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.

Comments

[Paul]

I am very glad you survived! You developed a remarkable ability to deal with what happened to you, and it's wonderful that you are keeping hope and forging ahead. Paul.