So I’m back from my trip to Sweden, and at the moment it feels like it has done me a world of good. It was simply great to spend a whole week with my sisters and their little families and just enjoy being alive. The weather was great and although we all took turns taking ill, all in all it was just really nice to hang out. We basically ate, watched my youngest nephew run around and ate some more. That is, that’s what my sisters and I did. The boys were busy digging in the garden, planting a hedge around it. And in between that we managed to watch a film, teach my sister’s dog to go on the slippery-dip and get my youngest sister and her man to understand how to solve the first two layers of the Rubik’s cube intuitively.
Oh, and my sisters and brothers-in-law gave me the super-awesomest prezzie ever; the new iPad [which I am, incidentally, using as we speak, in conjunction with my bluetooth keyboard].
I feel that this trip has really helped to reset my brain. I feel so much happier than I have in the past several months, and although I am still having flashbacks it’s nowhere near as bad as it was, pre-trip.
Since I’ve been back I’ve started a new course, and – true to form – I’ve excelled at in the art of study-avoidance. I am feeling a bit unhappy about having chosen the course I have; a very basic psychology course about stuff I pretty much already know, but just want to get on paper that I do in fact know it. It’s very hard to motivate oneself to read material about stuff you already know, when the main focus ends up being trying to remember sources for future reference, rather than actually learning. That said, of course anything psychology related will always push your little grey cells into action, and you’ll realise you have thoughts and ideas you might not have had when you originally read about a specific study. In short; once I actually open the book, I do get quite into what I’m reading.. it’s just getting to that point of opening the book, which holds me back. There are always a million other things I feel I need to read; blogs, news, tweets, facebook updates.. You know how it goes.. And that’s before I’ve even got to the various iPlayer programs I simply must catch up on, not to mention the millions of YouTube clips I feel will enrich my life to no end..
I do slightly regret that I didn’t decide to do the course on the autistic spectrum which was also on offer. I would really have liked to have been reading that right now. But, I’m trying to use it as a carrot of sorts. If I manage to get through this course [ie find a way to utilise good days of fewer flashbacks, days when I have a reasonable level of concentration] then I’ll be allowed to do the autistic spectrum one after.
So, I suppose that’s all good. Especially the part where I am actually, actively, looking ahead, into the future. The last few months have been so rough, it’s been very hard to think like that, to imagine a time when things feel different, but right now things seems to have swung around for me a bit.
Also, since I’ve been back, I’ve been feeling a lot more creative. I have been working on my book, which is ever so slowly taking shape, and I find myself curious to find out where the characters will take me. And that’s always a good sign.
On top of that very specific writing, my sister and I also hatched an idea about setting up a collaborative writing site online, the idea being that you could go to the site, read something someone has posted and then take over the writing, or join in. I for one have several writing projects which I have started, but which are now mainly collecting dust on my harddrive. What you could do on this new site is to upload what you have written and invite others to complete it, or to co-write it with you. Or you might want to be someone else for a day [come on, we all have those days].. Well, you could go onto the site as a character and join in some playwriting, adding lines on behalf of your character. This is all still in its infancy, but, I only posted the idea late last night on another blog, and I’ve already had people contact me to say they would be interested in joining or starting writing projects.
Observant readers will have noticed that while I have written about how great it was to be with my sisters and how that’s really helped resetting the serotonin levels I’ve omitted to talk about seeing my father the first time in over two years. This is, of course, not by chance. In short, it was actually really lovely seeing him and his boyfriend, and spending time with them. But, knowing me, I tend to only begin processing these kind of encounters a while after getting back to the UK. So, keep an eye out and there will more than likely be an update on this particular part of my trip to Sweden.
In terms of not having therapy, well, there is no getting around it – that is still really hard. I miss my space to voice my thoughts. Of course I talk to my friends and I do my writing and all of that, but there just isn’t a substitute for therapy. Therapists definitely should not be allowed to have children! [..says the Therapist's Daughter..] July – or whenever A. in reality decides to go back to work – feels very very far away indeed..
Anyway, me and my new iPad and bluetooth keyboard need to get to the library now, so I’ll leave you here for now.
Do be kind to yourself, and enjoy the utterly ESSENTIAL YouTube video below..
All the very best and more,
xx
I really need to try this, but maybe on a black or gray canvas,
and just letting the crayons melt organically in the sun..
Had a couple of pretty good days this week. A blessed change, let me tell you. Even managed to go into town one day to do a bit of shopping. Can’t even remember the last time I did that. Didn’t stay out for a particularly long time, only a bit over an hour, but it was still good.
I’m flying out to Sweden in a couple of days time. I’m a bit nervous about it, the actual flight. I really hope it will be a good day of fewer flashbacks. That said, I have come up with something that does help me cope with them when I’m out and about; repeatedly solving the Rubik’s cube.
I kind of discovered it by accident. The Rubik’s cube had until January of this year been one of those puzzles I had never been able to solve, but always felt I should be able to solve. Then in late December I came across a video of Justin Bieber solving it. In about a minute and a half. Justin. Bieber. That really was the drop for me. I mean, seriously, if Justin Bieber could do it, then surely so could I? Right? So I set about learning how to do it.
In the very beginning it took me more than ten minutes to do it, start to finish, so I carried on working at it. Slowly I got faster. I learned a few shortcuts and solve-time went down even further. And still I kept at it. Until I felt confident I could out-cube young master Bieber any time of the day. I’m now down to a semi-respectable personal best of 51 seconds. [I say semi-respectable, but of course I'm nowhere near the current world record, set by Feliks Zemdegs, at 5.66 seconds]
In the process of doing this, I realised that I had been having significantly fewer flashbacks, and that those that I did have, were much shorter, because my brain was already kind of half-way out of them, focusing on solving the Rubik’s cube.
So, in the last several months, I’ve brought my cube with me pretty much everywhere, and it really does make things easier. Up until I discovered this I would usually just stay in, because the things I needed to do to come out of a flashback were things that were either self-soothing grounding techniques, which – while very effective and calming – look very odd from the outside, if you don’t know what I’m doing – or they were things that could be done fairly discretely, but were down-right unpleasant for me [like using smelling salts or sharply snapping a rubber band against my wrist].
Yes, I look like the biggest geek ever sitting on a bus or train solving my cube over and over, but at least it is something that both works and isn’t nasty. Also, you’d be surprised at how many people strike up conversations with you, when they see what you’re doing. It’s such an instantly recognisable and iconic toy, most people have something to say about it.
Anyway, I’m hoping that this little trick of mine will make the flight to Sweden a bit less difficult. My sister and nephew will be meeting me at the airport, so once I land, I should be OK.
I’m staying with my sister for a week, and my other sister is also coming over, so I’m really excited about this trip. I’ve not seen them since my birthday last year. Also, I am hoping that spending time with my sisters will help me out of this pretty serious dip I’ve found myself in.
I’m also going to stay at my father’s for a couple of days. Feel a bit nervous about that. I’ve not seen him in about two years. We do keep in touch through occasional phone calls, but I’ve not visited him in the last couple of years. I’m hoping seeing him will be OK. I think going to visit him is a lot less emotionally charged than going to see my mother, who still lives in the house I grew up in, where there are reminders of the abuse I experienced all over the place. My father’s place is very different, in that respect. At the same time, of course it’s not just the place that is the problem with going home; it’s also the inter-personal conflicts this family trauma has caused that I have to deal with. And that, of course, is the same regardless of where I see my family. So, we’ll have to wait and see how it goes.
Really missing therapy at the moment. Actually not just therapy, but A. It’s hard trying to find a good balance; to not switch all emotions off in order to protect myself, and at the same time not allowing myself to go too deep into my feelings and risk getting stuck and acting out. So, a therapy session or fifty would be pretty darn dandy right about now.
I’ve had about a million people asking if there isn’t anyone else I could see while A. is on maternity leave. The truth is, that if I really wanted to, of course I could find someone to see short term. In fact, I considered seeing our newly appointed social worker at shul, for a while. But, the thing is – I do have other people to talk to. I have my sisters, my friends, even the Samaritans. So, it’s not just talking I need. It’s something else, too. It’s that special space that therapy creates, and most importantly, it’s the therapeutic relationship I have formed with A. over the last three years. [Three years today, I just realised – Happy anniversary us!] It’s not something that can be easily emulated. And I think that, as hard-going as it is – not having therapy, not seeing A. – it would frustrate me to no end, trying to create something similar to what I get from therapy. Looking for something different feels much more productive.
It’s been a long time, I know, but I’ll try to put you all back in the picture, as I know you will have all been eagerly awaiting my next update. [What? No?]
In the last few weeks I have been dealing with one of those much dreaded periods of flashbacks, and things have often felt completely and utterly hopeless. The flashbacks have by no means gone, but there have been a few days every once in a while when there have been fewer, and I’ve been able to find at least a little breathing space in between. When things are bad, that’s the time to focus on small blessings.
At the beginning of last week I had to go into hospital for a whole battery of tests and examinations. Part of these was a gynaecological exam, which for me is essentially an equivalent to psychological torture through physical means. I always try to prepare whoever is doing the exam by explaining that I come from a background of having been sexually abused as a child, and that these exams are pretty much garanteed to trigger off flashbacks; in short that they may need to brace themselves for my emotional response. They then usually say something along the lines of “Don’t worry, darling, I’ve seen it all before”, which is of course very kind and much appreciated, but it generally tends to become apparent that this is not really the case. When they’re faced with the sobbing heap these exams turn me into, it’s often clear that I react worse than most people they’ve examined. This then spirals into this odd cycle of them feeling sorry for me, and me feeling sorry for them having to carry out the exam on me..
So, not nice at all.
This particular nurse was absolutely fantastic, though, I have to say. It was very obvious that she was affected by my reaction to what she was doing, but because she was very open about that, I found that somehow reassuring and it in many ways it helped bring me out of the flashbacks and back into the here and now where we both were.
Concurrent with the flashbacks and general depression I have this week come down with some seriously nasty bug. This bug, by the way, is completely unrelated to the hospital thing, unless I have really lucked out and managed to contract MRSA while I was there..
At first I thought it was just hay fever, as this is the season when I usually have to stay indoors with my inhaler close to hand at all times. Had a very painful throat – not sore – painful, something I don’t usually get with my hay fever, but initially I just assumed that my body had decided to take my allergies to the next level. As it turns out this wasn’t it. Came down with a 39C temperature [that's 102F, if you're so inclined] in the middle of the week, and it’s been going ever since. So, what with the painful throat and the fever I’ve essentially had to be on paracetamol non-stop. It’s not great, Ibuprofen tends to be more effective, but for various reasons I am currently banned from taking that particular pain reliever, so there you go.
Feeling miserable on all levels is not a great place to exist and things have been unbelievably difficult. I know my last entry was pretty dire, and from there I suppose you could say things went south. Having no therapy has been really challenging, it feels like years until A. returns from maternity leave. But, I am still around, still fighting – even if the evidence of this has not been posted on my blog.
This Friday I had been invited to two sedarim – the special meal eaten by Jews on the first night of Pesach, but instead I spent the evening in bed, fighting flashbacks and this blasted bug. Last night I had booked a place at the communal 2nd night seder at my shul together with many of my friends. I did make it there, in fact even went for a pre-seder drink with one of my friends, but didn’t make it through the meal. Was feeling incredibly rough and then began having flashbacks, and I had to make the decision that I needed to make sure I could make it home safely before things got even worse. Hated having to leave, but as it turns out it was probably a wise choice.
This morning I woke up having absolutely no voice.
I have lost my voice in the past, but never quite this completely, and it’s kind of an interesting thing; the second you discover you have no voice [in my case when I began recording a voice message for my sister] you realise how much you rely on it.
I don’t usually use my phone or computer on Shabbat or during religious festivals. This is not so much because it’s biblically and/or rabbinically decreed that one should not use iPads or Blackberrys during festivals, as much as – being a modern reform Jew – I’ve made the informed decision that for me stepping away from all my techie gadgets and disconnecting for a bit makes those times different to other times. I am normally contactable at any given moment, day or night, be it through texts, Facebook updates or tweets, and so I like to make Shabbat and festivals different and special to other days, through unplugging in this way. Admittedly, most of my friends think this is completely bonkers, but hey, it’s just the way I roll.
However, since that accidental-on-purpose over-dose the other week, I decided that it’s actually a lot more life-embracing to temporarily break that self-imposed rule than to keep it. Which is why you are seeing this update today, during a week I would normally steer clear of modern technology.
To help me through particularly rough patches over these past few weeks I have often sought support over the telephone from my sisters, my friends and the Samaritans, regardless of whether or not this has been on Shabbat. Being able to talk about what’s going on, both physically and psychologically, makes me feel less like I’m on my own in this.
So, as you can imagine, waking up this morning, with no voice at all, has come as a bit of a shock, and has left me feeling very vulnerable. Which is why I’m sitting here now, writing this..
I guess that even when you haven’t got an audible voice, you can still find ways of making yourself heard.
Sitting here, thinking I really ought to update my blog, yet at the same time not really knowing what I want to write about. I’ve got that feeling where you know there is a lot of stuff buzzing around your brain, yet you can’t quite be still enough to figure out what it is. Thoughts and emotions doing this strange little dance, a bit too quick to really figure it out. So I think I’ll just write whatever comes to mind, and we’ll see where that gets us. [If anywhere!]
Have settled into my new place reasonably well by now. Still hate the shared space, I mean, there’s no getting away from the fact that the bathroom and kitchen are both minging. But I feel OK in my room, don’t actually mind the small size of it much at all.
Bought myself a small fridge the other week, because the ones in the kitchen are kind of icky and way too small for five people. And if my landlord won’t supply us with adequate fridges, I’m just gonna get my own. [It's rated A for energy efficiency, so I don't feel too bad about the extra electricity, since it's about as 'green' as they come]. Also, being fully vegetarian, I just really don’t like the idea of my stuff sharing a shelf with meat based food. Having been vegetarian for quite a few years by now I’m a bit funny about keeping my food separate from meaty stuff. I also have my own pots, pans and crockery which have never been used for meat. This isn’t a bid to keep kosher; I just prefer things this way. I’ve no problem going to people’s house and eating from dishes that have been used for meat, I regularly get vegetarian food from places where they also do non-vegetarian food, but at home I prefer to keep things separate. There’s no logic to it, I’m the first to admit that, but it’s how I like it, so why not?
Been watching “Kill It, Cut It, Use It” on BBC iPlayer this week. For those of you who haven’t seen it it’s a series about how animal by-products are used in things we use every day. I personally think that to a large degree it’s better to use waste products from the meat industry, rather than to just chuck it, and have found it really interesting to learn about how there are animal products in just about everything. I was never a vegetarian because I felt that it’s wrong to kill animals [although I'm all for treating animals with respect] so I’ve no real problem using washing powders, cosmetics etc which contain ingredients derived from animal by-products. That said, if I have one hand cream which states “suitable for vegetarians” and one which doesn’t say either way, I’m much more likely to go for the former. Again, no logic – but it works for me.
What I do take issue with are products made from things where the primary reason for killing the animal was to get the “by-product”. Think ivory and fur etc. Or cosmetics which have been tested on animals. [Still undecided on how I feel about medicines which have been animal tested]. And although my knowledge and understanding of these processes is undeniably limited I do try to make ethical choices when shopping.
There are lots and lots of things that I don’t know about, and reading ingredient listings often feels like trying to read a foreign language – especially with the industry being very very good at masking ingredients – but I try. I try to educate myself, try to do what I can to make good choices, and I guess that’s all I can really do.
At J-Prep someone crowned me “eco-warrior princess” because I would always carry my empty bottles and cans back home with me, to make sure they went in the recycling bin in my borough [it's a very good borough for recycling compared to the one where my shul is], and although my classmates would give me a bit of friendly stick about it, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I know that what I do won’t change the world, but maybe, just maybe it makes a tiny little bit of difference, just the same.
And if you think I’m a bit OTT – well, you should see my sister!
It’s August, people. Can you believe it? Whatever happened to June and July? I must have blinked and missed them.. How ’bout you?
Stuff is happening here. Good stuff, bad stuff – and stuff too complex to even contemplate categorising. You know how it goes.
Went home at the beginning of July. Lovely drive up with my sister, her dog and her partner. [My sister's partner, that is, not her dog's partner..] Groovy stuff. Funky times. And music to match.
Also, pre driving up north I got the chance to spend a bit of time with my friend E., who I hadn’t seen in wayyy too long. A person who understands the unique and magic healing powers of good friends and a cup of tea.
Driving up north was kind of cool, and not only owing to the A/C. As we set out pretty late in the day, it should have grown darker and darker, but since we were driving closer and closer to the arctic circle, it was actually getting lighter and lighter. One of the many fantastic things about The North. Big time funkiness.
Stayed at my mum’s place, which was what I had been wanting to do. And even though it’s always a bit of a juggle getting the balance right between spending time with her, hanging out with my sisters and seeing my friends, I think it went reasonably ok. Sadly this time my friends drew the shortest straw, but hopefully it won’t be too long before my next visit. And, thankfully, I have the most amazing friends, who stand by me despite hardly getting to see me. Ehrm.. or maybe they’re sticking with me because they don’t have to see me too often. :) Nah! Not really.
Had a blast getting to know my newest nephew better, once he, my other sister and her husband joined us in our hometown.
Other happy memories include my 4-year-old niece teaching us all how to lawn-surf, spending a night at the summer house partaking of a traditional Sister’s Day meal, cuddling up on the sofa with my oldest niece, and watching my mum’s King Charles gulfing down a pound of sweets in seconds flat, only to be projectile vomiting the rest of the evening. Ok, so the last wasn’t really all that funny, but still..
That said, the truth is that being home does take something of an emotional toll. I don’t think it will ever be entirely straightforward going home. “You can always go home, but you can never go back”. True, that.
What else? Well, I’m still doing a shift a week at work. Has been a few times when I haven’t feel able to go, but on the days when I have it’s always been a very positive experience.
Therapy has shifted up a gear. I’m seeing A. three times a week now, which makes for a much better session-to-session flow. Also, I think, I am more ready to really challenge myself to delve deeper. To not come up for air at the first sign of being under water. Wow – that’s an exceptionally poor metaphor – my apologies, but let’s surf with it just the same; hopefully you still get what I’m saying.. Basically, I’m trying to avoid a deus ex machina ending to my therapy; to stick with it, rather than to look for a desperate ‘out’. [I feel my literature professor from uni would cringe at my casual implementation of one of his favourite Latin expressions.]
Last week felt like a pivotal point in therapy. Big time. I guess I have reached the conclusion that therapy is about daring to be honest. With myself. To sit with my feelings and to accept them, even the ones that I’d rather not admit to having.
Anyhow, my dears – the hour is getting late.
[Yup – that's a lie, but, so what? This isn't therapy.]
All the very best and more,
xx
This blog was sponsored by the word FUNKY, the expression BIG TIME and the letter BEIT. No animals or children were intentionally harmed in the writing of this blog.
Well, I’m still alive. That’s a start, I suppose. Has been a bit of a rocky road since I got back from Sweden, the highlight being doing laps around the place where I bought anti-freeze last time I tried to off myself, trying to work up the guts to actually go in and get it. Only by sheer coincidence I bumped into D, my ex-counsellor, and of course after that I simply couldn’t go and buy that life-terminating liquid. Not knowing how hard she worked with me to help me overcome my self-punitive habit.
Anyway, things are somewhat better now. I think. I’m currently seeing my GP on a weekly basis, as I’m still not trusted with more than a week’s worth of tablets at a time..
Earlier this week I had set up an appointment with my boss at the place where I’m volunteering, because I felt I wanted to explain my absence to her. I had, already at the interviewing stage told my then boss about my semi-regular cycle of major depression, but he has since left, and I felt I wanted to have a chat with my current boss about it. I was more than a little nervous going there, since my work environment is one where mental health is very important, and I wasn’t at all sure if my current boss would look on my history of depression as something that should stop me from continuing my work there; people have such differing ideas about mental illness, including depression. Some people view it as “the the common cold of mental illness”; something which most people have to go through at some stage in their lives, while others see it as something strange and therefore frightening. Luckily for me my boss seemed to fall into the former category. Basically, her view was that my going into a depression won’t directly affect my work, since if I’m too depressed I simply won’t be coming in. Also, we worked out this deal that when I start over I’ll only be doing the one shift a week, rather than the three days I had been doing prior to becoming unwell. My boss was really good, and told me that what she’d do is to not actually put me on the rota for the first month, so that if I feel I’m not quite ok to come in one day I won’t need to feel bad about it, since they’ll already be fully staffed.
Was meant to start a new course in May. But, for obvious reasons, I’ve not been able to study at all. Feels like such a shame, since I’d really been looking forward to this course ever since I finished the last one in January. I’m not entirely sure how to sort this out, but I’ve emailed my tutor to ask if it’s possible to either push the deadlines for the essays I need to write, or to defer completely and take the course the next time it’s offered (in the autumn). A part of me really wants to be able to just push the deadlines, but at the same time I have to be realistic, and I can’t know that a week or two will be sufficient time for me to get back mentally to where I need to be to do this course.
I finally worked up the courage to ask A. to increase my number of sessions. Up until now I’ve been seeing her twice weekly, but from next week I’ll be seeing her three times a week. I think this will be a positive change, especially since the additional session will be on a Wednesday afternoon, meaning that – hopefully – there will be a natural continuation, a flow, from my Tuesday evening session. I’m really curious to see how this change will affect my therapy.
What else? Well, I’ve decided to go home for a bit this summer. I’m flying to Stockholm, and then spending a night at a friend’s place before going up north by car with my youngest sister and her boyfriend. Roadtrip 2010, here I come!
Finally – to all my friends and to my wonderful wonderful sisters:
I am so glad that you’ve all rallied around me and given me such amazing support over the past several weeks. I feel blessed.
In the words of Ms Morissette:
“.. you see everything
you see every part
you see all my light
and you love my dark
you dig everything
of which I am ashamed
there’s not anything
to which you can’t relate..
..and you’re still here..”
Having one of them days again. You know. The kind when you struggle to get out of bed, despite the sun shining outside of your window – or possibly because the sun is shining outside the window. I dunno. Or, actually, I do know. I just think my reason for getting like this is a bit lame..
It’s his birthday today. Consequently the day I least want to celebrate or even remember. Only I do. Remember it, I mean. Not celebrate. It seems impossible for me to just forget it. Every year it reminds me of his existence, the effect he’s had on my life and even, for better or worse, the person that I am.
On the more positive side it’s my sister’s birthday on Tuesday. Something I do want to celebrate. For all the difficulties in my life, I am blessed to have the two best sisters the universe has ever seen. They do get me through an awful lot of things, just by being who they are, and by allowing me to share in their lives. And for that I am eternally grateful.
Tomorrow is two years to the day since I was first admitted to the women’s crisis centre. I think back and realise how much my life has changed since then. It’s almost unrecognisable. Back then I was one of those people who poured all of me, all my energy, into my job and I was struggling with the idea that I wasn’t able to work. In all honesty, I still struggle with that, because, I like working, I like feeling like I’m of some use to the world around me. But, I can also see that I needed that time off. That it’s been useful and necessary. Had I not taken that time, I doubt it I would still be here now.
As I’ve mentioned before I do some unpaid work these days. Not much, but enough to feel like it makes a difference. And recently I’ve actually upped the hours, which I think is a step in the right direction. I may not feel quite ready to go back to full-time paid employment, but I do enjoy having a sense of purpose in what little work I do do. Also, I am toying with the idea of studying. More than toying, really – but we’ll see if anything comes of it.
I have three long-term goals that I’m working towards. Life-time goals, more accurately, and I feel pretty sure that I will find a way to make them happen. I just don’t know how soon or in what order.
Either way, it doesn’t really matter. The point is that I have those goals. I think it’s important to have goals, a sense of journey, of going somewhere. Sure enough, life throws you curve-balls, and sometimes you simply can’t catch them; you have to settle for dodging them. But all the same, having a goal does help with all that.
I was at synagogue yesterday morning, and I was sitting – as I always do – with a person who is a long-standing member of the congregation. And I was thinking to myself: How blessed am I?
Two years ago I was at a place where I saw no meaning at all in sticking around. I just wanted to pack up, close the shop,catch the bus. And yet, here I was, two years later, in a place I’d never thought I’d find myself, with people I would never have met, feeling completely and utterly filled with gratitude. Thinking that I wouldn’t want to miss this for anything.
And this is what I try to keep in mind today, struggling as I am with difficult thoughts and feelings – that, if I don’t find a way to make it through today, that means I won’t be here tomorrow.
And if I’m not here tomorrow, who’s to say I won’t be missing out on a day like yesterday?
Had my first session at A.’s new place yesterday. Owing to my negative sense of direction I gave myself a ridiculous amount of time to find the place. As it turns out it was both needed and not needed. Went down the wrong road twice (not great when you’ve got a knee injury which is making every step agony) – but I still found the road well in time for session, meaning I ended up loitering on a side street for some thirty minutes. Luckily someone in the area had an open internet connection so I filled the time randomly browsing the interweb. Also it gave me the time to read another chapter of Dr Maroda’s book. (See previous post).
As I’ve mentioned in earlier blog offerings anxiety levels have been on a steady upward curve for the last couple of weeks, since I found out about A.’s move. Things, big things, are stirring inside of me. I do realise this is not all to do with A.’s move; the effect is far in excess of the cause. Admittedly, there are a number of things happening in my life, all of which have an effect – but this still feels different, disconnected somehow, to present events. It feels like a change on a much, much deeper level – outside of specific causes; on a basic human level.
Last Thursday I suddenly felt absolutely overwhelmed by emotions. I happened to be on the phone with my sisters at the time, but even that didn’t help. It was a tsunami-like wave of feelings that completely swept me off my feet, made me loose my grip. So I hung up on my sisters to try to deal with this. My initial feeling – or actually it was more of a self-protective instinct – was to try to shut down. Only I couldn’t. Next this very intense urge to cut hit me, wanting desperately to reach for those scalpels. But even at the height of intensity, in the middle of the urge, I knew that I wasn’t going to resort to that. Instead I tried to just stay in the moment – allow those feelings to be. To not fight them, even though every cell in my body was preparing for flight mode. I ended up curled up in bed, foetal position, unable to do anything but just breathe. In and out, through the experience. Just breathing. That was all I could cope with.
Getting a scalpel out would have been the easy option, but I knew that something big was happening, and that I had to find a way to let it. I had one single thought in my head that I can consciously remember: I need to find a way to bring this experience to session on Tuesday.
So this session, the first one at The New Place, was, at least for me, very different to other sessions. I’m not sure if it was noticeable to A., but I was very consciously allowing myself to just go quiet every time a feeling came over me. I didn’t really try to verbalise it much, because for me, even just allowing the feelings to exist (as opposed to immediately, and by any means necessary, control them) is pretty big. I don’t know if it showed on my face or not; it’s possible that to the outside world it would not have been possible to discern this difference in me. But, to me, this was a huge step. To allow myself to fully feel. And in the presence of another person.
At one stage in the session, having tried to explain what happened on Thursday (and has been happening – albeit in smaller doses – since then) to A. I asked if maybe this is me regressing. I posed it as a question, but, really I suppose what I was doing was trying to tell A. that this is what I believe is happening.
Later A. asked what I was regressing to, and also commented that I seem unsure as to whether I’m going backwards or forwards. I explained that I don’t really think of it as regressing backwards in a real sense, but more about somehow allowing myself to feel the things I should have felt a long time ago. Acknowledging these feelings.
As I said that a song popped into my head, so I quoted part of it to A.:
“..I will crawl through my past
over stones blood and glass
in the ruins
Reaching under the fence as I try to make sense in the ruins..
But if I am to heal
I must first learn to feel
in the ruins..”
Now, I’m not convinced about the need to be crawling over stones, blood or glass, nor am I sure that it is possible to make sense of the ruins or the damage done – some things are simply senseless – but I do think that there is a need to explore the past. Not necessarily through recounting and re-visiting every single memory in graphically verbalised detail – but rather through a true acceptance of the feelings attached to those memories.
“..if I am to heal, I must first learn to feel..”
So, frightening and painful as this experience is, I am absolutely sure that without allowing these emotions to play out you can’t bring about real change. Yes, you can change things on the surface. Of course you can. But not on a real lasting and deep level. For that you need to accept yourself as a vulnerable, feeling human being.
xx
PS. I was going to post a link to a YouTube clip of Melissa Etheridge performing Ruins – but I couldn’t find one that matched in emotion what the lyrics are saying. They all seemed too “showy”. Instead I recommend you listen to the studio version, which can be found on ME’s 1993 Yes, I Am-album.
Don’t quite know where to start this entry, so.. three deep breaths and here we go.. Don’t forget that spoonful of courage before you dive in!
Seriously.
Today is a week ago since my little brother’s wedding, and it has been a pretty hellish week for me. Went down, deep below the surface of living, drowning in pain. And I’m only now, slowly, slowly re-emerging.
It’s what I do when I’m in the depths of despair (to use an Anne of Green Gables-ism). I disappear. I cut off from everyone who could possibly make me feel better. It’s a many faceted thing; it’s firstly self-deprivation – a sense that I simply don’t deserve to be in touch with the people who love me the most and who would actually be willing to do anything to help me. It’s also a wish to protect them from the blackness that I’m feeling, almost as if I worry that I will somehow drag them down with me, tarnish their purity with my own darkness. And I don’t want them to see me when I’m at my very lowest. Because it’s an excruciatingly frightening thing to witness. I know this from personal experience. This last aspect – the wish to protect – extends first and foremost (although not exclusively) to my sisters. But it’s a double edged sword.. I want to protect them from the experience of seeing me at the verge of suicide by not being in touch with them, but because they know me so well, they know that I would never ever cut them off in this way unless I’m actually at that point. Which, I imagine, is just as frightening. And so knowing that I’m doing that to them, well, it feeds into this cycle of self-disgust, and I end up being even more angry with all that I am. And round and round I go.
During these last few days I have been going from being all-consumed with pain, just curled up in bed, crying, unable to move, speak, think, to completely switching off all emotions. From one to the other in three quarters of a split second. And it completely freaks me out. Because it’s when I do that – when I switch off suddenly like that – that my impulsively destructive behaviour comes into play. Spent two full days playing the choking game repeatedly, coiling a cord round my neck three times and pulling hard until I black out. A dangerous game, that really isn’t a game at all, since it could potentially have a deadly consequence. But I just can’t stop myself when I’m like that.
It’s like there is so much pain that I forget – or worse – ignore the rational part of myself, the part that wants to live and wants to work through my issues, and all I can think is to make the pain go away, any way possible, including killing myself.
Needless to say, it’s been a pretty rough week for me. And I’m not entirely sure I’m over it. But, yesterday I had another worried text from my sister, which, for some reason got through to something inside me: “No blog and no sound.. Makes me wonder where you are..”
And I thought to myself, I just can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep punishing myself and others for something that simply wasn’t my fault. So I texted back.
A single word. “Drifting.”
To which my beloved more than sister replied:
“..but somewhere below you there’s people who love you. ..and they’re ready for you to come home..”
So, I guess that’s what I’m doing now; trying to find my way back home.
