carpet, stereo, the coke bottle. these were all in the grandparent's house, most in both uncles's room. i hate them both. just like i hate me. but i hate me worse, because i'm still alive. at least one has the graciousness to be dead.

It's storming inside somehow you don't hear a thing. It's dangerous when it gets like this. A tear rains down for each reason. God save us. We need help tonight. Just can't do it anymore. It's so quiet it's scary. Whisper
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Screaming at the bottom of our whisper.

i don't know what to write. I'm supposed to be creating a "poem" for writing class about "Where am i from?" I'm having a hard time, needless to say, and it is depressing the hell out of me. Really, really, tear drops, and knives depressing me. i don't understand why i have to do this myself, why someone can't do it for me. why someone can't just take me under their wing, hold my hand like the little girl i feel, and make me better. i just want to be better so i don't always have to write sad words. it's always sad words, sad eyes, sad feelings, sad face, sad me, sad me, sad me. doesn't anyone love me enough to get rid of my sad eyes.i hurt. my belly hurts so bad. make it go away.

she's got her music on.

i feel real dark and dangerous. i could almost set us free. i'm working on that piece of bull and i keep coming back to the night some were born. how can i write that? i don't know what to write. i'm trying to be true, honest, emotionally engaging, yet not exploitive. we all hurt tonight.

i don't know who she is but that she says she's eight and i just want to hold her but what good would it do. i'm surprised tina's not here. my heart can't take much more. she's right. nobody loves us.

i'm getting angry.

my spell checker doesn't work anymore. dammit it to hell. I'm not that smart.

My favorite music is on. I play this, the theme to The Notebook, and the Moonlight Sonota. Moonlight I've asked to be played at my funeral. There was always somthing about the piece of music that spoke to me, just like the Main Title to The Notebook.

I feel so sad it should not be tolerated. It can not be quantified or qualified. It just is and there is no going away of its abilities to eat away at me and kill me. Can i say no no no no no. i forget so much. and i'm tired. and i'm worthless. and i just want to die. how do you fix that. how do you save someone that doesn't want to be saved and for all the rice and tea in china you will never convince that i, she, or anyone else in this brain wants to be saved. there's too much damnation, too much hurt, and there will never be opportunities to trully laugh from the gut, to laugh a real laugh, not a fake laugh, but a real laugh that you enjoy and has meaning. a real, fucking laugh.

i wish someone would hold my hand. i want to play but i don't have toys. i have crayons but she won't let me play. they say i can play on here but i don't like this stupid thing. i want dolls and stuffed animals. and big fat crayons and cupcakes but she won't let me have cupcakes. i really want a mommy. my tummy hurts so bad. no one wants to watch cartoons with me and tina only plays with me sometimes.

Enough.

Withdrawals

I can't help but wonder what gets into me some days. not that today is not one of the "some" days, but I wonder why I want to go skydiving so much. i look at other blogs and receive the most beautiful comments from people who technically don't know me from Brintey Spears and I feel ashamed to want to die. But I can't help it. the pain suffocates and feels like I'll never get out of it.

Others write that they have, a merciful chocolate, I hope they are right. because if they are right, then i have a chance. if they are truly recovered/recovering, that's shows it's possible. tina is always in the mind saying how it will never last, theirs or ours; have we not have up's before, only to crash and have major problems.

Spring is around the corner, at least in the South which is where I live. A southern peach. Spring has always been a time of turmoil and I know I remember back to the wicked, hell of a hourse and dreading the leaves on the trees because that meant exposure. Most of my suicides attempts, hospitalizations, and just frankly bad times have been in Spring, so I worry. But I will hold on to Reading Rainbows words as a salve. They came just when I needed them.

There is a problem with my medication and I don't know what it is. I deal with D.I.D. but I also deal with a herniated disc, L5 S1. The pain, without medication, is unbearable and doens't allow me to function. For some reason, my body feels like it is going through withdrawals. Shakes, visual disturbances, tremors, stomach problem (no compalaint there.) All this time I thought it was general anxiety because I am taking my pain patches as prescribed. I learned the hard way not to mess with them. So why I would have withdrawal symptoms is beyond me. Except for one thing. The nurse asked if I was eating enough and said that the patch works on body heat and if you're not eating there's no body heat so my patches might not be releasing enough medication. All is well. I can just switch back to pills. They're even deadlier.

See that bull shit talk. Can't get over it. I didn't mean to blog this early in the day. I haven't been able to get ANY school work done so I have to write a new piece for school entitled "Where I'm From." I already had tears with the professor. This will be a hard one. I don't want to say "we" but I don't want to write "me." Unfair. I hear the littles.

Thanks for nothing

i really don't know what will become of me. The anxiety is so so bad that i was so close to D. taking me to the medical hospital. i coulnd't walk, the room was shaking, I wanted to jump out of my skin. And no matter what I did I coudln't get better. Today, no matter how many tranqs. I took I was still seeing double.

I can feel the buildup because I've been crying during these attacks. and please, someone, realize how far gone i am. i can't do this anymore. and things go though my mind and my last skydive is prepared for. it's easy to do. i just have to do it. and there has to be another way. this is more than my everyday general misery. this is the height of it. and i don't know how to stop it. the shrink finally called back and I'm starting to get to know her style. no wonder randy recommends her...they are both scattered and don't listen.

i'm having hot and cold flashes and i haven't felt this bad since last summer. enough said.

Julie likes Ryan Gosling, but we will not discuss Julie tonight. We are too far gone. This will be a short...even final blog. I'm concerned about my classes. I cannot do the work as long as the anxiety is like this. out of all the work i have to do, i've done none it. didn't even work out at the gym and that is clear indication that we don't feel well. i've been in bed today except to drive out to the tattoo parlor to get my cartlidge pierced. most people would say ouch, but when I was living with D. and B. I pierced my cartlidge myself. It hurt like hell, but I got off on it. I may have a millionm piercing by the time all this is through. i don't give a fuck. i may pierce that other piece of ear before...lost the thought.

i want to move to Charleston so bad i can take it. the only thing is that i can start a Masters program if I stay right where I am and not teach. it's a delimna because I love to write and i would love to get a Masters in writing, not that I would ever publishing anything. my currrent professor loves my work although i don't know how much he'll like the next piece.

i wish i was a teenager in the fourties. i wouldn't have to deal with all the shit i deal with now. life is so complicated and so unforgiving. it is so painful and there are no answers. i need simplicity and love and tradition. my life is devoid of that. i hate my life. i can't breathe. this anxiety will kill me before i can kill the anxiety,so to speak. one has to give. the hot and cold flashes i can't bear, and i can't bear the visual ticks, the visual disturbances, the way the room rocks back and forth.

i had a memory earlier i wanted to share. i remember it now. it wasn't anything big. it was based on music. I miss the Music Maiden. Once I get the music back I'll remember. I believe it was a trip I took to Florida by other families who could read the unhappiness etched on my face. I had a psuedo friend. My former best friend, I'll call her D.C., has been written off my list. The last time we talked, I confided in her some of the trouble I was having. I only just now heard from her. She left a message on my VM. I'm hurt by that and at least ought to give her the benefit of the doubt, although part of me believes I ought to see how interested in our well-being she is by when and if she calls again.

all i can do is ask for help, and when i'm denied, no one can blame me.

she's so dark and black, but she speaks for the rest of us. the one thing we wish to fantacize about is the one thing for which we can't speak. and we wonder, if we live, what happens to our classes? they're gone. We get a "W". I dont' care if the circumstances are "understandable." But then you don't worry when you skydive. you just enjoy the freedom that type of life gives you. skydiving is another way to escape, but the final way. and when you shore yourself up with the necessary equipment, no one can take the feedom away from. D. doesn't know I want to skydive, so I've hidden all my equipment. He was remarking in the car today about how he feels he failed us, hasn't taken good of us. He bought the littles the graham cracker bees from Honey Maid but it pisses the bigs off because some of us have weight to lose and we can't be tempted with that shit.

He doesn't know how to buy a gift for his life. just do a god damn gift certificate. i don't want lingerie, i don't want food. i don't want what you think i want. so cut some slack. what a waste not to make it to the half year. what a waste anyway. the waste is what types. somewhere deep inside i know he loves us. but what different does it make. i've argued with Randy over and over that people shouldn't live for other people. why i would make D. happy is irrelevant, why I be a good teacher and have a positive impact on my students doesn't translate into a reason to live. but something hasn't. there has to be a reason to live and unless we find one soon...

i was watching "The Notebook" and the beginning of the love scenes. I would be able to tell from a million miles away what Noah was after and if I were Allie I would have run a million miles. If caught and trapped, I don't know if I could have pretended like I enjoyed it as much as she did.

How do people stand it when someone else's hands are on them, only to gratify themselves, not the person whose body they are groping. How can people be naked beside each other. I just dont' understand it. the more questions I don't understand, the more of life I miss it, the more I realize I different I am, the more skydiving throught the beautiful cloudless sky seems real and probable.



i hate life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!