Scattered pieces

Sorry, but this has all got a bit too much for us. We’re going to take a break and try to regroup.

Comments will be off, or go unmoderated until we’re in a clearer frame of mind.

When I was young, we sometimes went on holiday to Kaiteriteri Beach with a friend and her family…

Kaiteriteri Beach by vitch

Little Kaiteriteri Beach by Jonathanreid1

They were good times, filled with lazing in the Sun and playing in the waves. I’ll always remember Kaiteriteri as it was in the late 70′s and early 80′s… before it became too touristy and exclusively expensive.

To put the last week into context, it would help if I explained a little about the past month…  Probably 3 or 4 weeks ago, one of the young ones became convinced that she was an abuser.  We were part of peer sexual abuse from the ages of 3-10 or 12; and some of that included, what she considered to be, causing abuse towards other innocent children.  This was mentioned in session with Liz, but she dismissed it as learned behaviour from adults that was usual for a child with my history.  Our intellectual response to Liz was to agree, it made sense… but not to the young one, as she has no memory of being hurt by adults, only her peers and some teenagers.  This meant that the young one decided that we needed to die for hurting others – people often say that child abusers should be killed, so what made her any different?

Her belief that she was an abuser, was re-enforced by a recent newspaper article that stated children as young as 5 were being picked up by the police as sexual offenders…  Add on top of this, the on-going anxiety about having to go for an ACC assessment; the memories stirred up by the dissolution of the marriage; and hating our current job.  It all added up to a overwhelming mass of conflicting messages and emotions.  The end result was a suicide plan which was to take place yesterday.  On the way to this date, we ended up in the Police Station last weekend…  Sophie called the crisis line and said we were suicidal, which resulted in the Police being called out, and us ending up in a Police holding cell/interview room being assessed by a Police psychiatrist.  He was a very nice psychiatrist, and again tried to convince the young one that she wasn’t abusive, but she had the newspaper article as proof that she was evil…  To make it worse, she now had further proof of her evilness – she had been picked up by the Police…

Last Monday, we went into therapy with Liz needing to work through this belief about us being abusers and the suicide plans for the coming weekend.  Instead, Liz introduced DBT skills.  This isn’t anything against DBT, but it was like throwing a bucket of water on a forest fire… too little, too late.  Liz tried art therapy to try and get us to see that life was worth living, but she kept on hitting a brick wall because she was skirting around the issue and we needed to hit it face on.  Liz’ attempts were frustrating us both, to the point where she said “Do you want to stop therapy”.  She has said this to us on several occasions before, and each time we got the feeling that she was testing us, but this time it was the last straw…  we said “Yes” and left the office.

I know this could be seen as us lashing out with an emotional reaction, and it was in many ways.  But, there was also a feeling that Liz didn’t know what to do to help us.  This was confirmed on Wednesday when we went back for a meeting to see if the relationship could be salvaged.  Our position was that those words and actions made us feel rejected and as if we were too difficult to deal with.  Liz tried to assure us that this wasn’t the case and that she had been there for us.  But her actions and our expectations didn’t meet… that’s not to say that we were expecting 24/7 assistance from her; but many of our reasonable calls for assistance, were met with Liz passing us off onto the Crisis Team or ACC.

So, we’re no longer seeing Liz…

Due to the visit to the Police Station, the Mental Health Crisis Team have again become involved in our care.  This resulted in us having an emergency psychiatric appointment on Friday, where a very intense psychiatrist upped one of our meds and introduced another.  We’re very sensitive to medication – something I forgot to warn the psychiatrist about; so when we had the first night time dose of the new medication, we got about three hours of quite intense akathisia in the legs.  The next day we tried the daytime strength of the med and got about 3 hours of needing to rip our arms up, increased dissociation and anxiety.  The Crisis Team nurse tried to convince us that this was not tied to the medication in any way, and that we just needed to go for a walk…

So this brings us to today… the day after the young one had vowed to take an overdose.  Why are we still here?  Well, it turns out that the reason the suicide plans weren’t followed through was because of needing to fix our car.  I know it sounds silly, but all the motions were set in place for the suicide – house was cleaned, papers put into order and the final thing was to get a warrant of fitness for the car, but it failed.  Because we had to get it fixed, we ate into our savings which the young one had decided was enough for our funeral.  So now the suicide plans are put off until we can save more money for the funeral – she doesn’t want to leave any debt for others to be inconvenienced by.  I know that this is a tenuous reason to stay alive, but I’m hoping it will last us long enough to find some avenue for assistance.

So where to from here?  Well, I’m not really sure.  I see the Crisis Team psychiatrist again on Tuesday.  I was told by Liz that my ACC funding has run out, so the chances of finding a therapist who will accept a dissociative client through ACC is pretty slim.  I’m still waiting for the ACC assessment to determine what assistance I should be getting, and I just got the papers that I have to serve on the ex-husband’s parents to end the marriage.  So I’m in a fairly precarious situation and can’t really see a way out at the moment.  I’m not in any immediate danger – the fear of debt will keep the young one from acting on her plans for probably another few paydays… That gives me about a month to come up with something that will convince her that she’s not the most evil, disgusting thing on this Earth…

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Now playing: Green Day – Wake Me Up When September Ends
via FoxyTunes

It’s often been said that small acts of kindness mean so much. I don’t know where the quote comes from, but it’s truth is re-enforced daily.

Today I saw Liz for the last time, the “rupture” during therapy on Monday couldn’t be worked through to a point where we felt we could continue seeing her. I’m seeing the Mental Health Crisis Team psychiatrist on Friday to see what can be done to help me through the public health system.  Because of all of this, I was feeling pretty low.  As a distraction, M thought she’d check our work emails. Right at the top, was one from a lecturer we had done some information literacy teaching for last week.  We were expecting it to be some criticism, as it felt like such a bad session… this is what he wrote…

Hi

Thanks a lot for teaching my class the other day. I was very impressed by the amount of care that had gone into your presentation

Matthew

This on a day when we were at our lowest in a long time…

Small acts of kindness mean so much…  What may seem to be an insignificant gesture, can touch the person who receives it in ways you’ll never imagine.

I thank those who have commented and sent words/thoughts/wishes of support while I’ve been blogging about my healing journey…  At different times they’ve given me hope, laughter and pause for thought… Thank you.

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Now playing: Green Day – Time Of Your Life [Good Riddance]
via FoxyTunes

Normal services will resume…  when the dissociative gets her act together.

I thank you all for your messages of support and understanding to my earlier entry.  I’ve removed it on the advice of a friend.  I’m being challenged to look at the situation in a different way and try to change my ways of coping.

This healing thing is a huge scary beast sometimes!

There once was a girl dressed in linen and lace, dancing upon the stage.  Her laughter filled the air and her smile was infectious.  People stopped to watch, appreciating her grace and poise.  So many people came to see the girl that the ground before the stage became muddy.

One day, the girl was dancing as usual, when two boys came by.  They stood for awhile watching, then they pointed at the girl, laughing.  One picked up some of the mud at his feet and threw it at her.  His friend soon joined in.  The other people saw what was happening, but just smiled and shook their heads.  The girl was alright after all… See, she still danced.

The girl tried to wipe away the mud, but it had stained her linen and lace.  A single tear ran down her face as she looked at her ruined clothes.  No one else seemed to care, so why should she?  She was a big girl after all, so she kept on dancing.

The next day she returned to the stage as usual, but her clothes still bore the muddy stains.  Some men saw the stains, and knew what kind of girl she was… soiled and dirty.  They threw mud harder and faster.  They knew they could and she wouldn’t tell or moan.

This continued day after day.  More people began to threw mud, still she kept on dancing and smiling.

One day, another girl appeared on stage with her.  She stayed curled up in the corner, rocking.  The dancing girl ignored her, she knew the show must go on.  Then another girl appeared who could dance and not be hit by the mud.  One girl appeared who would scream and shout at the people, but no one paid her any attention.  Soon, the original dancing girl could no longer dance.  She could only stand in the middle of the stage waiting for the mud.  Her linen and lace was caked and she knew there was no way to get it off.

Far above, another girl watched the stage from the rafters.  She saw the different girls darting around, some trying to avoid the mud, some seeking it, some throwing it at each other.  She called out to the now frozen girl in the middle of the stage… “Come up here where it’s safe”.  It took days of coaxing, but one day the girl looked up and saw the clean girl far above.  The girl slowly climbed up to the clean girl.  She looked from the chaos below to the clean girl beside her.

“Do you want it all to go away?” asked the clean girl. “Then take my hand and we’ll fly away from here.  You’ll never have to see the mud again.”  Cautiously the dirty dancing girl reaches out to take the clean girls hand.  Looking at each other, smiling, they step from the rafters.

For a brief moment, the girls feel the giddy free-fall of flight, before crashing into the stage below.  The crowd is momentarily stunned, looking at each other in uncertainty.  But then a wise woman shakes her head telling the others “It’s always the quiet ones who fall”.

No one misses the dancing girl, there are plenty of others to take her place.

This last week has been tough going for many reasons… It started with memories surrounding the peer sexual abuse we were involved in from ages 3-12 last Saturday, and went downhill from there.  The peer sexual abuse memories have raised issues surrounding accountability, who was to blame and why it happened.  None of these issues are resolved, and it has now escalated into being in a position where my every action is held up to the spotlight – with the view of assigning blame to myself.  It’s the young ones who are driving this viewpoint, and it’s almost impossible to counter their arguments.

The one good thing this week, was emailing Liz to describe in detail the different events which are causing stress and their effect on my life.  I did this because I realised how little I was communicating in session… so much of my time during sessions is spent sitting in mute chaos…  I’ll be sitting there with all of these conflicting messages and yelled instructions on what to say, but nothing will come out.

So I go into therapy tomorrow not knowing what to expect.  I have a feeling that I should probably be in hospital, so if Liz goes ahead with an admission or sectioning, I’ll try not to fight it…  But I know that I probably will…  I’ve got a lot of teaching happening at work this week.  Those work commitments will drive me to avoid hospital and the associated safety.  I can’t let others down, no matter what the personal cost…

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Now playing: Five for Fighting – Superman (It’s Not Easy)
via FoxyTunes

I’ll admit, it’s hard to write something after getting so many comments on the last post.  It scares some of the young ones to realise that people actually read what is written here.  It’s even scarier for them when we state an opinion and open ourselves up to negative comments.  Part of me wants to write further posts on similar topics because they see it as helping people – something that feeds our self-worth; but there is a fear that if we did this, we’d lose sight of why we write this blog… which is to help us work through the issues we’re facing.  So, this entry is about finding our way back to that space.  In many ways, the previous post is an indication that we’re trying to avoid the issues… a great diversionary tactic if ever there was one.  It’s hard to work through what is really going on in my head at the moment, it’s all very confused, messy and hidden deep beneath layers of dissociation.  But a clue comes from Liz saying in three of my previous sessions… “we keep on coming back to your anger”.

Anger…  Hmmm, so she means I have anger?  But I don’t “do” anger…  Yes, I get frustrated sometimes, and confused.  But I don’t get angry, do I?  Angry is that scary silence when everyone walks around you on egg-shells… Angry is that violent rage of a raised hand, belt, spoon…  Angry is sex…  “I” don’t do any of that!

That is what my daily functioning self can say easily… “I” have no concept that I experience anger.  Then there are little reality checks… I know that some of my self-injury is motivated by anger or angry ones; therapists have said to me “you left angry last week”; and my cynical friend at work has commented on my anger in a teasing way.  So, apparently I do get angry, I’m just not in touch with it.  Sometimes I can glimpse the anger… if there is a dissociative switch from an angry one, they often leave the body feeling tight and wound up.  That feeling is quickly stamped down and I can ignore that it ever happened; but it’s there, ever so fleetingly.

Another clue to my anger came earlier this week.  I wasn’t able to sleep and was looking at the 25 popular YouTube clips on the iPhone; one of the clips that came up, was the “Angry Dance” from the film Billy Elliot.

I immediately recognised some of the feelings of frustration that Billy was experiencing… having all these conflicting inputs and emotions, while feeling powerless to stop it.  That powerlessness then building into feelings of anger with the world around him and himself.  In Billy’s case, he released that emotion in dance… for us, it’s bottle up and buried within the dissociative system.  I know this intellectually, but I’m not sure I understand it on a functional level… or, more accurately, I don’t know how to deal with those feelings in a more appropriate way.

My knowledge of therapeutic techniques would indicate that I need to work on identifying, experiencing and appropriately managing my anger.  That’s all well and good, but as my anger is so fleetingly realised within my normal functional states, I’m not sure how to proceed in understanding it.  I know that Liz has talked to angry ones and unsuccessfully tried to stop some of the mild self injury (scratching, picking etc) that happens in session when they are present.  She also seems to be actively poking at me and trying to encourage the anger – she was thrilled the other week when I showed frustration at her via a text message.  She wanted to explore my reaction and find out what happened, she saw the event as important… I saw it as Liz being an idiot and stating the obvious, so I snapped a curt response back to her and ignored that she existed.  I’ve noticed more and more lately that I’m losing all sense of Liz between sessions, and I wonder if this is because she wants to explore my anger.  It’s like my system is protecting me from the anger and the scariness of exploring it by shutting down everything that could prod at it.  I think this is also the reason why there are threats and desires to quit therapy…  Liz has become a huge threat to parts of the system that don’t want those emotions looked at.

Anger has always terrified me, I know that much.  Nothing will cause a dissociative switch quicker than someone showing anger.  I know I need to explore and work my anger issues through, I just wish it didn’t seem so daunting and scary…

What responsibility do therapists have towards their clients and those they encounter?  I’ve often wondered this as I see an increasing number of therapists having online interactions with mental health consumers who aren’t necessarily their own clients.

I can understand, as a consumer, that there is an attraction in finding information online – you can do it at your own leisure, it may seem less scary than talking to your therapist and it helps you to feel a sense of connection or validation to find a group of people who are experiencing the same sort of things you are.  We often come to the information with a sense of hope and vulnerability – we’re desperately searching for anything that will help us to make sense of the world we find ourselves in.  This vulnerability means that the information we find has to be totally unbiased, ethical and of a superior quality – not due to issues with our intelligence, but rather with that vulnerability potentially hampering our ability to filter the information we find.  When you’re desperate to find any hint of familiarity, you are less likely to evaluate the information found for it’s worth and relevance.  If that information, or connection to a group of people, is found on a site run by a therapist, there is an intrinsic trust associated with it.  This person is a therapist, with qualifications and years of experience… surely that means they can be trusted.  But can they?

When we go to see a real life therapist, you interview them to see if they are a good fit for you, are ethical and have complaint procedures in place… how do we do this for online therapy blogs that we read? Years of teaching Information Literacy has shown me that we are more trusting of what we find online.  There seems an implicit trust in having the information online.  This can mean that if a therapist strays from ethical guidelines, we’re possibly less likely to question it, and we’re more likely to accept what they say as being fact.  There is also the issue that the therapist doesn’t have to allow questioning on their blog… any comments which question the content of the blog or their practice can be deleted at the moderation stage.  So, we can have a perfect storm scenario, where vulnerable mental health consumers are being led along a path that is dangerous and unethical, without any checks on the therapists behaviour.

This is not to say that all therapist blogs are negative… I’ve found some excellent therapist blogs which are written either for the consumer or other therapists.  But, we do need to stand back and evaluate what we are finding…  Often the intentions of the blogs are real and true… they’re wanting to help the consumer, but often the way of doing that is questionable.  The next time you read a blog – be it a therapists or a survivors, ask yourself some basic questions…

What is this person getting out of writing the blog – what is their aim and motivation?
Is it an opinion piece, or is it factual?
Are they stating opinion as fact?
If it’s portrayed as fact, where is the research supporting that fact?
Is there indications that the therapist is continuing with their own education?
What qualifications does the therapist have, and what does that qualification mean?
Can you find out more about the therapist – do they list their name and contact details?
Google the therapist and see what comes up – are there any complaint procedures filed against them?
Who does the therapist link to – research from reputable sources, or other opinion pieces?

I know this all sounds difficult, but the online world is a dangerous one at times… you need to be aware of where you are going and what you are reading. It’s easy to be caught by a case of the therapist wearing the Emperor’s New Clothes… I know I have been.

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Now playing: Sarah McLachlan – Angel
via FoxyTunes