Scattered pieces

I hold the shame and disgust, because there’s no where else to put it.

If I don’t hold it, where would it go?

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Now playing: The Beatles – Blackbird
via FoxyTunes

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It’s like every moment is a blank slate.  There’s no connection to the past, present, or future.  It is what it is… a disconnection from time, place, people… and on some level, reality as well.

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Do you know I’m real, when you say those lies about me?
Do you know I’m real, when you call me names?
Does it excite you to turn others against me?
What is your game?

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Now playing: Mad World – Gary Jules
via FoxyTunes

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The theme for this months Expressive Arts Carnival is:

Through drawing, painting, photography or any other visual means, create an image representing your relationship with “safety”.

As I’ve described before, my relationship with safety is tenuous and rather dysfunctional.  Allison asked me last week whether I felt safe in her office, I asked her what safe was… This interaction sums up my confusion towards safety.  Intellectually I know the definition of safety, but I don’t have a framework to put that experience in for myself.  At times, I consider it safe to be in the middle of an open field or park, where I can see if someone is coming to get me.  Sometimes I consider it safe at home with all of the windows and doors locked.  Other times, I consider it to be safe to be in the middle of an abusive event – there is a sense of having control over the situation.  So yes… dysfunctional.

Internally there is little sense of safety.  The closest I get to the feeling is when I’m out taking photos, or watching the ocean.  This is when I get a sense of calm.  The internal noise quietens down, and there is a sense of being.  This feeling is rare, and even when I’m doing those things, I don’t always feel it.  This highlights for me that safety can only be reached through a combination of factors, but most important are the internal ones.  If I can be in exactly the same situation twice, with one time feeling things slowing down, and another time them still racing… it indicates that my reactions are the deciding factor.  The problem is trying to establish why there is a different reaction.

I know that trust plays a big part in my feelings towards safety.  The ability to trust those around me, and myself.  I second guess the motivations of those around me, because I don’t understand that people would want anything to do with me, without wanting something from me.  I wish I could say that these are all old feelings, but they’re not.  I’m often only sought out at work to fix something for someone, or to do extra work… rarely is it for anything else.  Yet, I also know that I encourage this sort of impersonal interaction… if the “go away” neon sign above my head was any bigger, it would topple over into the razor wire topped concrete wall that surrounds me.  Yet, I still don’t feel safe inside my wall…

This is why I keep on doing the difficult work of healing.

This is why my entry into this months carnival is menacing, rather than optimistic.  Safety feels like some out of reach ideal that only happens to good people…

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Now playing: Tracy Chapman – All That You Have Is Your Soul
via FoxyTunes

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Why do they want me to look at it?  Leave it be.

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I’m not sure what’s real anymore.  There’s been a tipping point reached internally, and derealisation has sunk in.

It’s an odd feeling, the derealisation.  I was just walking down the steps at work, and had no idea of whether my foot would ever touch the next step.  Part of my brain was wondering what would happen if more and more of my foot wasn’t fully on the step.  Another part was wondering why the colours of the plants beside the steps seemed to vividly green, they didn’t look that way last week.

When I’m derealised, I usually have little idea of consequences.  I’m not really living in the moment, let alone understanding any long term consequences of my actions.  Thing is, to everyone else I still appear ok.  I don’t look any different, I don’t talk all that differently (maybe a little stilted or with more pauses)… but nothing screams out to anyone “this person is disconnected”.  I self-injured while at work yesterday; but that was another sign of the disconnect, not the cause.  I’m having to work through some issues which I probably need to grieve for what was, and what will never be; but I don’t think that’s what’s causing this.  I’m heading into another round of teaching commitments; but again, I don’t think that’s what causing the derealisation.  My trust in people was shaken greatly last week; I’m not sure if that contributed or not.  Shame has risen to new levels internally; but is that enough to cause this?  Possibly it’s all of these factors combining to give the system a feeling of being overloaded.  But I don’t feel the overload, I don’t really feel anything…

This was one of the first sets I did on Ployvore last night, and probably shows how I’m feeling the most accurately.  I’m here, but not really.  I’m scattered, but appearing to function.  It’s an odd feeling.

My life, seems pointless.  But yet there is no desire, that I’m aware of, to do anything self-destructive.  Maybe that is the point of this feeling?  I don’t know.  I do know that I can’t keep on like this, my inability to understand consequences could lead to more self injury, and I don’t have the internal filters to be able to stop it happening.  This in turn will lead to a vicious cycle of more derealisation, more self injury…

It’s an odd feeling, looking through your eyes and seeing the world as an odd caricature of itself.

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Now playing: Falling Slowly – Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (Once)
via FoxyTunes

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The activity for this months Expressive Arts Carnival is to:

Write your memoir using only six words and present it as an image.

I’ve been trying out different ideas for this activity for the last few weeks, and I’ve found it a useful tool in helping me to understand where I am in the moment.  Each day, I would think of six words which described my day, feelings or experiences, and put them into Wordle to see if I could generate a graphic of what was going on internally for me.  In some ways, this exercise is a link between my Polyvore sets, which  are a visual representation of my experiences; and this written blog.

Here are a couple that I’ve created over the last week or so…

Pain

Expectations

I was going to submit one of these, but then I clarified with Paul whether the autobiography was to be descriptive words, or a sentence.  Strangely enough, he considered an autobiography to be (at least) a sentence **Please note: Paul doesn’t expect a sentence, there was a bit of miscommunication going on**.  As it was identified when I reached university that I was unable to tell a complete sentence from an aardvark, I didn’t see this as a huge stumbling block… incomplete sentences are my forte, although they tend to be  incoherent, rambling marathons; rather than anything pithy.  But grouping random words together with an ellipses thrown in for good luck, seemed doable.  Here’s the result:

The first half of the sentence describes how the expectations, needs and wants of others, defined me for so long that I seemed to get lost, and become almost like a puppet…  I did my undergraduate degree, not because I enjoyed the subject, but because I got good grades in it.  I got married because society expects a woman in her thirties to be married.  I stayed silent when I should have screamed, because I didn’t want to hurt or inconvenience others…  These are all indicators of my abusive past, and I’m still very much under their influence; therefore the words representing that past are so dominant.  But I’m now starting to redefine the distorted self image, even though that redefinition is feeling a little shaky and unsure; as can be seen by the smaller second half of the sentence.

After I completed this activity, and reflected back on it, I could see those old dysfunctions coming through.  As you can tell in my descriptive word exercises, I’m feeling quite disconnected from things at the moment, so use the more impersonal “self” instead of “myself”.  It’s also a much lighter colour – almost like I’m scared to come forward and be seen/heard.  I used the term “redefining” instead of “defining”, to indicate that it’s all a work in progress.

As with all of the Arts Carnival activities, this has helped me understand a little more about myself.  It also helped to establish a little bit of reflective connection in an otherwise disjointed month.  Even if you don’t submit anything for the Arts carnival, I’d encourage you to give this exercise a try, it’s been interesting seeing how the words changed over time – and noticing which ones have stayed the same.

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Now playing: Sarah McLachlan – Angel
via FoxyTunes

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There has been another major Earthquake in Christchurch.  This one has claimed lives.  The city is in ruins.

I don’t understand.

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Now playing: Enya – May It Be
via FoxyTunes

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When Paul announced that the topic for both the Carnival Against Child Abuse, and Expressive Arts Carnival would be “your truth”, I was excited. I struggle with what my truth is, almost on a daily basis; so saw this as a great way to explore my reactions and issues around the concept.  Then the reality of writing about the topic hit me… literally.  I published a post about my truth last week, which received some negative feedback, and all my insecurities came out and had a party.  It became a fight about whether I would look more foolish keeping it up, or taking it down.  I decided to take it down.

I consider truth to be an amorphous concept.  What I wrote last week, was my truth at that time.  What I write today, will be different because I’ve learned from last week’s experience, and gained more understanding about the situation.  If I write another post on this topic in a week, month or year, it will be different again.  Truth isn’t set in stone.  Truth is derived from the understanding of our experiences… but that understanding comes from our perspective, bias, values, etc.

Truth also has political, economic and cultural importance.  This is where I start to get confused – not because I think I’m of any great importance, but rather because so many people seem to have a vested interest in my truth…

• The False Memory Syndrome Foundation and DID deniers are vocal in their opinion and research that they say proves you cannot repress traumatic memory in the way that many DID cases are presenting.
• Extreme supporters of DID tell you to seek out each memory and believe it as the truth.
• My family don’t know what to believe, but they are tired of having a daughter who is unwell.
• Work doesn’t care as long as they get more than my contracted hours of work, and I don’t inconvenience them with my phobias.
• ACC accepts that I have issues related to sexual abuse, but would prefer this to have been “resolved” long ago so that they didn’t need to keep funding my therapy.

I find it impossible to ignore all of these conflicting messages and theories.  In some ways, I think it’s dangerous to do so.  Each group has something to teach us… FMS helped to place a check of poor therapeutic practice; our family show us how confusing our experience can appear to the outside world; and so on.  But, I don’t think that it’s up to us as individuals, to get caught up in the debates and arguments.  I think that we owe it to ourselves to be an informed consumer; to gain power over our own healing, and to play an active part in that healing process.  But we shouldn’t hurt ourselves in the process.

I’ve read much of the FMS material.  I’ve debated with the DID deniers.  I’ve questioned the beliefs of the extreme supporters.  Each of those interactions has come at a personal cost.  I begin to doubt my truth.  I become conflicted and destabilised.  Opponents to DID, would argue that this destabilisation was due to the house of cards that I have built my life on, being threatened.  The thing is, the intellectual part of me likes this reasoning.  At times I embrace denial for all it’s worth.  Events which I know occurred are minimised, or I detach emotionally from them.

But, this doesn’t explain how I continue to react to things.  Even in the midst of my denial, I still avoid the smell of tyres on a hot summer day, I must have my back to the wall… the list goes on.  I can appear bright, happy and be super-functional; yet internally I’ve compartmentalised the turmoil, and can dangerously self injure within the hour.  This is where my intellectual/autobiographical truth, and the truth of my sensory memory collide.  For me, healing comes, not from trying to uncover every single memory, but rather in coping with what I am facing in the present – it’s about symptom management, not chasing memories.

It’s my intellectual part that needs to know what happened to me; but this has never been where my healing has occurred.  My greatest leaps in healing have always come from working through a trigger in the present.  It’s shown the wounded parts of me that it is possible to be safe.  Ironically, this safety has often led to more sharing of emotions, and yes, sometimes memories.  But these were shared from a place of strength, not chaos.  They didn’t have the power to sweep me along on an emotional tidal wave.  That’s not to say that I don’t get swept away, I do.  But I’m learning how to cope in the present in a more proactive way… a more emotional way.  It’s uncomfortable, it’s scary, but the benefits are showing.

So what is my truth?  I was hurt in the past by people who should have protected me.  That betrayal of trust now influences my life in significant ways.  I get confused, distracted and hurt by the controversy that is associated with the diagnostic label that a psychiatrist assigned me.  I am trying my best to heal from the wounds of the past, understand the controversy, and (more importantly) live a life.  Isn’t that what most of us are trying to do?

What is the truth… or are they both the truth seen from different perspectives?

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Now playing: Collective Soul – December
via FoxyTunes

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I’m struggling.

I honestly don’t know what else to say, besides those two words.  I could try to tell you the reasons, but they are just a jumble in my head.  I try to make sense of the jumble, but all I get are disjointed Polyvore sets…

First this…

Then, within an hour, this…

The text in the second set is from the poem Evening song of the Thoughtful Child by Katherine Mansfield.

So yes, I’m struggling.

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Now playing: Green Day – Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)
via FoxyTunes

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