All Roads

December 18, 2010 at 3:28 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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May trigger, be respponsible. It’s all just shit anyway.

It breaks my heart everytime I wind up here. That place where I am unseen, invalued, nonexistent.

It breaks my heart because I have had to work so fucking hard my entire life to just keep living. And in the end I can say that I might have felt ok for awhile–but it’s all just illusion.

I am of no value. Any chance that i may have been was stolen from me at a very young age.

I have lost the point of all this effort. It’s effort that seeks to make my life tolerable? Why live then if that’s the only purpose?

I could say that my life is about learning my karmic lessons. To be better, to heal. Maybe I have kbown my lrsson my entite life and that this is it. That i am unseeable, unable to be truly recognized or valued. In this case the best thong to do is to just start over and learn what i need to for the next time.

I am so tired. I am so over all this shit. I’m tired of banginv mh head against a wall so that i can achieve a few short time periods in which i don’t want to be just dead.

There are a few people who would be sad if i left. But they’d likely just be relieved in the end. I contribute nothing. And frankly i can’t keep breathing for the sake of anybody else.

To live for living’s sake makes no sense. There is no intrinsic value in existence bound by space and time.

All roads end here. I can expend every bit of energy i have to try to do this Healing thing but i never will be on that road. It’s just too much. There is too much fear, too much anger and confusion. Too much pain to handle.

I should have died so many times. It’s just pkain cruelty that I was left alive. Like keeping a serial murderer alive in prison for the rest of his life rather than granting capital punishment

I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep fighting and fighting and fighting anymore. It is just not worth it. Existence is killing me. I have tried. I have given this one all that I had. I have given people all i had and more.

And in the end? I’m exhausted and beaten and i just have nothing left to offer. Nothing left to give myself or anybody else. All roads eventually end up here. It’s been just too much pain.

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The Night I Lost All Hope

November 12, 2010 at 2:43 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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May be mildly triggering.

So i was sitting in therapy, telling C that i’m feeling pretty darn well. That i had gotten myself out of my Black Pit of Depression and how it worked.

Then, because i had had my first Christmas Eve Flashback prompted by seeing the first christmas lights of the season, the conversation naturally ventured there.

I have had this repetitive flashback for what seems my entire life. It frustrates me because it’s far from the worst that was done to me. I’ve gotten pretty good at dissembling holiday-related triggers and flashes–but never understood this one. I don’t think anyone other than my wifey knows this one. Maybe, i just don’t recall it.

So, after a couple of minutes of C saying open ur eyes sweetie look at me sweetie jesus look at your posture look at me be present with me…i launched into it.

Every year we would go to visit Uncle Norman’s house on Christmas Eve for several hours. I think this one time i was maybe 6 or 7, whenever kids lose their teeth. I am looking at it now and i look like about 6ish.

Anyway, Uncle Norman had gotten to me earlier in the day but it doesn’t matter really what happened. In this flashback there are around 15 people or so, very jovial atmosphere Xhristmas songs on the radio blah blah. Uncle Norman is sitting in his recliner across the room from the tree and the presents. He motions to me and says come here, sit on my lap. No that’s ok i reply and try to leave the room. Mom catches me by the wrist and says You’re Very Rude, go sit on Uncle Norman’s lap. No, i don’t wanna. She swaps me on the butt and drags me over to him. Mind you, i had told her the previous summer what he had been doing to me.

So i’m forced on Uncle Norman’s lap. Actually i am sitting on his hand and he’s movung his fingers around under me. I say he’s like diddling me. Fifteen people are in that room, everybody jollying it up, and he is messing with me. He keeps sorta readjusting himself and i can feel his hardon.

I have two parts to this flash i tell C. There’s a sound in my ears like a Swooosh and i alternate between seeing the Christmas tree across the room in a sort of tunnel vision, like a kaleidoscope. The lights were blinking and reflecting off the gobs of tinsel. Then i hear swoooooosh again and i am looking at myself, sitting there on his lap. Just like watching a movie.

At this point in the telling of this story my thoughts become very disjointed. All those people around. I can hear all that laughter as if it was far away down a long tunnel. Mom knew, yes my mother knew but she did nothing, just laughing aling with the rest of them. Ho ho ho.

I say all those people and nobody did a thing. Jesus. It’s silent in the room then this pops out of my mouth:

That’s when i gave up. I learned about absolute powerlessness and futility and utter lack of control at that moment. I gave up that night. I lost all hope. Wow, that’s right.

That is when i lost all hope and realized i was utterly alone.

Silence. C says wellthatwasthenthisisnowlookatmehonwyit’s2010nowrighthellloooootherewhereareyou?

I hear myself say that is the Black Pit exactly. When i get that complete depression this is exactly what it felt like on that Christmas Eve. That’s where it comes from.

C looks at me. Wow honey that is really something. So when you go down that black path…..it’s really something that happened 44 years ago and you’ve juat now realized it? Yeah you’d think….No says C. This deserves incredible congratulations this is a huge, huge connection. Don’t go blowing off your acconplishment.

Ok. Silence for abit as i sit there, srunned. It’s exactly the same feeling, man. Wow.

C starts talking about how pedophiles do these things etc etc get off on the power etc etc i’m not really able to focus.

Then she says i want you to know something sweetie. If i had been in that room i would have broken every one of his ten fingers. This was a horrible thing blah blah and on we go from there.

The day i gave up hope. It’s so important to figure this shit out.

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Oh Crap, Justice

October 19, 2010 at 8:17 am (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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A month ago today a violent jackass hit my brand new car. This guy was so in my face, screaming and threatening me, that I actually hallucinated and thought he was my primary perpetrator, Uncle Norman. He looked like him smelled like him sounded like him. I had a horrid flashbacky hallucination that this guy actually WAS him for about an hour. I was totally freaked out.

This guy was used to bullying women, it was easy to see. His insurance company at first denied any culpability but I kept on them and finally they reversed their decision and accepted responsibility.

Good thing, right? Great thing, right? Justice for Splint. Finally.

I was really happy about this turn of events and pretty full of myself for handling a tough and complex situation. For sticking to my guns. For not being a victim. Hooray.

Then yesterday came and I had to take my car in to get a new bumper. And it has left me just so, so sad.

Children are wailing inside me. The teenagers are up in arms. They don’t know that it’s 2010, that we are safe that I am taking care of them. All they know is that Uncle Norman appeared again, so he can likely come to get us soon.

Justice should be a good thing. But all I can think is how we will never have justice for the damage wrought upon me as a kid. I had thought I was okay with that, that it’s time is gone and it just is what it is. Living the best life I can is the best that I can do because there is no justice in the world.

However. There appears to be Justice. It seems to be something that I can have. And it makes the pain of never getting it for the atrocities wrought upon me that much more prominent. I am angry and I am sad. I’m grieving now and as much as it seems a totally inappropriate reaction there it is anyway. I don’t lie to myself, I feel whatever I feel and try to deal with the blowback when it comes.

I am grieving for all those kids who are me. I am depersonalized and seem to be floating above my head, watching things happen as if I am in a movie. A bad, bad movie.

I will persevere. I will be okay. I can snap myself out of it. It’s 2010 and I a m an adult woman. I am tough, I am turning that corner where I have left my victim status behind. I will have my day, I’ll go see my clients and I will continue to work on my song. I still can’t run, which would be so helpful. But I’ve promised to be careful and my legs seem to not want to heal after my last major run a week ago.

I just don’t wanna talk. There is a question in my mind of why I ever felt that anyone has been safe–as much as I know that I am exactly that. I just need to step away for awhile. I will be okay, I’m just so sad for those tiny little me’s inside.

6 Comments

Too many Heads

August 4, 2010 at 1:52 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor, Uncategorized)
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So I haven’t seen my therapist in two weeks. My shrink is out of town and wife has been on business trips. I have been left to my own devices to survive. And there has been increasing weirdness going on.

I don’t feel abandoned, oddly enough. A little bit neglected, but that’s very understandable. I am, after all, alone and a touch lonely. But I have been trying to stick to a structure everyday to keep myself occupied. Which has been helpful much of the time.

I’ve been getting up by 7, working out for an hour after waking up, then meditating getting cleaned up and working for some hours. Take a little break then practice plinking on my new keyboard. My efforts in all these areas seem to be paying off, albeit more slowly than I would like.

I have been trying valiantly to appreciate all these baby steps forward. Moving in the right direction able to do so much more now than just two months ago getting physically spiritually mentally and emotionally stronger blah blah blah di dah.

My problem is just this blah di dah thing. One head says stick to your new neural pathways, you’re growing a ton in the right direction and each little win is a huge victory at this point. It says your clothing doesn’t fit even if you’re not really losing weight. It says you have discovered that you have the family “gift” in music. It says you’re doing stuff to promote and take care of your business like you’ve never been able to do. Be excited by each of these gains, jump up and down, celebrate them. You feel great, right? and feeling great is, as the wizard of oz says, guess what it’s great. Whether you acknowledge it or not. It’s fabulous.

But another head says so you can run five minutes at a time with a minute’s rest before running the next five. You should be running triathlons like you used to do. Loser. It says you should be making over 300K like you used to. You should be able to play whatever you want, this stupid fucking plinking around is just ridiculous. You should be you should be you should be lots of negative stuff but primarily you should be feeling llike the loser idiot that you are.

There’s a head who already knows how to read music. It wants to be taken seriously and doesn’t like many of the songs we’re learning. Sometimes it pops up to share it’s knowledge and sometimes it doesn’t. Often it will show up for awhile, get disgusted with me and vanish to whence it came.

Heads say just shut the hell up man. You are so far down the loser ladder there’s not climbing up out of the pit. You’re just being a jackass by taking any pride in this stupid little shit. You should be you should be you should be.

It was mentioned to me by a wise friend that I am going down the self-flaggelations because it’s a familiar pathway. So in a sense, even though it doesn’t work out this way, I am trying to do a self-soothing thing by following the same old road I know.

That the new stuff, the feeling good about myself over anything is so new it appears to be dangerous. But it feels better.

Too many heads. Without a support system it could be alot worse than splitting off like this. I mean, I could be dead or in jail or drunk or something. But I’m not I am doing my best.

I will get to see C (the wizard) next week, then we’re off again for another two. I’ll be at my other house with my wife for some of that time, which will be very helpful. But it is hard to have everybody gone. Not a crisis or anything, just starting to get me down. I suppose that the idea here is to keep my head above water and hope the others drown along the way.

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Poem for Deciding

July 13, 2010 at 8:36 am (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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I wish that there was something
That I could say or do
To get you now to understand
I’m not just feeling blue

I am so tired of fighting
It’s always been the same
No matter what I say or do
I come back here again

The time is now to question
To come to suicide
Because it is reality
No matter if I died

I’ve done it all it seems to me
And yet to here I come
I work and work and work and work
And still end up a bum

My Coping list’s a mile long
And now of this I’m certain
That all the crap and distraction
Just all ends up in hurtin’

My wife’s absorbed in pure control
And I can’t make a boundary
And all her shit just feels to me
Like melting in a foundry

My therapist is wicked cool
But she is gonna dump me
Just like everybody does
No Help for this poor Humpty

Sometimes it can happen life
That there’s been too much damage
At way too early of an age
To heal to fix or triage (ouch)

And so I sit and ponder
If this should be the end
Because for this poor old gal
There’ll never be a mend

The end.

11 Comments

Danger afoot

July 12, 2010 at 4:41 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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I am spiraling into my Black Pit and I don’t know what to do about it. I am working hard to just not go there, not feed the beast. But it seems to be out and growing whether I look there or not.

I feel like I just want it to be over, the whole fucking thing. I am sick of fighting to keep myself within reason. I have been really great for over a month now. I know what this is, this train that’s heading at me blaring it’s horn, and yet I can’t seem to get off the track. I long for it to just run me over. Send me permanently into wingnutville, kill me, I don’t really care.

My mind is making these connections that it always does whenever I am here. One step leads to another to another to another and suddenly I am…down. Sucked into my own black hole, waiting for shit to get sucked down on top of me to crush me.

I haven’t been suicidal in rather awhile. Frankly I have been having too much fun. But the party seems to be over. My rational mind is saying there are going to be ups and downs, man. Life is suffering, and this is your reminder. I didn’t think it would be a permanent thing, feeling well. But I have seen this train coming for several days and I have absolutely no idea where it’s coming from. All I know is that C is going to dump me, my wife is going to dump me, and the end of days is finally upon me.

There’s this great quote from my favorite movie. John says “my god if I were to burst into flames there’d not be a soul to piss on me to put out the flames”. Richard says “let’s strike a flint and see”. And there it is. Not a soul would piss on me to put out the flames.

Basically I’ve been co-conscious for all this time I had been feeling great. Competent. Cabable. Growing. But the monsters have still been there, just reasonably under control. Suddenly though they have taken over. I am being pushed out of the way by the voices.

I know what C would say. She would tell me that I don’t have to go down this neural pathway that has been with me for as long as I can remember. If there is such a thing as remembering. Coping stuff, Terri. Slow it down, clean out your chakras. Balance. Baby steps. Why are you needing to hurt yourself? No “I don’t know” isn’t good enough. Calm down and think about it some more.

But I just don’t know man. I just don’t know why I am completely isolated from every living thing on the planet. I feel like everything around me is foreign. That nobody gives a shit about me, not even the cats who are now up and begging me for attention. I feel like there is a great distance, a fog between me and the rest of the planet.

When I stopped being raped at around 12-13 nobody ever said well it’s done now. It won’t happen again. I’ve just been…waiting for over thirty five years. I kinda feel like I am in a similar place at this moment. Is now the time? I have been waiting for it to be done all my life, is now the time I can finally be freed from the horrendous karma I’ve dealt with this time around? I imagine that in 47 days I can start over. Have a mulligan on the endless cycle of life and death. But I doubt that Universe is going to be compassionate with me. I’ll be a snake that somebody cuts in two with a hoe or something.

They say that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I am trying to keep this in mind right now. I know it isn’t true, that there is no permanence and there are no temporary problems.

I do have a repetitive scream that I’m able to identify. All I want is for somebody to tell me “I’m sorry”. That is all I want. But it won’t be forthcoming. This is a great big ugly thing and I suppose I am saying all I want is validation for my right to exist. Hmm, wait. I have faced literal death so many times, and from such a young age, it isn’t the same thing for me as it is for most people. It’s a very very real possibility for me. You can be killed at any time in any number of horrendous ways. You can find yourself with a pistol jammed up your vagina and the trigger can finally be pulled. That is unfortunate reality for me.

C would say it was reality. You are an adult now and you can control your pathways. You know that this is what you’re doing right? You have been here a million times. You are punishing yourself and the important thing is for us to figure out why that is.

Perhaps some of it is that as I have begun to engage with the world I am seeing what a fucking loss and pain in the ass I have been to every being who has come into contact with me. My poor wifey, poor dad. Yup, self-harm that is no less real than that gun was so many years ago.

I don’t think anybody has said I’m sorry because I don’t think I deserve it. Jesus, why do I have to keep coming here? Will this shit never end?

I feel compelled to state that Iamnotatriskofbeingaharmtomyselfortoanyoneelse. But man am I wishing for that pistol shot.

11 Comments

The Great Sahara

March 16, 2010 at 1:12 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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We feel so empty. Which is odd because our problem in general is a teeming mass of screaming howler monkeys. So this isolation and deadness is very unusual.

Nobody’s talking. The littles aren’t playing in their rooms, nobody’s singing Patsy Cline songs (trigger to mom who had a beautiful voice). If is like we’re blank inside. Not as in extremely dissociated but that is probably what is going on.

We are off Twitter for the time being because we have nothing positive to offer the tweetstream and because we simply cannot bear all the upbeat stuff that flows across our eyes.

Wha we feel we suppose is desolation. Utterly desolate. Our mind sees us in the middle of the Sahara desert. You know, huge dunes of sand And howling winds that push granules into our every pore and that sting the skin. We’re standing in the middle of this landscape because it is all too obvious that nothing can grow in this place. Oh there mY be some insects or something that can eek out an existence butthat is about it. Nothing heals here, nothing flourishes in this place.

And that’s about us in a nutshell. Something very important was stolen from us before we could reliably walk. And we finally see that fertile ground is a thousand miles away.

Something happened in therapy although we do not know what if was that swung into this place of mourning and utter desolation. Maybe it was T needing go change a session a few weeks hence. Maybe it was talking about how awful our mother really was. Maybe it was T not wanting to talk to the new splinter saying instead that we need to go back to the beginning and figure out what we want from therapy in the first place. Maybe it was her impatience with this new thing.

T has insisted from the get-go that we need to not be so separated from one another. She says we need to recognize safety. But we don’t know what that means.

And so it really truly feels that we have lost something here. Maybe we’re just overwheled by grief. What we know is that today we saw our first crocus of spring. Which for all our life has been a really huge thing. Signal for growth and redemption from the cold and the dark. And we couldn’t feel a thing.

4 Comments

Why we write about it

February 6, 2010 at 11:26 am (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor, Lesbian)
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Never used to think there was any sense in writing about the impact of our childhood sexual and physical damage. Always hated those blogs. The seemingly endless ranting and depression, the hopelessness, the horrid details. That confusion and shame seemed so pointless and toxic to us. As if someone was writing these things to elicit some kind of a response from us.

One day however we realized that nobody was pouring out their shite for us. They were doing so as a coping mechanism to try to sort out the horror that goes along with the honest struggle to recover.

There is no way out of it but to go through it. And that was the process that these people were in. Suddenly we saw incredible honesty, courage and effort. It wasn’t about us? Hub, god forbid something was not about us. It was an amazing ah-hah moment to be freed of the responsibility foe the planet. That is a child’s thinking and on tha day the grownups won.

So. We started blogging. Writing about our process, about the struggle. About the inevitable ups and downs Inherent in fighting the fight.

T says that if it’s a place where somebody in us hurts–that’s a message tha something needs to be worked thru. And in the working thru it can we finally find our freedom.

Many traumatized people jump thru extraordinary and creative hoops to avoid dealing with their personal tragedies. It’s always darkest before the dawn. But to get to see that sunrise requires being in the blackest part of our nights.

We are an American. A total Yankee. We believe from what is learned in our culture from childhood that we have certain inalienable rights, among them the freedom of self-expression. I despise the Nazi movement but will defend to the death their right to exist.

We get to express ourselves in whatever fashion we find is most helpful to us. Don’t wanna hear it? Not a place where you are at? You have every right to be where you are and we will defend that for you too. But if you don’t want to read our stuff then guess what? Nobody’s forcing you to.

Don’t go judging us if we are working as hard at our recovery as anybody out there. But you have no right to judge us, to express a superiority over us just because you can’t stand to be reminded of your own shit. We do not write for you.

4 Comments

Breakthrough Hangovah

January 19, 2010 at 2:47 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor, Lesbian)
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It’s Tuesday so we must be talking about therapy. Hah. Yesterday was one of those rare Breakthrough Sessions. We tend to do this, we fight ghosts inside ourself for months then everything clicks in a raptor-like blaze of glory.

We got mad. We got furious. We got so enraged that we have temporarily lost our voice. Poor T could not believe it.

You see, we shut down and rip ourself apart, that is what we do with the rage. The Four Furies create voices and havoc and disgusting remembered smells. But it’s all shadow-boxing. We see the blood and the gore inside us but from the world we hide it all. T knows of this bien sur because she wrangles with them on a regular basis.

Yesterday however we got MAD. A huge volcanic eruption. Black and blue from hitting ourself on the things as we screamed from inside a tight little ball.

And for the first time since the nightmare of our life began happening to us in 1962, we got mad at him. At the man who did it to us. Who passed us around who….well, best leave the specifics alone.

We got mad at uncle Norman. We got mad at her mother who said “nobody in my family would do such a thing” and kept dropping her off at his place, knowing what he was up to. Bitch. We got mad at all the aunts and uncles who refused to take us in.

We go mad. Not at her. Mad at the perps and their allies.

Our poor T. She just sat there, saying well that’s right he did unspeakable things to you. Your mother said what (furious writing)? No, there is no justice in the world for you because the motherfucker’s dead. Yes, it sucks that in the end you were just born to the wrong family. Yes the randomness of that is appalling. Yes it was somebody else and not you. No, nobody had the right to do any of this shite to you. No you parents should not have left you alone for weeks at a time when you were ten years old. Yes it was your uncle Norman. Yes it sucks that you needed and you trusted and you loved those people and they treated you the way they did. Yes, yes, yes. No you are not bad. No there isn’t anything inherently in you and yes it was other people. Yes he was a motherfucker to you. No he did not have the right to do to you the things that he did….

Once we tired ourself out T said something very interesting. She said you should try to tear a phone book in two. She said this is the hard part, sitting with these feelings. The Furies went off of course but somebody in here made a sudden connection. That IS what it’s all about. It’s about walking thru overwhelming pain and doing whatcha gotta do to be safe while the pieces get put back together. Oh, that is what she means. Don’t rip yourself apart. Do safer things, be decent to yourself because you have been thru Hell and you all have to heal.

Oh.

We feel like shit today. We are frustrated and depressed and suicidal ideation is running amok. We’re pissed atthe wifey pissed at our life and pissed at the big black cat for shedding all over our lap. We’re pissed at the car whose ball joints just went out. Pissed, pissed, pissed. Sad sad sad. And about as drained as we can remember.

We asked T what now? She said well you will all come here and we will continue to work on getting you healed. She gets how much we hurt which is unbelievable. But she has faith that we can get thru it. Which is more than we have in ourselves.

We don’t know how long this hangovah is going to last but it best not be for long. It is feeling dangerous. Of course, everything’s dangerous anyway, right? Right?

Sweet baby Jesus this sucks.

11 Comments

Suicide By Horror

January 18, 2010 at 2:23 pm (dissociation complex Ptsd trauma child sexual abuse DID psychology survivor)
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It had been a long, difficult week. We had come out with our first horror stories to T on Thursday and by Friday afternoon we were a trainwreck of rage and destruction. We had always had a built-in stopgap when things got too scary. The Four Furies would get called up with all kinds of gut-wrenching nightmares and day terrors. They pulled up a hundred screaming voices that had more than once made us bleed thru the ears. They filled our head with horrid disturbing images of us being physically ripped apart, which had the effect of driving us quite mad. Blood all over the place…just a horrific mess.

The Four Furies played an important role in our system. They protected us from physical self-harm figuring that this brand of torture was far more devastating. The Four Furies are not interested in killing us. They want to keep us alive so they can rip away at us all the more.

So. About a month ago T had taken the Four Furies away from us. Which was fine until we needed them. This past weekend.

With few available options to get the word out about our pain, we decided on a plan that made absolute sense at the time. We booked a flight to Haiti. We had arranged to be one of those people who sit with survivors and hear their horrible stories.

We were set to leave on Sunday. Figuring that there are a million ways to die there. Mostly we were imagining death by horror. Tha we would hear so many stories of such human carnage that somehow it would surely kill us. And if that didn’t work after a day or two, there would be plenty of guns and things around so that we could just do it and be done.

Wrinkle in the Plan. The Voice of Reason emailed T with our intentions and she told us to be sure to come to Monday’s session. The VR has no influence but somehow managed to get a warning out. We don’t blame her, she is just a fool. But that our plans were ruined or at least delayed has only served to further send them spinning into a rage.

It is an appaling thing, to use the plight of those millions of poor people for our own ends we get it. But the Furies do not care. They are stone-cold bitches who have a job to do.
And there is more than one way to skin a cat.

We were packing on Saturday and somebody put sunscreen in the suitcase. Sunblock??? Surely we’d be dead before the sun charred our lily-white ass…..

And so. Our plans to exploit the poor people of Haiti are on hold until after our meeting with T today. We’ll just have to live it and see.

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