Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 3 Comments

Ode to My Sinful Nature

Thank you Envy,
for getting my ass up off the couch
for wanting what others had
for wanting more and better

Thank you Gluttony,
for giving me what was denied me so long
for filling me up to the brim
for the luxury of more than enough

Thank you Greed,
for helping me get more than i was told i was worth
for insisting on what i deserved
for pursuing superior quality

Thank you Lust,
for keeping my sex alive
for invigorating me with desire
for setting my loins on fire

Thank you Vanity,
for showing me i’m pretty
for getting me in the shower
for taking me shopping

Thank you Sloth,
for providing me with much needed rest
for making my limbs so heavy
for the call of quiet nothingness

Thank you Wrath,
for gifting me the words No and Stop
for filling me with fury
for showing me it wasn’t love

~ Mine
July 17, 2020

IMAGE: The Seven Deadly Sins, Hieronymus Bosch (1500 – ’25)

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 5 Comments

Chips

The current state of the world has me at my limit, anxiety-wise. I’ve cut off reading anyone’s social media, i don’t watch the news, and i’ve had to become selective about the art i consume.

In the interest of my own mental health, i’m going to post a funny (to me, at least) story.

Fed hubby, got his lunch made and sent him off to work. I returned to bed this morning, as my stress level is keeping me up. It seems as soon as i’m able to drop off, i launch into dreaming immediately, and wake from my brain trying to figure out how to cope with living in a pandemic. That pattern didn’t change, but i did get in 2, 20min naps. Better than nothing, i’ll take it.

Ate some breakfast and watched a couple of shows with my Kiddo, while my Brat snored softly on the couch. They’ve both been sent home from work, and i can tell they’re keeping an eye on me. Yes, i’m the mom, but they’re grown men and i don’t hide my process from them. After all the mistakes i’ve made with them, probably the best gift i can give them is watching me deal with shit, push through, and get better. I don’t lie to them or hide what i’m going through (although certain details would be inappropriate).

As is my way, i then get up to accomplish a few small goals that will help keep my self-esteem up. Most of my spoons are currently going to managing anxiousness. If i don’t give some care here, it would be likely for me to fall into depression or mania without realising. Neither are ever far enough away, so i’m vigilant.

One of the first things i do is make my bed. My Pomeranian doesn’t sleep in my bed at night, but sometimes i let him have naps with me. This morning he follows me into the bedroom and does a little circle at my feet, his signal that he’d like to be picked up. I put him on the bed while i make it – he’s not bothered at all. He sits and looks at me expectantly.

My tiny doggo is the most foodcentric dog EVER. No, really. He was in the hospital for bloat, a rarity for a guy his size, not once, but twice. We learned to soften his food because otherwise, he just swallows the kibble whole. We also learned to put a tennis ball in his dish to slow him down. Without the ball he’ll eat it so fast he’ll barf it back up. He’s trained not to mooch – except in the kitchen. He’s allowed to sit there while i prepare food, as long as he doesn’t get underfoot. He’ll sit there, absolutely still, for as long as it takes for me to drop something on the floor, or offer him a wee taste. On the bed though…

I keep a lot of snack foods in my bedroom, because i want them to last a while, and i have a son that’s an eating machine. Occasionally, when i’m fetching some treat for one of us, Roland will get a bit, too.
So he’s sitting there on the bed while i’m making it, trying to find the line between mooching outside the kitchen (NO), to boring his teeny eyeballs into my back like he does when i’m cooking.

One of the things i’ve learned to do to help me manage the way my brain works, is i talk to myself. Out loud. A LOT. Getting the thoughts out of my head helps keep them from getting rancid or poisonous, if you feel me. Writing is one thing, but i’ve got constant chatter going on up there, and i can’t always write.
So i talk. And i have conversations with my Bits N’ Pieces, sure, but i also act a little. I’m on the dramatic side, doncha know. Heh. So even random thoughts that don’t come from my system fall out of my face when i’m alone. (Well okay, i talk to myself even if my family is around. It’s just a great coping skill for me and i use it all the time.) I’ll adopt voices that have nothing to do with being a multiple. I’ve been aping people and doing voices since i was a child.
I started talking as Roland within days of getting him.

K. So i’m making my bed, and he’s staring at me, but trying not to stare too hard, lest he get told to knock it off. He’s trying to stay still, but it’s hard when your mommy has a 70s disco waterbed, and is pulling the sheets and duvet into place. I’m talking in his voice (which is very cute i assure you) and saying stuff like:

Yeah, ah… i’m looking pretty cute today, huh Mom? But maybe, oh, i dunno, i think i might be looking a little on the skinny side… Are you sure i’m getting enough calories and the proper nutrients? With all this walking we’re doing now, i might be deficient. I mean –and i’m not complaining here– but you do go kinda fast. Lookit your legs, lookit my legs; you see what i’m sayin’? I see you have some chips over there on the shelf. Mm, salty and crispy deliciousness. You think maybe, uh, i could… ? Just a couple of the broken ones, you know, you won’t miss them. Top up my tank for the walk later, so i don’t slow you down. You really give ‘er out there, and i’m your fur person, ‘member? We’re best buds and lifelong pals – you help me, i help you, hey?
Hey, Mom?
Mommy?
Momma?
I love you, Mom.
Aren’t i cute?
Lookit my face, and these floofs.
I’m skin and bones under these floofs, Mom.
I think i might be dying.
Chips.

Then i respond, looking into his adorable little face as i’m smoothing out the duvet and puffing up the pillows and placing them just so.

Oh Roly, you’re very well fed, and you know it. Plus, where would you be without me to watch what you eat? We both know you’d wind up so round your toot widdow paws wouldn’t reach the floor. We’d have to roll you around to get you anywhere. Or maybe get one of those bags for bowling balls. Yes, i’d have to carry you around in a bowling ball bag, and people would ask me, Why is your bowling ball furry? And i’d say, That’s not a bowling ball, that’s my dog who ate too many chips!

And then a Little’s voice popped out of my face and said, Don’t listen to her, RolyPolyOly. You’re not fat and i’m gonna give you a chip.

And Roland’s face lit up, because he’s my fur person and he knows and loves me in all my iterations, and he recognised her voice, and he knows the word “chips”. He stood up on the bed and did a circle and wagged his tail.

So i said –to him and all of my selves–
This just got way too meta.

Maybe this is only funny to me, but i hope it brought a smile to your face while you’re enduring these strange and scary days.

Hang in there. This was the day before yesterday, and yesterday was a bit of a shitshow, so i may post about that. We’re already conversating about it.

*SNORT*

Okay, YES. He got chips.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

On Lying, Being Fake, and General Asshattery

I read a meme a few months ago, and i’ve been turning it around in my brain since then. I knew right away that i wanted to write about it, but any time i sat down at the keyboard, nothing i bashed out seemed to capture my feelings. I can’t find where i saved it, i can’t even be sure i did save it, but that’s okay, i’ll give you the gist.

The creator of the meme requested that at their funeral, people tell the truth about them. Further, they asked that no one give banal, meaningless or patently false accounts of them as a person, because they didn’t always have a smile on their face, and sometimes they were an asshole.

It struck me, and resonated, long after i’d seen it. It also led me to some other thoughts that are along the same line… I think? I’m going to attempt to present these ponderings in a cohesive way, but as with anything i write, just because i get it, doesn’t mean you will.

I want to be real and i want to be known.

But sometimes i’m cool with being hidden and fake.
Like when i’m at the injectionist’s for some cosmetic work. I can see how most people act when they’re there. It took some courage to go and be surrounded by young, beautiful women who look like they’re IG models, and older sophisticates who appear to have a lot of dough. I don’t have much chutzpah left over after coping, to boldly be my weirdo self. I feel fine about plastering a huge smile on my face and using that voice – you know the one, right?

Some people i don’t know well enough, and some set off inside alarms.
It’s fine to behave in a somewhat generic, slightly subdued way until i know folks better, i think. If you want to come at me as 100% you, i’m cool with that, i just personally feel a bit safer in new social situations with a bit of anonymity.
There’s also the odd time where the person i’m interacting with triggers me (reminds me of an abuser), or just plants immediate red flags – like the person who stares in an overtly sexual way.

Many situations don’t require me to be my full self, and some things flow better without the full meal deal of my personality.
When i’m at the till, paying for my items, and there’s a bunch of people waiting behind me, neither the cashier nor the waiting customers are looking to forge a lifetime bond with my (incredibly charismatic) self.

I don’t think i could be described as down-to-earth, or even genuine, as an ex-friend once informed me by email (yep, still a bit tetchy about that one). I’m a multiple, after all. My face can be a mask, my body the puppet of a person who is not quite me. I’ve hidden my true self from others many times – both reflexively and with conscious intent.

I always want to know the truth, but sometimes i’ll lie, and i don’t feel bad about it.

If i don’t want to do something, and i don’t have the energy or desire to go into the reason why, i will totally fib.
If it’s a large gathering, or maybe i don’t know the person i’m doing the thing with very well, i feel no guilt begging off due to illness.
I should say though, that i’m fairly up front with my mental/emotional/social issues, and i’m selective about who i socialise with, so most of the time i can just say, Can’t people, and it’s understood and accepted without further explanation.

If my response could hurt someone’s feelings, i might lie.
That How do i look? one comes to mind. If i’m close with the person asking, i may say if they look awful. I’m more apt to pick something i like, or pick 1 piece of the outfit to change. I know for some that’s not good enough, and i’m obfuscating. Okay. <insertshrughere>
Sometimes i’ll purposely misunderstand the question. I’ve found that people are often loathe to restate, so i can avoid saying the potentially hurtful or contentious thing.

I’m glad when people ask more than one question at a time. I’ll pick the one i can be honest about without getting into something i’d rather not. That dislike to restate the question comes into play here.

I think there are a lot of situations where lying is fine.
It’s been my experience that everyone lies.
It’s also been my experience that, those who rail about hating liars are often the biggest ones, and i give them a wide berth.

There are only 2 people i won’t lie to – my doctor and myself.
The rest of you are fair game.*

I bring this up because i’m not “honest to a fault”, and i don’t want to be.

Another thing i hear said with respect to the dead is that they would give you the shirt off their back.
Well, i almost certainly won’t, unless you’re my child.
My husband won’t get the shirt off my back, and neither will my best friends.
I may die of exposure without my shirt, and i like living.
If there’s room, i’ll share the space inside my shirt with whom i will, but that’s dependent on circumstances.

There is a point at which i’m giving too much, and the point is mine to discern, and i do so carefully. I will not empty my vessel for anyone, and seeing as my children are all grown now, no, not even for them.
I don’t see the virtue in poverty.
The dead share nothing.**

Another thing you couldn’t say about me is that i’ll do anything for anybody. I won’t.
Which brings up judgment too, because i will judge. I will ask myself if doing the thing is worth my time and resources. If i don’t think it is, i don’t do the thing.
That’s not to say that i won’t still throw good money after bad, or help someone that i think may not appreciate it. I’ll pour myself into an unwinnable cause.
But i’ve taken a hard look at the situation before i decided to throw the dice anyway, because sometimes i win when i lose.

Oh, and my favourite remembrance of the dead:
“They were always happy, and always had a smile on their face.”

NO.
I’ll be damned if i’m going to smile when i’ve got nothing to smile about. Hiding and subjugating how i feel is one of the things that screwed me up this badly.
I can smile at a person on the street, or at someone who’s providing me a service. I don’t need everyone to know i’m having a low day (mostly). I don’t need to tell everyone that i’m currently riddled with anxiety (usually). But if we have any kind of rapport, i may very well tell you a bit about my sadness or stress, because it helps me, and i dare to think it could help you, too.
This is not contradictory to my prior statement that sometimes i wear a mask on purpose.
These are choices i make, dependent on the situation, with whom i’m dealing, and how many spoons are in my drawer. I’ve collected a number of tools over the years that are there to help me be functional in my day-to-day living. If i can, i generally prefer to let it all hang out, but that is not always wise, or appropriate, or timely, or safe.
Discernment. I haz it.
Sometimes it’s no one’s business.
Further, it’s normal and fine for folks to have neither the time, nor the desire to get the full HistrionicaButterfly experience. I can be a lot.

Which brings me to the best part.
Occasionally, i can be a good and proper asshole.
Let me demonstrate my honesty.

There are reasons and explanations and mitigating factors that perhaps cause and at least influence my assholery, but the unvarnished truth is:

– i hate questions, and will obfuscate, hedge, and get outright testy in my answers,
– my sarcasm can verge on caustic,
– i’ll disappear with no warning or explanation,
– i keep even the most worthy people at arm’s length,
– i regularly make mountains out of molehills,
– i’ve got a know-it-all streak,
– i’ve bitten more than a few heads off for no good reason,
– i’m so focused on myself i can miss the needs of others,
– i can be vicious,
– i sometimes manipulate others to get what i want,
– i’m an excuse-maker and dodger of responsibilities.

There are more, but they fall under annoying personality traits rather than character flaws. Like my ability to talk the leg off a chair (or clamming up when it’s most important that i talk), or spend us into the poorhouse, or my exhausting need for reassurance and approval, or my constant self-doubt.

This is me. This is who i am. Dying doesn’t remake me into a perfect human. Loving me doesn’t mean that i wasn’t sometimes hard to love. It won’t be disrespectful to tell the truth about the kind of person i was. In fact, it’d be honouring me.

I’ve failed many times. My biggest failures involve the people i love most in the world.
I’m standoffish, emotionally unavailable, unreliable, and intensely self-focused.
I can be pushy, obnoxious, thoughtless, demanding, critical, and infuriatingly contrary.
It’s only the truth.
It doesn’t negate all the wonderful, beautiful, amazing things about me. (I won’t go into those, because the length of this piece would treble. Heh.)

Of course, once i’m dead everyone’s free to sugar-coat me or not, as they will.
A person reading this might think the truth doesn’t matter so much to me, but in fact it does, very, very much. I share this nakedly in part to emphasise how important it is. I don’t think it’s contradictory or even ironic.
Do yourself and the rest of humanity a favour and don’t slap a coat of Hollywood paint on the portrait of my life.

I’m absolutely fabulous, and also an utter shithead.

If I try to seize this self of which I feel sure, if I try to define and to summarize it, it is nothing but water slipping through my fingers. I can sketch one by one all the aspects it is able to assume, all those likewise that have been attributed to it, this upbringing, this origin, this ardor or these silences, this nobility or this vileness. But aspects cannot be added up.
~ Albert Camus

*I’m being facetious, here.
Also, my blog is brutally honest, in case anyone was wondering.

**I’m referring to literal resources, here. Food, drink, shelter, money, physical effort, even time.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 1 Comment

Me and My Shadow

“I don’t see how you can look at/watch that. It gives me the creeps/makes me queasy.”

I’ve been obsessed with the morbid and macabre since i was very small.
Gore, i wanna see it. At first it was the cartoonish stuff like your classic slasher flick, but when the internet came, i wanted to look at it all. There was absolutely nothing i wouldn’t look at/watch. Sometimes it took me a few views to get through it, and some of it i watched out of the side of my face, but i looked. All the websites known for it (that shall remain unnamed here), i went there and combed through their archives.

And of course i’m obsessed with serial killers. And those who-done-it “murder porns” (thank you South Park).

I worried that there was something wrong with me.
There was, but it wasn’t me wanting to look at death and destruction. What was wrong was seeing the things i did growing up, and then being told i was imagining them, dreaming, lying, etc. I was all twisted up inside, not knowing for sure what was real and what wasn’t. Deep down, i wanted to understand and master my fears. I wanted to look at death, abuse, and suffering to see if it aligned with my memories of such things. I wanted to know if the things i remembered could have possibly happened, and one way to find evidence was to look, listen, read about other people’s experiences and memories, to see if there were commonalities.
What i found was confirmation. Mostly. At least, enough for me. There are things i knew as a child, and memories i held that most people never know about, let alone children.
And if i may, although i assure you i won’t be going into any detail, that was also some of the reason behind me viewing pornography.

I’m still fascinated by documentaries, books, and in-depth articles on the people who do horrible things and why they do them, but i’m no longer interested in looking at real life pictures or videos of those things. I still love horror movies, but i don’t watch the “torture porn” genre anymore. I’m more a fan of the ridiculous, cartoony stuff. Or a well-paced scary movie, or a good mindfuck. I’m also notorious in my family for my love of terrible movies: disasters, creature features, black and white scifi… Think Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

I think i’m always going to be a bit dark and twisty on the inside, but not in a sick and wounded way. Now it’s more of an interesting, quirky part of my personality. Just like being ridiculous and histrionic. It’s who i am, and as i mentioned a few posts back, i’m starting to like me quite a bit.
Did i develop these traits to survive, or was i born with them and they helped keep me alive? I don’t know, but i’m fine with being this way.

I’ve learned over the years to be a little more discerning, tactful and considerate when it comes to how much i share about my “dark side”. Some people are unsettled, upset, even downright offended by it, and i totally get it. I’m respectful of others’ emotional/mental/personal boundaries. And don’t get me wrong here, i don’t enjoy any real person’s suffering.
I’m not writing this to discuss the psychology behind it, either. I’ve read things, but i’m not educated, i’m just sharing who i am and how my brain works. This is me. I love Hallowe’en and scary stuff and i’m an old punk who went through a death rocker phase – which is what we called goths back in the olden days… Heh.

This save-my-life recipe (and it’s my belief that we each concoct our own), has a fuck-tonne of ingredients. Some of them are the big ones, like the flour in a loaf of bread, and some of them are a pinch of this and a dollop of that. Being able to be comfortable with pain and suffering and general twistiness, make friends with it all, and sometimes laugh my ass off at it, are all important elements. I personally think they were vital, and now, whether nature or nurture, they are parts of who i am and i embrace them.

It’s occurred to me though, that if i’m over the real life super-gore, that maybe, as i continue to learn and heal and grow, that one day i may not like any of it. I’d be fine with that too, because all this is a journey. I’m not the person i was 10yrs ago, or 5, or 2, and i don’t intend to be who i am now in a year. I’m evolving, as a friend pointed out to me today, and i intend to keep evolving as long as i’m breathing.

Really though, you’ll pry my love of everything spooky and warped from my cold, dead hands.
Heh-heh-heh. Get it?

Saw my therapist today, and i definitely wanna write about that tomorrow.
Until next post,
Peace and Love,
~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 3 Comments

Imagination

Writing through the bad.

It struck me as maybe an important and helpful thing i could do.
I think i’m right about that – i think.
I fully intend to get to the other side of this, this current pile of crap i’m slogging around in, but sweet, smilin’ Buddha on a bicycle i didn’t know it was gonna be like this.

I’ve worked so hard to get control of myself  – to harness the power of this brain and channel it for good. My therapist says all multiples have a mutant superpower, and as soon as she said what it was i felt it in my bones.

IMAGINATION.
<insertSpongebobmemehere>

My brain is a place that’s hard to describe, even i don’t quite understand.
Years ago, my therapist asked me if i could make a place for one of my people to live. She prefers to be alone. She loves to read and listen to dark music. She’s obsessed with the supernatural and loves the forest.
I immediately made a cabin in the woods for her, a few miles away from the mansion where everyone else lives.
I do not know how to explain that these places exist inside my head. I can see them right now. Outrageously weird and stupid, right? I know.
My imagination is a mutant superpower.

I can make myself sick.
If i were to tell myself i have a terrible headache, one will manifest in a matter of minutes. And i’m not faking it. I’m feeling the pain in my head. I currently have a headache, heh. It’s a doozy.

I’ve had this thumper for months now.
Ever since i returned to therapy.
My head throbs and my legs itch to walk. To go home. To get away from people.

My head hurts. It’s so full. So many people are talking and i know this is my imagination at work. I know these people that live in my brain aren’t real. I know that my brain did an amazing thing to get me through my childhood. It separated my thoughts, my emotions, and my sensations from each other, so that i could survive what was happening to me. And these disconnected thoughts and experiences floated around in my head for so long they became something almost tangible…

My mutant brain had no trouble ascribing identities to them.
These weird and disembodied, precious Bits N’ Pieces.
I know they aren’t real.
Some of them even know it, too.

But here’s the thing. All i have is my own experience to go by.
I may be a brain in a jar, but i have no evidence of that — what i have is experience, and what i experience is other people living inside my brain. Most of them live in a mansion surrounded by a moat. One lives in a cabin. One stomps around the forest like a sasquatch.

And you’d better believe i have a dragon.
When you’ve got these mutant superpowers, of fucking course you get yourself a dragon.

This is the most exposed and vulnerable i’ve been since i disclosed my story all those years ago. I’m sharing this because, what happened to me as a child made me so dysfunctional that i haven’t been able to accomplish much of anything that looks like success by the world’s current metric. This is all i have to give. I made it through and i’m here and i’m a fairly decent human and i’m learning and growing and getting better every single day.

My head is throbbing and bursting with voices. They leak out my ears and spill down my body like a bloody waterfall. Blood in the water.
I survived what happened to me because i became a multiple.
My head is bleeding thoughts because i’m not supposed to talk about this. I was programmed for secrecy. I love my system, but they’re shouting at me SHUT UP! NO! YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED! PRIVATE!

I’m walking around waiting for the beating because i’m not allowed to tell.
I’m a guitar string stretched too tight. Every muscle in my body is on hyper-alert. There’s a terror inside me that they’re going to take me away from my mom.
She’s been dead for nearly 30yrs.

This is writing through the bad. I’ve just gotta get this shit out; if it stays in my brain it rots, putrifies, poisons me. My brain is too dangerous a neighbourhood to walk through on my own. I am holding your hand, reader, so tight.
So many shadows and wisps and slivers of people inside my brain, yet i’ve always felt so alone.

This is reaching out into the dark for a hand – any hand. Anybody.
I know this will be okay. I know i will be okay. I already survived the worst of it – i can be all naked and weird and vomity. One foot in front of the other. One word and then the next.

Thanks for reading. You have no idea how much it means to me.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 4 Comments

A Brief Detour

The mind commands the body and it obeys. The mind orders itself and meets resistance.
~Frank Herbert, Dune (St. Augustine of Hippo)

Last year i was cruising along at a higher level of function than ever before. I suppose there were signs of trouble in the summer, but i can’t recall if i caught them.
By late fall i was spiralling. I’d lost some voices that were at least semi-regulars in my brain conversations, and it stirred up my entire system. I had enough sense and experience to return to therapy, to the same therapist who’d helped me save my life, and learn to live with being a multiple.

What she proposed as the next layer of the delicious oniony goodness that is my psyche scared the everloving crap out of me, and by late January i’d lost control of my system.
The inmates, as they say, were running the asylum.

I want to point out here that this loss of control, or rather, the way my treasured Peanut Gallery were acting out, is nothing like it used to be. It used to involve forced psych commitments, the police, detox centres, and long term hospital stays. My husband nearly had a breakdown, one of my sons emancipated himself from me (and rightly so), and i lost every significant friendship that i’d stumbled into over the years.
The much poo-pooed geographical cure worked for me, but just barely. I was a heavily medicated, bipolar multiple freakshow when my husband, in utter desperation,  stumbled upon my therapist locally.

She was the first mental health professional who’d been able to overcome my intense resistance to the DID diagnosis. She met me where i lived (even literally, for the first few years), by using no jargon, no hint of spirituality, and neither asking for my history of abuse, nor to talk to anyone else who lived in my brain besides me.
She slowly and gently taught me to listen inwardly and to be aware of and present in, my physical body. Things i could never do before.
Amazing. Fantastic. The heavens opened and choirs of angels sang.
I thanked her and went on my merry way, steadfastly plodding along the road of happy destiny.

I see now that i wasn’t nearly ready for that destination, and that she’d tried to tell me.

Back to present, and i am devolving rapidly. Losing time, stressing loved ones, various levels of intoxicated, and trying to put distance between myself and the world. The world has once again become a scary place that i feel ill-equipped to navigate through. The world hurts and i don’t want to be in it. The problem is, the place i used to hide hurts, too. It hurts more, in fact.
All my life i could hide in my brain and rotate through any number of my Bits N’ Pieces, to escape both fear and pain, with impunity (relatively speaking). But i’ve done too much work, i’ve come too far along the road, and i know too bloody much to be able to give myself over to the numb embrace that is dissociation, for me.

Well, fuck me gloriously.

To understand the endless and inescapable state of being myself and not myself, try saying that sentence with 2 different inflections (consider your surroundings before choosing whether “saying” is literal or figurative):

Well, fuck me gloriously,

and

Well, fuck me gloriously!

What i mean is, it was both a bad thing and a good thing, and i was both glum and sarcastic, and gleeful and sarcastic. So yeah, always ambivalent.
And sarcastic.
And profane.

Unlike prior derailments though, it only took a few months and a 3 week bender, to understand what my therapist was asking me to do. Asking if i knew what she was asking, because to do or not to do is alwaysalwaysalways my choice.
She taught me that and i know it today and she still tells me all the time and it is beyond excellent that she does.

And i want to do it.
I’m detoxed, refocused, calm(ing down, ish), and i’m ready to go.

Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.
~Frank Herbert, Dune (Duke Leto Atreides)

Have yourself the best sort of day you can. Look after yourself. Try to drink, eat, wash, walk, talk, if you can.
I also find breathing beneficial.
I’ll post again soon.

~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

Out With the Bad, In With the Good

CW: This contains casual references to toileting.

I couldn’t make it in to see my therapist yesterday, i was unable to leave my house. I’m fortunate that she’s willing to do phone sessions. I was around 12 hours into detoxing off the booze, and was basically a mess in every way possible.
I’ll spare you the gorier details of a therapy session done from the toilet, suffice it say that she’s one of the most patient and gentle people i’ve known, and she helped me have a breakthrough.

It was figurative, not literal. The easy misinterpretation of that statement did make me heh-heh-heh like a 10yr old. You’re free to make your multiple jokes here. I know my dark and twisty sense of humour has been liberally applied in this area.
Laughing at the awful helped me survive. It’s not for everyone, and that’s absolutely fine, but shaking, sweating, puking, and yes, shitting, while having an epiphany made me gigglesnort.

I’m most of the way through the detox, but i still feel like a bag of smashed assholes. I have just enough energy left before my head explodes to tell you that i figured something out that my therapist has been trying to communicate to me for some time.
Okay, maybe the whole time.
I will visit it at some length, hopefully in the next couple of days.

I don’t think i could get it done without sobriety, and i now have that going for me.*

Y’all hang in there the best you can, and i will, too.

*I’m not referring to a 12-step sobriety.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

UTI TMI

I’m angry. It doesn’t take me long to figure these things out anymore. This time was less than half the day.
First, i want to be alone. It’s a priority, even wanting to be away from those i love and need, and who love and need me, too. It’s a not wanting to be seen kind of feeling. Don’t look at me.
Next, i’m more emotional than usual. Like, if feelings had a volume, mine could be turned down a bit right now. It’s not loud, but it’s drowning out lesser sounds at this point. Which leads me to another sign that things aren’t right: my focus.
I’m snarky. I’m complaining about things that normally wouldn’t bother me, or if they do, they’re the kind of bother that i would purposely let go of, because i can’t affect it, or it doesn’t concern me, or it’s just bloody petty. I need to economise my emotional expenditures right now, and i can’t spare the energy. Sometimes it’s good for me to let loose with a pointless and/or shallow rant about things that don’t matter, like a bleed valve. This is not one of those times. It feels wrong, this morning chirping on social media.

This is about something else, and since i don’t have any reserves, i’d better deal with it before it throws a wrench in my current plans.
So yeah – i’m pissed off.

I’m tired of being in this much physical pain, for one thing.
My fibro flared up right away when all this -whatever the fuck you wanna call this- started coming up for me. The losing voices, losing face, losing time. It wavers between enough pain i almost long for my heavy drinking, pill popping days, and so much that i wish my shoulders, neck, and arms were detachable.
I have a headache that never leaves. In the morning it’s like a band of steel across my forehead and temples, but over the course of the day it travels to the base of my skull, where it becomes so intense it hurts to turn my head in any direction.

And there’s the thing that i don’t talk about. I’ve had bladder and kidney trouble since birth, and what i went through as a child likely made everything worse. I had dozens of yeast infections as a little girl, and it made me very susceptible to them ever after. I know how to avoid them now, but i have never been able to combat the UTIs. I’ve been plagued by them ever since i can remember. I’ve had so many, in fact, that i stopped seeing a doctor for them unless they were particularly painful. I would just resist the urge to pee, and drink great quantities of fluids, until i didn’t feel it anymore. I thought i’d flushed it out. When i confessed this to my GP recently, she told me that i was at an age where doing so was damaging my kidneys, and i needed to stop ignoring it and seek immediate treatment.
Pfft, i say to myself.
So of course i get a spectacular one that i can’t ignore.

Well, i can’t ignore it for long. I could feel one starting a couple of weeks ago, but even then i was wondering if it’s ever even totally gone away. I cycle in and out of the physical symptoms of having a mild one so often and i use my dissociative skills so reflexively and unconsciously for pain and discomfort… I don’t know wtf is going on down there.
My middle son was visiting this weekend, so i was focused on being present and enjoying every second he was here. I was happy to push it into the background, but by last night i knew it was going to need handling. When i woke this morning i knew immediately i’d waited too long. I’d been discussing its presence a few days before with a friend, and she shared her experience of them as “pissing razor blades”. I told her i remembered having some that serious, but they were a long time ago.
Ha. Am i that suggestible, or is it serious?
The visible pooch in my belly, and the feeling like a gorilla is sitting on it make me think it’s real and not the nocebo effect.

I’m going to emerg to get a ‘scrip.
Tffp. I’m taking back my pfft. I hope y’all are happy now.

See this? I’m testy, even with you.
I’m not sure why pain makes me angry. I could pop-psychology it easily i’m sure, but i’m going to give it the attention it deserves. The attention i deserve. Due diligence.

I’m also mad about more than this. I caught a whiff of it on Friday, and it’s been lurking in the background, conspiring with the pain, plotting more fuckery.
I’m sure i’ll get into that later.

I’m going to now spam my social media with unicorns and puppy dogs and syrupy poetry, in hopes of balancing out my wall full of grumpitudes this morning.

Ciao.
Italian makes me feel less rumpled, or at least like i’m a whiny sack of sad with some style. Heh.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Organising The Clutter

A little more functional today, and a little less afraid, which is good. I’ve got a small list of things that are important to me to accomplish, and i’ve implemented a couple of tweaks that i can already tell are very good ones.
I’ve moved up my exercise to the first thing i do once my husband leaves for work. I have some personal cardio that i do, and then i take the doggies for a long, brisk walk. I also don’t eat breakfast until i come back, thereby burning calories from my fat stores, especially since i don’t take in any nutrition after 8pm, i need some fat burning done for energy. YAY!
I used to shower every other day, because i don’t get sweaty/smelly working around my Little Crooked House all day, but i’ve decided to make it a daily thing. It’s good for mindfullness for me, and it’s positive, caretaking touch that reminds me how well i’m doing and how far i’ve come. Also, as my exercise regimen increases, i actually am starting to sweat, so i probably need it now anyway.

I like lists and i like a schedule and i like ticking things off as done. This is keeping my current fear of falling back into old behaviours at bay quite handily. I am dealing with worry regarding how far i’ll ever get socially. I do so much better alone, or just with my husband and kids and their families; i’m still really struggling with being around other people. I’m grateful that i have this life where i can live that way most of the time, but what if i’m never able to be a particularly social person ever again? And even if i want to, i don’t really have any friends to return to. The friendships i’ve had over the last 10yrs have been superficial at best, with the exception of 1 or 2. And that’s not a commentary on the people i’ve been friendly with, either. I kept people at arm’s length. I had friends i could go drinking with, mostly. It was the easiest way for me to have friends.

I liked drinking to be part of any social event. One, because it was part of my mania/depression, two, because other parts of me would take over, i.e. party girls and the like, and three, because alcohol keeps a nice, safe barrier between me and anyone getting to know me. Meaning, you can’t get to know anyone very well when you’re both under the influence – and that’s how i wanted it. I wanted the illusion of friendship, but none of the meaty, visceral reality of it.

And the thing that worries me is i like being alone and i think it’s mostly who i am.
But what if it’s not? Maybe i’m lying to myself, saying i like it this way because the ugly truth is that i just suck at social situations and i’m not very likeable. I mean, i can be fairly likeable online, but you have to be at an asshole level over 9,000 to not have any friends on social media. And even then you’ll probably have quite a few, so i’m thinking that’s not a terribly good indicator.

Yeah, overthinking. I haz it.
That’s why i’m going to at least try to blog more often. As my Peanut Gallery has become more vocal and active, my brain is even more full than usual, and that makes me feel like a buncha crazy is gonna come bursting out of me at any second… So i’m gonna try to cut back on the clutter, y’know? There’s a lot of stuff strewn about in here that i could trip over and hurt somethin’ – maybe me, maybe them, maybe someone else. This will be like putting things in boxes and sticking them in a storage facility. I may still be a hoarder, but at least my house’ll be too clean for rats n’ roaches.

Heh.

Love and Peace and Hope For Us All,

~H~

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 1 Comment

Where Metaphors Collide

Something is happening to me in my life and i’m very afraid to talk about it. I am afraid because it will make it all more real. By sharing it here, with even the couple of readers that i have, i will be giving these new thoughts and feelings fertile soil in which to grow.

I think i’m changing direction. Somewhat subtly, because i’ve been headed in that general direction, but i’m being drawn more strongly towards something. I’ve been heading towards something like a true north, but i seem to be experiencing some declination. Oh, little magnet-me. I’m afraid. I’m afraid because this rubber-meets-the-road thing i’ve been giving so much blog time to, has tricked me. This concept that invited my brain to entertain it.

Hey there H’s Brain, nice to see you and won’t you come on in and have yourself a seat?
Have a hot cuppa and oh, i’ve made us some nice bikkies… I heard you have a weakness for homemade shortbread. I fear they don’t measure up to yours, you have a reputation, but won’t you try them anyway and tell me honestly what you think? We can talk about anything you wish… Dear, you look starved for conversation.

<insertherwarmsmileandwinkhere>

I am desperate for conversation. I’ve wanted for a good jaw for a long time. Miss RMR read me well and set me up perfectly. I talked. And i talked. I talked about what she meant to me, and i yakked about many other things, both various and sundry.
She listened raptly, the atmosphere was so welcoming and it invited me to take a load off. And take one off i did. In fact, i took off many. I pontificated about how glorious it was to be so functional, so present and in charge of not just myself, but my Peanut Gallery. I marveled at how well i was handling it all.
Oh, how i did go on.
Yes, the seas had gotten quite rough, hadn’t they? But i had held the deck with some sturdy legs had i not? Lookit me!
Oh i fairly crowed like the Top Castle himself.

<insertmyresignedsighhere>

Tricky wench.
She reeled me in like a big fat old fish that’s always been able to slip the hook before.
Before now, anyway.
Once i was done, done talking, done exhausting every last word out of my apparently full-to-bursting bag of wind, so through with words coming out of my face i must have resembled a closed bellows, she began to speak.

And now i fear i am caught. Reeled in. Flopping on the deck. Fallen out of the Crow’s Nest. I’m in her web and she is rolling me carefully up in her strong and sticky silk…

Yeah, sorry. I like metaphors. I promise i’m done for now.
I think if i make it poetic it will be easier. Prettier. Less terrifying.
We’ll see, i guess. I’ll let you know.

What i’m trying to say is that this concept i have of the rubber and the road has gotten bigger. I saw it as a representation of all the work i’d done to get myself well – to pull myself out of the swamp of anxiety and pity and despair and mourning and pain and rage that i’d been slogging around in and get on dry land. And further, i saw it as that point when a strong wind hits, threatening to blow me backwards, back into the filthy bog and its ever-present miasma.

(Oops. Metaphor again. Sorry.)

Anyway, i see now it wasn’t just about getting functional. I see now that “getting well” isn’t just about not acting crazy, and it’s not only about being functional. Learning to live a happy and productive life while living with this brain has suddenly become MORE than just those things. The definition has become bigger, and broader, and more detailed, and if you’ll pardon me for just a moment…

Holy motherfuckingfucketyfuck.

I’ve been feeling this way for a while. Feeling like what i’ve accomplished is not enough, or rather, no longer enough. It’s no longer enough that i haven’t been committed in over 2yrs, and it’s no longer sufficient that my house and my body are clean, and it’s not enough that my children forgive me for my past transgressions and neglect and lack of presentness in their lives.
It’s not enough.
Wellness is now requiring MORE. And not just MORE, Wellness has made it clear through her spokesperson, Miss RMR, that if i do not do MORE, i risk losing what i now possess.
(Yeah, metaphor. Sue me. Iamwhatiam. Heh.)

I will spare you more cursing, just consider it implicit.

I am afraid i will fail. Utterly and spectacularly. I am terrified that i won’t be able to produce any greater or more impressive accomplishments than those which i have already achieved.

I am sososo very scared that i will be consumed by fear and laziness.
I am sick at the thought that i am doomed to be my mother’s daughter.

More on this later, but for now, i wish everyone

Love and Peace,
Always,
~H~