Whatever you want to call it, I have multiple selves. And some of them work together. Some of them hate and avoid each other. Some of them are terrified of others. And some of them terribly abuse and torture others. Each of them thinks they are ME. They zoom in and out. Up close and far away. In from the periphery. From the top down and from the bottom up. And all of it feels like a terrible, terrible war that will never end until I am destroyed by virtue of attrition. There won't be anything left. And all of the war is invisible. And that makes it so very deeply lonely and so much more frightening. Because I can't let anybody see. Because I am terrified it will destroy them. I will destroy them and myself if the insides come out. I am too much. Always have been. I know this is a part that believes it, and I know its sources, and I know it is true in thennow. Perhaps less so in NOW. I hope not at all SOON. Knowing and hoping doesn't help me calm the terrible and crippling fear.
I kept it all locked up inside somehow for so many long years. So long that I got sick. I ignored the symptoms because I didn't know they were symptoms. I didn't know what they were. Just a whole lot of scarybad (yes, another new word I've grown fond of).
I wrote in a PM to someone a long time back, "Do you think we're emotion-phobic?" Uh, yeah. My parts give whole new meaning to the word "phobic" and the responses they have to the feeling are stunning. Some of it is leaking out now. More every day. Terrifying. Profoundly and deeply confusing. My therapist has seen just a little tiny bit. I can't be too much. For him. For my husband. For my friends. ...for me. I actually can't. I know I need to work toward getting the insides and the outsides to match up, to synchronize intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, physically if I am to heal. I just can't.
Well, I can I guess. Because I am taking infinitesmal steps. It happened on Friday. And I was not having a flashback. I still don't understand what happened. But it has continued to happen in smaller versions inside myself and with words coming out of my mouth and with my body moving in very odd ways. Aside from the nightmares, this seems to be the new way for some of my parts to communicate with me. Somehow making it come out physically overrides--at least partially--the part that refuses to believe that any of this is real, or that I am even a me.
I had some really good insights yesterday and today. I understand now why I need to learn how to be in my body. I mean, I really understand it now. I can't do it, but I get why I need to. It can contain and regulate my energy once it learns how. My energetic layers are all mixed up and damaged badly. If I can learn to be in my body, it will be a step toward healing the wounds.
So, the experiment has begun today. The experiment of unwilling self-care. LOL. I'm tired of fighting with my parts about what constitutes care and what doesn't. I don't know. They all want different things. And I am far to exhausted to sort it all out all by myself. So, here's the plan:
My caretaker part which used to be very very good at taking care of other people, including raising two terrific children, is going to get rallied one last time, for three months, as an unwilling caretaker of the rest of me. It knows how to take care of sick people. It knows how to take care of babies. It knows how to take care of people who are injured. It knows how to take care of people who are frantic. It knows how to take care of people who are sad and lonely and afraid. And lots of other things too. It's a pretty smart part. It is exhausted, but I think it has a little lifejuice left and I'm going to ask it to help me out now.
It is going to babysit me. For three months. It will probably need to call in for rest and outside reinforcements now and again but that's okay. Tbut I am now my own responsibility whether I want to be or not. And I will be okay until I am better than okay. Start really, really basic. I remember we used to tell the babysitters who were nervous about taking care of our kids: "Your job is to keep them alive until we get home. Don't let the house burn down and keep the babies alive." We KNEW they would do a good job. We knew they would be kind and careful and loving. Or we wouldn't have hired them in the first place. But THEY didn't know they COULD do a good job.
So, as my own babysitter, I am just focusing on: "Keep it alive and don't let the house burn down." I think the babysitter can do a little better than that, given its past efforts on behalf of people. I am reminding myself of that. My caretaker has a decent resume. I am fairly certain that it will not hurt me. The babysitter knows what to do to take care of me, even if I don't know.
On the caretaker's orders, I am taking vitamins and herbs. I am re-starting gluten free diet. I am eating mindfully and healthfully (for all of about 6 hours now, but hey, better than nothing). I am building a routine for meditation, rest, and movement. I am making myself go to bed by 11 and stay in bed until 7. And I am undertaking the 12 week program of The Artist's Way, the very powerful book that has called to me repeatedly since its publication. I have not listened to it. I am listening now.
I have always said that I think people find their teachers when they are ready for them. Ready for the learning. Ready to take it in. This has been true much of my life. I have been blessed with the most unlikely of teachers. Some people would call them angels. Others other things. Doesn't matter. I have so many teachers in my life right now. I need to trust myself to trust them and learn from them. I am working on this.
Anyway, I have been thinking about this book, The Artist's Way, recently and intending to order it. On Saturday, when I was looking at my bedroom bookshelf for something I wanted to give a friend's daughter as a gift, I found it. It has been sitting in that spot for 5.5 years. I just didn't see it. And it is not a big shelf. And it must have been sitting amidst my other books before I moved. Because I bought this book a very long time ago, and I thought I'd lost it. I never got beyond Chapter 1. I wasn't ready. I am ready now.
So...bring on the voices and the body movements and the...uh, well, maybe...feelings (well, maybe not quite yet). The babysitter is here. The babysitter will know how to handle it all until my SELF can get free again.
Totally nuts. Crazysane? Who knows. Doesn't matter. Somehow it feels right. Some odd form of double or triple dissociation. But perhaps this is the type of dissociation I need in order to survive the thennow and come through into the NOW. And the babysitter will not let the others hurt each other. The babysitter is strong and tough. The parts will listen to the babysitter, I think. I hope. Because I sure need the help right now.
