The centre cannot hold November 10, 2012

Woke up this morning from a horrible nightmare. So bad I can’t even write about it. So bad I haven’t stopped shaking since.

Everything feels unbearable. Winston keeps whining and I want to scream at him to shut up. But he can’t help it. He’s just a dog.

Head spinning spinning spinning. Can’t make it stop. I’m a bad person. Bad. Bad. So dizzy. Just want it to stop.

No one to turn to. Alone. Be quiet. Can’t tell anyone. They’d hate me. Bad. Can’t trust NT. Can’t trust anyone. Afraid they all want to hurt me.

Everything’s falling apart and I can’t hold it together.

Effigy November 3, 2012

So not okay. Taking way too much Benadryl and gabapentin so I don’t have to stay conscious. Afraid if I’m awake I’ll end up doing something worse.

Being pulled in so many different directions. Go away/don’t leave me alone. Talk/don’t talk. Cut/sleep. Hurt myself/lash out at them. Live/die. Cry/scream. Fall apart/pretend everything’s normal.

Not okay.

Nurse came over. I opened the door because I thought it was just her. No, she brought Team Leader. Lied to me–tricked me–didn’t say Team Leader was with her. Proved I was right–can’t trust anyone. More betrayal. Trying to force me to talk. Not gonna. Anything I say will be used against me. I know how this goes.

They think I’m mad at them cause I ended up in the hospital. No–that was NT–mad at them cause Team Leader took NT’s side and Nurse took Team Leader’s side. Betrayals–not safe. Shoulda known better than to ever trust them.

Want to destroy everything. Them. Me. The whole world–everything up in flames. It’s the only thing that makes sense anymore. Kill it all–nothing worth saving. Nothing’s safe. So destroy it–burn it all down–burn me down.

Okay is a lie too.

Therapy and Intimacy June 7, 2012

I had therapy this morning and left nearly in tears, and I’m not even sure why.

 

At the beginning of the session NT2.0 wanted me to do some imagery stuff about creating an internal safe place, and I felt a lot of resistance.  I told myself it was because it was stupid and hokey, but I think it was more than just that.  It felt too intimate–if this is supposed to be my safe place, why should she even get to know it exists, let alone what it’s like?  I know the idea was for her to sort of prompt me into including all the senses, but dude, I did an MFA-level program in creative writing; I’m pretty sure I know how to use my imagination.

 

I don’t know why it felt like such an invasion.  I did not, of course, tell her any of this.  I’m so inclined to please people that I play the perfect patient unless something way out of line happens.  I don’t want to make people get angry at me.

 

Then we somehow got on the subject of my relationship with Kinda-Sorta-Ex-Boyfriend Guy.  I didn’t feel like I particularly wanted to talk about that with her, but it was better than the safe place imagery, so I ran with it.  I felt almost like she was talking down to me–not intentionally, but frustratingly.  None of what she said was really helpful to me; it was all stuff I knew already.  I’m smart and pretty aware of the workings of my mind, and I need a therapist who’s at least as smart as me to help me find the patterns and make connections between my present and my past.  I assumed she’d be smart because she has a PhD–and yes, I’m well aware that that’s a crappy bias.  She’s not dumb, but she’s just not at the level I need my therapist to be at.

 

Really, I think the underlying issue is I don’t feel a connection with her, but I’ve been second-guessing myself.  Just about a year ago, I did a consult with a DID expert at McLean, and probably the most useful thing I took from that was him saying I had good instincts about people in general and therapists in particular and should trust myself more.  I try, but that’s a difficult thing, trusting myself.  I also don’t want to admit that it’s not working out with NT2.0 because it was SO hard to find a therapist in the first place.  I’m tired of searching, starting over, and finding out it doesn’t work.

 

Can somebody just magic me up the perfect therapist?  Or go kidnap my excellent therapist from Riggs?

 

I had a shift right after therapy with the counselor on my team.  I thought I was doing a good job hiding my distress, but apparently not–he asked me after about 20 minutes if I was okay because I was uncharacteristically quiet.  I didn’t think I could talk about it without bursting into tears and hadn’t solidified my thoughts enough to make sense, so I just told him I was preoccupied.

 

I did mention it to my nurse when I met with her in the afternoon, but only because she asked how it was going with NT2.0.  I managed not to burst into tears.  That meeting was stressful in and of itself–she and my psychiatrist want me to see an OB-GYN about my horrific PMDD because I’ve hit the limit of my psychiatrist’s expertise on it.  I should go, if for no other reason than I’m really afraid one of these months I’m going to make another suicide attempt during Hormonal Hell Week.  Nurse says the practice at the local hospital is really good and know how to deal with abuse survivors, but even just thinking about it makes me feel panicky.  But surely it’s not as bad as offing myself because my hormones make me psycho, right?  Right?  (Yeah, I’m not doing very well at convincing myself of that.)

 

Going to kung fu tonight helped.  We did a lot of strikes, which always makes me feel better just from the physical release.  It’s also the only time it really feels good to be in my body, and the endorphin high is pretty great.  I’m still having to work around my wrist injury, but it’s getting better–I’ve got full range of motion back, just can’t put weight on it yet.  I’m eager for it to heal because I’m going to test for my first belt once it’s back to normal.

Most days aren’t like this. May 24, 2012

I had a total meltdown today.  Stayed in bed until around 3:00, when Team Leader basically kept knocking on my door until I got up.  Then I just had a sobbing fit and yelled at her that I didn’t want shifts with anybody, I wasn’t going to call anybody, and I didn’t want to see anybody from the team.  She said, “Message received” and left.

 

Then I felt horribly guilty for being mean, and I realized I hadn’t really wanted her to leave.  I thought very seriously about suicide, and then I decided I’d take some gabapentin instead, to see if it would calm me down.  It did.

 

I’m feeling a little better now–though I suspect that’s partly or mostly the meds talking.  I think it’s a conflation of things going on right now to make me feel so bad–abuse memories coming up, PMDD, my birthday coming up, and then someone saying something careless at just the wrong time.  I know I’m probably reacting irrationally, but I can’t help feeling this way anyway.

 

I think the reason I got so upset at being told I was “letting the abusers win” is because I don’t feel like that’s what I’m doing.  Yes, I have bad days where I have flashbacks or cry a lot or don’t get out of bed–but that’s not most days.  Most days, I’m getting on with my life.  I’m doing the things normal people do.  I feed the cats and go grocery shopping and read the newspaper and pay the bills.  Most days, I’m pretty satisfied with my life.  I never forget what happened to me, and I’m still affected by it–but it doesn’t dominate my life most of the time.  So to have a bad day and then to be told by someone I trusted that I’m “letting them win”…well, it really hurt.  It made me feel like only the broken parts of me were being seen when, really, that’s not all there is to me.  I’m more than that, and I need the people helping me to see that.  I need them to see all of me.

 

I feel very hurt.  Betrayed.  And I know, on a logical level, that I’m probably overreacting; Nurse probably didn’t mean to hurt me or to say that I was playing the victim.  But now I feel like I can’t trust anyone on the team; I’m still afraid they all think I’m just playing the victim and letting the abusers win.  I don’t know what to do.  I don’t know how to deal with this.

Terror May 20, 2012

I’m not okay.

 

The convergence of trauma stuff coming back up and PMDD have got me totally messed up.  My sleep’s all wonky because I don’t feel safe sleeping at night.  Not nightmares this time–just this dread, this sense that nothing is safe, especially if I’m asleep.

 

And the urges…bad.  I’ve been binging, and I want SO BADLY to purge because that would turn off the memories and the feelings.  And I want to self-harm, to cut and burn and hit myself until I’m totally broken.  It’s gotten so bad today that I have literally had to sit on my hands.

 

And suicidality.

 

I don’t even want to die.  I know this won’t last.  So why these urges?  The self-harm and ED stuff I get: they’re a way of numbing myself until the trauma stuff goes back to wherever it was hiding.  But suicide?  I don’t need a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and I know this.  I want my life.  So it makes no sense.

I’m so alone with it.  Part of me wants to tell someone and have them take care of me so I don’t have to.  But another part of me can’t–or won’t?–ask for help because I should handle this on my own and not bother anyone.  Besides, who would I tell?  Team Leader’s away until Monday, and in the meantime I’m supposed to call Pseudo-Therapist if I need anything.  Icicle’s chance in hell that I’ll do that.  She has no idea how to deal with trauma, and she’d just ask me what I need.  Believe me, if I knew I’d already be doing it.  So then she’d just sit there and watch me, clearly uncomfortable and unsure what to do, and inevitably I’d end up taking care of her instead of the other way around.  I’d rather be alone.

I see New Therapist 2.0 again on Wednesday, but can I really tell her?  Sit down in her cushy chair and, at our fourth meeting, announce that I’m losing my shit?  She’s nice enough, but I don’t trust her yet.

I’m afraid if I tell anyone how bad it’s gotten, they’ll put me in the hospital.  That would just make things worse, so much worse.  I don’t know if I’m being irrational.  I feel like I might be, but on the other hand, I’ve had other programs that were supposed to keep you out of the hospital betray their principles and hospitalize me.  I’d sooner kill myself than go back to a hospital.  I think I’m being irrational.  I think this fear is irrational.  But the terror is still all too real.