Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

Problem Solving

I’d like to use this post to demonstrate some of my problem solving. It’s something that i can use as good evidence that i’ve learned and changed as a result of all the personal, inner work i’ve done. It shows that what i’m doing is working.

Alcohol is high calorie, and they’re empty ones at that (“empty,” meaning having little or no nutritional value). When i’m on a bender, the calories i consume come primarily from that source. Outside of that, because i’m often incapable of cooking, i eat junk and fast food. My family still has to eat, so my husband will grab some takeaway after work. I used to refuse most of it, but recently, as i’ve been listening to my body and allowing myself to feel physical sensations, i’m hungry more often, and more intensely. That includes when i’m switched and/or binge-drinking. Add in my history, which includes a lifetime of serious food/eating/body image issues, and you’ve got weight gain. These last 2 go-rounds have cost me.
<insertughslashsighslashwhimperhere>

When i sobered up and detoxed this last time, i finally noticed that the pounds had been creeping back on. I’m not sure how many, because i don’t weigh myself, but experience plus the way my clothes fit gives me a decent idea. I go with general ball-parking to avoid obsession, which is always a possibility when i’m dealing with food. It was my anaesthesia of choice before weight loss surgery and mania turned my attention to alcohol.
I knew the first thing to do was ask myself, Why am i eating compulsively again?

I have a notion that it has to do with this work of reestablishing my brain-body connection. I would be given food as a reward and have it withheld as a punishment. I would be starved simply out of neglect. I would be abused by being forced to eat burned, frozen, or spoiled food. My mother modeled sick eating behaviours, and eventually ate her way up to what i’d estimate to be around 650-700lbs. I’ve written about all of this at length and in great detail before, so i’ll leave it at that. I reiterate to make this point: my system is full of hungry children, and my body hosts memories of starving.

There are things that my system particularly craves, like meat, junk food, and fast food. These were things that my mother never went without, but were regularly denied me. She’d eat them in front of me, but more often, she’d wait until i was in bed. I had a nose and i wasn’t stupid, so i knew what was happening. Probably my system’s favourite thing is a sandwich. I think it’s because i almost never had a lunch for school. She wouldn’t make me one, and there was regularly nothing to make a proper lunch with, so i went without. And i had to watch all the other children with their neat little, nutritionally sound lunches packed by their moms, or see them with enough money in their pockets to go buy something to eat. Some days, it was nothing short of torture.

Now, after a hard switch, especially if it’s more than a few hours, they eat, and they hide and hoard food, too. Once i’m back in the face, i might open a drawer or pull back my bed pillow, and find some food stashed there. They hide food because they’re afraid of starving, and they particularly want to hoard the foods that i was denied as a child. This has happened my whole life, and was a source of fear and shame. Before my MPD/DID diagnosis, i couldn’t understand what was going on; i would find the food, throw it out, and dissociate from what happened immediately. Once i had the information that i was multiple and was losing time and could filter my memories through that, it became obvious what was going on. Over the last 6+mos or so, the behaviour has reemerged and escalated, and i’ve been finding food everywhere. My family also informs me (because i want to know) that my parts will cook a big batch of meat and consume it, from steak to SPAM. My system and my body both, remember my history with food.

It can take awhile for me to mark a weight loss or gain. I see myself a certain way and it’s like my mind locks on that version. I think it’s so i don’t have to connect to what i’m seeing in the mirror, i.e. it affords me some distance and facilitates dissociation. It’s like having the same profile pic for 6mos and then i realise i don’t look like that anymore, say, i’ve changed my hair colour or gotten new glasses. These last months i’ve been working on being kinder to my body –the things i say in my brain about my body can be vicious– trying to be more appreciative of how well it has served me over my lifetime, despite all it’s been through. I chase every acid statement with a realistic one, e.g. You’re in your 50s and were morbidly obese for many years – cut yourself a break. What i’m trying to get around to is, i’m more aware of my body than ever before, and this time around it only took around 10lbs for me to notice i was gaining, instead of my usual 30, 40, 50. (I use “usual” lightly though, as i’ve never been much of a yo-yoer when it comes to weight gain. I’d go slowly and steadily up. The only time i lost weight quickly was after weight loss surgery. I got down to a healthy size only twice before that: once in junior high, and the other time when i was 27. I had a bit to lose yet both of those times, but i’d get scared and eat my way back up.)

But here i am, noticing, and more quickly. That’s because of therapy and a firm commitment to mindfulness and being more present and conscious of my surroundings and situation in the moment. And now that i have noticed and i’m in problem-solving mode, an awesome thing happens.
Without much effort or angst – i get to solving the problem.

I’ve tried most diets and programs and methods. I know how my body responds to food and i know how my brain reacts to particular foods and consuming behaviours, like overeating and secret eating and over consumption of foods i was denied and/or manipulated with as a child… I’m saying i’ve got this, and i know it. I’ve amassed a rather large hill’s worth of good information on nutrition and physiology. I won’t be sharing specifics – i’m of the (very likely) heavily biased opinion that these issues are complicated AF and full of nuance and can trigger obsession and self-hatred in many. This blog is never gonna be a how-to, it’s only here to offer hope that you might suss out and survive your own path, as i have mine.
So yeah, after all this time, energy, and effort spent on figuring out this aspect of my life – i knew exactly what to do. So i’ve just gotten at it.

I’m 2wks out from my last fall. I don’t know when, or even if there’ll be another.
The day i got back at it, and for days after, i wrestled with all the thoughts and feels that come along with weight gain, and not being where i want to be with my physical body. I can look at myself with what i call “fat eyes”. My vision is not accurate, my eyes send the information it gathers to my brain, and my brain (a brilliant wonder of an organ that is my blessing and my curse, and my sometimes unwilling but always hardworking partner in healing what can be, and duct-taping, gluing, or stapling the rest) paints it with a fresh coat of old issues from a sticky old can, the label thick with layers of dried spills. The colour echoes its subtleties, like breath on a steamed up mirror, and i hear their faded and fading admonishments.
But i’m not convicted of any crime anymore. The charges don’t stick and the mirror clears up and i see myself clearly.

I don’t buy the hopelessness anymore. The fear that i’ve carried all my life is falling away, and as it does, so my need for protection, both figurative and literal, melts off my body – as long as i keep moving forward and allowing it to happen. I will acknowledge the fear of being smaller and more societally attractive as it happens, in real time, and see it for what it is, which is NOT ABOUT ME, nor is it the place at which i handle my lifelong battle with self hatred. One foot in front of the other, on the road with my dogs, on the treadmill with a podcast in my ears, in the kitchen preparing a meal, in front of the mirror, deciding what to wear and what colours to paint on my face. See what’s in front of me, acknowledge what i’m dealing with, and make healthy choices based in the now.

I’m not that adolescent girl anymore, the one who cried herself to sleep at night, while begging god to let her wake up the next morning slim and shapely. I’m no longer completely disgusted by my body, and i don’t view it as my enemy. I don’t feel trapped and claustraphobic inside my own skin. I’ve let go of unrealistic and unhealthy expectations regarding what i can achieve with a healthy weight and fitness level.

I know why i put on weight. It’s understandable and i know what to do. I’m no longer interested in diets and programs, and i give every new guru that comes along a wide berth. I’m invested in long term, sustainable change. I’ve stumbled many times, and i keep getting back up, and faster than last time too, thank me very much. This is my path, this is the process. I notice that i’ve tripped on something, i figure out what it is, and i handle it. I know myself so well at this point that i can usually avoid the complete devastation that used to come with each new bit of knowledge or insight. Ten pounds is progress, man. Ten pounds ain’t nothin’.

I’m settling back into healthy routines that i’ve slowly and carefully established over years of therapy and self-exploration, through an accumulation of experience and education. Two weeks in and, while i’m a bit impatient to see results, i can hang on without white-knuckling, because i know results are forthcoming. I’ve been 2wks in the face, with a minimum of sliding around and no switching at all. I’m babystepping my way back to a higher level of functionality. My mood is still low, but as with my weight gain, i know what it’s about and i know what to do. Stay the course. Keep on truckin’. Hang in there.

I hope you’re able to do the same.

Peace and Love,
~H~

IMAGE: Alexander Kaunas

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 7 Comments

Letting Go, AKA The Jump

healing is in the air
life is a precious ring given to us by love
to polish and shine with all we learn

~Jane Siberry, Morag

Letting go is a helluva thing, innit? It is where i currently find myself. As i said to a friend the other day, i am on a precipice. I feel my feet are on solid ground, but i’m close to the edge, and i can see the vastness of the chasm just a step or 2 away. I mentioned in my last post that i wondered if my parachute would function properly, and bear me safely to the ground below. I felt the significance of it as i typed it out, and knew i’d be writing more about it at another time. Off we go, then.

All the work i’ve done over these last years has been leading me to a moment. Okay, there’ve been many moments, times that i’ve known/felt were significant. I understand that that’s what therapy is, a series of steps that lead to moments that prepare me for and bear me on through the next steps. Some moments though, are more charged than others, more thick with fulfillment and promise. I’ve sought epiphanies and had many as a result – they’ve been vital, perhaps integral, to my continuing on with this work. It has mostly been cerebral stuff yes, that is, until i’d dug deep enough. Once i struck the well i moved into the emotional, and i felt countless times like i was drowning, like i’d never find dry land. When i did, i thought everything was done. And then i stumbled and fell. When i looked up i saw a mountain in my path, and i learned that the only way forward was up.
These last years have been physical, literally physical work. Physical AND emotional AND mental. As i climbed i saw something waiting for me at the peak.
A moment.

We know that mountains are not just a pointy bit at the top, as they appear from far away, or in a child’s drawing (because that is, after all, what they see –what we all see– from a distance). If you’re a hiker/climber you well know, and if you watch nature programming and/or have seen the coverage of the Everest questers, you’ve at least seen it. There are summits sure, but also ledges, ridges, shoulders, cols, dikes, faces, saddles, and oh yes, pinnacles. Mountains are a lot of parts, and are certainly a most apt metaphor for my journey over the last 2yrs. It’s been a climb… One helluva climb.

Can you see where this metaphor is leading? Of course you can. Yes, i’m at the top, and it’s a summit of a sort, almost extreme enough to be called a pinnacle, i suppose. The thing is, i cannot see what lies in front of me, nor below. The question is, will i jump? BASE jump life, are you crazy? Why thank you Sir/Madam, i am. In this case though, i don’t think my crazy factors in. The preparation for this has been hours and days and years of work. To meet pain and fear in the daylight, to know them intimately, to build relationship with them. I had to learn how to know them, in order to relate to them, to communicate, and most of all, to listen to what they had to share with me, to teach me. I had to provide the atmosphere for communication to happen. I spent my early years in a brain fog, but once i hit my mid-30s, it was nothing short of cacophony up there. Although i’ve never experienced quiet in this old noggin of mine, at least when i was younger it was more like a soft buzz than the shrill and the shriek of my 40s.

I marshalled my brain-voice force and soldiered on, sure.
I wish i could continue on with metaphors – they’re so much easier for me.
More romance and less suspense/thriller.
Ah, well.
Letting go scares the everloving you-know-what outta me.
Horror may fit better. (A tad histrionic, that. Heh.)

Until now, the question regarding this work, this journey towards better mental health and functionality has not been “if,” but “when.” But letting go is not a small thing.

To me, letting go means to step away from hypervigilance. To stop functioning from the constant, underlying fear/belief that everyone will hurt me. To be present and mindful when experiencing fear. To look it in the face and then hold it in my arms and soothe it with true things:
It’s over,
We’re safe,
Everything’s going to be okay, because i can handle it.
To understand, with wisdom and maturity, that some people will hurt me and i won’t die from it.

Letting go means dropping the facade (a facade is different from a social mask, which i use without compunction). To live from a place where i am fully myself in whatever capacity i know myself at that time –with appropriate protections at appropriate times– like, not telling someone private things about myself because i want to fit in and be liked.

Letting go means releasing my grip on the controls, i.e. allowing people to be who they are and think what they think – which most importantly includes what they think/feel about me. This ties in to the fear of being hurt, rejected, or betrayed. I spend an inordinate, unhealthy amount of time and attention trying to read others. I have reams of mental scripts for social interactions. I’m always trying to anticipate someone’s reaction, and i still wrestle with the desire/perceived need to orchestrate outcomes. My subtle manipulations are, in a significant way, removing, or at least interfering with, a person’s autonomy. Once i gained that insight, it instantly became not okay. It’s proven a difficult thing to lay down, and its time is overdue.

Letting go means being kinder and more forgiving to those to whom i’m closest. I’m unfailingly polite and friendly to those outside my circle, but if i’m married to you or made you, not so much. From the place of childhood trauma, the amount that i love them is a threat, and from that place i can be prickly, sometimes downright cruel. I jump to conclusions and assume ill intent, because in my mind it’s better than being caught off guard. Hurt occurs in loving relationships – the intentional sort, too. It is not abuse, however. If i was being abused i would have left or had the offending party removed. I’m not though, yet i’ve been allowing parts of my system to behave in ways that are unacceptable.

Many of them are trapped in past abuse, and some of the more developed parts stubbornly refuse to move forward with me. They’ve been on notice for awhile that things are changing, and getting set to change a lot more yet. I have the will, the ability, and the power to take drastic measures if need be. I’ve ended physical violence, verbal abuse, and destruction of property over the years, but i’m ready for more. Yes, everyone gets grouchy and snippy sometimes – what i’m referring to is not that. I’m like a rescue dog that’s been savagely beaten, who keeps growling and snarling and nipping, long after they’re being treated properly.
I am not a dog.
I have what it takes to stay the sarcastic comment and silence the passive-aggressive commentary.
I know i don’t need protection from these people.
Time to stop baring my teeth.

Most of all, letting go has to do with my past. Of course it does. At first, i couldn’t have let it go if i’d tried (i wouldn’t have, but if i had, you know… ). Once i’d become well acquainted with, and more than a little attached to my system, i resisted it as hard as i did the mere thought of integration. It felt like letting go of them (my memories) was a betrayal of myself and a denial of my past. And on an insidious level, i thought it would rob me of any legitimate reason for being so messed up. I also thought that maybe it was about forgetting, and a part of me wanted to forget, but was afraid i’d never be able to, that i’d be stuck in the horror of it for the rest of my life.

Letting go of my past doesn’t mean forgetting, nor does it mean that i won’t still be dealing with it and working through it. It means stepping out of the past and living as fully as possible in the present. There are parts of me that are trapped in the past, so this would involve bringing them along with me, and i know there is only one way to do that, which in turn calls for more letting go. That is care. It wasn’t only abuse that caused me to split; the stage for it was set by lack of care. Perhaps worse than the abuse itself was unmet needs, the overarching of which was love. My physical needs were given sporadically, and taken away on a whim, but i was never loved by the one who brought me into this world and charged herself with my care. To her i was something to be consumed, more possession than person.

The thing is though, the abuse stopped when i got away from her and my stepfather at 21yrs old. My mother’s been dead for 30yrs and i’ve been comfortably estranged from my stepfamily and half siblings for maybe 10. No one is abusing me anymore. I’m surrounded by people who love me and accept me for who i am and how i work. I’m safe and in a loving situation and i receive daily care. I care for myself and i take care of myself, and i trust my partner to care for and take care of me, too. He’s stepped in countless times and done for me what i was unable to do for myself – both emotional and physical care.
It’s time to stop living as if my childhood is still happening. It’s time to let the wounds close over and stop picking the scabs – time to let it all scar over.

I’ve been preparing for this moment for years. I’ve always known that letting go would be a thing, but i didn’t know what it entailed or how to do it. As i’ve shared here, i have developed some ideas on how that would look, and it’s time for me to try it. I’ve always bristled a bit at the insistence of others that i’m a survivor of mental, emotional, physical, sexual violence and abuse. I watched others like me bristle at being called a victim, and i got it for them, but it was not for me. Every time i get super low and feel like the world’s biggest failure and total screw-up, my husband says gently to me that these things aren’t true. He says, “You are not (x), you are a victim.”

And i’ve seriously needed to hear that, over and over, because i couldn’t accept being as broken as i’ve been without someone who is safe and loving and providing me with care to tell me that it’s true and accurate and understandable and okay, to be as incredibly fucked up and non-functional as i’ve been. Being called a survivor felt like being told i should be done dealing with my past. I wasn’t. I’m not. And by letting go, i think i’d like to skip that whole “survivor” stage, and just get straight on with living. I’ll keep on doing the work, but my path will look different. I don’t know how because, as i’ve stated, i can’t see the bottom. I haven’t jumped yet but i’m fixin’ to…

Very, very soon.

we’ll see things we’ve never seen before
they say we will do this and much more
we will have the healing hands
to help the ones we love
which will be every living thing
~ J.S.

IMAGE: Cristofer Jeschke





Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

The Lovely Little Child On The Road

Then he flew away in flames
Did the False False Fly
From the lovely little child on the road
‘Twas the devil in disguise
Was the False False Fly’
Said the lovely little child on the road
~ Jane Siberry, False False Fly

It’s been suggested on probably dozens of occasions, by dozens of people who care about me, that i cut myself a break – that i’m too hard, too critical, too immovable on the subject of my own culpability. There are areas where they’re wrong, there are places from which those comments come that speak more of their care for me than any truth to what they’re saying, but still… I know that moderation is something that i must always work on, and that it’s in balance i’ve found the most peace and possibility for more and better.

In my therapy session today, Ms T touched on it, as well. She pointed out and reinforced how far i’ve come, how much progress i’ve made. It is a hard thing to hold inside me for any length of time. As i sit in front of this screen and bring these things to mind, i can see it, i know it, i feel it. However, once i step away from the keyboard and back into my world and its day-to-days, it slips from my mind and drips between my fingers. My palms are stained in blood red judgment and my mind is filled with the voices of those that would condemn me – both those i made and those made by others. And i’m haunted by the voices of those long gone; my mother mostly, dead 30yrs now, but also those who are only dead to my life: siblings, stepfamily, peers, church associates… All those save her have faded until i can barely hear them any more, and even then only occasionally. Her voice can still do battle with some of my most potent parts, or join with others that she and her gang of super-bastards created in me. Ms T thinks it’s the last gasp of the invaders, and my own creations are stepping forward in confidence and safety – or at least making a solid, though tentative attempt.

This process has caused some parts of me to revolt a bit, sliding back into old behaviours as i sit with the terror they imbue. I’m as patient as i can be with these parts/children of mine that live in my brain and clutter it up with their own personalities and accompanying issues. Today i think it’s a good thing i split myself up into more manageable pieces, because i have a barge load of issues. My mother threw me into a roiling, angry ocean with no life preserver. If i’d not been able to parse it out, i’d have sunk like a stone. I’d have either died literally, or the part of me that remembers who i am and carries the blueprint for putting me back together would have been forever lost.

I survived, but more than that, while i might struggle with what most find to be a less-than-average level of function (myself included), i am sort of incredible in very recognisable ways.
I’m not a super-bastard, like my mother and her cronies intended.
I’m not even a shitty person. Sure, i can, have, and will do shitty things sometimes, but i’m a good, decent, kind person. I still love humanity, too. They couldn’t take any of that from me. My nurture, particularly for the first 8yrs of my life, was diametrically opposed to my nature. I won’t speak to the scientific debate of such, one, because i’m not sufficiently educated, and 2, because this blog isn’t for that. While i work every day at being a critical thinker, being a multiple lands me in some contentious psychological territory. The way my brain works is strange and not yet well mapped out. So i’ve made a conscious and willful decision to lay those concerns down and just work with what i’ve got. All i know is what my brain does and how life looks for me; how i handle life and process it all.

**********

Some time ago, i posted a piece called I Am Amazing, which i’d completely forgotten until i started trying to write this. So… I’ve already done the work. I know the truth of it – i’m just not connected to it.
Yet.

This is life as me and this is why i blog.
I’m at least average intelligence. Ah, i think so, anyway (the older i get and the more i learn, the less i’m sure of that, though). I’ve been working on the problem of my fuckedupness for my entire adult life, and over the years i’ve accumulated a not-insignificant quantity of information in the field of psychology and mental illness. It’s very lay person in nature, lacking in history and the hard science bits to be sure, but i have a fairly good grasp of the soft science of it – at least until you enter the field of neuroscience (which is fascinating, and i have learned some from Ms T). But despite everything i know about myself, how i work, and how to figure out and deal with my shit – i can and do still get it twisted.

The best solution i’ve found is getting it all out, either talking, blogging, or often, both. I just reread that piece (I Am Amazing) and it’s exactly what i’ve been trying to do for the last few days. I’d sit down at the keyboard, bash away a bit, backspace it all, curse like a sailor, slap the Notebook closed, and go do something else. But the words were already there, and posted. I can see how far i’ve come when i give it a writer’s distance. In other words, i’m dissociated from it – i lack connection to the information. I can think it, but i don’t feel it. I am only now, in my 50s and after a dozen years of (excellent) therapy, moving away from my overriding belief about myself: If anyone knew the real me, they’d see how terrible i am, and leave me, angry and disgusted with what they saw.

I’ve wanted to believe that’s not true for many years now. I’ve leaned hard on the opinions of those i trust so i don’t break under the weight and pressure of looking at my past and my inner workings. Over the last year or so i’ve actually come to believe that it’s possible that i’m not awful, that i might be decent, kind – even lovable and perhaps worthwhile (there is a soupçon of sarcasm in that, but not nearly enough). But still i am lacking connection. There’s a space between what my mind can perceive and what i can tolerate feeling inside my body:
– acceptance and approval from others;
– acceptance and approval from myself;
– belief that i am enough;
– belief that i am worthy of the good in life;
– love from others;
– love of myself.

I was treated like a thing, like property growing up, yet even though i got away, i’ve continued to live my life like i’m spoilt. Forever ruined. Full of poison; ugly and rotten inside. I’ve never gotten away from it.
I think all this work is getting me to this crux. Do i let myself free fall into this? Do i trust that my parachute is functional and will bear me down to solid ground, where i’ll walk away and live as a new being in a new land? Because man, lemme tell you, i will be different and the world will be different, too. To live my life free of these toxic beliefs about myself would change no less than everything.

I have to talk about this, not just write. This is the thing, the problem, the monkey on my back, the cross i bear. Can i mend this broken connection, can i live out what i’m learning, can i feel what i feel while knowing what i know? Can i feel all the pain and betrayal and isolation of the past while knowing it wasn’t my fault and i’m still a good/nice/decent/kind person, that i’m not bad/gross/foul/despoiled? Can i believe that it broke me but didn’t destroy me? Do i have the inner and outer supports in place that i might risk that step out of the airplane?

Fuck if i know.
I’m pretty sure i’m gonna go for it. Soon. There is only so much babystepping i can do before i’m at the edge and it all comes down to a moment. I’ve been a doomsday prepper for my own life. Time for trust. Me, my partner, my therapist, my friends. Time to test the hypothesis. Am i going to live out I Am Amazing? Can i? Am i? There is a preponderance of evidence to suggest that these good things are true and these bad things are not. If i’m to be the critical thinker i’m striving so hard to be, mustn’t i now let go of old superstitions that were brainwashed and beaten into me, and wrong, harmful concepts that i embraced in order to survive my abusers? I already know intellectually that the abuse is over and i’m safe, and everything i’ve learned since i got away from them has taught me that they were liars, users, perverted opportunists, who took my need for love and care, and forged it into a weapon to use against me. The thing of it is that, even once i was free of them, the weapon passed to my hand and i continued the woundings, bloodletting because that’s what i was taught. No one’s asking or expecting me to martyr myself anymore. Those who would are either dead or out of my life. There is no cause, no god to die for. It’s well past time to lay the weapon down.

Well, this went in a direction i wasn’t expecting. Just life as a highly dissociative human seeking homeostasis and happiness, yee haw.
Stay tuned. I’m never boring – so i’ve got that going for me.*

I’ve struggled harder than usual with this post. Discovering i’d done the work a while back was a shock. You’d think i’d be used to losing time, and of course i am, but it’s still a psychic slap in the face. Fading, sliding, and switching is not fun. It’s not cool. It’s not like the tropes you see in tv and movies (don’t even get me started… that’s a post full of hurt and rage, and i’m not about that right now). It’s jarring and frightening and disrupting. It steals memories from me and puts distance between me and those i love. It saved my life a long time ago, but now it is a roadblock to me having the life i want.
I already did the work and i didn’t remember.

**********

I slept on this before deciding whether or not to post it. Much of what i write, especially lately, doesn’t make the cut. I’ve been trying to write when i’m in a dissociative state, to maybe get a better handle on things. Understand more. Gain more control. But it’s not fit to read. It doesn’t add to what this blog is, basically because it’s meandering, rambley, often ranty, and occasionally unsettling. I’ve been bashing away at this post for an entire week, which is unlike me. Once i know what i’m writing about, things generally flow. When i struggle this hard, i’ve taken it as a sign that i’m not ready for the subject matter, or i’m off base with the whole concept. I leave them in my drafts for a while, for consideration, but i’ve always ended up trashing them.

I’m not sure if this post will make any sense to anyone but me. I can see that i’m trying to connect with myself. I’m reaching out for my own hand, searching inside myself for pathways home. In a way, i dispersed myself inside my own brain, where i dwelt in foreign lands until i could return safely. This work is to gather all my bits together and be more cohesive, more functional, more useful, more involved with the world and engaged with its other inhabitants. I don’t think it will ever be what some professionals call “integration,” but i hope to emerge from the fog that i’ve been in my entire life. I hope to embrace the things that i wrote in I Am Amazing; to bring it home to live with me like my system and my physical body.

I’ll close with a quote from the inimitable Bukowski:

Poetry says too much in too short a time; prose says too little and takes too long.

If you made it this far, thank you.
If you got anything out of it, all the better.

Try to be as good as you can to yourself this week, and i will do the same.
Love and Peace,
~H~

*My hubs and kid might disagree. Heh.

IMAGE: Timothy Eberly



Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Detox

Warning: Discussion of body reaction to heavy drinking, including detoxification. Includes body function talk, e.g. toileting, vomiting, and menstruation.

NOTE: This is merely a description of what i go through getting off the sauce. Do NOT do this. It isn’t a step-by-step method. Detoxification from alcohol/drugs should be done under a doctor’s or other accredited professional’s care, at a hospital or other detox facility. I’ve gone to the ER for IV fluids and other care on numerous occasions, and wouldn’t hesitate to go again.

In the past, over time, i’ve learned to share about when i fall. It started out as vague references couched in romantic metaphors, and has progressed to full disclosure about what falling can mean in my life. Among other things, it can mean i lose control to a full switch for a significant period of time. It can mean i engage in any number of destructive behaviours. These have involved things like hitchhiking into the city (i live on a farm more than 30mins away), partying and its ubiquitous drug and alcohol use, which can and has resulted in stays in the “psych ward”, and the involvement of law enforcement. As i’ve improved, the higher risk stuff has disappeared, but taking off, and drug and alcohol* use, can still occur.

Lately, therapy + world events = my anxiety being at a near fever pitch, which means i can experience a hard switch that i cannot control. Well, that’s somewhat redundant, because i can’t control a switch at all. Therapy has me so vulnerable, that i can lose the face before the end of a session. Even long after, i remain raw and easily triggered. My Bits N’ Pieces are either terrified and totally flipping out, or i’ve done enough work that they’re beginning to feel safe in my environment and are asserting themselves a bit more. Understand that i’m not saying it’s one or the other – i’m saying it’s both, it just depends on which part we’re dealing with. They’re not a fun time right now. Everyone is stirred up and i’m losing my grip.

I’m fine for a week or 2, and then BAM, the next thing i know i have a raging hangover and must figure out what the damage is. They crawl into a bottle for a number of reasons: it was used in abuse scenarios, it made social interaction easier in my late teens, and it made consensual sexual encounters as a young adult tolerable. During all those times drinking was not a problem. It became a problem when i first became fully manic in my late 30s. It seemed like that’s when the levee broke, and everything and everyone came flooding out. I’d begun drinking heavily when the mania first started, while i worked a job that had me mostly in various bars. It progressed to the point where i lost my job, lost my oldest son to emancipation, was forcibly committed on more than one occasion, in a detox facility twice, in long term rehab once, and spent a few weeks in an actual mental hospital. At that time, i was completely at the mercy of my system and the mania. They conspired to break me, utterly.

Years and lots of stories that i’ve already told later (like this one, but it’d be hard to read everything, and this is relevant), i’m doing far better than probably most people thought i would. But after a few years of being out of therapy and thinking i was fine, i found out there was more work to do, and that it was the hardest work. It’s exacerbated drinking behaviours, as i once again struggle to manage and control the people who live in my brain. These people who’d all been born by the time i was 10, most of whom masquerade as being older than that.

I’ve been finally, and fully honest about that here, but i haven’t said much about the part where i crawl out of the hole i’d fallen into. I haven’t because it’s ugly, and very, very embarrassing. However, one should know all of it that i can tell. You should have the clearest picture of how dark and far down i’ve been, and how hard i still struggle today. In the truth lies hope, and i know well and surely that it is hope that i offer here. It’s all i have to give the world, and after so many years of contributing little, my love of humanity compels me to do what i can, until i can do more, and then do that, too. I assure you that i aim to.

So we are on to the ugly bits now. This may be full of TMI for some, so a second warning here.

The first thing to know is, while my system is out and very active during a bender, i am not. It’s like blackout drinking, except i wasn’t even there to get to the blackout stage in the first place. The second thing to know/understand, is that they can drink a LOT. My husband and son have both related to me how this can look. They’re dealing with 1 particular part who is clearly drunk; stumbling, slurred speech, etc., and then i’ll switch to another part and will immediately present as sober; the prior symptoms being gone, and i’m speaking and moving without difficulty. They can hand off to each other like this for days, but when my body has had enough and begins to become the primary, unavoidable concern, here is the third thing to know: the little buggers always ditch the party, and leave me holding the bag.

I know immediately something’s been going on upon waking. Sometimes waking is the regular kind, sometimes it’s being slammed back into the face by a part that doesn’t want to handle what’s going on for me, physically. I’ll have a raging headache and my guts will feel like they’ve been the ball in a game of rugby. I’ve the physical certainty that “we’re done here”, coupled with the mental experience of my system hiding in my brain. I hear whispers and soft crying – they know we can’t go any further. There’ve also been occasions where i’m thrust back in the primary position because they’ve gotten me into some trouble they’re either afraid to deal with, or think i’m the only one who can, say, an argument, destruction of property**, or damage to the body**.

I know what’s coming, and brace myself – although there’s nothing to be done but survive the process.
Despite the already terrible state of withdrawal beginning, i usually still feel that buzzy-numbness of being drunk. I know i can’t take anything for my symptoms yet, lest i fall asleep/pass out while my breathing and heart rate drop too low. It’s not that acetominophen raises one’s heart rate, it’s that i can become comfortable enough to fall asleep. (See: My Fear of Dying, coming soon!) If i’m not in bed, i go there.

There, my headache will increase, and then will come the worst –and it won’t leave me for days– nausea. I learned from a doctor years ago, that i likely carry a genetic trait for severe nausea. I’m inclined to believe him. Like one of my sons once remarked, “For someone who hates puking as much as you do, you sure do it a lot.”
In this case i won’t be puking though, and the truth is i almost never do, technically speaking. I retch. Almost nothing will ever come out of me, due to a history of childhood abuse and bingeing/purging. In other words, vomiting during abuse resulted in more abuse, and one of the ways the abuse manifested in later years was to eat until i was physically sick to my stomach.

So the retching has begun, which takes my kicked and punched entrails, and wrings them like a wet dishrag, repeatedly. At some point my heart rate will begin to rise, and so i take some acetominophen and diphenhydramine. The latter never works to suppress the nausea, but it can aid in getting me some sleep. I try because that will soon become impossible. I sleep as much as i can before my body begins removing the poison i’ve put into it. When that happens, i’ll be pissing razor blades and shit for around 12hrs. All while retching my guts into a nearly paralysed state. So i sip as much water as i can – once my guts shut down, there will be no food or water for anywhere from 12hrs, to a full day (for water, food can go longer).

Now i’m sweating: i soak my clothes and the sheets and anyone close to me, i.e. my husband and my dog. I’m alternately hot and then cold. There is no comfortable position; i shift from laying positions, to semi-sitting ones. My back aches and my head feels like it’s being crushed, the base of my skull as if it’s being ground to powder. I feel like i’m going through a rough period, literally. Back when i did menstruate, one could start. I feel as if i’m being filled with cement that’s slowly hardening, except when i must use the washroom, which is frequently. Then, my legs have trouble supporting me and getting me there. Urination has ended but the other isn’t done with me yet. I’m becoming severely dehydrated, with scratchy eyeballs, an itchy, sticky throat, and numb hands and feet. I get random stabbing pains that feel electric.

I want to sleep, but now anxiety manifests in the form of fear of death. I’m gripped by it. I know it’s a part of the process, and that i’m still here so far, but i also know that i’ve repeatedly taxed my body way past what is reasonable or healthy. Now there is no laying, only sitting up as straight as i can. I try to distract myself with mindless games and videos online. Every muscle cries out, my organs feel like stones. My brain feels as if it may explode; the band across my forehead so tight my skull may crack. If it’s daytime, i see movement out of the corners of my eyes. If it’s nighttime, i see figures in the blackness of the room, and behind my eyelids. There are whispery, skittish breaths across my flesh.
These are not full-on DTs, but i would guess they’re similar, if not a precursor.

No food, no water, no sleep, only anxiety and pain. Time passes with excruciating slowness and i sit with it, knowing i deserve it all (i know i do and i don’t, this is just my mindset at the time). My thoughts are drawn inexorably towards all my failures and shortcomings. I’m coated in a foul slick of hopelessness. I feel heavy with despair and shame. At some point my legs start working better, and my body scrapes me out and gets rid of everything. I now notice how very badly i need a shower, but i still can’t stand for long enough to get it done. No, not even 5mins with a bar of soap.
I take acetominophen where i dare, but now it hurts my insides, so only 1 at a time. Two caplets burns (stomach acid) like heck, so i stagger them. Diphenhydramine is not an option. I’m afraid if i go to sleep, i won’t wake up.

After 24hrs, things are usually improving a little, and i begin to drink a bit of water.

The final stages:
– everything tastes like crap, even water;
– thickly chapped lips;
– canker sores on my tongue.

The headache lasts for at least a week.
The nausea comes and goes.
I want to eat compulsively.
At least 1 or 2 days of insomnia.
Three days to 1 week to get back to normal energy/functioning levels.

I’ve only been struggling with this since i started back at therapy 2yrs ago. It’s frightening, dangerous behaviour and i know it. I’ve been working hard for my betterment #1, but also because i know that at my age, my body can’t tolerate much of this, or for long. I’ve stopped every self-destructive habit i’ve ever had, and this one will be no different. I’m no longer abusive, nor do i put others in harm’s way. There’s a process by which my brain figures stuff out. For a long time there had to be general consensus to lay something down or stop it. Now it comes down to me – if i say it’s done, it’s bloody done.
The realisation that the impetus is on me has been a sobering one, in this case especially.
<go ahead and snort – i did>

Yes, i realise there are people, places, and programs out there designed to help this specific problem. I have worked them and sought the receipt of their promises as hard as i sought those offered by religion. If i am, as some claim, “terminally unique”, it will not be from lack of trying or a desire to let go. I am a woman with a particular set of skills that make it difficult to function with the rest of the world on its terms, but i am doing my damnedest.

While there has been a disconcerting return to some undesireable actions while i flop around trying to find my legs out of this psychic primordial ooze, it hasn’t all been about a loss of control. I think some of it comes from trusting myself and freeing myself from the shame that’s followed me for my whole life, like Pigpen’s cloud in the Peanuts comic strip. When i learn something in therapy (like when i learned shame is my body asking for human connection), there comes a time when the rubber meets the road. This may be one of those times, i’m not sure. I am sure i’ll do my best, and if i fall down another hole, no matter what is entailed, i’ll crawl out again.

I watch myself from the inside and from the outside. I provide constant inner commentary on my own life. I see the thing that i was and am, and am becoming. And i have much to say about it all. Maybe it’s worth sharing, but perhaps not. Then i think of that stupid, wonderful starfish, and i know that >>i<< am the starfish. And i am the one who tosses the starfish. I am also the beach and the ocean, and the one who asks why any of it matters.
So i write about drinking to excess and retching and piss and shit and blood and tears.
I write it all out to live.
I write it all out because it seems to be helping.
I write it all out because i must.
And i have a lot ot say about that, too.

So, while i am indeed sorry for the TMI, it was starting to feel like i was hiding/avoiding, so i blogged it. Life as me and all that.

I’m an innocent victim of a blinded alley
And I’m tired of all these soldiers here
No one speaks English, and every thing’s broken
And my Stacy’s are soaking wet
~Tom Waits, Tom Traubert’s Blues

Have as good a weekend as you’re able, and so will i.
Love and Peace,
~H~
P.S. The 2 dreams i was going to write about won’t be happening… I waited too long and now they’re gone but for wee snippets. Ah well, lesson learned.

*I know alcohol is a drug, but find the distinction an important one.
** With the exception of a few weeks ago, these haven’t happened in many years.

IMAGE: Melodie Wasser

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 4 Comments

Robinson Robinson?

Robinson Crusoe doesn’t quite fit, nor does Swiss Family Robinson.
But they get close enough.
To get where i’m coming from, i’ll include an exerpt from my recent social media post:

As many of you know who read my blog, i’ve been in the most intensive therapy of my life. The goal is to strip me down of all my harmful/distancing coping mechanisms (i.e. dissociation), and experience my life fully present and in the moment.

The issue is that i’m exhausted, and the vulnerability this brings is beyond terrifying to me. I’ve lived my life at some level of dissociation since i was a baby. I’ve missed out on so much because i wasn’t there. These last 2yrs have been nothing short of brutal, but i can and will do it.

The problem is – the world is breaking me. I’m becoming pessimistic and misanthropic. I didn’t strip myself down to find this soft and tender heart inside, one that i’m beginning to know and love, only to have politics and current events smash it to smithereens. I won’t let that happen.

To that end, i am cutting out EVERYTHING in the outside world. I’m going to be filling myself with only lovely and uplifting things (outside of my therapy).

In all my online interactions, i sometimes leave and then come back for a bit and then do it again. I keep getting sucked into things that, while i care deeply about them, i do not currently have the spoons to handle. I only have enough for me right now.

But my family deserves a better functioning human, and so does my community. I am going to be buckling up and knuckling down, and getting this shit done, and when i come back…

I will be better. More involved, more helpful, more truly interactive. I will be in the face, and i will be better able to be there for friends and family.

**********

I will still be reading blogs, but if it involves commentary on politics and/or current events, i’ll be ducking out. I intend to return to these things because they matter to me, and i care. I just need to nope all of that for a while. I’m still here for poems and musings, and even a bit of personal trauma and pain.
On the days that i can.
On the days i need to not be alone in all this.
I’m here for the past and the future, just not the present outside of my own little island and my day-to-days. One day, my little boat will be built, and i will sail back to the mainland.

My next post will be a bit on the TMI side, just a heads up (re: detoxing).
Or maybe i’ll write down 1 or 2 dreams that deserve a looksee.
Or, i’ve been reading a lot of Bukowski and might be inspired to try to be gum on the bottom of one his boots that were 3 sizes too small.
Heh.

Thanks for reading.
Hang in there everyone, as best you can.
I’m doin’ what i gotta do.
I hope you’re able to as well.
Love and Peace,
~H~

in my hand is the last bluebird.
the shades roar like lions and the walls
rattle, dance above my
head.
the eyes look at me, love breaks my
bones and I
laugh.
Fingernails; Nostrils; Shoelaces, Charles Bukowski

IMAGE: Sergio Jara

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Uncomfortability


WARNING: Contains a light discussion of the controversial nature of DID and repressed memories.

Yes, it’s not really a word, but i Frankenstein the English language on the regular. It’s my style, man.

uncomfortable:
adj. Experiencing physical discomfort.
adj. Ill at ease; uneasy.
adj. Causing anxiety; disquieting.

Therefore in my world, “uncomfortability” is the ability to function while living and dealing with being uncomfortable. I’ve been doing this since at least first grade. I hadn’t had all that many healthy interactions with other children when i started attending school. No kindergarten for me, and i had 1 friend -a boy 1yr younger than i– who had the same babysitter. We saw each other every weekday and were very close. One of my mother’s friends socialised me with her nephews a couple of times a year, and i loved being with them. Other than that, any interaction with other children was either stilted*, or it was based on abuse.**

My mother prided herself on my precociousness in a group. Adults would compliment her on my etiquette and exemplary behaviour. I was raised by adult television shows and sitting quietly around her intellectual friends from university, so i had a level of sophistication that most children my age did not. I also had a maternal grandmother who was a schoolteacher, and she taught me to read and write fluently by the age of 4. My mother talked to me like i was an adult, and expected me to do a lot of the cooking and most of the cleaning, so yeah, precocious fits, i suppose. I’d describe me as not knowing how to be a child, and completely unequipped to be an adult.

No wonder my exchanges with other children were stilted. As soon as i started talking to them, i knew i was doing something wrong. I could sense in their reactions that i made them uncomfortable, sometimes i even freaked them right out. I learned to stand on the outskirts and watch. Various teachers would comment, both in my report cards, and back in the very early days when she could be arsed to attend p/t interviews, that i was alternately awkward and uninvolved, or too chatty and bossy. I desperately wanted to be liked and fit in somewhere, but i never quite did. I was usually able to find 1 or 2 mid-popularity level, nice kids, who would tolerate me without complaint. That constant sense of discomfort, and my intuitive feeling that i made my peers uncomfortable, contributed to the dissociative fog i went through school in, and my ability to weather feeling uncomfortable all. the. time.

All this backstory for me to say that i’m in the thick of it today. To find that i’d actually repressed a memory has me upset and extremely uncomfortable.

Guess what? A bit more backstory. Heh.

As i’ve stated, i fought the diagnosis of MPD/DID until my late 20s. I was raised to disbelieve it, and any of my dissociative behaviours that came out in front of my mother outside of when i was being actively abused, or putting on the kind of show she expected of me in front of others (which depended on who they were), was met with derision, anger, and violent physicality. I hid it from myself to keep me safe, and it was so ingrained in me that i couldn’t be around anyone who said they had it, or continue seeing any therapist or counsellor who even suggested it. It made my skin crawl; i was so uncomfortable around the topic i had to get away from whatever source it was coming from, and dissociate from the experience immediately.

Cue 3 events:
1) A multiple woman appearing on a daytime talk show that triggered me on such a deep level i couldn’t tear my eyes away from her interview. I went straight out and bought her book, devoured it in a day, and couldn’t stop thinking about it/her;

2) A counsellor (social worker) i was seeing through my church told me it was her belief that i was a multiple. I wouldn’t leave the office in her case because i was well-trained to obey church elders. She brought in a fellow member who was a psychologist, and she gently confirmed my counsellor’s diagnosis;

3) I was in a safe and loving relationship, so much so that all my issues were bubbling to the surface and i was having difficulty stuffing them back down.

In other words, i became vulnerable to the truth. Some of my walls had come down due to being in love, others because i was terrified of being in love, which in turn depleted my energy, leaving me without enough spoons to be a wife and a mother living with chronic pain and mental health issues, AND maintain all my defenses.

I knew they were correct, but my programming goes deep. There were parts of my system designed to hide this knowledge, and denydenydenyandgetTFaway if it ever came up. I was finally willing to explore the possibility, but it was hard to get around the roadblocks put up by my system, and my childhood brainwashing.***

For a couple of years, i told myself that i wasn’t multiple, that my brain just worked similarly.
Then i left religion, lost a bunch of weight, and was diagnosed bipolar. It was in a mania that my Bits N’ Pieces began making themselves known. When i finally found the lovely and talented Ms T over 12yrs ago, i had to deal with hard nope/cringe/skin-crawl crap all over again. In some ways it was harder, because my last counsellor’s recipe for health involved a lot of laying on of hands (which icked me out and traumatised me), and casting out my demons. Yeah, you read that right. She believed in MPD/DID, was a clinical social worker, and thought i was possessed.****
So yeah, more trauma and roadblocks to get over.

I found my way out of it all when i realised that some of my dreams were actually memories. It was like a golden ticket for me. I thought most multiples were faking it because that’s what was drilled into me (it’s not my business now), and some people’s claims have been scientifically debunked. I didn’t believe their stories (again, programming), either. Outlandish, i thought; way over the top. And there was the “Satanic Panic.” Plus, there were many jumping on the “False Memory Syndrome” bandwagon. I could see that some (i stress SOME) of what the nay side were saying was true, i.e. some people were either outright lying or had been manipulated (whether intentionally or unintentionally) by their mental health care professionals.

Realising i remembered everything, i just hadn’t made the connection that it was real – saved me from all that, in my own mind. I could skip it all. Everything was flowing and falling into place and so much of my life and my struggles and issues were finally making sense.
But i didn’t dream about my “Daddy’s” son molesting me. It popped right out of me when i began tapping away on the keyboard, and i can see how some of my dreams could be interpreted as having to do with it (of course the Dream #2 that i analysed), but i didn’t remember it. I didn’t have a dream of the events that was actually a memory.

Now i feel the distance that i’d tried so hard to put between myself and controversy, is closing in on me. I have been toppled from my mountaintop and hoisted by my own petard.
It’s a good thing, in the way that superiority, some arrogance, not a small amount of fear, and a dollop of pedantry were involved in how i overcame my aversion to dealing with my multiplicity. It’s good not to be a shitty person looking down on others. I can see that i dealt with the problem like my mother might have, using incorrect and immoral principles that she’d taught me.
I’m not sorry that i got called out by myself on my own crap. I welcome that kind of lesson in my life.
It’s been a long time since i judged another multiple. Many years. Not my business. Not my circus. Not my monkeys.

Starting this blog led to me being a bit more open in my real life dealings, about being a multiple. I mention being mentally ill most, then bipolar, and occasionally now, being diagnosed DID. My family and friends know, and i can joke about it or refer to it on my social media, and it’s what my blog is mostly about. That’s growth. The controversies surrounding the diagnosis and how memories work and if they can be repressed is an active and volatile one. Many professionals work actively to prevent it from being included in the next diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders.

This has me, someone who considers herself a skeptic, who embraces rational, critical thinking, in a bit of a pickle.

I’m also feeling extra anxiety and stress because, if i have 1 repressed memory, i may very well have others.

As i’ve been stewing over this since last week, i have come up with a couple of thoughts that help me cope:
– there are skeptics that fall on both sides of these issues, and many more who reserve judgment;
– it doesn’t matter if it really happened or not, there is still more than enough provable, long term traumas that i remembered all along, to warrant my splitting off and disconnecting;
– this is just me and how my brain works, and it doesn’t matter what anyone wants to call it – it’s real and what i live with every day;
– if i keep on working, one day i might get to the place where i function so normally that i barely even think about it any more – i will have achieved homeostasis.

To sum up this rambling post, i’m going to be grateful (in a way – silver linings and all that) for all that led to my uncomfortability. I know how to feel cringey and want to avoid and nope all of it – and do what’s in front of me to be done, regardless. So that’s what i’m gonna do. Like the blog says, this is life as me.

Stay as safe and well as you can.
Love and Peace,
~H~

* My cousins on my mother’s side were all shy and seemed frightened of me – they were raised in a religion that taught them to be afraid of outsiders, and i can only imagine what their parents thought and said of my mother’s 2-babies-out-of-wedlock-and-STILL-not-married lifestyle.

** There were times other children were being abused alongside me.

*** I don’t use this word lightly. My mother amassed a great deal of knowledge about religion and psychology. She put it all into play to make me into what she wanted me to be: an unconscious multiple who was an adoring slave in her own version of the cult of personality. At times she starved me, imprisoned me (in my room or a closet or even under my bed, where i’d cry and beg to come out from under), threatened me with child detention facilities, forced me to stand for long periods of time, holding things and reciting bible verses, paragraphs from self-help books, or her own handwritten paragraphs (usually rants about how awful i was, and how lucky i was to have her). She even occasionally used love-bombing, although it wasn’t a crowd of people, it was only her.
I was, by definition, brainwashed.

**** I feel it’s important to say i bear her no ill will. She was a lovely person who cared deeply for me. We were both hurt by a sick church which we both left. I saw her years later and she still had some beliefs along supernatural lines (which i do not), but she was warm, and kind and still working hard to help others. I’m still very fond of her.

IMAGE: Bambi Corro

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Dream #3

Possible Warning: This dream contains some discussion of race, specifically whites and blacks. I don’t think it’s about that*, but in today’s firecracker/tinderbox atmosphere, you may want to skip it.** It also makes some non-specific references to teenagers having sex in a public place.

**********

I know i haven’t done any analysis on #2 yet. I’ve decided to let that 1 go for now, as it causes me extreme distress.
Meanwhile i have a dream from this morning very fresh in my mind that i think is significant, so i’m turning my attention to it, for now.

**********

My friends and i hop a train into downtown for a night of clubbing. We’re having a good time bar and pub hopping, but as we’re heading to a club for some dancing, we learn about a hot ticket that changes our minds.
There’s prom going on at a huge venue, and it’s open to the public. The big draw is that it’s a music high school that’s known for the brilliant rap musicians that’ve been coming out of it. There’s food and drink for the purchase of a ticket, and then you can catch some fresh new stuff done by up and comers.

We’re all keen and quickly pay up and head in. It’s packed, with white and black youths alike, but i do make a passing observance that they seem to be sticking in groups of their own race. That’s not entirely unheard of in my world, so i head to where the main stage is. There are 3 black youths on stage, engaged in a rap battle. They’re all amazing. My friends are content to hang back, but i want to get closer.
I do the thing i’m so good at during concerts and other crowded events/spaces, which is dodging people to get where i want to go. It’s a skill i came to as an Amazon-size female. Especially when i was heavier, i was almost invisible to the people around me, and i unconsciously turned both things to my advantage. I walk so fast most people find it hard to keep up with me when i’m going full throttle.
I stride through open spaces in a flash, expertly turning into little empty spots and then taking large, fast strides again. I’m like that annoying car during rush hour, moving in and out of lanes. Except i don’t have the potential to kill people, and i actually get somewhere. Heh.

Once up at the front i listen for a while and then decide to get some refreshments. I see the kitchen is stage left and head in that direction, thinking i’ll see a serving area close by. I pass a lot of kids heading in various directions, and they’re all taller than me, like pro basketball tall. They’re dressed in the expensive kind of track suits, and i admire all of their footwear (i like shoes). They’re black and their faces are stoic, not one is smiling. That’s not altogether strange i tell myself, but it IS a graduation reception, and people are usually smiling and laughing and joking around.

There are full length mirrors lining the wall to my right. I look at myself and smile, This is not a problem. Everything’s fine!
It is a rare thing indeed, for me to see myself in dreams, but i see myself clearly in this one, and in full. I don’t look like myself – not even close. I’m young, not much older than the ones graduating, i’d guess. I’m tall and pale and freckled (okay, that part is correct), and i’m sporting a shoulder-length, strawberry blonde mullet with a little faux hawk. I’m dressed completely in blinding white. Too-big white t-shirt with some black writing on it – sadly, i can’t remember what it said. White, thick jean jacket, highly constructed, and it hangs past my hip area. My jeans are also too big and look like they match the jacket. I’m wearing huge-ass white kicks. The outfit would NOT be cheap. You cannot tell if i’m a male or a female. I smile again at my visage, and note that i look cute.

I veer off at the sight of tables, with young people eating and drinking. Some are standing at a bar where they’re clearly getting food and beverages. It looks cafeteria-style. Cool, don’t have to talk to people, and i head over. I’m distracted by some more music, even better (to me) than watching a rap battle. Someone’s rapping ahead of me, and i can hear percussion and beatboxing. I weave through some tables to get a better look. I watch for only a few seconds before i realise something is wrong. There are tables set in enclave atmospheres, with some privacy screening, similar to what we see today in stores, restaurants, transit systems and the like. On the way closer, i pass a preppy looking white boy who sneers at me.
It’s not the way the tables are set up though, it’s that i can feel stares at my back. They feel like ice. I turn around and sure enough, i’m met with glares from white and black young men – there are no girls.

One of them says, “Man, this place ain’t for you.”
I reply that i like the music, and just wanted to listen.
He says, “Nah, you need to go.”
“Okay,” i say, ” it’s your grad. Congratulations everyone.”

As i make my way out i’m met with pure hostility in every face, except the first preppy white dude, whose smug smile makes me want to punch him. I give him my best 100-watt one, and then as i pass i strut my stuff, just a little.
So he knows he hasn’t gotten to me.

Leaving the food and drink area and its clusters of tables and various kids playing their own music at them, i can suddenly feel how unwelcome, how unwanted i am there. With every step i’m met with turned heads masked with hostility and jabbing at me with icy stares. As i’m walking away, i see half a dozen large, metal doors, swing outward, bleeding kids from another area of the venue. And then i hear the music.

It’s Cher’s Shoop Shoop song. Ugh, the most saccharine, worst cover, and my least favourite of Cher’s. (Let’s be clear: i love me some Cher.)
That’s when i notice that everyone pouring through the doors is white.
I think, Is that where i’m supposed to be, then?
But that’s not where i wanted to be – not the music i wanted to hear!

I decide to leave. Don’t wonder where my companions are, because i’m always separated from my friends or whoever i start the dream with. Always. I head towards the door and notice that everyone is white. They’re all sitting at massive tables, in those fancy seats with the velvety coverings and the high backs. The seating is luxe and curves around the table, giving those sitting there some modicum of privacy. Like those booth jobs you see in Vegas, you know the ones? I scan the crowd and they’re all white, and all dressed to the nines: expensive suits, tuxes, obviously tailored, and incredible prom dresses, like they’re all Cinderella at the Ball. I also notice that every single face looks like the kind of smug, arrogant, snotty, schmuck i ever attended school with. Privileged and elitist. Looking for the weak sheep to torture and cut from the herd. Mean girls and bully boys, i call them. They’re the ones who treat you nicely until the teacher leaves the room, or recess, or lunch hour, or after school. Or seeing you at the store or at your job on the weekends.

As i’m shuddering at the thought and making haste for the doors, i hear it. Moaning. I look and see a young woman engaging in sex in her booth. I won’t describe any of the troubling imagery, but it looked extremely uncomfortable, and the booth was filled with male youth cheering them on.
Whatever, i think. I’m not walking past that. I’ll go around the other way.
NOPE. More booths and more kids doing all kinds of stuff that i personally find distasteful at the least, and highly triggering at worst.
I feel trapped and disgusted and hopeless. One particular act makes me feel sick to my stomach.

I wake up and run to the bathroom, the urge to vomit is so strong.

**********

*Upon writing it all out, it is CLEARLY about racial tension and segregation. Is it a metaphor for something in my life? I’ll work on that tomorrow.

**Also a gentle reminder that my blog isn’t a place for heated discussions or arguments. Thank you for your kind respect.

Image: Efren Barahona

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 4 Comments

People Aren’t Puppets

WARNING: This post contains some description of childhood physical abuse.

Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.
~ Madeline L’Engle

Psychological manipulation is a type of social influence that aims to change the behaviour or perception of others through indirect, deceptive, or underhanded tactics.

My mother could play people like Strauss played the violin. Well, she could play some people. Looking back, i can see there were some giving her a wide berth. I’m gonna guess she had a toxic stink on her for those self-aware enough. Once we moved out of the city and began living a throwaway life in various small towns, things steadily changed. Her sick was beginning to show. It started when she picked up a stray boy to do her bidding. He was 14, and she was 32. It’s hard to maintain your mini-guru status when you’re sexually assaulting someone on the regular. Even if we mightn’t have called it what it was back then (and that’s what it was), it made others intensely uncomfortable and outright disgusted. Isolated and mostly alone in a trailer park at the edge of town, she gained weight and lost all her friends.

Once she had the boy firmly under her thumb (he moved in with us when he was 15), she began squirting out babies every couple of years. She put on pregnancy weight and it never came off. She stopped cleaning her house. She stopped cleaning herself. I’d like to think it was guilt over the past, but i think it far more likely that her monstrousness had become too much for her to handle. She was consuming herself from the inside. Eating her own poison caused her to become bloated and bilious on the outside. She looked wrong, she smelled wrong – on a psychic level. From then on the only card she had to play was pity. She still caught a number of unfortunates in her web, but it was far fewer, and they never stuck around for long. Her mask slipped quite regularly. She’d mostly cut off contact with me before she died, but at her funeral i saw she’d been enjoying quite the resurgence of her sick and sticky influence. She was in a 12-step program and had joined a church – perfect places for a 600lb tumour of a human to bang her pity drum and have a parade behind her. They wept into their tissues as they told me how much she meant to them.

They’ll never know how fortunate they are that she died. She would have taken whatever they’d give her, and then cut them to ribbons on her way out.

I’d watched her manipulate people my whole life, although i didn’t see it for what it was, back then. That was just how we did things at my house. We hid our true selves from the outside world. Other people wouldn’t, couldn’t understand our ways – we were too intelligent, too evolved, psychically, spiritually, intellectually. We were on a higher level. As soon as someone’s back was turned or was out of earshot, my mother had nothing nice to say about them. I watched her smile and charm her way through single motherhood in the big city. I watched her hold her own with large groups of professors and grad students. And then parts of me watched her behaviour when we were alone at home. Her emotional meltdowns, her beating and starving me, her renting me out for money, gifts, favours, and the attention of 1 particular man.

I watched her deftly handle teachers in interviews, blaming me for every issue that was brought up. I watched her charm my friends at sleepovers or car rides or at school functions. She could ease them past their fear and disgust over her size in mere minutes. Connecting with fellow students years later they’d ask after her, Hey, how’s your mom? She was always so cool. When i’d tell them she died young, they were so sad for me.

I watched her in therapy sessions. With me as a kid and her riding shotgun, with both of us through churches and government run agencies. She’d seek help for me, and it’d always end up being about her. She’d been abused as a child and now she had this troubled daughter who couldn’t sleep and wasn’t getting high enough marks at school and was struggling socially. How she was doing everything in her power and availing herself of every opportunity, and i was still such a problem. I was stubborn, i was a compulsive liar, i never did my homework… How was she supposed to cope with all of that AND make a living? She had them nodding sympathetically and eating out of her hand in 20mins or less. She knew all the buzzwords and dog whistles and they lapped it up. Meanwhile, if my performance hadn’t been spot on, when we got home she’d beat the crap out of me. Sometimes she’d be so mad she couldn’t wait until we got home and would beat me in the car. She bounced my head off the dashboard so hard once, that it cracked. She’d point out the crack occasionally, just by way of reminder to behave or else.

I watched and i learned and i behaved.

All this to bring it back to what i’m dealing with today. Today i know how to manipulate people to get what i want. To read them, to know their currency and their weaknesses and through that knowledge, get my needs met. In the distant past, i can see where i did work people to get their acceptance, but it was an unconscious thing. I’d been taught to figure out what people wanted and give it to them. I’d been taught to blend into the group, chameleon-like. I wasn’t purposefully disingenuous. And i was never on the grift, like her. I never took anyone’s money. I never paraded myself, my past, or my children for cash, or gifts, or help of any kind. I hid my need from others. I only ever had a couple of friends who knew when i was down and out, and they had to force me to take their help (they were generous and kind to do that, i know).

I don’t socialise much anymore, and almost never in big groups, so i don’t have to worry about my must-fit-in programming so much. I have a few friends i can be myself with – or at least practise being myself. I thought my manipulative days were behind me.
Frank and intensive introspection has recently shown me that that isn’t the case.

The manipulation was subtle, embedded in care-based action. First, it starts with my children. I finally became aware of it with my youngest. He’s grown but is still at home for now. He has some serious issues that he needs safety and space to work out, and we’re glad to provide for him. Some if not all of them, can be traced back to being born to and raised with, a survivor of severe trauma who has multiple mental health diagnoses. As i’m working on my own stuff, i watch him work on his, and i think back to when he was in school. I see his struggles in various areas, and i see me trying to get him the help he needed. I attend meetings, so many meetings. Meetings they called, meetings i called. Taking him for tests and more tests. Trying this, trying that, nothing working, constant fretting, so much emotion, so much stress. And today i see how much of it could have been avoided, if i hadn’t been unconsciously manipulating things to get the outcome >>i<< wanted. I wanted him to do things and be things in his life that he wasn’t necessarily interested in. I hung my own unfulfilled hopes and dreams on him. I compounded his stress and anxiety.
Tough pill to swallow, but it’s mine to take.
This led to some insight into other areas where i’ve been trying to make others do what i want.

I’ve written about my crappy parenting and how i’ve apologised to my boys and they all forgive me and still love me. I’ve gone on about how i’ve offered myself to them for therapy – both to pay for it, and be present at any session they’d want. But what i didn’t see was how i apologise too often – i bring it up too much. And the uncomfortable truth of it is that i want them to make what i did okay for me. I want THEM to fix MY feelings. I want them to go to therapy and be mad at me so that i can feel more at peace. I know i don’t get to tell them how to handle their past, but i was missing the selfishness that was enmeshed in the best of intentions.

Which brings me to my husband. Same thing. I wanted him to get help for his past because i thought it was the right thing to do. Our marriage had serious problems and i decided how we should handle it. I decided that because i was wallowing around in my shit that he should, too. I was reminded of the time i forced him to tell his mother he wasn’t religious. She didn’t need to know and he didn’t want to tell her. I was religious at the time and i just decided that it was the “right” thing to do. Truth is, i think i wanted to punish him for not coming along into my religious beliefs/community. Ugh. What a shitty thing to do. It was manipulative, pure and simple.

Just like trying to force him into therapy. In my defense, i truly believed i was doing the right, good thing. I wanted to help. I wanted everyone to be happy and healthy and for us all to get along. What i didn’t see or understand, was that i was trying to manipulate others into MY vision of what happy/healthy looks like, and force those i love into employing MY ideas for how we get there.
None of them have to deal with their trauma at all, let alone in the way i’m dealing with mine. There are many out there in the world who shut it down and put it away. They don’t talk about it, they don’t get therapy, and they have the life they want. Or they don’t have the life they want. Either way, it’s their choice. Their quality of life or lack thereof, is none of my business, and that includes those closest to me that i love.

It’s humbling, to be sure, but i’ve been mulling this over for a few weeks now, and the sting has gone out of it. It’s just the truth, and i am a truth-seeker. I’d rather know than not know. Even if it hurts. Even if i have to look at ugly parts of myself and take responsibility.
What i know today is that i will show up for my family whenever and however they want me to — IF they want me to.
And that may never happen.
And i’m just gonna have to sit with the uncomfortability that comes from not being able to FIX everything so that >>i<< can feel better.

Man, growing up sucks sometimes.
Still totally worth doing.
I’m gonna keep at it.

Hope y’all are hanging in there as best you can.
I’m still here, so i’ve got that goin’ for me.
Heh.

Love and Peace,
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

The Ace Up Her Sleeve

I don’t know if I can open up
I’ve been opened enough
I don’t know if I can open up
I’m not a birthday present
~ Marilyn Manson, Mephistopheles of Los Angeles

So that happened…
I have a scheduled phone therapy sesh at 2 today.
It’s 8 and i’ve already lost time.
When i come back to the face i always check around me to see what i can figure out about what happened while i wasn’t there, and to assess any damage. Over the years, i’ve become quite the sleuth.

I wish i could describe what it’s like to come back from various levels of dissociation, but it’s difficult. After a mild dissociation, i’m lightheaded, like i almost fainted, but didn’t. Coming back from a slide, where i’m there, but helplessly watching what’s happening around me from a distance, is like a carnival ride… sort of. There’s internal, psychic gravity involved. When the elevator lurches and you feel it in your belly? It’s akin to that. Returning from a full switch is much harder to define. Part waking up, part falling and hitting the ground, part walking out of a smoke-filled room, part amyl nitrate popper, cracked and inhaled. Out of the 3, it’s violent and deeply unsettling. Like being punched unconscious by the school bully, and when you come to, you look up and see a crowd of your peers staring down at you.

The first thing i do when the awareness sets in that i’ve been gone, is i try to keep my face neutral. I don’t want to do the big blink, or have a deer-in-the-headlights look on my face. This is number 1 due to shame, but it’s also a not unhealthy sense of self-preservation. I’ve been slammed back into the face while in some dangerous situations; places where i’m around people that are keen for an advantage over someone like me. Prey. And frankly, switching is private. The whole multiple thing, while over the past few years i’m more “out” about it, is deeply personal. Those who respect that are in my life. Those that look at me like i’m a puzzle or a party trick, are not. It’s been my experience that those types WILL play me like a Chinese finger puzzle if i let them.
So yeah, as unobtrusively as possible, i try to suss out what TF is going on.

This morning i fall into the face, and it’s not too bad – more like falling off my bike onto the grass rather than the asphalt. Still, it’s never pleasant. There’s a hitch in my gut, because i must always wonder if i’ve fucked up, and if so, how badly. I see that i’m fully dressed, and the siren starts to bleat when i look down and see i have my shoes on. Being dressed at 8am is one thing; having my shoes on and in the house (i come from a country where people don’t wear their shoes indoors) means i’ve at least tried to go for a walk. At this time my husband will be at work, so i can’t ask him. I look carefully out my bedroom door and see my son’s door is closed. I don’t want to ask him, but once he hears my door open, he comes out to check on me. UGH. He lets me know i was fighting with his dad, and i’d left the house. I hate that he knows, but he’s grown, and it’s better than if he wasn’t. I won’t lie to him at his age, not even by omission. I’m not going to give him a blow-by-blow, but if he asks me a question – i’ll tell him the truth.
He says everything’s okay, and i’m okay, and he and i are okay. That last part is because i constantly fret that i’ve upset him or we’re not on good terms.
I worry on the regular that i’ve enmeshed him with me.
All i have is that i’m willing to know and do what must be done.
For now, that involves hanging on until i can speak with the inimitable Ms T.

**********

When the session starts, i can feel my irritation. This is not at all uncommon. My system has always been varying levels of hostile towards my therapist. It doesn’t bother her. It bothers me, of course. I was trained to respect authority, but also hide all my business from them. Seems weird, but when you consider what my mother was doing to me, it makes total sense. Present as normal as possible, because what was happening was not at all normal, or right, or legal.
She asks how i’m doing, but quickly transitions into therapy.
That may sound weird, but let me explain: I’ve seen a LOT of therapists in my life. I mean, a lot a lot. I always knew something was wrong with me, although i didn’t know what. I always knew someone needed to help me, but i didn’t know who or how. Over the years, i’ve knocked on countless doors and sat in innumerable chairs. I’ve told my story so many times it was like a script i’d memorised. I don’t know if any of them wanted to help me –i’d like to imagine they all did– but no one had what i needed/was looking for.

I’ve been asked a thousand times, How are you doing? and it was bullshit, because it didn’t matter what i said. I could play their game or not, depending on how i felt or who was in charge that day. I know i sound smug and superior here, but let the chips fall where they may. I’d been in the system, barking in the yard for so long, that i could convince anyone to let me in. But no one offered me the bone i wanted. None of it was palatable. None of it or them, made me hungry or want to eat.

So when i met a therapist who not only didn’t ask for my history, but also knew i was a multiple and didn’t try to play with my brain, i felt the first pangs of hunger (HOPE) that i’d felt in years and years.
Today she asked me how i was doing, and after over 12yrs of knowing me, she’s very capable of quickly discerning the direction of our session and getting started. She doesn’t waste time, for which i’m grateful. At my age, i don’t have as much left as i’d like.

I’ve been stressed and overspent for countless months, but i’ve learned a couple of things and i want her to fix them. I want her to take the feelings of anguish and disgust away. I want her to wash away the filth.
She hears me, and tells me she wishes she could, but it doesn’t work that way.
I say, Okay, so you want me to use another word so you don’t feel so bad?
She calls me on my aggression; says what i said was kinda mean.
She’s right. It grounds me as well as i can be at that point.

She speaks to me in ways i can hear, using words i can understand. From the beginning i told her what i wanted and what i didn’t, who i was and who i wasn’t. It was only to the best of my ability at the time (how can it ever be anything else?), but it was clear from the jump that if anyone could help me, she could.
But the point is that she was always listening. She always heard me. She always gave me a platform – but not like a fucking analyst’s couch. If that’s what works for you, great! I don’t mean to say that can’t be effective, or any other kind of therapy. I’ve never said that any of those that i’d seen prior weren’t good and effective at their job and helped a lot of people… I’m just saying that, for whatever reason, they couldn’t help me (much).

What follows is private, but, it helps me. SHE helps me. She can help me because she first gained my trust, and then, MOST important of all, once she had that i LET her help me.
The shitty part of it is that she assures me that she’d expedite things if she could, but being a multiple, with my particular set of concerns, ensures that isn’t possible. She tells me it’s going to be slow, but based on our prior association, she’s sure i can do it.
I’m feeling grouchy, angry even, and very, very tired and small.

I’m ashamed of my moodiness, my bitchiness, with her. She tells me she doesn’t worry about any of my acting out behaviours (i’m synopsising to make my point).  She says, “H, i knew from the moment i started working with you that it was going to be okay, and i had nothing to worry about.”
(For background, she came to my home for therapy for years, because i couldn’t/wouldn’t have come to her.)
She said, I didn’t worry because i could see you had a code of ethics. I could see that you cared, above all, to be kind to others, and to not allow anyone to suffer as you’ve suffered. You are a good egg.

I get all weepy at this point.
Okay more weepy then. Pfft.
And then she asks me, How does that feel?
I’m like, Wut?
She digs in and asks again, How does it feel for me to say these things about you?
Um, good.
Why does it feel good, do you think?
Urk… Because you see me.
Yeeeeah! I do see you. I’ve known you a long time. And i trust you.

Then she tells me that’s what healing IS.
To be SEEN.
To be KNOWN.
And then to be loved and believed in and trusted following that.
Well, i’ll be good n’ goddamned.
Ms T always has an ace up her sleeve, and she knows when to play ’em.

**********

That was yesterday.
There was fallout; there always is for me after therapy. This time it wasn’t too bad, although the evening is gone. I didn’t go for a walk, and i’m not on a bender. I’ll take it.
A good thing has come from it already. A thing i desperately needed, and that’s sleep. My insomnia has reared its ugly and most unwelcome head this last week or so. I’d had around 6hrs sleep total in the last 5 or 6 days. I was on a razor’s edge emotionally, and my body was in that sleep-starved mode where it vibrates and you feel dizzy all the time. I hated my bed. I hated the approach of the night. For someone who’s as tightly wound as i am currently, i thought i didn’t have much torque left in me. Unfortunately, anxiety will always find a way.

I’d do my sleep preparation, and beyond that try not to think about it. Ha. Don’t think about the elephant standing behind you H, and definitely don’t look at it. Again i say, Ha. So i lie down and try to breathe deeply, and keep my mind as close to empty and calm as i can. My mind is never quiet like a non-multiple’s can be. I’ve never had a conscious minute in my life that didn’t have thoughts roiling around in this ole noggin of mine. But i’m trying not to think about the fact that i haven’t slept in days and i’m exhausted and OMGWHATIFICAN’TSLEEPTONIGHT?!! Usually, i start off thinking Hey, i feel pretty comfy, i think it just might happen! Then, around 20mins in my confidence begins to waver, as my need to change positions becomes stronger. I start to feel little electric pinpricks randomly, all over my body. So i shift, a little, not too much – don’t wanna trigger my restlessness. Then again i think, Okay, maybe… And then suddenly i don’t just have my eyes closed, i’m staring at the inside of my eyelids. My eyeballs immediately start to ache, and i know it’s all over.
I get up at this point because all i’ll do is thrash around, getting more and more frustrated and anxious until i’m so amped that the possibility of any sleep all night becomes impossible. I usually play a game on the computer for an hour and then try again. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Lately though, it just wasn’t happening for me.

Cue therapy. I not only slept last night, i slept more this morning. I feel infinitely better. Less emotional, and more able to accomplish tasks.
So yeah, my post-therapy experiment starts tomorrow.
Feeling hopeful, but not too much. I don’t want to put expectations on myself that i might not be able to meet. It’s gonna be what it’s gonna be. I’m just trying something new. Tweaking my program a little. It’s only an experiment, after which my support team and i will assess the data, and see where i go from there.

Life as me, man.
What a gig.

Love and Peace to All,
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

My Travelling Pants

When the pants you’ve been wearing for a week walk off the job in disgust, you may be having some issues.

Yeah, i joke, but i’ve been low functioning these last few months, and getting lower. Perhaps it’d be more accurate to state that my lows are getting lower. I still crawl outta that hole i fell in and get more functional for a time, but it’s still only marginally better than the hole. Before the pandemic hit my periods of better functioning were longer, and i would get closer to the level i was at when i first started this last bout of therapy nearly 2yrs ago.

I’m bipolar, and the best way i’ve found to cope with the manic side of me, is to take only very small, slow steps towards better functioning. It has been my overwhelming experience that going any faster only makes me fall flat on my face harder. Plus, it can trigger a mania – and my manias can last years and cause massive destruction. So i’m a baby-stepper. But babystepping isn’t helping me right now. I’m slipping lower and lower, every time i fall, and as i said, the falls are coming more frequently.

So, i’ve decided to change it up a bit. Just a small experiment, to see if it helps. I’m setting up parameters like length of time, and those who will be overseeing my work.
I’m going to try pushing a little harder.
Those of you who read my blog -especially those that know me personally- don’t freak out. It will be a 3-day trial following my phone therapy session with Ms T this week.

Sometimes shaking things up a bit is just the remedy.

I’m currently fighting a mania. If you aren’t aware, yes, lows can be a part of manic behaviour (and usually are, in some form or fashion). I’m going to feed it a bit of what it wants, but carefully, and strictly measured. No coke binges or booze benders, here. And the positive side of the pandemic is that my anxiety levels ensure that there’s no danger of suddenly becoming my old, social-butterfly self. Heh. What i’m talking about is positive accomplishments. I’m going to feed it some self-esteem.

I’ve worked hard to be okay with the way my brain works. Sometimes that means dialing things back to the bare minimums. I throw prepackaged foods in the oven and microwave to feed my family – or hubby brings home take away. If i can’t be arsed to get in the shower, well, maybe i can just get the pits n’ bits treatment, and splash some water on my face, leaving my usual, rather involved skin care regimen on the shelf for a day or 2 or 10. I ask my son and husband for help with household chores that i normally consider my domain (i’m a right prig about the laundry), and the upkeep of my kitchen is something i actually enjoy. When i ask though, i consciously let go of my need to have it all done a certain way. I also let go of the things i do for exercise, and we have low maintenance doggos, who don’t mind if i can’t walk them for a few days (they still get a bit of exercise around our yard – we live on a farm). I try to write what i can, but honestly, that’s usually the first thing that goes.
Once i start feeling better, i slowly add things back in.
This is a proven helpful and effective way to deal with life as me.

But it’s not working these last months, or better said, it’s not helping.
I’m gonna flip the script, briefly, and see what happens.
If my support system says No, i will advocate further, and probably fiercely. But in the end, if they cannot be swayed, then the trust is there for me to acquiesce.

After my session with my therapist, my plan is to either write, or immediately get on the treadmill if i’m feeling like taking off. (For those unfamiliar with this habit of mine: When i am triggered or feel overwhelmed, i will often dissociate and leave the house at top speed and hit our old country road for a walk towards the highway. Often, nothing good comes from that, and sometimes, very bad things happen.) After this initial absorbing of whatever has come up for me during our talk, i will decide what to do next, based on how i’m feeling, what i’m thinking, and what my body might be trying to tell me.

So, grok me:

– i will be the cooking the suppers,
– i will be washing the bod and the face on the regular,
– i will be doing the laundry and cleaning the kitchen,
– i will be walking the doggos (they will be so happy!),
– i will be keeping up with both my writing and my reading.

I will be keeping the thing i do where i reward my accomplishments regularly with down time. Lots of futzing about on the computer, watching anime with my Kiddo and my current various streaming services series obsessions. I will stop for ice cream or chocolate or potatoes at my whim. And i will drop everything and call my husband or BFF or text Ms T if i sense or feel trouble.
It’ll just be for a few days, and then we’ll take stock. Me, my support system, and of course my precious Bits N’ Pieces. We’ll all have a say and then we’ll decide if i continue as is, maybe push a little harder, or if it would be best if i stopped.

Maybe my pants will forgive me and come back.

It’s time now for the show
Put on my makeup, away I go
I’ll say a prayer
That I will see you out there

So when the show is done
You’ll take my hand, away we’ll run
Along home, to make supper
~ Storm Large, Under You