Strange Star

[Hope4Now]

Big day today. I decided I am going to apply for disability leave from work. My body and some of my parts have been screaming for this for at least a year now...but it has gotten to a critical point. I've decided to listen. Risky, but I know that if I don't take this leap of very scary action now, that something terrible will happen to me. I will either get so overwhelmed by my overwhelm that I will do something really self-destructive, or that I will get so sick that I will be forced into this decision. I'd like to be able to control it. To make my own choice and not be forced.

I told my therapist. I emailed the human resources person at work asking how it all works and what paperwork I need to do. I told my husband. I will talk with my boss this week (he sort of knows this is coming).

My husband wants me to find a structured place to go to do some healing. I think he is afraid that if I don't have some kind of therapeutic environment that I will just lie in bed and get depressed. He might be right. I am very tired. I've investigated a little bit. I don't think I belong in a hospital, but I'm not really sure. I kind of thought hospitals were for people who can't manage their suicidal thoughts or impulses. I manage mine pretty well, generally. I've also been looking at retreat places. Found one that looks perfect. Expensive, but perfect. 10 days. They specialize in PTSD and trauma, especially early trauma. I've been looking at this place for a year.

I'm scared. I'm scared of what will happen next if I do take time off. I'm scared that my other parts will zoom in and overturn this decision. I am trying to be proactive and courageous. To remind myself that what I am experiencing is real. That it is mine. That the pain and flashbacks and all that are mine...I can't just zoom off to some other psychic space and expect that my body will just keep going. I'm feeling relieved too, at having made the decision even though there's no plan in place yet.

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Before therapy, I always thought that there was something very wrong with me because I had to pretend to be feelings that I did not feel. At the time I thought this was just the way I was.

When I started therapy I felt as though someone had picked me up by my ankles and shook every bit of me out and there was nothing left that was real. I was a total fake and did not know that.

I do not know if this applies to your situation or not, but I share it with you because you are learning about the real year and it takes a long time to integrate and learn and get to know the real you. Hugs and more hugs.

 

[Hope4Now]

The deed is done. I'm leaving my job for a year. I will finish a few small projects over the next couple of weeks by working from home.

I am totally freaked out. Feel like I am leaping into the abyss.

I am going to sleep now for a little while. Then my family is taking my mother out for dinner for her birthday. That should be a real treat.

 

[Hope4Now]

It's Friday. So odd that suddenly the notion of Friday is different to me because the weekend is just a few days...I will not go back to work on Monday. I have things I need to do for work. But I'm gone now. That's a strange feeling after all these years of work. I suppose this is the feeling people get when they retire from long-time employment. I'm not sorry about my decision. Scared? Yes. Freaked in parts? Yes. Now I will have to find the courage to do some of the things I've always fantasized I'd do if I had time...except then, I'd imagined myself with intact energy, and not scrambling for dollars to keep up the mortgage and healthcare payments.

I had a very hard therapy appointment today. I was able to describe some parts that I haven't talked too much about. Well, maybe they overlap with a poart I hav talked about. but today brought it to a different level. I had a very tough time staying "present" (whatever that means...I never really know WHO is present). But I managed to do it to some extent. Enough to be able to talk a little about what it feels like in these parts.

Intellectually, it's clear to me that these parts are protectors that don't trust I can handle what my child exiles are screaming to show. I can analyse most of the actions and reactions decently. But feeling? Getting out of my intellect? Now THAT is challenging. It was a hard time today. But probably good in the grand scheme of things.

To be perfectly honest, there was one moment when I felt a huge physical relief! I think I even said out loud, "That felt good to say that." Of course, I have absolutely zero recollection of what I said that made me feel relief. That's frustrating.

I ended up on the floor in the bathroom for a while after. I suppose my system needed time to process. We got pretty close to the one of the core trauma pieces that I am aware of but haven't managed to connect with yet.

Okay. Time to go to sleep. The seroquel doesn't do much for me, but it does make me drowsy...even at this very low dose. So I will stop fighting my body and listen. I will go to bed. I fear I will have dreams tonight. I'm not sure why. I rarely remember dreams if I have them. I just have a feeling that tonight, my unconscious and subconscious will have quite a bit to show me. Bleh.

 

[Hope4Now]

It feels as if it's been a million years since I had the therapy appointment I wrote about on Saturday. Ha. Only 3 days have passed. Since all this has happened, I am conscious that I have the strangest conceptions of time.

I maybe did a lot of processing this weekend, because I spent most of it in bed except Saturday evening. I had to go into the city to meet up with my husband for a dinner party. It was okay at first...I always enjoy the train, and my walking wasn't too bad until I'd reached my first destination. The dinner party went on forever. I had a lot of "depersonalization" during the night.

I'm kind of sorry that I know these terms now..."depersonalization" and "derealization." I've done it all my life and thought it was pretty cool that I could go out of my body and watch from different perspectives, or that I could look at things and see all sorts of weird things. I swear, it is for this reason that I never got into using drugs even though many of my friends did. I felt like I didn't need them. Anyway, I was zooming all over the place on Saturday night. I often find myself watching what's happening from inside a piece of artwork, and there was lots of interesting art in the house. I don't know why I was doing this...it's not that there was anything bad at all...I guess my system was just really activated. It just happened. Anyway, when I do that zooming around and watching from different perspectives, I am quite able to carry on a conversation at the same time. It is a strange experience. I suppose it does make me a bit anxious and exhausted because it's like I'm being two people at the same time. Well, that's fodder for another entry, I suppose. Hello, dissociation.

I was ready to leave by 9:20 but we were still seated at the table awaiting dessert. Then there were coffee and drinks to be had in the living room. By 10:30 I was shooting my husband desperate glances, and even said, "We need to go." By 11 I was pinching my arms and hands hard to try to keep myself together. At 11:20 my husband said he would walk to get the car and I should stay there until he called. I refused. So I walked out with him, then sat on the stairs to await his return. It was a relief to be "off" finally, but just as I started to come down, another couple came out of the building and started teasing me about sitting on the ground (I know they thought it was totally strange, but I didn't much care at that point). When my husband came round with the car, I pretty much collapsed into it. Couldn't much move, open my eyes or speak for around 30 minutes. I think he kind of knew what was happening, so he just drove in silence. Listening to the jazz show on the radio finally helped me come round to a more functional part. I was okay again once home and in bed, but yesterday I couldn't get out of bed until dinner.

The good thing about all this is that I slept okay (YAY HOORAY) and had one of my really obviously symbolic dreams (it was so clear that it was about parts of me escaping and causing problems and humiliation...except in the dream it was my real actual psycho-dog escaping from my house but returning with no harm done LOL!). I think this dream was somehow me trying to let myself know that all this parts stuff is going to be okay. That I don't have to be afraid to acknowledge it or talk about it outside of my own head. So it kind of set me up well for today. Today in my meditation, a lot of stuff came up. I was really scrambled in parts, but it was okay...I wasn't scared or really anxious...just kind of watching and listening.

I spent a lot of time writing all this stuff in my journal. I was debating about showing it to my therapist. Nervous to do it though mostly because the writing was kind of a wild mess...happens when I get scrambled. So I brought the journal with me just in case. It ended up I didn't show him because he wanted to continue where we left off on Friday. He thinks it's a core piece we need to work on. He's right. It is. It's just really, really hard. He told me that on Friday I had said "I can't" about engaging with this one child part of myself. I don't remember that, but I probably did because that is how I have felt for months...I just cannot seem to get her to trust me. But something shifted a little today in my appointment.

He asked how I felt about her (the child part). I said lots of ways...depends on what part. But I did say I felt sad for her. So, we decided to go with that just to get started because it sounded empathetic. I think he thought this was another part...but we always get stuck at this point so we forged ahead. I'm glad we did, actually, because something bizarre and amazingly interesting happened. And even though we didn't get to what's called "unburdening," I do feel curiously lighter inside. I know I'm still pretty scrambled, but it is a better scrambled than usual.

Anyway, I posted a brief version of this in the SD thread. I'm writing it here so I remember. Actually, maybe I'll just link back to it because suddenly I don't feel much like writing about it any more. This child part of me is the one that started unburdening last year way before I was ready (she started exploding with awful stuff out of her...and I thought she was dead...and then she tried to cut out her middle...it was all a really sick internal mess). But now it's much clearer. She doesn't know why she has some of this stuff in her and there are parts that are afraid she will die if she let's it go because she will choke to death and turn inside out (sorry if anyone is actually reading this). But another part I know about popped up today and said that he knew what happened. That he knows everything that happened to her. And I guess I said this out loud to my therapist because then my therapist asked me if I could ask S (the boy part) to tell L (the child part) what happened to her. And he did. It was the weirdest most intense few minutes. My therapist asked me if I was okay. I was. But it was a lot to hold in my head. He asked me to rate the intensity on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being overwhelming. I said 5 or 6 which isn't too bad. I felt quite proud of myself at the end, actually, for managing to not get overwhelmed.

I'm a little nervous about being with these parts on my own this week, which is what I'm supposed to do and what I want to do. I hope I can do it without getting overwhelmed. I can't see my therapist until next week because the only other time he has available this week is on Wednesday, and I'm stuck doing something that day. At the party on Saturday, I agreed to go into the city to an event on Wednesday. I don't know why I agreed to do this. But now I feel like I can't get out of it. Oh well, maybe it will be fun. At least the part of me that agreed to go to the thing thought it was fun at the time. My husband said I sounded really excited about it.

 

[Hope4Now]

I'm writing AGAIN today. I am avoiding going upstairs to meditate/be with my parts.
I'm avoiding doing my mother's taxes.
I'm avoiding writing the final scripts for the filming I'm committed to doing this coming Sunday.

I think I have gradually come to a breakthrough point. After what happened yesterday...The part of me that has continuously refused to believe that all this parts stuff is true is finally giving me some space. It feels terrifying and exciting at the same time. Like the physical feeling of having climbed 200+ feet up a tree to a platform for ziplining into a lake. And now it's time to jump and trust that the harness will hold me. I'm not quite sure I'm ready though. I don't quite trust the harness. Who is my harness? I know the answer is supposed to be me. My bodymind. But I need more than that right now. I need to know there is a net to catch me if the harness fails. That's mostly what I'm afraid of now. I don't think there is a net there...or if there is, the people holding it are just chilling out and confident that I am doing just fine and they're totally unprepared for me to fall. That's what it feels like.

Last night, my husband said, "You are very, very good at masking what is going on inside you. Until you're not. Like the other night. It seems to come out of nowhere." Yep. He's right. I can feel it coming on inside of me, but I can't manage it by myself. Heck, sometimes I can't even manage it when I'm with my therapist and getting his help...but it is better there.

I wish there were a way to get help BEFORE you fall. But everyone seems to think I am okay. I mean, I am. I'm always okay. I get through. I do what has to be done. But there IS another way, I know there is...I just can't seem to find it. Or to be able to articulate what it is that I need. This has always been the way. It is why all my bids for help when I was young failed miserably. In spite of whatever I would say, everyone thought I was just fine. And I was, on the outside. So here I am again.

Last night I told my husband that I am worried about myself. He said he is worried about me too. Then he asked the great unanswerable question: "What worries you about yourself? I'd like to know so I can see if it matches what I'm worried about." I couldn't answer. I kept trying, but it didn't come out right. Finally, I got really frustrated and I said I can't answer because there are too many different answers coming from too many different parts. And just as I began to try to explain, the phone rang. It was his uncle who has schizophrenia. So the next hour was spent listening to their conversation about the delusions...sad and humorous at the same time (e.g., there is a brothel running in the basement of the rehab center where he lives).

I cannot seem to explain what is happening inside of me to anybody outside of me. And when I try, it fails. My husband falls asleep or gets distracted. Even my therapist yawns. I am doing something wrong...I know I am. They both say I am overthinking, that I intellectualize. I don't know how else to do it. How do you talk about what is happening inside without using analogies? The problem is that my analogies don't make sense, at a heart level, with them. I get caught in my own hyper-prose, or I go silent. There doesn't seem to be an in-between place. My Thinker explains too much and bores people to death. But if and when I get to the emotional stuff, I cannot speak. Or even write.

Perhaps this week I will go back to trying to do some art. There are so many images swirling in my mind, I suppose I ought to just draw or paint or sculpt them. But I have a super-powerful part that shuts even this down. It's no good. Why bother. What you produce can never match what you see inside.

I suppose this is the crux of the tortured artist. Probably why I gave it up all those years ago and destroyed most of my work. One tries and tries to bridge the gap between internal experience/vision by attempting to reproduce it in the external world so that perhaps someone will understand and connect. But there's the rub...another person can never truly know our experience...so we just keep trying and trying. Probably why I like that Camus essay so much. The Myth of Sysiphus. That's meant to be about living vs. dying, but it works just as well about the creative process. The joy has to be in creating, as miserable as it is. One must labor fully apprised that it will never be finished.

 

[Hope4Now]

I am in hyper writing mode these days. It seems to be the only way I can keep track of the 8 bazillion things my poor brain is trying to untangle. I have had so many insights in the past few days I can hardly keep track of them. And...one of the insights is that I am very afraid of forgetting things! And I know why...where this comes from...lots of child parts that were humiliated and punished for forgetting things.

I think this is why I write so obsessively/compulsively. But simply because the nature of writing is sequential and slow, I still lose things. So that stresses me out. I am just trying to notice this in myself. I think this is another part or aspect of some part that I've not been aware of consciously until now.

I have discovered a little at a time that I can get to a sort of odd place when I write in my journal now. It's like triangulation...I can let my "Watcher" part (which is part of my SELF and seems to have awareness of everything but exists outside my body) link to my body through the physical act of writing...and sometimes I can get other parts to communicate through that process. I have to write for it to stick. Otherwise whatever the parts show me goes away. I get that this is some kind of really weird dissociation that maybe I have developed a strategy for overcoming. Like a trick to get through the walls that separate my parts. I mean, it still is dissociation because it's pretty clear from the handwriting that different parts are talking...and different parts even talk through other parts. There are so many layers it makes my brain explode. Literally. Well, not literally, but I imaging all sorts of firing neurons. I have a low-level headache most of the time these days. I like to think that's my brain rewiring itself.

My therapist said to me on Monday that he has to be so careful working with me because my parts are so enmeshed...and he held up his hands with his fingers woven together. A while back he mentioned that my system was Byzantine :roflmao::roflmao::roflmao:. I was not offended at all by either of these comments. It made me feel like he is beginning to understand my internal chaos. And having someone outside of me understand that feels really, really important to me right now. Like life and death. Like somehow this, this now is my chance to connect with someone as me in all my inner ickiness.

I wrote him a long letter yesterday and typed out a bunch of stuff from my journal (Parts of me are not ready to show anybody what my journal looks like because that's just too much exposure). Pages and pages. A Hope communique. It included a desperate cry for help because I feel like something awful is about to happen to me and I am scared. I am afraid of myself. I don't trust myself to save myself...to be strong and brave enough to contain the wildly activated parts. I put it into an envelope and stamped it. Then I decided not to mail it. :banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead::banghead:. Decided it wasn't fair to send him something that desperate :wtf:. I'll give it to him next week when I see him.

I wish I could untangle the rats' nest of my psyche. I would like to live, even for a little sometimes, outside of the chaos. This is why meditating is helpful. It's a little break from it all. I wish the meditative experience would carry over into the rest of my life. I try very hard, but it doesn't happen. I suppose it is a lifelong practice. Maybe I need to see if I can get all my parts to meditate with me :wideeyed:. If I can corral them. It's like herding cats into an enclosure they can jump over or wriggle through. Not like cows or sheep or horses. They're easy.

Today, I have to go back to the city for this ridiculous event that I committed to on Saturday. I don't want to go. I don't want to get dressed up. I'm not particularly interested in the topic. I don't feel like being social. :wtf::wtf::wtf:. So why am I doing this to myself? I don't know. Again, it's the war of parts. I never know what to do, so I just randomly pick something. Then I have to do it, or I look crazy and unreliable and undependable. And that is not what I want to be either. So, it's time to put on my social/literary self.

I am so very tired of this life I am trying so very hard to live well. Sigh.

 

[Hope4Now]

I am sitting in the most depressing room at the er. 3:57 am. Came in at 8:45. Still don't know if it was a good idea or not. It's not exactly comforting. I'm lonely and scared and I don't know what will happen next. I'm glad they let me have my phone. I feel so stupid and embarrassed because I was so scrambled yesterday.

 

[shimmerz]

I am sitting with you Hope. Please let me know if I can help you at all. So many hugs and so much love to you honey. :hug::hug::hug:

 

[Hope4Now]

Thanks. This is about the least conducive place to relaxation. Ugh. The people are nice though. One nurse did some yoga with me. It wasn't enough though, so the psych person called in the Ativan. That helped some.

I can't believe I am here. I hope Made the right choice. Just wasn't sure I could keep control of the firefighters any longer. Just so tired of trying so hard all the time.

M
Soon I get to ride in an ambulance to the other hospital where ther is a bed. They will not let my husband take me in his car. I suppose it's all about insurance...they don't want me flinging myself out of a moving vehicle or something :nailbiting:

I am
Dying for a cigarette and a decent cup of coffee. Argh. My husband is bringing the coffee but I fear I will have to await the other until
I go home.

 

[shimmerz]

Didn't realize you smoked. Me too. I am glad the nurses are being nice. Always a hot spot for me, but things are different here in Ontario. I am also glad your husband went with you. A rest more than likely won't be a bad thing Hope. Are they transferring you to another hospital due only because of the bed situation or is there another reason?

I think if you made the decision to go to hospital that it was a good one. :hug::hug:

I am here.

 

[Eleanor]

My best friend brought me Starbucks in the hospital when I had Lexi. I hope you will find some respite in the hospital for a while - and get some breathing room. It is good you have your husband to advocate for you.

I am here too.