Another Day, Another Dollar Before Taxes

Image Copyright: Victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

Ugh. Times are so stressful right now that I'm avoiding talking about them and thinking of ways to avoid talking to my therapist about them - a wonderful sign. Avoidance, it's what I do best. It's one of the symptoms - the dream to run away, to just get out, to be safe with yourself alone.

Of course, the main thing I want to run away from is my impending surgery. I don't like being trapped or feeling broken. I feel broken enough as it is at times. I think 'differently,' 'act differently,' if people become inconsistent in their behaviours I think they are up to something rather than things may be happening in their lives that they are having trouble with. Now, for a while, I'll be holed up in my apartment with naught but ze internet to keep me company.

I'm also having a hard time switching 'brains' lately. I decided, since I'd be stuck all Rear Window in my house, to take an online writing course which I'm enjoying. However, I'm taking a real life finance course. This weekend, when I had homework due for both, it took a lot for me to switch from story mode to Financial Statement Analysis Mode. If nothing else, it proves the mode I should be in, that my brain wants to be in. Why must I suffer the slings and arrows of ballance sheets and vertical analysis?

Because I want to pay the rent.

Anyone out there want to be a generous sponsor like in the good ol' days? Heck, I'll dedicate my first published item to you. Artists should be free of the confines and shackles of finance so they may spend their time creating art. Art is the proof of existence of life.

*sigh*

Well, since I don't have the time to write as much as I'd like, I'm trying to 'write with my photos' as it were. I used to do this when I painted more often, take pictures and then use them to influence current work, much as Chewy has described her process (only she's a way better painter than I ever was). Now I'm doing that to try and keep ideas for future writing assignments.

So, what kind of story does the above look like to you?

Depression Inventory

(Click on image for larger view)

The above is the depression inventory worksheet I must fill out every few months or so. It's interesting to note the overlap with anxiety (change in sleeping patterns, irritability, changes in concentration). I think a lot of these illnesses do have overlap, or one can be a symptom of another, so it's tough to pin down.

Depression is a big word in the states it seems. Every day I hear that damn commercial on television, "Depression hurts, Cymbalta can help." To some degree I think the popularity of depression has made it harder to deal with. Mainly because people have a right to get sad, yet when you are the word 'depression' immediately springs to mind whether warranted or not. Clinical depression and situational depression are different beasts with similar characteristics. The main thing that saddens me about this is the increase in the number of children taking medications for depression. While some may be warranted, the increasing numbers are frightening, especially when you look at the side effects (suicide being one of them).

It was hard for me to admit that I have periods of depression. But I do, I get irritable (around a 2), I feel guilty (2 at its highest, thankfully), my appetite can fluctuate from eating nothing to eating an entire pizza (plus dessert). However, happily, no matter how depressed I have gotten I haven't lost hope in the future, nor do I feel like a failure. I may have the fleeting thought of how easy it would be to step in front of a train, but I won't do it.

It is interesting to monitor my mood though. When I first started I had to keep an 'anxiety journal' and fill out the anxiety sheet once a week along with a daily monitoring (what was the highest point of anxiety today, what triggered it, etc.) In the end, it's about becoming aware of your feelings and recognizing that there is nothing wrong with them, really. Just figuring out what the triggers are to certain exaggerated responses (my tailspins). And just realizing that these little events affect me helps to put me back in control.

Dealing With the Holes

One of the first things I had to deal with in my current therapy is dealing with the holes in my memory. Or, really, just accepting that I’m not going to remember everything and that it’s probably for the best. I don’t want to drown in my own past as I’m moving toward a positive future now, do I?

For the most part that’s fine. I don’t remember everything. I want to write things down just to gain ownership over them, to accept that they are part of me, my past, and to realize that damn it, I was a kid and shouldn’t feel guilt over things from childhood.

Then something happens, like yesterday, and the holes come back and I’m staring in the shadows and wondering just what the hell happened.

My foot has been hurting me for sometime and I have had x-rays and such and going to physical therapy for it. Then the other foot started to hurt so I went to my doctor. Well, he was running late so the head of the practice was there and figured, why make her wait for my partner? And took me in. He wasn’t happy.

See, after two x-rays, it turns out I have a fracture in one foot and a break in the other. These have apparently been there since childhood. He asked if I had some accident when I was younger.

These are the questions that spiral me, so I had a hard time asking or answering other questions after that. With people without my past, I wonder if they’d shrug and think something happened in their rambunctious years. But with me, I wonder if my parents did something and then never took me to the doctors. That was the first thought, “What the F*ck happened?” Because I didn’t go to the doctor’s much when younger, not that I remember. There were a few ER visits, but those are a long story and I was away at camp when that adventure started.

Then I begin to think, “Well, maybe they did take me to a doctor but it was one of those free clinics,” because really, that’s what we could afford. I’ve been dealing with so many dental issues caused from these free clinics when I was younger. I have one more tooth left to fix, one that was given half a root canal then covered with a temporary and never finished. I don’t even remember the work every being done, but now I have to have it fixed.

It’s tough, and will be even tougher as I have to have surgery and be laid up for two weeks. It reminds me how physically alone I am here without a family to help out a bit. Who’ll catch me if I fall? I get tired of setting up nets myself to catch me, you know? A nice hand someday. Of course, that’s what I’m working toward, breaking down enough of the walls that I’ll be open to another’s hands one day. And, of course, accepting that I’ll never know how those bones broke.

*sigh*

Image taken from www.picturingpeace.org

Excuse Me, But Your Issues Are Showing

Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy by Géricault, Jean Louis Théodore

I know some of my issues, how they carry over in life. One, I’m trying so hard to work on, and that is only liking others that are pained. It’s more a case of, “how can you understand me if you don’t also hurt?”

But, as I come out of that hurt viewpoint of myself, where I see myself as broken and thus think only others that are in pieces can connect with me, I realize what a disservice I’m doing to myself and others.

I became ‘best friends’ with my friend, Xiomara, when we cried over parental issues. In college, I hated those shiny happy people so much. I felt they were vapid, stupid, unaware of the world around them. When someone told me their only concern in life was to be happy I shot them down, “how can you care about just being ‘happy’?” I challenged. “Are you really that shallow that all that matters is fun and happiness?”

It’s a hard one; it really is, wishing to see the cracks in people, to focus on other’s pain kind of as a way to validate your own. “Because everybody hurts, sometimes.” And, because if there is a perfect family out there maybe everything was really my fault.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say. For so long I felt like I couldn’t identify with anyone who wasn’t also troubled, but then we just fed into each other’s insecurities and depression. It’s so easy to think the whole world is just a disaster when you surround yourself with the detritus of the American family, those cast aside, thrown out in the gutter with no loving arms to wrap themselves in. It’s also really easy to think that those who have what you want – those with a chance at love – are beneath you and ‘can’t comprehend the real world’ and live in a delusion. But then, we were living in our own delusion, one that was just a bottomless pit of despair.

I was being discriminatory, not giving anyone a chance, not letting anyone who seemed put together know me because they ‘couldn’t possibly understand’ when I think, honestly, I just didn’t want to be hurt by anyone again. Rejection is easier if you’re the one doing it.

That’s my new directive, to allow people in past these walls that have built up. To give them a chance to love, despite all the scars and scabs I pick at until they bleed all over again. Give someone else a chance to care for me as I am, and in doing so acknowledge that I am a person worthy of affection from ‘the normals’ out there.

And never discount someone’s life just because it is different then your own.

Actually, I think I've succeeded in a lot of this a while ago, as I get along fine with people from all walks of life - nuclear family or no. I can 'connect' with people no matter the 'pain,' and that's what I'm looking for, to recognize that I can (and have) been able to accept people who haven't had a background similiar to mine, and to move forward in the future realizing my worth to society at large, not just the fringes.

So Much To Say, So Little Focus

Photo by Anthony M. from Rome, Italy

I haven’t answered my doorbell (actually, more like a buzzer. Or, more appropriately, like that part in Dumb and Dumber when Jim Carey makes the most annoying sound in the world, that’s my doorbell) in maybe a month. It could be longer, or a little less.

At first I was just tired. I was in school two nights a week, working 6 days a week, and dealing with an elderly neighbor who didn’t understand what ‘no’ meant. She kept calling and ringing my bell because of computer issues. Like, she didn’t know how to turn it on, turn it off, plug it in. I hooked her up, helped her fill out rebate forms, taught her how to open Word, etc., then told her I was really busy. But alas, in the end I just stopped answering my door.

For about two weeks every day there’d be the buzz. I really do hate that sound. Still, I left it unanswered. Then, another elderly neighbor ran into me in the hallway – she was the one who had been buzzing my doorbell. She had a gift she wanted to give me for helping her out while she was in the hospital. I felt bad that I’d been ignoring her rings for the past couple weeks.

But still, I’m not answering it. I haven’t talked to my therapist about this, but I talked to Xiomara. She summed it up easily.

“I don’t answer it either,” she said. “Because it’s quiet, and then, it’s just not.”

It’s the ‘just not’ that I don’t like.

When the buzzer sounds, lately, I’ve been jumpy. So whatever I’m doing in my nice quiet apartment is disturbed, and I leap, and my heart races. Then, I get mad at the person on the other side of the buzzer and just refuse to answer because of that. Plus, I’m not expecting anyone, so figure there’s no reason for anyone to ring my bell. If I had ordered a pizza or something, I’d answer. But I’m not. Instead, my silence is being disturbed.

Anyway, so after my grandmother post I started thinking about her so sent her a little note. A really little note, tiny in fact. Co-workers weren’t sure the post office would mail something that small. It was just a little ‘thinking of you’ note to let them know I care.

I received back a three page letter, very sweet, very affirming. Very interesting, in that she mentioned my mother went to their house a couple times asking about me. She lives about three hours away from them last I knew. She was thrown out of their property, and they didn’t say anything. But it’s interesting that she even went there in the first place. . .

At least it didn’t lead to as many nightmares as I thought it might. I did have a dream that she came to my door and was banging on it, I screamed at her to leave me alone and then called 911. There was another dream, unsettling, but mainly just another ‘trapped with her’ dream. But, I was still able to sleep (without the aid of Ambien) so – improvement!

A Continuation From Yesterday- Anxiety and Public RestRooms

Okay, I thought I’d give another example of simple pervasive anxiety and how I have to walk myself through it.

Public Bathrooms.

That’s right- public bathrooms. Every time I go in I check the door, make sure it says ‘women,’ and then for some weird reason once I’m actually in the bathroom think I went in the wrong one.

Of course this is ridiculous, especially at work when the men’s bathroom is down the hallway about half a block. But the minute the door opens I think I entered the wrong one and will get in trouble.

So I have to think: Okay, you checked the door twice, yes? You hear the copier; the copier is outside the women’s room. This is the ladies room. There were no urinals when you entered- this means it’s not the men’s room. And if it was? So what? You are in a stall, they can’t see you; you can’t see them. Everyone goes to the bathroom.

These thoughts get worse at school, as the men’s and women’s room are right next to each other, but again, there are no urinals when I enter so why the thought that I entered the wrong room? And more importantly, what does it really matter?

It’s funny to me because in life I have purposely gone into the men’s room many times, such as at plays and in restaurants when the woman’s line is too long. Nothing happens. Once, one guy was a bit off –put but then laughed it off. (I do make sure the room is empty by asking a man who comes out, and a friend usually watches the door, or a manager). So what harm is there? Heck, I’ve even had to cover a friend once when both lines were so long she went around back to the bushes. Nothing bad happened (though I suppose that time what she was doing WAS illegal) so why the anxiety?

The simple answer in my mind is that when that stress or whatever hits it tries to find a way to completely undermine myself and take away my self-control. Depending upon how self-confident I am, I might worry until I see some feminine shoes walk by, though I’m stopping myself faster now as the CBT comes in – the main thing being, I already checked the sign twice, I know the area, and in the end if I’m in the wrong bathroom who really cares?

It just annoys me at times that these thoughts creep in and can be so pervasive about such stupid little things.

Picture taken by Stefan Kühn from http://commons.wikimedia.org

Dealing With PTSD Symptoms

This was asked of me recently, how to handle it now that I’ve got it. To keep the monster at bay, as it were. During the worst of it I have ended up on the phone with my therapists crying uncontrollably as she walks me through breathing exercises. Okay, that happened once. Maybe twice that same weekend, the weekend before I decided to start the blog.

This blog actually does help because it has me going through the thought processes I need to practice and is part of the CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy). Not that I told my therapist I’m doing this online, although she knows I write every day.

What CBT entails, as is my understanding, is kind of rethinking the way I think. For example, When something unexpected happens my mind can immediately become fatalist and think a. I did something wrong (as I always do) b. This cannot end well but only in disaster. So when that thought pops in my head that I did do ‘something wrong’ I rethink the situation. Maybe a real world example is in order.

The other day I had to deliver some letters to a bigwig in the company and was given detailed instructions for his secretary. I had forgotten to write down his office number, so went by memory. When I get to the office I think is his it’s a little dark, and there’s no sign on the door. I peak my head in and see no secretary, so I look around but per my memory, it has to me his office. So I walk in again and see another open door and an older gentleman sitting there. He asks me what I want, I ask if this is so and so’s office, he says yes. Then I ask if I am speaking with so and so, he says yes. So I give him the documents to sign, he tells me he has a meeting but he’ll call me when he’s signed them.

My first thoughts were that I did something wrong, that he’s going to call my boss and tell her he was offended in some way because I didn’t know who he was. I immediately go to this whole scenario where she’s mad at me because I made the department look bad. So using CBT I have to really walk myself through the situation again: I have never met him, so how am I supposed to know what he looks like? I was respectful the entire time and completed my task. There was nothing that I did wrong. But, because the secretary wasn’t there and the plan had the slight deviation, my first thought is of doom.

This is what I’m practicing until it becomes second nature. As the first thought is doom and failure I have to walk my way through the thought process and realize that nothing bad happened and see the other options that are there for me. But first this means paying close attention to those initial thoughts as they creep into my mind.

A New Life Is Dawning

A foreshortened life is a major ‘symptom’ of PTSD. The sense that you won’t live long, the feeling that the end is near. I never thought of that as a symptom really. It was a fact in my heart for so long – I truly couldn’t imagine life after 21 as much as I was preparing for college. The thought that I would survive? Not there.

This led to what some would call, ‘suicidal tendencies’ even if I told myself I was never really suicidal. And I wasn’t – because my life wasn’t my own to take. Yes, I was told that on more than one occasion. Although it usually related to church. That’s why suicide is a sin, I was told, you anger God by making a decision that is His alone.

As I think I mentioned, even in the times when we did have a house, it wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods. My high school was known for its fights and such (ranked 79th out of 79 schools in the area, woohoo!). This meant most of my friends were in the same boat as I.

There is one person from that time period I’d love to reconnect with again. We had teenage “OMG let’s just do whatever the hell we want to because life doesn’t matter anyway” type of fun together. I wonder know if this should be a stories of friendship post? But it goes more toward the point of the shortened life – since we didn’t think we’d live we did things to ensure we didn’t.

One of those things involved lying in the middle of a busy intersection on the double yellow line (at midnight on the downside of a hill). Obviously, I did not die. Nor did she. Once something of ours got run-over (either my hair or her jacket or both) we got up and went across the road to a market and took turns riding in the shopping carts in the parking lot, slamming into lampposts and such.

She was definitely wilder than I was, and I admired her for that perceived freedom. She smoked weed and cigarettes and had burn marks running up and down her legs from where she put out the cigarettes. I never smoked anything. At one point I wanted to try heroin, and my brother was more than happy to supply it even offering to show me how to shoot-up. That’s probably why I never did. If he wanted me to then it would be him trying to kill me, not myself.

She and I also ran off with the traveling circus, which is a whole other story. It was a turning point in both our lives I think. I came back more determined to live my own life away from the constrains of my family and the God they wielded like a gun and she came back recognizing she was out of control and needed someone to reign her in and turned to God.

But, there was one thing I was thinking about recently, something until now (not now now, but within the past couple days) I never admitted. I did try ‘cutting’ which is all the rage. I have a fine white line on my leg from where the razor went in. It wasn’t easy for my mind to allow me to hurt myself – so here’s how it went down:
My brother had planted razor blades in my bed. He set them up by slicing the cover of my mattress and setting them up so that when pressure was placed on the mattress they would slice through the top and the sheet. I found them before throwing myself on my bed and realized what had happened. I think something was off about the way my bed was made. Gotta appreciate the effort of removing my sheet to do this then trying to put it all back together again.

So I had these razors and was looking at them and thinking what it would feel like. I also had black electricians tape. This was how my mother and I exfoliated our dry skin- we’d wind the tape around our arms, then pull it off and marvel at the skin cells that stuck to it. Yeah, it sounds weird now, but it was a moment of calm between us to look at our patterns on the thick black tape and see just how many ‘arm flakes’ we had.

So I took a piece of tape and placed it over my leg and told myself that I was only cutting the tape, not the flesh. And the first couple times that’s all I did somehow. But then, finally, I cut throw and watched the blood kind of pool up and the skin so slightly separate. It was mesmerizing, a bit, but nothing terribly exciting or addictive. So while I have the scar from the one time, I never did it again.

Now, I’m not ashamed of that at all. That was the other thing I was thinking of. It was something I did and that slice represents a part of my life at that time. Not the now. I may bite my nails when I’m stressed out, but have sense of future and life and am not going to give that up by being stupid. Which is probably why I’m a bit over cautious now. I used to run all over the place when I could, even while in college I’d just hop on the subway and dare friends to go up to strangers or walk through movie sets and such. But not as much anymore.

Life is good.

Image taken from commons.wikimedia.org

What Is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?

Per the National Center for PTSD:

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event. A traumatic event is something horrible and scary that you see or that happens to you. During this type of event, you think that your life or others' lives are in danger. You may feel afraid or feel that you have no control over what is happening.

They go on to say that:

Many people who go through a traumatic event don't get PTSD. It isn't clear why some people develop PTSD and others don't. How likely you are to get PTSD depends on many things. These include:

• How intense the trauma was
  
• If you lost a loved one or were hurt
  
• How close you were to the event
  
• How strong your reaction was
  
• How much you felt in control of events
  
• How much help and support you got after the event

PTSD symptoms usually start soon after the traumatic event, but they may not happen until months or years later. They also may come and go over many years.

What I think it leaves out in the bullets above is the duration of time spent in a situation. Would I have PTSD if say, I was taken away from my mother before I ended it myself in my twenties? If someone, any one had helped me, how would I be today? I had no control over my life, thoughts, or actions for so many years. In fact, for most of my life the only thing I could do was react, never act. I reacted to her moods, to her actions. It was pure torture for those 18 years I lived directly with her, and to think I didn’t cut ties until I was twenty-something!

No one knows for sure why some people get PTSD and others don’t. Is it brain chemistry? A hormone, a release of some chemical when trauma happens? There is a lot of controversy still about an experimental PTSD drug. I think it’s still in clinical trials. What it does is deaden the emotions during a traumatic event. Thus, if say something explodes like happened Wednesday, and you take the pill it won’t attach the fear to the memory so the theory is later in life if something like that happens again you won’t experience PTSD symptoms.

So what are PTSD symptoms? They vary a lot. The DSM-IV lists three different groups of symptoms, the first are intrusive:

• Distressing memories of the event
  
• Distressing dreams of the event
  
• Acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were recurring
  
• Intense psychological distress when reminded of the event
  
• Physiological reactivity (sweating, heart racing, etc.) when reminded of the event.

But leaves out the symptoms associated with each of these. For instance, when memories starting coming back that cause ‘distress’ or ‘anxiety’ one can feel dizzy, faint, light-headed, confused, start to shake, get chills, have stomach cramps or nausea, etc. I suppose some of this is listed under Physiological reactivity. I always thought the dizziness was from something else, but had a clean bill of health. Yet when I start to remember or something happens my mind swims. Like all things, symptoms differ with people.

Others are listed as ‘numbing’ symptoms:

• Efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma
  
• Efforts to avoid activities, places, or people which arouse recollections of the trauma
  
• Inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma
  
• Markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities
  
• Feelings of detachment from others
  
• Restricted range of affect and emotional responsiveness
  
• Sense of a foreshortened future

Which really blew me out of the water. I thought my personality was gloom and doom, even though I remembered fighting against my mother to not watch COPS and other such programs about the worst in society all the time. My favorite color was yellow for a long time and then suddenly I wanted the world in black. I felt every one of those above so strongly, especially the last. I never thought I’d live past age 21 and when I did, didn’t know what the hell was going on. I still have problems with feelings of detachment, like I don’t belong anywhere and can’t connect with people. And of course the third on the list – inability to recall an aspect of the trauma – there are a lot of black holes in my memory. But considering what I do recall, it’s probably best they stay that way.

Lastly are the ‘hyperarousal’ symptoms:

• Difficulty falling or staying asleep
  
• Irritability or outbursts of anger
  
• Difficulty concentrating
  
• Hypervigilance for signs of danger
  
• Exaggerated startle response

I always know something is up when my sleep patterns change, because damn, I love to sleep.

There are many theories on treatment and I am doing what is called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT. Per Wikipedia, “The particular therapeutic techniques vary according to the particular kind of client or issue, but commonly include keeping a diary of significant events and associated feelings, thoughts and behaviors; questioning and testing assumptions or habits of thoughts that might be unhelpful and unrealistic; gradually facing activities which may have been avoided; and trying out new ways of behaving and reacting. Relaxation and distraction techniques are also commonly included. CBT is widely accepted as an evidence-based, cost-effective psychotherapy for many disorders.”

So I have a checklist of symptoms that once a month we check. When a traumatic event happens, I go through and see my reactions. I do feel like a computer doing a system check, but since neither my body nor thoughts were ever really mine growing up, I’m just beginning to learn how I work. She goes through relaxation exercises with me and we talk about situations and how I feel during them. It may sound simplistic to some, but it is so hard for me to understand how I’m feeling at times and with everything, once it has a name, you can begin to control the beast.

I hope to post more information and get more links up soon. I’m new at this and still feeling my way around.

That great painting above is from http://www.refuter.com painted by Dmitriy Kedren

Three Strikes and You're Out

Picture taken from cellphone, making rounds on the internet, of a place a lot farther away than I was.

Three guesses where I work. Yup, there. I was on the phone arranging for a computer lab for my class when the lights flickered. I heard a low rumbling, thought I felt it, but rationalized it as a co-workers radio. Then I hear him ask, “Why is everyone running?” I ask what he means. “Outside, they’re all running away.”

No alarms went off. No sirens, no evacuation instructions. People were running around seeing who was still at work – because the earlier storms had knocked out some train services many had left early – but I was still there because of a late night class. We ran down the stairs to smoke billowing into the sky, or what was left of the sky. Not everyone was walking in the opposite direction, as some were taking photos or video with their phones.

I was with two women – one a manager of another group and one another ‘worker bee’ like myself. My first thoughts were, ‘will this trigger me? What’s going on, what’s going to happen, will I get home? How will this affect my PTSD, my emotions? How do I feel now?”’ The manager asked how I was doing, I told her I don’t know I just hope my PTSD doesn’t flare. Then I began to berate myself for telling her that. “Will she try to use it against me?” I thought, “What will she do with that info. Even worse, am I defining myself through this too much? Why am I thinking about my PTSD now and not about the other people? But, wait, the therapist wants you to focus on triggers, is this not a trigger? You’re security threatened?” It was an exhausting inner dialogue going on. So much so that neither my manager nor I noticed that we had lost the other woman.

She was leaning against a building in complete shock. She was shaking and her eyes glassy and vacant. That is when I started to freak out and almost cry. My hairs stood on end. I’d seen that look before – on the faces of people at 9/11. She didn’t know where she was, and when we asked how she was she repeated ‘three strikes.’ Then she told us that someone in her family had told her that having lived through the Trade Center attacks and the blackout it would be three strikes you’re out. She was out of it.

After getting her up and moving about we ended up splitting as we each live in different directions. My emotions were still all jumbled with fear, anger, the need to cry, and just that need to get home. The manager gave me 50$ in case I could find a cab. I had called my friend in New Jersey – she hadn’t heard about what happened – it wasn’t even on CNN yet so there was no word about transportation.

I just kept walking, convinced ‘up and over’ to the Westside would bring some transportation home. Along the way I ran into another boss who lived three blocks up and meekly asked to use her bathroom. This is a big stress thing- I’ll admit it. The more stressed I become the more I have to pee- heck, I can go three times in a five minute span. She invited me with open arms, gave me some granola bars and water, and told me to stay as long as I wanted. She also let me leave my heavy books there from school.

With that I went off, still wanting to cry but not sure how. The thought had crossed my mind about calling my therapist, but I felt I only wanted to because I thought I should, not because I really wanted to. The site of billows of smoke and other stuff shooting into the sky isn’t an ordinary one, and would rock anyone. It did rock most people down there, some more so than I. Did some shock kick in? Probably, my main idea was ‘away’ but is that a bad thing? Not really. Am I shaking? I have shivers. Let’s see the other things in the checklist – anxiety level is elevated. I’m fatigued and agitated at the same time. Flashbacks? Don’t think so. I can’t say other memories from 9/11 aren’t surfacing, but my breathing is getting back to normal.

*sigh* I feel like I’m running a virus check on the computer. I’m not even going to double check this, let me see how I really thought tomorrow. From my brain to my fingertips to the computer. Huhmm, fear is still there though. I’m jumpy again. I hate that.

It’s Not Paranoia if They’re Really After You

Shortly after I changed my name I decided to try one last time with my brother. I don’t know what possessed me to tell him. He knew I lived in New York City, although he never visited, citing excuses such as, “You are living in Gomorrah and I will not be a part of it” to “I heard you don’t have a door to your kitchen. I can’t stay in a place without doors inside the home.”

The phone call was the last one, and didn’t end all too well. Not too long after that I got a letter in the mail from an inmate in a maximum-security prison. It was addressed to my new name, one that outside of work – my brother knew. The letter-writer teased that he’d let me know who gave him my name, but never did. In it, the prisoner stated that he understood we were very much a like, and that he would be released soon and wanted to meet me.

Well, that just shot my sense of security to hell. And really, the main way he could have gotten my name and identifying information (as he said he knew about me) was one way. I looked up the prison and saw that they did have personals for ‘outsiders’ to write the inmates. I figured my brother (or mother, last I knew he still shared a lot with her) had sent in my name and address.

My PTSD is what is called subsympsomal for the most part. That means below symptom level. I ran on high, in a trauma state, for many, many years. However, when my sense of security is threatened I go back into hyper vigilant mode.

There was a time when I was really ill. My stomach was in constant knots and my job absolutely horrid. I was hired to do some quality assurance for a special unit in a hospital, but everyone fought against it. I didn’t have a computer for 3 months and then I found out my supposed ‘manager’ was a secretary who had stolen the new computer I had received, and the one I ended up getting was her old one. Every time the nurses went by my desk they would hit the back of my chair ‘accidentally.’ For a week they harassed a secretary in another unit (but our office space) by posting up signs that she was bi-polar. They did this in the elevators and waiting lobby so even the patients could see. When the taped signs were taken down the ‘perpetrator’ took to super gluing them around the hospital. This should give you a glimpse of the people I had to deal with. They were a vile bunch that even laughed about stuff they stole from the patients.

I was triggered. I had to get out, but couldn’t figure a way, as I needed the health benefits. I needed to save money (money is a major way to trap people). My stomach started gurgling like crazy and for the first time in about a decade I was vomiting. The only other time I had thrown up was in utter disgust about something my mother had done, I can’t vomit to save my life even if a victim of food poisoning, but disgust me enough and I need a bucket.

My mind didn’t yet make the connection between the stomach problems and what was happening at work. I was diagnosed with GERD (Gastro-esophageal-reflux disease), which I was told I had since a very young age. This explains my constant sour stomach growing up, or part of it. It also explains why I couldn’t eat very much which aggravated my mother to no end. I still can’t even tolerate black pepper.

I had a corner desk, as the nurses rounded it they would often leave their coffee cups and wadded paper on my computer. There was one trashcan we all shared, and we all tossed our papers in it. One day a nurse came by and left a broken pen. I asked her to pick it up and put it in the trash, and she denied it was hers. So I tossed it in the trashcan. The next day I was called into a new supervisors office (the old one having gotten a promotion). I had been written up for ‘hurling a projectile’ at a co-worker. I explained the set-up and constant abuse and he just nodded and said he’d need to explore the issue more.

I explored more and went to people higher than him. I asked about the secretary that was sabotaging everything and refusing to give me all the forms I needed to reconcile practices. He told me many horrible things, and that she had a thick file. He also said that they had spent a lot of money recruiting her boss and she was part of the deal. If she went, he had threatened to leave. They believed it was an affair, but they were powerless to do anything about it.

I did finally leave and was there only a year. I stepped out into only a part time job, confident that the world had better for me. But the point of the story is this – during that entire time my security was threatened and I was at hyper alert. I was paranoid about absolutely everything. I couldn’t sleep and was having nightmares about my mother moving in with me and taking over my life. Some times in these dreams I was physically handcuffed to the bed by her, or tied down. I was her slave. One was so bad that I was thrashing around and flew out of the bed, landing on my face. My nose was bruised, but not broken. After months of no sleep whenever I heard noises and thought someone was in the house. I started sleeping with a flashlight under my pillow and my portable phone in my hand. One night after being woken at 3am by a particularly bad dream I took the flashlight and shined it around the ceiling. There is a slight decorative ledge, and a small space between that edge and the ceiling. I was looking for a glare and had it in my head that somehow someone had gotten a video camera in there and was taping me, waiting for me to do something.

Paranoia is a horrible thing when it becomes that consuming, but there are times when it is necessary. I had to watch every step for such a long time and deal with the fact that yes, people are out to get you, that it’s hard to let go. Though, for the most part I have. I don’t think anyone at work is out to sabotage me, we each have our own job to do. I have been told by more than one person that the person who’s supposed to train me doesn’t want to because he is set to retire (by age) in a few years and he doesn’t want to, he’s scared I’m there to replace him. There is a lot of resistance there that annoys me.

But for now I’m safe. And when I’m safe I’m healthy. But when the triggers start one of the symptoms is paranoia. “They can still find you, they’re watching” is the main one. And while, in hindsight it feels like schizophrenia all it is is my mind, upon recognizing a threat, retreating to the situations it knows and back into the thoughts that kept me alive in that time period. It’s a frightening thing when it happens, and something I’m working against. Luckily, I haven’t gotten that bad in a while. At least, not to the 3 am going around my apartment with a flashlight searching for bugs paranoia. But it’s just dormant, waiting for a chance to shoot out into ‘survival’ mode again. Or, more positively, maybe I am gaining more control as each new day is better and safer than the last.

Image from http://www.wpclipart.com

Tell Me Why It's So Hard

It’s not the prospect of writing everyday. It’s that everyday I write I think she might find out.

The other day, at work, this guy scared me. I’ve been jumpier. He came up behind me and asked me a question and I couldn’t form an answer, my heart was racing. I yelled at him to stop doing that. He knows I’m jumpy and thinks it’s funny. In trying to tell him not to make me jump I said “Don’t jump me” and my cubicle mate started laughing at how it sounded.

Then comes that feeling, the feeling that I’m wrong, that it’s all wrong. That everything I write is a lie. That’s overpowering me now. While I’m finding my voice, I’m struggling with the authority behind it. Who am I to complain? Who am I to stand up and talk about anything? I’m someone with holes in her memory and the voice of her mother in her head telling her that she’s a liar.

Yet, there are other moments. When I finally asked my mother if she enjoyed knowing she hurt us, that she caused everyone around her such pain, she said, “Yes, it makes me feel powerful.”

The timeline is daunting at times, and when I jump because of someone talking to me at work it brings it home.

It’s just the gap between knowledge and understanding, some days I wonder if I’ll cross it at all, if I’ll ever build that bridge. Rung by rung, day by day, word by word I know it will come, but do I understand that?

I understand that I am not my mother- that took a while. She liked to inflict pain, all the reasons I tried to form for her actions melted when she admitted that and I realized I couldn’t deny it’s veracity. She liked to cause pain to feel powerful. I don’t. Fact, realization, understood.

But that gnawing fear that makes my stomach turn. I need to understand it will end, that I’m safe now. That I’m a survivor.

I still want to scream though :)

Image from: http://www.raysofhealinglight.com found through google

Identity Take II

Rose and I were sitting atop the broken down shed that served as our secret hideout. Before us were the spoils of a week spent searching for treasures– a slightly stained white sheet, some Crayola crayons, and the blossoms of Oleander. “We can decorate out new fort!” she proclaimed.

We each picked up the Crayolas, mere nubs, and fingered their waxy smoothness. These were taken from the school bins- they had to be. Neither of our families could afford real Crayolas, using the cheap ones instead, bought for half the price at the thrift store. We pulled them across the linen; our tongues slightly out in concentration. It is not easy to color on thin sheets with crayons.

“What is your real name?” I asked, covering my attempt at drawing a rose with the Oleander. Those blossoms grew more and more beautiful each time we were warned of their poison. Beauty, true beauty, is often fatal.

“It’s Rose,” she said, confused.

“No, what is the name from your parents.” I asked.

“But that’s not my real name. That’s not who I am” she replied. “Maybe I need to ask you what your real name is.”

* * *

Victorya Chase. I have no idea how old I was when I created her as the me I wanted to be. In my dissociative fantasies there I was. Nine-years-old for eternity, but a wise nine. Victorya was strong and brave. She faced life alone but had hope that love existed. Victorya never cried and everyone said she was so beautiful. She had long silky blonde hair, not the mousey brown hair my mother would always cry was too dull and scraggly to grow long.

Victorya Chase, Chasing Victory. The name seems cliché now at times, even if that is what I’m doing. Chasing victory over my past, over my family. But maybe I’m just reading into it. Maybe my young self just thought it sounded really cool, like a super hero, like ‘Clark Kent’. Victorya helped people when she could, but mainly she cared for all animals. Her unique gift was that she could talk to them. They would see her and know they were safe. Bears and wolves would bring their new cubs of spring for her blessing.

The first girl my brother loved was named Victoria. I wonder sometimes if I chose the name because I wanted him to be able to love me again, the way he used to when he was the brave knight and I the princess. Not that I ever let anyone know my secret name. Then it would lose all its power. When we were young, he’d make a moat out of old clothes and heroically carry me across. I’d giggle and giggle and thank him, offering as reward half of my kingdom. He’d settle for a piece of candy and we’d sit on the floor amidst the old laundry chewing on our sweet treat and just enjoying that we had each other. For that brief period of time, when there was no one else, we did have each other and it was enough.

Victorya’s brother was the west wind. He’d blow through and bring her some special fruits from far away lands or news of pharaohs and insects. Sometimes he’d tell her of the awful elephant slaughters in Africa and she’d go there and send all the poachers into a land where they were the hunted. They’d return months later, some missing limbs, but all learning respect for others.

The past was a mystery to Victorya. She knew her father was God and her Mother Nature but nothing else, and this didn’t help her when it came to other people of the land. She was tolerated, but not accepted. Some days to be tolerated was enough. For the most part – what she really wanted was love. She had never even been held, not that she could remember. She argued with God constantly because he had stripped her from her memory. “It’s better you never know,” He said, His eyes turned down. “Trust me, I do it for your own good.”

There are days now where I am so afraid. Every step, every breath brings with it the idea of more wrongs that I committed in the past and those that I can commit in the present. Every gesture, every word brings with it the ability to harm another. I was not put on this Earth to do harm. The shadows surround me at times – I feel them leering at me, waiting for that moment to pounce and drag me back. I fight to keep a light shining, to keep them at bay.

“For the Lord God will be their Light,” “Jesus is the Light,” but God doesn’t walk with me anymore. We talk, we argue, and just downright fight. He is in me, and I’m sure some of the light comes from He, the Father, the true father that aided in my creation, but I have to do double duty to walk in the light that keeps the shadows at bay. It’s hard to walk through the valley of the shadow of death without the rod and staff, but a dream and a hope instead.

Some shadows I’ve befriended. We’ll go side by side like old loves. I’ve made peace with some of the darkness that lies within. Darkness is within everyone, and a part of their beauty.

Victorya had a light so bright that it was visible to all who saw her in her true form. She only showed it on rare occasions, for true pure light frightens people.

Victorya was around until maybe high school, and then she wasn’t needed as much, the fantasy changed. At that time the child inside was starting to recognize the world and voice her fears as the true me, the unification of the childhood and the dissociative fantasy, began to emerge.

The Victoria that my brother loved was a beautiful creature of porcelain skin and raven black hair. She was the main soloist at church and everyone believed that if anyone could make it as a singer, it would be her. He loved her with every core of his being, as did many other boys in the church. When he was finally old enough to date he bought her a flower. Every time he handed her his heart she gave it back in pieces. They dated off and on but it always ended the same way – she said she was too good for him. How could she not understand that she was his dream, his grail? His hope to rise above the muck of his life rose and fell on every note she sung on Sunday, as did the dreams of the rest of the congregation.

That Victoria wasn’t known for being pure though, not later. She fell, her wings cruelly cut and her halo broken before the faithful. Lascivious acts were the least offensive of the atrocities she did to her beautiful body and pure white soul.

But my Victorya remained pure and strong in heart. She became absorbed into my being, recognized for her faithful service in my time of need. That was a fantasy I no longer needed as I began to realize my accomplishments. Now what’s left is the truth of the child I was, and the woman I’ve become. This reconciliation is the toughest, for my childhood is my strongest shadow. That is the one I need to embrace, to allow to weep. I see it sometimes in my dreams and want to run and hold on and tell it to come into the light with me instead of dragging me to the shadows. I want the strength to hold on and not let go. But too often I run, too often I’m afraid as I am with every step I take, that it will be the wrong choice. But I know, somewhere inside I understand, that to console a crying child is never the wrong choice – especially when that child is you.

I chose the pen name Victorya Chase as homage to the fantasy that helped save my life. She showed me what I wanted to become, and that I had the capacity to be one day. I am still too frightened to use my real name in my internet writings. I don’t want to be found by figures of my past until I’ve found that child and held onto her tight, until I feel her hot tears stream down my strong shoulders and she finally feels the wonderful warmth that the light has to offer.

photo of oleander taken from http://www.almostedenplants.com

Flashback Central - Three Stories of 'Friendship'

Today has been a weird day I think. For some reason I’m remembering moments with friends where I feared I did something wrong, or, where now I recognize what they did was wrong and I let it happen. All this tends to make me physically dizzy, and, to some extent with a rumbly tumbly.

I think I’ll go scenario by scenario.

#1 – College, Senior Year.

I had gone down to the soda machine in the basement and it ate my dollar – no soda. No refunds either as I recall. So about a week later my roommate asked me to go down and get her a soda, and I agreed. Well, wouldn’t you know the machine spat out two bottles? (I swear- she and I were the only ones who got the ginger ales anyway.) So I went back happy saying, “oh look, it finally gave me my bottle!” but she said because it was her dollar that got the two sodas it was hers. In the end I did get the soda, as ‘her gift’ to me.

Well that was the first memory, and I wondered about the ethics of it. Was it really her bottle as it was her dollar? She knew I lost the dollar earlier, and had I been in her shoes I wouldn’t have questioned the claim that the bottle belonged to each of us. After all, she had intended to get only one bottle of soda with her one dollar, and I had lost one earlier. There was no difference in standing than when I left the room. So was I being presumptuous in claiming that bottle as my lost one and had my act to get her soda, originally an altruistic deed, turned into a motive of profit and/or theft? Was I stealing her soda? Technically, this time it was her dollar.

I spent entirely too much time trying to figure out the ethics of this one. The machine owed me a soda, and I got it from the machine. But did I do so at her expense? Honestly, I’m at the ‘let it go’ point. There was a valid claim to that drink.

#2 – College, Junior Year

A friend who I would have to write multiple posts about, R, and I are going on what is my first vacation. I have done all the booking, put it on my credit card, and planned it all out. When I finally go to the ATM to get out 150$ spending money, the machine gives me 300$ instead. It is late at night so there is no one in the bank. I tell my mother and she immediately wants to drive to the bank and get a withdrawal, thinking it’s free money. She tells my brother and he calls his friends. They all go to the machine. Meanwhile, I call my bank to check my balance – there is only a 150$ difference.

My family comes back dejected – the machine is out of money.

So I tell my friend about this and she suggests I call the bank. I do, multiple times, and finally they say that there is no record of me withdrawing any more than 150 and that ATM is now out of service. I will not be charged more than 150 and since there is no record they cannot accept cash from me except to deposit it in my account. So, yeah! Extra money for my first vacation.

But, when R finds out about this she insists that half of this is hers because we are going on the trip together. It was my account, my worries, (and remember, I made all trip arrangements anyway) but she insists that as my travel partner I give her half, especially since it will cover most of the bus fare up there. I say no again. She then tells me that God sent me the money to do the right thing – split it with her. Again, and this time aghast, I tell her no.

Now, I know she was in the wrong with this one. She was an extension of my mother, one I got rid of a few years before my mother, but equally as controlling in many respects. So after the trip I fill out all the paperwork to get my tax refunds for the hotel and she insists on half. She did pay for half of the hotel, so fine. But it turns out the total is something like 52.35. Since half of that is 26.175 she decided she should get the extra half a penny – 26.18. She argues the point incessantly, and I, being the me at the time, give her the half a penny rather than argue.

#3 Twelve Years Old, Sunday School

This one also involves R. At Sunday School they had this treasure chest and the minister had a bag full of keys. Every Sunday he made a show about putting in a new shiny toy. There were fire trucks, my little ponies, princess castles, a Crayola backpack that I wanted, etc. You could go up and pick a key each week for remembering your Bible verses from the previous week, being picked by your Sunday School teacher, or one key for each new friend you brought to church. So I brought R. and won! I was so happy, the backpack and the princess castle were calling my name.

Now, I had fully intended to share with her as she was my friend. For so many weeks I had remembered my Bible verses and tried lots of keys. Of course, the Sunday school teacher asked me which toy I’d give my friend for helping me win. Then R. decided it was an equal share, because without her I wouldn’t have won. There were at least 12 toys anyway, so I was fine with that. We’d take turns picking out toys. Then she says she gets first pick. I didn’t like that. But she insists that it’s only right in God’s eyes that since it was through her coming I won. She starts to get mad. Did I mention she and my mom got along super well? Lol, my mother considered her the daughter she wish she had had. Every time I had wanted to stop being her friend my mom sat me down and had a talk with me about keeping her around.

Anyway, in the end I acquiesced and she took the backpack! I was so friggen upset. I still got the Princess castle that did special thinks with a magic ‘key’ and other stuff, but not the backpack.

So as I’m thinking over all these things I begin to feel distressed. I berate myself. “Why the hell did you let her walk all over you?” I asked myself. “You were such a f*cking wimp. What the hell? Couldn’t even stand up for a ½ a penny, let alone your backpack. You earned those Sunday School toys, why did you let her take them?

Then I started to feel lower and down on myself. Then the internal dialogue begins. There is the one me berating my childhood self, and the other recognizing that I was so beaten down by my mother I did what I was told. R. was an extension of her and the fact that I stood up to her in the college scenario shows progress and a development of self. I shouldn’t insult myself for actions that were deemed necessary to avoid conflict – something I lived in constantly anyway. It was my feelings of self-worth and like I was ‘undeserving’ for everything that let her have the backpack, not me.

It’s all so exhausting, to have to talk myself up after each little memory sneaks up triggering others and they just keep flowing and flowing. Then I have to talk down those feelings of powerlessness that come up. Then I berate myself for how petty this all must sound, a backpack, a soda and ‘found’ money.

Photos taken from the following sources:
http://www.britsuperstore.com/
http://www.simplydumb.com/
http://www.churchsigngenerator.com/

Gynecologist’s Visit

If any guys read this, here’s your chance to turn back. Not that I’ll be graphic.

Since I’m thirty, I decided to bit the bullet and get the full check-up. I don’t know why thirty is the magic age, well, okay, I know part of it. Thirty is the age by which if you haven’t shown signs of bi-polar disorder you are free of it. That was my sword of Damocles as it were, that I’d be like my mother. That I’d have her disorder. Like everything in my life, there’s a lot more to it. Living with a woman who was as wild as her, and a brother that whether he is bi-polar or acted wildly to be more like her and be accepted, well, I never learned what emotions were or how to express them. But that’s another post.

One of these days I’ll get into the physiological aspects of PTSD, for now, I’m just writing these entries as things come up. And today, it was the gynecologist.

She came highly recommended by a workmate. And she was incredibly friendly. The part I always hate of any new doctor is when they ask for family history. I’m honest.

“My mother lied a lot,” I tell her fighting back a tear. I knew I would tear up. It’s a new situation and, dammit, it triggered a memory that I’m fighting against. “For instance, when she had gastric bypass surgery she told everyone she had cancer instead.”

“I had a friend like that in college,” she told me, “our whole senior year she told everyone she had ovarian cancer. She didn’t.”

I don’t know my family medical history. That bothers me at times. My mother also lied to me a lot to keep me ‘in line.’ For instance, if I wanted pizza she’d tell me I was lactose intolerant. If I wanted strawberries I was allergic. If I liked a boy in school she told me we were related and I was a sinner. Blah, blah, blah. So while I’ve been allergy tested for most things, there are still a lot of questions left. The only thing I know for sure is that she is, by all standards, bi-polar.

“That must have been hard,” the doctor told me. “My mom tells me some of her stories. Her grandmother abused her horribly.” I sigh, because abuse is just so common.

Then she asks how I’ll do in this, how I’m feeling. I tell her the truth, that besides the possibility of a flashback, I’m all for it. I run at my fear now, not away from it.

See, when I first started having my period my mom did the sensible thing and took me to the woman’s clinic in our hometown. There was only one, and it was a good drives away down an old country road. The first time I went as the doctor explained about hair ‘growing between your legs’ I started cracking up picturing my inner thighs turn into Chewbacca. I had learned this already in school and knew what pubic hair was. But the second memory –

One of the things I have to work on in therapy is how I view my memories. The worst ones, I see them as one watches television – on the outside looking in. I’m completely detached. I need to get back into myself and look out, to feel my emotions and see through my own eyes, not those of the observer I became.

This one, it’s half and half. Half in, half outside observer. And, like the worst memories, there are gaping holes in the action. What I remembered, and what played through my mind as I was talking to the doctor as I fought back tears, was a fight with my mother. I forgot what started it but I was yelling at her. I was loud. She then decided that I was crazy and it was a PMS induced insanity. Thus, and I think my brother helped, it’s just darkness in my mind, she dragged my out of the house by my hair and into the car. Then she drove me to the clinic as I kicked and cried in the back seat of the car.

My brother’s smile. I remember that clearly. Him looking down at me with his smile. He had this particular smile that just by him doing it frightened the shit out of me. It meant something was up. I really can’t describe it, but it wasn’t a happy smile, it was an evil one, one of power over another. I remember screaming just when I saw it; the sides of his lips curl up. He must have helped her, because I remember that smile as I lay in the backseat of the car.

She dragged me to the clinic the whole while screaming about how I was going crazy. I was insane. I was unstable.

I don’t remember if I ever saw the doctor. I don’t think I did. A nurse came out and saw the scene, maybe she realized who the real crazy one was. Although, not enough for me to be taken away from my mother.

This memory came up as I sat there talking with my doctor and I started to tear up. It was strong. But you know what? I’m getting there. While I recognize that it’s not the best that for part of that memory I was watching myself helpless in the backseat of the car, I still went though with my appointment. I didn’t faze out of the situation either, I was able to ask the doctor questions about what was happening, about how everything looked.

In the end, the doctor said I did marvelously, that she has had patients come in with a similar history and just seize up and cry. But I didn’t want to let the memory overtake my present. I want to live in the now. I do, however, realize that perhaps that’s a memory I need to work on as even now typing it I want to cry and I don’t know if it’s because I don’t have control of it yet, or that perhaps it is one worth crying over.

Shame

Guilt, shame, self-doubt, worthlessness. These all swim in the same sea – the one I’m fighting against drowning in. Shame is such a hard one, such a strong one. I feel shameful at times for things I didn’t do, things I feel I could have stopped but just didn’t have the strength to do. It always amazes me when people say I’m strong. Nowadays, it’s just this sense that I have to do what is right, not that my actions are in anyway spectacular, but I can’t sit by and not act as often anymore.

It’s summer now here in good old New York City and besides that meaning the mass exodus of the homeless out of shelters and into the parks and doorways, it also means the time of charity walks. I have gotten numerous e-mails from former students and acquaintances to donate for the AIDS walk, the Revlon walk, the American Cancer Society walk against breast cancer. Usually, I’m fine with these. But now that I’m peeling off band-aids to allow these emotional scars to heal in the open air, well, I’m a bit raw. So I open one and suddenly:

It’s seventh grade. I’m close friends with this girl, I’ll call her Jessy since I’ve forgotten her real name. She can’t share my candy because she has diabetes.

“What’s that?” I ask, and she explains, telling harrowing stories of dialysis and needles and, worst of all, not being able to share in my sweet bounty. I put it away and we go back to riding our bikes up and down the street.

Cut to me finding out that there is going to be a Diabetes walk in my hometown. I’m ecstatic. I can help Jessy! The school isn’t doing a group, and neither Jessy nor I are exactly “popular.” We aren’t picked on, but we aren’t in any social groups either, so there is no one else to go with me. However, my teachers are happy to see me doing this. Most of them sponsor me.

When Jessy hears, she can’t believe that I’m doing the walk for her.

I do the walk and proudly wear my shirt to school. I still remember, it’s white with a Red sneaker. Jessy hugs me, and the teachers who sponsored me pay in checks and cash. In all, I raised sixty dollars.

My mother tells me that she’s going to take the money and put it in one check to make it easier. She’ll hold on to it so I don’t lose it. I give it to her; happy she’ll help me in some way. A few months later a teacher pulls me aside and asks if I remembered to send her check in as it wasn’t cashed. I get that sinking in the pit of my stomach.

“What happened to the money?” I ask my mother that night.

“I needed it for lunch,” she replies.

“But, what about the checks? Didn’t you at least send them in?” I ask, confused, hurt.

“No, because then the amount wouldn’t match what’s on your sponsor sheet. I didn’t want them to think you took the money.”

My mind whirls.

“We can send it without the sheet,” I say. “At least send the checks,” I beg as I become even more confused. Even as I write this now I feel the confusion set it, the slight dizziness.

“No honey, I don’t think so,” she replies as I look up at her face. Then, she puts a hand on my shoulder. “I really need lunch sweetie,” she says, her storm-cloud gray eyes boring into mine.

The shame. She didn’t send it in because it would look like I took the money. But I didn’t, she did. However, by denying my mother the money I’m also denying she, who works so hard for my brother and I, something she needs. I couldn’t rectify my knowledge that this is wrong versus her discussion that it was right.

Somehow, I felt the teachers looked at me differently after that. The checks were never cashed. And Jessy, I had let her down. I did the walk, raised the money, and then in the end just felt guilty that my mother had stolen the money for her lunches and refused to even send in the checks. Why did I still trust her? Why did I believe that she would help me? Why did I give her the money to begin with? What was supposed to be a good deed turned into something so awful. I was wracked with guilt and shame.

When I received the e-mails this year about charities, that sense of shame welled up again. It was strong. I couldn’t eat, I felt nauseous, my stomach started turning in on itself. There are a lot of physiological effects involved in PTSD and anxiety. I found the Diabetes Association and felt I should give them not just their 60$ but interest as well. Only, I’m in debt myself now, I can’t afford it. This made me feel even worse. Not only did I take let them down so long ago, but I can’t make up for it now. If I was going to send them money, that would mean not paying another bill.

Here’s the thing – I didn’t take the money. I was doing a good thing. I was becoming aware of ways to help others. I was in 7th grade and trying to support my friend and my mother is the one who turned it into something awful. This is the example of the internal dialogue that makes me feel so fragmented. There is the soul-eating shame and then the realization that it isn’t my burden to bear. Why must I feel responsible for the sins of my mother?

And no, in the end I haven’t sent in a check. My doctor told me I shouldn’t out of shame for a perceived wrong, one I never committed. It’s fine to send one because I want to, but not to fix the past deed of my mother. I need to face that fact – what I did was good, what she did was not. She and I are not the same, nor am I the one to atone for her deeds.

It’s all just so incredibly hard.

My Brother

At the end of my session this week I mentioned that I don’t know what to think about my brother anymore. I used to think I knew. Before therapy I thought I knew, but now things have changed.

The whole point of all of this is to acknowledge the events that happened, to unite with my younger self who withdrew and separated from life. To accept the emotions I felt but never showed. This, so when ‘triggers’ happen I don’t spiral. Nothing will blindside me. No more flashbacks that leave me dazed and confused and reaching for the Ambien.

Not that this is a flashback.

When I was younger, much younger, I adored my brother. He was absolutely everything I wanted to be. He was tall, he was strong, and he was the smartest big brother there ever was. I wanted to do everything he did. Most of the times he was annoyed. What boy wants a little girl around him all the time? But there were times we played and I loved it so much. I remember one time we took some thread and made a giant spiders web across his room. Half of it was so our mother couldn’t get in, but the rest was childish glee. Then we found we couldn’t get out, and tried crawling underneath it to the door. In all our other games he was my knight and saved me from certain doom.

At school he was my hero. Always the nerd, I was picked on. He’d handle every bully that came my way. I remember one time, after my parents divorced, when he stood between my father and I when my father swung something at me, maybe shoes, I don’t recall. But my brother took the bruise for it.

However, I also remember a lot of other stuff. Something shifted when I was in 6th grade, and he 8th. I remember rage. I had such rage toward him, toward my mother. The hatred in the household seethed out of every pore. We fought constantly. He threw me down stairs and I threw things at him. Once I threw a screwdriver that went through the window when he ducked. There was another fight that left me with a nice white scar on my leg. My mother lamented that it needed stitches (which it did not get) and whenever I shave I see it and remember that darkness.

In the beginning, he was my idol, my hero. Then he was my tormentor. He sided with my mother on everything. He’d pull me over his knee and spank me at my mother’s bequest. She enjoyed watching ‘her man’ discipline me, the unruly one. The one who wasn’t like them, who refused to cry. Who refused to let her control me.

The thing is, for so long I hated him because he ‘turned.’ All of the values I loved – his height (he sprouted to 6’1, I am 5’4) his strength, his intelligence, were used against me. I mentioned how he vowed to make me hated in school and the town, to make sure I had no friends. I hated him because he still wanted to love my mother, and to get on her good side. He’d ask me if I loved her, saying he didn’t and we could speak honestly, and if I did he’d turn on a recorder hidden in his pants pocket and play it for her later. He’d cut himself and say that I did it. Anything to align himself further with her. I wasn’t safe in any thought or deed.

But now, now I’m rethinking things. We parted ways many years ago when I started digging for the past, to fill in all these holes in my memory and discover what events I blacked out. I mean, if what I remember gives me nightmares, what lies in the darkness? He shunned me, told me not to call, that he can’t stand me because I don’t love our mother. He asked me point blank if I loved him and I couldn’t answer. But he did say he remembered getting examined after it came out about our father. Then he hung up.

That’s the thing. He was abused too, and I always say worse than me because it was sexual. In all the psychology texts there are ways that children react to trauma. I am the classic case of dissociation. I withdrew. I found a place within myself that was for me alone and hid there, emotionless. “They will never take me!” I thought. Somehow, some part of me found this way of survival. When my outer life was dying I found an inner one. My brother began to identify with the abuser. His way of survival was to do what was asked of him, even if it meant hurting others. The Patty Hearst syndrome – the more abuse my mother doled out the more he seemed to love and obey her.

I was sickened that after he ‘grew up’ he still lived with our mother. While I was in college he, the older brother, the ‘smart’ one, the ‘strong’ one, the one revered in the family was at home and jobless. My mother constantly gave him money while I struggled to pay for my education. I looked at him with disgust for not getting out as soon as he could, for loving her. For choosing her over me, the one who wanted a chance to love without pain.

But how can I hate him? He, like me, was trying to survive a horrid ordeal. He adapted to the situation the way he could, and I adapted my own way. We were both so busy saving ourselves and, as mere children, we barely had the capacity to do that let alone each other. I can’t place any burden of familial affection on him when we were, in essence, living in a war zone. I can’t condemn him when I, myself, withdrew from him. I’m sure it was just as confusing to find his sister become a ‘robot’ as he called me, as it was to for me to have him become a monster.

Last I heard he was accepted back into the military as an infantryman. I’ll admit, every time I hear that more soldiers have been killed overseas I scour the papers for names. But I don’t know how I’d feel if I saw his. I’m not sure I’d cry. It would be sad, that he escaped one war only to be killed in another, that he never got a chance to live outside of such high stress conditions. Also, when I say my prayers, I still end them with:

“God bless mommy and daddy, Eddie, the whole family, all my friends, and all the cats and dogs in the world”

A holdover from when my mother first taught me how to pray. No matter what else I pray for at night, I can’t end it without the above line. The funny thing is, he changed his first name when he was around eleven or twelve years old. But that’s who I still pray for, the boy that was once my brother. The child that loved me and tried. The big brother that was my hero.

I have no idea what I think about all of this. I just know that I do think about it.

Fear

This one is going to be hard to write. Even before the blog I’ve been afraid to talk about the root of my PTSD, about my family life. The more I write, the more I ruminate about it, and the more scared I become that something bad will come out of this, that I’ll end back with my mother for some reason, that’ll she’ll take away the security I’ve created for myself.

I think it’s really hard for me to focus on the ‘whys’ of this. I started this to force myself to be open, to give me a place to face my demons and accountability to do so. Also, to make it real to myself. I can go back to my words and see that I was honest, I was brave, I was strong enough to put out there what happened. And hopefully, I’ve grown.

There were two things my mother said and reinforced in my life. Well, there were more than two, but these are the ones that stick out most often:

1. “I made you.”

By high school I was known in my community. I was in the Key Club, vice president of the honor society, Latin club, anything that kept me away from her. I was a math scholar, in the technical section at school; top some odd percent of the class, singer, band member, etc. I got into a good college. I was a success. People would comment to me about what a great mom I had (which would make my stomach drop) and compliment her on my achievements.

So, my mother realized that I had strength, that despite her efforts I had survived. My therapist says my mother realized my strength when I was young and was jealous, hence her trying to constantly cut me down. But, my mother then decided to take ownership of it all.

“I did this on purpose,” she told me. “If I had coddled you, if I had hugged you and told you everything was good then you wouldn’t be the woman you are today. If I had acted any differently you wouldn’t be strong, you wouldn’t be independent. I did this all for you honey.”

I was aghast- to say that all the abuse for so long was planned? That it was beneficial? That all this praise heaped on her for MY achievements was justified?

But, a part of me still wants to believe it. A part still wants to think that my mother had a plan, that she wasn’t evil, that she loves me.

Yet, she also told me so many times that she didn’t love me because I didn’t need her like my brother. So many times she told me she was jealous, that it wasn’t fair that I had a chance for a future and she never did, that I didn’t deserve it. Which is of course why in the end she took credit for what I created, to own me till the end.

Not that I’ll let her, I’m fighting it with every core of my being and that voice, her voice, emotionless and just dripping with darkness saying “I made you” doesn’t ring as true anymore. There may be times of relapse, but I recognize it as just that – relapse, not the truth. She need not make me. I succeeded in spite of her, not because of.

(Side note, Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter” came on just as I was about to move on to #2, I don’t know how I feel about that. I will never thank my mother for ‘making me stronger’ although I love screaming, “You won’t stop me!” along with Xtina)

2. “If you ever tell anyone about the family, if you ever talk about us, I will deny everything. I will tell them you are mentally ill, that you fantasize, that you can’t recognize reality. If you ever try and write about us I will destroy you. I will sue you for libel.”

That is the reason for my fear. The last two sentences were when I started focusing on writing in high school and getting noted for my abilities to ‘see the world and literature with a great sensitivity and expression.’ But the last thing I want is to have my security threatened, which spirals me down as I’m beginning to realize. At the same time, I have to overcome this mentality. “Just let her try!” I say in my defiant moods. “Let her try and stop the truth from coming out.”

There are instances where she acted on that. I remember one when, I think I was in fourth grade. We lived in a four-unit apartment building with gray siding on a corner lot. At the time I still cried, I still screamed when things happened, I hadn’t fully retreated into myself yet.

After a particularly bad night I was outside with my mother when a neighbor came up to us.

“Is everything all right?” she asked. My mother pushed my gangly body behind her. “I heard a lot of screaming from your place last night.

I tried to peak around my mom’s body, I saw my neighbor arching her head to try and look at me.

“I almost called the police,” the neighbor mentioned casually.

“Don’t mind her,” my mother responded, even-toned. “She’s just dramatic, likes attention. It was nothing.”

I wanted to scream, “Why! Why didn’t you call the police, why was it an almost, why can’t you see?” but said nothing.

“Oh, okay.” The neighbor replied and walked away.

I often wonder, did my neighbor truly believe I was just dramatic? Just wanted attention? Or is it just easier to not care and accept the easy answer, was she really just looking for an out to stop worrying?

That was my mother’s answer- I was dramatic. I was a brat. I was spoiled. She did everything for me, and I was just ungrateful. And people seemed to accept it. The bruises were from ‘kids being kids,’ the fear from watching too many cop shows.

There is more to this I think. My brother and my mother have much in common, and I really don’t know how to approach him in my mind or writing, not quite yet. But he told me many times that it was his mission in life to make sure I have no friends. He’s a couple years older than me, and thus we overlapped in high school. However, I had already attended some classes in high school a year or two before I was officially enrolled. I was the youngest in some of my classes.

When I was bussed just for specific classes, I learned some things. One of the first students that befriended me was surprised to find out who my brother was, as she couldn’t stand him. My brother tried to tell me that she was a liar, a ‘vicious dyke.’ I liked her- she was artistic. We often spent study time doing our homework together and worked in groups. One day I brought butterscotch chips in to class for us to nibble on and she stuck them on her fingernails and pretended she was a cat answering calculus questions. I loved it.

I met some of her friends and was exposed to poets and painters, angsty individuals who spoke out. Of course, this meant I was banned by my mother and brother from speaking to them. He complained that I was spreading rumors about him. Actually, I still defended him, still wanted him to be my hero.

My first official year in high school I was in a biology class in teacher-chosen group projects with students my own age when one of them said something that completely shocked me.

“Geesh, you’re not a bitch,” he said.

I asked what he meant. Apparently my brother had spoken with the brothers and sisters of his peers, thus with my peers, and warned them about me. Told them I was a bitch, a liar. Before I even got there this had spread around people in my peer group.

Why are people so quick to believe the easy answer? The bad opinions of others?

And this leads to my fear. People believed my mother and brother before I even gained my voice. Before I even appeared on the scene I was made out as a liar. There were a lot of lies they told about me before I even walked into a room for the first time.

So as I struggle to find my voice I also struggle with the authority, with the strength. I am afraid that the stronger I become the more my ‘family’ will rear up against me. But the fear isn’t really that they’ll attack, it’s that I’ll fall. I fear that I will go back into my cocoon and that all I think I accomplished is an illusion.

But the more I withdraw into that fear the more it also awakens the fire to fight against it. How dare they even try to deny what happened. THEY are the ones that slandered, not me. THEY are the ones who did wrong, so why do I put the burden of guilt on myself?

Goodness, with every step I feel the fear. But honestly, I think, I hope, it’s morphing into the fear of failing myself more than anything else, of letting them still win. I’m going to be the winner here. Hell, maybe I already am. Wait- let me change that. I am the winner here. Now if only I can gain the strength to not doubt that. I am winning. Indulge me one more time- I need the practice. I’m winning.

On Feeling Doomed

That was thing when I lived with my mother, and times now when I spiral back to being age twelve again. The sense of doom. The feeling that I’m not in control of myself at all. Not that I’ve lost control and will lash out, but that someone else (in that case, my mother) had full complete control of even my thoughts and thus my future wasn’t mine. And with a future that isn’t mine then basically, I have no future.

This sense of doom carries over into everything. I figured I would never do well at school, even though I always did. I just thought that what my family constantly drove home (that I was worthless) was true. But there was something else inside me, apparently. That split persona that I think forms in abused children. The part of me that wanted to exist, and that I wanted to be was kept hidden from ‘them’ but exerted itself in school.

Worthless. Ugly. You’ll never do anything in life. You think you’re better then us, you want to go to college?

I’m writing it tame, and that’s not the worst of it.

Here’s a good one. I don’t know what age I was when my mother decided to ‘gaslight’ me. It was probably around fourth or fifth grade. I would go to school, come home, and everything in my room would be moved. Or just little things. I had this dog doll with those paws that Velcro together or something. He’d hang on one side of my curtain when I left and the other when I returned. I asked my mom what happened and she’d say, “Nothing, your room is just the way you left it.” This went on for a long time. Books would be taken from my room, dolls moved, sometimes my sheets would be changed. But whenever I thought it was wrong, and voiced that things had changed she’d tell me I must be going crazy.

I forgot how I found out. I remember her laughing, thinking it was funny. I vaguely recall her trying to justify it, that I thought I was so smart getting “A”s in school while my brother struggled.

She tried to take away everything, even my mind. And this all led to feelings of doom. I couldn’t even trust myself, so what was the point?

I don’t know, honestly, what kept me from suicide. Maybe that was also the other persona inside me, the real me, not the shell I had become. Maybe it was that at the time I was searching for a savior and clung to God, who I argue with constantly now. The whole issue of religion is another post.

But now I realize these feelings. Like recently when the PTSD was triggered. I had been contacted to tutor some college kid, very bright. I had accepted. But when in that triggered state I began to doubt myself, to feel there was nothing I could offer and that he was smarter than me to begin with. I didn’t fill in my contract with the college I teach at because I felt too dumb, worthless, wondered why they wanted me anyway.

At my full time job they are signing off on a promotion for me and suddenly I felt like I was pulling the wool over their eyes, like they just hadn’t figured out what a failure I was yet. And now it just pisses me off that I could sink to those depths again.

I’m trying so hard to control that and realize my self worth. I am not doomed, I have a future.