Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 3 Comments

Limen

I cannot write. I just can’t. It’s all awful. It’s terrible in its slow, dreadful, inevitably. Like a crone dying in her sleep. The breath of this thing that i was is cycling, circling, slowing, down and down and down. I feel sick to my stomach all the time. My heart aches and it hurts to breathe. Sadness is a yawning chasm, hungry for my tears. My guts are packed up inside my throat, squeezing and squeezing.

I want so badly to get away from here, but i have nothing, and there is nowhere for me to go. All the things that i have gotten so close to having, now seem cheap and pointless. My thoughts are acrid puffs of old dust. Motes on an empty plane, floating towards nothingness. I can’t think of a single thing that matters enough for me to pull myself out of this.

I’d say he’s taken everything i have, but i just gave it to him. He never asked. I know now it’s because he never wanted any of it. I know now that i am alone. I’m too crazy for anyone to be in love with. I’m too old, and my body is too broken for anyone to want. My quirks are too odd to live with, my flaws too great to tolerate. My heart is too cold to hold, my temper too hot to temper, my personality too immature for a partner, my presence too aloof for connection, my despair too bleak for light, my tears too bloody to staunch.

Tomorrow is devoid of hope.
I wish i could vomit up all of this and be done with it, but it’s stuck inside me and won’t let go.
I did all this work to see how alone and unwanted i am. How pathetic I’ve been giving all of me to someone who didn’t want any of me. How foolish, how childish, romance’s disciple, a devotee of fairy tales.

No happily ever after.
I’m just a disaster.
I thought embracing my histrionic nature might help, but it’s done nothing except embarrass me.
This has pounded and battered me, rendering me barely capable of getting out of bed.
I have never not been alone.
Does this sound like i’m on a self-pity trip?
Perhaps.
And also fuck off.

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Sounds Wise, but Is It?

Dissociated AF today. Trying my best.

Today in contrarian snark, i bring you Rupaul’s iconic catchphrase:

“If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”

For me, that’s absolute nonsense. I was born with a sweet and beautiful heart that loved everyone in my life, even my mother — purely, and without reservation. Even now i love my mother. I have hate for her, but the love is still there.

I didn’t think about loving myself, but i can assure you that, if i had, i would have struggled to do it. That goes against all my childhood indoctrination. Not even religion could penetrate what i was taught to believe about myself.

Pop psychology and its parade of self-help gurus got me thinking about it. It was like reading a book jacket — it sounded interesting and i wanted to know more. Finally acknowledging my trauma got me working on it. It started with a lot of eye-rolling and bosom-heaving. There was wailing and gnashing of teeth. I could see the value in it and i wanted very much to love myself.

But i couldn’t get it done. I couldn’t seem to make much headway until i had my boys. In them, i saw that there was good and beauty inside me. More than that, though, I LOVED THEM so much! I saw that they needed to see me living my best life, which included loving myself.

I’ve fought the good fight since then. The knowledge that they’re watching me is always in the back of my mind. I think about what my treatment of myself might be teaching them.

I ask myself:

  • what do i want my children to know
  • who do i want them to be
  • how do i want them to comport themselves
  • how do i want them to FEEL about themselves
  • what can i give them that i wish someone had given to me

My love for others, my sons in particular, spurs me ever onward in loving myself. I’m learning how to treat myself by how i treat others. I can see how it can work the way Rupaul says, but it just doesn’t for me. I have some healthy natural instincts for how to love others, but loving myself was beaten out of me; it doesn’t come naturally at all.

Today i am pushing through depression, dissociation, and exhaustion, in part because my kids need to see me do it. They will know they can walk through their own valleys because they watched me walk through mine. I’m hoping to show them how good it is to love oneself, how worthy a pursuit, by how hard they see me fighting for it.

Today my system is very active and i’m coming up against a lot of resistance to write in depth about the work i’m currently doing in therapy. I’ll try again tomorrow.

IMAGE: Gianluca Tristo

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up

Depression has kicked my ass so hard i’m having trouble doing much of anything.

My house, yard, body, and relationships are basically okay, meaning clean enough, not cluttered or in disrepair, but that’s it.
I’m having a shit of a time writing.
My fibro pain is so bad i’m dissociating to get away from it.
I struggle in conversation; i can participate, but on the inside, i am freaking. out.
My system is banging around in my head so hard that i have a constant headache. The only time i’m not aware of it is when i’m sleeping.

Speaking of sleeping, it’s the only thing that’s going well in my life, which makes me wonder if i got sucked into an alternate universe where it’s Spongebob’s opposite day, every day. Because sleep is always a crapshoot for me. Maybe i’m finally on the right mix of meds? The only problem remains dreaming. I dream all night long, flowing from one dream into another and then another. I wake up to use the bathroom, and as soon as i’m back to sleep, my dream picks back up where it left off. They’re not nightmares, they’re not even particularly disturbing, but they are exhausting. They’re the kind of dreams i have when my stress level is too high.

My body is at the breaking point.

I saw the doctor last week to chat about my last round of blood work. My organs are functioning well, and my weight loss continues. My headaches have become debilitating, so she gave me a neurological exam.

When she was through, she said, “You are the tensest person i’ve ever examined.”

She thinks the problem might be stress, and i’m inclined to agree. The band around my forehead began tightening as soon as i started typing this post, and it’s already at the point where i’m having trouble concentrating. I’ve decided to cut this post short, but i will continue it tomorrow. It might be the only way i can produce consistently for this blog.

Some people in my brain do not want me to do this work i’m doing with my therapist. I was never supposed to talk about what happened to me, let alone survive this long. I’m coming up against some parts of my system that are allied with my abusers. I’ve spent years cleaning out the horde in my brain, and they don’t like it. I’m integrating (becoming fully co-conscious with my system), and some of the bits that split off when i was little have been… I don’t know what to call it. Reabsorbed?

It’s hard to describe; it’s all so esoteric.

I’ll elaborate tomorrow.

IMAGE: Caleb Woods

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What I Was Pretending Not to Know

I’m trying to write on my other platform, and i can’t. Well i can. I can still write poetry, but prose creeps along like molasses in January. I also have a couple of serious essays i’ve been working on that have ground to a halt.

I don’t have writer’s block. I have lots of ideas and several pieces in various stages of development that i like, i enjoy writing them, and i think (hope) they’ll be good. I’ve popped out some new writing along the lines of humorous commentary, which i’m pleased about. I have a wry sense of humour that i’ve been attempting to find a place for on my other platform, and getting accepted as a writer for a couple of the publications i enjoy has boosted my self-esteem. Which, if you follow my blog, you might realise was needed, or at least desired.

But i’m having trouble writing. Like, slipping into that bashedy-bash-bash flow that feels like free chocolate and new kicks were delivered to my door. Or when it’s so good, i feel like Snow White in the forest with all the forest creatures gathering around… It’s missing. I can sit at the laptop, pull up a piece, read what i’ve written so far, edit a bit and add another paragraph or 2… And i’m done. My brain seizes up. My Bits N’ Pieces infernal racket plays a part in that for sure, but also i just feel stuck, somehow.

Well, after my last time loss, my husband insisted i get back to therapy. He didn’t have to push, though, i wanted to talk to her. I’d cancelled an appointment as i was finished detoxing, and i wasn’t sure why. I hadn’t gotten into too much trouble drink-wise, and i was feeling okay to talk. But i still ducked it.

Being as dissociative as i can be, means knowing something while not knowing it can be on a whole other level. I think we can all ignore the truth that’s in front of us sometimes. I think feigning ignorance is a way to avoid any number of things that we might not want to face. Me, i do that shit like so many other folks, but Dissociative Identity Disorder can make it harder to be aware that i’m doing it because i have deeper and darker places to hide the knowledge. It can be kept from me by other personalities, some of whom have a great deal of power in who i am and how i operate, most of whom are difficult and crafty.

I saw my therapist yesterday. I told her frankly that i’m struggling with suicidality, and i told her my plan. She looked at me for a few seconds -long ones- and asked me a couple of pointed questions:
When is your birthday?
How old are you now?
How did you feel about this spring?

Asking those questions might seem weird. My therapist knows these things, at least approximately. She was asking me to access information that she knew i already had. Things i know that i’m pretending not to.

I was born into servitude. My mother had me to satisfy her own selfish desires. She wanted unconditional love and a vessel into which she could pour all the feelings she didn’t want to house in her own body, like shame, rejection, fear, and especially anger. It didn’t stop there, though. I don’t know how, although i could hazard a guess, but she came across people who wanted what she had — specifically, me. Men who would give her their attention, along with gifts and money. For me.

As open and vulnerable as i’ve been about my childhood trauma, i’m rarely literal in how i refer to specifics, especially the sexual abuse. I prefer to imply, allude to it, and use euphemisms and metaphors. What happened to me was brutal and ugly and horrific. It took years for me to use the words that tell what happened to me in the most simple and succinct language. Words like grooming and indoctrination. Words like trafficking and rape.

I was taught to lie, hide, and deny. I was told i was dreaming, that i had an overactive imagination, that i was a compulsive liar, overly dramatic, and an attention-seeker. I did what i was told, and i believed their lies and internalized their abuse.

Their lies.
Their abuse.

All these years i’ve just been dealing with my mother. I told myself it would be enough, because she was at the root of it all. It was hard to admit my mother was an abuser. It flies in the face of all my programming — all her programming. It was hard to accept my DID diagnosis. Not just because it’s fantastic and controversial. Not only because television and movies portray multiples using harmful and inaccurate tropes.

It’s also because my mother knew i was a multiple, and she knew because the men she trafficked me to, knew.

And now i’m going to write about what i don’t write about: the paedophiles that used my mother to get at me.

Don’t misunderstand me here, please. I’m a skeptic. I’m not a conspiracy theorist.
Some things about my childhood are provable, but some i’ll never know for certain. If it cannot be proven, i put it on a continuum of likelihood. I look for patterns of behaviour. I use what i’ve learned about other victims and their stories, again looking for patterns and probabilities. I try to state regularly the things that i’m not sure of and what i’m only guessing at.

So, consider this fully caveated.

It is my belief, although i do not know (knowledge is a subset of beliefs), that there are very “successful” paedophiles out there. They learn from each other, and yes, i believe there are some that form groups. I’m not talking about some massive worldwide cabal, but it is my personal, lived experience that some hang out together, and even abuse, together. Some paedophiles know about dissociatives like me. They look for qualities that might make a child more susceptible to dissociation, like long-term, preexisting trauma. Children like i was are the paedophile’s unicorn.

I was already shattered when they found me. I was already on the far end of the dissociative spectrum; i had alters. And they knew how to make more. So they did. They made alters in me to hide what was happening. More than that, though, they made them complicit in the abuse. They made parts that would ally themselves with them — my abusers.

I know that this is some whackadoo territory, so let me reiterate: i don’t know this, i only suspect it’s true. I have a therapist who is tops in her field, who confirms my suspicions based on her treatment of others who’ve been through similar extremes. I also have memories that back this up, although i know very well the unreliable nature of such, and the danger of confirmation bias that ever-looms over my interpretations.

So when my therapist asked me those questions, i stopped ignoring what i knew.
I thought i could get away with just dealing with my mother. But i can’t.
I’m going to have to deal with the men, especially the man i called “Daddy” and his best friend. There were other men, and some other women too, and i’ll work through what and whomever else i must.

There’s so much more about how i got to this place and why i believe these things, but i don’t know if, when, or how i’m going to write about them. This is quite enough for now. It’s taken me days to write this much — there is powerful programming coming up against me. I’ll be thinking about it and processing it with my therapist, making sure it’s the right thing for me to do and setting up solid, safe boundaries before i go any further with this part of my story. No matter what i decide, i’ll keep writing about the journey.

I feel like Michael Corleone, fuuuuck.

I hope this greases the wheels a bit and can get me writing more smoothly again.

Y’all hang in there. I’m doing my damnedest.
Love and Peace,
~H~

IMAGE: K8

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Dear Diary: She Fell

To make a small change to Gimli’s heartbreaking words to Eowyn after an Orc riding a Warg bests Aragorn… I was cast off the cliff by my own angry and ugly rider.

I have another place where i write about my marriage, but what i will say here is that i have been very intentionally earning my way out of it for many years. I wanted to make sure i left no stone unturned; one, because i wanted it to work, and two, because i wanted to be certain that if i did leave, i could be confident that i’d done everything possible to make it work.

I was fully confident and prepared to go. I had a place to live and several potential jobs. I was going to hock my jewelry to pay the first month’s rent. I was halfway out the door. And then my husband’s kidney disease turns out to have progressed more quickly than his nephrologist had thought it would, and i… cannot leave.

I didn’t want to leave, so much as i had to. It was time; i had done everything i could do, but one person can’t hold two together. At least i couldn’t, not without it costing more than i was willing to pay any longer. The fear and sadness over leaving had been overcome by my need to feel better — to be relieved of the burdens i’ve carried for too long.

*sigh*

But now he is ill, quite ill in fact, and i can’t, won’t leave. He’s still my best friend and favourite person, and he supported me through the sickest time of my life. I owe him, and i want to pay. So, i have to figure out how to take care of this man and stand by him, all while considering the marriage part of our relationship over.

It was too much at first, and i fell. I thought i’d mostly gotten myself back under control the last time i wrote, but the rider and his beast rode hard and knocked me down again. This time there was madness, and i descended into self-harming behaviours (which i will not discuss). I deactivated social media and turned inward, focusing only on negotiating my way to détente… I’ve lost a significant amount of control over my system and figured it was the best i could hope for.

Last weekend both my husband and son were out working. I have never been afraid to be alone, usually, i welcome it. However, when i’m this unstable it’s cause for concern. I’ve been known to disappear from the house for days.

I was sitting in my usual chair, watching crap on telly that i hoped would distract me from my inner turmoil. It wasn’t working too well. I turned it off and attempted to soothe my system some other way. Reaching out with my thoughts to engage some of them, to offer hope and comfort that things would get better.

And then i heard it and my blood ran cold.
I heard a voice, and it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t inside my head — it came from somewhere outside me. But i was alone in the house. I grabbed weapons and my phone and checked everywhere. There was no one. I slid a little then and receded to the back of my brain as someone else took the face and called my husband. He offered concern and some gentle suggestions as to what it might be. The little Bit that he was talking to wasn’t having it though and quickly got off the phone.

I put the television back on and tried to placate the rush of little ones that were afraid.

And then i heard it again.
This time when i heard it, i recognised it. Or i thought i did. Some weird kind of gut feeling about who it was. He’s been dead so long i couldn’t possibly remember what he sounded like, but i believed it was my uncle.

Now, before i go any further, 2 things:

– I am an atheist, and by that i mean that have not been convinced that any god or gods exist, nor anything considered supernatural or paranormal, e.g. ghosts, reincarnation, angels, psychic abilities, etc.
– I am not schizophrenic. I would have been diagnosed a long time ago. I have various diagnoses and none of them is that one.

I have heard a voice speak to me one other time. I was alone then too, and it came from outside me. I was a new mother, living in my own apartment; just me and my baby. I was changing him on the living room carpet when i heard a voice coming from the kitchen. It told me something that my mother used to do to me when i was a baby. It was disgusting and horrible. It made me run to the bathroom and throw up. It matched a terrible dream i’d had since i was a child, and it was the beginning of me realising that some of my dreams were pointing to actual events.

This wasn’t the same voice, but it was the same type of experience. When he spoke again i wasn’t afraid, just like i wasn’t all those years ago. He told me that everything was going to be okay and he was going to help take care of me. It calmed me, and not just me, the constant yammering in my brain instantly softened and slowed.

I know both voices are mine — even though i heard them in another room. I don’t know how my brain has done it, but i know absolutely that it did, just as i know the people that live in my brain are ALL me. I don’t know why it’s only happened twice, i don’t why these particular times and for these particular reasons, but it doesn’t matter. Both voices helped me in their own way.

From that experience i was able to ask for some things that i need to continue forward in this current iteration of my married relationship with my best friend. He wants very much to convince me that he can give me what i want, and i guess he gets the opportunity because i won’t leave until he is well. We have separate rooms, but we continue on much as we have — there is no rancor.

I haven’t heard my uncle’s voice since that day, and i don’t expect to. I feel like i have a part of my own brain caring for me and watching over me. It makes perfect sense to me that i would make it him, as he was my favourite person in the world until the world took him from me.

I know this is weird shit. I don’t pretend to understand it. What i have learned is that my brain is a fantastical place, and my superpower is imagination. I’ve used it to save my life since i was a baby, and it’s still doing its job. We’ll see where we go from here. I’m hoping for more control and less chaos. Whatever comes, i am never alone, because i make companions. Sometimes it’s a problem, but sometimes, it’s strangely comforting.


I’m hanging in there.
Hope you are, too.
Love and Peace,
~H~

IMAGE: Christof Görs

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Dear Diary: So, It’s That Time Again…

This time of year is always an utter shitshow for me. It’s my birthday in a couple of weeks, and memories have cast a pall over every birthday of my adult life. These are the worst few weeks of my life, every year. But i feel strong enough, and ready to change that. My present to myself this year will be peace. No more living in old traumas. I lost the face this weekend, and had to rely on others to bring me up to speed. I was lost in suffering that was over decades ago.

Childhood trauma is so bloody powerful. However, i’m relatively functional and productive in society, now. I stand up for myself and go after what i want. I don’t allow fear to keep me from moving forward. I can handle more responsibility. I’m finally, actually growing up.

But these few weeks get me every time. It’s like i’m a leaf in the wind. This is pretty vulnerable stuff, and i hope i haven’t made anyone reading this uncomfortable. I plan to post this on both blog and socmed pages, and i’m writing about how messy i am. How prone to despair and problematic drinking i am when mid-March hits. I have to put it here though, because i feel an accountability to this page that i’m hoping will help me accomplish my goal.

Social media can be such an insidious lie. You only see what anyone wants you to see, and that might be just the good stuff. Based on its cannabalistic (and well-earned) reputation, i don’t blame anyone for how they edit themselves for the internet. Not at all.

But here’s another small way that i can be helpful to others. I have found that the best way to heal from my trauma is to forge through it, to shine a light on every single bit of it. I’m more in control of my system, and i lose less time. I know how to weather both manic and depressive storms. As i dissociate less, i’ve become avoidant of social situations. It seemed counter-intuitive, but life had another interesting surprise for me, which is ASD.

Being around people has become more and more difficult. I lost a dear friend due to my inability to handle certain social situations. I can become completely overwhelmed to the point of panic in mere seconds. What do i do as a human who absolutely loves other humans, but can’t stand to be around them for very long? How do i fulfill my job as a humanist out here in my Little Crooked House?

I can do things like this. Be honest about my situation. Let people know who i really am, warts n’ all. Admit publicly when i’m wrong, take responsibility and offer no excuses. Reach out in empathy, in sympathy, in truth, with a spirit of kindness and generosity.

Vulnerability is my gift to others.

Courage is my gift to myself.

It will take courage to get through these next couple of weeks with a minimum of dissociation. I won’t want to do it sober, at times, but i will. The most intense and vicious abuse would occur in the spring and the fall. This year for my birthday i will stay strong and not permit myself to soak in the blood and tears of the past.

I will always be broken, but i am mending myself with gold.

Love and Peace,
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 6 Comments

Dear Diary: I Got Nothin’


I don’t know what to write regarding what’s going on in my life.

The depth and breadth of my self-knowledge is not helping. My sharp insights have fucked off somewhere. I’m floating, disconnected from mindfulness, from self-awareness, from the people i share space with. I’m just existing right now, in this fog of sadness.

I’m unable to access my usual level of vocabulary. Words appear to have abandoned me. My ability to communicate about myself is lost, or maybe it left. Packed up and took off because it needed a vacation. I don’t know.
I don’t know.

I’m so dissociated right now i can barely think.

My husband took our dog to the crematory this morning. His eyes were red and full of unshed tears. I’ve only seen him cry once, and he’s only teared up a few times. Watching him be brought so close makes my own grief cut deeper. Her last week and final moments are all i can think about. No attempts at distraction have been successful for very long.

I lost a dear friend a few weeks ago. It went almost the same way. I couldn’t stop thinking about him and all of our interactions. But then our dog got sick and she was my only concern. A terrible distraction. I was by her side, barely sleeping, until we lost her. And then i tried to write.

It felt automatic and robotic. I felt no emotion coming from the words on the screen. I knew there was an emotional log jam, but i didn’t know what to do about it. I kept pushing, rearranging words, sentences, paragraphs. Putting one work-in-progress away and picking up another. Nothing. It all felt empty and meaningless.

I emote. That’s what i do. That’s my voice. A telling of brutal truths in flowery language. I’m a cheerleader in a straitjacket. My words are fire and ice, sunshine and rain.

I haven’t been able to connect.

Two days ago i got some good advice. Stop trying to write for my money-making platform. Stop trying to produce for the publications i write for. Write something that’s only for me. As soon as i took that to my keyboard, i bashed out a piece about my friend who’d died. It flowed straight from my heart and was done in short order.

I went back to my writing feeling like things were flowing better. And they are… But they still kind of aren’t.

I have relationship troubles – more than one. More than 2, in fact.
I’m facing the very real possibility that my entire life is about to step off onto another path. And while i don’t want that, it might be inevitable.
I’m standing up for myself and becoming more of who i really am, and it’s not being met with applause and congratulations, lemme tell ya.
I have a new diagnosis, and although i require further testing before i’m properly convinced, still, it’s thrown me for a loop.
Pandemic.
Money trouble.
Chronic illnesses; mine and others’.
Death.

I’m running on empty. Trying to function under a veil of sadness and a vague sense of panic. I’m having difficulty with this, a simple diary/update post.
I am dissociated and disconnected. Dissatisfied and disheartened.

I’ve had no anchor to keep me in one place. No person to talk me down. No star to direct my way. I decided to take control of one aspect of my life that i can control. I’m not going to name it here, but i needed something to ground me — a simple thing for me to focus and hold on to. If i can get what i’m after in this area, maybe momentum can propel me into and through some of this other crap.

I don’t know. I’m tired, i don’t have any words left.
Time for a nap.
I’ll try writing again after sleep and food.

I might try checking in here every day with random nonsense and stream-of-consciousness ramblings. Maybe it’ll help.

I’m hanging in there though, and i hope you are too.


Love and Peace,
~H~

IMAGE: Pexels


Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 1 Comment

Cookies & Puppy Dogs

My life is becoming busy. In the eyes of others, it might appear to be something close to normal. That’s what i’m after. Many of us are returning to routines and activities that had been curtailed or eliminated due to the pandemic. The cause of my jam-packed schedule is different, though. See, to get close to normal, i put myself in a kind of quarantine for nearly a decade. Not much peopling, and a great deal of introspection, therapy, and personal work.

My investment is finally beginning to pay some real dividends. I’m reentering the world with a better attitude and ability to cope. I’m taking on new challenges to determine if i can achieve bigger goals. Who knows, maybe make some dreams come true. It’s going to take hard work and commitment, as most big dreams do. Even 6mos ago, i lacked the brain space and discipline required to climb this particular mountain. I mean, i had some, but not yet enough. I figured i’d just keep truckin’, and at some point it would become clear that it was time.

My tendency is to, somewhat unconsciously, work myself into a corner. When it’s something i want to do/have/be, but i’m procrastinating, or afraid of failing, or overwhelmed by the work load required to accomplish the goal, i trick myself into it, a little. I can use the way my brain works to my advantage. I hide the goal away and my subconscious works behind the scenes, maneuvering me into position.
That’s weird. Let me provide an example:

A while back i knew my husband and i were going out for a dinner date, the first one since our anniversary in the spring of 2020. The pandemic has made my anxiety difficult to manage. I couldn’t quite make myself go to the ER when i broke my finger. I anticipated eating at a restaurant, even on the patio, would be a challenge. I wasn’t keen on doing it, but it felt important, so i was gonna try. I tucked it away in a little hidden pocket of my brain and continued with the business of living.

When my thoughts returned to it, i quickly shoved it back into its pocket. I did start using drive-thrus to buy coffee and snacks. Let me be clear: I don’t drive. I walked up to the window to make my purchases. I guess because of the pandemic, they seemed fine with serving walk-ups. I also ate with people that didn’t live with me. It was outside, but still. I began darting into grocery and drug stores to grab 1 or 2 items.

I didn’t think about the date. I’d allow a quick thought about how much i’ve missed restaurants and wait staff, and not having to clean up after a meal. I did smile when my husband casually mentioned how much he was looking forward to it. But i didn’t dwell. I treated it like i would when i’m triggered to recall an unpleasant memory, by mentally shoving it away from me. I didn’t want to think about it, and so i didn’t… But i sort of did, you know?

Turns out we were the only people eating out on the patio, and i was barely anxious at all. It went well and i’m looking forward to doing it again.

All this to lead up to what i’m doing now that i had to back myself into a corner to do.

I’m writing now as if it’s my job.

I’m not getting paid for it, but maybe someday.
The important thing is, it’s something i’ve wanted to do for decades, but haven’t.

Any number of things has kept me from it, but i’ve cleared out enough clutter that there’s enough room in my life and in my brain, to take it on and see what i can do.

Once i made the decision and started in on the work, my life had to explode a little bit. It seems to be the way of things when i take on some thing new. There’s been a lot going on in our lives, my husband and i. He was laid off and had to find work. We’re having kid issues. I’m having friend issues. Some people i love are in crisis. We have a metric eff tonne of legal matters to settle. And we’ve been trying to work on some relationship stuff that desperately needs our attention. It all just went POP! like a New Year’s confetti favour.

It became too much last week.
The morning started with me laying down a firm boundary with my kid that he didn’t care for, which he expressed vociferously. Fortunately i had a walking date with a friend, so i could leave to calm down. My friend would be gone for a few hours, so she offered her basement as a quiet place i could get some writing done, without interruption.

I was able to get quite a bit accomplished. I went outside to enjoy the sun with my friend, but she was busy getting ready to go out. It wasn’t a good time for the kind of conversation that i wanted to have. Then something triggered me so hard i had to leave. Like, immediately. She was on the phone and i couldn’t even wait to say goodbye. I gathered my things and started walking as quickly as i could.

My husband was supposed to be home early, but he was delayed. New job means don’t turn down any work thrown your way. Can’t stay with friend, can’t go home, hubby isn’t coming any time soon.
And then it aaaall hits me.
I’m new and my life is new. And yes, i worked hard to clean my slate, but now that it’s clean there’s nothing on it – i mean, there’s no ONE on it.
I suddenly felt so alone, and lonely. All my friends are online – i only have a couple of “real life” friends now. They have their own lives and we’re living through a pandemic, to boot.
There are issues in all my relationships that may not be resolvable.

If that isn’t enough, my number one priority is dissociating as little as possible. My system’s mandate is to leave the face to me, to let me be in control. I try to think and feel in real time. I try to be as fully present and in the moment as i can. For someone who has dissociated her way through most of her life, it’s a lot. I’m exhausted. Some days i’m a gnat’s wing away from collapse.
My life has room for more function and accomplishment. I’m attempting to fill it, slowly and carefully, but i still regularly feel like i’m drowning.

That’s how i felt walking away from my friend’s house. By the time i got to a park where i could sit, i was sweaty and out of breath and close to panicking. I knew i needed help, but i had no one, and thinking about that was making it worse. I’m sitting on a park bench with big sunglasses on, hoping no one walks by and sees the tears or my chest heaving with the effort it was taking not to cry audibly.

Which is when i remembered that i do have good friends, online.
So i reached out and asked for help.

They responded immediately. I told them i was struggling and they grounded me, then took my mind off my problems with funny stories. It wasn’t long before i stopped crying and was breathing normally. The park was mostly deserted and no one bothered me. My husband called and said he’d come get me.

I was in the face the whole time. I didn’t slide, i didn’t switch. In fact, i’d say i didn’t dissociate at all.
I heard the voices and i felt the pressure, but i resisted the urge to hide away in my brain and let other parts of me handle things. It wasn’t even difficult. Feeling the way i was feeling was dreadful, literally, but i knew what to do and i did it.

I’m starting to be able to choose not to dissociate.
It might be the biggest accomplishment of my life.
Now, if i can just find where i fit as a writer, life will be cookies and puppy dogs.



Love and Peace to Everyone.
Try to have a good weekend, if you can.
~H~



IMAGE: Tamara Bellis

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

Where I’m At

There’s a destination a little up the road
From the habitations and the towns we know
A place we saw the lights turn low
The jig-saw jazz and the get-fresh flow
~ Beck, Where It’s At


Yesterday my therapist suggested that i write about where i’m at, as she thinks it’s very significant and something i should mark so that i can return to it whenever i want or need to.

I haven’t spoken to anyone but her about it, but i’m much less dissociative than i was. Even 6mos ago i would slide daily, and i struggled not to be at least somewhat dissociated most of the time. I’ve felt different –weird– for some months now, and i think that’s the cause. It’s all so new, so delicate, so deeply personal, that i’m not certain i want to write about it. I trust her though, so i will.

Late last year i decided a couple of people in my life had to change their behaviour towards me, or i would need to take steps to distance myself from them. These are relationships i treasure. I love these people very much, and that won’t change. Their treatment of me had been unacceptable in some ways for a long time, but i had tolerated it due to guilt and shame over being mentally ill. Many of my behaviours were unacceptable too, and i’d put these loved ones through much stress and not a little suffering. So i thought i deserved it. I also thought that it helped balance things out in our relationship, a little.

It doesn’t work that way. That’s sick thinking from a sick brain. Personal flaws and failings don’t negate the need for boundaries and respect in relationships. I live with serious, multiple diagnoses mental illness, and it’s a LOT, and it’s COMPLICATED.
But does that mean i don’t deserve happiness and fulfillment?
Does that mean i am unworthy of respect and care?
I knew the answer was NO for everyone else, but i’ve struggled to believe that for myself.

Every once in a while i’d get backed into a corner and come out (figuratively) swinging.
And sometimes i’d run out of energy and restraint and tear the world down around me because i was hurt.
Mostly though, i kept my head down and my mouth shut. It ate away at these relationships, eroding trust and safety and intimacy, until i found myself not wanting to be around them anymore. These precious loved ones. The desire to get away from them was like acid in my guts.

As i continue my work in therapy, confronting my past and pursuing healing, my thinking has become clearer. I’m learning to listen to my brain and my body and give myself what i need. In providing my own care i’m building trust. My brain and my body (as well as my system) are learning that i am capable of taking care of all of my parts now: mental, emotional, physical. I’m growing up and becoming a competent, dare i say adept, caregiver – of myself.

This competency and its resultant increase in trust has meant less upheaval and tumult in my life. I’m less predictably unpredictable, if you will. That being said, February and March saw the return of some old, unacceptable behaviours. It scared me, and i thought i was backsliding. What if i started switching all the time again? What if i started losing my temper and breaking shit? What if i took off for a few days? And what if my loss of control cost me or my family their physical health?*

It signalled to me that i was freaking out on some level. But why?
After therapy on Wednesday i think i know.

Each step along the path brings me closer to a more functional, more normal way of life and living. I struggle with change, with the unknown, even if it’s good. And once i got away from my mother, and the constant threat she presented, i set things up in ways that seemed safe to me. I avoided the unknown and change as much as possible.

I’ve been highly dissociative for as long as i can remember, and almost certainly before that.
Living a conscious, mindful life is still foreign to me, and most days i’m moving a little closer to embracing it fully (as fully as i can). This is new territory, every day. I’m walking away from what i know, with intent and purpose. Some days feel like every step is a trigger.

It can feel like i’m Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
In the first minutes of the film, he’s grabbed the statue as carefully as he can, but the booby-trap is sprung anyway, so he sprints across the stones, dodging poisoned arrows on both sides.
Kinda like that, except it’s my own brain spitting the poisoned arrows at me.

In some ways, i’m working against myself. I have parts of me that are aligned with my abusers, and they are there to absorb abusive behaviour. To tolerate intolerable things. I’m programmed to take other people’s crap, and then blame myself for it. I was made to be a receptacle for other people’s garbage. When i stand up for myself, when i say Stop or No, when i ask for something i feel ashamed to want, it causes those parts of me to come up against me. They try to shut me up and shut me down. Some say things i heard from my mother like, Who do you think you are? and How dare you? And they’re very good at bringing up lots of reasons why i have no right to ask for anything, and why i should consider myself lucky that anyone abides me at all.

They were created in a terrible moment, and that’s where they live and that’s all they know.
What i’m attempting to do now, is convince them to come along with me as i grow up and away from those moments. I’m moving into real time, and i no longer need to relive or otherwise revisit those terrible points of my life. I only look back now to see them (the parts in my system, not my bad memories), to call them to me, to gather them close and hold them for always.

This last year i’ve come to realise just how much of my life i’ve spent in some level of dissociation. It’s been incredibly painful to learn that it’s been the vast majority of my life. I’ve been heartbroken over all that i’ve lost; all that was taken from me. But i was done with crying and ready to move forward. To walk into the unknown and make a life for myself. To allow myself to dream of a future and make plans for it like it was a real possibility. Because it is.

These last few weeks i’ve barely dissociated at all. My brain has been relatively quiet – as close to quiet as it’s ever been. I’m not fighting to maintain control. I’m not at the whim of my Bits N’ Pieces. They aren’t gone, disappeared or “integrated” (whatever that means). I can still feel them, i can still hear them. They’re softer, somehow. They’re not inflicting themselves on me or imposing their will. This is all extremely strange for me.

In the past i haven’t had appropriate responses to things. I over-feel, i barely feel, or i don’t feel at all. I think that’s changing. I’m staying present most of the time, and i’m feeling a lot of emotions in the moment. It’s new, it’s different, it’s weird. It feels like a lot to me, because i’m usually dissociated to some degree. But lately, it’s been barely at all. I’m making the choice to stick around and handle my own business, multiple times a day. It’s taking effort and energy and i’m very tired at the end of the day. But i think it’s a good sort of tired; i don’t feel like a wrung-out dishrag. It feels more like i’ve put in a good day’s work.

I’m recommitting to being mindful and taking care of myself, including my system, every morning now. I touch all my precious little brain-people with my thoughts, and tell them i’m in charge, and i’m going to have the best day i can. I think about a couple of things i’d most like to accomplish, and i give myself a quick mental pep talk:

Life has no intention. Life just lives.
People are going to do what they’re going to do.
The only thing i have any hope of controlling is myself.
It is my mission to be the best human i can be, while living life on life’s terms.

This is a new frontier. I’m exploring, looking for new experiences and seeking knowledge. I intend to traverse it as boldly as i can.


Y’all Hang In There, Y’Hear?
~H~
*I’m referring to the pandemic, here.

IMAGE: Greg Rakozy

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