iPhone app

OMG!!!!! Squarespace finally got their app approved!!!! I can now update via iPhone which is so much better for all of us. Yay!

Halloween night

Halloween night, it should bother me if you read “Discussing Dissociation” but I have to admit it’s not. Maybe this is progress or maybe its just that I’d rather really be in the moment and enjoy what I do have versus what I had in the past. I made a conscious effort to really be in myself this evening and pass out candy to all the little trick-or-treaters and also before my nephew left for his candy collection I enjoyed seeing him be excited for the night. I enjoyed drinking sparkling cider with my best friend and talking while commenting on kids costumes. I was inside my present body and ya know what? It wasn’t so bad and I enjoyed it. Should I consider my past experiences not severe enough to cause problems in the present? Should I discount my Halloween fears because this year it was different? The obvious answer is no. I had to sit wondering though about this difference and I have to be honest that it does make me nervous that I am not pacing and flinching and remembering the terrible stuff. Well, I am remembering now but I wasn’t overwhelmed by the kids and I engaged with each one as they came up to get their candy. I looked at their faces and even spoke to the parents walking with them. I allowed myself to be HERE and not in the past where my mother sits like the sadistic vulture she is. I want this to be a pattern, I want her not to steal another moment of my present because she abducted my past and she does not deserve what I have gained.

I don’t know if I can follow through with this 100% of the time but I am adamant that she can only have what I allow her now. I’ve allowed so much time to be wasted on her and what she’s done but I have a choice now and I will CHOOSE to deal with my past as I need to but she cannot continue to steal the good in my life and I would so much rather enjoy being in the present with those that love me instead of sitting in the cellar of memories she left me in. It’s difficult at times obviously because all that stuff is painful and it deserves a voice and time to be healed. It deserves to be cared about and acknowledged but I feel that is different than allowing HER to invade.

I am getting pretty good at not associating her with things or events. I can look at certain things and tell myself that it’s the same item or event to me as it is to everyone else, my mother perverted it and actually made it different so that the present item or event is actually safe BECAUSE it’s different. Halloween to my mother meant a time for extra money because for whatever reason people like to be extra freaky this one day out of the year. For me it meant a very long night with a lot of strangers doing awful things and having to change into dozens of costumes that were not appropriate. It meant my mother could torture me with stories of torture and demons and ghosts and things that would ‘get me’. It meant lacing candy with drugs and the sickness that would ensue. It meant constant hypervigilance because if rape and torture were not enough, let’s wear masks and jump out a lot. Tonight it meant none of that. It meant candy for cute kids and hanging out and pumpkins with candles. It meant laughing and enjoying myself and simply not being harmed in any way. Halloween was never meant for the things my mother did, it was meant for tonight.

This will be quite the challenge as Christmas approaches. But I think I will have a decent handle on this technique by then...reclaiming. Each day is something new…

how?

I downloaded the new Peter Bradley Adams CD and I find I am having a very difficult time listening to it and not feeling overwhelmed, angry and terribly sad. He seems so attached to Therapist and I cannot even ask her if she has listened to it. I think she would really enjoy the album. If Coldplay comes out with a new album I doubt I’ll be able to handle it.

The past couple of weeks have been really strange. I have been really sick on and off and it’s taken a toll on my emotional reserves. Prednisone always gives me a hard time when trying to cope emotionally so I have to admit at times I find it difficult to stop moving for fear I might have a feeling or two. The other day I was driving Little E somewhere and randomly had the thought that I needed to start seeing a therapist again, at the very minimum to process my termination with Therapist. I am not sure I want to get into the DID stuff anytime soon but I feel pretty lonely when it comes to grieving and feeling so sad. I am really stuck on how to talk about it with anyone even though sometimes I really want to. I feel like I’d just keep saying the same things over and over again which is neither productive or all that pleasant for the party listening to me. So I am bottling it up and occasionally allow it to take over when I am alone. It does explode though when I speak with her on the phone. Like an eruption of sadness and childlike needing. Can we say embarrassing?

Lately, quite a bit of good therapy fodder has come up as I am caring for the precious little boy, Little E. And not maybe not just that but constantly being in the adult role puts a new spin on dynamics I see play out or remembering situations from my own childhood with the adult brain I now use 95% of the time. I’m finally feeling the outrageousness of what I’ve been through and have these moments of breathtaking clarity that it was really terrible back then. Maybe I am also feeling the stark difference in my life where I have moments where I can only thank my higher power for letting me be alive to experience. Being thankful also brings me back to the pain…because I should have always had those moments I suppose.

Therapist gave me a book before I left. It’s a children’s book called “No Matter What” which I frequently read to Little E at naptime. The story is about an adult and child talking about how the adult will never stop loving the little kid no matter what. So the kid asks a bunch of different ways how their love could change for them if they were somehow different and the adult continues and continues to reassure the child that no matter what they will love them just the same. What a concept. I read that book during our final session sitting next to Therapist aching and being so thankful for her words and the book. I miss that reassurance because some days it really fades. Some days I forget that I am loved and I feel lost thinking about myself as a child and how small and alone I was. I think about all that had to happen to cause me to have done the things that I have done to myself.

My best friend and I have been talking about this lately as she struggles to come to terms with her own DID diagnosis and she has a story from her childhood where she tried to hang herself when she was three years old. I try and compare my nephew to her as a kid and ask her what the hell would have to happen to Little E to cause him to even think about death. He is currently too young to have any experience with death, it’s a foreign concept as it should be. I give her examples over and over again about what would have to be done to Little E to push him over the edge that way and it breaks my heart. It breaks for her and then it hits home and I feel terribly sad for the child I used to be. Our stories are not all that different and sometimes I get caught up in bringing her into reality and often bring myself too. I mean Jesus Effing Christ, what happened to us? Just little tiny and fragile little girls and some people ripped it up, tore it down and left us for dead. Yet here we sit, actually we are both sitting here in my room right now blogging/writing away…and we survived. A few minutes ago she asked me “How do you think you survived your childhood?” and I swear I don’t have an answer and I am not sure I ever will.

How did I have the courage to keep going? Why did I continue to fight? How did I not just lay down and die? And how did I end up with this amazing best friend or this awesome Therapist that have led me to want to be alive and experience life for real? How is it that I now have moments of pure peace and joy and recognize it and I cry happy tears at its awesomeness? How did ALL this happen in the past 26 years? I survived the abuse, the pimping, the starving, the pregnancies, the broken bones, the chemicals, the sickness, the abandonment, the drugs, the witnessing and yet here I sit doing ok. How? I am thankful though.

Termination is bull-s#@*

My sickness is lifting some and I am feeling like I have more energy so I decided this was my first priority. I’ve been thinking a lot about termination lately and wondering why I feel so angry about things. I mean I was the one to leave and all but something still strikes me as frustrating or angering and it must not be in reality. I have to check and recheck my brain and wonder if Therapist really did care about me or if she felt the same ways that I did and when I remember the time spent in our sessions processing the leaving, I remember her tears. So she must have felt it.

Ooooh, I got it!!! I have ALWAYS used Therapist as a guide to my own emotions. When I am unsure how to feel or unsure what the feeling I am having is all about I mirror her and this time I cannot! That is why I am having such a difficult time reality checking what actually happened. I should really write more often. Wow, that was kind of a ‘duuuuh’ moment. This is the first time I am doing something without Therapist as my gauge for reaction, I am capable of having my own emotions in the moment but it is difficult to go back and re-examine the reality later because I have a hard time with distortions creeping in trying to convince me not to have certain feelings. It’s so much easier to try and convince myself that Therapist didn’t share the experience because it’s painful to think she did.

What this all boils down to is that I miss her. A lot. We talked last week for our monthly check in (it’s been a whole month???) and I didn’t get out anything that I needed. I choked up and was angry at myself for not being able to express myself. I was sad and hurt that it felt like she was so far away and I was pissed that I can’t have what I want which is in my opinion not that crazy. I interpreted Therapist’s distance as her having moved on, adjusted to life without me and I felt as though I was just standing still. I was angry. I am doubtful that this is the case but when I heard her voice all I wanted to do was sit safely in her office on my little space on the floor and stare at her shoes wishing I was curled up next to her. But no, I was 600 miles away standing in a frigid backyard watching Little E talk to himself about attics. She was in traffic on her way to work and our lives couldn’t be more far apart than they were in that moment. It was lonely and I still feel the ache in my heart.

Younger parts of me have strong reactions about not saying goodbye to her and Therapist offered something for that although I am not sure what that means exactly, it was vague. I thought about jumping on that but then decided I needed to do some serious thinking about that. Like, was I wanting to allow some sort of process because it meant contact with Therapist or was it really for parts of me to have closure? I need to think about how much uproar that could cause and whether or not that is something I am ready to cope with right now. Also, is there anything else that really needs to be said by her or is this my job to take care and reassure parts of me without her help? Most losses you don’t get a proper goodbye so should I just do what I need to do internally?

Another thing, this whole therapeutic relationship termination stuff is bull shit. There I said it. There is no other relationship like the one that happens between client and therapist and if anyone believes that there is a model for termination they should reconsider their credentials. Each therapy relationship is unique, just like friendships or familial relationships. You cannot quantify it. There are a million and one factors that make each termination different, how the hell do you adjust? For instance, termination with a client of 6 months is totally different than a client of 6 years. It’s different based on the struggles you have overcome and the trials you have been through. Termination is completely different for one client if you saw the same therapist for 11 years but only once every couple of months for a divorce issue than a client that saw the same therapist three times a week for year over the loss of a child. Each one is different. How do you determine what is best after the therapy is over? I think so little time is spent on this topic because most people never terminate properly or just never terminate officially. Why is there even a model? Maybe for the asshole therapists out there that don’t have an ounce of common sense but I think it should be up to the therapist and the client to decide without other professionals being judgmental or the therapist having to worry about what ‘ethics’ should be considered. If they are a good therapist they don’t even have to think about ethics, they use them every day.

Ugh. More later I suppose.

Termination Art

There is a conspiracy in my home that is all about never allowing me the time to blog. This must involve a highly intelligent sensor which is programmed to sound an alarm should my feet get anywhere near my computer chair. And God forbid I sit down, a fog horn must go off to alert everyone I may be contemplating touching the keyboard. At least for the moment I am able to sit here. The little one is not feeling well today and is napping so I am really hoping I may get at least another hour of time to myself.

I’ve been asked to share the art project that Therapist and I worked on as part of our termination/closure process. I am happy to share J Although, I will need some time to get around to explaining the meaning. Mostly because I am feeling very protective of it, but I will share eventually.

This is our workspace in her office, smeared with tissues and such This is her finished piece in my room

My process at home looked something like this on a regular basis.

And I never got a finished shot of my piece...but here it is while I was working on it.