Just breathe

Saw TL today. I managed to dance around talking about the flashbacks till it was too late to bring it up… I wish I hadn’t avoided it for so long, because it was something I really should have talked to her about today. It’s totally eating me up, but I wasn’t able to bring myself to open up about it. Then the worry set in because it was getting too late to open that can of worms. I was able to let her know that I had wanted to talk about them and the fear around opening up, but there wasn’t enough time to blurt it all out. So now I’m waiting til next week again. By then the walls will go up again and the anxiety will kick my ass and I won’t be able to say it for a third week in a row.

I left there wanting to cry. I felt like I would cry in session too, but I couldn’t let the tears flow. I bit my lip till they fell back into line and retreated. I was afraid if I cried right then that I 1) would not be able to stop and/or 2) would start screaming uncontrollably… I didn’t like either of those options. TL was gentle about it though. She reminded me it was probably healing to be able to talk about that stuff, and that it was safe there to do so. I don’t really remember what else she said about it because the sides of myself started arguing. The professional side agreed with TL and tried to get me to acknowledge that. The teenage side got defensive and started putting up walls and repeating “no.no.no.no.no.no” getting louder and more insistent the more vulnerable I felt. SJ was tugging at my shirt begging me to talk. And then there was that more neutral side trying to be ok with letting TL know what was going on inside. It’s the most distinct all the sides have been recently, but also the most like a meeting with all in one room that they have ever been… normally I know I’m stuck in one side or the other. This actually felt like the different sides are all in one space and I understood everything at once, but didn’t feel everything at once, more like bouncing from side to side as each blurted out its piece. It’s weird, the more these flashbacks come, and the more they bother me, the more distinct each side feels… is this late-onset psychosis? Coz it kinda feels that way…

On a vaguely related note, anxiety really shoots my heart rate up. There’s an app on my phone that can measure my pulse (I’m assuming it’s not totally accurate, but it reads normal much of the time). When I took it while waiting for TL, it averaged 226bpm. I always take it three times in a row to get a somewhat more accurate reading. Normally I average about 80-100 when not anxious or stressed. This time everything was over 220. I know I have a history of tachycardia, so this doesn’t really worry me. I did tell TL though. She was concerned it might make me more anxious. I explained it actually works a bit more like biofeedback for me: I consciously work to slow my heart rate if it’s too high. It’s another way I remind myself to breathe and re-center… (Speaking of, I can feel it fluttering around again so I need to remember to breathe).

Another week to wait to talk to TL about all this again. Another week of her voice mail being full so I can’t relieve the anxiety by leaving her a message. This sucks. Hopefully though, I won’t be as crazy-depressed again and unable to function.

I did end up going to the mixed media social tonight and enjoying myself after I again stifled the urge to cry. Hopefully that social interaction will float me a while longer. I see her Thursday this week, which I think may be our new standing appointment time, so only 5 days and a few hours to go. I can do this. Just have to keep remembering to breathe.

Trepidation around tomorrow’s session

This week has been awful. I’ve been triggered incessantly and having a really difficult time dealing with it. Tomorrow is my appointment with TL, and I don’t know what to expect. I have stuff I want to tell her relating to last week, but I’m not sure how much depth I want to go into. There are the body memories, and the actual memories that go with them. There’s the stuff that was triggered by talk of the different sides, there’s the neediness, and there’s the fear of trusting her with so little connection. I keep wondering if I should continue therapy since I can’t seem to keep trauma work out of sessions right now. But I also am not sure I could just quit… it’s really difficult opening up the trauma stuff then having to close it as fast as it was opened. I know I need more support around that work if I choose to go there, but she is unable to provide that. I just don’t know how to not open that stuff up again when we talk; it’s so intertwined in absolutely everything in my head (especially down here). So the question becomes, do I try to continue therapy workout touching the trauma work? Do I try to do the trauma work and hope I can cope on my own with whatever comes up? Or do I attempt to quit therapy and see what happens? (That last one scares me a lot. I’d have to have other supports in place if that were to happen, as well as a specific end date for living here)…

So I have a ton of stuff to cover in a short hour tomorrow. I’m not sure what to address first. Maybe the conversation around additional supports needs to happen again… definitely need to have the conversation about how to maintain connection and trust from session to session. I have most everything written down, I just have I get to it. I also desperately want her to look at the rest of my art journal. I don’t think the hour will be enough to get to everything I need to address

More art

Therapy on Saturday did not accomplish what I had hoped, though it was an ok session. I was in a good space, and TL went with it. I had wanted to tell her something, an explanation, but it felt like I would get shot down or ridiculed if I mentioned it (not necessarily her style, but she was pushing a topic that is connected to the dissociation. The way she spoke about it made me feel like it was not the right moment to bring up SJ and the other sides of me). Finally, at the end of session, I was able to tell her there was something I had hoped to talk about, but we didn’t have enough time to get into it. I told her I had it written down, but she wants me to say it. Good luck chicky. She will have to read it, then we can talk afterwards about it all…

Anyway, on to the art. I was messing around tonight trying to put that hesitation on paper in a way that was easier to explain then having to stumble over words. I started with the concept of the woman on the right with the thoughts floating in her head, but unable to make it out of her mouth. It felt unfinished, so I added the left side (the words are what I had wanted to tell TL in session). The overlay represents all that I end up talking about that masks what I really want to say; it’s the darkness and the light that takes over and hides the real things I need to address. Let’s hope I can show it to her next Saturday. I had mentioned that I also really want to show her my art journal but that I have trouble bringing it up. She said she would try to remember that I had stuff I wanted to get to in session. She agreed to try to remind me. I have gone in with lists for my reference to no avail, so I hope she can help me get around to this stuff finally.