Finding Me

[Leighlee87]

I love the idea of a trauma diary. I write all of the time, so having somewhere to put it all seems therapeutic. I've only had ptsd for a couple years, and I'm still struggling to learn how to cope. Despite the ptsd diagnosis, I've probably suffered from minor ptsd symptoms since childhood.

We jumped back into EMDR last session after taking a full month off. We hit some really hard stuff, and I needed a break because I was struggling to keep up with work and other areas of my life. I didn't expect the memory to elicit what it has, but we are finally getting to the core of things. I'm kinda frustrated with this last session, because I jumped back to older memories instead of staying with the more current memories that have lead to my full blown ptsd. I know the older memories surfaced for a reason, and it's something I need to process and sort out. I just wanted to stick with the memories that cause me the most distress I guess.

The session has left me in a panic though, and I'm freaking out. My mind went back to memories of being raped, something I could never manage to tell her about in sessions. It took me a bit to finally say it out loud. As soon as I said the words, I wanted to gulp it all back in and undo it all. I'm scrambling to find a way to word everything that I feel inside on the topic. Part of the struggle is that I still feel the need to protect the person who did it. I feel like I am partly to blame and I got myself into a situation (somewhat intentionally) for this to happen. But I don't want to explain how I put intentionally put myself into a situation where I knowingly risked being abused. I would rather curl up and die that confess what I've done.

One thing emdr has been good for (or bad for) has been the fact that it's kinda pushed me to admit to past traumas that she had no prior idea about. The first time it happened, I completely panicked--100% wanted to die inside. There were 2 specific instances during that session, one being that my father forced me to hand my son over to him when he was first born since I was still in college. It is the single greatest regret I have in life, and one that hurts immensely. The second involved an incident where I was molested as a child (funny, that was slightly easier to admit that rape). Both times she literally stopped for a minute to take it in, at which point I just wanted to curl up and die. At the end of the session and the following session she mentioned that she had learned a few things that I had failed to mention before. Just shoot me. She then asked me if I want to be in therapy forever. She knows I really like her, but that I absolutely hate therapy tbh--as far as I'm concerned, it's torture. I was so scared that she was going to want to sit and talk about the things I had been avoiding, but surprisingly enough, she hasn't brought anything up or try to steer into the direction of talking about it. I'm incredibly thankful. I'm wondering if she will be willing to do the same with my admission from earlier this week too.

A few therapy sessions back, my therapist alluded to the fact that she thinks I have DID, but she didn't straight out say it--quite possibly because I was on the verge of tears. Part of me thinks it's quite possible, and then part of me thinks that my childhood wasn't THAT bad. To be honest, the thought of it terrifies me, and no matter what people say, it doesn't make it feel any better. People may get offended, but inside, I feel like DID moves me into the category of clinically insane. I don't have time to struggle with this, developing PTSD was a hard enough blow and has made life a very difficult struggle. I feel like I'm just starting to get up on my feet, and I now have this to contend with. Yes, I might be the same person I was before the diagnosis. However, the last thing I want to hear is that everything is much more complex and difficult than I originally thought. I want to get on with my life. I've just started my career, have young kids, a marriage--I don't think there is ever a right time in life to develop PTSD, but honestly, right now most definitely isn't it. I cannot work full time because I'm not in an emotionally stable enough place to handle it. That's incredibly hard to swallow considering it's putting a strain of finances. The idea of alters is frightening (even though I kinda vaguely think I know about them--but can't decipher if it's my imagination), the concept of talking about them is even more terrifying, and I'd rather not know they are there. I'm afraid things are all in my head, that my own paranoia about the situation will cause me to imagine things that aren't true, and that eventually they will see through it and realize that it's all false and I've been making it all up. It doesn't help that I can go online and find plenty of articles that denounce the existence of DID and argue that my fears are factually true--it's all in my head and made up. It adds to the level of denial, and will probably make my therapists job more difficult. I have to learn how to stop fighting her at every turn. I'm defiant in nature, so it doesn't help the matter. I hate emotions and avoid them. But the level of resistance by me makes things slow going, and makes me feel like I'm wasting both of our time. Maybe I'm not ready, but knowing myself I don't think I'll ever be brave enough to go there on my own--to "be ready". A huge part of this process, is just getting me to slowly face this fear and realize it isn't going to kill me--that I'm going to be okay. It's just hard, and frustrating both for me and for her, cause I really don't mean to be this way.

 

[Teamwork]

I love the way you wrote your struggle out because it clearly shows the dilemma, the fear, the pain, the desire to be whole, yet the concern that there might be parts of you that are not sure if they exist. It's difficult to come to terms with how our minds cope, whether it be with anxiety that we can understand is common to many or when we are facing the question of something that seems less desirable to us to have to contend with. When we split or have parts of ourselves hold qualities of our experience it can be viewed as a place to further explore and honour the parts that kept us safe. Sometimes, we just need to call it something other than DID, if we can't go there. Maybe asking yourself, what would happen if I acknowledged the parts that protected me as just that, parts that kept the lid on this and who now want to give true expression to the pain and or suffering? It's a thought.

 

[Leighlee87]

Sometimes, we just need to call it something other than DID, if we can't go there. Maybe asking yourself, what would happen if I acknowledged the parts that protected me as just that, parts that kept the lid on this and who now want to give true expression to the pain and or suffering? It's a thought.

I love the idea of calling it by something else, and maybe that is the best place for me to start. Baby steps. It will hopefully make it feel less frightening. I think, to know that there are parts of me that exist separately and hold separate memories, feels a bit violating in a way. To acknowledge it, means to acknowledge that I don't always have control. Challenging this thought process will be difficult, but if I can learn to appreciate the way my mind operated to save me, it might provide me with a healthier more constructive outlook.

 

[Leighlee87]

Tomorrow is a bit frightening. I'm not sure if I made a mistake or not. I am a teacher, and the school psychologist also works with faculty and staff if they request it. Because I knew I was getting back into emdr, I went back and forth debating if I should message her. Functioning at work and home is so hard when the anxiety, flashbacks, and dissociation are unrelenting for the next few days after a session. Most of the time, I only manage about 2 emdr sessions before I need to call it quits because I get so far behind at work and home. So, we spend the next month working on other stuff. It just makes things slow going. My thought process was, if I can get help practicing coping skills when I'm at my worst, it might be able to go a little longer without needing a break from things. Not to mention, maybe I can explore ways to minimize the impact ptsd has at work. Yet, I'm worried that somehow, other people will find out that something is wrong with me. I'm afraid she will look at me and determine that I'm not stable enough to teach students.

 

[jandal]

Hi Leighlee87

I could have written your last paragraph - I feel exactly the same - thank you for articulating it so well. I feel like my therapist is moving towards a DID diagnosis but I think it's my imagination. My therapist is gently introducing the idea of parts and i'm sitting there thinking - why does she keep going on this with, i've told her I don't feel parts but she seems to think I display the behaviour - I just dont know. Like you i'm cautious of this being a theory that I can't be confident in and it seems to me too to be a devasting diagnosis not to absolutely feel its a diagnosis that fits.

You have a lot on. I would say if you're concerned about your job then hold-off talking to the school psychologist and maybe discus this issue with your therapist. Alternatively if work is too much for you at the moment would you benefit from them knowing and cutting you some slack? Either way it sounds to me like you are unsure so I would say hold-off and talk school over with your therapist.

Good luck :)

 

[Leighlee87]

I saw the school therapist on Friday, and I don't know, it was kinda helpful but not a lot. The one big thing she did tell me, is that if I need to take my planning periods to calm down and refocus that's okay. So long as the work gets done somewhere at some time, it doesn't really matter if it gets done on or off the clock. This is huge for me and very much needed. I also have permission from the principal to audio record my classes, so I can go back over it later (since I dissociate so often). Otherwise, the only other help given was simply by allowing me the space to tell my story and be heard.

I'm surprised at how well I can now articulate my story compared to when I first entered therapy. In the beginning I couldn't really put together anything in any coherent form. I couldn't tell you why I was so traumatized. I could only offer you slivers of different events, non of which seemed to distressful in there own right. And I felt like I came off as crazy and/or paranoid instead of being able to prove where the actual crazy-making came from. Now, I'm able to explain the subtle abuses, gaslighting, overt threats, intentional traumatization, and provide concrete evidence of my father's sociopathic and narcissistic behaviors. I'm able to easily and readily depict how and why I would have died if I had not picked up and ran when I did. I no longer sound insane. My story is finally intelligible. It's made it a much less isolating experience and also helps me immensely just by being able to have my own internal comprehension of what the hell happened.

I need to sit down and process through some of the thoughts and feelings that have arisen from this last emdr session and how that relates to the original distressing image. The image itself is distressing if I sit down and reflect on it--I'm pretty certain it will always feel that way. It's the image I hold in my mind of the moment I realized that my father was enjoying the cruelty he was inflicting. And not somewhat enjoying it, it was like his high. I will never be able to erase that image of his face. My heart broke in that moment. The illusion of what our relationship had been, was just that--an illusion. It created an intense level of fear. I finally realized that I was not free. There is absolutely nothing beyond his capabilities when it comes to cruelty; if there is even a tiny amount of positive benefit for himself, he will without remorse willingly destroy another person's life for it. I realized that he would never let me go. He'd rather me be dead than to lose control over me. There is so much emotion loaded into that memory. I wanted to die, everything hurt so much. I knew I would have to let him go if I was to live. There was so much mourning to be done. This false image of who he was shattered, and I was scrambling to piece that old picture back together, and I couldn't.

I think the biggest thing that has changed about this memory, isn't necessarily the distress per say. It's the fact that now, I feel more distant from it. I can bring that memory up and let it go without being flooded with the emotions of it. I don't necessarily get overwhelmed unless I "allow" myself to go there and really analyze the event.

The previous session, I got stuck on "why". Why did he do this? It was so different than our normal song and dance. My father is amazingly and horrifically manipulative. The world will collapse down around you, and you'll never know he was behind the scenes causing it, then he would rush in and save you. This time, the world came crashing down, he jumped in and then was relentlessly cruel, causing me to break. Why bring me home and hold me down if what you were doing was only going to make me hate you and want nothing to do with you? You have control, but you don't have me...essentially you've killed me, internally there was nothing left.

Now things have morphed a bit. I'm beginning to understand that my dad's narcissism was at complete odds with me creating my own family. He kept trying to get me to move back home, have my husband come work for him, etc. He was grasping for control and I (unknowingly) refused to give it to him. He finally snapped, and with it came a ton of pent up rage directed at me. He meant to break me. He meant to hurt me. And he meant to take back all of the control he had lost. He didn't want a relationship, he didn't want the attention and love from me, he wanted the power that comes from completely and totally destroying another human being. He did it to me, and now he's turned around and done the same to my brother who decided to take a shot at adulthood and independence. I'll put down a large sum of money that my sister will be next, especially considering that the relationship between the two of them are strained due to her long-term boyfriend. Gives me a lot to think on for a bit.

 

[Leighlee87]

@jandal
Let me know how things go, I'd love to talk to someone as they go through this process, and it sounds like we are kinda at the same place with things. The idea of it COMPLETELY freaks me out. I refuse to be crazy, flat out refuse. One session she point blank asked me if "I'm the only one" My response was I sure do hope so. She's asked a million questions on multiple occasions that related to DID, and each time I internally freak out about it. But last conversation was a bit more forward and really upset me after I left, cause I realized that she wouldn't have said any of it if she didn't feel pretty confident that it was something I have.

Last discussion went something like this:
T: "Do you like all of the clothes in your closet?"
Me: "Yes"
T: "You know what I"m referring to don't you?...Leigha, how is it that you know?"
(I shrug my shoulders and don't say anything because I'm incapable of lying, and she routinely uses it to her advantage)
She then started to discuss someone else she knew who had DID, that it wasn't anything at all like its portrayed in the media, and what it looked like in this other person.

I literally buried my head in my knees, wouldn't look at her and got really really quiet during all of this. I was trying to brace myself because I realized I would start crying if she told me I had it and I was really scared she would. She finally paused herself, waited a minute, and then quietly asked what it is I would like to discuss for the day, because she normally comes in with an agenda she wants to cover and would like to take a session to hear from me. We've never discussed it beyond talking about the pervasiveness of my dissociative episodes, and also trying to keep me present in our therapy sessions. But the convo scared me a lot.

Like, I've kinda sorta got a couple voices in my head, but I'm kinda sure they are sorta my own, and there is no way in hades I'm gonna tell her that! And I can't tell if they are normal or not, or my way of visualizing things, or made up to keep myself entertained.

 

[jandal]

hey Leighlee87

It does sound like we are in a very similar place, its reassuring in a way and it would be great to be intouch.

I'm glad thing went ok with the school psychologist and that you gained some reassurance around balancing your workload with how you are feeling. I can't help wonder if it is enough and whether employers can ever understand how debilitating disocciation is - hopefully they will work with you if you need more help from them.

I understand, I am also completely freaked out by the idea that my theripist thinks I have DID. She has never used the term DID (she talks in terms of parts) but like your experience her questions strongly indicate it. She makes the connection that because I can't recall a lot e.g. previous sessions, that maybe someone else was here, she also asked if I remember everything I buy online or do I get deliveries and I can't remember buying. Well I can't recall previous sessions because I am severely dissociative, but if she nudges me by giving me snippets about the session I can remember and yes I remember everything I buy online. What I am most concerned about in both our stories and that we are so unalighed with our therapists "theory". Since my therapist raised it again last week I have been deeply upset, angry and panicky at the thought of her thinking I have DID and what that means for me - I feel someone is telling me they see something in me that I don't at all and its making me spin because 1. they are "experts" in mental health issues and 2. I feel I need to disprove it and I don't know how - a bit like being found guilty of a crime you know you didn't commit and everyone else thinks you did - and then... I think maybe its me that just can't see the truth - thats they scary thing.

Like, I've kinda sorta got a couple voices in my head, but I'm kinda sure they are sorta my own, and there is no way in hades I'm gonna tell her that! And I can't tell if they are normal or not, or my way of visualizing things, or made up to keep myself entertained.

Wow this is exactly how I would describe whats going on for me!!! I too have a few voices in my head, I have a character that has his own voice and personality, that I introduced into my relationship to help as a kind of mediator - but I know I "do" him and am fully aware when I use him and I control when I use him. I also have a little girl that I use metaphors through, she talks through me, I don't control her feelings but i'm completely aware of her - i figure she is helping me deal with childhood stuff - does all that make me DID? I don't know. My therapist only knows about the girl, but this week i'm going to tell her about the character.

My therapist explained that everyone has parts. She described parts in terms of a pizza - for people not tramatised in childhood the pizza slices are close together/touching and there's a sense of connection between parts the person is in anyone moment i.e. a daughter/sister/friend/teacher and the person can move between the parts and feel similar - but for those of us with childhood trauma the slices are further apart not connected and moving between parts can feel very distinct as if we are quite differenct depending on the role (part) we are playing. I really don't know if that makes sense to you, I do feel that I am different depending on the role (part) I am in e.g. work me vs home me but i'm not sure if that isn't normal - don't most people?

In my next session later this week i'm going to raise my concerns and the stress they are causing because I think therapy is going wrong somewhere if we are feeling this - whether we have DID or not this shouldn't be causing this stress as this just triggers deeper and more frequent dissociation. Sorry I don't want to hijack your thread and I look forward to keeping reading your journey.

 

[Leighlee87]

@jandal
I'm not sure if I'm more or less comfortable with the fact that even our "characters" are even similar. I've had a little girl whose always been there. But she's never been outside of my head that I know of. The best I can explain her is that she stays hidden and is terrified of everyone because she doesn't want to be hurt. I've always seen her as myself though. Just the part of me that's been damaged. There is a male voice, but he's the only been around for a tiny bit. Once again, I don't think he is ever on the outside, but we banter back and forth a lot. I just assume he's my entertainment and not real.

The one thing that I've never thought of till now is that every time I get really upset in therapy, my T will ask, "How old do you feel right now?" It's one of those questions I refuse to answer out loud, but the answer is 4ish. But I guarantee the little girl visual I hold in my head is around 4 years old too and that isn't simething I've put together until just now.

So either we are both completely normal and this is stuff all people do, or we are both crazy with the same issues going on. Not sure which. Let me know how your convo goes with your therapist, because I haven't ever discussed any of the characters in my head. I'm too scared it will confirm everything.

And yeah, we'll have to either pm each other, or maybe start a thread somewhere. Not sure which you would prefer.

 

[Leighlee87]

Oh lord, EMDR today. I was fine all week, but my nerves are starting to ramp up a bit. I have no idea where my head is going to go, and I think in ways that's what frightens me the most--not being able to prepare for which specific memories will come up. I think its probably the biggest difference between a single event trauma vs. complex trauma. I never (or rarely) manage to stick with the trauma surrounding a single event. Instead, I jump back and forth between things that happened at 27 years old, and then 4 years old, and then 14, 9, etc. There is too much there, but at the same time, I feel like there are things there that I can't access. Some memories come up that I'd completely forgotten about until that moment, and it's impossible to prepare for that. It's usually those old forgotten memories that bother me the most afterwards, or just the vividness in which it sometimes comes back.

One of the best examples was when an image came up of my dad and I when I had gotten in trouble at one point. He held his hand over my mouth and up against my nose so that I couldn't scream. I couldn't breathe, and I was trying to pry him fingers off me, but I couldn't. I was no longer focused on pain, but just on the fact that I couldn't breathe and how panicked I felt. When this image came back up, I knew it hadn't been a one time event, it had happened many times. But to be honest, it didn't seem distressful to visit. It was something that happened routinely (and at that age I thought was completely normal) so I didn't think to be bothered by it. I wouldn't call it a repressed memory necessarily (especially since some people don't believe in repressed memories) but more like when someone goes, "Remember when...." and all the sudden that memory you had forgotten about comes flooding back. The image kept coming back up though after I went home. A couple days later I was told my husband about it. He seemed horrified by what I was telling him, and I was like, dude it's not a big deal. But then I stopped, and was like, "THAT's where that dream comes from!" For the last couple years, I've had the same repeated nightmare over and over again. I started having this dream once I figured out my father's manipulative behaviors and things started to get really ugly and frightening between us. In the dream, I wake up with him standing over my bed and his hand over my face suffocating me. I'm trying to fight him--pry his fingers off my mouth and get away, but I'm not strong enough, and in my head I know that I'm probably going to die. Every other night for two years I've had this same dream, and during all that time it never occurred to me that the two could relate. I was having nightmares of an event that I had forgotten had ever happened. Which honestly, was kinda mind-blowing and messed with my head for the next couple weeks. It made me wonder, just how much of our daily lives are impacted by our past and things that we might not even remember.

The one thing that does bring me comfort is knowing that all of the big trauma is now out there. I've got nothing else hidden from my T, unless it's memories that have been hidden from me too. There is a lot of stress when you still have secrets/ trauma that you don't want your T to know about, especially when walking into an emdr session because there is a high probability that these things are going to come up. Getting those things out feels impossible. Not only are you processing information, but you are struggling to find the bravery to admit that such a thing had ever occurred when you are paused and asked where you are at. This is the first time where I get to walk in and not worry about what she will find out. I'm scared of details. That is something that does frighten me. I don't want to go back to the details and for her to learn anymore than she already knows. But largely, the stress/ fear of that aspect of emdr is out of the way. Last session she mentioned that I probably feel a lot better with all of that weight off my shoulders from having finally gotten it out there. I couldn't have felt any more opposite in that moment. I wanted to recant everything, to say it didn't happen. Part of me still feels that way. But honestly, I think I get what she is saying a bit more. There is a bit more freedom in having that blank slate with nothing hiding underneath. Now, if I can only convince her its not something we ever need to revisit in a regular session, that would be great.

I've thought a lot more about my resistance in therapy. Part of it is just my personality in general. I tend to be a little defiant, push back against the other person, both as a way to prove to that person and to myself that I have some sort of autonomy in the relationship. I test limits, I push buttons, I see what happens if I push to hard. I do it to feel safe. It's something I probably need to work on and tone down on just a little bit. But I also resist because I'm really, really scared. I try to be brave, but it's like I revert to 4 year old Leigha and curl up into myself instead. I walk in having given myself the world's greatest pep talk, and walk out going, "well, so much for that". But I realized something yesterday, that makes me want to push up against my fears and try harder.

Since developing ptsd, I feel like I've become the crappiest parent ever. I'm not an aggressive person at all, even now. But I hide, I don't interact, I'm easily overwhelmed, can't tolerate the noise and chaos my children create, I snap at them when they want something, and get annoyed when it's something they need. Yesterday, my daughter wanted to say something and I snapped at her. A couple minutes later, she wanted something else, and I snapped at her and ignored her request again. Every time she came up, I either snapped, told her to go away, take care of it herself, or find her dad. Mostly, she just wanted to have a conversation, just some mommy time. But what was happening for me was this: I knew I needed to get dinner on the table, I was focusing on cooking, but simultaneously trying to hold off the anxiety attack that was rising, and my daughter comes up to ask me something while her toddler sister is in the background screaming, and it was that last little bit to send me over the edge. Two seconds later, I'm still struggling with the same anxiety attack, putting food onto a plate, toddler is still throwing herself on the floor screaming, my son is asking for a fork, my daughter asked for milk a minute before, and was now asking, "Hey, where's my milk?"--well, I haven't gotten to it yet, and if she hadn't noticed, I have not exactly stopped moving long enough to get it for her. But of course she hasn't noticed this, she's in kindergarten. So what do I do? I snap at her again. Then I'm pulling out homework trying to read through things, still stressed, and she's behind me asking 1000 random questions, so I tell her to leave. The entire evening, I hadn't said one nice thing to her. I didn't want the kids near me, I asked them to leave, etc. One night like this? Okay, fine. Everyone has those. But it seems like every day is like this. I'm constantly pushing away from them because I can't tolerate daily life anymore.

I feel horribly guilty for it even as I behave this way. Every morning I wake up and tell myself that today is going to be different, today I'm going to be present, and then I'm not. And nobody steps up to take my place. I think about the message this sends to my kids, and it makes me feel terribly guilty. I know I need to be forgiving of myself, and to spend this time working on me so that I can be there for them. But this brings to the forefront my issues of resistance in therapy. And maybe a factor that I should use to motivate myself. If I hate the hold ptsd has on me and the impact it has on my kids, why the hell am I not flinging myself into the work in therapy? Because if I ask myself what is worse, the guilt I have from parenting or the pain and discomfort in therapy, the first wins out every single time. I don't have years to wait to get better. My kids need me now. They are too little to understand, and don't have the skills to cope with the disruption ptsd has caused. In their minds, mommy was there, and now she is not. They are young enough, that eventually they will forget the good, who mommy was before ptsd and what life looked like. I just feel like there is too much insecurity in their daily lives, and they need that stability. I know I can move past a lot of this ptsd stuff, I know I can learn to function better than I do. I just need to do it.

 

[Leighlee87]

Yay, yay, yay! Today was the easiest emdr session I've ever had. It started off kind of rough, but the last 3/4 never got stressful at all. I almost worried that I was doing something wrong, but she said that was exactly what she wanted to see happen, and that we are nearing the end. We talked about how much the distress level has come down. I told her that the whole thing with it not being distressful unless I stopped to really analyze or dissect the event, otherwise I can allow the memory to pop up and pass by without becoming overwhelmed by the pain of it. I also told her that I don't ever expect the memory to be free of distress, it was the moment I realized that my father was a sociopath, and no matter how I look back on that experience, it's filled with terror. She ensured me that we could get to a place where that memory no longer causes any distress at all, but that it would involve a ton of work to get there, It just depends on whether or not I want to do that work. There is a lifetime of abuse to sort through, there is a possible DID diagnosis to deal with. I want to do the work, I know deep down it's something that I need to do. I'm not at all where I want to be. I'm not even anywhere near as well off as I was before ptsd invaded everything.

The self statement we are working on is "I don't have autonomy, I am not free." My father's need for control was so great, that I was literally bound to him and the repercussions for trying to have an iota of freedom came with horrific consequences. Enough so, that I sometimes wonder if the price I paid was worth the cost at all. When your father is a sociopath and you realize that your on the brink of suicide and he's intentionally doing everything he can to push you over that edge, you realize that you are not at all free to be your own person. You have no say in anything at all, all the way down to the smallest of things. Looking back, I've never been free.

Right now, I feel like that self-statement is only half-way true. In order to have freedom, I need to let him go. I have to be brave enough to grieve. I'm so scared to go there. I also feel have a huge fear that I will become trapped again. That somewhere down the line, someone else will forcibly take that autonomy away. Freedom is a fragile thing and not ever ensured. I'm scared that if it isn't taken away, that I will intentionally put myself in front of someone who will take it from me. It's a compulsive desire that I fight, and so far, have succeeded in keeping at bay.

Without tackling these things, I'm not sure focusing on this particular memory during the emdr sessions help much. I could be wrong, and I know she wants to do another emdr session next week. So who knows. If we move onto another memory, I don't know what on earth I want it to be about. I feel like I've tackled the biggest ones already, except for the memories of sexual trauma that don't involve him at all. And I'm not ready to go there at all. I can't bring myself to go into detail, it's such an uncomfortable topic to talk about. The very few times I've tried, either I dissociate horribly or I get thrown back into a flashback and either way nothing comes out at all. This emdr session brought up the memories of molestation, and it became pretty graphic. I refused to tell her where I was at, she didn't push me either. I'm sure she was able to guess. One day, I'll be forced to go there, but I feel like I need to be able to somewhat comfortably have a discussion in a normal therapy session without completely shutting down first.

 

[Leighlee87]

It's been a little bit, so I figured I'll update. We haven't done EMDR since I last wrote, figured we would give it a break since the holidays are here. I've been really emotional over things lately, and I'm usually not one to cry. I'm trying to cut myself off from it, which I know probably isn't the best, but I don't know what else to do with it. I don't want to cry. I don't want to feel this. I've lost everyone, my dad, my siblings, and I don't get them back. I walked away, but if I had stayed I would be dead, so I don't know why I blame myself or grieve it the way I do.

I've stopped eating again. I like the pain and emptiness inside. I want to whittle myself down to the size I used to be, I want to be small enough to disappear. At least right now, when everything else hurts so much, recovery feels out of reach and something completely uninteresting. I haven't had water in weeks, I know the seizures will come on soon, I'm surprised they haven't already. I hate having them, but in a twisted way, I miss having them--they are my signal that I'm doing things "right" that I'm punishing myself well enough. I'm fighting the urges to cut. I refuse to go through the holiday season with ugly scars. I've worked so hard for so long not to, I don't want to give into the temptation now.

This might be the most messed up post I've ever written. But for a few days out of the year, I'm allowed to say that I'm really, really not okay and that this hurts.