Scattered pieces

The inaugural edition of the Expressive Arts Carnival has been published.  Check it out at MindParts.

It’s interesting looking at the different submissions… they each tell a story about the submitters through the topic of choice, fonts, colours, arrangement of words etc.  Take a look and maybe think of submitting something yourself next time… I was scared of submitting something, but still managed it :)

“You sure know a lot about being dirty, bad and evil, don’t you?”

This statement came near the end of my time with the work place therapist (WPT) today.  To put this into context, we’d just been talking about safe internal places and stuffed animals…  We have two internal safe places and both are fairly barren.  WPT asked if there was anything that we wanted to take into the safe places… something like a stuffed toy perhaps?  A young ones immediate response was that stuffed toys weren’t allowed in the safe places.  You see, we are so dirty, disgusting and evil that if we touch a toy, it’s soiled and ruined.  She explained that we can go into the toy store, touch them to check how soft they are, purchase the one we want; but then it’s put on a chest of drawers or on our computer desk (with the price tag still on) and left to never be touched again – except for dusting or photography purposes.

To us, this makes perfect sense; but it confounded WPT.  He asked if the toys ever get lonely… well, aside from the fact that an inanimate object can’t get lonely, we have lots of stuffed toys.  To ensure we won’t be tempted to pick up the toys, they’re placed in groups so they’ll never be lonely.  He then asked about HIS stuffed bear… one he’d had from childhood.  It was well worn, with an eye missing and some of the stuffing leaking out.  What do we think of his bear?  Well again, it makes perfect sense to us… his bear is well loved, beautiful and clean (unless it’s really nasty and needs a wash).  It’s only when we touch it that it would become dirty.  We never touch other peoples stuffed toys, unless forced.

The cause for this thinking could be for a number of reasons – OCD, perfectionism etc… and while I think these are contributing factors, I think the real reasoning goes back to what Katie said in her comment to me in a previous post.  She quite rightly, pointed out how flippantly I assign negative labels to myself.  I know I do this, and have done so since I was a child.  I am/was sensitive, and remember the negatives said to me over anything positive.  When I was called the “mistake at the end”, “strange”, “odd” or “difficult”, that is all I hear.  I take those words into the system and hold onto them.  They define me.

However, the most damaging use of the negative wording, were associated with the abuse I was subjected to.  The abusers said that I was “evil for making [him] do this to [me]“, “a dirty little girl” or “a naughty little girl”.  When this was combined with the mixed religious messages that I grew up with; it resulted in parts of me firmly believing that they are evil, dirty and anything they touch would be sullied.

We are our harshest critics.  We believe we are stupid, useless, ugly, dirty… the list goes on.  We try not to make it too obvious that this is how we view ourselves – we learned very early that some people enjoy playing with those who have low self esteem.  So, we usually present a façade of calm confidence.  We were so good at this during our teen years, that our aunt considered us a stuck-up perfectionist… Our protection system failed us…  We’d taken it too far.

Couldn’t they see we were just trying so hard to make up for our dirty, evilness?  We had to be perfect in order to try to counteract all that had happened.  We had to be perfect to try and ensure that no one would see us…

You have to be invisible
If you’re invisible, no one can see you
No one can hurt you if you aren’t there

This is an enduring message that I have lived with for most of my life.  It comes from a young one, and has been one of the driving influences in my life.  During my healing, people have tried to point out to me that by being invisible, we are also invisible to those who want to help us.  I think this new way of thinking is starting to sink in.

At the moment, I’m getting lots of little pieces of the puzzle of my life being thrown at me.  It’s difficult to put them into a place or context.  But I am becoming increasingly aware of how they have impacted on my thinking and being.  Some of the enduring patterns of thinking are starting to be identified, examined and questioned.  I’m both excited and terrified…

And the red dog… I found out today that one of the young ones used to stare at our red stuffed toy dog while we were being abused.  She could look, but not touch…

Another reason why we find it difficult to touch stuffed toys.

—————
Now playing: Sarah McLachlan – I Will Remember You [Live]
via FoxyTunes

I found this today… Simple and soothing.

The story of how this song came about can be found here.

The last two days have been kind of rough.

Heading into Thursday, I was feeling good and had managed to pull myself onto some sort of steady ground.  That all fell apart late Thursday afternoon, when I got an email from the other team leader, calling into question the quality of my work.  That email sent me plunging back into self-doubt, self-hatred and all the other associated negative thinking.  My cynical friend told me to forget it; but it was such a back-stabbing insult that I couldn’t brush it off.  To make it worse, my own team leader wasn’t around to reality check the content of the email, and I didn’t want to run to the manager about it.  This spun me out to the point where I knew I wasn’t safe to drive home.  I stayed on at work for a couple of hours, before driving home and losing most of the evening to the dissociation.

Then, on Friday morning during my drive to work, we went past a “hurt” cat in the middle of the road.  I always dread this sort of thing; not only does it stir up the system because an innocent animal has been hurt, but it’s a trigger for some of the younger ones.  Like a deer caught in headlights, we can never look away… we started reciting “it’s just a jumper that fell out of a car”, hoping that this will change how we see the cat… it doesn’t.  This means we now have adult parts smarting from the insult to our work, and young ones upset that an innocent cat has been hurt.

So we’re now driving down the road reciting out loud “it’s just hurt, it’s ok, it’ll get up soon and the people who love it will come get it and take care of it”.  There was also a promise that we wouldn’t drive home that way, just in case it hadn’t been moved.

Work on Friday is mostly a blank… I know we had a morning tea for the two new people, and that the manager made a triple layer banana and pineapple cake (which did a rather spectacular topple over during the cutting process).  I also know I played around with the iPhone app kooaba, as we’re looking at new ways to try to deliver information through technology such as QR codes and visual recognition apps.  This was fun because we were going around the library, taking random photos of books, CDs and DVDs to see what information kooaba would return.

Then it came to the drive home… all the way up the street where we should have turned off to avoid going by the stretch of road where the cat had been hurt, we were consciously thinking of turning.  Then there was this little mind fit, and we were suddenly past the turn off.  I could hear the panic, but there was also this firm voice telling me to stop being so silly, that there will be nothing there, and it will all be fine.

Thankfully the cat was no longer there, but that didn’t matter, the panic had set in.  We were switching all over the place and I could feel our throat closing up.  Little Michelle came forward full force, meaning that we couldn’t really drive, talk and only barely functioned enough to get home in one piece.  Because we live in a high fenced section, no one saw us getting out of the car shaking like a leaf and stuttering about it hurting.

We got inside, fed Winnie, turned on all the lights, curled up in the corner of the lounge and tried to ease the shaking.  I had no real sense of what was happening, but there were obviously body memories.  The throat was closed off, and no matter how hard I tried, I could barely stutter.  I managed to take some anxiety medication and send the following email to Allison…

turn all the lights on an hide
turn all the lights on an hide
turn all the lights on an hide
turn all the lights on an hide
turn all the lights on an hide
turn all the lights on an hide
turn all the lights on an hide

hide got to hide
he’ll find us

I think we finally went to bed at about 8am (it was naturally light by then) and slept for a couple of hours.

Saturday had been good… we’d talked to a friend and took some pictures of the stuffed toy we got for the young ones as their reward for going through the divorce proceedings…

This made me think that tonight was going to be easier… the fear seemed to have eased.  But it’s now 1am Sunday and all the lights are on again.  Little Michelle is ok as long as all the lights are on.  We’re also ok as long as we don’t even think about going to bed.

One of the big problems with this scenario, is that it opens us up to further dissociation and self injury.  We’re so switchy and shaky…

—————-
Now playing: Missy Higgins – Where I Stood
via FoxyTunes

This came in the mail today…

WE ARE FREE OF HIM!

Some don’t trust this piece of paper, they still expect him to come around the corner at any moment… But legally, we are no longer associated with him in any way (except for the Protection Order).

I learned from an early age that my family needed to be protected.  In my childlike way, I saw them as being unable to handle the secrets I held, or even to be able to deal with daily problems.  I saw the family around me, as being a swirling mass of chaos, and the only way to bring some control and calm to the situation, was for me to be a silent rock.

While this sounds very egocentric, it meshes with some of the basic principles of childhood development.  Dunn (1991, as cited in Claiborne & Drewery, 2010, p. 157), discuss how children as young as two attempt to comfort their mother when they see her distressed.  While Lewis (2002, as cited in Santrock, 2007, p. 340), talk about the development of shame and guilt for not meeting societal expectations in children as young as two and a half.  So it makes developmental sense, that by the time I was first abused at the age of three (nearly four), I could understand (in a childlike way) the implications of telling.  I could grasp the idea that it might either hurt someone else, or bring shame on myself for not meeting my mothers expectations – after all I was told at the event that it was “bad”, “dirty”, “wrong” and “naughty”… all very emotive words to a sensitive child.

Reading the literature on dysfunctional families, it also becomes clear that the need to protect my family meant that I lost sense of appropriate boundaries (Kerig, 2005).  It meant that I became enmeshed in the problems of some of my family (father, sister and one of my brothers) and held other members of my family quite distant from myself (mother and other brother).  Throughout the family, there was almost no boundaries where I was concerned.  My other siblings were able to create some sense of boundaries, but I seemed unable to do so.  This is possibly because of the age gap between us  – there is a five year age gap between myself and the next oldest child, but only four years difference between my other siblings combined.  It could also be because I was a difficult baby/child and I didn’t emotionally attach securely to anyone, with the associated developmental impact (Claiborne & Drewery, 2010, p. 49-51).

At this point, the intellectual part of me is happy with the theory as it helps to explain why we got where we did… the cynical part of me notes that we never had a chance… while the emotional part is screaming in pain…

So what does all this theory mean?  On one level, it helps to explain why we ended up in a dysfunctional family and were an easy target for abuse… we had no concept of what an appropriate boundary was; we were used to protecting others; and we didn’t really understand that it was wrong, because we didn’t understand where we ended and the rest of the world began.  On another level, there’s pain… total and utter pain… it doesn’t matter why it happened, it happened and it hurt.

In the midst of writing this post, I’ve seen the work place therapist.  In that one hour “talk” we did a sociogram of three people – my neighbour, the mother and sister.  It was incredible and awful…  On the floor we placed whiteboard magnets for each person in relation to myself…

First, was my neighbour, who was placed about 5cm from my marker… she was safety, freedom and acceptance.  But she was also shame and pain… I once overheard my neighbour, the mother, the sister and my neighbours daughter discussing how good it was that I wasn’t around because I was so annoying.  She was the safest thing I had outside of the teachers at school.

Second to be placed, was a marker for the mother, who was about 15cm away from my marker… she was not to be trusted, to be protected, consumed with the problems of my sister and joked about me being the mistake at the end.

Third to be placed, was my sister’s marker… this is where the lack of boundaries really showed… I told the work place therapist that she should be placed on the other side of the room, and on top of my marker.  There was nothing in-between, she was either invading my space or ignoring me.  She controlled many aspects of my life.  We shared a room for many years and she invaded my space so often, in so many ways.

This seemingly simple task brought up so much… W filled in the rest of the memory surrounding what happened after we overheard the discussion about us being so annoying – we got down off the fence and went inside the house to be hurt… We realised how young we dissociated, as we remembered getting a hug from a teacher for correcting a story; but we were depersonalised at the time, as we were so terrified that we hadn’t corrected the story “properly”.

Sophie cried… W was tough… Little Michelle stuttered…

Our work place therapist kept bringing us back to the emotions…

It was difficult, but not overwhelming.

What does all of this mean?  Well, for once I can understand the theory and associate some of the emotions with it.  Yes, I parented/protected those around me… I looked after my family’s needs before my own, I kept the secrets, all the while learning to cope and adapt through the gift/curse of dissociation.  I failed to learn and understand what appropriate boundaries were – physically, sexually, psychologically and emotionally.  I learned to lock away my emotions, and although these emotions hurt to look at and experience, they won’t destroy me – unless I let them.

My work place therapist said today that I was a strong child… Right now, that statement is enough for me to believe that I can heal and grow beyond the confined world I find myself in.

References

Claiborne, L., & Drewery, W. (2010). Human development: Family, place, culture. North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia: McGraw-Hill Australia.

Kerig, P. (2005). Revisiting the construct of boundary dissolution: A multidimensional perspective. Journal of Emotional Abuse 5(2/3), 5-42. doi: 10.1300/J135v05n02•02

Santrock, J. (2007). Child development (11th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.

The following was given to me by our work place therapist. It was written by one of his clients…

There is a woman sitting in a room. All the walls of the room are engulfed in flames, which are raging relentlessly. To get to the door and get out, she must go through the flames. But her mind won’t give in to the overwhelming fear of getting burnt. Around her the flames are getting closer and the smoke is becoming thick. She is becoming weaker with each breath. She now realises that if she doesn’t get out soon, she is going to die. She imagines getting out and watching the wounds heal, but bearing the scars for the rest of her life. She thinks for a long time that dying would be so much easier and even less painful.

Outside, there are people going about their daily tasks. They smell the smoke, but convince themselves that it is merely a cigarette burning somewhere.

The woman is now growing very weak and calls out for help as she starts to fear death. Some people are genuinely deaf, but others choose not to hear her cries.

One person out of a crowd of many chooses to go to the room, clearly hearing the cries for help. But when he gets to the door, it is locked from the inside. The man becomes frustrated as he realises that all he can do is try to convince the woman to come through the flames and out the door.

The choice again is with the woman; come through the flames, knowing that there is a person waiting outside who chose to care, and be scarred. Or die alone in her own little room engulfed in flames.

Survivor?

Today, I saw the crisis team psychiatrist… it didn’t go well.

He showed me to the interview room, with this pleasant, eager young woman following in his wake.  I was a little puzzled about her presence, but had a sneaking suspicion that she was a training psychiatrist come to sit in on the interview.  Having had this before, I knew that they always asked if it was acceptable for the trainee to sit in, at which point I was ready to politely decline her being there.

We entered the room, and he sat down briefly, flipped through my file, noticing that there weren’t any blank pages, so left to get some.  Saying over his shoulder to the eager young woman (who had scooted her chair up to the desk), to introduce herself.  She was incredibly polite, saying that she was a trainee nurse.  When the psychiatrist returned, I asked if she was studying at the same institution where I worked – she nodded eagerly.  I asked that she not be present as I worked there and didn’t want to discuss the issues I was facing in front of a student from the same institution.  His immediate reaction… “But, she’s here for my safety”.

Apparently I look like someone who would either physically attack this old man, or scream sexual harassment.

What was interesting, was that at no point did he consider my safety.

His compromise, was to sit the student in the corridor just outside of the office with the door wide open.  It was a busy corridor.  At one point a woman stood at the doorway for over a minute trying to close an adjoining door – while loudly talking about her inability to do so.

Then there was the interview…

“So you didn’t show up for an appointment last week with Dr X”
“No, I’ve shown up for every appointment that has been made for me”
“Accusation number 2″
“No, I took care of myself”
“Accusation number 3″
“No, that didn’t happen”

So it went on… “What’s your mood level?” “How are you sleeping?” “What drugs are you taking?” “How much and how many have you got left?” “What do you want?” “Why are you here?”

Then it got worse. “I’ll prescribe X drug”. I asked what that was… he went into a long description about how benzos are addictive and their effect diminishes over time. He didn’t actually tell me what the new drug was, just how bad my current medication is. When I asked what the new drug would do, he said it would calm me down. I asked about another drug that I’d been recommended, and he scoffed. Saying that’s an anti-psychotic and that I’m depressed; and they only give that drug as injections up at the hospital anyway.

As I’d checked about the use of the drug before going into the appointment, I knew that it was also used for PTSD symptoms – my main problem at the moment; so I knew he was wrong about it’s use.  But I didn’t correct him… he was not a person to be corrected.

We’d started the interview pretty low, but this crushed us.  We crumpled.  I asked if it was ok to leave, he said yes; so we got up, thanked him for his time and left.  As we were doing so, he flipped my file shut with a sigh and leaned back on his chair.

I know I didn’t handle the situation well… I know I should’ve taken the drugs he was offering… but I couldn’t cope.

When I got back to work, I put my things down and told my cynical friend that I thought I was going to cry… we went into a spare meeting room and it all came out.  How I dissociate, how unsafe I am, everything…  She contacted the work place therapist who sat with me for an hour talking about things.  When I described the appointment to him, his comment was… “Yes, the psychiatrist had done his job.  He’d mentioned all the right things in all the right ways; but he didn’t care what happened beyond his vision of what you were and needed”.

It was this therapist who gave me the two creative expressions that I put up here today.  I decided to remove one, as although parts of it were powerful, the potential for triggering someone outweighed those benefits.

I’m still at a loss as to what I can do.  The birthday has now past, and that seems to have eased things internally.  I’m back at work, and that has forced a level of functioning.  I also have my cat back home… that always makes life good.

—————-
Now playing: Sarah McLachlan – I Will Remember You [Live]
via FoxyTunes

I am the youngest of four children. The mistake at the end. I was a difficult birth, and apparently screamed non-stop for the first six months of my life. I was told this many times as I was growing up. It was usually in a joking way, although how you can joke about a child being a “mistake at the end” is beyond me.  These stories and jokes chipped away at my self-esteem, to the point where I soon realised that I was worthless and an annoyance.

As I grew up, the father’s drinking became more of a problem.  Those parts within who believe he abused us, link his increased drinking to his abuse of us.  Those who don’t believe he ever touched us, link his drinking to alcoholism.  No matter what the cause, his drinking became worse over time.  This meant that it wasn’t safe to bring the few friends I had, to the house.

What does all this have to do with birthdays?  Well, this environment set me up to hate my birthday.  My birthday was a chore for those around me.  That’s if they remembered it.  The disadvantage of having your birthday at the start of the month, is people often forget to turn over the calender.  So often, people forgot my birthday.  My favourite grandparents never sent me a birthday card on time.  I was the queen of getting belated birthday cards.  Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated those cards, but a part of me saw this as being yet another way in which I was inconveniencing those around me by existing.

As I was growing up, I did have birthday parties (I don’t remember them, but have photos as proof).  Usually my two cousins who were of a similar age to me, and sometimes someone from school as well.  But a school-friend was always dicey, as if my father was home, he would be drinking.  I always tried to protect the people I knew at school from my house.  They didn’t need to see the secrets.

My siblings both liked and hated my birthday parties.  It meant they got to eat all sorts of good food, but it re-enforced the concept that I was the favourite child – especially for my sister.  My sister’s birthday is very near Christmas; that usually meant combined birthday and Christmas presents.  She always got a party as well, but she always hated my birthday parties.  Well, she just hated me.

As my self esteem was chipped away, I gave up on birthdays.  By the time I finished primary school, I hated my birthday.  But there were still some parts who secretly loved them.  I think they used to call out the names of those who was having a birthday in the coming week at school assembly, I remember a young one beaming when our name was read out – someone saw us, someone cared!

By the time I reached my teens, birthdays were actively hated.  They were a chore for those around us, and another reason for the sister to pick on us.  On my 14th birthday, my sister didn’t want to go out with the family for my birthday dinner, she wanted to go out with her boyfriend (who was abusing us) and her friends.  She first told my parents that she didn’t want to go, but they told her she had to ask us for permission to not go.  Of course, we told her to go with her friends.  Why force her to be somewhere she didn’t want to be?

Just before my 16th birthday I was assaulted.  This was the last straw in ever wanting anything to do with my birthday for the teen and adult parts of me.  The birthday become a traumatic anniversary.  It was decided that it was best to ignore it and move on.  Over the years this worked well, the mother would still send gifts and occasionally the rest of the family would remember as well.  It became a habit to have the week of my birthday off, as I knew my functioning around that time diminished significantly. Quite often the mother would come up for a holiday during that week, which forced a level of functioning within the system, as a way of self-preservation.

Which brings us to this year.  This year, the mother didn’t come up.  This year we weren’t forced to function, and things fell apart.  Leading up to the birthday, there was lots of lost time and dysfunction.  Then on the birthday there was pain, lots of pain.  Not from the adult ones, but from the young ones who needed some reason to keep on living.  On our birthday, we got a supportive email from a friend, a present from the mother, and a manipulative email from our sister.

Apart from the manipulative email, we appreciate the acknowledgements we received.  But what really hurt the young ones, was that we didn’t hear from either brother.  The brothers were idolised by these young ones.  At times they were an island of safety in an otherwise chaotic life.  This lack of contact re-enforced our belief that if we were gone, no one would notice.  The entire day was spent trying to fight those messages.

I realise that this all sounds attention seeking; but it’s about us trying to work through what happened and why.  It’s about us being more in touch with those young ones who were hurt by the people they care about, not reaching out to them – and yes, we do send messages and cards to those people.  It’s about being perceived as a bother and inconvenience to those around us.  It’s about not having an adequate support system around us.  It’s about not believing we have any right to a support system, and being terrified to try to build one.

It’s about not being worthy of… anything, everything???