Strange Star

[Hope4Now]

So here I am. I didn't run. I didn't even pack the car. I think I know I need this inpatient program I'm applying to, and that I have to demonstrate my ability to be stable so that I can get into it. I think running away doesn't count as stable.

I had a shower, a drink and ativan and actually had a decent night's sleep. I'm feeling much clearer today in my head. Which is good because I need to take my mother to the cardiologist and try to sort out with the nurses at the assisted living place how to have someone go there to see her every week from palliative care so that I don't have to spend my life trucking her to doctor appointments.

I am working really hard to talk to my parts even if it seems ridiculous sometimes. I am increasingly understanding and believing that I actually have "parts"...or at least that parts are a really helpful construct for managing all the chaos inside. That I don't have to live like this if I can get to the point of being able to work with the parts. I can work with them intellectually, but it has to be more than that to be effective. I know that now. I also struggle with identifying which part I am in at any given moment. I seem to zoom around all over the place. It's like total anarchy inside me...but some dictator is still ensuring that it doesn't show on the outside. So my real job is aiming to get the inside parts an the outside parts working together. Bleh. It all sounds so crazy.

So I am working on the endless f*cking mindful breathing and reminding myself that my breath is my self. I am working on the endless f*cking mindful movement and reminding myself that this is the only body I've got, so I might as well move in and try to make myself comfortable there :wtf: (this is a HUGE stumbling block). Because I think the most fundamental step for me is being able to tolerate experiencing my life from inside my body. No matter which part I'm in.

Although I was vaguely aware that I have pretty much never done that (I have one memory from very young where I did), I don't think I realized this was unusual until this last year or so. I mean I've always known something was wrong with me, but I could not have linked it to my ontological/phenomenological experience.

It is a very strange experience to "feel" in my body. It makes me totally dizzy and freaked out. It's as if I have to chase my parts and say, "Get back here!" because they're zooming all over the place. Someday I'll come up with some tortured analogy to express what this feels like. It is so utterly bizarre.

I hope today will be a calmer and better day for me. I will be glad when my mother's appointment is over and she has been safely delivered back to her apartment. I hope it doesn't wipe me out too much, because I would like to actually do some creative work today. I think it would be good for a bunch of my parts.

 

[Hope4Now]

Another day. Here I am living in PTSD land. Not sure who's swirling around in there today. Haven't settled into anything yet. Watched the movie Cake last night about a woman with chronic pain. I'd been wanting to see it. It was actually pretty awful. But there was one moment in it that struck me...she was sitting on the edge of a pool with her physical therapist, and the therapist said, "Do you want to get better?"

My Mr. Famous Psychiatrist made a similar comment around a month ago. He said I have a part that doesn't want me to get better. I felt pretty peeved at the comment because it sounded to me as if he was saying that this is all my fault. Which, of course, I feel like it is. He rather severely corrected me on my interpretation, but I still don't believe him. I think I have more than one part that believes I/my parts deserve to suffer. Some are protector parts, some are exiles. I am having a hell of a time moving beyond this because it is all so flipping complicated and tangled up and layered. I just cannot seem to sort it out, even with my therapist. I'm drowning in the muck on the inside. On the outside, I'm fine. Pretty much. Except I lay awake most of the night until I finally gave in and took an ativan at 3:45. I think I'm going to see a friend today. Waiting to hear from her. She is my dearest friend but she disappears in and out of my life pretty regularly. Has her own issues. But she came down to see me in the hospital which meant a great deal to me.

Sometimes I think I should just sit and figure out all these parts and how they relate to each other. I've done that a couple of times...big charty kinds of things. Maybe I need to do it again. It's just so hard because then I go all analytical and lose the connections...like my thinker part is dictating the relationships instead of me in my SELF really listening. But then sometimes when I listen too much, I get flooded out and scrambled and, well, it's all a mess.

Lots of my manager and firefighter parts are giving me some space these days, which I really appreciate. But it's as if I'm on this delicate precipice...peering into the black hole of my exiles and my past. I need a way to be able to stay present and go there too. Sometimes I can do it with writing. Sometimes a bit when I am getting a massage. I need something physical too keep me here. Wonder if my therapist would keep a physical connection open if I asked. He likes his hands free because he is forever writing notes (wow would I like to see those!). But maybe our feet could touch while I talk. Hmmm. Hadn't thought of that. That will take a lot of courage for me to suggest, I think. But seriously...I am at the point of realizing that there's no way I'm going to get any further with tuning into these parts unless I have a physical connection to another human being who feels safe to me.

In the hospital, I was having a flashback one night. The nurse told the mental health worker to just leave me alone and keep checking on me. I wanted to shout, "NO! Please please stay with me!" but no words came out. She came back a little while later. Sat on the bed with me. Held my arm gently. Put her arm around me, and talked to me. I know I was in a child part. Pretty flooded. I remember some of the words that came out of my mouth. But as she talked through it with me, I came back around to myself and calmed down quite a lot. I thanked her profusely. Somehow, she enabled my child part who is usually silent to speak. And somehow the present me/observer me was also able to hear the child part speak. And that was a really powerful and healing moment. I think I need a lot more of those to take the next steps. There is something about physical touch for me that helps me release things in a safe way. I'm weird I guess, because most people are so avoidant of it.

It's like I need another person, a safe person, as a crutch to help me learn how to listen to parts without getting flooded by them. I can do it a little on my own, but it is so much easier with another person. I used to think I could only do it with my therapist. But I did it with this woman in the hospital too. So that's hopeful. She just felt safe to me. I wish I had more safe people in my life. I suppose I will have to talk this over with my therapist. He knows I have this touch issue, but I'm not sure he fully understands it. I've told him that his hugs are the most healing part of the whole therapeutic process for me...that without those, I'd still be zooming around in my analytical/thinker/I'm fine mode. But I don't think I've ever explained why. Hmmm.

 

[Hope4Now]

I keep writing in this journal and my paper one because I feel like I'm flying all over the place and want to write what's happening so I remember. Today drove north to have lunch with bestie old friend. I love her. I wanted her to take me home and take care of me. I basically asked her. I don't think she thought I was serious. But she had stuff to do...going off to help another old friend. That's kind of what she does when she's not sinking in her own PTSD stuff. So I drove to the beach where I lived many years ago (my old apartment is an art studio now...made me a little jealous actually). Sat on the rocks on the deserted beach until the tide came in a bit too far. I wouldn't have much cared, except I have on relatively new Birkenstocks (1 year old) and would like to spare them the wet if possible for a while. The cork doesn't like salt. If I knew how to post a video, I'd post it. It was very peaceful there. Nobody around. Crashing ocean. Aside from seriously considering swimming out into the riptides the beach is famous for, and just escaping, I felt totally present and mindless and could have sat there quite happily all night. Except for the Birkenstocks. So perhaps I'm not so buddhist after all :wideeyed:.

I had a long heart-to-heart/part-to-part with myself. Keep driving north and to hell with the May Day celebration tomorrow and the boating class I have to take all f*cking weekend (I DON'T EVEN LIKE BOATS THAT REQUIRE A LICENSE). Just go beach to beach all the way to Canada. Or, go home and make nice and be normal and feed people and go to sleep. Or, stop at a bar and moan to the bartender about my f*cked up life. (That, that would be a little out of character, but not completely.) Of course, I drove home, blasting music all the way and vaguely enjoying the panoramic sky. None of my parts are happy except the Mommy one which is the one that usually wins out. @shimmerz, tagging you on this one because I think I sent you a pm about this.

How the hell do I figure out how to make my parts happy? It is really impossible I think. I need to live simultaneous lives. I need more than one body. Cloning, where are you?

Something is seriously wrong with me and I don't know how to fix it. My friend went to move her car while I waited in the restaurant. I took a fork and did a job on my arms. Why? WTF? No reason. I have NO IDEA why I did this. I have way too many parts zooming around and leading me in circles. Now I have to wear long sleeves so nobody knows. Shit.

I think I need somebody to take care of me besides me. Everybody talks about self-care, and I pretty much suck at it because I have way to many selves that have very different ideas of what they need. I have totally lost myself. Even my friend doesn't believe me. She says I can't have because I'm such a good friend to her and always there. But I'm not. I suck as a friend. I was on a stupid sailboat when her mother died and couldn't be with her. I was too scared to comfort her when her sister committed suicide years ago because I didn't know her "well enough." Wimp! Yet SHE was there for me when my dad died. And SHE came to see me in the looney bin. I am just so frigging lost in my own muck.

I think part of me thought that going to the hospital would be a good thing. I think that's why I didn't run away from the ER when I was there for almost 24 hours. It wasn't it was horrible and triggering and I'm glad I'm not there. But I need to be somewhere. I need a babysitter, or something. Not my husband. Not my kids. That would be too awful because I would feel too guilty and try to act fine.

Maybe I just need to go back to acting FINE THANK YOU. Seriously. I can do that for short bits (except for the sharp things). But I know if I do that, I am going to die. So I'm stuck in this terrible place. Be with all these :wideeyed::wideeyed::wideeyed:feelings:wideeyed::wideeyed::wideeyed: and parts:yuck::yuck::yuck: and memories :wtf::woot::wtf::woot::wtf:and feel like I want to kill myself half the time, or just be normal. But then I know if I push for normal much longer, I will collapse and die.

I went to a toy store tonight. I LOVE toy stores, and this is the best one I've been in for a long time. Except they didn't have any spinning tops. :woot: How can a toy store not have spinning tops??? (I collect turtles, owls, and spinning tops...no reason...random collections). I bought three coloring books because the brainless coloring of photocopied mandalas at the hospital seemed to appeal to some of my parts. And I bought two sets of marbles...2 shooters and 20 marbles. Maybe because I've lost my marbles. Have no idea what I'll do with them (I could never get my kids interested in playing marbles). (Marbles anyone???!!! At the beach???!!!)

Okay enough wallowing as my husband would say. I am all mixed up in parts tonight and will go do something to distract myself. I see my therapist tomorrow. His best advice to me last Friday when I was in a similar state...just keep breathing...and hang on. That is what I am trying to do. But really I'm not sure what I'm hanging on for? I need to get through May Day (tomorrow) and my husband's birthday (tomorrow), the boating class (this weekend and I'm pissed because I am missing the poetry festival because of it), my uncle's visit (next week), my son's graduation and party (on the 17th).

I think maybe it is a good thing that my father tried to commit suicide, and three of my good friends have committed suicide. These actions have made me so mad and sad and tangled up that I absolutely refuse to be the kind of person who would do this. So I'm just wrecking myself on the inside and I hate it. Maybe the idea of a partial hospitalization program isn't such a bad idea. Maybe I will talk to my t about that tomorrow. I have to do something or I am going to explode. Or implode. Or I don't know what. There's no emoticon to match Munch's the scream. Blah! Okay, now onto paper journal.

 

[shimmerz]

Even my friend doesn't believe me.

I believe you Hope. I absolutely, truly, 100%, without a doubt, no question, believe you. I feel a cabin tour coming up. :whistling: :angelic:

By the way, forget the Birkenstocks! I love what you've done with your emoticons!

:wideeyed::wideeyed::wideeyed: and parts:yuck::yuck::yuck: and memories :wtf::woot::wtf::woot::wtf:

You are so goddam artistic with them. Me? :meh: Not so much. :sour: I bow to you, you artistic goddess friend of mine! :sorry:

I am going to suggest something. You let me know what you think about it. It almost sounds like you are letting a part take you over too much (all day at beach). You may be sinking in just a bit 'too much' and are having a difficult time extricating yourself from what it is 'feeling', lamenting about, reacting to. Is there a possibility that you feed a part a bit at a time during the day. Start saying Yes if another thought occurs to you 'like hanging out with bartenders????' Keep moving but in no real 'hurry'?

You have had some pretty serious changes/situational issues going on and it has got to be really tough on you. New issues coming up etc. :hug::inlove: Be gentle on yourself. I am walking beside you Hope. Right beside you.

BTW, you don't need to come to Canada. NYC is an awesome place to meet up!

What do you call two trauma board 'runners'? Adventurers. Not to mention 'part'ners in crime. Wait a minute.... wasn't there a movie about that and Brad Pitt was the prize? :sneaky:

 

[Hope4Now]

oops. Deleted

 

[Hope4Now]

I am going to suggest something. You let me know what you think about it. It almost sounds like you are letting a part take you over too much (all day at beach). You may be sinking in just a bit 'too much' and are having a difficult time extricating yourself from what it is 'feeling', lamenting about, reacting to. Is there a possibility that you feed a part a bit at a time during the day. Start saying Yes if another thought occurs to you 'like hanging out with bartenders????' Keep moving but in no real 'hurry'?

This is very wise. I don't quite know how to manage it. Yes, I wallow. Then I hate myself and do normal things. Then I collapse. And then various other things jump into the cycle. I am certifiable. The being in no real hurry is KEY for me. I don't know why I forever feel a sense of critical urgency for whatever it is I am doing. Being out in nature is one of the only things that calms that.

 

[Hope4Now]

Wait a minute.... wasn't there a movie about that and Brad Pitt was the prize?

How 'bout Thelma and Louise?

 

[shimmerz]

I am certifiable.

No, you are not actually. You are frightened is what I am picking up.

 

[shimmerz]

How 'bout Thelma and Louise?

Yeah! That's it! You movie buff! Are you going to be Thelma or Louise? You get first pick. Where did they drive too? :tup:

As I recall we may have to make some adjustments on how our version ends though! :cool:

 

[Hope4Now]

@shimmerz see private message.

 

[Pietro]

from very early on, any expression of anything other than happy made everything worse. And when you FEEL something, it wants expression. Especially when you're little. So I learned to shut down and stop feeling much of anything. I was a fighter early...it was eventually trained out of me.

I just finished a post in my diary that mirrors this greatly. Great minds get traumatized alike?

I haven't broken my kids' spirit, either. Same as you, that was the last thing I wanted for them. Although, tonight, they both had tantrums over stupid things, which made me start to think that, maybe a little spirit-killing wouldn't be so bad. ;) I really need to get a very strict set of rules and processes together for them, but haven't had time. It's the only way to work with Aspie/ADHD kids until they're mature enough to better self-discipline. Again, the summer....

I think I have more than one part that believes I/my parts deserve to suffer.

I think this is pretty typical. Protector parts are often formed during childhood, for childhood trauma, which means they have the maturity of children. And, as such, they come-up with god-awful ways of trying to protect, motivate, self-discipline, etc., because they're so immature. Made all the worse because the only model they have to work with is to emulate the shitty behavior from their caretakers. Think about how some teachers used to leave a student in charge of a classroom if they had to run-out for something, and how that student would suddenly have been appropriately attired in a Nazi SS uniform, given the group management skills they employed. :D Our "inner protectors" don't know much better than that, oftentimes.

One of my parts told my therapist that it wanted to "destroy" me, a few weeks ago. I routinely have parts that think it would simply better to die, and have certainly had parts that considered suffering to be "noble". Stupid parts.

It's like I need another person, a safe person, as a crutch to help me learn how to listen to parts without getting flooded by them.

Nothing wrong or shameful with this. I've read that, in trauma therapy, the therapist has to play the role of "parent", for a while, because trauma patients often don't have a mature parent within their parts. Over time, they play-out the same dynamic that would have occurred during the patient's adolescence, where the patient becomes more independent and mature. Right now, you are probably in need of a lot of support to deal with a whole mess of children. ;) Unruly ones at that, likely. Sounds reasonable to me.

 

[Pietro]

I don't know why I forever feel a sense of critical urgency for whatever it is I am doing. Being out in nature is one of the only things that calms that.

Ditto again. :)

Is there a possibility that you feed a part a bit at a time during the day.

Interesting. I need to think about this. For me, there are times when it's very difficult to move from one thing to another -- if I'm highly focused on something, I don't want to stop. Other times, however, rapidly transitioning is perfect. Need to think through this.