Crap December 10, 2012

I feel like crap.

And I feel even crappier because I feel like I need to apologize for feeling crappy. Like this sudden mood shift makes all my rhetoric about not taking crap from people just empty words.

But…maybe they’re not? After all, I haven’t apologized to Boss because I don’t think I did anything out of line. I want his forgiveness and approval, but I’m not betraying myself to get them.

That’s something, right? That means it’s okay to feel crappy, right?

I really need someone to be kind to me right now. I’m trying to be kind to myself, but it’s not enough right now.

Unfortunately, I’m all alone. There are people I could call, but this isn’t urgent enough to bother them. Feeling crappy is not a crisis. Feeling crappy is something I can manage on my own.

Of course, I’m alone all day tomorrow too. We’d arranged the schedule that way when I was seeing NT on Monday’s–with the bus trip both ways, it took up about 4 or 5 hours. But now Mondays are empty after a long empty weekend. I know the obvious solution is to rework the schedule with my team, but that feels too needy. Ina year, I’m not going to have any of them, and I need to be able to survive on my own.

Dammit. God fucking dammit. I want someone to be here with me and be kind and hug me and tell me Boss is being an asshole and we’re going to find the perfect therapist and my life is all going to work out and I’ll be happy. Right now, telling myself these things isn’t cutting it.

Effect December 8, 2012

I feel crappy. Not a lot, but enough that I notice it.

It’s the boss thing. I’m kicking myself for letting it affect me so much while simultaneously trying to limit the effect it has on me. What this translates to is, “I need to cut. He hates me and everyone hates me and I NEED TO CUT RIGHT NOW. Shit! No, I do not need to cut. I didn’t do anything wrong. He was the one who was a dick, so fuck him. Not gonna let him unravel me. But I need to cut, I need to fucking cut. No, I don’t. I don’t fucking need to cut. I need to own my life, and fuck him and anyone else who gets in the way. But I need…no, you goddamn well don’t.”

And on and on.

And then there is the urge to disappear. Just sleep, be quiet, fly under everybody’s radar. But that’s not really my style.

Ugh. I want this to be easier. But the struggle is good–a few months ago, I would’ve just self-destructed and disappeared. I’m not doing that now. But goddammit, I want it to be easier.

Clearly I need a new therapist. We’re making progress–Team Leader and Fake Therapist have made a bunch of phone calls. Now we just wait to hear back. About now, though, I could really use a therapist who already knows me.

Not gonna cry, not gonna cry, not gonna cry.

Reciprocity December 5, 2012

Today I feel like I’m just learning how to be human in relationship with other humans. I’m immensely grateful for it.

For most of my life, I’ve been separate from people. I’m not sure how much was circumstantial, how much was my doing, how much was others’ doing. It probably doesn’t matter. I was the kid whose parents said they loved her but didn’t really. I was the weird kid who didn’t know how to interact and basically set herself up to be bullied. I was the girl who spent high school hiding in bathroom stalls because being seen made her panic. I was the girl who didn’t know how to relate to anyone who wasn’t a mental patient. I was the girl who hated hierarchy for holding themselves separate.

I’m not her anymore. Parts of her, yes, but I’ve grown up. Mostly. But I’m still figuring out human connection.

People like me, and I don’t get it. On the surface, sure–I’m smart, witty, and at least somewhat charismatic. But I’m talking about more than that. The people who really get to know me, who really see me–they care about me and like me, and I don’t get it. Even when I’m doing well, I feel like I have some essential brokenness. I haven’t grown out of that belief yet.

The therapist who sent me to Riggs said she adored me. My therapist at Riggs got fierce and protective, and she fought for me against my family. My Windhorse team leader told me last week, with tears in her eyes, that she loves me dearly.

These things make me want to run and hide because I want them so much but feel like I can’t ask for them from these people. Not knowing where the boundaries are anymore scares me.

But now I find myself wanting to give back, to take care of them, too. But I don’t because I don’t know what’s acceptable, what’s within the boundaries. Even little things–like today at the team meeting, Fake Therapist was upset and having a bad day, and part of me wanted to give her a hug and make it better. It’s weird because I’m decidedly not a huggy person, but the urge kept distracting me all through the meeting.

Or Christmas presents. Can I knit each of them something, or is that too much? I want them to know how grateful I am that they’ve stuck with me through all of this–god knows it hasn’t been easy. But they’ve been so present and so patient and so unfailingly kind. And I want them to know how much it means, how much they’ve helped. But I don’t want to be too much.

Not Real: DID v. Depression November 26, 2012

Recently there’s been some talk in my little corner of the blogosphere about people claiming certain mental illnesses are fake. Bourbon wrote a post responding to another blogger who claims that, because her DID was therapist-induced, all DID is iatrogenic. In response, Pride in Madness wrote about her experience of others’ denial of her experience of both DID and depression.

I’ve dealt with people claiming both my DID and my depression are fake. Both suck, but they suck differently.

With DID, deniers generally make a blanket claim that DID doesn’t exist. Generally people making these accusations claim sympathy for the “victims,” those pitiable people duped into thinking they have multiple personalities by therapists who are inept or unscrupulous or both. We need to be rescued by those who know better, who know all about how false we are.

With depression, the deniers I’ve run into haven’t claimed that depression doesn’t exist. Instead, they claim that I have no right/reason to be depressed and that if I’d just whistle a happy tune and pull myself up by my bootstraps, I wouldn’t be depressed anymore. The implication is that depression is something I am willfully creating and continuing.

These seem like two very different attitudes, but the underlying motivations aren’t. In both cases, there’s hostility directed toward people who are suffering.

My theory is that these people can’t admit to themselves that they are in pain. The pain of being human, just under the surface, is so deep and overwhelming and frightening that they deny it. Because they can’t bear to recognize it in themselves, they can’t beat to recognize it in others, either. So they attack us.

I try to have compassion for these people, but a lot of days my flak jacket just isn’t thick enough to risk it. For now, I’ll just try to avoid them.

Corners and Boxes

I feel on edge, and I don’t know why. Just this abstract anxiety.

Not sleeping well. Not eating well. Spending too much time alone and bored.

Having trouble the last few days using personal pronouns, whether first-person singular or plural. Maybe it’s a DID thing. I don’t know.

I feel like things are stirring under the surface. I don’t know what, though. I feel like I need someone to help me tease it out. I need a catharsis, or some less dramatic version of one.

I need a therapist. The list has been sitting on my coffee table for two weeks, but I haven’t made a single call. I have a list of questions to ask, even a script. I know what to say; I just can’t make myself say it.

I’m so frustrated at myself for this internal resistance. There must be a way around it, so why can’t I find one? Why am I still letting myself be controlled by fears of sounding stupid or being too needy? I should be over this by now.

But I know if I do make the calls, I’ll think I sound stupid and broken. I’ll beat myself up. I might very well end up cutting or purging to make the feelings go away.

I hate how I’ve backed myself into this corner. If I don’t call the therapists, I beat myself up for not calling. If I do call, I beat myself up for sounding stupid and being needy.

There must be a way out of this. Some out-of-the-box solution. I’ve just got to figure out what that is.

From the Department of Random November 25, 2012

Ex-Housemate, the food police and passive-aggressive extraordinaire, emailed me today to see if I wanted to have dinner since she’s moving to New York soon. LOL WUT. Strangely, there’s a part of me that wants to say yes. I don’t get that.

Today’s been a switch-fest. No particular reason, wasn’t triggered or anything. Just everybody trying to do different stuff at once: watch Stargate, sing Christmas carols, knit a hat, play with Winston, play iPhone dragon games, check email, write, eat leftovers, cuddle the baby doll. It was pretty weird. Sometimes having DID can be pretty comical.

I really need to fucking call the list of possible therapists. Things are going well and I’m happy, but I feel myself itching to process stuff that’s happening. I keep thinking I have therapy tomorrow, and I feel relieved until I remember I fired NT. It’s not even that I want to talk to NT–I just want to talk to somebody whose entire purpose is just to sit there and listen.

But I haven’t made a single call, and I’m frustrated as hell with myself. I have a script and a list of questions, but I know no matter what I say, I’ll feel like it’s wrong. I’ll feel stupid and ashamed and panicky, and I might very well end up cutting or purging to shut those feelings off. But for god’s sake, I’m 26. I should be able to make phone calls.

I also need to call the back doctor’s office and see if I can get a follow-up sooner than four weeks. The last two days have been bad pain days, and that’s unusual considering I haven’t been on my feet much. I’m hoping it’s just taking longer for the cortisone to kick in than the last two times, but I should see him sooner if I can. If nothing else, I need to talk to him about pain meds. I may have to ask for something stronger than the Vicodin.

Also, I want snow! All the meteorologists have been saying we’re in for a bad winter, but it’s been fairly warm for November, and no snow yet. As a reformed Southerner, I still think snow is awesome, mainly because I don’t have to shovel it or drive in it. One of my favorite things in the world is to walk down the street at night when it’s snowing. I love the way the snow swirls in the streetlight beams. And last year, I hiked up a mountain in the snowstorm (not my best idea ever) and climbed up to the top of a fire tower. I could actually hear the snow falling. You think it’s silent, but it’s got its own indecipherable whisper.

Right. That’s it for now from the Department of Random.

the possibility of hope November 17, 2012

Right now I’m feeling overwhelmed by a feeling of panicky hopelessness. There’s this craziness going on in my head that I can’t untangle.

I had this dream where I was moving. I kept packing my things, and then I’d come back and I’d find things I needed that weren’t packed. I just couldn’t get it right, couldn’t get what I needed.

Then I wake up to all this noise in my head about finding a new therapist.

“I need to start making some phone calls…”
“No, please don’t make me.”
“What’s the fucking point? They’re all assholes who’ll screw you over as soon as you let your guard down.”
“We need therapy.”
“I want somebody to talk to me.”
“It’s a bad idea to trust anybody.”
“They wouldn’t like me anyway.”
“I want them to like me.”
“No. We can’t be needy. They don’t like needy patients.”
“We are needy.”
“Which is why we can’t do therapy. Have to make ourself not needy.”
“That makes about as much goddamn sense as starving yourself.”
“That makes me feel better than therapy.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“This whole thing is stupid.”

And on and on.

I want to believe there’s hope. I want to believe that I can find the right therapist. I want to believe that the right therapist will help me calm down the chaos in my head so I can function. I want to believe that my persistence and hard work will pay off and I’ll feel better.

But right now I just feel hopeless.

(Un)Reasonable November 15, 2012

With this whole therapist drama going on, I’m really struggling to sort out whether my expectations are reasonable or unreasonable.

My highly fallacious line of thought is this:
My last 3 therapists haven’t worked out. Three in a row is a lot, so it must be that my expectations are unreasonable. If I had reasonable expectations, I wouldn’t have failed three therapists in a row.

With Fake Therapist, the frustration was her lack of experience with severe trauma. She usually changed the subject. When she did let me stick with the topic, her responses were mostly limited to “I can’t relate to that” (great, now I feel like even more of a freak) or “That’s helpful for me to know” ( fine, but that’s not helpful for ME).

NT2.0 didn’t respect my boundaries. I told her I didn’t know her well enough or trust her enough yet to talk about a very triggering interaction with Ex. I thought that was pretty clear, but she spent the rest of the session interrogating me about the event.

NT forgot to show up for one of my sessions, and her basic response to my distress was, “It’ll get better when you’re older, in 30 years or so.” Then I had a dissociative episode, and she sent me to the ER by ambulance, completely alone. When I saw her the next week, she shifted the blame to my Windhorse team and didn’t understand why I didn’t trust her anymore.

Part of me feels very strongly that these are acceptable, valid, reasonable causes for dumping a therapist.

But in another part of me, my mother’s voice echoes, telling me I’m too needy and demanding, I expect too much from people, I’m just looking for reasons to write off relationships.

I want to believe that first part. But how do I reconcile that with the knowledge that there are parts of me who do want more than anyone can give us? They want a redo of our childhood where we have parent-substitutes who do love us and take care of us. They want somebody to fix all our problems so we don’t live with this pain every day.

And knowing that these desires are unreasonable stirs up a lot of anger in me. It’s not MY fault I’m this screwed up and in this much pain! So why does it have to be MY job to carry it every day? I don’t want to save myself! I want someone else to do it! It’s not fair! Somebody else should fix me because it’s not my fault!

And that’s unreasonable. I know it’s unreasonable. Maybe I’m firing my therapists because I am being unreasonable on a subconscious level, wanting them to fix me. Or maybe I just had bad luck three times in a row. How do I sort it out?

Deadline November 14, 2012

So I have a deadline for ending treatment: December 31, 2013. Team Leader and Fake Therapist talked to my family this morning, and that was the major thing.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. There’s a big sense of relief in that I do know, finally, and my grandfather isn’t going to yank the rug out from under me the way he did at Riggs. (He called me the day after my birthday to say he was pulling the plug in 6 weeks, which was not long enough to wrap up the work and make a good discharge plan.)

But there’s also a sense of dread, mostly about housing. I don’t think I’ll be ready or able to work full-time a year from now, and my big worry is housing. I’ve tried to get on the list for government housing or housing vouchers, but the lists are closed in Massachusetts. Even if you’re already on the list, it’s a 3 to 5 year wait, and I’m going to be homeless in a year. But I’m trying not to panic. My team will help me figure something out. I hope.

It’s just so hard not to panic. I’ve been homeless before, when my family got sick of dealing with me. At least then I had a car to live in, and Alabama isn’t nearly as cold as Massachusetts. And then I got arrested for vagrancy, and they wouldn’t ROR me without an address. The whole situation was incredibly fucked up, and I’m terrified it’ll happen again. I’m trying desperately to distract myself so I don’t panic or shut down.

I’ve also started looking for yet another new therapist. Team Leader got a list from somewhere. I eliminated the men and the ones who I found online who don’t take my insurance. I should start calling the rest of the list, but I haven’t. A combination of phone phobia and general therapist anxiety is making it feel impossible. I might ask Team Leader and/or Fake Therapist if they can make the calls for me.

I’m gonna have to do more of an interview this time than I did with either if the last two therapists. I’m not good at that either, but I’ll have to get good at it. I don’t want a repeat of what happened with either of the last two.

Ugh. I’m sitting here desperately trying to believe I’ll be okay. Right now I’m not convinced. Everything just seems so dangerous.

The End November 12, 2012

I just told NT I’m not coming back.

I feel like I’m dying. Yet another week of hoping no one on the bus notices I’m crying.

I tried to tell her how much she hurt me, but the words just wouldn’t come. She kept asking me to talk, and I wanted do fucking much to yell and tear her to shreds. But I just couldn’t say anything.

It felt like no matter what I said or didn’t, no matter what I did, I was the asshole. If I yelled at her for sending me to the hospital, I’d be the asshole–she kept saying she didn’t have any other choice. If I didn’t say anything, then I was an asshole because she was asking me to speak.

I break everything.

And right now, all I want to do is gouge huge holes in myself. I don’t even want to exist. I don’t know if I can start over again.