Scattered pieces

What a day.  Sitting at work shaking like a leaf.  My hands won’t stop, even when typing or trying to drink something warm to try and soothe.  We’ve been sick with the flu, but we didn’t have the shakes then, just today.  I know the shaking is due to emotions, but it’s such a weird experience – knowing that the body is shaking due to emotions, but not actually feeling those emotions.

I don’t experience the emotions and I’m not sure what has triggered this, but it started last night when there was a sudden feeling of being lost and empty.  Considering we didn’t go anywhere or see anyone yesterday, I’m not sure what’s brought this on.  Maybe talking to the mother on the phone?  Maybe watching mindless DVDs?  There was a draft done last night about a secret fear we have, maybe that’s caused it?  I try to look at what’s happening internally and all I see is a swirling mess.  Why can’t the answers ever be obvious and simple?

When you look at the injustices people are experiencing all over the world, it’s so pathetic to be sitting in an office shaking like a leaf for no identifiable reason.

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Now playing: Brooke Fraser – Scarlet
via FoxyTunes

A day in the life of a spoilt domestic cat…

Morning: Sleep until the human has woken and prepared a morning snack.

Morning...

Afternoon: Bask in the sun on this convenient thermal rug.

Basking in the Sun

Mid-afternoon: Look scornfully at the human who is sitting on the floor, but can be forgiven as she is fairly well trained – for a human.

Ahhh... the Sun... ohh you poor human

Soon after: Go back to looking out over my domain.

Looking out over my domain

Night: After licking the gravy off the evening meal, curl up in my bed in front of the heater.

Ahhh... the heater... Wait... go away human...

Some time during the night: Retire to the igloo bed in preparation for a new day.  It is truly a hard life, one which humans will never really understand.

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Now playing: Brooke Fraser – Shadowfeet
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One of the first things we learned from the abuse that we were part of, was that you can’t trust anyone.  In particular, you couldn’t trust the little girl that went stumbling through life in a dissociative daze.  She was unable to see the potential harm that would result from following the instructions given to her (part of her conditioning was to obey without question).  As a result, we experience a total lack of trust of anything and anyone.  With this in mind…

How do you learn to trust someone else to help you heal, when you don’t trust your own judgement?

Our conditioning has meant that we find it incredibly difficult to question authority of any kind.  We perceive the therapist as an authority figure.  They may have toys in their office, have an open body language and tone; but we still see them as authority.  This is because they have qualifications (they are meant to be the expert at this healing thing), we pay for the appointment (paying for a service from a professional) and we go to their office (on their turf or comfort area).  So the power dynamics are off from the start.  As a further complication, the mother is a nurse.  This fact means that we live in fear of the medical field, but yet are totally sucked into obeying it without question - I hate being a product of my environment! 

Looking at the decisions we have made over the years, it’s obvious that we still haven’t learned to trust our instinct about people.  A prime example is the ex-husband, Management tried to end the relationship very early on, but wasn’t able to communicate the reasons why he shouldn’t be trusted, so we ended up marrying him with disastrous results.  In regard to therapists, the decision-making is even more warped.  We don’t know how to begin to trust them and the power dynamics make it almost impossible.  We’ll sometimes get clues that the relationship isn’t working as it should, but sometimes we look at these as us creating blocks.  It can be very hard to differentiate between the two – are we avoiding going to therapy because we don’t trust Liz, or because we don’t want to do the work?  It feels like we’re walking a tightrope.  Needing to trust yourself and your own judgement, but knowing from past experience that this judgement is flawed.

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Now playing: Anna Nalick – Breathe
via FoxyTunes

In a comment to the Froggie entry, we made a casual observation that “Froggie” must mean something to a young one because the name given ended in “ie”.  This didn’t really mean much to us at the time, but last night we were thinking about it and wondering what the “ie” ending meant for us.  In the context of our dissociative system it obviously means a great deal in that our names include Sophie, Carrie, Mickie and Ellie.  What is interesting is that none of these parts hold any abusive memories – Sophie was born to ensure we were a happy teenager and looks after young ones; Mickie protects young ones; Carrie is the protector of The Attic, while Ellie is a main protector on another floor.  So it could be concluded that someone who protected us in some way had a similar name ending.  This could be the case for our childhood neighbour whom everyone called Cloudy; we adapted that to Cloudie to fit with a more idealised person who loved us unconditionally – which in reality she didn’t.

Two of our main protectors don’t have the “ie” ending – One and Management.  These two aren’t as affectionate as the other protectors, but are instead a watchful caring – a simple example is that The Basement is always dark and when Aimee goes to visit One, he turns on a spotlight so that it always on Aimee and she won’t get scared.  One also ensures that everyone in The Basement is quiet while Aimee is there.  So it’s gentle caring that isn’t overly affectionate, but is a dependable (always there) kind of love.  Management and One pre-date Ellie and Carrie in being given names and their defined roles, I think this has influenced their names.

Names we’ve given to pets and objects we like which pre-date our understanding of the dissociation also have this “ie” ending – for example, we’ve had Winnie for about 14 years now.  So it’s been an unconscious association for many years.  I wonder if it’s to do with Katie?  Katie is our youngest one and was formally known as Sweetie Pie.  She holds an innocence that we all need to protect.  Because of this it would make sense that if our brain decided that names ending in “ie” held some innocence, then names such as Management are stronger ones to protect that innocence.  In many ways our system is built around protecting Katie, but she is not in The Attic where the innocents/innocence is kept.  Maybe we needed a reminder of what we needed to protect?  She is a hurt innocent though, so maybe that is why she is with us?

Sorry for the rambling, it’s not really working out with Liz and so we’re trying to do the work things out without having someone there to talk to.

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Now playing: Finger Eleven – One thing
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Froggie

A birthday present from the mother.  I reckon it’s the closest thing we’ll ever get to a Prince Charming… :)

Ever been thinking along harmless, innocent lines of thought only to be flattened by a new understanding or trigger?  We’ve just been reading Paul’s entry about dreaming and his question to David regarding his statement “I don’t think that’s what the dream is about at all. I rarely think that people in dreams actually represent themselves; they’re more likely, I think, to be aspects of the dreamer.”  We were thinking this statement over within our context in a very detached and subjective way.  To us, this statement means that you sometimes don’t want to face your own shortcomings, fears, personality flaws etc., so will project those characteristics onto another person within your dream – the person chosen may already have similar characteristics to create further barriers between yourself and the part of you that makes you feel uncomfortable, but it’s a self-protection strategy.  We were happily going off into a fairly well reasoned argument with ourselves about this when a little voice says “that’s why we created Frank, cos it couldn’t be Daddy doing that to us, so it had to be someone else, so we made up Frank”.  A conversation stopper if ever there was one.

As an explanation, Frank in an alter who is male and in his mid-late 30′s.  He is angry and abusive within the system – usually victimising S.  He’s rarely near the front, but when he is, it is usually as a very heavy form of protection.  I know that doesn’t make sense, but when Ellie and the other ones on the 2nd floor have to take control, Frank helps Ellie to ensure that safety is maintained.

We’ve actively worked against the idea that we were sexually abused by the father.  Some of the reasoning for this is sound, in that there are no memories of him sexually abusing us – we agree that there was a degree of psychological abuse, but not sexual.  Some of the reasoning is a little more shaky – it’s a cliché, he didn’t have the opportunity, it makes no sense and IT JUST DIDN’T HAPPEN OK!

There you have it, a long held argument as to why the father didn’t sexually abuse us.  Then little annoying facts are mentioned – what about after Nan died?  What about when the mother used to go sleep in the lounge because she didn’t want to be near him?  What about the night the ear drum burst?  How did we get to those parties if he didn’t take us?  What about all the late nights at the club?

The games the mind can play…  Two totally opposing truths sit within the one brain.  The very first therapist we saw asked us about sexual abuse, we immediately said “No”.  We’ve always had memories of some sexual abuse, but we didn’t want to look at it.  Part of this was because we thought that what occurred to us was normal.  If it wasn’t normal, then it must have been because we were such an evil little girl.  Who wants to talk about being so evil that people were forced to use you?  Management sure didn’t.  She was protecting Katie, W and SO.  No one messes with those three again without stepping over her dead and beaten body.  It was a double edged sword, M knew we needed help but knew that the help would hurt us further.  So she used the therapy as a form of wake-up call – repress all those feelings again or else we’ll be forced to look at things we don’t want to.  It worked, we didn’t need therapy for another 10 years.

Now we’ve been in therapy for about 5 years.  Once a week we go and sit through an hour of torture.  At times we regret the journey to healing that we’ve begun.  At times it feels as if it would be so much easier to end it all.  At times our desire to fight and heal is incredible.  We were once asked by a therapist if we regret starting therapy again, in many ways we do.  Who wants to know that the “little girl over there” that all those awful things happened to, wasn’t another little girl, but was you?

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Now playing: Natalie Merchant – My skin
via FoxyTunes

Abandoned shoes

There were some children playing in the water feature of the American Garden and the girl had left her shoes on the concrete. We took this photo quickly and I know that the lighting etc is all wrong, but the idea of those abandoned shoes means something to us.

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Now playing: Bic Runga – Drive
via FoxyTunes

Please note: This entry may trigger due to talk of sexual abuse.  When reading this, also consider that our point in the healing journey is still firmly in the intellectual, and it is one of our more unemotional ones writing this.

Reflecting upon my abuse, I can see how such an ‘‘unpopular topic’’ as child sex abuse can be influenced by the discourse of scholars and ‘‘experts’’ who attempt to categorize sexual abuse in terms of severity, based on levels of intrusion, duration, trauma, and the relationship between the victim and the offender (Kemp, 1984). From this ‘‘abuse degree perspective,’’ one can rationalize that my abuse wasn’t all that bad. After all, look at how horrible other people had it compared to you. In fact, you should be thankful, for the trauma could have been a great deal worse. In the words of Rambo-Ronai (1995), I begrudge this clinical analysis and, as many of my friends and acquaintances would attest, ‘‘resent the idea that my situation was in any way fortunate.’’ Indeed, the problem with this quantification of abuse is that it sounds strangely like my mother’s denial of these events. I wonder if any abuse-crisis counselor would rationalize physical abuse by stating ‘‘It’s really not all that bad, you can’t see the bruise, and you can still walk, and you didn’t get a broken neck. I wouldn’t worry about it. It will be gone in a week.’’

(Harvey Lemelin, 2006, pp. 342-343)

This quote  speaks volumes to me.  I’m so caught up in trying to learn the mental health system and how it operates that it’s easy to get lost in the labels, diagnoses, degrees of severity etc.  I know I do this to try and gain a sense of control over something that has a huge influence on my life.  Because of this desire for control (and therefore a layer of safety), I learn the language they use and what questions they ask in the assessments.  But what does this do apart from perpetuate the intellectualisation of my experiences?

I do find that some of the language has helped to describe my experiences and demystified many things that feel incredibly crazy.  But I also buy into that intellectualisation because of the barrier it provides to the horror it describes.  As an example, we regularly experience derealisation.  That sentence is easy for many mental health professionals to understand.  But it only touches the surface of that experience.  It is much harder to describe the feeling where your perception of the world shifts so that you are now looking at three movie screens; where the world suddenly appears brighter or more blurred; that feeling as if nothing is real or here and you are not part of anything.  We’ve spent over 5 minutes explaining our derealisation experiences to assessing psychiatrists, it’s much easier to just say that one line.  It makes it feel plausible, acceptable and real.

I constantly struggle with understanding our abuse.  We constantly play mind games with ourselves in an attempt to deny, minimise or prove that it didn’t occur.  Then we’re caught in a flashback or a memory “leaks” into our common awareness and we’re thrown into chaos.  We learned very early that emotions didn’t do you any favours – they were met with hostility, scorn or ignored.  Because of this, we’ve relied on the intellectual.  This is not to say that we’re incredibly intelligent, but rather there are very few of us who feel emotions.  We realise that we need to move beyond that façade of intellectualisation in order to be able to heal, but that also means moving into the abyss of emotions.

I’m not sure when we’ll be ready to take this step.  It will mean altering the way we look at the world and how we cope within it.  It will mean breaking down or modifying all of our coping mechanisms.  What is become obvious over the last few months is that we’re slowly starting to move back to the place we were about 6 years ago – incredibly high-functioning, high achieving and in the depths of denial.  We’re torn between wanting to find a therapist who can help us heal, and continuing down the road of denial and suppression.  While the mother was here she mentioned that we’re very withdrawn from everything, it’s a very easy and comfortable place to be in.  Realistically, I’m not sure we can stay there for long.

Reference:

Harvey Lemelin, R. (2006). Running to stand still: The story of a victim, a survivor, a wounded healer, a narrative of male sexual abuse from the inside. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 11(4), 337-350. Retrieved June 9, 2009, doi:10.1080/15325020600663128

Unfortunately, the article is only available through subscription or purchase.

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Now playing: Lost and running by Powderfinger
via FoxyTunes

Last week we won a $50 meat pack.  It’s the first time we’ve won anything in about 10 years :)  What’s rather amusing is that we can’t touch meat.  Today we got the call – our prize was ready to be picked up…

Problem: How do you pick-up a bulk meat pack when you can’t touch meat?
Solution: Get our cynical friend from work to come along as a meat carrier :)

So we sheepishly told our friend that we’d won this pack, but had issues with touching meat.  Thankfully she knows us pretty well by now – she has asked out of blue if we have multiple personalities in the past…  So she knows we have issues that need tissues.  She also wanted a break from work, so was more than happy to go with us.

We got to that school where we won the raffle – did you know that they have 6 foot high metal bar fences around schools now??  Well this school is in a low decile area with a high crime rate so it makes sense, but it was still a bit of a shock to see a school that was like a fortress.  We found the office and had to wait while they went off and got the pack.  Thankfully our friend is also a mother and just amazing woman, so when they brought this bag of meat out from the kitchen area she seamlessly said “Oh, I’ll take that” when the woman went to give us the pack…  It wasn’t a fuss or hassle, just a very gentle intervention that could have been a normal part of any conversation.

When we got back to work, she then broke the pack down so that all we had to do was put the bags into our freezer.  She’s amazing…

If you’re wondering why we still picked up the pack rather than donating back to the school – the mother is still thinking of moving up here for 6 months so it’s for her.

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Now playing: Sunsets (acoustic) – Powderfinger
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