I don’t have words to effectively communicate what this is…

Been really out of sorts lately. Can’t totally pinpoint what the exact precipitating event was, but maybe it’s just everything from the last several weeks… There have been so many triggers and stressors (L’s mom has been really sick, and recently diagnosed with congestive heart failure; I didn’t get to visit my own mom much in the two weeks she was up because I cought a cold; stuff’s just been seeping back lately anyway; one of the ladies in the trauma group I attend is really struggling, and her struggle really hits home… It’s something I’ve been through over the years; I actually, out loud, explained to my mom why I think having a service dog would be beneficial; I’ve started to look more intensely for a suitable sd candidate…

The triggered feeling had me craving a way to express itself, or feel more pointedly whatever this feeling is, so I ended up watching Unbelievable on Netflix… Watched the whole 8 or 9 episodes last night, so I didn’t sleep well yet again (between being sick for 2 weeks with this cold, and bring concerned about L’s mom, and just scheduling, I don’t think I’ve had more than 2 hours sleep in a row for about 3 weeks now)… I really related to Marie’s character; not so much the rape and police reporting, but the experiences of the flashbacks, of saying whatever just to appease the one with the power, of trying to explain things, but getting confused and flustered, so shutting down instead of communicating, of having huge walls around myself, of being inadvertantly hurt by parental figured who mean well, but can’t see past their own shit… There’s so much of her character that hits home that I don’t even have words for…

I feel like I’m just shuffling in circles and bumping into myself today. This past week has triggered old stuff, but it’s still so far away. I feel it, but I don’t quite know what it is. It’s old, but… I dunno. It’s still walled off.

I really wish I could talk to Dr C about it… Monday feels so far away.

It’s kinda what Marie’s character felt, but it’s much older; I was much younger… Or maybe not? Maybe I was a teenager when I started putting those lessons together like that? They’re kid lessons tough; older than SJ-old lessons… How old was SJ again?

I kinda want to at least reach out to L about it, but I wouldn’t know where to start, or what to say… This is all stuff I stumble over about voicing. I don’t have words for it really. There’s not really a language for it… I kinda wish I could just pull all the clips of Marie’s character from that series, and take it in to Dr C. Maybe at least I could point to the parts that really hit home, maybe… I don’t know what…

I hate feeling so lost and floaty and trapped inside the feeling. Grounding doesn’t really help right now. As soon as I turn my attention from the act of grounding, I’m floating again.

I don’t even know what I’m floating in! It’s this fog soup of the past or something…

L offered to go to Dr C with me one day so we could try to talk about this. She had mentioned just now while taking the dogs out, feeling like she wished she could help, but she didn’t know how. I admitted to her that I wished I could talk to her, only I don’t know how. I don’t know what to say, or how to explain this. I don’t know how to put words to whatever this really old thing is… I don’t think I’d know how with Dr C either… I dunno… I… I dunno. I wish I had words or expressions. I wish I could point to a feeling, or have her feel a bit of what this is just to be able to express it, but… That kind of communication doesn’t exist. Even if I had her watch Unbelievable, and I pointed to the moments I relate to, she wouldn’t know how it relates… That’s the trouble with feelings that have no words, or thoughts that only have feelings… If I can’t grasp on to it, if I can’t find a way to describe it or talk about it, then how the hell can I communicate it? I could art journal about it, but would she understand it the way I do? Even I don’t think I understand it the same way twice, so how the hell do you effectively communicate that?

I want to get lost in music and cuddle Beary… I wish I could cuddle the dogs, but they’re not huge fans of that… I miss having cuddly dogs… I really want a huge, cuddly dog to hide with right now… It feels safe… Floppy was safe like that when I was a kid. I really miss her…

Been a while

Sorry for being mia. Time gets away from me easily.

This past week or two (not totally sure on the duration) have been a struggle. I’m triggered on so many fronts, but at the same time, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what they are… I know some is related to the anniversary of my last major self-harming incident 8 years ago; Some is related to G being in the state; some is probably related to my monthly hormone cycle.

I’ve refrained from taking pain meds this past week in an effort to ground into my current body. If I’m feeling and noticing the immediate pain in my arms & legs, I’m not lost in the flashbacks… At least, that’s the theory I’m going by. It’s not really panning out that way, but whatever. I’m not cutting, so, progress maintained.

The flashbacks are a mix of that time frame when I was cutting uncontrollably, and the more distant past of abuse. There’s other stuff I know I talked to Dr C about, but I can’t remember what that was just now.

I’m super dissociative, stirred-up, and generally lost. I finally was able to be a hair more open with L about it (she asked if i was ok because I’ve been listening to a lot of music these last few days; if my phone’s not playing out loud, i have headphones in. I generally only do this when struggling). I was able to acknowledge it when she asked, but I’m having trouble qualifying it… It’s a bit easier when I write, but even that’s a struggle. My head has been very foggy and fragmented lately. I forget what I’m doing a few seconds into starting it. Art has been somewhat helpful for concentration. Been making little things to sell at an upcoming holiday craft fair. We have a 2.5 month lead-time, so hopefully inventory will be good for it.

Anyway… Yeah. Trigger-y & flashback-y of late. Trying to find balance. Struggling to express stuff, even in therapy. Lots of brain farts…

Super exhausted all of a sudden, so gonna sign off and nap for a bit before L comes home on her break. Gotta remember to wish the peanut happy birthday today while L is home… Someone remind me about that?

K, nap time.

Clean up, aisle 4…

Group was really triggering again this week, though I think it was that way for everyone (there was a text exchange afterwards, which usually doesn’t happen. We only use the group texting to determine attendance).
Anyway, I feel like a turd because I took my triggered anxiety and unease out on my wife this afternoon. It wasn’t a horrible fight, but we were both cranky, so we both snapped at each other. We’ve talked and cleared the air since but… I feel bad.
On top of that, I’m still on edge from group. If I stop bombarding myself with stimuli, the flashbacks pick right up again.
I dunno. There’s so much going on internally, and stressors from outside keep piling on too. It’s all starting to feel overwhelming.
The teenager is wicked pissed with my therapist for challenging so much lately, and for seeming to change her contact policy without warning. The kids are scared about getting in trouble, & about having her mad at us… the adult sides are the only ones that seem to be dealing ok with her lack of responses, but they’ve also retreated into the basement so they don’t have to deal with the attitudes…
I’m having a lot of trouble finding internal balance…

Disconnect (dissociation?)

Still feeling so disconnected from any part of the past… It almost feels like “living in the present” taken to an extreme level; nothing from the past holds connection right now.

The furthest I feel connected to is maybe this weekend, but even that’s sketchy.

I don’t know… Hope it resolves in short order.

Are dementia, Alzheimer’s, and trauma reactions related?

So, something that kinda connected in my head, but may not actually be connected in reality, were memory-related disorders of the elderly, and memory-related disorders connected to trauma.

Dr C often described dissociated trauma memories as “bubbles” of memory and understanding. I happened to be describing dementia in that way to a friend, and suddenly they both made sense in the same way: nothing else exists in the moment of a flashback, only that moment. Often times, the same is true for dementia and Alzheimer’s patients; they exist in the moment of the time they remember, but nothing outside of that. They forget loved ones, major life events, aging… the same is true for flashbacks, only flashbacks seem somewhat easier to ground from. Age-related memory issues seem to make it a more permanent state of being.

I’ll have to look into whether or not there’s research on any potential connections between age-related memory issues, and trauma-related memory problems…

more stupid triggers

I had a neoropsych assessment last week in hopes that it help point us in a direction for this weird physical stuff I’m experiencing.

During the assessment, the psychologist was flipping pages in a booklet, showing me pictures of stuff I needed to try to remember. At one point, I stated losing track of what the pictures were, and started focusing on her hand turning the pages, and what the paper sounded like. It wasn’t really a conscious thing, just my attention switching. The sound of the pages turning became the loudest thing in my head, and I couldn’t see anything but her hand. It only lasted a few seconds, but it was enough to trigger something. I started feeling body stuff in the middle of this test that shouldn’t be triggering or disturbing… She caught on that something was up, and I told her that her turning the pages were triggering for some reason I couldn’t pinpoint (and still really can’t). She continued with the testing, but let me turn the pages from then on.

It’s seriously the stupidest little things that hit me out of nowhere… wtf??

Some days I want to scream at the memories to leave me alone and let me continue on with my life.

Oh, so the preliminary results (mostly just from her knowing the general average results, without any real scoring yet) have my verbal memory functioning at “seriously impaired”. She suggested that it’s likely due to the medical marijuana, but since it’s the only real thing that helps the ptsd, to keep taking it. Overall, the verbal memory impairment is less problematic than the impairment from the symptoms it treats… this might be the one time I agree with the phrase “the benefits outweigh the side effects”.

Dual

It’s so weird to feel so split, like two people have control of the same car at the same time.

Went to group for the first time in a while. I’m petty sure nothing triggering was talked about, but I was so spacey when I left. It felt like two people were vying for control at the same time. They were both paying attention to different things, and i felt so split. I had two trains of thought overlapping each other, two ideas of what we were doing next… like kids fighting for the best seat in the car, and pushing each other back and forth. I was tired, and wanting to close my eyes, but I was also driving and shopping, and going to a job thing and going home. My attention felt very seperate, but I recognized it as all my own. I was in the past, but also the present, and the future. It was all so jumbled, like watching two tv screens and paying equal attention to both (but neither getting full attention)…

I don’t think I was stressed, so I’m really not sure where that all came from…

weird moment

A friend I don’t see often came over yesterday. We chatted and hung out. She was over for a few hours. We ate, caught up, then she left.

As L and I were picking up afterwards, I had the weirdest experience. It suddenly felt like I was rushing back from somewhere. The thought “oh! I missed her…” echoed in my head; not missing her like I wish we did it more often (though I do), but getting there too late to have had a chance to sit with her… I knew she had been there, but I wasn’t present for it, except that I had been there… it was like part of me that really wanted to see her didn’t get home in time.

Dissociation and compartmentalization is such a weird experience.

jumbled, confusing, pre-verbal stuff

Some days, the sensations in my body make me want to rip my insides up so I could stop feeling them.

We talked a bit about memories and sensations and interpreting pre-verbal stuff. She said that sometimes the pre-verbal is all a jumbled mess, and sometimes it’s interpreted by what we can later connect to it, even if its not accurate to the moment.

I told her sometimes it feels like I’m one of those plastic dolls whose legs pop off if you twist them back enough… I know it can’t possibly be an accurate memory because I have both my legs still. She pointed out that it may have simply felt as if my legs would rip off, but I had no other reference for it at the time, so my brain made the connection to those toys, and kept it because it’s the “best explanation”…

We also talked about how there’s still this internal pressure/compulsion to talk about some of the flashbacks sometimes, but it tends to get caught up when I walk in to her building. I no longer have words for it, and the connection to it leaves, so I struggle to bring it up… We talked around that for a bit, and got a tiny bit in one direction, but then time was up.

Some days I wish I could bring her home with me in my pocket so I could pull her out and talk when the strong drive was present… it only still feels ok to talk when it’s almost impossible to do so. I guess there’s a measure of safety in the impossibility of it.

Endings suck…

…Even stupid, meaningless ones that shouldn’t suck as much as they do.

Like tv shows that let you escape yourself.

And fictional characters dying.

Because they tug at the old hurt of all the losses that came before, and were actually meaningful…

It compounds when more than one loss is piled on at the same time. Then suddenly everything else comes flooding back, and it sucks…

The stupid, meaningless losses take on all the hurt and emptiness the previous ones left you with…

At least Lucifer wrapped up the series well, almost as if they were planning on ending it this season. They could take it further, but this is a good stopping point. They gave is the closures we needed to be able to walk away from the show satisfied.

Scorpion, not so neatly wrapped…

Totally left without closure; Chris passing away Monday. She had gotten through so many health issues over the years, ones that were true miracles she recovered as well as she did… I guess her body finally gave out. I’m not even sure if it was the cardiac issues, the kidney issues, the cancer, or something else that finally took her. Before this week, she had beaten cancer, recovered from kidney failure, and was recovering from bypass surgery… she and L were friends for a quarter century (give or take a year or two). I had only met her after I stated dating L, but she was an amazing person. She is greatly missed.

… Then the older stuff picks up; L’s dad, Chow, ButtButt, K & T, Floppers, Twigs, Tigger, Dizzy, Sugar Cane, Almond Joy… De, Chrispy, LKB… All the endings that were sudden, painful, and unresolved.

It all gets rolled into a giant ball that feels choking and overwhelming.

This time of year seems to hold a disproportionate amount of those losses…

And then there’s July 7th (the anniversary of K’s death, and almost 14 years later, my first suicide attempt… there were only ever 2 thought-out attempts where it was a conscious choice. Anything else resembling one was an impulsive, desperate attempt to find some peace, but not necessarily an attempt at ending my life… I blame it on the meds. I’ve never done anything like that when I wasn’t spiraling out of control on psych meds. Even when I was ridiculously depressed, I never gave in to the impulse when not on psychotropics. They work wonders for some people, but I am not one of them)…

Back to the original point of this post: grief sucks. Losses suck. Especially when the biggest, earliest ones were never resolved…

More on feeling defective…

Despite all my labwork that insists I’m ridiculously normal, my brain certainly doesn’t feel it.

I went to physical therapy today because I tweaked my back a few weeks ago, and my range of motion since then has sucked. Specifically, I have trouble lifting my left leg over the dog gate. I go over with my right, and kinda just drag my left over after me…

Anyway, I remembered why it was I failed so miserably at pt last round; it sparks intrusive memories I’d rather not have.

I’m supposed to go back on Monday, but I think I will cancel.

Even if it doesn’t trigger full-on flashbacks, it does trigger anxiety and dissociation. The longer the pt goes on, the worse it all gets, and soon I can’t remember what we did, and what I’m supposed to do between sessions. It’s a waste of time and resources that I know could be used by others (they book 2 weeks out on a good week)…

So, yeah. I’m going to cancel. I’ll do the exercises she gave me today, then try to remember to start planking to help build my core strength up again.

And maybe I’ll mention it to Dr C, and we can work more on the body stuff so maybe if I ever need pt again for my back I’ll be able to follow through…

family

I think that word has very different meanings for me.

We were always taught separation. My dad’s blood family was all that mattered to him, so that’s all he acknowledged. Everyone else was just “shit”. He didn’t promote contact with anyone outside his immediate family of origin (foo). We were isolated from almost everyone else, and even within his own foo, bitch was top, then him, then grandma, then K. Mom factored very little. K’s husband, T factored very little. Moms family was just unheard of (he made sure of that). We talked a bit about them and to them, but overall, they were essentially non-existent (in his eyes anyway).

I’ve only recently (like maybe the last decade or so) gotten in somewhat more regular contact with one of my cousins. We chat online a bit, but I think I’ve only seen her maybe 6 times my entire life (and we lived relatively close, like maybe a 4 hour drive, for several years). I’ve seen her parents a few more times, but that was only after she & her siblings had grown up and moved out… even then, I think I can count less than a dozen times.

Tonight, my mom informed me that her brother (my cousins’ father, my uncle) had gone to the hospital for a head injury. Apparently, this happened sometime last week, and no one thought to tell us (at least my brother and I. Mom may have known, but she’s not big on communicating stuff like that about/with anyone).

When I found out, it hit me just how disconnected I am from my extended family; I have no real emotions around him being in seriously ill health… I’m not even all that connected to any emotions my mom may have around it (though she’s never been big on emotions either. None of my family has).

I feel like it’s wrong somehow, like society is generally connected with their families unless there’s been some big rupture. The only rupture was my father. I should be connected with my aunt & uncle & cousins, but I’m not… and I think I’m a bit resentful about it.

I see L with her family (it’s a HUGE family), and I feel like we got the short end of the stick.

My dad made enormous effort to keep us isolated from everyone.

It sucks.

So now I have no real connection to family. I get the concept that we have an extended family, but… it’s just not in my radar for the most part. And I’m mad.

His isolation enabled the abuses that happened night after night. His anger resulted in a fear of reaching out, or attempting to connect with anyone (after all, any connection would be promptly severed once found out). We weren’t allowed to care for anyone outside the little dysfunctional circle that happened to include his foo…

The dissociation doesn’t help any. I feel like I’m just floating in a world where I don’t belong (or even truly exist). People have no clue about so much of my life. Everyone’s merely an acquaintance. Aside of L (and as of today, our friend DO), no one knows I have a dissociative disorder. At most, they’ve been told I have ptsd, but no one knows what it’s from; they assume I served in the military…

Most everyone in my life sees this shell, this act. They might notice I hit some bumps along the way, but mostly, I’m either shy and awkward (99% of the time), or chatty and awkward. I’m the crazy animal lady with the pet snakes, who also does art here and there…

I feel like I don’t actually exist. I must just be a ghost floating around.

I never expect people to remember me from one meeting to the next, or care about anything about me. I’m the awkward tag-along friend you invite because you feel sorry for them. I’m the wife you tolerate because we come as a package deal. I’m really not sure why L married me. I’m just the awkward one tagging along behind her to family functions. I don’t deserve to be there, nor am I really wanted there, but I’m crashing the party…

I shouldn’t be here still. I have no purpose or usefulness… but here I am, tagging along in this weird body that feels like a poorly-fitting borrowed dress. If I think hard enough about it, I can kinda find some connection to the C they think they’re supposed to get, but… I dunno. It just feels like a suit, like pretend. That girl who graduated college? Not me. The one who had a career? Not me. The one with friends and family? Not me.

I’m just that shadow in the corner… nothing to notice or want to be around; no substance, no presence, no worth…

Re: dissociation

You know how sometimes the universe just smacks you upside the head when it really wants to drive something home? Well, that’s been happening a lot these last few days.

I spent a fair amount of time yesterday and the day before going back over old posts. I do that sometimes simply because I can’t remember much from day to day. Everything is compartmentalized between emotional states…

Anyway, in my fb feed today, there were several posts about trauma and dissociation. The latest one I read was a fairly in-depth article on DID, OSDD, and dissociation. It covers symptoms and diagnostic criteria, as well as links to assessment tools (though none are meant to diagnose alone, but rather in conjunction with assessments by a trained professional).

Anyway, I know I have an OSDD diagnosis. I remember that even when I’m not directly confronted by it. The part I seem to forget is that there has been conversation around changing that to DID… so imagine my reaction when reading the article and finding I petty much fit the diagnosis to a T… I was taken aback by it for a while, then I started to vaguely remember conversations with Dr C about me being on the DID end of the spectrum.

As the realization hit (apparently “again”), I started to panic a little. I decided to try the self assessments they mentioned. Yup. Wouldn’t you know, they peg me as correlating highly with others having a DID diagnosis. Great. So now I’m remembering a bit more about my conversations around it all with Dr C. I want to say I remember at least 4 different times when I was shocked by her mention of it, and then settling on calling it something more benign, like “severe dissociation” or “fractured ego states”…

It frustrates me that I seem to forget these conversations so completely until something pointing to it shoves itself into my awareness… how many more times will I “forget” about our conversations around the intensity of my dissociation? I guess I’m improving on it though, as it seems to take less time to “remember” we’ve talked about it before. The first two times or so, I didn’t realize it till she asked later if I remembered having that conversation before. At least now I don’t need her prompting before the memory sparks.

Anyway… I’m not really sure where I was going with this other than to link the page on DID.

Maybe I’ll post screenshots of my results from the 2 questionnaires. (and maybe next time I’m faced with this info, I’ll remember that I’ve heard it before)

Was that real?

I had originally started writing this blog to give myself something I could easily look back on when I found I had lost touch with various things in my life.

I’m often reading and rereading my posts in an effort to connect to them (and maybe memorize what I talked about?). There’s so much I forget from one moment to the next.

I now understand the forgetting to be a function of my most persistent and pervasive coping skill: dissociation. It’s taken me a long time to remember that understanding. Much like my continued shock and confusion around my extreme level of dissociation, I find myself “realizing” that I forget so much because I dissociate so often.

Much of the time, I find myself reading my posts as if I were reading someone else’s writing for the first time. It’s quite a surreal experience. I’ll recognize bits and pieces, but it still predominantly feels like someone else’s stories.

Its happened again this week. I found myself bopping around from post to post, taking it in as if for the first time. I recognize the people I’m referring to, but not the content of the posts. I wish I could come up with a “good enough” analogy to convey what it’s like… I’m not sure there is one. Maybe the closest I can come is comparing it to reading a creatively penned biography about yourself. The author has taken licence and added to the story you know your life to be, and has found others to corroborate their embellishments… it all feels like an aggrandized version of my life, with a lot of Hollywood “extra spice” thrown in… Maybe akin to reading the tabloid stories about yourself while at the checkout. It feels foreign.

I was telling A how my education and professional history was in mental health, but even as the words left my mouth, they felt like a lie. How in the world could I have done any of that? Sure, I have a decent understanding of basic psychology, but I also have a descent understanding of basic anatomy & phys, of animal behavior, of art techniques… most of those I picked up simply by reading because it was interesting. If I didn’t have my paperwork from school, and people who corroborate that I went to grad classes with them, I doubt I’d believe that it were possible.

I feel miles and miles away from that competant human being.

If I didn’t still have contact with the people I used to work with in the field, I would say my work history was made up… even my recent work in the kennels feels contrived (yet I have pictures to prove I was there).

Who the fuck dissociates so badly that they don’t remember so much of their life?!

It feels lately like all my memories are up in the air & uncertain like the trauma memories.

If I sit down and concentrate hard enough, I can pull together what I think is an ok narrative of a specific time in my life, but it feels like a rehearsed skit. To paraphrase an Ani Difranco song “I feel like an actor just reading my lines…” Its something I’ve practiced over and over again until I can recite it with confidence, even if I have no connection to it.

I’m going through life without actually connecting to any of it.

There are times I feel like an imposter; like a clone with implanted memories, but they forgot to include the emotion portion of it…

When I was reading posts from even last year, I found myself trying to analyze what I was reading, to figure out what parts could possibly be true, and figure out how to integrate it into the current narrative.

Part of me feels like I have written about this before, or at least talked to someone about it, but I’m not sure who or where…

There was a flicker of understanding a moment ago, but it’s gone now. My fingers weren’t fast enough to catch the thought on paper before it slid away again.

I’m slipping away again. I can feel things erasing from my awareness (like what I was writing about in the rest of this post). A fog is settling in.

Gotta love dissociation for no reason…

To Dr. C

Dr C,

Talking to A Monday brought stuff up, but I’m not totally sure what. There’s a lot of the past floating around, and I’m finding myself really easily startled and frightened…

My head was literally spinning today, it triggered vertigo somehow.

There’s body stuff I’m feeling, and… I don’t even know what else. My heart races over nothing. I feel shaky, like I haven’t eaten in days, but in reality, I’ve been stuffing my face. I wanted to cut; to destroy my body; to pulverized it and stab it and shred it and break it and burn it… and by my body, I mean my pelvic area, where the feelings are creeping in again.

I wish we hadn’t talked about body. The kid really wanted to reach out, but my mouth was glued shut. I wasn’t sure how to speak about it without just screaming… so I kept quiet.

Only now the things I didn’t say are finding other ways to be noticed.

I really wish you were here coz I could talk to you about it, but you are still away through Monday… I don’t feel comfortable bugging A about it. There would be too much to explain… she kept saying she didn’t know my history; she hadn’t read what you gave her. Part of me wished she had. That way I wouldn’t have to figure out how to cram an explanation into the session and still have time to address what was happening in the moment… or just skip it all together because I couldn’t condense it that far.

I can feel the anxiety rising again. There are memories and fantasies and fears all happening in my body at the same time. It feels like I’m throwing imaginary scenarios in to drown out whatever is trying to surface. Imaginary stuff that I create in my head is much easier to control (and tolerate) than the stuff that actually happened (maybe? They’re memories, right? They’re valid? Or maybe even those are all stories?…).

I want to do that body drawing stuff she mentioned because it feels like something the kid could use to communicate. He still needs a translator, but maybe that would help? He seems connected to the idea…

I want to try some more kid techniques sometimes. Maybe the stuff that’s stuck would become unstuck? The kid that talked to De while I colored really likes that idea too. She wants to do more of that. She liked talking… I think she told the boy, because he keeps peeking around the corner wanting to try it…

There’s really not these others inside, but it just feels like there are others there, and I just don’t have a better way to describe the feeling.

SJ’s gone. I miss her. She was the most brave about talking. She was the face of the other kids. I dunno where she went. The boy misses her too, and the other girl and little blue monster all miss her. She was both 7 and 70. She was protective, but little, but also… I dunno. A container for the other kids? Now that she isn’t here, the others have to speak for themselves? Maybe she split into them when she ran off? She was older when she left though. She felt… I dunno. She wasn’t really older, but now the memory of her feels older? Does that even make sense? She left as a kid, maybe 5 or 7, but now the memory of her leaving feels like a young adult having moved away from home to get on with her own life. She pops by to say hi every once in a while, mostly to the kids, but she’s moved on with her life… like the babysitter going off to college or something.

I know these are all constructs of my head to order and make sense of things (and to keep safe), but it feels so separate. It kinda feels like other people who maybe speak a foreign language, or are extended family, or something… I dunno.

And they shift and change over time. I guess it’s me shifting and changing things as my understanding does the same. Sometimes they make sense as they were, other times the narrative needs to change to compensate for discrepancies. I guess it makes total sense if you look at it all as constructs of my head to help navigate life… they change with my understanding and head-space.

I’m really glad you will be back next week. I hope the trip was fun. I’m really glad you are back (and I was really relieved when I saw you post stuff on ig)…

nightmares

Haven’t woken that terrified from a nightmare in a long time… the current president started a nuclear war, and bombs were going off on the horizon. Everyone I was close to was out and about at the time. There was nowhere to go to be safe, and the other people in the room just watched out the window at all the mushroom clouds…

I can usually wake up and ground myself, but the fear from this one isn’t leaving as easily (doesn’t help that whatever this ailment is effects my heart rate. It shoots up with the slightest effort, and stays there for the next few hours)… also doesn’t help that current leadership is stupid enough to do something like that… 😟😭

It’s weird; the nightmares of the past that should truly terrify me simply make me numb, but ones like t-rex from Jurassic Park finding me no matter where I hide, and this morning’s nightmare… I can’t shake them after I wake up. There’s something to be said for dissociation and numbing. It certainly makes life emotionally easier to float through.

Acute pain issues (in the past 5 weeks or so)

Waiting on medical referrals to go through is stressful. I just want to figure out why my extremities hurt so much & are getting weaker, and how to fix it… also, it would be nice to skip pain killers 24/7 so maybe I could function better once again?
It feels like someone’s inserted pegs into my bones and the muscles shred on them every time I move. Moderate pressure feels good for a few seconds, but then it turns to pain. Light touch and deep pressure both are painful. Movement hurts. Heat feels better for a bit, but then it becomes uncomfortable. Cold just hurts right from the start… I’m starting to have trouble with fine motor skills, especially gripping smaller objects like pens or keys (sucks when I try to do art or write… even the Swype function on my phone is painful). Stretching feels better only because it’s a different kind of pain than what happens when I’m resting or actively doing stuff…

I really hope this Neuro referral comes through quickly, I can get in to see someone, and they actually have answers for me. So far, it’s all been “I don’t know; your tests are all normal”

Driving is really painful so I’ve been relying on others for rides since Friday (it doesn’t help that I’m taking the medical mj constantly to keep the pain bearable. There’s no way I’m driving while taking it, or any other prescription pain meds they may try to give me). I drove myself to the urologist this morning because the weather made L too anxious to drive. I had trouble keeping the level of pain under wraps without the pot…

I’m really hoping for simple answers with easy remedies, and soon! My PCP’s office resent the referral today (Wednesday) after it was supposed to have been sent Friday.

I’m trying to no longer let my brain run away down “worst case scenerios” lines of thinking, but it’s difficult. The pain and impairment of function feels like it’s growing daily. I have to have some answers, or at least some relief, soon so I can continue my job at the kennel, keep going to therapy, maintain my independence, and take care of my family… I have to admit though, I’m super grateful today was a snow day. I worked yesterday and my whole body was exhausted and more painful. I’m not sure I can do the two days in a row right now. I might have to plan to spread my shifts out so I can recover between them.

Even now, my arms and legs feel as if they were burning and being stabbed and tightly bound all at once… it’s not excruciating as long as I can dissociate most of the pain… it’s starting to wear me down though, and I’m having more trouble distancing myself from the increasing symptoms… 😦

working helped

I was still struggling with dissociation and being stuck in my head most of Wednesday. Nothing i was trying helped to bring me out of it.

Luckily, I had work that afternoon.

I pleaded with the universe to make it an easy, but distracting shift. She came through for me.

I ended up training a new hire, so I had to constantly think of what I was doing, why, and explain it to her. The dogs were also relatively mellow (though the look on the girl’s face when I mentioned that it was an easier day makes me wonder if I’m not just habituating to a higher level of chaos).

In the end, spending time with the dogs, and having to interact with another human for the whole shift helped ground me for the evening.

I did wake up to some intrusive, uncomfortable thoughts, but overall, today has been much more “present” (Though let me not jinx that at 9am)…

I had some bloodwork to get done this morning, and I was supposed to get a CT scan done at 8, but I messed up the directions, so it’s been pushed to 1pm. I could have gone through with the 8am thing, but it wouldn’t have given the greatest results. I’m having ongoing gi issues, so I want to make the scan worth the effort. I already feel like most of this stuff is “in my head” since previous testing hasn’t shown anything… but then again, my aunt had gi issues for over a decade before the testing finally showed the real problem. I don’t want things to get that advanced in my case…

I hate having to balance worrying that I’m just experiencing psychosomatic stuff with legit medical issues. Dr C says it’s all valid, and even if it does stem from past trauma, there’s still likely a physical reason as well, it’ll just take more time to figure it out…

Rough day…

I hate being so defective.

Was at a urologist today for an initial appointment. Didn’t think to ask them if there would be any uncomfortable exams. 15 minutes in, the doctor sprung the concept of a pelvic exam on me. I kinda started to panic, but tried to talk myself down.

She’s nice. She seems nice. Dr F recommended her, so she trusts her, so I can trust her. L is here with me. It’s all good. No worries. Dr F trusts her, so she’s safe…

That worked for about as long as it took me to think the words one time. By the second round, I was already drifting away. I know I spoke to L about my anxiety, but I can’t remember what was said.

By the time the doctor came back in, I was barely breathing and about to jump out of my skin. I managed to mutter someing about panic rising, and as she looked at me to ask if anything in my past would make this more difficult, I could only nod. Tears were welling up in my eyes. I was flying away hard and fast in my head.

I’m not really sure what she said next; everything was happening miles away. All I could do was keep biting my lip (I actually managed to accidentally bite off a bit of it)…

I think she said something about changing the treatment plan, but I have no idea what she said it would be. I will have to ask L later…

I hate being so defective. I want to be a normal human who can go to a new doctor and get through the visit without any major triggers…

After the appointment, L reminded me it was bingo night. She asked if I wanted to go. My first instinct was to stay home and hide. Then I figured distracting would probably be better…

We went to bingo. I took some meds to help me calm and ground a bit more. I’m so thankful I did! Someone who ended up sitting next to us sounded and acted so much like bitch most of the night. Had I not calmed myself down, I would have been more of a triggered mess…

The insomnia amplifier (and safe spaces).

Have you ever noticed how everything experienced through insomnia is amplified?

It’s not only the after effects in the following days, but also everything experienced in the middle of the night while I’m lying awake.

Tonight, the cat food smell is bothering me. It’s turning my stomach, and it’s the only thing I can smell… but do you think I’d make a move to throw it out into the kitchen trash? Nope. Because making such large movements would not only “wake me up more”, but it would also wake the animals up, who would then get restless… at least, that’s my excuse. I really just don’t feel like crawling out of bed when I have a mere 30 minutes left here anyway. It would have been 2 hours if I simply did it when it started bothering me, but it was easier to smash my face into the pillow than it was to move the trash. Now I’m regretting it…

It’s not only smell that gets amplified when I can’t sleep. It’s any sound or extra light. It’s textures and temperatures and thoughts…

I could text any number of friends who also deal with insomnia, but that would require a conversation, and I’m not sure I’m up for that just now.

It is also in the middle of the night when, before I think too much about the ramifications, I feel like I might want to talk more about the things my body remembers… before my brain kicks in and I worry about reactions and fall-out, before the shame and secrecy set it, I sometimes think it might be healing to talk about the sexual abuse stuff with someone other than just Dr C… it might be validating to have some honest and uncensored conversations about it.

Then my brain kicks in. I think about what might happen, who might react & how they might react… I think of all the invalidation and scrutiny I would get for it, and the lost relationships… and it no longer seems worth it.

I prefer anonymity. I prefer the safety-net of confidentiality… and my heart sinks a little. I feel defective. Even just thinking of talking more openly about it makes me feel like a bad person. The guilt and shame hit hard.

On the one hand, I know it wasn’t my fault; I know the guilt and shame shouldn’t be mine (but they are). I know they should belong to the person (people) who did those things… I know this, but I also can’t fully accept it.

What if I’m remembering wrong? What if I’m exaggerating? What if I’m really just doing this for attention? What if I’m just that horrible, spiteful child the voice in my head says I am? What if I’m just plain wrong?

The ramifications for the named people wouldn’t be huge, but they’d be there. The ramifications for me would likely be worse. If I mentioned someone, and they didn’t actually do anything, I’d lose friends and family (it’s not like I have proof. It’s just my word against their’s, and I have a history of mental health issues, so… gotta love stigma). I’d be branded a liar & attention-seeking by those closest to me. I’ve already gotten that label from some people, but they are not really people that matter to me; providers I’ve seen only once or twice, family or friends I choose to no longer have contact with…

It’s just easier to talk around it in anonymous circles, or to keep conversations in the safety of the therapy office. That might change some day, but right now, it’s all I can manage. The fear doesn’t exactly stop me from longing to connect more authentically with others, but it stops the actuality of it happening…

I miss the csa group Dr C ran. It was more structured, but we still had chances to connect around the experiences of having gone through what we did, and many of us having dissociation around it… it was a safe place to be vulnerable, and we seemed to share understandings around it all… I don’t really know how the group would work in the long run though. Part of the safety came from the structure and the limited time commitment… but some days I really wish I could sit again in a room of people who understood the struggle without having to search so hard to explain it; and to know it’s safe to give voice to some of the memories.

It feels weird; like part of me is still living back in the space that had me hospitalized so often. I get these little glimpses of remembering being in the hospital, and it feels so real in that flash of a moment. The other times, it feels like I’m living in both times at once, only I’m separated from the past by this frosted window. I know the gist of what’s happening, and I can kinda feel it, but it’s distant and away at the same time. It’s almost like knowing and faintly hearing someone watch a movie in the next room; I can hear it, I know the movie enough to mostly know what’s happening moment to moment, but it’s still something I’m not directly experiencing in the moment. The flashes of memory are like walking through the room for a moment and catching parts of it as I pass the tv. I’m not totally paying attention, but I notice it…

Yeah… kinda like that…

I’ve been remembering the various hospitalizations since Wednesday when Dr C brought up the drawing I left with her a few weeks ago… it’s not all restricted to the content of the drawing; its just all of the experiences mashed together. It’s not linear. It doesn’t really make linear sense, but it’s all memories of those times…

L had an unusually late chemo today, and there were a few times I really had to work to ground myself. I kept panicking that I was there because I was locked up, not because I was supporting L through chemo… being the only ones in the room, and it having gotten dark intensified the fears.

Psych hospitalizations are really dehumanizing. It didn’t matter that you likely already feel like crap; the process and experience make it all that much worse…

I dunno…

I hate when all of this comes up when I can’t actually process it for several days. I don’t know what to do with it. It pulls me in, even when I don’t want it to. I know I’ve been distant and spacey a lot today. I’ve been having a lot of trouble seperating from the memories. My brain is living in both times at once, and it’s distracting (even if I feel like I’m mostly in the present, it’s difficult to concentrate when the past is so “there” but indecipherable…).

Talking about level of dissociation (for the first time… again…?)

My level of dissociation came up again in therapy. She mentioned DID. Apparently she’s mentioned it before, but I just filed it away. Deep away.

I cringed at her labeling it DID, so she called them “ego states”.

I dunno. I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around it all week…

I feel like I need to reach out to everyone I’ve ever worked with to find some corroboration… did anyone else notice the intensity of the dissociation? Did I mention anything about the abuse? Was there any inkling of anything other than major depression and anxiety? Did any of the 18+ therapists I worked with over the years try to clue me in and I just forget?

There were times I remember being told there was more behind my symptoms than just the domestic violence, but no one could tell me what. There were large chunks of time I don’t remember, but I also don’t have any info on what went on during those times…

I have a few records of what happened while I was “out” and hospitalized, but they aren’t very detailed…

I dunno.

I feel like I need someone else to say “yes, this is what we’ve seen all along”; not because I don’t trust Dr C’s assessment, but because I don’t trust what I’ve presented to her… it feels like I’m exaggerating everything, and the words I use give the wrong impression. It feels like I’ve fabricated it all for some reason I don’t really understand.

I dunno…

So… I’m not really around right now (“thanks captain obvious!”), but I wanted to put something down so I can come back to it later, when I have energy and emotional space for it. 

I was telling Dr C how I didn’t feel like I had a right to be sad that my boss is transferring. I explained it along the lines of not having a right to be attached to her in any way, as well as having been taught that emotional intimacy equates to sexual intimacy, and that my expressing to my boss that I was sad she was leaving might be taken the wrong way… not because I think she thinks that way, or that I think that way, but because G thinks that way. It is what he warned us against, and what he was always going on about when anyone at all showed even casual friendship towards him. My adult brain knows that’s a skewed line of thinking, but the emotional, kid part of me can’t seem to step away from it…

Anyway, I explained that to her…

Her response; “Wow. G really did a number on you to have you believe you are both incredibly worthless, and also irresistible all at the same time…”

It’s not the first time I’ve explained something to a therapist only to have them be awed by the level of dysfunction he lives in… TM commented on the extent of his grooming. Dr C has commented on his ideals on more than one occasion. De & TL commented on the general dysfunction of our family dynamic, and the level of domestic violence I grew up thinking was “normal”…

How did I get so old without realizing any of this stuff before it’s pointed out to me? Or maybe; how can I continually & repeatedly dissociate the reality of my childhood so completely? 

Sorry I haven’t been around much lately. Losing Chow has been difficult to adjust to. I’ve been withdrawing into myself, yet, paradoxically, throwing myself into things outside the home. It sounds contradictory, I know. 

I’ve been burying the emotional part of me behind a bombardment of stimuli and activities. There’s rarely a moment when I’m not desperately distracting myself.  I’ve not been doing much by way of art or writing though. It’s been mostly “mindless” stuff, like going to dinner with friends (and avoiding anything other than surface conversation), taking the dogs to the park, that kind of stuff. 

I’ve even avoided taking much in therapy. At least, I have up to now. Today’s session might be different. I’ve started attending a group Dr C put together for adult survivors of [mumble, mumble, mumble]… I still cringe and have a small freak-out moment when I hear the title… we’ve met twice so far. The first one was mostly intros and basic group guidelines. The second one was a bit more topic-oriented around explaining PTSD, the symptoms, and how early abuse plays into it. I was ok for the psychoeducational piece of the group, but struggled to stay present when it turned more into talking about the effects on a personal level. 

I think part of my problem with that comes from the walls I’ve put up around the abuse “memories”. I know I was totally convinced at one point that what I was feeling and experiencing were true, but I’ve detached from that the last several weeks. This last group started stirring things below the surface but they still remain below the surface. 

I dunno. On the one hand, it’s a huge relief to have people that seem to struggle with similar symptoms and experiences. On the other hand, I feel like an interloper. They all seem to know what happened to them, and to connect with it. I’m here still trying to remember what the hell it was that came at me in those flashbacks. I know I struggled a lot with them, but they feel foreign to me at this time. It’s like I watched a movie a long time ago, and can kinda remember the plot, but have no idea of the details. And i’m certainly not connecting to it emotionally…

Brain fog

My head is in a complete fog, and I have no energy. I think it’s because my body is fighting off some ailment. L had a wicked stomach bug this weekend, and others I know have had the flu or respiratory things… I’m just hoping I make it through without succumbing to anything…

Last session, we were taking about the extent of my dissociation (when it happens), and ways to try to pool the knowledge from the various emotional states. Dr C suggested trying to “bring all the emotional states together, like at a conference table”… I had trouble wrapping my head around that concept, but I think it was mostly being uncomfortable with the conference table idea. The more I sat with the concept this weekend, the more I was able to ease into the idea. Though I switched the thought of a board room to the concept of a living room, it’s kinda sounding more possible. I’m not sure if I can make it happen, but I was able to doodle out what the different emotions look like, and to write out what I think of when I think of them… they kinda have personal appearances, though they are not actually totally seperate entities… I understand then as all just different emotional states, and can notice when I “slip into” the different mind sets, well, for most of them. There’s two that feel like completely seperate characters. While I’m consciously aware of feeling different in the others, and can access what it feels like to be, say, the brooding teenager, there are two kids whose heads I can’t get into. Those I walled-off more efficiently than the others…

I’ve always felt like my head was set up kinda like a house, with doors that closed to each room. When I was in one room, I was totally in that room. I had knowledge of the existence of the other rooms, but I couldn’t tell what was going on there, nor did I have efficient working memory of what may have happened when I wasn’t in a particular room… More recently (like the past decade or so), it’s been closer to different characters in each room; like an actor slipping into different roles in different sets. The two “kids” are different actors though…

I dunno where I was going with that. Brain fog offs moving back in…

D.E.S. results chat

Talked to Dr C about the results from the assessment, and I took it again with her. I scored a 44 this time… we looked up the scoring; doesn’t look like you can score much higher than a 50… I’m not DID though, so…? I dunno. 

I had questioned how reliable my self-report could be if my score changed so much in just a day. I questioned if maybe I was exaggerating things on the questionnaire. She said that it sounded more like I was trying to downplay my experiences (I was talking to her about a few of the questions).  I have trouble quantifying my experiences, so I’m not sure I answer the same way each time. She said that the test was statistically quite accurate and reliable. She also mentioned that one of the underpinnings of dissociation is not being able to remember the act of dissociating. So, I guess that’s another check in the “you’re really fucked up chicky-do” column…

She asked if I was worried about a DID diagnosis. I reflexively answered “no” because I don’t see it as that bad & because I’ve seen DDNOS on my records, so others don’t think it’s that bad. I think I’ve talked to her another time about it also, and I think I remember ruling out DID, so there’s that… but on the way home, I kinda panicked about whether her thoughts on it were evolving to lean more towards that diagnosis. I just text her asking if she was seeing DID. I’m not sure she will answer that through text or not, but as long as we address it at some point, I think I’ll feel better about it. 

I know my dissociation can be severe at times because I’ve completely lost days, weeks, and even months in the last decade. I guess I just don’t think it’s that severe all the time. I don’t see too much evidence pointing to DID other than L’s frustration around never knowing what to expect from me in terms of likes and dislikes…

We chatted more about dissociation and the functions of it. We talked about other coping skills for handling the body sensations and the flashbacks. I think she kinda came to the conclusion that even my healthier coping skills utilize dissociation to a degree. We talked about the writing and the art, and how I often don’t really remember what was created. We did differentiate the “flow” of creating vs more dissociative aspects of it. I think with both the art and the writing, part of the creative process is having no real direction and letting the piece take over its own evolution. It’s when I can’t recall writing something (like a blog entry) or creating something, that the dissociation plays a bigger role in that coping strategy… there are definitely some things I have to look at over and over again because they seem familiar, but I don’t connect to having made them.

Dr C commented that dissociation, especially such intense dissociation, takes a lot of energy. I countered that it’s actually the least draining of my coping skills, but now that I think about it, I wonder if that contributes to the constant exhaustion. I know some of it is the depression, but maybe she’s right; maybe the dissociation is exhausting as well. 

Dissociative experiences scale

Dr C had mentioned the dissociative experiences scale a few sessions back, but she couldn’t find a copy in her files at the time. I forgot to mention it again in session. I thought I’d look it up online. I found one at CounsellingResource.com and took it…

While not quite at the DID end of the scale, I did apparently score closer to it than to “normal”;

I also took some of the other screenings they had. I scored really high on depression and anxiety… fun.

Dissociation frustrations

Talked to Dr C about dissociation today, though I was pretty dissociated when we talked, so I don’t remember much about it. 

I mentioned disliking this state of half-knowing. I’d rather forget completely, without any of the side effects of merely dissociating things, but that’s not totally accurate. I’d probably lose part of myself if I totally wiped the memories… but remembering is overwhelming. It’s painful and distressing. I don’t know how to make it feel safe. 

I guess Wednesday we will talk about something related to all this, but I can’t remember what she mentioned. 

I’m so tired of this struggle. 

“Weird”

I feel weird. It’s hard to describe. It’s triggery, floaty, disconnected… I’m having trouble putting it into words. 

There were just two of us in group today. Dr C took that opportunity to try to show us both that we are more alike than we might think… 

Dr C and I had been talking about shame around my cutting, and me trying to wrap my head around my recurring “shock” when I hear a dissociative diagnosis in reference to my symptoms…  I think she was trying to allow me an opportunity to talk about it with someone who might understand from a first-hand perspective. 

We ended up talking a bit about extreme dissociation and about coping skills. Something about B describing her DID stirred up my body memories. When she talked about switching, some part of me started to “wake up”… the stirring feelings shifted and swirled and ran through a few “ages”… I dunno. It was weird; and the body memories bubbled up…

Last week, for the first time in almost 2 decades, I connected with a part of myself I had all-but-forgotten ever existed. I suddenly remembered how much I loved to read, and that I used to do it all the time. I connected to the memory and the emotion of it… It only lasted a few hours, but I remembered what it was like. I’m trying to rekindle that part. I’ve started to buy books again and I actually want to read them. I haven’t been able to pay attention to them yet, but there’s an excitement around it (even if it’s just a tiny seedling of excitement). 

Anyway, the rest of today has been emotionally weird. I think I’m still somewhat back in group, trying to process finally not being alone in my dysfunction. I’m also feeling the beginnings of mild flashbacks (at least, I hope they are mild)… I’m guessing the internal stirrings are also playing a part in the weird feeling. It’s like the inside partitions are starting to get hazy and the parts are wandering forward. I’m not sure the walls will always be hazy (they’re starting to solidify again), but they were in group.

I’m getting better at holding conversations, but it’s still difficult. I lose interest pretty quickly… no, “interest” isn’t the right word. I’m not sure what exactly it is, but I lose my motivation to keep talking. I get distracted, and tired, and… yeah. That. 

Sorry, this post is fast losing cohesion. 

What dissociation feels like to me

I’m aware this may be different than what I’ve written before. My understanding of it tends to be limited to what I can access in the moment. 

Today, my understanding of my dissociation is as follows: 

My dissociation is varied. When heavily triggered, I lose all memory of a period of time. I have very spotty memories from my childhood, maybe a handful from my entire 18 years before moving to college. I’m starting to regain some of those memories, but they are all trauma memories coming back. 

When I’m less dissociated, it just feels like i’m floating in a grey fog far away from everyone and everything. Sometimes I can’t hear people talking to me. I’m not always aware of the dissociation until someone points it out to me, but there are times I’m very aware. Those times it feels like i’m on autopilot; saying and doing things because that’s what’s expected of me. 

There are times when I’m surprised at my appearance and the fact that I have a body & a face. That used to happen a lot more when I was younger. I would walk past my reflection and stop to stare at it. I needed to study it because I had no clue that’s what I looked like, or that I even existed as a corporeal being… those instances have lessened in severity. I still stare at my reflection at times, but it doesn’t take as long to understand I’m actually a person. 

Regardless of the type of dissociation, I generally don’t feel anything like physical touch, or even pain… Sometimes the dissociation is accompanied by flashbacks, but other times my mind is blank…

What’s your experience been like with it?