Coward November 5, 2012

I just got out of my appointment with NT.

I told her I was angry, but I didn’t give specifics. I’m a fucking coward. I just couldn’t show her my emotions, the pain and fear. I had my mother’s voice echoing in my head: “Just don’t let them get to you.” So invalidating, but I’ve internalized it.

NT changed the topic, and I let her. She shifted the blame to Windhorse, and I let her. I’m just a fucking coward. I hate that I let people trample all over me and my needs. I hate myself so much right now. I even let her bully me into agreeing to come next week.

All I wanted to say the whole time was, “You left me alone. I woke up with no idea where I was or what was happening. Then I realized I was in a hospital, one of the places I fear most. I was all alone in a hallway. I didn’t even have my own clothes. You did that. You left me alone.”

Instead I said nothing.

Right now I want to find something sharp and shred myself to pieces. I let NT do it to me, so why shouldn’t I just do it to myself?

Rage November 2, 2012

Team Leader talked to NT and she said NT called but didn’t leave a message. Well whoop-de-fuckin-doo. Still didn’t help me so fuck her anyway. Team Leader thinks I should give her another chance and kept pushing it even when I said no. Wants me to “just give it some thought” even though I told her I wasn’t gonna change my mind. Now she thinks I’m an asshole too because I wouldn’t agree to meet with her and NT on Monday. Now she thinks I’m just being difficult because I keep discarding therapists without talking to them about it. Fuck that. Some boundaries aren’t okay to cross, and there’s no fucking point having a discussion about it because the relationship is too broken to fix. I’d never be able to trust NT again. But of course if I saw her again I’d kick into nice mode even against my will, accept the apologies and say it wasn’t her fault and say it’s all fine, and I’d hate myself and be screaming at myself in my head to stop lying but I wouldn’t be able to say how I really feel.

How is it that I’m always the bad guy? I thought Team Leader was on my side and would understand I couldn’t trust anyone who would send me to the hospital. But she’s taking NT’s side and suddenly I’m the bad guy because I won’t make nice.

So angry I can hardly see straight. Want to wreck things. Want to cut more, tear myself to shreds. That way I won’t go off on anyone else. Have to go off on someone, and since I’m already the bad guy here, it might as well be me. Can’t take this, can’t fucking take this. The people I trusted are betraying me. Don’t want any of them in my house. Don’t need to hear them telling me I’m a bad person. I already know that, thanks. Fuck all of them. Can’t be trusted. I hate all of them. It’s not fair. They’re supposed to take my side and they didn’t. They can all go fuck themselves. I need to cut.

Bad Day November 1, 2012

Today was bad.

I’d mostly gotten over the intense suicidality, but I was still having a really hard time.

I had an appointment with NT this afternoon (usually it’s on Monday, but I’d had to reschedule because of the hurricane) and told her how awful I was feeling. The last thing I remember was telling her my family hates me and wishes it was me who had died.

The next thing I know, I’m in the hospital ER and it’s 4 hours later. From what I could piece together, I dissociated and NT called an ambulance. But judging from the time I was admitted to the ER, NT didn’t even spend the rest of the session trying to ground me before calling the ambulance. For that matter, I don’t even know if she tried to ground me at all! Even my Windhorse fake therapist manages to get me grounded when I dissociate, so if NT did try, she must not have tried very hard.

When I finally “woke up” at the hospital, I was alone in a hallway. I kept trying to call my Windhorse team, but the calls wouldn’t go through because I had no cell signal. Finally I texted my nurse, who talked to the ER people and got Fake Therapist to come get me and bring me home.

I’m really, REALLY upset with NT. She knows I’ve been traumatized in hospitals, and I remember specifically telling her today that I didn’t need to be inpatient. She knew I have a whole team at Windhorse, but she apparently didn’t call any of them. Just called the ambulance. I cannot BELIEVE this.

Oh, and for added fun, the ER called my grandparents because they were listed as emergency contacts. They bothered my grandmother the day after she lost her sister, and now my grandfather is going to throw a tantrum about me. He might cut off my treatment because he’ll say this incident proves I’m not making any progress.

And now I’ve got to start all over again looking for a new therapist. Took me months just to find this one.

Sandy October 29, 2012

So we’re about to get hurricaned.

I’ve got candles, a lighter, a Red Cross emergency radio/flashlight/phone charger powered by hand crank and solar panel, several days of food for me and Winston, a jug of water, and a good book. I guess that’s about as ready as I get.

My worry is flooding. I live in a first floor apartment, and there’s a creek right behind me. It’s already high because we’ve had a lot of rain already, and the swamp it runs into is also high. I can go to an emergency shelter, but what would I do with Winston? If nothing else, I can call my nurse, who already has a beagle. She’d probably be able to keep Winston, and she lives on a hill where she won’t get flooded.

It’s 8:30 and cloudy, but not too bad yet. Not even raining yet, but there’s a fair bit of wind.

I’m annoyed, though, because today was supposed to be therapy. They canceled service for the bus I have to take, but I probably wouldn’t have gone anyway. I have to walk a mile and a half from my apartment to the bus stop. Not too bad now, but during the return trip when it’s pouring and gusting, that would not be good. Don’t know how bad it’ll be, so I’ve got no idea when I could reschedule for.

Maybe it’s a message from the universe that I should just quit therapy.

October 24, 2012

I want somebody to tell me what to do, how to fix this. How to fix me. But everyone’s solutions seems so inadequate.

NT’s solution seems to be, basically, just wait 30 years and then you’ll feel better.

Windhorse team’s solution is wait for the neuropsych consult about your broken brain and then figure out how to go back to school.

Psychiatrist’s solution is to put me on all these supplements I can’t afford because he doesn’t grok that not everybody has a doctor’s income.

None of these answers are helping right now. Nothing is helping the immediate desperation and feelings of intolerableness. None of it is addressing the fact that I’m trapped in a past I can’t escape on my own. None of it addresses the pain that’s so bad and so inescapable I don’t want to be alive.

None of these people make me feel any less alone with it.

I’m not suicidal, exactly. I want to live, but not in this much constant pain. It and I can’t both exist in the same body; there’s not enough space.

I don’t even need to feel better right this instant–I just need to feel like I’m definitely moving in that direction.

But will I tell any of these people any of this? Of course not.

This pain is my own fault.

I’m only good at quitting October 23, 2012

I’m having this very strong urge to quit therapy.

I like NT a lot, I do. But it’s going nowhere. It’s a wate of my time and hers. She doesn’t push me, and I can’t/won’t make myself tell her that I need that. I’m not allowed to need anything from her. So the hour’s over, and we haven’t talked about anything that matters. Her basic response to my pain is to tell me it’ll get better eventually. I know she can’t really tell me when or how–I get that. But it feels like she’s too passive about it. My Windhorse team can’t tell me how or when either, but they have ideas:”Let’s do a neuropsych consult. Then we’ll figure out what accommodations would help you be able to go back to school. Then we’ll look into financial aid.”)

I just feel like it’s a waste of time. To see her, i have to walk a mile and a half to the bus stop and then spend 40 or 45 minutes on the bus. I get there nearly an hour early because of the bus schedule–for my 12:00 appointment, I have to leave the house at 9:30, and I don’t get back until 1:30 or 2:00.

And it’s not like things are really that bad now anyway. I don’t feel like looking for another therapist. It was hard enough just finding her. I’m so fucking tired of trying. I’m exhausted, and it’s taking too much energy away from me to take all that time to get there and then during the session to keep myself from either begging her to make it all better or yelling at her that she’s useless. I just do not have the energy. My care cup is empty.

(And probably also I want to withdraw so I can destroy myself with less outside interference. One less person to answer to.)

Limitless October 15, 2012

Most of today’s therapy session was about whether or not I’m overcommitting to the point of inevitable meltdown. I am doing a lot:
–20+ hours a week for the campaign
–my internship
–physical therapy twice a week
–knitting group twice a week
–kung fu three times a week
–therapy once a week
–Windhorse shifts Tuesday-Friday

I’m also in a good deal of pain, and I’m barely sleeping. I was going 100 mph in therapy today, thanks to 2 hours of sleep and a caffeine pill. (I know, I know. No lectures necessary.)

I went on a rant about how tired I am of everyone telling me to slow down and limit myself. I don’t want to slow down! I don’t want to be limited! I spent so long unable to do virtually anything, and it sucked. I’ve got my Windhorse team telling me to slow down and my physical therapist telling me to quit kung fu. Not gonna happen. The point of all this therapy, mental and physical, is so that I can live a normal life. So shut up and let me.

I like being busy. It gives me an escape from the craziness that rises up when I’m quiet. Also, being busy and juggling all these commitments makes me feel confident and competent.

And I’ve done at least this much before, in high school and college. Granted, I was doing a lot of self-destructive shit then that I’m making a point of not doing now. But I think I can handle it.

I know I might be careening toward disaster. I know it’s a distinct possibility, especially with the sleep deprivation. But how will I know what I’m capable of if I just lie on the couch and do nothing? For right now, I’m thriving under pressure.

The T Word October 9, 2012

Torture

NT used this word yesterday. She’s not the first therapist who’s used it; my Riggs therapist did, and I panicked and hid in my room for a solid week.

“You were tortured,” NT said about my childhood. She dropped it so easily into the conversation, didn’t dwell on it. How can you say that word and not dwell on it? And how can you live that word and not dwell in it for the rest of your life?

I think a part of me is angry that she slid over it do easily, went on with what she was saying. Torture. Clearly she’s never lived it. If you’ve lived it, you can’t say or hear that word without your breath catching in your throat and your body going tense and your heart pumping so irregularly you’re not sure it wants to keep beating. Where’s the respect for the gravity of it? You shouldn’t be able to go on to the next sentence without pausing to remember you’re still alive. Part of me hates white-hot because she doesn’t have to feel the history behind that word.

“He tortured you,” my Riggs therapist said about my father.

She, at least, understood not to keep talking after the end of that sentence.

But parts of me keep insisting that it wasn’t that bad. Okay, a dysfunctional childhood with screwed-up parents, sure. But not torture. Torture is when you’re stuck in a sensory deprivation tank or have your fingernails ripped out. My life sucked, but to call it torture belittles the experience of people who were actually tortured.

But on the other hand…I was raped repeatedly for 16 years. I was given to other men for sex. I was photographed. I was forced to witness and be complicit in the abuse of others. I was threatened with death, a gun held against my temple or shoved into my mouth.

Maybe it was torture. Or maybe that’s being melodramatic. I can’t tell anymore.

Direction

“Sometimes the test is not to find the answer. It’s to see how you react when you realize there is no answer.”
—Babylon 5

I think I’m frustrated with therapy because I want answers, and I’m not getting them. I’m not sure whether wanting them is rational or not.

On the one hand, I know it’s irrational to expect my therapist or anyone else to tell me how to fix my life. Nobody can do that. First of all because pat answers don’t work; second of all because I know only I can save myself.

But on the other hand, I don’t think it’s irrational to want to feel like my therapist has some direction or roadmap to help me get better. I don’t want a pat little list of coping skills or something like that; I know that won’t help me. What I want is something along the lines of “First we’ll try A, B, C, and D to get you stabilized. Then we’ll work on breaking down these Rules in your head. That’ll involve dealing with a lot of memories from your past, and we can also use W, X, Y, and Z strategies in conjunction.” I don’t think that’s an unreasonable thing to want from a therapist. I’ve got my Windhorse treatment team helping me figure out real-life stuff, particularly going back to college, but I need to feel like I have an emotional plan in place before I try to go back to school.

Right now I feel like my therapy is directionless. Sometimes that’s been okay–I even valued it because it took pressure off me during some phases of my recovery. But now I’ve got this momentum going in my external life, and I want my internal life to match.

So how do I do that? Is it a fair and reasonable thing to ask from my therapist, and if so, how do I make/let myself ask for it? Or is it something I need to do for myself instead of expecting someone else to do it for me?

Apogee October 1, 2012

I feel like dying.

I don’t understand. I was feeling pretty good this morning. It’s something about therapy, but I don’t know what. I leave feeling worse, and it’s not the productive kind of feeling worse.

I only partly remember today’s session. I remember feeling hopeless and crying, and I remember yelling at myself to stop in my head. But I don’t remember what set it off. I remember being sure NT was sick of me, and I remember saying several times, “This is my last chance,” and I remember being angry at NT for telling me things will work out. But it’s bits and pieces, not quite coherent.

At the end of the session, she said I didn’t even look like I’d been crying.

“No, I never do,” I said.

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so good at looking like I’m fine. I want people to see how much I hurt all the time. I want them to see it so I don’t have to tell them.

When I lived in Boston, a little over a year ago, I stood on the bridge over the Charles River, wanting to kill myself and wishing someone would care enough to notice and stop me. It’s this big bridge with lots of traffic–the T, cars, and pedestrians. I stood there crying at the edge of the rail. It was May, but it was cloudy and cold. No one noticed me. I don’t know what I expected from anyone; if I saw anyone crying in public, I’d assume they wanted to be left alone and walk on past. I don’t know why I thought anyone else would or even could save me.

But I want it again right now. I want someone to see how much I hurt and make it better, or at least be with me. But they can’t. I’m too far away from myself for anyone to get close enough.