I was laying in bed, trying to avoid waking up, when a memory of duckboy hit me out of nowhere.
**trigger** I could feel his hand holding my wrists above my head. I could feel his crushing weight on top of my body. I could feel his fumbling hand. I could feel his slimey, sloppy kiss, his grinding body… and everything else he did that time. **trigger**
It was all condensed into about a minute or less, but my body is still tingling. There are still echos of the memory…
He used to insist it wasn’t sexual because we had our clothes on. I only resisted so many times before giving in. It was always easier to get it over with than to try to squirm away from under his almost 300lb frame…
For the longest time (we’re talking almost 20 years), I was adamant on only calling it “very insistent”. Whomever was hearing it tried to rephrase it as assault, and I would correct them. I refused to put that label on what he did (partially for his sake, partially for mine)… I had flashbacks at the time, but I wouldn’t remember them after they passed (or even understand that I had one). It wasn’t until my long bout of hospitalizations, where medical records contained notes of me crying and trying to explain the memories, that I finally realized something more than just the memories of my parents fighting was bothering me… Dr C was the first person who heard me admit that what duckboy did might have been rape. I was still terrified to tell her any details, but at the same time, I started desperately trying to write down what I remembered in the flashbacks while they were happening. I knew if I didn’t write in the moment, I’d forget it again as soon as it faded.
The first time I wrote it out, I was journaling on my phone. It was the early days of smartphones though, before apps saved what you were doing should you be interrupted. A call buzzed in and erased everything I had tried to write down… I took that as a sign that no one needed to know the details. I also switched to trying to capture it on paper. I was anxious someone would find it, read it, and know the things I had done, but i really wanted to be able to read whatever it was I kept remembering and forgetting… It was maybe a year later before I tried to bring up the content of my flashbacks again in treatment.
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I was hoping writing about the flashback this morning would help it fade faster (it sometimes works that way), but I’m still feeling echos of memories. I guess my body wants to make me listen. Stuff had been stirring all week, but none of it had been this explicit; there were no real defined cognitive memories, just body sensations. Now, even the echos have snippets of whole memories attached to them… I guess its good group was cancelled and I was able to get individual instead. I don’t want to have to keep sitting with this all weekend.
So, I ended up telling my friend a bit more specifically why I couldn’t participate in the retreat activities fully… she was understanding, and supportive. So now there are maybe 5 people who know more about it.
Woke up with body memories again. I’m getting tired of them. I keep reminding myself that they are from the past, but it’s uncomfortable and difficult to sit through the sensations of being touched all the time… at least L is home today. That’s helping me ground simply because I have to be mindful of her presence.
I’m trying to get through the day without bugging Dr C. It’s mothers day, and the weekend, so I’m going to do my best to keep muddling through.
We need to talk more about the sh tomorrow, and the body memories…
Sometimes, I “remember” things that at other times I’m positive couldn’t have happened… but in the moment of “remembering” they feel so real I could taste and touch them.
I know exactly how it feels on my lips. I can taste the mix of sweat and cigarette smoke… in that moment, I know what’s playing in my head was a real event. But then the moment passes, and I can list a million reasons that event could have never happened…
I know the difference between my imagination and reality. I know those were never my fantasies… but what else could they be because I also “know” they are not actual memories. I should have remembered them all along. I should have know. I would have known.
But… ugh! I know they are at once real and fake. I know they are not only a cry for attention, but also a plea for attention. I know this, but I don’t.
I never talked more about duckboy at the time because I “knew” I consented by not fighting, by not screaming, by not pulling away, by obediently doing what I was told (MY had argued the point over and over again. She convinced me that a situation like that was consenting in its lack of resistance. The people that had experience with sexual abuse disagreed with MY, but her stance was easier to swallow. If it wasn’t abuse or assault, then I had nothing to worry about)… but why was I so compliant? I know I had learned somewhere that to simply do what I was told, or let him do whatever he wanted, meant that it would go easier and faster. I knew what it would feel like, I knew what to expect from my body. At the time, I couldn’t tell you how or why I knew this, but I knew.
When I first “remembered” the other stuff, it felt like an elephant kicked me in the chest. It took my breath away. I was driving home from therapy and I had to pull off the highway. I remember calling De in a panic and begging her to tell me all the reasons why what flashed through my head and body wasn’t actually true…
I repeat those same defenses against its truth to myself often: it was something I saw on TV or read in a book, It’s my imagination, it’s the stories of my clients’ pieced together and told with people in my own life…
And at the same time, it can feel so damn true. I know things because “I just know.” I don’t know how I know, I just know… I feel things for no reason other than I have a very active imagination; I’ve pieced together different events and written them with all new characters and story lines. I have a really good imagination. My body plays along with that amazing imagination to give me a better fantasy life… yeah. That’s it.
In the shower today, I remembered something, but it quickly gave way to something I know for sure is not a memory (feels different, and was drastically embellished from the actual events. I think I do that as a defense and a means to keep distance from the other stuff)… but now I’m not sure if the start of it was actually a memory, or just a play going on in my head. I can’t even really remember the beginning part anymore, just that it was disturbing and felt very real.
How can something feel so real and so fake at the same time? How come I can’t talk about it even in vague terms outside of therapy?
…I want to write something about Monday’s therapy, but I’m still processing it. It wasn’t overly heavy, but it’s still churning in my head.
We talked more about the impact of abuse on a healthy, adult sex life. It certainly has a ton of impact. I mentioned to Dr. C that I found it easier to fully immerse myself in the experience without flashbacks when we are not at home. At first I had thought it would be different after the move because these walls held no memories, but it turned out to be just as triggering here as it was in my childhood home. She mentioned that it seems to be a “thing” for people with a sexual abuse history (at least in her experience)… I’ll have to look more into that. Maybe it’s something about associating home with unsafe situations? I dunno…
She also pointed out something I’ve know for a while, but she tied it to the self-harm: the most effective schedule of reinforcement is random-intermittent reward. Translated to plain english; giving in to the urge to self-harm even just once-in-a-while reinforces the connections making it a stronger habit… We also talked about easier ways to step away from the concept of self-harm being soothing. She suggested I work to find other skills that I can randomly toss into the mix. She said it would be easier to build-up other habits than to work at breaking the reinfocers for the sh. We didn’t really come up with other options, but I’m again tasked with working other coping skills into my bag… On the plus side: I have not cut recently, so I have not reinforced that habit lately…
I had started wiring this yesterday after therapy, but got distracted. I don’t really know what else I was going to write. There was a thought about it a few hours ago, but I wasn’t able to take notes. I don’t remember what it was anymore. Guess that’s the story of my life: have a thought, don’t have a chance to write it down, forget the though…
They say insight helps move you forward. But what if you have all this insight, and don’t know what to do with it? It doesn’t magically change things. It still takes a lot of work, and struggle, and… I’m tired of having insight and not knowing what to do with it.
I called TM and left a message because I realized that my pattern was to crash if I didn’t reach out. So I told her I needed to reach out, and I was hoping just leaving the message would help. It did in the moment, but now I want to crumble again… knowing the reason for the “crisis” isn’t helping to avoid it right now. And having alternate coping skills is not making much of a difference. I guess it’s the small victories: I made it out of the house for a bit. I put off crashing… I guess that’s a positive. And I called TM in hopes of heading off a bigger, harder crash (so far it’s working). Only what happens next week when she suggests an iop again? And what happens when she refers me out even though we have maybe a month left? 😦
I hate that trust comes so hard. I hate that I need to find a paid someone to trust and reach out to. I hate that it always ends so soon. I’ve seen more therapists than I have been in years of therapy. There have only been 3 I was able to see for more than 10 months (and 3 out of the last 4 I only saw for about 4 months each)… JF was an intern when I started seeing her, but she got hired on to keep working at the clinic, so I saw her for 2.5 years (until I graduated). LKB was the first private-practice therapist I saw. She ditched me after 2 years because I was too acute… then Dr C I saw for 2.5 years until I moved. Everyone else was an intern, except De & TM, who were/are limited by agency policy.
There was JJ, DJ (saw her one year during two of the school breaks, so maybe 10 times total), B, CS, JF, TB, JG, LKB, SC (dbt), Dr C, BGR (iop), L (dbt), Dr GD (the center), D, JP, De, TL, and TM… I’m missing a few because last count TM was #18 or 19… who am I missing? I hadn’t included therapists I saw fewer than 5 times, or any psychiatrists, or clinicians associated with hospital programs who I would have only seen a very few times.
Anyway, yeah. Trust is hard, but I seem to have to get around to starting again every few months. It gets tiring. It makes it really difficult to get anywhere. I finally get through the “data dump” stage and it’s time to switch again. That’s why I’m so stubborn around trying to tackle more stuff with TM before our time is up. I need to get further in all this… and I am not sure I will find a therapist I trust would know how to handle the blowout from the sexual assault stuff. I know Dr C tried to get me to deal with it, but I couldn’t get over the shame. Maybe if I can get back in with her, it wouldn’t be so hard this time, but I don’t think she will be around… and I’m still not sure I trust her not to think horrible things of me. There’s some safety in TM working for the sexual assault clinic. She’s likely heard it all, or her colleagues have heard it all, and the judgement would be less… I still have trouble telling TM some things because of the shame involved, but I think the chances of her having heard the same thing before are higher than with Dr C… I dunno. I really miss Dr C though… and JF… and Dr GD… and De. They felt safe. TM feels safe when I’m not caught up in walls and transference… I miss TL, but more in a colleague sense than a therapist sense. She kept me in a more professional head-space during sessions. She was the first to be able to keep the more adult side of me present more times than not. I think it came from her expecting me to be more “professional” and aware. There was something about the transference with her that allowed me to be competent as an adult and a professional. I don’t really know how to explain it…
…I hate that the emotionally safest relationships are all paid ones. But I guess that contributes to the safety. If it wasn’t so one-sided and professional, I would be seeing the judgement and emotional reactions to my crazy, and I would be walking on eggshells with them to the same extent I do my friends and family. I still walk on eggshells with therapists, but it’s not as careful and distanced as it is with people who could really hurt me with their reactions…
Anyway, I digress again. Trying to avoid being the drama queen De saw me as. Trying to pull out of the crisis cycle that is threatening to come barreling in full force. Trying to put all this insight to use. Let’s hope it all works.
Ever since these new memories have surfaced, I have questioned them. I’m still incredulous about having not remembered anything about these events prior to last year, but on the other hand, they make sense in context of some other unanswered questions.
My original search started in an effort to find the description on rainn.org of body memories. I remembered reading it once and finding it was not the same context in which I was using the term when trying to describe what I experience. I couldn’t navigate back to where I found it (and my memory of the content is very vague), so decided to try a general Google search for a definition of the term “body memories”. It was through this I stumbled upon everything from websites describing the role of body memories in trauma, to websites refuting the claim that body memories even exist. In all of these websites, I think I found a small handful that used the term in the way I use it. I guess I will have to be specific when talking to anyone new about what I mean when I say I experience body memories: the physical sensations associated with an act or occurrence. For me, body memories are generally experienced as the feeling of hands or other body parts on or in my body. It’s not limited to that though. I also experience body memories of instances of self-harm (cutting or burning). While the body memories of being assaulted/abused trigger cognitive memories of the assault as well as the emotional effects, the body memories of the self harm often bring about the same relief that actually engaging in the self harm would. I get the rush of relaxation, the slowing of thoughts, the release of bodily tension, and respite from the flashbacks or suicidal thinking. The “flashback” of the self harm is experienced the same way as a flashback of any of the other negative stuff that went on in my life. It holds true to the experiencing of the self harm and its emotional aftermath. Honestly, I wish I could induce the self harm memories whenever the flashbacks of the assaults became too overwhelming. It does the same thing as the cutting, but I don’t get in trouble for it… and maybe if I mastered control of the self harm flashbacks, I could master control of the assault flashbacks.
Anyway, I had mentioned coming across sites that try to refute the concept of repressed memory and body memories. I read through two of them, as well as a few websites that sided “with” the concept of body memories. I must admit, the ones “for” it were somewhat better written than the ones “against” it… one “against” site sounded like it was written by someone with a personal, vested interest in proving the concept false. There was no explanation of their terminology, no references (on the page I read), and lots of teenage-like bashing. I must point out I did not explore the rest of the site beyond reading most of the linked page. I found the “interview” transcripts a frustrating read since most therapists I have had the pleasure of meeting are more well-spoken than what was presented there, but again, that’s my own bias. The other site simply pointed out the dangers of unfounded allegations and offered a few references. That said, one of the pages I read “for” repressed memories and body memories offered real scholarly evidence and critical thinking around the topics. It also pointed to several other articles both supporting and denying the claims that repressed memories of trauma are valid. I would like to point out here that none of the pages talking about the validity of repressed memories actually gave a definition of body memories, used the term “body memories” very often, or described them in any detail beyond calling them a physical re-experiencing. Most of the pages spoke about flashbacks without separating out the physical re-experiencing of the events. I am unsure why this is, since as recently as last year, I was able to find this info quite readily. Perhaps it is related to the controversy around body memories and “false memories”, as well as the lack of research on the topic.
Some other sites I found that would be good to read through:
remember Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time, but also offers more pros/cons about body memories in one place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_memory
I could not find the second page refuting body memories this time around (didn’t think to save any of the links the first time I went through my search yesterday afternoon). I’m sure it exists out there, and that there are more, but I cannot find it at this moment.
Anyway, it’s got me again questioning the validity of the memories attached to these flashbacks. The above mentioned well-gathered page for repressed memories cautioned that anyone wanting to tackle previously forgotten trauma ask themselves a few questions, including:
“Why do I want to recover (more) memories?”
“What do I hope that recovering memories will do for me?”
“Why do I wish I could know for sure whether I was abused?”
“What problems and suffering in my life now do I believe will be changed by remembering abuse?”
I know for myself, I simply want the flashbacks to subside. I want to be able to stop experiencing the sensations of being assaulted over and over again. I want my life back. I want to function again. I hesitate to tell anyone close to me the details because I am aware that newly discovered memories can be misleading. I want to talk about it with a neutral third party (therapist) so I can explore it, get it out of me, and hopefully move on from it. I don’t necessarily want to discover more memories because honestly, this is plenty, but I do want them to stop popping up. So if there are more locked away in my brain, bring it on and let me deal with it so I can stop being so strongly and adversely effected by it. I also want to figure out how to be ok without ever knowing for sure if these memories are accurate. My only goal in dealing with them is to make them leave me alone already.
All that said, I think I have a slightly different take on what body memories are, at least for me. I’m not sure I believe that we remember specific incidents at a cellular level unrelated to the brain. I think the memories are stored in the brain, but just separated out from the conscious, cognitive remembering. Muscle memory is the concept that our muscles “remember” frequently used motions and can return to it at any point in the future, even without much practice or conscious thought (the rough definition paraphrased from here). In school, we learned about muscle memory in relation to fitness, learning to play musical instruments, repetitive physical activities, etc. I would hazard that what I am experiencing as body memories are actually just muscle memories (which I would say are more subconscious memories, rather than ones actually stored in muscles, but I have no evidence for that). Anyway, my personal theory is that traumatic events or ones causing great stress can also cause “muscle memory”. If we go with the theory that traumatic events are more salient because they allow us (as a species) to survive and avoid such traumas again, then it makes perfect sense that we would store those memories in a number of ways for quick access. Think of it this way, you’re walking along in the wilderness and stub your toe on a rock. It slows you down, you’re not able to get where you are going, and you may be sick & hungry for a while. Once you heal, you notice your toe still kinda hurts sometimes, but not all the time. You pay more attention to it when it hurts. You then start to notice that the hurt really only comes when you are in a place with more rocks around. You begin to pay attention to the rocks in order to avoid stubbing your toe again. I think body memories are quite valid. I also think they evolved as a way to enable us to pay better attention to the things around us to which we need to pay attention either to make life easier, or to spare our lives. With PTSD and flashbacks, this all somehow got kicked into over-drive. Our brains are desperately trying to protect us, so it throws this stuff our way. It is also trying to make sense of stuff that doesn’t compute well with our conscious thoughts… Take PTSD theory, toss it in a blender with muscle memory, and you get body memories that accompany the flashbacks (after all, most flashbacks also include a physical re-experiencing of an event)… I think the intensity and salience of “negative” body memories can be explained with the same theory that explains the intensity and salience of negative cognitive memories. Afterall, most people do not claim to experience “flashbacks” of really happy times. I have not yet heard of people being randomly triggered into remembering their happiest moments in the same full-on, 3D, THX, IMax experience of traumatic memories. There are no anecdotal stories of people re-living the good times to the intensity of the really bad ones. There’s no body of research on the spontaneous re-experiencing of strongly positive experiences, so why is the argument against body memories centered around the lack of body memories for positive experiences? Just some things to think about.
(on a side note, and only marginally related to all this, I’m kinda frustrated/pissed/angry/sad that Dr. Glenn Doyle seems to have disappeared from the blogosphere and the internet in general. I was trying to link to the post where he described flashbacks as 3D, THX, IMax experiences, but his blog is gone. His fb page is inactive, and his practice seems to have moved according to psychologytoday.com. I worked with him very briefly while inpatient in DC back in 2011 and really liked his style. He has a similar sense of humor, but writes much more eloquently than I do. I hope he is well, and I hope he reappears again soon… I miss reading his thoughts on things).
This whole new therapist thing has me wondering: who is easier to talk to? I know face-to-face is really difficult for me. Strangers are difficult. Family & friends are pretty much impossible to talk to. I worry a lot about judgements. I worry about people’s opinion of me, so the things I bring to therapy are really difficult to talk about with anyone. But I have figured out that speaking with professionals who specialize in certain things are easier to talk to about their specialty… like with De, I was able to tell her things because I knew she was a sexual assault counselor. I knew she would have likely heard most anything I was going to tell her from another client or from other clients in the agency via clinical meetings. I had a reasonable assumption that she would not judge me for anything I opened up about. I have a similar assumption about T, even though she has only been with the agency since De left the agency (4 months? 5?). But she’s been there, and she’s heard some stuff in her experience at the agency…
Anyway, I’ve come to the conclusion that I find it easier to speak to a specialist about the subjects they specialize in. Second to that, it’s easier to speak to a stranger, and only after those is it then easier to speak to a therapist I trust… It’s never easy to speak with family and friends about anything vulnerable. They see me more often and know more details. They can use anything and everything they know against me… and they can judge me without the professional courtesy of not telling me… At least people I see in a professional capacity would only judge me behind my back, and I will not know (hopefully… though as my med records from precious treatment show, that’s not always the case)…
So, who do you find it easier to talk to about all this crap? Why?
I got a call back from De’s old supervisor today. We actually ended up talking for quite a while (We both apologized simultaneously for taking up so much of the other’s time). We ended on me trying with another clinician there one more time. At first I was a bit relieved to have a trauma therapist again, and to be able to work on the trauma stuff almost exclusively, but now I am hesitant.
I don’t want to take the slot from someone who may need it more, I don’t want to take advantage of the system, and I don’t want to be an exception to the rule. Also, I don’t want to know that I will have to switch therapists again in 4 months if I don’t move… Looking back on my history with therapy, most of my progress was made with therapists I was able to see for more than a few months at a time (and who had more trauma experience). It takes me SO LONG to trust someone, the constant change makes it difficult to progress.
The positives about seeing a clinician at the s.a.c. center would be knowing that I am talking to someone who has more training around trauma, specifically sexual abuse. It might be easier for me to jump into the trauma narrative knowing that my time is very limited. They also have all the notes from De. Oh, and I made it a point to mention to the supervisor that I am aware of my tendency to distract from the focus of therapy and would like help staying on track. She agreed that it can be a lot easier to talk about the day-to-day stuff or deal with a crisis than to deal with the realities of the trauma. If I do end up there (so still up in the air, as I know I can back out even after speaking with the new therapist), I think I will underscore to her that I know my crises and self-harm are distractions. I will ask that she keep pushing me through all the other stuff that I am supposed to be there for in the first place. I know it was a huge relief when De did that a few times. She would have a plan in place for the session, and kinda just spring it on me when I got there. It was helpful in keeping me from getting too anxious, and in getting me through the material… I actually left those sessions feeling like I accomplished something (or at least felt that way as the week progressed). I wish she had done more of that, but we digressed easily.
Anyway, sorry. I got lost in writing up things to tell the new clinician (wherever I end up). Hoping that if I can write out those “quick & dirty FAQ’s”, then maybe the “getting to know you” phase will go a bit faster at least on her end. In talking to the supervisor today, I realized that I am kinda getting sick of therapy (at least the inconsistency) so if I can make this next round count enough to get me ok with a break, then all the better. I don’t know if I want to do therapy again when I get back up north if I won’t get to see Dr. C. At least if I can get a bunch of this trauma stuff out of the way down here (where it all happened, where all the huge triggers are), then maybe I won’t be so desperate for support. I’m just so tired of having to start all over again with the trust and the story… also, it’s difficult to find therapists who “think outside the box” in terms of treatment options. Most just regurgitate the same old things tried a million times that ended up not working for me.
The supervisor was explaining that they can adapt the TF CBT method for adults, and that it might be helpful. It’s still in the testing phases, but this center was chosen as a site to implement it and report on the results. If we end up using it with me, the data will be reported anonymously and with notation that it was adapted for an adult. Heck, at this point, I’m willing to try most anything (NO ECT or anything invasive though, never). Who knows… If it works, maybe I can move on with my life finally… That would be nice.
My other options are to 1) stay with TL’s agency and hope I get someone versed in trauma, 2) try D’s agency again, or 3) hope that one of the three EMDR therapists I emailed tonight takes my insurance…I guess I will see what it’s like talking to the therapist from De’s agency. If that doesn’t work, and the three EMDR clinicians don’t take my type of insurance, I will try out whomever at TL’s agency. If even that doesn’t work out, I will contact D’s agency and get more info… If all of that doesn’t work, then I will just take a break from therapy and try to do some self-directed work on it all (pretty difficult with trauma, especially since I feel the need to finally be able to share it, but if I have no choice, I have no choice). Here’s hoping whatever works out, does so for the best.
This post has been hanging out in its infancy stages in my draft folder since April… I keep meaning to add to it, to flesh it out, but I have trouble articulating. I think I am just going to hit post and hope for the best. I know I didn’t say everything I wanted to, but maybe this can be an ongoing thought process. TRIGGER WARNING for talk of child abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence…
Recently I’ve been seeing that a county in Florida is posting “public service announcement” signs declaring the residence of sexual predators as such. I’m filled with mixed emotions in this. The survivor in me is happy that others will know, but the clinician in me cringes.
As someone effected by sexual violence, I want others to know that it’s not ok if it’s being done to them. It’s not ok to ever be hurt like that. It’s not ok to live with that fear. I want to be able to spot a “predator” from miles away and warn anyone that may come into contact with them. I don’t ever want anyone to go through anything like that again. I want all failsafes in place to forever prevent situations like that. I want that as a professional also. I hate to see clients hurt like that. I want to stop the cycle of abuse and victimization. I want to be out of a job (or the prospect of a job, since I don’t currently work). I understand all too intimately the struggles of victims. I know the emotional torture these situations can bring about. I know the lasting effects af assault and abuse. I have taught classes on the effects of trauma. I have interjected my personal experiences to these theoretical classes. I can speak with some authority on it, but I wish I couldn’t. So totally I understand the need to point out dangerous people and situations.
The other side of me however, balks at the idea of signs proclaiming the presence of a “sex offender” plastered outside their homes. Don’t get me wrong, I most certainly do not ever want to see anyone else harmed like that, but I also know (from training and experience) that most sex offenders have some sort of trauma history. Most offenders did not get to the point of harming someone else without first being harmed themselves. Take the story of Aileen Wuornos (made into a movie, Monster, in 2003). She was one of a handful of female serial killers who murdered men in Florida. She was tried, found guilty, and executed in 2002. On the surface, she was a horrifically scary woman who seemed to kill her “johns” for no reason. But if you dig into her story, you find a scared, damaged little girl who responded to the world in the only way that made sense to her at the time. No, not all (or any? I can’t remember the full story at the moment) of the men she killed harmed her, but several others did.
I think there’s a very fine line that keeps some victims from becoming perpetrators themselves. Many of us don’t ever cross that line, but some teeter on the edge, and some do cross it. And not everyone that crosses that line is dangerous. I worked in a clinic once where a “sexual predator” was receiving services. To most people, he was a sick bastard who like to get off under women’s windows, or in the backyard by the kids toys. He was arrested several times for exposing himself and “voyeurism”. When he came to the clinic, he was quiet and shy. He looked and acted more like a wounded animal than anything else. Once he opened up to his clinician, we quickly figured out why he was doing the things he did. Initially, all but one of the clinicians that had been asked to work with him had refused to do so. Because of so many being reluctant to engage the client due to prejudices, his case was used in on-going training everyone at the office was required to attend. The first training had almost all staff leaving either in tears or in a slight fog. We were floored by the horrific abuse this man endured as a child. One of his many punishments was being stripped naked and tied outside by his penis for hours at a time in all sorts of weather, and for seemingly innocuous “transgressions” (eating outside of a meal time, taking more food than allowed, not returning home at the appropriate time, simply existing). He lived this his entire life. No one made a move to take the child out of the abusive situation. No one helped him when he was “bad”. In turn, he learned that exposure and sexual discomfort were appropriate punishments for being “bad”, and that being bad could be as simple as thinking the wrong thing, or being early/late by a few minutes. He learned to punish himself. After he grew up, he would stand outside a family’s home and expose himself. He would stand there until someone called the police, or until he felt he had been sufficiently punished (sometimes hours in the snow). He replayed the same abuse he grew up with, only we didn’t see that part of his story. All we saw was “some creep” being inappropriate around families, and it scared us… I still cry thinking of his story.
There’s a huge disparity in the treatment provided to victims vs offenders. This is evident not only in the way we treat sex offenders, but in the way we treat perpetrators of domestic violence, or anyone in the criminal justice system. We tend to forget that traumas wound deeply. Sustained traumas or early traumas tend to wound more deeply than later ones, but all of them have long-lasting effects on the people who experience them. I think a good recent attempt at illustrating this is the Netflix show Orange is the New Black. While it centers on one woman’s journey through the prison system, it does a good job of telling the stories of others also. The characters we are introduced to as vile and unsavory turn out to be some really endearing and struggling women. I don’t like every character on the show, and I don’t agree with all their life choices, but I can understand them. And the show reminds me to take a breath before judging someone. I try to let the anger wash over me, but then wash away. I try to remember this for myself also when I get too down on my actions and behaviors. I could easily have been one of those perpetrators with a sign in front of my house, but I’m not. I had the presence of mind (and the support of others) to realize that certain actions are not ok. I wasn’t pushed as far as some others have been, but that does not mean that if I had been in their exact situation I would have behaved differently. I still very much struggle with the concept of some of the thoughts I used to have as a child. It’s something I had only started admitting to De very recently, and only in the most vague sense (there is SO MUCH shame around it). But I think it’s very important to realize every action or inaction has a reason. The more I learn about trauma and abuse, the more I deal with in my own personal life, the more I begin to think that the “nature” side of the debate is less and less pivotal than the “nurture” side of things. Yes, there are very much differences in the way people are wired. There are different levels of sensitivity and resilience that have no known root in nurture, but nurture goes a long way in dictating the rest of our lives. Had I not had the conversations with my mom and aunt that I did as a kid, had I not overheard their conversations, or seen the way they and others reacted to some horrific stuff, I doubt I would have set out on this “different” path than some others who became perpetrators. I could have easily become the violent and out-of-control “monster” my father was (and still can be). I could have easily been in jail by now, but I’m not. And I’m thankful for that every day…
I don’t want anyone to think that this blog is meant to advocate no punishment, or no consequences for actions, because that is certainly NOT my intent. I just want to get wheels turning and people thinking. I want to advocate compassion in everyday life, and an awareness that sometimes acting out is just the tip of the iceberg. There are certainly people who are beyond scary. There are people who will likely not benefit from treatment or leniency, but there are also a lot of hurting people out there in the world. I think we need more compassion for that…
I’m suddenly reminded of a TED talk that I first heard about last year or the year before. It’s a different way to look at mental illness, and it speaks about “psychosis” with similar insight. It’s definitely worth a listen (or re-listen). Abuse and trauma has long-lasting effects, and maybe as a society, we need to start being more trauma-informed when dealing with perpetrators of abuses and crimes. We certainly need an over-haul to the mental health system in this country.
A friend posted this blog link on facebook tonight. I had wanted to see Divergent anyway, but now I want to read the book before seeing the movie (I tend to find they skimp on messages in movies). It got me thinking; not only are movies and tv glorifying sexual violence, but we are trained that being “hard to get” is a turn on, and no never actually means no. This is more pronounced with people who grow up in chaotic and abusive situations.
When I was discussing the concept of rape with a co-worker many years ago (she was working towards licensure as a therapist and in the process of completing her PsyD), she defined rape and assault as needing a decisive “no” with physical resistance. At the time, I had not mentioned my experiences with Duckboy to anyone except my own therapist, but even to her only in the most vague terms. I was taken aback by this friend’s rigid and adamant definition. I tried to gently give “other” scenarios (my own experiences without divulging that it was myself I was speaking about, but hypothetical subtleties in situations), but she refuted it all. She said if the woman was truly not wanting any contact, she would fight back and scream “no” until her voice was hoarse if she had to… “what if she says no, but he doesn’t pay attention? …what if she was trained to refuse once, but if he pushed the idea, she had to go along with it? …what if he laughed her “no” off and continued what he was aiming for? … what if he said she was leading him on, so had to do it? what if she was scared because he was so much bigger and stronger? what if he could hold both of her hands in his one and pin them above her head? what if the “no” caught in her throat as she was trying to say it but all that escaped was tears and shaking her head? What if…” To all this, her reply was that it did not meet the definition of rape, and was barely teetering towards assault. That conversation was had early in my acceptance of what had happened (there’s something about being in a situation that makes it feel normal, especially when you have always been taught to go along with whatever the stronger/louder/older person says without argument). Prior to this conversation, I had started talking to JF about what had happened with Duckboy, but this conversation had me ashamed for feeling that any of it was something that should not have happened. I started telling JF that it wasn’t anything wrong; that Duckboy had just been “a little forceful about the sexual stuff, but it was ok…” I think she had tried to get to the truth of it all, but I was too ashamed. It was not only not ok to fight back, but it was not ok to be disturbed by any of it if I hadn’t fought tooth and nail to get away. If he had no scars or bruises, I was consenting… I think it’s at about this time that the cutting had moved to my legs. I don’t really remember doing it, but I do remember having the gyn ask what the words on my legs were (and later JF asking about them because I had flat-out denied the existence of the cuts that were most certainly visible to the gyn). The gyn thought she read “slut” and “whore”, but she wasn’t sure about it so JF wanted to talk about it. I told her I wasn’t sure what they said, and that I didn’t remember writing them (I honestly did not remember it. I think that was one of the many times I had “checked-out” and cut myself only to wake in the morning to new cuts)… I remember telling JF that I didn’t really know why that would even cross my mind. When she asked if it related to Duckboy, I reiterated that he never did anything wrong; he was just a little forceful… I stopped talking about it shortly after that. Words appeared in blood on my legs, but I refused to talk about it. I was lost in the shame of feeling wronged when I “obviously” wasn’t. I started OD’ing on pills to help drown out my head (though only once was I “caught” and sent to the ER. One other time I was sent to the ER because the nurse thought I meant I had taken that many pills only 2 hours ago, not 14 hours ago), and to help ease the dissonance between what I felt, and what “society” (or at least a handful of “friends”) said was right or wrong. Mind you, my therapist, the nurse I trusted, and the gyn all colluded on the idea that what they understood had happened was indeed “wrong”, but for some reason I didn’t listen to their opinions… I didn’t address any of the assault or abuse stuff again for almost 15 years, but it crept back to my awareness regularly in the form of body memories and flashbacks. I remember the times I would close my eyes and “just get it over with” when a friend asked for “benefits” even though that was all purely consensual. He attributed it all to my coming out later that year. I never told him about Duckboy. For years, I was adamant that what went on with Duckboy was all in my head in terms of “appropriateness.” Even when the flashbacks interfered with my relationships (apparently I went pale and stopped breathing for a few seconds the first time my ex pulled out a realistic dildo. She had offered to stop, but I recovered my bearings and did my best to ignore the flashbacks taking over enough to convince her there was nothing wrong), I refused to acknowledge the damage done by Duckboy. It was only after the millionth recommendation from the millionth hospital social worker that I sought sexual assault counseling this past summer. Even when the body memories caused me to cut severely in an effort to rid myself of them, I refused to acknowledge a history of assault. When asked about it, I attributed it to the body memories, but refused to give details or call it anything other than him being forceful. There were the body memories that came before Duckboy, but I had no actual memories to pair them with, so they “didn’t count.” You can’t really work on something you don’t remember except on a physical and emotional level… at least, I have no idea how to do it, and I thought it was all in my head (ok, so it is, but in a different way). I know the basics of the situation from second-hand stories of what went on, but at the same time, my involvement is constantly denied after the first admission of occurrence. I was too young to really remember, so I only have the stories they told me about it. I know the guy served time for it. I know he assaulted more than one kid at the parties. I know I was told I stopped going to bed when the other kids went because I would throw a tantrum at the parties. It was before my brother was born, so I can assume I was younger than one and a half. The only reason I even know anything happened was that I was told to alert my parents if the guy ever tried to contact me (after he was released… I might have been 12 or 14). But all I have of that time are distorted nightmares and vague body memories. The stuff with Duckboy isn’t too concrete, but I remember more than I do of the earlier stuff. I have explicit memories of what he did, and fears connected to specific events. I react strongly and violently when touched without expecting it, especially by someone I don’t know and trust. I have scared family friends with my reactions when they were only trying to be genuinely, harmlessly playful (things that are harmless to someone who has never been violated turn into assaults for someone with a history). Triggers are rampant in medical settings because of the nature of medical exams. Even when I trust my doctor, dissociation is almost inevitable. I have yet to figure out if it’s more helpful to be alone with her, or have my wife there. It gets confusing and full of flashbacks either way. Speaking of doctors, I’m surprised more gyn’s are not more sensitive to assault histories. I think they are almost as uncomfortable addressing the possibility of abuse (past or present) as we are divulging it. It took me years to find Dr. F. Before her, no one asked about any specifics beyond the existence of an assault history. Dr. F actually sat down and talked before having me strip for the first time. She checks in regularly and is always asking what helps to make it all easier. I have not yet made any effort to find a gyn here because it’s so difficult to find someone that’s willing to take time and space to make things feel safe… Even at the hospital, when the doctors knew there was a history and those triggers had led me to the hospital, simply labeled me as “resistant” and “defiant” when I insisted on a female doctor for any exams. There was more than one occasion when I was not given a choice to refuse the exam or ask for a female doctor. There were several “unwarranted” exams that I was not able to refuse. Then they wondered why I “left” during the exam. They deemed me a danger to myself for dissociating in a very uncomfortable, vulnerable, and triggering situation… They replayed the old scenarios in new ways. You would think that with a greater push for awareness and understanding of assault situations (and trauma in general) that they would work harder to keep from triggering people and re-victimizing them. There’s still a lot of growth that needs to happen in that field…
Anyway, what was my original point? Oh, the thoughts on the rape scene in Divergent… well, I guess I addressed it. I’m glad that our kids are now being taught more often that “no” means no, and not a veiled “yes”. I’m glad that we are educating everyone on the concept of respecting boundaries. I’m glad that society is changing, albeit slowly. It gives me hope that one day my future kids will know that they don’t have to do anything that feels so wrong. I will never tell kids not to fight for their right to refuse to do anything. I will make sure they know they can always look to my wife and I for support around anything… and I will forever be vigilant for signs of abuse with the people I care about. No one deserves to be hurt.
I finally “finished” the piece I will be giving to De for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. I wanted the background to be different, but the paint and the brush just wasn’t doing what I had hoped. That’s ok though because I actually like it the way it is. I need to spray fixative on it tomorrow before my appointment, but other than that, it’s done. This is the most work I’ve done on any piece yet. I generally give it one go, tweak, then call it a day. It’s unheard of for me to go back and keep trying it over and over again. It’s good practice though. I got to try out a bunch of techniques along the way.
Anyway, here it is:
so, despite my nagging fear, I “came out” as having a sexual assault history on fb… I had posted the progression of my picture to give to De, and someone kept asking about it until I finally came out with what it’s for… it’s buried in the comments of that one photo, but it’s there for the world to see. Eek! I was thinking of explaining the piece once it was done, and I may well still do that, but I didn’t expect to say anything before hand. Oh well…
Um, I would answer this in my own blog, but I’m not sure… hoping it gets lost in the comments section of yours… but I’ve got a slightly different take on things:
If your vagina got dressed, what would it wear?
barbed wire and razor blades… but for my wife, a lacy black thing to make up for the need for barbed wire and razor blades…
If your vagina could talk, what would it say, in two words?
yes! no! (or: I hate you! please don’t go…)
About menstruation…
horrifically triggering most months… it all brings about body memories of being assaulted or violated. Cramps often feel like the sensation of being assaulted. it triggers emotions that I am not always aware of until afterwards. It can send me into a tail-spin before I know what’s happening. Even when I know I’m going to get my period, it takes me a few days to figure out why everything feels like it’s crashing. It wasn’t always this way. There was a time while I lived up north that the triggers faded and I could get through months without having flashbacks, but I guess places can hold memories too… Like De said, the house screams all the time, especially with these memories.
What does a vagina smell like?
deliciousness
What does your vagina remind you of? a lot of the time these last few years, it’s reminded me of being assaulted and violated.
What’s special about your vagina?
it’s been through hell and back, but it’s still ticking… it holds pain and pleasure in equal parts. I have a love-hate relationship with it. It’s betrayed me more than I’d care to remember. it has also been wonderful at times. I want more wonderful back though.
I think I like having J on Friday nights. She is more spontaneous and will joke with us for most of the hour. She seems more relaxed and less therapist-ish. It has its drawbacks (we don’t necessarily accomplish much on the serious side during sessions, but that’s ok for the moment). We laugh a LOT, and time seems to go by faster. We still cover some important topics, but a lot of the heaviness is left off.
Tonight, after starting really late then laughing our butts off for the first 20 minutes, we continued to joke and be inappropriate randomly throughout session. We accomplished some stuff though. L showed J that she had actually made progress on her resume. J gave us some more resume pointers, then we talked about jobs/volunteer positions L and I would like to apply for. We talked about taking personal risks and about some fears. We discussed goals, and came to the conclusion that L and I will be in this state for maybe another year. She will go for the Office Manager job, and it will either be a means to an end, or it will be our ticket back North. We were able to address the fears associated with trying something so drastically different. J even let us in on some of the other jobs she had done in her previous life (prior to becoming a therapist). Turns out, she had done a job similar to what L is hoping to apply for and thinks L will really enjoy it.
Yesterday, the office manager at the clinic had asked L if she and I would like to volunteer. I guess since we have been clients for at least a year (L for longer) and it was ok with both L’s individual therapist and with J, they offered us the opportunity to volunteer. Both L and I really like the organization, so we filled out the apps before we even went into session. Then during session, J talked about other positions opening up within the company and planted the seed for me to apply. We were able to talk through some of my fears about jumping back into the full-time working world and into mental health. I settled on simply volunteering for the time being while leaving the possibility of a paid position open for later exploration. I have no doubt I could eventually kick ass at the job, I’m just not sure I am at a place to step back into full-time. I’m quite a bit gun-shy about any major commitments when I only have a few weeks of stability under my belt. For the past 3 years or so, I seem to be able to hold it together for 6-8 months, then things tend to go south. I don’t want to ruin my relationship with this organization in case we do end up staying here and I do end up needing a full-time job down the line. And like I said, we both really like the organization and the services they provide. J pointed out that they have not only the outpatient office, but also the youth center and senior centers that need both employees and volunteers. She suggested that we start with the centers and see if we can incorporate our art-party ideas there maybe once a month. It would still be on a volunteer basis, but it would give us a chance to try things out and to build up a portfolio. De had also mentioned something along those lines with offering our services to the state with Kids In Distress and their family support programs. It seems once again, J and De are on the same page without necessarily talking to each other (they have releases but neither has had to make use of them. That’s totally weird for me, as my providers up north have always had open and active communications. I find that is not common practice in this state, nor is helping a client hook up with additional services when needed). I think doing more art stuff with “in need” populations could be fun. As much as I try to break out of the helping professions for any length of time, I always find myself drawn back eventually. I know at this time I do not want an 8-hour work day doing direct care. I know that would be too taxing. I would not mind doing some part-time group work or rec therapy. I miss the work I did as a Recreational Therapy Assistant (couldn’t officially call me a Recreational Therapist since I was not certified). I enjoyed making my residents smile and giving them something different to do during the daily grind. I’m sure I could find something like that here. I’m just not sure how secure I am in committing to an actual job.
I read a quote the other day; “If something happens once, it may never happen again, but if something happens a second time, there will also be a third time” I wish I could look at this in terms of the positive, but the negative associations creep in. I had 2 serious bouts of hospitalizations since 2007. Both consisting of over a year of revolving hospital doors. The second time was worse than the first. I crashed again after our move, but it wasn’t as bad (only 2 hospitalizations total). I find myself holding my breath for the next round of hospitalizations. I don’t want it to occur, but I fear it might. Triggers are rampant here. I don;t always know how to handle them. We had a great time on vacation, but I can feel little things seeping back in. I want to cry for no discernible reason. I’m sad more often than I had been in the past 2 months. I want to drink and smoke because I like the feelings they bring when done in moderation. I want to lose myself in my art and my music. That all often means I start shutting out others. I had told De last week that I felt as if I were running from something. This week the feeling is a bit more desperate. The self-harm urges returned with an earnestness yesterday. I journaled to De that I felt like something had been left unsaid in session, but that it was because I was censoring. My problem is that I don;t quite know what I’m censoring. I’m not in touch with the content, just the emotions of feeling unfinished. It makes me want to shatter myself (funny that the drawing I am working so hard on is entitled “Shattered”). I think things are coming out in my art and my music choices before they reach conscious awareness. I find myself collaging things without a real grasp as to why I am choosing those words or images. It tend to all make sense later (like the drawing). I have something in mind going into the piece but then it changes direction and meaning by the time it’s finished. I think my dissatisfaction with my drawing is a measure of dissatisfaction with its ability to accurately convey what I need it to.
Twice this week I came close to “coming out” as a survivor of sexual assault in a more blatant way. I can speak about the concept with De, however I have not admitted it outright to anyone else in so many words. L knows and mom has a vague idea, but none of my friends or other family have any clue. It had taken me over a decade to admit the impact of DuckBoy to myself, let alone admit to friends that it ever happened. There are still some friends that will never know. It’s not something I necessarily want to shout from the rooftops. I do want to be able to share my experiences though. I want to be able to help or inspire or at least make someone else feel less alone. This blog is helping a lot, but I think there’s something to be said for a more personal connection. Being assaulted is a deeply personal event. It can make you feel alienated and alone. It can make you question the events. Acquaintance rape can find you defending the person (They didn’t mean it, not any of the times. He just can’t control himself. I must want this. It isn’t really sexual, just my imagination. I should be flattered. I should like this… He can’t be that bad because he’s my [boy]friend). It can have you questioning yourself. It can trap you (abuse has a way of doing that, especially if there’s already a history). I don;t want to remain trapped in any of this. I want to break free. I want to know my life will be different and better. I wat to make it better. And I want to help others make theirs better also. So I toy with the idea of “coming out” to those around me. I think they would do a double-take if they found out. I think they would question my “defenses” of offenders. I am famous for pointing out that offenders need compassion and help, not necessarily punishment. One thing I have learned not only from having been assaulted, but from working in mental health: everyone has a reason for their actions or behaviors. Many offenders were also abused as kids. They have incredible baggage they carry around with them. People who end up killing or harming someone else likely was taught, either directly or indirectly, that power and safety comes from domination. When I see a story about a child molester, I wonder if that adult also has a history of being molested. Abuse is generally performed in cyclic, generational patterns. An abuser was likely abused as a child. We need to provide treatment and support to help break the cycle. Yes, punishment is also a factor, but if their head is anything like mine, they are punished enough internally.
When I first started college, I was introduced via a family friend to a psychologist who worked exclusively with sex offenders. At the time, I couldn’t picture working with that population (I probably couldn’t do it even now, but I have a better understanding of where they are coming from). I was amazed that this man was able to work with these boys and young men day in and day out. I wasn’t able to talk long enough to find out why he did what he did, but I think 18 years later I can hazard a guess. Many damaged people damage others. It’s not that they necessarily mean to, it’s just that it is all that they know. There are some exceptions, but they are rare. Even the most hardened criminal has a small, terrified child hiding somewhere underneath. Violence and anger are fear turned outward. An animal will strike out in fear and defense. People will do the same. If you don’t know that what you are doing is wrong (not by societal standards, but by your own moral compass), you see no problem with your actions. An offender who came to a clinic at which I worked turned out to be jus a really hurt little boy inside. He had experienced some horrific abuse growing up, and he perpetuated that to a lesser degree. He wasn’t a violent offender, but he did enough to be labeled and mandated to treatment. Only the intern was willing to see him. Once his story was known, every other clinician’s opinion of working with him changed. They suddenly saw the human being behind the disordered behaviors. Even the cops started treating him differently (repeat offender). I only heard short updates in team meetings, but I know he got off to a start on his healing. The instincts motivating his actions were finally understood by those in his life trying to help. I hope he eventually made it through that dark time… but I digress.
I think we all need to look at others with a different lens. We need to look at ourselves with a different lens… Understanding and love is the key to improving both society and ourselves. I wish I could remember this at times when I perpetuate the negatives I internalized growing up. I seem to have nearly unending patience and compassion for most others but I cannot seem to muster it for myself.
Oh, I also wanted to add a pic of the collage I did yesterday after session… I’m still trying to figure it all out myself, but I think I may like it.
I was messing around with water colors today. I have a LOT of practice to do before I’m reasonable versed in the techniques, but I think these came out ok. The first is a “practice” piece that came out better than the one on the intended painting…
55) Comfort
The next is the painting I wanted to have the dog in… It’s still in the works, as it’s bottom-heavy. I need to figure out what to put on the top portion to make it feel more balanced.
60) Superpowers – there’s comfort in the dog’s protection and the wings and the bear. There’s comfort in the blackness also. It’s a place to hide and blend in to avoid attention. Sometimes kids need superpowers to get through the darkness, even the inner kids.
The telling may suck, but damn does it feel good to not be carrying that all by myself!
I had that extra session with De this afternoon. She had read my post to her before I got there (at least the first part where I told her I wanted to read it out loud to her and asked her not to let me chicken out on it). I tried my best to stall for time so I didn’t have to read it, but she kept encouraging me to. After a few false starts, I was able to find my voice. I started off quickly stumbling over the words, but I was able to get through it. There were parts where my voice got quiet and cracked a few times, but I read it all to her. As she pointed out, I did not throw up all over myself, I did not die, I didn’t have a panic attack or pass out… I was still there and she was still there. She did not change her opinion of me. She told me that i did good. She said it took a lot of courage to finally say (I had prefaced the whole thing by saying that I had never spoken much of that out loud, and no one knew those details). As difficult as it was to actually give voice to what i had written and as vulnerable & small as I felt after I said it, a few hours later i feel really good. A huge weight had lifted. I still think I want to cry at moments, but it’s more tears of relief than fear or sadness.
She was able to normalize some of what I talked about. That helped a lot also… we covered emotional safety, and she validated some of the realizations I had about stuff that gets triggered when the past comes up. In the end, we didn’t cover everything she wanted to cover, but I was able to get out what I needed to say. After all these years of therapy, I was finally able to speak some of my secrets, and it felt really good in the end. I think feeling safe with De being an assault specialist helped that happen, but I also think I had to get to a place where I could actually speak about it. It’s been long enough that I have carried the details of the events by myself. It was nice to be able to share the burden, and I feel really lucky that De allowed me look to her for that support.
One thing I wanted to write about here that De also thought was pretty cool: one time I was with Duckboy, I was screaming at him in my head to stop, and my mom called right then asking if I was ok. I lied to her and said yes. De asked me how that made me feel (to have a connection like that with my mom), and i wasn’t sure how to answer. It was really cool. And I feel like I have put up too many walls to have that still… it’s cool tho.
We also talked about negative self – talk, and how some of that may change with the processing of things… there was other stuff that I wanted to note, but I have suddenly forgotten it. Oh, she reassured me that I wasn’t crossing boundaries. I had been doing good with trying other coping skills before reaching out, and I was reaching out appropriately… I showed her some of my recent art, and she reiterated that she wants me to do something for sexual assault awareness month in April… I’m totally flattered, but also kinda skeptical about producing something that random people will see (I don’t have that much faith in my skills). I guess I should just take her approval as all the justification needed and do something. I dunno. We’ll see…
There was more, but it’s gone again. Oh well.
10:40pm – I remembered that I also told her about the flashbacks that cause so much confusion (where I get lost in them and can’t tell if I’m in the present having a flashback or in the past wishing I was out of the situations I was in)… I was having trouble explaining it to her, because she kept on the idea of pulling in grounding techniques. I wasn’t sure how to explain that those “confusions” come suddenly and completely. I often don’t suspect it until it’s overwhelming and I don’t think to ground from it (too lost in the confusion). I know I could ask L for help (we have discussed me asking her who she is and other reality checks, but I have yet to make use of that… mostly it’s because I get so confused as to time and place, I don’t want to seem really dissociated if it is in fact the past… it reminds me a lot of the movie The Matrix for some reason). I used to dissociate a lot growing up, and some of it involved imagining a future away from the current situation. When these flashbacks come now, I have trouble knowing if I’m just imagining a better future, or I’m having a flashback. It’s very weird and disconcerting. That’s how I should have explained it to De, but I could not quite wrap my brain around that concept in her office today.
De has been trying to build trust and comfort in taking about my trauma. One phrase she has told me a few times has been “You’ve already been through the worst part, the act.”
My gut reaction to that phrase the first time I heard it was a loud “no!” echoing in my head, but I wasn’t sure why. It hit me the other night tho. The act wasn’t that bad because I was able to dissociate from it. I didn’t really have to “pay attention” to what was going on. When i have flashbacks or I have to talk about it, there’s a level of attention to it that I had not had when it first happened. It’s worse because I can’t (or shouldn’t) dissociate from it. The emotions come with accessing the memories. The fear sets in, the anger, everything… It’s worse because I feel and see and hear everything without being able to turn the attention off (at least if I want to be able to get anywhere with processing it). So I have to disagree with her when she says the worst part is over (at least for me. It may be different for a one – time trauma or ones without dissociation)…
I’m not sure what is up with my WordPress reader today, but when I click on a blog to read it, the application stalls and I’m forced to back out completely. I apologize for not being able to keep up with everyone tonight Hopefully it’s just a one-night bug that is only happening on my phone… sorry all!
Today was an ok day. De called and we scheduled something for Tuesday. I hope I still am connected to the stuff that came up yesterday. She did not sound mad or frustrated that I asked for extra time. I hope I can keep reminding myself of that when the fear of pissing her off comes up. I obsess over boundaries not only because I fear rejection/anger, but also because sometimes I have trouble reigning myself in. I wind up relying too much on someone and it works to push them away. I’m trying to find a happy middle ground (it’s harder than it looks). Most of the time when I was growing up, getting emotional needs met was nearly impossible in the chaos of all the domestic violence. Asking for support was often responded to with anger, frustration, or simply ignored (mostly anger tho). I have trouble stepping back and knowing that I am allowed to ask for things, and that the response will not being a hugely disproportionate display of anger. The old hyper-vigilance to anger is made stronger when I feel more vulnerable. I know I drive L nuts when I constantly check in to see if she’s mad at me. I know I’ve driven others nuts with it also. I’m sure De is getting frustrated with my constant checking and fear, but she has not said anything yet. It’s just difficult to step out of when so much is the same as my childhood once again (physical environment, and displays of anger or frustration all the time from those around me). I have trouble remembering that I am an adult who does not have to fear anger all the time from my dad or other adults. Once again I find myself stuck as both a small child and an adult. I have more autonomy now, but I’m still very much a little kid emotionally… it’s quite frustrating (especially when the flashbacks or really strong memories hit. There’s not much I have found that lets me ground into the present because I get confused about what the present actually is. The people around me begin to look like those I grew up with, so I struggle to notice that I am no longer a kid. Once again, my dog is mistaken for my dog growing up. My wife is mistaken for my best friend in high school. It gets very confusing). It hits harder when other memories start to surface. It feels like a domino effect of memories that come spilling at me. I can look at L, know she is L, then something gets triggered and she suddenly looks like C. I’ve noticed it more today and yesterday since the memories of DuckBoy bubbled up again. When we are out of the house it’s not so difficult to recognize it as the past rather than the present. But when we are home, I forget and get lost quite easily. It doesn’t help that the energy in the house is still very much the same as it had been growing up. There’s anger and frustration busting at the seams. I hate it…
Anyway, yeah. Asking De for some more support next week. I’m hoping I can find something to get me through the two weeks she will be out between Christmas and New Year’s. This program hasn’t called me back, and I don’t want to be left floundering for that long. I know we meant to hold off on trauma processing until after the new year, but my brain has its own ideas. I’m partly worried about losing trust completely with her, so I think my head has kicked remembering into high gear (that, and holidays are always hard for me. Triggers get more frequent and varied while my ability to cope with them gets severely tested).
I seem to have an inability to leave an art project solely for work with De, even when I consciously choose to leave the piece at her office. I have started drawing (and re-drawing) the image started with her on Friday. It’s in its third incarnation since yesterday morning. I’m hoping I will be happy enough with one finally. There’s still a few days till Tuesday when I go back to work on the one she is holding. I’m hoping I will be able to get it right by then… one day, I will leave the work purely for there, but I have trouble reigning in the creative perfectionism to just one hour a week. If I end up happy with one of the versions, I will post it here.
My wife asked why I liked this song so much. At first I wasn’t able to put an answer into words. I knew it in my head, but a combination of embarrassment and fear kept me from being able to say it… that, and it wasn’t totally cohesive in my head at the time. I was able to give her a hurried explanation later on, but it still feels inaccurate or incomplete.
Say something, I’m giving up on you.
I’ll be the one, if you want me to.
Anywhere I would’ve followed you.
Say something, I’m giving up on you.
And I am feeling so small.
It was over my head
I know nothing at all.
And I will stumble and fall.
I’m still learning to love
Just starting to crawl.
Say something, I’m giving up on you.
I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you.
Anywhere, I would’ve followed you.
Say something I’m giving up on you.
And I will swallow my pride.
You’re the one that I love
And I’m saying goodbye.
Say something, I’m giving up on you.
And I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you.
And anywhere I would have followed you.
Oh-oh-oh-oh say something, I’m giving up on you.
Say something, I’m giving up on you.
Say something…
I think it hits close to home, not with what I would say, but what I would hear. I’ve lost so many in my life because my mental illness is too much for them to handle. And each time I swallowed the news from that person without a word. I cried to myself, or behind closed doors, or after they left, but not to their face. In their presence, at the sound of the news, I shut down. I switched my brain off, because it was too much of a loss (it had always been significant people in my life, never just an acquaintance, because acquaintances never knew)…
I first heard this song last week on the unit (I rarely listen to mainstream radio). It struck me because L had just mentioned the night before that she was getting burnt-out on all this. It brought the fears elicited by that statement into focus, and put words to it. It put words to the other losses that had happened under similar circumstances. It spoke my fears of losing De to being “too unstable”… and then seeing the video piece with the little girl… it just struck a cord. I can relate to this song on so many levels.
Listening to it on incessant repeat lately helps me move through that emotion in measured waves. It helps work through the (still stubborn) fears of losing both my T and my wife to this latest bout of decompensation (though both have told me that, as of the moment, they are still around). I worry about how much more L can take of this. I worry that she has no real supports down here. I worry that the added stress of having to deal with the tension in the house will push her to the point of giving up. I worry that another hospitalization will mean the loss of De as my therapist (2 hospitalizations would hint to more instability than she feels comfortable moving along with). And with my luck, that would also be L’s breaking point… I know these are just fears, but they are real and present. I know how taxing all of this can be. I understand the impact, even if I don’t like it. And I would understand if she were to choose to leave… I would hate it, but it would make sense. I think that is why I fear it so much: because I can picture my own limits when placed under the same stressors. I could see myself no longer being emotionally able to handle it, and needing to walk away. It terrifies me that she will come to the same conclusion and leave to spare herself more pain. It scares me a lot.
I know De’s limits, so it’s a bit easier, and a bit more real to think of losing her as my therapist. I’m constantly reminding myself that I understand her stance. I know the training that states that trauma work should not proceed without a stable emotional base – for safety reasons. De reiterated all that yesterday. She said she would not want to open something up, only to have me without support afterwards and have me become a safety risk… I know I also don’t necessarily want to do it without extra support because I know my own limits. I have learned that I often need to process things a few hours later, and that the flashbacks kick in when the added safety of being around someone trained to help me process things disappears. I know how I react to the telling of certain events. I know it opens a flood-gate of emotions that I don’t often know how to control. De keeps saying the worst part is behind me: the actual event. But that’s not the part that scares me. I am afraid of the onslaught of negative emotions that seep out after the box is opened. Part of me is scared to tackle all this outpatient, but I also don’t have the option of a competent residential trauma treatment center at my disposal (most accept only private insurance if they accept insurance at all. So many of the places I looked into are self-pay only). So, I’m limited to trying this with an outpatient therapist, and I happen to feel comfortable with De. She knows more of the “dirty” stuff than even Dr. C knew. She may not have the full picture of it all, but I was at least able to open up around the concept of some of that stuff with her (I think because a lot of it is more common with assault/csa survivors than with the “general” trauma population as evidenced by some of the questions during the intake interview. Some of the fear of talking about it dissolves when direct questions are asked about the possibility of it being a reality for me)… Even with all my trauma-awareness training and all my intellectual knowledge of the existence of it does not make it easier to accept in myself. And even knowing it’s just thoughts, and never actions (especially after it was pointed out that my learning experiences until that time could warrant such a line of thinking. I confirmed that it was abusive thinking and should never be carried out in action, which I had already known in my gut because it had felt wrong. I’m consciously breaking those cycles), I feel wrong in having had those thoughts. So anyway, yeah. De knows more about the possibility of that stuff than anyone else. If I want to continue working through all this, I would prefer to do it with her. I know I need to continue to work on it because it’s very much in my face and present down here. If I don’t work on it, I’m afraid I’d lose myself completely…
But I digress… This song has so much meaning, and serves such a purpose for me right now. I apologize in advance to L for the obsessive nature by which I will be listening to it for the foreseeable future. Just bear with me hon, I’ll use my headphones as much as I can 😉
Did this Sunday (11/14/13)… rough sketch, but I need to figure out how to use this program better before I can call anything finished… I’m better with traditional media…
There was an interview with Hannah Anderson on the Today Show this morning. She is the young girl who was kidnapped 2 months ago by a family friend after he killed her mother and brother. She disclosed that prior to the kidnapping, he had made some inappropriate comments to her signaling jealousy and lusting for her. She said she did not tell her parents because he was her dad’s best friend and there for her mom a lot… The signs were present, but hidden out of (what I read as) fear of pushing out a support, respect for her parents’ friendship choices, and possibly a hint of worry in not being believed. This scares me. It scares me on many levels. While the push is for kids to return to being more respectful because they are disrespectful so often, I wonder if sometimes we need to stress to our kids that they need to stand up and be heard. Was there a fear that she would not be believed because he seemed like such a valued friend? Did she have a contentious relationship with her parents (like most teenagers do as they work on individualization) that lent itself to her not being believed if she would have said anything? Did she fear her parent’s reactions to any accusations of impropriety on the part of this friend?
I think back to the accusations made by some of the kids I used to work with. I think of how, while they were investigated by DCF, the attitudes of the staff were mostly ones of “closing ranks” to protect the person accused. How often do we ignore the things kids are telling us? Part of it comes from our own fears. We don’t want to think that the people we trust (either in work or in life) can actually be that scary. We put fail-safes in place for organizations that work with kids, so we expect a higher level of safety. But what about with friends? How can you ever be sure? I don’t want to be paranoid, but I do want to encourage parents to listen to your kids even if it means asking friends and family some really uncomfortable questions. I do not have children yet (or maybe ever, who knows) but I will always encourage the kids in my family to speak out. If something scares you or makes you uncomfortable, come out and say it. Say it until someone hears you. Say it to whoever you need to tell, however many times it takes to be heard. Say it in whatever way you can find to say it… I can only imagine how difficult this would have been for Hannah to say to anyone (especially since she revealed that she was having difficulties with her mother during her parents’ divorce and turned to this guy for support). He creeped her out with some comments, so she tried to distance from him. This tipped him over the edge. It pushed him to do unthinkable things to her family in order to get close to her again. I can only imagine the guilt she must hold… (or, I would hold incredible guilt if I were in her position).
On another note about the interview; I hate that our culture is so heavy on hugging without express permission. While I see the value of human touch, it needs to be comfortable and consensual. Savanah brought out the hikers that had spotted Hannah and her kidnapper. She told Hannah that they wanted to give her a hug. The look on Hannah’s face was incredibly telling about her trauma reaction to the thought of having a stranger near enough to touch her. Her face dropped into fear and confusion: this was a live tv interview. I still panic and cringe at the thought of touch from a stranger and my traumas happened over a decade ago. When the two couples came out and started to hug in succession, she looked visibly uncomfortable with the hugs from the women, but she looked panicked and kept her distance with the men. I know they were trying to be supportive, but I think they would have been more supportive by knowing some basic trauma reactions (especially with bodily assault). Showing up and meeting face to face is probably somewhat helpful (for both the people who helped in her rescue and for Hannah), but the physical touch seemed to have been a huge trigger for this poor girl who had only had 2 months to deal with all of this. I may be reading a lot of extra into her reactions, but I think some of it is also valid. I think we need to train not only first responders in trauma reactions, but we need to train the media. Many times, their pushing and “facilitating” simply exacerbate the trauma reaction. I’m pretty sure they are not intending to make things worse for people, but they do so none the less…
While hugs are meant to be supportive (and most often are), to someone with a history of assault or trauma, a touch can be horrendously triggering. Asking permission before invading someone’s personal space is always a good idea when you don’t know the person well or when they have a history of trauma. Be aware that they may say no, and it likely has nothing to do with you.
I know I shouldn’t be so bothered by this, it feels like I’m taking it all too personally. I’m raw these days though, and little things make me cringe. The intense empathy I feel for this kid in today’s interview comes from having opened up a lot of my own little trauma boxes lately. On top of the overwhelming depression, a lot of the old wounds have been “picked at” and are once again a breath away. (and the protective side of me is out wanting to help shield this girl from the crap I’m sure is washing over her. I hate to see anyone in pain, and she is certainly in pain).
Found a few journal entries from a few years ago. I’m afraid I may lose them in my email, so I’ll be putting them here. Many will be private, but some I may make public… I’m far-enough removed from the experiences to risk putting them out there… I may make this one private shortly, but for the moment it’s out there for everyone to read.
This one has some graphic descriptions of SI, a suicide attempt, eating disorder behavior, and details of sexual assault… please don’t read it if it will trigger you.
Names have been removed and replaced with initials to maintain anonymity. Spelling errors have been fixed, but the rest has been left in tact in the form that was sent to my therapist at the time.
had a good day. signed c’s lease. we will be moving in around dec 1st… it’ll be a bit weird, but whatever… we need to get out of here, so it’s a step up.. and cheaper over-all then here…
I feel like I should be writing something, but I am not sure what. Been feeling weird lately. wanting to take klonpin during the day instead of how it’s prescribed… wanting to drink… wanting to float away. not as off as I was feeling last week… seem to have alighted on a branch somewhere on my way down. kinda like that I didn’t take a huge fall. i can’t afford it; financially, emotionally & in terms of our relationship… it would just be too much for her… I have fleeting thoughts of od’ing… thoughts of crashing the car, or jumping out in front of a train… just thoughts… and just fleeting. but fleeting thoughts can sometimes lead to impulsive actions. I’m not going to go down that road any more… i’m wearing everyone around me out… i’m too much. too much drama, too much emotion, too much to handle… I really wish L would get some more support for herself, and use it regularly… she’s frying out her friends and supports and me… it’s a catch-22… I stress her out & she stresses me out in response to my stressing… and it just cycles. I got her in touch with a therapist in Dr. C’s office, but she only went once and didn’t even call about being sick for the second session, I had to do that… i hope she goes back to her. she needs more then I or her friends can give her. and she needs to learn more about depression and ptsd and suicidality… I can’t teach her that, because I am too wrapped up in it…
I miss Samantha Jane. she was only with me for a short time (well, she had been there for a while, but rarely showed herself. just hid in the closet or in the fibers of the carpet… Dr. C said she thought it may be some mild DID going on, but it wasn’t/isn’t… just someone I can picture loving, coz it’s hard to picture myself as a person during my childhood and much of my teens… I see pictures, but i don’t necessarily connect them to myself. I try, but it’s hard. it’s like memorizing what people have said about the events in the picture to know what to say when someone asks what was happening then… I have no real memory of it, just the stories I’ve been told… it’s sad… and empty-feeling, like I’ve just now become worthy of person-hood… but still at the bottom of the ladder… not totally a whole person, but on my way there… that’s where Samantha Jane should have come in… giving me some link to the world of being a human… i felt sub-human (proto-human as Andy would call it) for most of my life. this is a very new feeling. i don’t think anyone really gets it. I don’t really know how to describe it to anyone. It’s just that before I was empty and just a shell… now I’m slowly trying to fill up that shell with something that vaguely resembles a human being… but it’s hard. I feel like that wire statue that someone has filled with wet sand. while the sand is moist, it holds the shape. as the sand dries, it falls out of that form, turning into a pile at her feet. I’ve wanted to make that piece for a long time now, I just don’t really know how to execute it. I’ve never really done wire-work before.. and I don’t know how to keep wetting and drying out the sand… it’s a fluid piece that needs that slow progression from emptiness to form to a pile of sand at her feet… Maybe if i figured out the wire-work, then took a video of the process of filling her up, moistening the sand, then letting it dry… that might work… but I really like the idea of an actual piece that you can see and touch… feel the sand, both wet & dry… pick up the piece in both states and get the metaphor of the feeling… but I will likely sit in my head for a longer while until I gain the skills to produce it. I wish i was better at my art. I wish I didn’t take the easy way out with photographs lately… but I just can’t draw anymore. I can’t paint… it’s all left me. I try, but nothing looks right… nothing feels right when I’m done… except those pieces from the hospital (and even out of those, I only liked a few). I need to take a class or something… join a group… anything to get me flowing in art again. pics are great, but I feel like they take less and less creativity… eventually, everyone’s photos all look the same… even on dA where people are supposed to be growing and finding unique and new ways to present the subject… it’s all really the same. all the fall pics look alike. you can’t tell one sunrise from another… even in my own work. I don’t feel there’s much originality to it…
Speaking of work on dA… I read some moving journals and notes… they were on recent suicides of people… everyone seems to know how to describe the Hollywood version of it, the romanticized version of suicide where it all goes well and you never have second thoughts… truth is, you do, and it doesn’t always all go as planned. If it did, i wouldn’t be here today. I would have died that time with N… No one ever recognizes the second-guessing part. I don’t even think therapists get it (unless maybe they’ve been there and tried it…). There’s that momentary feeling of fear and being trapped by your decision… even though you have only made the decision to end your life by yourself, you’ve only committed to doing it to yourself, you somehow feel trapped in that decision… I hadn’t even started taking the pills, but I felt compelled to go through with it, even though I was frightened and unsure… I felt like I had to do it… so I started taking the pills, and the fear slipped away. I was once again ok (not sure, but ok) with my decision… I didn’t know what to do after I swallowed them all… would I just wait? would I know what was happening? would I just fall asleep and never wake up? I grabbed Beary and my iPod on repeat with Breaking Benjamin’s “Phobia” and curled up under the blanket hoping that it would all be quick… I don’t remember stumbling out of bed and throwing up… I don’t remember N finding me. I don’t remember the ride to the hospital, or having my stomach pumped and charcoal dumped down a tube into my stomach. I don’t remember getting the IV’s. I don’t remember watching tv with N and laughing as if nothing had happened… as if I wasn’t in the ICU for a suicide attempt… I don’t even remember the first 20 times my doctor introduced herself to me… (this was all told to me after the fact). I vaguely remember floating in a soft cloud… someone smacking my hand because it was going for the IV again… someone telling me I would be restrained if I didn’t leave my IV alone… me telling them my arm hurt… them reminding me I had IV’s… vague memories of being tied to the bed… of being talked around and at by the nurses and the visitors (though I have no idea who visited or who my doctors or nurses were…) It was all just a fluffy dream… the impact of not having taken my life did not sink in until I was in IOL… I became angry at N & those that “helped save my life” because I did not want to be saved… I wanted to put an end to the depression, hurt and emptiness… the worthlessness and chaos inside my head… the feeling of being left alone in this world, because I wasn’t worth the energy to fight to keep me… I had lost someone every time I had gone to the hospital… you think I would have figured it out by then… by now… but it still hits me sometimes… in the car yesterday, L was saying how she never thought she’d be so poor that she would have to go to a food pantry to get food into the house… that she never thought she’d be this sad… in my head, I thought that none of this would have happened if she never had gotten to know me. If we had never talked that first night… she would be so much better off if she wasn’t with me… if she was with someone stable and caring and easy-going and so much better then me. she deserves that. everyone deserves that. I am not sure why anyone considers me worth a second glance. I guess I know why when I put on my smile and my happy face… but I don’t know why anyone would want to know me when I’m a mess… which is a lot these days… and people still think I am worth attention… I don’t really get it. My dad thinks all of this is for attention… all of this is to get away from the attention. to hide and float away from myself and everyone else. I threw out M’s pot… I should have kept it, even though I know it would have messed me up for the next few days, and that I can get better stuff if I just ask around… I want to drink or take pills or something to get me away from myself… but the bad part about it all is that it’s only temporary, and i will “wake up” to myself once the substance wears off… sucks… I wish there was a way to be high all the time, without ruining my life, my relationship, or having all the detrimental effect of substances… cutting does that, but again it’s only for a while… disassociation helps that, but then I end up missing life and just getting myself deeper into a hole… and I want to be present for L & the kids… I want to know and feel them… but at times, being numb would feel great… and not that kind of numb where you know something’s bubbling just under the surface, destined to break out… but the kind of numb where the bad feelings go away, and you are left with the normal, even mood that most normal people experience… where memories don’t intrude daily, and nightmares are about monsters under the bed, not in your bed with you. agh… I want to cut… I want to float away… I want to be at peace… not pieces… I’m afraid to bring this up to L or Dr. C because I’m not suicidal… and I don’t want to go there (or maybe i really am more comfortable in the blackness and push myself there deliberately…). I know I should want to be happy, and part of me really does want to leave all this behind… but there’s another part of me that feels really uncomfortable and out of place in a happy world. she’s the part of me that survived so much… dealt with so much… and gave up so much… she’s the child that Samantha Jane represents… she’s the one who just wants to stop hurting and being scared, but has been like that for so long, that the outside world really scares her… she doesn’t know what to do with it all. it’s overwhelming and troublesome because the ways she learned to survive all this time doesn’t work there, and she has to learn a whole new way of life… maybe that’s why she ran away… maybe she just doesn’t have the energy to learn it all just yet… maybe she’s really just hiding under the blanket with Beary listening to her iPod to keep her company… music and art have always been comfort to her… and Floppy-dog… I really miss her… I so wanted Budda because he looks and acts like her, though intellectually I know he isn’t her… he just brought me & Samantha Jane comfort… another throw-back to what works… I love Sadie & Alex, but it’s just not the same… there was something very special about Flops… and I think part of it had to do with the situations we were living though. She did the best she could to protect me, mom & A & K from dad & bitch… she took a lot of abuse for it… but she somehow felt responsible to do it… like I felt responsible to take care of everyone to make it all better… and neither of us succeeded… both Floppy and I ended up just getting more hurt the more we tried… I miss her so much. And she reminds me of Kl… I miss her too though I’ve been slowly realizing that she wasn’t as great as I remember… she was abusive in her own way… but she also protected us in so many ways. T tried too… he stayed away from my dad unless he had to physically intervene to protect us… and he stayed away from A because he did not want to end up like his family and abuse him… he really was a good man… but so tortured and protective. I think that’s why he and K fought so many times… he hated to see dad being abusive to us… he rarely said anything, and was always “a grouch”… but I think that’s how he protected himself from feeling too helpless in protecting us. I don’t know… nor will I ever know for sure… but i guess that’s my fantasy of him, because I needed to have some sort of positive role-model in my family… everyone else took part in the fights and abuse… everyone else was caught in the mix. He made sure to stay out of it the best he could…
I feel sad and longing for a real sense of self… longing to have SJ back to be able to assure her and protect her like I couldn’t do with everyone else… like I couldn’t do with myself even with duck-boy… mom even called one time because she thought something was wrong… because she had heard me call out in her head, and needed to make sure I was ok. I had thought about her helping me just then, but I couldn’t grab the phone, and he wouldn’t leave me alone… to keep him happy, I didn’t tell mom anything, just sat there while he touched me and groped me and told me it all wasn’t sexual… he would lock his bedroom door even when no one was around. He made sure I always wore short shorts around him so he could feel me whenever he wanted… he would zip open his pants and rub himself on me… but it wasn’t anything sexual… we had intercourse in his parent’s pool… but it wasn’t sexual because we both had our bathing suits on… he put his fingers inside me when we sat on the couch babysitting his little brother… but it wasn’t sexual… he made me dry-hump his erect penis, but it wan’t sexual because we had our clothes on… he made me suck his penis… stroke him and feel him and lick him and fondle him until he came, but it wasn’t sexual… I can feel his fingers touching me and making way for his penis… i can feel him inside me still as I write this. the memories are strong and painful… it was painful… i remember crying inside, and wishing the date would end so I could go home and curl up… so i could wash him off of me… but I kept going back… for months I kept going back… then he graduated and I thought I’d be free of him when he went away to FSU… it was far enough away, and he would meet other girls… but in reality he called me every night to “chat” which was really checking up on me and grilling me on what I had been doing all day, who I was with, and what I thought about. Did I miss him? Did I think of him every second of the day? Did I know he was coming home this weekend and he wanted me to spend the night at his parent’s place with him…? We did more sexual acts on those weekends then we had ever done before. He’d claim it wasn’t sexual, but by then I knew better… I had lost my total submission to him… when he went back to school, I would talk to J and try to find a way to get out of the relationship. She would even offer me to stay at her house the weekends he was home… but he would come looking for me, so I declined. I tried to break up with him for months… every time he said he loved me and that we could make it work and that he couldn’t go on without me… the day after he gave me a suicide note, I had J call his school and report it… he got SO mad at me for it… even though I just wanted to protect his life… he said if I really cared about him and wanted him to live, I would not break up with him… so I stayed a few more months, all the time half-assed trying to break up with him… them finally he came home for the summer, and I told him I did not want to see him anymore. He yelled at me over the phone. When I hung up, he drove over in the middle of the night crying, begging me to take him back… J and I had written out a script for just this occasion… I kept reading it back to him. he kept begging me and threatening his life… finally,I told him he had to leave or my mom would call the cops (told him she was there with me, in the bedroom, and if he didn’t leave by 1am, she would call the police)… it made him leave… at least for then. he kept trying to get back together, but I don’t remember much of that… My anorexia got worse… I started cutting while I was with him… he pretended to care… i pretended to care… but I really didn’t care about anything but being afraid to gain weight… afraid to keep living. I didn’t remember this part (the early start of the cutting and suicidal ideation) until I read a profile I had written for a website a college student & I had started together… it was supposed to be a peer-run support site for teens and young adults… I vaguely remember doing it for about a year and a half, then it fading away as she & I both got busier (though I think it was mostly her…). we dropped updating the site and checking the email… so the site closed down… and as I was cleaning to pack today, I found a rough draft of that profile… i didn’t remember that everything had started that early… I know the eating disorder started after K died, and increased significantly while I was with duck-boy… I went from a size 13-14 to a size 3 in a matter of a few months… the woman I babysat for kept asking me if I was losing weight… I kept saying no, coz at the time it wasn’t about the weight, it was just a sub-conscious attempt to deal with life… if I could only fade away, nothing could hurt me anymore… then the cutting started… as scratches with a pin at first for a long time… about the first two years or so of my bout with self-injury remained at scratching with pins, paper clips & keys… that night at the play, when I got no recognition at all for my work behind the scenes, I ran out the back and grabbed the car keys from my pocket. I scratched my arm so long and hard behind the building that my entire left arm was a huge raw bruise for the next few weeks… I remember G coming after me when I ran out of the auditorium, but not finding me till later… she caught me scratching, but didn’t tell on me… she scratched too… that was the first time I had encountered anyone else that did it. As the months progressed, and my anorexia got worse, J called my parents to tell them about it b/c she was scared for me… my dad said that I was just doing it for attention, and hung up the phone… I had made J promise to call me back after she had spoken to my parents… she told me how it went… i am not sure what else happened, but I remember searching like mad for something to scratch with and only finding scissors… that was my graduation to cutting… she never told them about that though… One time when I got back from Kairos and felt really depressed, I called her and left her a scary message (so she says… I didn’t mean anything by it other then being really tired and wanting an out…) I went to a Kairos post-event that night, and she almost ended up calling the cops on me because she thought I had tried to kill myself. She had called my mom first though, and she told J that I was at the Kairos thing… later that night J called me and told me how scared I had made her, and that I shouldn’t do that again… so I only left her happy messages after that. She still knew I was sad and hurting, but we only talked about that stuff in her office… I kept my nightly despair to myself… She saved my life in so many ways… if she and her boyfriend hadn’t been so caring and helpful, I would have died a long time ago… I forgot I had tried to kill myself then… but it was only a mild overdose if anything… not even enough to make me sleepy… how is it that I forgot all this until writing it? it’s all coming back to me. that night after the play, the stays at J’s… the panic of gaining weight again (once it finally became about the weight, and no longer just a method of control), the vomiting… the half-spoon of fruit baby food or yogurt that I could barely force down because it felt too much (slowly trying to kill myself with starvation). It’s funny, I lost so much weight, and refused to eat so blatantly, yet no one noticed except Mrs. K (the woman whose sons I babysat). Her & J… but J gave up on my parent’s helping me (she had tried so many times) that she just referred me herself to Renfrew for a support group (you had to have been in the hospital before to get out-patient or in-patient treatment…) and then my parents would have to realize I had a problem that was deeper then attention-seeking… so I stuck to the support groups… mom actually came with me a few times… then dad yelled at both of us for wasting gas and time… so we stopped going, and that was the end of my treatment till i came to UConn… That part is where my memory gets better…
Wow, that was a dump… maybe I should send this to Dr. C and maybe she will have time to read it by tomorrow… (please tell me if you mind that I sent this to you)…
I don’t really have a better description of it… it’s a combination of depressed, sad, lost, overwhelmed, tired, and… weird. I dunno. D and I tried to describe it more accurately, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it is. Between the stuff brought up in the intake, and then D deciding it would be a good idea to try to give me a DBT worksheet, I’m just lost. I don’t know why people don’t believe me when I say DBT and anything to do with it is very triggering. We were able to tackle some of the questions on the worksheet when I asked him to re-phrase them and not have me see the paper… It’s such a trigger for me. He commented on how I started to shut down after he showed me the paper… why is me saying it not enough? I am hyper-vigilant to the font, the lay-out, the language… It was such a bad experience for me when I did those stupid programs. I was able to do the group at D’s office because we didn’t rely heavily on the workbook used at IOL. The language was triggering at times, but not using it so much helped ground when those trigger alarms went off. It was difficult to do today because I was already a little raw from the intake… and the stupid worksheet… visuals are harder for me sometimes. I can often times talk myself out of the auditory triggers when the voices are different and the visuals don’t match. Talking myself out of the visual trigger was more difficult. I handed the paper right back to him and asked not to use the same language. The cognitive tasks of answering the questions that were worded differently also helped ground a bit, but it still sent my mind blank. I had difficulty thinking and answering. He had to repeat a lot of what he said a few times before I could get back to my train of thought. I think if I hadn’t just done the history with De, I would not have reacted so strongly to the worksheet… but seriously, what is it with people needing to test the things I say? I tell you I react badly to DBT, please respect that.
De expressed disappointment when I told her I was “allergic” to DBT. She says she uses a lot of the dichotomy of loving oneself but still striving for better. I had never really picked up on that from DBT, but maybe it’s because I don’t love myself (can’t even really say I like myself most of the time)… She was also surprised at how quickly I completed the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI) – I think it took me no more than 15 minutes. It may have been because I spent an entire year researching the instrument’s validity with eating disordered clients (it is highly correlated with SA, but had not yet been correlated with ED at the time. My research found it to also correlate highly with ED independent of any SA history)… but anyway, I digress. She was surprised at how fast I did it. We talked a bit about the “answers of concern” and I had wanted to qualify other ones, but I couldn’t remember anymore what they were. It’s amazing how quickly things can slip from my conscious awareness. There was one I remembered and wanted to go into more depth with, but I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to open that can of worms so soon.
She kinda went over a treatment plan, but it was mostly asking what I felt was important to cover. I think there was only one thing she mentioned that I felt was of no concern: I have no desire to mend relationships with any of my abusers. There’s some other stuff I admitted to needing to address, but again, the trust is not yet there, so I don’t know how much of it I wanted to talk about today. One day it may also end up on this blog but, at this time, it’s too personal and raw/immediate/close to touch on even privately (forget about publicly).
So now I’ve floated into this weird space that is neither positive nor negative, but somewhere in between. I had hoped to be able to sleep when I got home, but I think it may be impossible without some meds. I don’t want to take those until I am ready to sleep for the night. I hate taking them, but I’m glad I have them because I know insomnia messes with me a lot. At least this way I can (hopefully) knock myself into unconsciousness and REM sleep for tonight. My sleep started faltering a few days ago. I need to get back on schedule and keep working on that as a coping skill. De said we will be emphasizing positive coping to help minimize any decompensation that comes from addressing all of this (gesturing to my whole self).
I feel like I need to be writing more, but I am not sure what else to write. I just feel like I should be reaching out and communicating again. Once again however, I’m not 100% sure what needs to be communicated or how it should be done, or even with whom. So I’ll leave it open to discussion as needed/wanted/feels ok.
I’m also struggling with the concept of using substances/meds to help get through this weird numb-but-overwhelmingly-emotional-at-the-same-time state of being. Depending on what and how much I drink, it may get better or worse. And depending on which meds I take, I may be pretty out of it for the weekend. As alluring as those all are, I’m not sure any of them are necessarily smart choices. I could use the DBT concept of “riding the wave” of emotion, but it’s hard not to worry about even that getting me in trouble again (you’d think therapy programs that are in the same building would communicate about strategies they teach clients so one does not punish what the other would applaud, but I guess that’s asking a lot).
I met with the new sa therapist for the intake today… she had scheduled 2 hours, and we met for about an hour and 40 minutes. It was nice that she did not rush through things like the other lady had done. We covered a lot, but at the same time, not a lot. Does that even make sense? I think I like her better than the other woman I had seen there last month. De seems more approachable, and I didn’t feel as defensive with her. We didn’t go into too much detail, but I was able to tell her some helpful things and some things that have not been helpful. She was not all about lecturing me on involuntary commitment, and she was ok taking some things slow. I wasn’t really forthcoming with the specifics of the SI, but I think I may ask D to tell her about that when he speaks to her (she actually wanted to sign a release and talk to him, unlike the other lady I had seen). She’s ok taking things slow, and I think I was able to tell her some things to look out for with me, and how I tend to not say things correctly the first 50 millions times around.
I had forgotten the total content of the TSI Belief scale (I had done some research with it in college), and it brought some stuff up. There were a few things I was able to qualify with her when she asked. It also wore down my wall a bit. But, I’m able to sit with that right now and not fall head-long into depression, which is good.
I’m putzing around at Starbucks (they have free wi-fi) while I wait for my appointment with D. I’m glad I will get a chance to talk to him today, because there are some things I feel like I should probably talk about, though I am not 100% sure what they are. Stuff was brought up, but the specifics fizzled as fast as they came, and I’m just left with the emotional echo of it all…
both sides of the wall 