Scattered pieces

Of all the relationships in my life, my one with food is probably one of the most dysfunctional.  It started from when I was a baby, when I was defined as a “fussy eater”.  This warped over time into odd eating behaviours… when my mother used to get us ready for school, I remember we would have breakfast and a prepared lunch; but that only happened for the first couple of years of my schooling, and I was soon going to school without breakfast or lunch.  I don’t remember ever feeling hungry during these times, but I do remember the embarrassment when it was raining and we had to eat our lunch in the classroom… I always pretended that I’d forgotten my lunch.  It wasn’t that we were poor, and couldn’t afford food; I just didn’t know how to make lunch, and I wasn’t really interested.  The couple of times that I did make my lunch, I recall looking at it as an oddity, and as if it was some sort of foreign thing that had arrived out of the blue.  I never felt jealous of my friends who had lunches, only boredom as I waited for them to finish eating.

During my childhood, there were a couple of significant events involving food and my weight that strongly effected me:

1. My father commented that “at least she’s not fat like her mother and sister”.
2. My mother would compare myself and her friends daughters regarding our weight.  One time she pushed in my loose t-shirt, to show that I didn’t have a “fat stomach”.

These events dehumanised me, and made me think that if I was overweight, then no one would want to touch me.  That weight would act like a protective barrier against the world.  This thinking became strong during my teens, and I gained weight…  I no longer wanted people to touch me.  But what I didn’t expect, was the teasing and self-hatred that my weight caused.  This is what started the roller-coaster that my weight became – I would lose weight, and feel vulnerable to abuse; so gain weight, and feel disgusting and gross.

When I attended university, my weight issues came to a head.  I couldn’t afford food, and there were stressors which meant that some of my other self-injurious behaviours became out of control.  My weight dropped drastically.  It was the first time that the doctors started weighing me as a way of monitoring what was going on.  As I’d never owned any scales, this was the first time I’d been weighed since I was in school.  I remember being horrified at my weight… it was much too high.  I’ve never had an ideal weight in my mind, but what was being shown on the scale was way above what I thought it should be.  I remember the doctor talking about nutrition, and how I was showing signs of deficiencies.  I remember him talking about having to monitor my weight unless I got it back up to a healthy level.  All I wanted, was to run and hide.

When I finished university, by weight went back to the roller-coaster, mainly dipping when I was going out with someone.  In many ways, I considered eating to be an inconvenience.  People seemed obsessed with it, and I couldn’t understand the obsession.  At other times, I would be eating, and part way through a mouthful of food, become so disgusted with what was in my mouth that I didn’t know what to do with it.  Sometimes I would have to go and get rid of it, sometimes I was frozen in disgust.

During my marriage, food was a control issue… everything else in my life was so out of control, that I had to have some control somewhere.  The ex-husband was a big man, and a big eater.  He liked to think that he was a chef, but in reality, he was a glorified kitchen hand.  He preferred fatty, unhealthy foods.  That, in combination with the memories surrounding the times when my father was a butcher, were the final straw for my brain, and I could no long touch uncooked food.  It became difficult to touch any food, but uncooked meat, was especially difficult.  The feel of it on my skin was stomach churning.  This, combined with feeling that I didn’t deserve good nutrition, again led to more signs of malnutrition… oddly enough I was overweight at this time, but not eating food that had any nutritional value.

During the process of my divorce, the food issues ramped up again.  I soon couldn’t eat at all.  I was surviving on nutritional drinks, and trying to show a smiling face to the world.

Other forms of self-injury have co-existed with my food issues, and often if one of the other forms increases, then the food issues ease off.  It’s seemed like some sort of warped trade-off.  But now, it’s revolving solely around food.

Over the last few months, I’ve lost a fairly significant amount of weight.  But oddly enough, even though I weigh myself every day, with the hope of losing weight, a part of me doesn’t connect the dots between losing weight, and losing dress sizes.  So when I had to go and buy new clothing, there was a panic about going down in size… fears of the abuse starting again resurfaced, and ironically, drove a need for more food control.

I’ve never been diagnosed as having an eating disorder, so I feel a bit of a fake talking about this… but as someone recently told me, you don’t have to be diagnosed with something, in order to have a problem with it.  I have a problem, I’m just not sure how bad it is.

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Now playing: Fauré: Cantique De Jean Racine, Op. 11
via FoxyTunes

Note:  I have removed commenting from this post, as it was written from one perspective only.  While I need to honour that perspective by leaving it up here; it doesn’t fully indicate where I am, or how the year has gone.  I’ll have another go at writing something after the medication has kicked in :)

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A few of my fellow bloggers are doing reflections on the past year. I initially balked at doing something similar; because, well, I didn’t think that I had all that much to reflect on, or to be positive about. But then I got to thinking, and actually came up with a few… here they are, my random reflections, in all their crazy gloriousness…

I ended some extremely negative relationships:

• Kriss – who was psychologically abusive through his manipulation and inconsistency.
• Matthew – who the day before I attempted suicide, told me that we were all worthless in the big scheme of things, and that I would not be missed.  This was not the reason for the suicide, but I think it acted as a final straw.
• My divorce became final.  I am no longer tied in any way to that man.
• The last relationship was possibly the most important, as it was with someone who knew how to use my dissociation for his own gain.  He shall remain nameless and faceless, but I’m glad I stood up to him and took steps to ensure my safety.

I meet some incredible people through the blogosphere, and even made some friends – despite reverting to “pompous mode” (otherwise known as insecure mode), on occasion.  I’ve learned, laughed, got angry on your behalf and even occasionally shed a tear because of you all – thank you!

I attempted suicide, and survived.  I meant to die.  I wanted to die.  But I didn’t.  Some wizardry of the medical kind, protected my liver; while in the aftermath, the nurses treated me with professionalism.  The suicidal ideation and intent hasn’t vanished, but it’s back to a level that is manageable in my daily life.

I said No to physical touch for the first time in my life EVER.  Allison was saying that when she feels upset for her clients, she often wants to put her arm around them and give comfort through physical touch.  As soon as she said this, I stamped both feet on the ground, like I was getting ready to sprint out the door, and firmly said No.  Ok, so I said the word in a therapists office, where I have established that she will never touch me without consent, but still… I said the word.  Loudly.

I started working with Allison.  It’s been rough, and I still don’t understand her.  But there’s a consistency in staring at her coffee table, feet, bookshelves or her rather sad pot plant.  We talk.  She forces me to slow down, to notice when I have reactions, to accept that I do react, and that it’s ok to do so.

I had brief contact with some of the ones within my system that I didn’t previously know about, but feared.  All I knew was that there was something “bad” in The Basement of my internal house; but that “bad” turned out to be ones which are very hurt.  I know my work with what they hold is by no means complete, but it was started.

I was reminded that I can’t work on one part of the system, to the exclusion of other parts; instead, I must think of my being in it’s totality.  I still struggle with this, but if I wandered too far into a particular coping mechanism, or way of being; there would be a reaction or incident that would remind me that I’m not dealing with one aspect of my life at a time anymore.

At work, I received mixed messages about my performance.  I was given an excellent performance review, asked to act as team leader and manager during absences; but was not given a pay rise.  The high performer within me wants to know how to be perfect, and therefore be worthy of a pay rise; while the realist in me knows that the pay issue is tied to the economic and political times, more than my performance.  It’s a good reminder, that I still need to work on gaining satisfaction from my job that is independent of others.  I still rely on others to prove my worth and validate my existence.  I need to shift that, so that I can gain job satisfaction without needing others approval.

I did my little bit to fight the changes brought about by the new ACC clinical pathway.  I wrote a couple of posts, got into some verbal exchanges on some forums, and even ventured into other peoples blogs to discuss the issues.  Sometimes, I didn’t cope well… but sometimes, I was proud of what I was doing.  I may not have made any impact on the policies, but there were big changes in my healing as a result.  I stood up for myself, and that caused a positive flow-on effect.  On a personal level, my struggles with obtaining ongoing ACC coverage aren’t over, but that’s another story.

I worked on creative expression.  I found that although I can rarely “look inside” and get a direct answer, I can do a Polyvore set or write a poem, and find an answer.  I often get scared of what is communicated, or don’t understand it.  But, I’m a work in progress, and I can learn.  There is more trust from the system because of my willingness to work in this way.

I’ve learned an awful lot this past year.  I think that’s possibly why I fear 2011 so much… the stakes are so much higher.

I wish you all the best for the coming year.  Take care out there…

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Now playing: Pink – Trouble
via FoxyTunes

Sometimes I don’t have words.

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Now playing: Natalie Merchant – Seven Years
via FoxyTunes

This is my spoiled rotten, gorgeous cat…

This photo was taken on Wednesday night, after I’d taken her to the vet.  She doesn’t like the vet, let alone a vet with broken air conditioning on a hot Summer’s night.  So, on top of the usual indignities that accompany visiting a vet, she was heat stressed as well.  This wouldn’t have bothered many cats, but my gorgeous cat is now 16 years old.  She’s also starting to experience kidney failure.

The one constant in my life for the last 16 years, is dying.

To put her into my life context, I got Winnie one cold Winter’s night when I was living in Wellington.  She had been caught in a humane cat-trap, in an effort to ease the number of stray cats in the area.  She was worm ridden and tiny.  She purred as soon as I picked her up and cuddled her on my lap.  She was so tiny, but determined.  She had a stubborn streak in her a mile wide.  She had decided that I would make an acceptable feeder, but she wasn’t so sure about my partner.  Winnie never did like any of the people that I was involved with… considering who they were, she has proven to be a better judge of character than I.

Winnie accompanied me when I went to university.  She sat with me through late night studying.  Threw up in the car during my travels between my home town and where I went to university.  She traveled in my car through rough ferry crossings, and my loud off-key singing.  Sometimes she’d come and curl up on my lap, sleeping the whole trip; sometimes she’d stand on my lap and peer over the steering wheel, almost like she was trying to drive us home quicker.

She proved time and time again, that cats were smarter than dogs.  Well, at least smarter than a previous flatmates Great Dane.  Winnie would sit on the couch with quiet dignity, watching the Great Dane run in faster and faster circles around the house – until a human happened to get in her way.  You could almost hear Winnie tsking at the stupid antics of a dog with more energy than brains.  I do like dogs too, but this Great Dane happened to be the dumbest dog I’ve ever met.

When I moved back to my home town, Winnie was a cat in heaven… a fire which produced good heat. But, it was soon after moving back, that I moved in with my now ex-husband.  Winnie never liked him, but tolerated him with a disdain which fluctuated depending on whether he was offering her chicken or not – her weakness is cooked chicken.  I was with him for approximately nine years, and she was my constant companion.  She would come into the study with me when I was woken with the nightmares, or recovering from the abuse he inflicted.  She would follow a young part who was scared and wandering the house.  She would tolerate me picking her up and cuddling her – for a short time anyway.  She seemed to know when I needed her companionship.

More recently, she comes with me whenever I venture outside into the garden.  It makes both of us feel safer to know the other is nearby.  When I go out driving at night, she is always waiting in the doorway to the lounge when I get home – almost like she’s checking that I’ve found my way back.

She’s often used as an excuse by parts of the system why we can’t complete suicide.  In a world that had seemed out of control and full of pain, she’s been the one consistent positive factor.  Now she’s dying.  I know that she could have been taken at any point through accident or illness, but kidney failure can be awful.  In the factsheet the vet gave me, I read the list of symptoms and freaked.  I can’t let Winnie go through that.  No way.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  But there’s been chaos in the system ever since we knew we had to take her to the vets.  We were half expecting not to bring her home on Wednesday.  But, the vet said that we were to come back in three months for more blood tests, so they’re expecting her to still be alive then.

I’ve always valued her more than myself.  When I was too poor to buy food, her food was always purchased first.  But I can’t fix this.  I can’t fix her and it’s causing chaos.  I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.

One moment at a time…

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Now playing: Sarah McLachlan – Angel
via FoxyTunes

The one consistency during my childhood were the inconsistencies. People around me were unpredictable in their attitudes and behaviour towards me and each other; one moment they were positive, the next there would be abuse of some sort. I never had any sense of solid ground beneath my feet; and no cushion of unconditional acceptance to fall back on when I stumbled.

Instead, I created consistency through the dissociative system.

When the dissociative system went beyond it’s ability to cope, and instead showed disordered behaviours and thinking, I needed to seek consistency outside of the system again. I had to start looking to those around me. I looked to partners, therapists, and people at work to act as that anchor. As with many people from dysfunctional and abusive backgrounds, I continued to select partners and friends who were dysfunctional and repeated the negative patterns I was familiar with (e.g. husband, my American friend Matthew). I slowly moved away from these old patterns and found new people who seemed healthy (e.g. cynical workplace friend, Allison).

Because these new people have shown consistency over time, it confuses me when they become inconsistent.

Earlier this year, my cynical workplace friend started having an affair with a married man. The one person in the office that I could talk to, and laugh with, was now showing the dysfunctional behaviours from my past. This triggered so many old and new emotions. It made no sense.  She admitted that it was fun, and therefore didn’t see a problem with it.  Any issues within the marriage, were for him to sort out with his wife.  It had nothing to do with her.  Suddenly she wasn’t consistent anymore. She was seen by the system as being selfish, short-sighted, and not thinking of the family she was becoming involved with.  What about the man’s nine year old daughter?

While she had shown the usual mistakes involved with being a human in the past, this was a deliberate decision that she made.  Parts of the system found it incompatible with the person we knew and laughed with.  I know it’s about old emotions – the mother was convinced that the father was having an affair.  I know it’s about feeling let down by someone we trusted and respected.  But probably one of the biggest blows, was to our sense of trust.  Our poor lack of judgment in people, was again shown to be true.  I still can’t trust myself.

So one of my anchors was cut loose.   Yes, we still laugh and talk.  But it’s different now.  I’m not sure if she feels it or not, but it is.

What’s interesting about this concept of consistency and anchoring, is that within the survivor community, I see it as much more fluid.  At one point I will be an anchor for someone; at another, they will be mine.  I think this is mainly because of different expectations we have for each group.  I understand when fellow survivors are struggling with behaviours and thought patterns.  I can empathise and offer acceptance and validation.  We’re on the same journey of learning who to trust, what the boundaries are and what our place is within the world.  These similarities make the survivor friendships so vital.  Although they may serve a different purpose than the consistent anchor, they offer an insight and validation that the anchor may never understand or comprehend.

Consistent anchors don’t have to be therapists or people who know anything about our past.  They are people who you rely on to be there.  It can be something as simple as the person in the coffee shop smiling to you each day, to a friend you can laugh with about everyday life that seemingly has nothing to do with the past; but has everything to do with healing.

It’s the combination of these types of connections and consistency that I think will help us through.

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Now playing: The Verve Pipe – The Freshman
via FoxyTunes

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…

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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).

Ok… so, the big stuff… the stuff I’ve been studiously avoiding for the last probably two to three weeks… maybe even that last couple of months.  I can’t analyse or reflect on them yet, but I need to write them down so that they lessen their hold over me.

Probably the most obvious, is the therapeutic rupture with Liz.  It destabilised me.  It re-enforced all the old messages about me being too difficult to cope with, and made me feel as if I would never heal.  I still don’t think that the new therapist will cope…  She says she’s one of the top therapists in the small city where we live; but then, Bob was one of the top clinical psychologists, and that didn’t turn out well.  We’re still not sure if ACC will fund us to see her; so until funding is established, we’re seeing her fortnightly.  I know that isn’t often enough, but we can’t afford weekly therapy.

Once you get past the obvious of therapy, there’s the other given… work.  We recently had a change to our union negotiated employment agreement.  The new agreement meant that we ended up with a negative sick leave balance.  We’d used up so much sick leave in the short time we’ve been there, that we’d used the equivalent of an extra years allowance.  This basically meant that we were going to have to go for over a year, with any sick leave being unpaid.  There’s no way we could afford that.  Our union is incredibly weak and unable to fight for the rights of the worker – if you wonder why I’m in such a weak union, librarians are traditionally left wing, socialists who believe in unions, and so there’s a great deal of pressure to join.

So, ignoring the union, we researched the law and questioned work on the validity of the negative balance, when according the the Holidays Act, each employee must have five days paid sick leave per year.  We sent through an email outlining the law, and asking what that meant in regards to our negative balance.  This resulted in a meeting with HR (hence the entry about the panic attack).  The meeting was mercifully quick and resulted in HR apologising to me for any distress caused.  They also gave me five sick days immediately, and another five in six months time.

We had been expecting a written warning about our excessive sick leave.  During the negotiations, our employer had been talking about “sick leave abusers”.  When we saw that negative balance, we immediately knew that we were one of the people being targeted.  We doubted all of the work we’ve been doing.  We don’t feel as if we’ve been performing to an even half descent standard lately.  So again, all our fears and inadequacies were thrown into the spot light.

The other obvious stress has been the divorce.  We got the papers served on the ex-husband, and immediately started to get hang up phone calls.  They were at odds times of the day and lasted for a week, ending only when we picked up the phone once and asked who was there.  This led to all sorts of flashbacks and activation of parts who used to deal with the ex-husband.

Which probably leads into the other issue I’ve been facing… increasing amounts and severity of self injury.  It’s been a really tough few weeks, lots of lost time and negative coping mechanisms being used.  I know I’m going to have to tell the new therapist about this, but it’s so shame inducing that I don’t know how.  I keep thinking that I should be “strong enough” or “healed enough” not to do those old coping mechanisms… but yet fall back into them when the going gets really bad.

Then there’s the last big thing which feels so awful and… just yuck.  I’m friends with the younger of my two brothers on FaceBook.  A few months ago, a photo was added to his profile.  It’s not an awful photo, it’s actually a really good one, which shows his body language as I remember it.  The thing that sends the system into chaos however, is that the lower half of his face is almost exactly the same as the fathers.  The mouth is the same… as is the chin.  It drives some in the system crazy.  My brother is now the age that the father would have been when we were in our early teens.  As I write this, I feel the dissociation coming.  I know this is a huge trigger.  I know that sometimes one of us looks at this photo of our brother as a punishment.

Far out… that’s all I can write… sorry, I know this doesn’t make much sense.  But I needed to get it out in some way.

In all the craziness, I’m reminded of the lines from Hymn to Her…

She will always carry on
Something is lost
But something is found

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Now playing: The Pretenders – Hymn To Her
via FoxyTunes

To put the last week into context, it would help if I explained a little about the past month…  Probably 3 or 4 weeks ago, one of the young ones became convinced that she was an abuser.  We were part of peer sexual abuse from the ages of 3-10 or 12; and some of that included, what she considered to be, causing abuse towards other innocent children.  This was mentioned in session with Liz, but she dismissed it as learned behaviour from adults that was usual for a child with my history.  Our intellectual response to Liz was to agree, it made sense… but not to the young one, as she has no memory of being hurt by adults, only her peers and some teenagers.  This meant that the young one decided that we needed to die for hurting others – people often say that child abusers should be killed, so what made her any different?

Her belief that she was an abuser, was re-enforced by a recent newspaper article that stated children as young as 5 were being picked up by the police as sexual offenders…  Add on top of this, the on-going anxiety about having to go for an ACC assessment; the memories stirred up by the dissolution of the marriage; and hating our current job.  It all added up to a overwhelming mass of conflicting messages and emotions.  The end result was a suicide plan which was to take place yesterday.  On the way to this date, we ended up in the Police Station last weekend…  Sophie called the crisis line and said we were suicidal, which resulted in the Police being called out, and us ending up in a Police holding cell/interview room being assessed by a Police psychiatrist.  He was a very nice psychiatrist, and again tried to convince the young one that she wasn’t abusive, but she had the newspaper article as proof that she was evil…  To make it worse, she now had further proof of her evilness – she had been picked up by the Police…

Last Monday, we went into therapy with Liz needing to work through this belief about us being abusers and the suicide plans for the coming weekend.  Instead, Liz introduced DBT skills.  This isn’t anything against DBT, but it was like throwing a bucket of water on a forest fire… too little, too late.  Liz tried art therapy to try and get us to see that life was worth living, but she kept on hitting a brick wall because she was skirting around the issue and we needed to hit it face on.  Liz’ attempts were frustrating us both, to the point where she said “Do you want to stop therapy”.  She has said this to us on several occasions before, and each time we got the feeling that she was testing us, but this time it was the last straw…  we said “Yes” and left the office.

I know this could be seen as us lashing out with an emotional reaction, and it was in many ways.  But, there was also a feeling that Liz didn’t know what to do to help us.  This was confirmed on Wednesday when we went back for a meeting to see if the relationship could be salvaged.  Our position was that those words and actions made us feel rejected and as if we were too difficult to deal with.  Liz tried to assure us that this wasn’t the case and that she had been there for us.  But her actions and our expectations didn’t meet… that’s not to say that we were expecting 24/7 assistance from her; but many of our reasonable calls for assistance, were met with Liz passing us off onto the Crisis Team or ACC.

So, we’re no longer seeing Liz…

Due to the visit to the Police Station, the Mental Health Crisis Team have again become involved in our care.  This resulted in us having an emergency psychiatric appointment on Friday, where a very intense psychiatrist upped one of our meds and introduced another.  We’re very sensitive to medication – something I forgot to warn the psychiatrist about; so when we had the first night time dose of the new medication, we got about three hours of quite intense akathisia in the legs.  The next day we tried the daytime strength of the med and got about 3 hours of needing to rip our arms up, increased dissociation and anxiety.  The Crisis Team nurse tried to convince us that this was not tied to the medication in any way, and that we just needed to go for a walk…

So this brings us to today… the day after the young one had vowed to take an overdose.  Why are we still here?  Well, it turns out that the reason the suicide plans weren’t followed through was because of needing to fix our car.  I know it sounds silly, but all the motions were set in place for the suicide – house was cleaned, papers put into order and the final thing was to get a warrant of fitness for the car, but it failed.  Because we had to get it fixed, we ate into our savings which the young one had decided was enough for our funeral.  So now the suicide plans are put off until we can save more money for the funeral – she doesn’t want to leave any debt for others to be inconvenienced by.  I know that this is a tenuous reason to stay alive, but I’m hoping it will last us long enough to find some avenue for assistance.

So where to from here?  Well, I’m not really sure.  I see the Crisis Team psychiatrist again on Tuesday.  I was told by Liz that my ACC funding has run out, so the chances of finding a therapist who will accept a dissociative client through ACC is pretty slim.  I’m still waiting for the ACC assessment to determine what assistance I should be getting, and I just got the papers that I have to serve on the ex-husband’s parents to end the marriage.  So I’m in a fairly precarious situation and can’t really see a way out at the moment.  I’m not in any immediate danger – the fear of debt will keep the young one from acting on her plans for probably another few paydays… That gives me about a month to come up with something that will convince her that she’s not the most evil, disgusting thing on this Earth…

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Now playing: Green Day – Wake Me Up When September Ends
via FoxyTunes