Scattered pieces

Got to run… Got to get away… Got to escape…

This is how my need to runaway always starts… those words, repeated over and over.  Sometimes they creep up on me slowly; but sometimes, they hit like the freight train.  On Sunday, they hit suddenly; although I should have been expecting them…  Last week, an inundation of triggers, meant that by Friday, I was a dissociated mess.  Through my own actions, and decisions, I set myself up on the road to self-destruction, and despite some last-minute reality checks, things became very messy…

On Sunday, I got that last little push that tipped me over the edge into a flip-book of flashbacks…  So, the chant began… Got to run… Got to get away… Got to escape…

This has often been the beginnings of an incident of self-injury, which I know just causes pain to be piled on top of existing pain.  I know the pull of self-injury well… it can be hypnotic and alluring… there’s a cold comfort in its familiarity.  But, instead of following that path, I took the words literally and escaped by going for a walk.

Considering my social anxieties, I’m not quite sure why I decided to do this… and initially, it seemed a huge mistake.  I walked past families preparing BBQ’s, causing flashbacks to summers of watching my father cooking at the family BBQ… past the barking dogs, which brought up images of the scars on my friends back from an attack by a stray Alsatian… It went on, with each new sight, smell and noise triggering a new flashback.

I walked faster, and faster… trying to outpace the thoughts and images in my head.  But the chanting in my head got louder and louder… Got to run… Got to get away… Got to escape…

Negative talk started to drown out the chant… I shouldn’t have eaten so much over the past week… I didn’t do enough at work… I’m just an attention seeking nightmare…

It went on and on… until, the words of WPT cut through all the noise.  He told me the story of a woman who heard some rattling behind her as she walked; so she walked faster, scared of the noise… She walked faster and faster, until she was running… all the while, the rattling noise became louder and louder.  As she scrambled up a hill, she met someone who told her to turn around… The noise was that of the skeleton of her past, tied to her ankle.  Until she turned, faced it, and cut it free; it would always be with her. **

This rather butchered part of a story, brought me back to reality…  I realised that this is what I was so desperately trying to do… I was trying to outrun the skeletons in my closet.  But, they were making their presence felt through flashbacks and anxiety.  Because they exist within me, I’m never going to outrun them… or inflict enough damage through self-injury to drown them out for long.  Until I turn to face them, and work through what happens in the present as a consequence of those skeletons; I’m never going to ease their hold over me…

The kicker is, that I know this.  I know that my self-injury is just another way to try to run… but turning around to face those skeletons is terrifying.  I’ve been able to do it at times, but never for long.  I get scared, confused and overwhelmed.  I can never seem to do it they way they say in the books, or even in the other blogs I read… It seems such an unobtainable goal.  How can something summarised in one chapter of a book, be so difficult, and take so long to do?

Of course, my annoyance with not being able to achieve this thing called “healing” is yet another sign of my need to distract and have control…

So, the skeletons of my past keep rattling…

** As a note: I know my recounting of the story isn’t accurate, and I’m not sure of its title; but I think it might be one of the short stories in the book Women who run with Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

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Now playing: Missy Higgins – Ten Days
via FoxyTunes

“Creepy guys”… that’s how the men shown on a recent current affairs programme, were described by several of my co-workers (see promo article – Close Up shocked by ‘sexually explicit’ online chat with girl).  Everyone around the table nodded in agreement… these guys were “creepy” and “disgusting”.  Implicit within their words, was the fact that it was obvious that these men were “bad”, and that they would be able to spot them a mile off…

While looking one of them in the eye, I responded that those “creepy guys” could have been your husband, father, neighbour, school teacher, anyone… including being a woman, rather than a man.

Their denials were swift and vigorous… No, all of those men looked creepy.  I don’t think they could get their heads around the possibility that an abuser could be a female, so that part of my response was ignored.

Then something happened… someone said that one of the men shown looked like he was a businessman.  Another mentioned a recent case where a well-known comedian was convicted of child sexual abuse.  My amazing cynical friend, who knows a little of my past, repeated my words to the others in a slightly different way… suddenly there were uncomfortable shifting in chairs as they realised the implications of what they had seen on the show, and were now realising… An abuser isn’t the “creepy guy” with a long coat hiding in the bushes, or online… No, an abuser could be your neighbour, friend, relative… anyone.

I work with educated people… about a quarter of our number have at least one masters degree, while the others hold at least one bachelor degree… yet, they have led fairly sheltered lives.  When faced with anything outside of their comfort zone, they don’t cope.  They have shown this time after time… so I don’t know why it surprised me today.

Actually, the only difference in the usual play of things, was that today, I spoke up.  I gently questioned their beliefs, and they listened.  I’m not naive enough to believe that I’ve changed their minds; but for a moment, I had them thinking.

I know it’s not much, but it’s something small that I could do to acknowledge my past.  I grew up in a time when abuse was considered to be physical violence only – sexual or psychological abuse weren’t well-known, understood, or acknowledged.  However, much like today, people considered that any abuse only happened to “those people over there…” as they point to a vague point in the horizon.  It certainly didn’t happen in their house.  Yet, my father was a well-known, and respected member of the community… as were the other men that my siblings and I, called “Uncle”.  This helped the abuse that I was subjected to, fly under the radar.  No one questioned why I came to my mother during a party in tears, I was just shooed back to bed with a drink of water; all the while, the party laughed about my “excitability”.

I can understand them not questioning… well, I try really hard to.  We were a white middle class family, and that sort of thing didn’t happen in white middle class homes.  I didn’t say why I was crying.  I never said anything.  I’d been told, in many ways, that telling was not an option.  Societal expectations played a part in my silence… maybe, just maybe, by questioning my co-workers beliefs about “creepy guys”, it might make them consider things such as why a young girl would be crying at an adult party…

It’s not much, but it was something that I was capable of at that moment.

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Now playing: Tracy Chapman – I’m Ready
via FoxyTunes

The theme for this months Expressive Arts Carnival is:

Through drawing, painting, or any other visual means, create an image that represents a major obstacle facing you now.

My first reaction when reading the directive for this month’s carnival, was to write the letters “ME” on a page, and send it in.  It feels more and more as if I am my own worst enemy; or probably more accurately, my thinking is.

My disordered thinking is evident in all areas of my life, but is particularly problematic at work – where I’m doing the job of about two people, but reluctant to make waves by saying that I’m swamped; within therapy – where I hold up any negative interaction as a reason to further beat myself up mentally, and use as a gateway to more self-injury; and finally with my relationship with food – where small things like being told that I must have three meals a day in order to have the antibiotics I was prescribed last week, caused a major panic.

I know that all of these factors are inter-related symptoms of an underlying cause… the problem is, that the symptoms are screaming so loudly, that it’s difficult to see, or hear the motivations behind it all.  It is for this reason, that I’ve chosen this abstract photo of a red canna lily to represent both the scream of the symptoms, and the underlying motivations.

This scream is my obstacle… and my path to healing.

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Now playing: Counting Crows – Rain King
via FoxyTunes

One of my first jobs in libraries, was working as a reference librarian in a small public library.  It was a fascinating job, as nearly every patron came in with a different information need.  There is one man whom I will always remember… he was probably in his mid to late 50′s, and very intelligent.  He approached me with confidence and told me what information he needed… “Where are your books on how to build an aviary”… taking him at his word, I showed him to the aviary construction books.  As he was enjoyable to talk to, and unfamiliar with the inner workings of the library; I walked with him over to the books.  As we walked over, we started talking.  After a fairly short, informal discussion, I found out that he’d never owned birds before, and was looking at different aviary designs so that he would know which birds to put together, and how to care for them.  I immediately knew that he didn’t need aviary designs yet… he needed bird care books, which are in a totally different section of the library.

When I talked about this incident with my manager, his immediate response was “don’t blame the customer… no matter how intelligent they are, they don’t know how to navigate our systems, or to identify what their real information need is”.

Later, when I was working in a tertiary library; I worked closely with many highly respected academics.  Despite their skills within their own area of expertise; they would regularly ask me to come in and teach their students how to find information, and for help with their own research.  One academic called librarians a “guide on the side”… that is, we were there to guide the user through the maze of information retrieval and management.  We help the user to gain skills so that they too can learn how to retrieve information… and therefore become a “lifelong learner”.  This academic was vocal that her expertise was in academia, and mine was in information seeking… she saw them as complementary, rather than conflicting, skill sets.

Why I mention all of this seemingly irrelevant waffle; is that I realise that I place absolutely no value in Allison (or any therapists) ability to be a “guide on the side” during my healing process.  I don’t trust their skill, intelligence, or abilities.  This, despite researching their qualifications, seeing their skills in action, and being nearly six years into therapy.  Part of this is because I have seen a couple of therapists whom I didn’t respect their intelligence… basically, I could destroy them in an argument.  But a greater part of the problem, is my need for control.  I don’t trust anyone else to tell me what to do – that got me into too much trouble when I was young; and, more importantly, my ability to escape into my head was my saving grace as a child.  It’s where no one could touch me, and where I could control what happened.  It became my coping mechanism… I entered school and realised that intellectualisation was something to be valued… suddenly there was something I could do that would get me approval on a grade sheet…  My imagination, coping and intellect became something that I could control, and now a therapist wants to come in and mess with that?  No way was that going to happen!

Then, last week, I had a Twitter conversation which helped me to rethink how I was viewing Allison, and all therapists… I made the leap from thinking of therapy as this thing that happened “to” people, to being an interaction that I could relate to… I put it into context of the intelligent gentleman who came and asked me about how to build an aviary.  Something clicked internally, and I could see that I was walking into Allison’s office as that man… I came in wanting to “have a life worth living”, and I was walking over to the “life” section of the library; but what I really needed, were the sections about self soothing, nutrition, boundaries, physical health, etc.  Without all of those basics, the “life” that I built would always be hollow and meaningless.  I would always be falling back into dysfunction, and struggling to find meaning in what I was doing.

What does this mean?  Well, Allison has said several times that it’s her job to guide me through the healing process… my response has been to roll my eyes, and go do some more research… difficult, me? Never!  Yes, this is the sort of thing that the poor woman puts up with every week.  I now know, that what I have to do is ease back on that control, and put some trust in her skills.  I need to realise that she is my “guide on the side” in healing… I can, and will, still question everything; but I need to listen, and have more patience.

Sounds pretty simple for a sarcastic, control freak… right?

A special thanks to my Twitter buddies who helped me realise this… probably without even knowing what you were doing!

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Now playing: Taylor Swift ft. The Civil Wars – Safe and sound
via FoxyTunes

I return to work on Monday.  Going back to an overwhelming workload, within a toxic environment.

I don’t know if I can do it.  Actually, I know I can’t.

The only question is; how long can I handle it, before it destroys me?