Scattered pieces

Disclaimer note: Please don’t take our confusion about this subject as an insult on you or your beliefs.  It is purely an indication of how we struggle with the concept of a higher power.

I’m probably WAY to tired to tackle this subject at the moment, but we’ve encountered these concepts again recently and they have always bothered us for various reasons.

As a system, we all agree with the concept of “do unto others”. To us, this makes sense. You shouldn’t go around hurting others, and it makes sense that if you treat someone nicely they are more likely to treat you nicely. If they don’t, well at least you’ve tried your best to make it a positive exchange. This is not to say that you shouldn’t stand-up for yourself or be assertive.  It’s about having respect for the people and things around you.

We’ve tried to connect to a higher power several times during our life and never reached any sort of understanding regarding Christianity.  This could well be because of our early experiences with Roman Catholicism.  We are the youngest of four children, and the Mother nearly died giving birth to the oldest brother and had difficulty giving birth to us.  As she realised that she couldn’t leave us alone with the father, she started to use birth control – meaning she was asked not to return to the church.  However, the older brothers told us that the family was “kicked out of church because … [we] … screamed too much in church”.  Because we believed the brothers, for years we lived with the guilt that we were the reason that the whole family was going to go to Hell when they died.

So we were always a little wary of organised religions.  Despite this, we tried several times to “save our soul” by joining things like Rally (sort of like Girl Guides), which was a religious based organisation that was meant to empower girls.  One of the common memories we have is sitting in the church during a Rally meeting and being told to “let God into your heart”.  We would know this had happened when we felt a warmth and lightness come into us.  We were pretty good at dissociating and feeling separated from the world by that time, so no warmth or lightness got near us.  We considered this as a sign that we were truly evil and beyond saving or consideration by a God.

Another aspect of religion that has bothered us as described by a previous therapist is the concept of “free will”.  In that God gave every person the free will to do good or bad as part of their personal freedom.  W countered this with the rather stark statement “so she had the free will to go into that kindergarten fort and let us all get hurt” … “so we had the free will to leave that party with those men that hurt us badly” … “so we had the free will to say nothing when we were being hurt”.  Our therapist tried to explain that it wasn’t our fault and that the people who hurt us had the ability to exercise their free will to not hurt us, but they didn’t.  It was their evilness being forced onto us.  This didn’t make much sense to us.  How is it acceptable for someone to use the concept of free will to abuse another person?  It’s a bit too late to be accountable for that abuse once they’d died and are being held accountable by any higher power – the damage has already been done.

This is one of the reasons why the concept of karma brings more comfort, if we treat others with respect, over time we will also be treated with respect.  However, it also means that we were so bad in a former life that we deserved to be punished so harshly in this life as that balancing influence of karma.  We must have been someone REALLY nasty!  I think this is why when we think of karma, we prefer to think of it in the short term – even if we have had awful things happen to us, it doesn’t mean that we can take out that hurt on others around us.  We have the option to break that cycle of destruction and move to an attitude that will be more likely bring positive karma.

It’s obvious from this post that we’ve never studied any sort of theology.  We come from an applied science background.  We’re not particularly good at understanding abstract concepts such as faith or higher powers.  When someone points out to us the beauty of the flower, we look at a flower and explain how natural selection has meant that this flower has evolved over the centuries to ensure that it is more likely to be cross-pollinated and continue the species.

That’s not to say we can’t see beauty in things – we do.  We find peace and beauty in nature.  In fact its one of the few places and environments where we do find peace – there’s nothing like standing near the waterfront while a storm comes up from the Antarctic and slams into Wellington harbour; going for a walk through the Abel Tasman Park; or going around the Marlborough Sounds.  But we see those environments and elements as beautiful and having a scientific reason for being in that ecosystem.

What we’ve found interesting is that all three of the therapists we’ve seen recently have followed some sort of religion – the first involving a goddess and the last two Christianity.  How can they hear the horrors that their clients have experienced and still believe in a creator?  Or is the belief in a creator the only way they can hear those things?

I know there are survivors who believe in, or follow, some form of religion.  Some people find a comfort and purpose in that belief, and I respect that.  This piece is just about our confusion with the concept of a higher power.  In some respects I think this is because we learnt very early on that we can’t rely on anyone or anything outside of the system.  Our only avenue for help was to retreat inside rather than reach out.

Awhile ago we were asked via email whether we believed in any form of religion, here are the answers given at that time which probably best describes our confusion around this topic:
Sophie – no I don’t believe in a God as such, but I do believe there is something that is bigger than us.
W – Dear X, there is a God and we are being punished for being evil.  We keep on doing very evil things which mean we won’t ever go to heaven when we die. Yours sincerely, W.
M – Hi X, well not sure really.  On one hand it would be arrogant to consider that we are the only beings out here, however I’m not sure if that other being is what would be described as a “God”.  I have been curious about the afterlife and psychic mediums to the point where I had a reading done that was incredibly accurate and disturbing.
S – nuh no god no matter how much they chucked it down our throat.
SO – But there has to be a God or else how can we be saved when we die?

We nearly fell asleep today.  Unfortunately we were at work at the time.

We’d just done an hour of teaching to about 20 students and 2 librarians who have never done teaching before, so came in to observe.  The adrenaline caused by the teaching meant we were totally wiped out afterward.  I think it was probably our worst teaching experience with the exception of our very first attempt while working at the University.  Oh well, I’ve often thought that you learn more from making mistakes than doing it perfectly – shame the rest of the system doesn’t think that way!

We’ve sort of had enough.  I don’t think we can cope with much more.

M is frantically making plans for the future that will tie us into responsibilities that the ones who want to escape won’t be able to ignore.  Even when the suicidal ideation and intent is high, there is a level of responsibility that will not allow anyone else be inconvenienced.  If we have responsibilities that involve money or people relying on us, the plans won’t be acted on.

This is part of the reason why we MUST work and appear “normal” to everyone around us.  No one can see the dysfunction.  No one can know that we’re not quite like everyone else.  We work hard at appearing more “normal” than everyone else.  We usually succeed at this.  But sometimes it just becomes too much and we want to curl up and let the world go by.

So today, despite everything going on in our little world, we were there for our friend at work who found out that her brother has terminal brain and liver cancer – this is the same woman who has a husband with terminal stomach cancer.  Our troubles are nothing compared to that.

Today was our last session with Bob.  It went OK.  Our little toughie W came forward to do a majority of the session.  This worked in that she is very definite about what she wants or doesn’t want.  So while the softness of Sophie could be easily swayed, W ensured that this was a last session.

The big problem is that we are now without a therapist… heading into one of the nastiest anniversaries we have.  As we’ve never gone through this particular anniversary before, we’re not really sure how it’s going to affect us. So far, it hasn’t been good.

Bob is concerned that we’re going to have no support during this time.  She really is a good clinical psychologist, she’s highly recommended and we can see why.  The problem is that I’m not sure if she really believed in our diagnosis and tried to force us to quickly move ahead.  A great part of this is because of the way in which ACC fund clinical psychologist sessions (10 sessions at a time), as opposed to counsellor sessions (30 sessions at a time).  She was really nice about the whole thing and tried to assure us that this shouldn’t be seen as our fault – something that Sophie mentioned as we’ve failed to make progress with a highly recommended psychologist.

W has an issue with “running away” – her very childlike understanding of what suicide means.  Her wanting to run away was mentioned during the session and I think Bob picked up on what it really meant to W.  She mentioned getting hold of the Adult Mental Health Team to try and get us some assistance until we can find another therapist.  But the Mental Health Team and us are not a good mix.  They are sure that we have Borderline Personality Disorder, and treat us horribly as a result.  Bob again mentioned respite care and trying to use the respite as a way to try and get some rest and sleep – as well as monitor our safety.  We may have to resort to this, I’m not sure.  We’re not in danger at the moment, but know that this may change if we don’t get some sleep soon.

Just one moment at a time…

The lack of sleep is getting rather boring.  It’s starting to influence our functioning and thought patterns.  We’re becoming more sensitive to knock backs and the switching is becoming more obvious to the outside world as we’re having to use it to cope with daily functioning.

The amusing side of this dysfunction was obvious yesterday when we found that some paper wasps have been making a nest in the wall gap of the house.  The 1st floor was the predominant group present for the discussion about what to do about the nest.  As with anything this floor does, it was a rather interesting discussion – the males wanted to blast the nest with carbaryl; S wanted to ask the cute male neighbour to take care of it; and a young one wanting to ignore it and going back to playing in the water.

The scary part of this dysfunction is that we’re again losing quite large chunks of time.

We’re spending a large amount of time curled up on the couch rocking in an attempt to soothe the internal chaos.  We’re at the dangerous point of being close to slipping into depression again.  The sad and hopeless ones are coming forward.  The food issues are starting again.

This week we have to do the final session with Bob.  I’m hoping M is around by that time to do the session, I just don’t have the strength to keep it all together.

We’re currently being trialled on some medication to see if it can assist in reducing the anxiety that we have fairly constantly.  This in itself isn’t a bad thing – reducing anxiety is good.  What is a problem, is that the psychiatrist who has prescribed the medication has put it on closed control dispensing because we’re considered a suicide risk.  This means that we have to go pick-up the medication weekly.  Normally this isn’t a problem.  But last week they didn’t have enough pills to fill the prescription so told us we had to come back in a couple of days when they’d been resupplied.  Again, this wasn’t a problem.  We thought that we’d be able to just go in when the current meds finished and pick up the ones owed and the new weeks medication – it was their error for not having enough supplies on site, so we didn’t see the big deal.  Well apparently it DID matter…

1. Initially they were just going to give us the new weeks worth of medication.
2. We stupidly asked for the balance of last weeks medication.
3. Pharmacist went back to the computer to check what the balance was about.
4. She brought out the 1.5 days of medication that was the balance from last week.
5. We asked for the new weeks as well – we didn’t want to have to waste more petrol by coming back in two days.
6. Then they started on about the closed control dispensing and not being able to give the medication early, or more than a weeks worth at any one time.
7. We questioned the validity of this statement considering they were about to give us the weeks worth two days early just a few minutes ago, and it was only when we asked about the balance that this became an issue.
8. They again talked about closed control and brought out the original prescription notes from the psychiatrist.
9. We agreed that it was closed control, however it was not our fault that they couldn’t control their stock levels.
10. They talked about not being their fault and that they couldn’t not fill other peoples medication just because we might come in.

By this point we were more than a little unimpressed.  We haven’t attempted suicide in nearly a year.  Closed control is pointless – we’re librarians, we could find a recipe online easily that didn’t include taking this medication.  This medication isn’t working, so we’re jumping through hoops to obtain a medication that is doing nothing – but we need to keep taking it until we see the psychiatrist again.  At least we’re having no side effects…

After much discussion, we walked out of the pharmacy with the weeks worth of medication and the assurance from the pharmacy that they were going to call the psychiatrist to tell him that we’d come in early to pick-up the medication.  We asked if they were also going to inform him that the reason why we had to pick-up the medication early was because of their stock issues.  We were assured they would.  Doubting whether it happened…

What we found really interesting about the whole interaction is that the pharmacists immediately thought that we were saying that other peoples prescriptions shouldn’t have been filled because we were more important.  They didn’t seem to understand that we were questioning their ability to manage their own medicine stock levels.  I would hope that they gave the medication to the other people.  Again our inability to carry out basic communication.

I sometimes wonder if we get mixed up because of the internal conversations that occur.  I wonder if we forget or don’t realise that something that has been discussed internally has yet to be verbalised to the external world??

As a separate issue, we created the clip One year on… We are worried about making it live because the friend who has been strange with us, might get hurt by it.  Really annoyed with ourselves that we are changing things we should be happy about because of him.

We are our own worst enemy at times…

Shadows have always been an issue for us – what’s in the shadows, what will come out of the shadows etc.  But one particular nightmare about shadows is the silhouette of a man in the doorway.  As far as I’m aware this particular image has always been the cause of nightmares for us.  It would be fairly easy to draw the conclusion that it’s to do with someone coming in through the doorway at night to hurt us – I’ve no idea if this is really the origins of the image and nightmare.  Maybe we saw a scary movie with this image in it, not sure.

What I do know is that this image plagues our nightmares.  It’s the reason why we have to have the curtains drawn totally over every window in the house once it’s getting dark – there can’t be any possibility of being able to peek outside and see a face looking in at us.  It’s the reason why we have to have the wardrobe doors tightly closed.  However we can’t close the bedroom doors, and this is the current problem.

We’ve constantly got this image of a man standing in the doorway.  We can’t just close the doors.  If you have a cat, you’ll know that the one thing they hate more than an unreliable feeder, is a feeder who closes doors.  It causes an interruption in their nightly checks and wanderings around the house – and what if they suddenly decide that they want to use you as a heat source?  They end up scratching at the door and make their displeasure well known.  The sounds of which are almost as bad as the nightmare image.

One particularly memorable time when this nightmare caused a problem was when the ex-husband was going off to work early in the morning.  He had turned on the lounge light and had come in to kiss us goodbye.  We were half asleep and just felt the bed dip and then this silhouette come towards us.  Well he’d never seen us move so fast.  We screamed and dove off the bed and tried to get under it.  It caused the neighbours to call the police we screamed so loud and with so much fear.  Other times when he’d done the kiss goodbye we would freeze, but for some reason we needed to escape that morning.  Rather embarrassing telling the young officer why we had screamed!

At the moment this nightmare image is particularly bad.  We’ve been averaging 1-3 hours sleep per night for the last two weeks.  We’re bad sleepers anyway, but this is becoming a real problem.  We had a migraine yesterday which was caused by a combination of a lack of sleep and being so tense while trying to sleep that we’ve pulled several muscles in the neck.  It’s now 5:45am and we’re sitting here with a warm milky drink imagining someone walking up behind us and putting their hand on our shoulder.

Hmmm wonder if this is a phobia or paranoia?  We don’t particularly think that anyone is out to get us.  It’s a very much the concept of someone coming to get us, rather than some organised plot to come and get us.  Either way, I really wish it would go away.  But the internal conversation did distract us from the image for a second.

Oh well, off to read for awhile…

We’ve been having trouble ending our therapeutic relationship with Bob (codename for our therapist).  Bob has been trying to encourage/force/fast-track an amalgamation, integration or eviction.  This didn’t go down too well with us, to the point where we pretty much stormed out of her office last week.

So today was “The Day”…

• We told her that we don’t trust her.  We also explained that this isn’t uncommon as we don’t trust people in general.  When we do develop trust it takes a long time.
• We were feeling rushed through the process, which was causing some of us to dig our toes in and resist or hide.  We mentioned that this was a very similar feeling to having no options while growing up.
• We felt that she didn’t give us a chance to say what issues we had during the week or to discuss non-integration issues – Bob’s response was that we never raised them.
• It was now at the point where we had lost respect for her and some of us hated her.  It was fine that some hated her (which she agreed with), but the loss of respect meant it will never work.
• Bob didn’t see co-consciousness as an option, as this is what was happening now and it obviously wasn’t working.  We did mention that if we were truly co-conscious, we wouldn’t lose time – this didn’t seem to register.

She gave us options:

• Staying with her, but under a therapy contract which would cause a fee to be added – but ensure more sessions were granted so trust could be built and the time pressure removed.
• Going to see another therapist or psychologist.
• Returning to our previous therapist.
• Stopping therapy.

Our only weak point is that Buffie needed a rest after having to deal with all of it, so Sophie took over for awhile.  While Buffie was present she mentioned that “something odd had happened over the weekend” but didn’t say what it was.  When Sophie was present, she related what she’d read in this blog about the interchange between S and Kriss.  Bob’s response – “Oh, so you remember now…”

*Sigh* she just doesn’t get it.

Bob also talked Sophie into delaying making the final decision about what to do with therapy until next week.  We’re OK with this as it will mean that we’ll have re-grouped as such, so it will be easy to end the sessions.

Today was the first time Bob gave us any sort of compliment – we gave her a chart that indicated the current level of communication.  I think that in some respects, today was the first time she saw us as anything other than a “problem case”. I think she was pretty clueless that we were feeling this way.

Trying not to panic too much about the anniversary being so close and being without a therapist…  We’ve survived up until now, so we can do this too.

Today we talked to Kriss (friend from England), and are still a little stunned.  We were talking through IM and S came forward to “please” him.  Usually Kriss gently calls her out on it when he sees it happening and S laughs it off before returning from whence she came.  Today for some reason Kriss didn’t call her on it immediately – he didn’t engage in it, but just let her go for a little bit.  Then just gently asked her a few questions, starting off with the biggie:

“Why do you think I want that?”

S at this point called him several uncomplimentary names and told him to stop messing around with her.  But she stayed around, she didn’t disappear which is what she usually does when she’s spotted and not wanted around.  S is 13 and thinks very much in generalisations – “all men want to hurt”, “all men want just one thing” etc.  So when questioned she threw insults at him with a force.  But then something changed and she was telling him things that happened and why they happened.  Why the mother isn’t to be trusted and how people around us covered up the abuse.

S cried for the first time ever.  It was two tears, but it’s the most she has ever cried. As a result she now hates Kriss – how dare he make her say those things and make her cry.  Yes, she is 13 so will blame him.

We’re all stunned.  He listened, he asked gentle questions and tried to show S that not all men want to hurt.  After S left he needed a break – funny that.  We needed to be sick.  But he came back and kept talking to us.  He had some pretty disgusting concepts thrown at him – no real details as far as I know, just general statements. But he still wanted to talk to us.

After we checked that he was ok and didn’t hate us, we tried to divert the conversation to something “normal” – fixing his sister’s car, his rough week at work etc.  Well did that hack him off or what!  He wanted to know why we didn’t tell him how we were, if we were ok, if we were safe.  We didn’t give him the chance to ask those questions and he wanted to know why.  It’s an easy answer – we mean nothing, we’re worthless, so why would anyone care if we were going through something rough.  If we divert the conversation, it might help him forget that we’re damaged and what we’d just told him.  Also because of the compartmentalisation, we had no real awareness of what was said.  We knew secrets had been told because of the nausea, but no idea what they were.  So it’s easier to distract than to look at the reasons why the nausea is there.

As an indication of how well he knows us now, he then said we had to talk it out before saying bye for the night or else we’d worry about it for three days :)  Actually in this he was probably off – it would have been closer to a week, and by the end of the week we would have convinced ourselves that we had to run so our dirtiness didn’t touch him.

Sometimes if there is an event that is particularly stressful and one of us is present for the entire thing, afterwards we feel as if the pieces of the memory are almost being “taken away” from us by other parts of the system and being shared around… are we just plain arsed crazy, or does anyone else experience this?

We’re ok with being crazy – some really inventive and cool people are/were crazy :)

It could just be the adrenaline kicking in so it does something to the memory, but it’s almost as if chunks of it have been taken away from me.  It’s a really odd feeling.

Hmmmm maybe we just need to get some sleep!

Take care
Sophie :)