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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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