Still Waiting February 22, 2013

Looks like SP probably won’t have a spot for me until the end of next week, possibly the week after next. This is so frustrating. I know they can’t know for sure when they’ll have a bed available, but I feel like they’re just stringing me along. It’s been three weeks now of “We’ll have a spot next week.” Meanwhile, my whole life is on hold. I only buy a few days worth of food at a time, and I’m coming up with lies to tell my chiropractor and my kung fu teacher about why I’ll be disappearing for weeks.

I’m also told by their admissions person that I won’t have access to my cell phone or laptop. However, I’ve heard anecdotally from two people who’ve been there that patients were allowed to have computers. I’ll take mine, but who knows if they’ll let me keep it. If you want the address or phone number to contact me while I’m there, email me or leave a comment and I’ll email you.

I will say A is growing on me as a therapist. She doesn’t always quite get me, but she’s stopped treating me like I’m oh-so-fascinating. And she doesn’t get offended when I correct her assumptions/understanding of me. I also think she’s finally getting that I don’t need her to find the edges of what I can deal with and pull me back–most of the time, I’m pretty aware of what’s too much for me.

Plus I really like her dog. Any therapist who has their dig around for therapy has to be at least a half-decent person.

I’m still really ambivalent about the ED stuff. I’m still abusing laxatives and diuretics, and I know it’s gonna get interesting when I get to SP and can’t take 20 laxatives a day. Part of me says, “That sounds like a good reason to tell them what’s going on and get help.” Then another voice says, “Fuck that shit. There’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing. It’s my body, and I can do whatever I want with it. I don’t need anyone to fucking fix me.” And another: “They’ll make me gain weight even though I’m not even skinny. If I eat like normal people do, I’ll get fat again because my metabolism is totally shot. Maybe if I just restrict while I’m there, they won’t notice. I can blame it on my food allergies.” And, “You know you can’t just hide pieces and expect to get better. You can’t just have a side order of self-destruction and think you’ll be okay with just that much. God, haven’t you learned that by now?”

So I don’t know what I’m going to do with that. I feel like it’s kind of out of my control–like it’ll depend on who in my system is most in control at that point. Or maybe that’s a cop-out. I don’t even know right now.

Also February 15, 2013

In therapy today, A explained alters as “basically, walled-off archetypes.”

It’s a relief to finally have a therapist who’s worked with DID before, but that comment was just…asdfghjkl.

I don’t wanna be an archetype. They’re all mythological and shit, or else she means we’re each just a single feeling. Like the Cardboard President we used for campaign events: it looks like a real person, but only from a distance.

Can’t we be people? I think I’m a person.

If we hadn’t been in the dark and twisty place, I probably would’ve argued the point with her. If she calls us archetypes again, I probably will.

–Alison

Guarded February 13, 2013

Had therapy again today. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it.

(I need to give this therapist a name for this blog. I guess I could just go with A, since that’s her first initial.)

I was anxious that A would want me to do the sand tray again, and I was stressed out all morning about it. But she didn’t bring up the sand tray.

Nope. Instead, she wanted to talk about my parts/alters/others. (I feel like I should have a preferred term, but I don’t.)

That REALLY set me on edge. It didn’t feel quite safe–I feel like I don’t know her well enough yet to trust her with a lot of information about me/us. Names, for instance. Definitely not giving her those any time in the near future. I don’t know why it felt so unsafe. I did outline a few parts for her, which was a big accomplishment. I was so tense the whole time. When I’m really stressed or upset, I curl my toes up really tight. I’ve never heard of anyone else who does that, but when I have my toes all scrunched up, it’s a good sign I need to pay attention to my stress level. My toes were all curled up in my boots, but I pushed through it and chose to trust her, even if only in small increments. I guess it’s something.

It just seems weird to me that I’d be so hesitant to discuss the DID. I have spent over a year trying to find someone who knew enough to work with me on it. Now that I’ve found someone with some experience, I choke on my words. I’m too guarded to talk about it without feeling threatened. I guess it makes sense in its way–DID is a defense mechanism–but it frustrates me that it feels so dangerous.

*le sigh*

I think my cold is getting a bit better, though. That’s something, at least.

Things February 7, 2013

–In a weird twist of fate, Bob emailed me while I was writing that last post. We’re talking again. I told him I’d be willing to do couples counseling. I’m not sure yet where the relationship is going.

–I’m near the top of the wait list at Sheppard Pratt. They estimate a week or two before they’ll have a spot for me. I’m desperately trying to find someone to take care if Winston while I’m gone.

–I got majorly stressed out at therapy this morning. Annie does sand tray therapy, which is one of the types of therapy I’ve never done. Expressive therapies stress me out because I feel like I’m being watched and judged, and the therapist’s interpretation of what I make might be full of incorrect assumptions about me. I’d rather just talk. Annie wanted me to play with the sand tray, and I couldn’t do it. I was tense, my heart was pounding, and it just made it worse because I was sure she was going to be pissed off if I didn’t do it, even though they never say so. I felt simultaneously like myself and a very frightened child. I don’t like when those parts of me get brought forward.

The I Word, lulz edition January 30, 2013

Today’s edition of lulzy WTF-y news:
Fake Therapist thinks we’re going to integrate at Sheppard Pratt. You know, in a program that averages a 21-day length of stay. After having had NO prior treatment for DID, beyond the diagnosis.

My reactions:

1. Lol wat
2. Do you know anything about DID?
3. Like, beyond the two paragraphs of dribble in an abnormal psych textbook?
4. Lol wat
5. This is not how DID treatment works.
6. Srsly, NOT IN LIKE THREE WEEKS for fuckin sure.
7. Lol wat
8. How much are you gonna freak out when I say fuck integration?
9. Just because multiplicity isn’t YOUR natural state of being, that doesn’t mean it’s an inherently bad or wrong way of being.
10. Like srsly, I get to stay multiple if I want. I just wanna not be dysfunctional about it.
11. Lol your face while I’m explaining this.
12. Lol wat

Privilege and Therapy January 18, 2013

Yesterday I accused my therapist of rich privilege. She won some points by understanding what I meant and agreeing with me.

She was asking me to detail for her the life I want. I can do that pretty easily–I want to be an attorney, working on civil liberties/Constitutional law, particularly as it intersects with mental health law. I want to live by myself in suburban Boston. I want to keep doing martial arts. I want to stay involved in politics.

I know what I want, but as she was asking me for details, I found myself getting more and more frustrated and resentful. See, I know what I want, but I don’t really believe I’ll get there because I have such limited resources. But this woman with a nice house and office (her office is in her house), a good car, and a comfortable life is implying that of course my imaginary life is achievable, telling me I should believe in/rely on the slim possibility that it could happen.

I told her I knew I was making some big assumptions without knowing her life story. I have no idea if she’s ever struggled to survive, but I assume most upper-middle class people have always had financially comfortable lives. They don’t realize how hard it is to survive without the financial resources they’re accustomed to, so when they ask me to assume I’ll have the comfortable life they have, I get angry. I feel disconnected–how can I really connect with someone who’s living in a different universe?

There’s also an element of sane privilege. My disability is psychiatric, and the treatments (particularly ECT) have intensified the disability. Just because I’m smart doesn’t mean I can easily go back to undergrad and then do law school. And people who struggle with mental illness are much more likely than non-mentally ill people to live in poverty.

I never see the issue of privilege in the therapeutic relationship being discussed. To be honest, I’d never really thought about it until yesterday, but now I’m thinking a lot about it and how it can impact the client-therapist relationship. Maybe I’ll do some more writing about it.

Crazy December 17, 2012

I saw Fake Therapist today. I told her that something is seriously wrong with my head right now. I go from feeling nothing to feeling way too much to feeling nothing again. I feel totally disconnected from my life, everything and everyone. And constantly I have this very specific, graphic, urgent inclination to stab a knife clear through my arm. I told her there’s something very wrong when you want to do that to yourself even though you don’t feel bad, don’t feel anything. I told her I could recognize emotions in myself, but it was like recognizing them in someone else–I don’t actually feel it myself. Except I do, from very far away.

I know this makes no sense. My brain…it’s not right. Someone shoots a bunch of little kids, and I don’t feel anything. From a distance I feel sad and angry, but *I* don’t actually feel anything.

I told her I feel distressed from a great distance. It’s not normal not to feel anything. I’m even disconnected in my dreams: I blew up somebody I love very much and then said it was better for her that way because of her health problems. I want my feelings back, if for no other reason than to reassure myself that I am, in fact, human. But at the same time, I like this not feeling. Makes a lot of things a hell of a lot easier.

Fake Therapist said she could see the weirdness in my affect: I went from crying to blank to laughing about jamming a knife through my arm and bleeding out, all in the space of about five minutes. That’s hella abnormal for me–usually I’m about the most emotional person on earth, even though I don’t show it most of the time. I think this must be some weird DID thing.

I also didn’t tell Fake Therapist that I’m not eating, which I’m sure factors into this weirdness somehow. I’m usually the queen of guilt, but now I just don’t care much at all. Meh, whatever. Totally not normal for me. But hey, my weight’s consistently under 140, so that’s all that matters, right?

More and more, I think I’m not actually Sara. I think I have access to everything in her head, but I’m pretty sure I’m not her. Maybe she’s the one far away that I’m getting emotions from.

Of course, that leaves the question of who the hell I am.

Weird Day December 13, 2012

This morning was kind of insane.

Team Leader was supposed to take me to meet this new therapist. Well, she doesn’t have a cell phone. It’s a thirty minute drive if the traffic is perfect, and when she hadn’t shown up by 45 minutes before the appointment, I got anxious.

First I called Fake Therapist, but she didn’t pick up the phone. So I called Nurse, who came over and gave me a ride. While we were on the way, Team Leader called–she’d gotten caught in bad traffic. Nurse and I managed to get there only two minutes late, and Team Leader met us there just a few minutes later.

I think the meeting went pretty well. It was mostly me and Team Leader talking, so I didn’t get much of a sense of what the therapist is like. But I didn’t dislike her, and she didn’t seem to be scared off by all the dissociative stuff.

Also, she has a dog! She’s not a therapy dog as such, but she comes in the therapy room and is really friendly. Sweet, gorgeous golden retriever. Having a dog in the office definitely wins this woman some points. Just don’t tell Winston I’m cheating on him with another dog.

I made an appointment for next week, and I guess I’ll go from there.

Then this afternoon, I met with Fake Therapist. She said she noticed at the Christmas party that I’ve lost weight and asked if I was slipping back into the eating disorder.

I looked her in the face and lied.

The lie bothers me less than the fact that I don’t know why I told it. I’m generally very attuned to my motivation for doing things, even/especially seemingly illogical things. Honestly, I just don’t understand this relapse in general. I don’t know why I’m doing any of it. “Because I damn well feel like it” isn’t an adequate answer for me. If I’m going to destroy myself, I want to know why.

Brains (No Zombies Involved)

I had the neuropsych follow-up today.

She basically told me I have to use my cerebellum more and deal with the craziness in my limbic system so that I’m not relying totally on my frontal lobes. The cerebellum lets you establish routines you don’t have to consciously think about; the limbic system deals with a lot of emotional stuff and is important to memory; the frontal lobes are intellect and creativity. (Yes, I’m aware the brain is a lot more complicated than that. This is just the relevant bits.)

She said I’ve been running almost entirely off my frontal lobes my whole life. Yup, got me pegged. I’ve never had to rely on the routine-establishing powers of my cerebellum because I was easily able to hold all the information I needed in my frontal lobe.

But the AVM, gamma knife, and ECT were all frontal lobe. I probably won’t ever get back to where I was before all of that, but hey, neuroplasticity is cool! If I make my lazy cerebellum get around to routinizing (totally not a word, but whatevs) a lot of the boring everyday stuff, then my frontal lobe capacity will increase because I won’t have to spend mental energy consciously thinking about those routines.

And she thinks dealing with the trauma and dissociation will free up my limbic system to remember stuff better. She recommended EMDR, which coincidentally is one of the techniques this potential new therapist uses.

As far as reading, she basically told me I have to learn to do it like normal people do and stop waving my Smart Entitlement around. (She said it much more politely than that, of course.) I used to be able to pick up any book, breeze through it in a few days, and remember it. Hell, I could often quote bits without making any effort to memorize. Now I’ll read a page or two and think it’s getting through, only to realize a minute later I have no idea what it said. Her suggestion was read a page, summarize it in my head, and read it again.

“But that’ll be so SLOW!” I said before I could manage to bite my tongue.

Shut up, Sara, your Smart Privilege is showing. This just means you’ll have to actually study now instead of just glancing through stuff and acing tests. Now you’re the academic 98%. Quitcherbitchin.

Odd tidbit: my auditory comprehension and memory were off the chart high. Funny, considering I’m half deaf.

I see potential new therapist person tomorrow. I’m nervous as hell, and my stomach is doing all kinds of unhappy things. I know I need to tell her from the beginning about the severity of my dissociation, including the DID diagnosis. But what if that scares her off–then what? Spend 3 or 4 more months searching fruitlessly? Give up, knowing that then I’ll have NO support in a year?

Okay, Sara, stop. Don’t make this a disaster before it happens. There’s nothing you can do to change the therapist’s response, and you’re just making yourself crazy.

I feel like I’m going to puke, but I can’t because I’ve hardly eaten for the last two days.

Changes December 12, 2012

I have the follow-up with the neuropsychologist tomorrow afternoon. I really hope she has good ideas on improving my brain function. Suggestions for academic accommodations are good too, but what I want most is a way to get back the level of brain function I had before ECT.

Thursday, Team Leader and I are meeting with a potential new therapist. I honestly don’t know whether I want it to work out or not. I’m scared. I don’t want to trust anyone new, and I’m afraid of needing anyone. Those things had become safe for a while. How do I get back to that.

I’m especially afraid of admitting to the DID diagnosis. When I saw NT again after the hospital incident, she said, “I didn’t realize you were at the extreme end of the dissociative spectrum.” Like we’re freaks. Like she just realized we had to heads–or several dozen. But she had been kind, called us pet names, made us feel safe–especially some of the little ones. And then she betrayed us. It hurt and we felt stupid for trusting her. And angry.

And now all these feelings–they won’t be the new therapist’s fault, but they’ll all be projected onto her. It isn’t fair to her or us. She’ll have to wade through all that crap even though it isn’t really hers. And us–we want to trust and feel safe right away. It’s not fair we have to deal with the feelings left over from NT, if what happened wasn’t our fault. We shouldn’t have to work to feel safe. It’s not fair.