The walk
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
PDF Reflections: Part II
Yesterday I wrote a happy shiny summary on 2010. It was accurate, and covered many of the positive things that had happened last year, but it wasn’t an accurate reflection. The purpose of a reflective exercise is to put the past into a learning framework, and that’s what I failed to do. By looking only at the positives, I sidelined and ignored the struggles I faced, and how those struggles influenced the positives.
When looking at the overall themes of last year, it’s easy to see that I was concentrating on safety and consistency. To me, these issues are intertwined. I’m at a stage in my healing where I need a consistent structure in order to find safety. If this structure is absent, as it was when my therapeutic relationship with Liz disintegrated, and my friendship with Matthew fell apart; there were serious consequences for my safety. I lost an anchor that I had relied on – no matter how dysfunctional it was, and I allowed it to push me into a downward spiral. This was even more evident, when my cynical work friend started having an affair with a married man. The triggers associated with the relationship were too close to my parents relationship, that I was unable to relax around her like I used to. Unlike the rupture with Liz and Matthew, I was able to maintain an altered friendship with my work friend. The key difference, was that with Liz and Matthew there was hurt in the present, whereas I had the awareness to realise that my work friend wasn’t hurting me directly in the past or present. I may not agree with her moral choices, but the friendship was maintained, if somewhat modified.
Throughout the year, I’ve had ACC decisions hanging over my head. This was one of the drivers which lead to my suicide attempt, and to my withdrawal from life. The thought of a faceless case manager deciding my therapeutic fate, without having ever met me, basically did my head in. This is a fairly consistent story across many sensitive claims clients. The power imbalance in favour of ACC, is such a trigger to the old abusive situations, that it’s difficult to work your way through to a rational interaction with them. Despite my fears, the assessing psychiatrist was incredibly supportive and gentle. He gave me a significant impairment which should hopefully allow me to access therapeutic care for awhile yet.
This leads onto the therapeutic relationship with Allison. I’ve avoided talking about her and what happens in therapy, mainly because I want to protect the relationship. As with any human relationship, there are ups and downs, but the strength of Allison, is her ability to encourage me to slow down. My default coping mechanism is to dissociate and rush through anything that feels scary; but Allison is helping me to realise that this doesn’t have to happen. I can tolerate the emotions that are a part of living. They may scare me, and I may not understand what I hear within sessions; but what is said and felt, is me. It’s that simple, and that complicated.
I still struggle with denial, minimisation, comparisons and other circular thinking. But, Allison helps me to work through this through validation and acceptance. She doesn’t encourage blind faith, and is open to questioning about the validity of what is being said, and her experience with dealing with what I present. Not that I challenge her on a regular basis or anything… well, actually I don’t as much as I did. There is a sense of respect towards Allison, even if there isn’t consistent trust.
Last year, I also briefly saw WPT and an occupational therapist. They were at opposite ends of the helpful spectrum… WPT helped me realise that by saying how strong the young ones within the system were, I was re-enforcing the idea that they were meant to stay strong and protect me. This was so obvious, but yet, I thought I was showing respect by mentioning their strength. But the young ones need care, not more pressure. In contrast, the occupational therapist was not a good therapeutic match. She reminded me of a cross between a cheerleader and an unskilled kindergarten teacher – lots of loud enthusiastic talk, with very little substance or experience. Thankfully she discharged me after meeting one of the three goals we’d established.
One of the things that worried me about seeing these other therapists, was that I wondered if my life would revolve around therapy and healing. Considering my work commitments; this would be unlikely, and it would probably have been helpful if they had worked out. But, there was that nagging fear that I would start to define myself and my life through my mental health. Which when I consider that I spent so much time this year caught up in self injury, the change of focus to healing, might have been a good thing!
Yes, my old nemesis… self injury. It also bumped into my suicidal ideation and intent this year, which wasn’t a pretty sight or feeling. But a shock can sometimes be good for the system, and near the end of last year, I got one. It wasn’t the suicide attempt, but instead the health of a friend bringing up all sorts of memories. Consequences, accountability, fears and reality all collided. Repercussions were felt throughout the system, and as a result, one dangerous form of self injury has been largely controlled. There is yet to be any sense of accomplishment about this, and there is a fear that the triggering presence of the mother is going to release a tidal wave of self injury this weekend. All I can do is plan for it not to happen…
So much of my life now, is about trying to live from moment to moment. I had hoped to be further along in my healing than this by now, but I’m not. This isn’t to take away from the accomplishments that I have achieved, but rather a sense of “not again”. This Christmas, I did cope better than the previous year; but then I had hayfever, so could barely speak or raise my head. The hayfever has eased, and with that, the triggering memories and intolerance of the mother has returned. The mother has been here two weeks, and that’s about three weeks too long. Wish me luck for the rest of the week…
As so much of my year has been on exploring the creative arts, I thought I’d do the following summaries of the positive, and difficult work that I’ve been doing. As a warning, the second (Polyvore) video may trigger.
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Now playing: The Beatles – Here Comes The Sun
via FoxyTunes
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Now playing: Yo-Yo Ma – Unaccompanied Cello Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011: IV. Sarabande
via FoxyTunes
The “S” word…
Note: This entry may trigger due to issues around suicide being discussed.
I’ve been fairly open about my levels of suicidal ideation on this blog over time. But the last week or so, I’ve been dancing around the subject. The reason why… on the 2nd and 3rd of August I tried to commit suicide.
I’m still trying to make sense of the attempts, and the triggers which precipitated them.
The main things I remember about Monday, are that I didn’t work my usual late shift, and that I was very tired… very, very tired. So tired, that it made perfect sense to come home, empty a pill bottle into my hand and swallow them down with a caffeine drink.
I vividly remember looking at the pile of pills in my hand, and thinking… “This will help me sleep”.
This terminology is significant… “This will help me sleep”. Usually, my suicidal ideation and intent is termed “running away”, so I wonder if the change in phrasing was an indication that different ones were driving the attempt, or whether I was just really tired?
In the past, whenever there has been even a suicidal gesture, a protector has come forward and immediately called for help. But not this time. This time, I climbed into bed and waited for sleep. That was at about 6pm. The next thing I remember, is waking in a panic at 2.45. I wasn’t panicking about the pills that were now well absorbed into my system… Oh no, I was panicking because I wasn’t sure if it was morning or night, and I was worried about missing work!
The details are fuzzy, but somehow we ended up in ER. ER’s always seem so bright… so well lit… super bright… I know this is a medical necessity, but it’s also about our fears. We hate hospitals. We feel ourselves get smaller, younger and more tongue-tied in hospitals… It’s hard to hear what people are asking of us, and we become more robotic.
As an indication that there was still come cognitive thinking happening, we’d remembered to bring our iPhone with us. Hours of playing Boost 3D, Euchre, Hell’s Kitchen… Anything to try to keep calm! Then the unspeakable happened, the iPhone battery ran out… This tipped the scales back to crazy.
- We removed the lure ourselves and went to the nurses station, asking to leave. They took us through to the observation lounge instead. Yay… power points for recharging the iPhone :)
- WPT came and visited us in the ER, and we brushed him off… told him we were fine and not to worry about us…
- When we were assessed by the psychiatric team… I say “assessed”, but to the system, it felt like a grilling. They asked about family relationships, abuse history etc.
- By the end of the assessment, angry protectors were up front and they ripped up the discharge papers as we walked away from the nurses station.
Yes, we were released with no follow-up or safety options mentioned.
When we got home, there was still the need to sleep. I think one of us called the crisis team, but gave a fake name… I remember the crisis person yelling at us that they were sending the Police around. This was the wrong threat to make, as it gave the protectors hope that help was on the way. They became less vigilant…
We sat down at the table with enough pills for a fatal overdose. It was very mechanical and quick. Again, there was a need to have enough pills to “get some sleep”. Once these were consumed, we went to bed. Again, a panicked waking a few hours later and a ride in an ambulance.
This time it was serious… I knew that because of the number of nurses around. I remember looking over when they took my blood pressure, and saying how good it was (53/45). Usually my blood pressure goes through the roof in hospitals due to anxiety (the next day it was 195/146). I asked if I could go home, because my blood pressure was so good, and it was all just a silly mistake…
I remember the nurses being nice.
I remember them wheeling me down corridors to a ward.
I remember a nurse sitting in a chair at the end of my bed all night.
We called the mother, asking her to come up because we needed help. Our cat needed food…
We were kept in for a couple of days, and again had a psychiatric assessment, this one was much more gentle. They asked about safety and stressors. They gave us options – they suggested hospitalisation, or respite. But the psychiatric ward was fairly full, and the respite place would be different to the one I’ve been to previously. Instead, we were released to the mother (a former nurse) at home.
The thing that blew me away about the medical ward, was their compassion and understanding. I was there for an overdose, but they didn’t judge. They had almost no knowledge of mental health issues (I had to tell them how to spell “dissociative”), but they were respectful of me as an individual…
It’s now over a week since the attempts, and I’m still on shaky ground. Last night, R was very present. I know it was him, because I could clearly see what he wanted – to be wearing just jeans, standing in the middle of the road, in the pouring rain, arms up, yelling (in pain, release, anger???).
I’m very aware that I’m still walking along the cliff edge. One little push will send me over.
It’s times like this that I realise how amazing the people around me can be… WPT came to see me in hospital (twice); while my blog friends have been a steady, calm voice of reason when I needed it desperately… thank you!
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Now playing: The Freshman – The Verve Pipe
via FoxyTunes
Red dog
“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.
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Now playing: Sarah McLachlan – I Will Remember You [Live]
via FoxyTunes
Boundaries, parentification and emotions
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 (thank you to Meredith for today’s reminder regarding the truth of this statement).
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/J135v05n0202
Santrock, J. (2007). Child development (11th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
