Scattered pieces

Where is it safe to just relax and play cards online????
We have chronic sleeping problems so often spend time during the night online just wasting time and distracting ourselves. Usually this isn’t a problem. We go play Yahoo games and just try to chill out for a bit. But far out today has been so bad with people just starting a game to only want to talk sex! Usually you can tell from their names what they want, so you either don’t sit at the table or leave the table straight away. But sometimes it takes you by surprise.
Usually we can play other games – we download free 1 hour trial games and play them, but when we run out of those trials we have to go back to the online games again.
It’s just so disgusting and so degrading. Sometimes we get caught like deer in the headlights and just start switching. Sometimes the ones who are meant to please men come forward and do their thing – making us all feel disgusted. We don’t know how to stop them. We’re terrified of telling our therapist about them as it just feels so disgusting to have a part of this brain that is solely wired for pleasing men at any expense. We know the reasons why they’re there; they saved us from greater hurting many times in the past. But how do we break that pattern? We know we’re going to have to face it all soon, but it makes the rational part of our brain think that we encouraged or asked for some of the abuse.
Amazing how something as stupid as a man in a card game asking us what sort of lingerie we wore would bring up all this rubbish again…

We’re always stunned at what a difference being at work does for us. We’ve always hidden and in order to hide at work, we have to appear “normal” or usual – that is minimal switching and no switching to negative states in front of others. So yesterday we returned to work and it was like there was an immediate stepping back of all the chaos.

The ideation is still there, but that’s not unusual. Most states get that to certain degrees – for some of the young ones it’s a need to runaway, for the older ones it’s a need to escape. Weird thing is that we don’t meet the criteria for clinical depression, so we always confuses the crisis lines and the psychiatrists. They don’t get that someone can want to escape without meeting all the other criteria for depression.

So we’re back at work being our usual selves. Switching in order to fulfil our job requirements – Management is great with the business side of things, Sophie does the social side, W does the heavy maths and logic etc. But this is what we do. This is why we can usually work and be considered high achievers. This is why we can come to work and keep going despite being sectioned over the weekend or getting no sleep the night before.

We know many people who aren’t able to maintain this level of apparent functioning, so we consider ourselves lucky. Therapists have considered that our working like this is our ultimate distraction from having to face our issues, and they’re probably right. But there is only so much we can cope with in any one week. Speaking only for us, we need that distraction of work. It is tied to so many of our mixed up messages that we got growing up, and also to our ideas of needing to be independent and not being able to rely on anyone but ourselves and the system.

We admire those that are healing as a full-time job. It is something that we don’t have the strength to do. We can’t even agree on some of the abuse that took place, let alone have to deal with it!

So today is a good day… Things are back to the normal level of oddness.

We’re also doing a photography course. Our clinical psychologist gave us an ultimatum that we had to either get out, or go do volunteer work for the elderly. Considering that with our luck we’d get to know the nice lady and she’d pass away; we decided for the more impersonal photography course. We were thinking of doing one anyways, so it was just a good poke to get us moving. Sometimes we need to be prodded :)

Also seems like we haven’t totally blown the friendship we thought we’d successfully destroyed the other night. Things are back to tentative contact… :) We really shouldn’t be allowed out when we’re so switchy and all over the place!

Today is what would have been the 5th wedding anniversary.
Today is one year since our previous therapist sectioned us because of a misunderstanding about the amount of medication we had taken – she thought it was an overdose and it wasn’t.

Last night we did something that we regret and has hurt us and a good friend.
Today we’re trying to pretend it won’t influence our friendship, but it will.

Today we can’t stand anything. Can’t stand noise. Can’t stand silence. Can’t stand the sound of the mother breathing. Can’t stand the anger that we can feel coming from within. Can’t stand the memories that are playing over and over as a movie reel in the head.

Can’t stand being a victim anymore. The pain hurts too much. We want to escape. We want to bring the people that hurt us to justice. We are just going around in circles banging ourselves as we circle. We will never be able to bring the abusers to justice. Some have now died. Some are already in prison for hurting other girls. The others we just don’t have the strength to fight.

We feel so defeated and pathetic. Hate this feeling more than any other. At least when we’re fighting we have a purpose and a hope. Now we feel nothing. Just the need to run. Run to where? We don’t care, we just need to run. To escape. To eliminate the need to have to deal with this all again tomorrow.

We’ve gone beyond battle weary.
So shouldn’t have done anything last night.
Anything that feels good at the time always feels dirty afterwards.

—————-
Now playing: The Cranberries – Zombie
via FoxyTunes

Well we didn’t get sectioned under the Mental Health Act!!! Yippee!!!
We had to go see the psychiatrist to get some more anxiety meds and he decided that, although he has concerns about our safety, we’ve got enough control to monitor the situation. Also the mother is arriving tonight, so we’ve got another source of safety and reason.

We’re worried about the mother arriving… She hasn’t seen us this bad probably ever. Hopefully the threat of her arriving will force the dissociation to settle as a way of protecting the system.

On a totally different subject, we called the guy from America this morning. NOT a good idea when we’re so dissociative. There are ones of us who are solely set-up for satisfying the whims of men. So the poor guy got the whole works… Thankfully I managed to get some control before it got too out of control, but it just showed that we probably can’t call him again. We can’t be trusted not to do it again, and it isn’t fair on him. He said he realised what was happening, but didn’t stop it. What a mess. Neither of us need that… so it’s back to emails which are much safer :) Hopefully all the lines haven’t been crossed and we can get back to being friends. Was interesting, he said we’re too alike and that’s what is so dangerous. I think he’s right. We don’t have his artistic talents or intellect, but we enjoy many of the same things. Also both being dissociative means that we know the problems that go with that.

Ahhhh just another day in wierdsville….

We survived the weekend.
The Crisis Assessment Team came around after we’d called the 0800 line. But we couldn’t face the psyc ward so ended up putting Aimee up front for the assessment – there’s no way they would section her she’s always so happy and cheerful. Thankfully the CAT lot are pretty thick so don’t ask simple questions like “What is your name” – Aimee wouldn’t lie.
We’re now trying everything possible to distract and keep some focus on being as safe as possible. We go online to try and watch clips on YouTube but often dissociate so end up coming back to find us down at the lake. Time loss is always scary, but at the moment is just dangerous. Some of us are not good drivers!
We managed to do a clip for YouTube to try and get some focus on doing a project. Got asked about it being subliminal, which was weird considering the images weren’t short enough or hidden enough to be subliminal. To add to the odd comments the same person came back after my explanation of why it wasn’t intended to be subliminal to say our mental health crisis was “interesting”. We’ve put all comments on approval, except for friends. Can’t handle other people questioning us at times like this. Too much scope for us to be triggered or mis-understand what is being said.

At what point are you allowed to give up?
When are you allowed to say “that’s it, they’ve won”?
What do you do when you’re ready to say that?
Why do people put so much value on life?

Our psychologist wants us to go to the psyc ward to keep the body safe.
I don’t know if we can.
Hospitals destroy us.
They rip your soul apart and empty you all fight.
If you show any emotion you’re considered dangerous and unstable – even if the emotion is justified.

We just want to world to stop and let us get off.
We know this is because of the ACC, Police, husband, wedding anniversary etc.
But isn’t that enough?
We aren’t making any of it up – I really wish we were.

We can’t cope with all of this and keep on pretending everything is fine.
We cried at work when we found out that the husband had lied his way out of trouble for breaching the Protection Order.
We can’t sleep.
We can’t stand silence.
We have to have our back to the wall or else we imagine him coming up behind us.
We can’t sleep in the bed as that is where he hurt us soooo much.

WE CAN’T COPE!!!!
WE GIVE UP!!!!

We don’t care if it looks like we’re letting those that abuse us win – they have!
They have destroyed us.
Our soul is destroyed.
Our mind is in tatters.

Ultimate irony is that we try so hard to give other people hope cos we always think they are worth so much.
They are strong enough to get through this and get back onto the healing journey.
We can’t get that about ourselves.
We’re sick of the healing journey that is slowly destroying us.
We’re useless evil scum that deserved everything that happened.

Just wish we could step aside and let the suicidal ones take over.
But there is still some form of preservation.
But its more concern about who will take care of our cat.

Today we got a letter saying that the Police aren’t pressing charges against the ex-husband for breaching the Protection Order because “he wasn’t aware it was still in force” :’(

So he again gets to lie and cheat his way out of something… Again he doesn’t have to face the consequences of what he has done…

We give up, there is no justice – natural or legal…

:’( :’(

So we’re badly dissociating today… not switching, just spacey and dissociative.
In some ways its worse when it doesn’t go to the full level of switching, cos at least if we switch then the spaciness usually goes and we can focus.
Probably the lack of sleep causing this, not sure… But its not nice!

Waiting to hear from the clinical psychologist about further appointments – she had used up all the other funded ones without getting more approved. We need structure, so not knowing when the next appointment will be is making everything feel so much worse. Feel really close to breaking today and as if we’re just going to run or cry. As we don’t cry it will be the running…

Mind has been going crazy and on overdrive…

For some reason tonight all we can do is recount some instances of abuse over and over. It’s not a flashback, but just this loop of what happened, why it happened and how it was coped with. Just plain craziness!

The memories end up being little mind flicks, like lots of little scars being created on our consciousness. Even then it’s still very much like they happened to some other poor little wee girl… One I’d like to protect… But still not associated with this body…

Who would want to own that history anyways? Who would want to have been used and treated as a toy since the age of about 3? To know that the father sat and watched and smiled as some of it was happening? To know that teachers were told and they did nothing? To know that this body soon gave up on asking people for help, because people just didn’t bother to help?

We soon learnt that we could only rely on ourselves, no one was going to save us but us…
But how does a 5 year old save themselves???
How does an 8 year old save themselves???

I wish it would make us cry to know that this was the reality of our life, but it doesn’t. We still hear the words from the men… “You enjoyed it…” “You’re an evil little thing and made me do this…” “You’ll go to jail or the mental hospital if you tell…”

But to be honest we were beyond the point of telling anyone by the time those threats came along… If a teacher wasn’t prepared to help us when boys were playing with us in their classroom under their nose, why in the world would we expect anyone to help us?

Since the mother has found out about the abuse, she has asked why we didn’t tell her. lol… she wasn’t interested in us… We were the “mistake at the end” “the inconvenience” “loud and ugly”… She doesn’t remember saying those words to us, but they were said to us or around us several times. So why would we talk to someone who hated us? We end up being in a position where we’re now trying to comfort her by saying that it was all our fault and we were conditioned not to say anything.

I HATE all of this at times… this is one of those times…
We’ve taken for going for drives when things get this bad, but tonight we know we’re not safe to drive. We might endanger someone else. lol… ok if we hurt us, but can’t hurt anyone else…

Ok so this past week has been “interesting”… All things psychological have been BAD!!!!!!! The body tends to get really bad PMS which can cause hormones to go all over the place and cause chaos…

On top of that, we got a phone call from a friend in the USA who is also DID… It was wonderful and scary all at once. We got to talk to him and he understood immediately some of the stuff that we have to deal with daily – the switching, the anxiety, the littles, the reactions to triggers… We ended up talking on the phone for about 4 hours (hate to see his phone bill). We talked about all sorts of stuff and it was so confusing because it made us feel stuff we hadn’t felt in ages. It was a good confusing, but still confusing. On many levels talking to him is wrong – he is married, we are both dissociative and we live on either side of the Pacific. I’m not sure what we both want from talking to each other and that is what is confusing. It would be easy to say that it’s just out of friendship, but I don’t know if it is. Realistically it can’t be anything else, but it felt like something else when we were talking. It felt like lines were being crossed that will be difficult to cross back over again.

Told our therapist about the phone call and she immediately picked up on the length of time talking and wanted to know how safe it was. I think that is part of the danger with phone calls, it can seem so close but yet have that safety level which means that you don’t have to deal with the day to day stuff. She’s worried about it becoming a fantasy experience fed by our dissociation if the phone calls continue, and we agree. But the phone call was so nice and sweet and….

So here we are, dazed and confused. Hoping that he doesn’t get into trouble for talking to us, hoping that we can call again, but scared that we can and it lead to something that will hurt us all. Although the marriage is unhappy – it’s still a marriage… we can’t forget that.

Also in therapy yesterday we were given a book called Dragon Slippers: This is what an abusive relationship looks like by Rosalind B. Penfold. It’s a graphic novel that tells the story of this woman’s abusive relationship with a man for 10 years… It’s our story :’( There are so many similarities with what happened to us as in the book that it’s just plain scary. At the start of the relationship it was all great and intense – he put flowers on the car seat when they were going out on a date; the ex-husband put flowers on the car seat when he came to pick us up one day when we were going to spend the weekend with him… There were lots of similarities to the point where Management asked if there was an abuser school and our ex and this guy were honors graduates from it!

We’re trying to settle and be calm about everything, but it’s really difficult…