It’s a Good Thing

When I started this blog way back when, I was in the deepest part of the dungeon of despair. But I saw the window. This let me know that there was life outside. I know I’m lucky, that some don’t even see that window and think that the damp and darkness and self hatred and confusion is all there is. But I saw the light and knew where I wanted to be which is why I called, in tears, at midnight, for a psychiatric referral. Then, I did nothing with the number and lost it because I was scared of what it said about me that I needed help. However, over a month later, I found myself after three days of crying and tortured thoughts and flashbacks realizing help isn’t something bad to ask for and called again, crying at midnight, and started regular therapy.

Goals were set. I wanted to recognize triggers, to get methods to deal with them, to discover what set me off. I wanted no more flashbacks, night terrors, to get the voice of my mother telling me how worthless I am out of my head. I wanted to stop her continued control over me. I wanted a feeling of self-worth.

Things weren’t easy. The first few sessions involved me reliving the worst moment, the one freshest in my mind, the one where a lot of guilt started – when my mother killed my cat but blamed me. I had to keep going into the memory, to stop looking in as an outsider, but begin to look out of my 12-year old eyes and remember how she was the one that performed the actions. And it's not like stuff didn't start way before then. Hell, I remember her ripping my clothes off my back and dragging me by my hair way before then. But that's the moment that stuck, especially with the whole Bobo situation.

I had to take control of my past to take control of my future.

The thing that is the worst for me is the feeling of being trapped, because I was trapped for so long. Crowds, elevators, etc., I don’t freak out but don’t like them. Then, with both feet broken, I was trapped.

I worked with my therapist for well over a year and have slept much better. In fact, the last bottle of Ambien I got, in January of 2007 was for 30 pills. I still have some left. That’s a good thing.

Anyway, during that time at home I was faced with a lot of triggers. I was mostly immobile, my mother e-mailed me, I needed to rely on other people. And I handled it. I lived through that time and saw that people can be trusted, dependable.

So now, I’m phasing out of therapy. I meet with her once in February, and then we discuss the final session. It’s a good feeling, to regain control. Just as good as when I first got the diagnosis and realized I’m not alone, and more importantly, am not crazy like my family. Sure, some things come up. Right now the news is all over the Nixmary trial. To those not informed, she’s a little girl that was killed by her parents. They abused her horribly, forcing her to use the cat litter box, constant beatings, among other things. These stories are truly upsetting, and do bring up old feelings and memories. It’s sad that such abuse continues all too often.

Another big help was this blog. I started it to help me face things, to help me face therapy. I never really thought it would get the positive reception it would, the wonderful people that would appear, converted from the binary of computer language to support and aid, both in support of my blogs and my own escape in theirs.

But for now, it’s Victorya phasing out of therapy and wondering where my life will lead. Where ever it does lead, I know I’m the one doing the leading. It’s a good thing.

The Cats of My Life: Bobo

Photo Copyright: victoryachasegoestotherapy.blogspot.com

In terms of my journey, this is the last cat. She was a foster that I didn’t want. I had been searching for something after Penny died and got in touch with a local rescue group to help them. Basically, what I wanted to do was sit with them during the adoption events, take photographs for the website, etc.

This guy I met ended up being a manipulative bastard, and I was an easy mark. He told me of how many cats were dying in his cramped apartment, how they needed someplace else to stay – just for a few months. Some place like. . my apartment After a month or so of guilt trips I relented, and he brought over two not one cat—and the trouble began.

That first night Bobo shredded the bottom of my box spring and climbed in. Now, this was the first bed I ever bought. This was the first bed that was purely MY bed, not a hand me down, not my mother’s old bed, not an air bed, not a futon. I was livid, I had to get the cat out (ever try sleeping with an animal climbing around inside your mattress?) then duct tape the box spring.

“When are you going to adopt her out” was a common phrase with me, but he didn’t even bring her down to show her on weekends, where I was still helping out. Then, I think as he realized my guilt associated with the animals he began to delve deeper, telling me how all his money is spent solely for the good of the felines, and how the money I spent on my camera (which I was using to take photos of the cats then edit for the website) should have been given to him instead, as he wouldn’t be as frivolous as I obviously was. Luckily, I saw that as a warning sign and stopped helping him. Up to that point I had been donating a lot of time and energy, after that, I just wanted the cats out.

Then he admitted it was his tactic, to get people to foster but with no intention of adopting them to someone else. “After a while people get used to the cats and generally keep them,” he told me. So I figured, fine, I’ll keep them then send them to another adoption agency and told him I’d adopt them. “Then you owe me $200” he told me. “What the F*ck” was my reply. I’d given tons of time and energy, these animals were supposed to have already been wormed and yet the first week worms crawled out of one’s rear end (in full view of me, and on me) and I had to pay for worming, leukemia testing, etc., to the tune of over $300 already. Plus, the contract stated he could sue me if I got rid of the animal (like the recent Ellen debacle) and he had such a big ego, he would do it.

One of the cats then got adopted, but Bobo was tougher. She was unstable. She’d be sweet and cute and cuddly, getting up on my lap, and then turn and bite me or scratch me. She liked to snuggle up in my armpit at night, but half way through she’d grab my arm and kick, and the scars still aren’t fully faded. This was the cat that drove me over the edge.

I had her for over a year, I was trying to anticipate her moods. What did I do that caused her to act out? I bought her a cat condo, she took my favorite silk pillow as her bed, she was fed only organic cat food. I tried everything, but her mood would shift without provocation. Things would be good for a day or two, and then she'd attack me again. It got to the point where I’d just look at her and cry. For three days straight I cried, even missing work.

And that’s when it hit me – She was just like my mother, and I needed help. That’s when I started asking around for a psychiatrist and told the guy to get her out of my house that weekend (I also called other shelters, but all were full). That’s when I decided “screw it, I’m being railroaded and manipulated by a cat and an ass with a God complex that just uses other people to deify himself as some savior. I need to put myself first.”

Bobo was the bottom I reached before realizing I needed to find that rope to climb back up and find myself. That was when I started therapy.

And the first thing the therapist said?

“Geez, do I really need to tell you that she was your mother?”

Nope, I had figured it out, and that’s why I called for help.

Anxiety Inventory

Every couple of months, I have to fill out these 'behavioural surveys' that keep track of my symptoms. The above is for anxiety, as it's a huge componenet of PTSD. It was interesting the first time I saw this, as I never knew 'fear of choking' was an anxiety symptom. My entire childhood I could never wear a necklace, turtleneck, anything that would touch my neck because it felt like i was choking. First peice of jewelry I bought in college was a cheap necklace, I remember my mother being amazed as I could never wear one before. The dizziness/lightheadness was also a new one to me, as I felt it all the time but always attributed it to poor diet. Granted, it can be that as well, but when since the dizziness comes on during periods of stress, it can easily be attributed to anxiety as well.

The rest are just as interesting. #18 - indigestion, #20 - face flushed. I sent this to my friend Xiomara that I've talked about, and she says she has every single one. I don't get them all that often, the main ones being dizziness and flushed face. Shaky was another childhood one. With every step I twisted my ankle and fell.

It's amazing what anxiety does to a person.

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.

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

Identity

How do you define yourself? I hated that question in school. We had Sociology in high school and the teacher had us make a list of ten things that say who we are. “Not adjectives,” he warned, “Titles – who are you?”

All I wrote down was my name ten times. I didn’t define myself as a daughter or sister, I had no set ethnicity to define myself- I had a name, and I was unsure of that too.

Is that enough?

Other people had put down their family roles, their ethnicities, their gender, functions they held in school (Class President, etc.) and I had –

A name. And one that, now when I look back, I haven’t used since high school.

When I tell my therapist I can’t define myself in those terms she tells me not to worry. I explain that I have no ethnicity as my mother changed it on her whims. For example, if I liked an African-American boy at school she’d tell me they were bad for me and can never support a family, yet she later claimed she has distant relatives who were slaves. One day she’d be Native American, the next Irish. It didn’t help that she herself was an ‘abandoned’ child and thus, didn’t have much of a clue. She claimed to know her parents but by that point I couldn’t believe her. I say abandoned because she was apparently given away to a neighbor when she was younger, and didn’t find out until later in life that her real mother had, in fact, lived next door for many years.

I was active in school – Junior Classical League, Key Club, Honor Society, but couldn’t define myself by those roles. And, in my household, I couldn’t even identify with my gender. The house was quite sexualized and I remember crying the first time I noticed my breasts – I felt I was growing into- I really don’t know. There was a lot of emotion. Maybe then I thought I really would become my mother. I remember outwardly voicing that now I couldn’t play sports with the boys but there was more to that – my brother constantly commented on my ‘growing tits and ass’ and with his history of paying me to see his penis (maybe 10-12 years old) talking about sex in front of me (since whenever) and then my mom liking him to spank me, it wasn’t comfortable. As I think I mentioned earlier, I never wore make-up, my mother didn’t. I wore my brother’s hand me downs and the only claim to femininity was my usually long hair and burgeoning breasts.

So who am I?

This is a question that, as I cleaned out my files recently and poured through college essays, has been a big question for me. In most of my papers (at least the ones I scored an A on) I dealt with issues of identity. I was a Film and English major so my papers were on films such as Secrets and Lies and Viridiana, then on books such as the Remains of the Day and Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. All are characters trying to define themselves to some degree. All the professors thought I handled the topic with, “great insight and sensitivity.”

My mother’s stories of her past changed often, as did those of our early years, “our” being my brother and I. Like the greatest of historians she had that eraser out and was fervently changing the past the more we tried to grab on to it. Pictures didn’t help, as they were around when she wanted to look at them, but there were holes in the photo albums when my brother and I searched without her.

Dissociation is a wonderful thing and in my childhood years I created fantasy after fantasy to retreat into and explain my creation, my being. Ethnicity was never defined (and isn’t now, I really don’t care and claim I’m everything because, why not? I like experiencing new cultural things and thankfully can pass for most of those that are prevalent in NY – that is, black, white, Hispanic, someone thought Turkish, I get Irish at times, Polish, but usually people think mix) in any of these fantasies, and parentage never was either. The idea of parents was nebulous and, in my fantasies, they had died when I was an infant and had loved me very, very much. In the most gruesome they had been set on fire and their skin flayed but I had inhaled their ashes and thus, this piece of a parent that loved me was with me always.

The idea, as my therapist puts forth, is to recognize the past happened, including the torture, but to define myself in the now not in the then. Certainly part of my make-up is ‘survivor’ but now I am also ‘college graduate,’ ‘teacher,’ ‘financial planner,’ ‘woman,’ ‘writer,’ ‘blogger,’ ‘artist,’ etc. So live with that and realize that I have created my own foundation. Sure, it’s nice and easy when you are born on a concrete foundation not undulating waves as I was, but not everyone has that luxury. Basically, I had to create my identity from scratch and then, as I evolved, reinvent myself outside of the necessary fantasies that kept me from identifying myself as, ‘victim,’ ‘abused,’ ‘hated,’ ‘bitch,’ ‘trash,’ ‘worthless,’ and all the other things my family thought of me.

I do think even with the best of parents it must be hard to sit-down and define yourself. I go over this with my closest friend who had the whole two loving parents many caring siblings no fighting type of family where everyone helps each other, and right now she’s feeling really lost and thinks I have it easier in terms of identity because I knew from an early age I had no idea what was going on, and she’s just realizing she doesn’t know what’s happening with her life. (That’s one helluva long sentence isn’t it? )

It’s a hard call for me though, I feel fractured still.

“Well, what is your goal?” My therapist asked this week.

“To not feel like Gollum,” I said. She laughed, but it’s true. I end up having these long dialogues with myself because when something happens the past mode of thinking kicks in, and the ‘now’ me has to talk it down. For example, even something as simple as leaving a note on another person’s blog can lead to the following:

“You’re going to offend them”

“How, I just said I liked what they wrote.”

“Yes, but you wrote it curtly,”

“No I didn’t, I was being sincere.”

“But that’s not how they are going to read it, you offended them.”

“But, what the hell, I just said, “Nice post, it made me smile!”

“Yeah, but you didn’t explain why, they’re going to think you’re just trolling for readers.”

“But why would I do that when I’m still unsure of my blog to begin with?”

Etc. etc. etc. It can go on for an hour or more arguing over three or four words I left lying around somewhere, in case they were the wrong words left in the wrong place or the right words in the wrong place.

The idea of everything is to unify my two selves – to come to terms with my young abused self that created this whole other identity outside of the pain and the person outside of the pain I became. Internal dialogue is of course, never going to completely disappear, but the Identity and sense of self should, no, needs to unify.

I swear, it’s absolutely amazing I didn’t end up with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder- AKA Sybill) considering the things I went through, it’s just the whole past vs. present that bugs me.

In fact, I did start the process of unity about 5 years ago when I legally had my name changed (not my first, just my last and eliminated my middle name) as a way to begin building who I am. I didn’t have any connection to the name I held anyway, and it took me a good year or so to find a last name I liked.

And you know what? Knowing my name, my real name, is a great start. If everyone had the strength to stand up and say their name with complete conviction and no fear life would be good.

Recognizing Happy Times

This is something my therapist wants me to work on, the ability to recognize happy times in my past (as well as, of course, the present). She doesn’t want me to always dwell on the negative, but to see that there were moments of peace. Plus, I suppose, by acknowledging the good times in my own past, I can build a foundation that allows it to be more prevalent in the present. Or at least easier to spot.

So today is a happy memory:

My family lived in Arizona until I was nine-years old. We lived in what was, to me, a very big house. Across the street from us was a house with an in-ground pool. People often jumped the fence to swim during the hottest weather, and the owner didn’t like coming home from work to find cigarette butts all over her backyard. To stave that off some, she allowed my family access to her pool when she wasn’t around, and we took full advantage of that.

I had a friend, Rose. That wasn’t her real name, but that was what she thought her real name should have been, so that’s what I called her. My house had a big backyard and, behind that, some type of trees. It was a huge maze of branches and leaves and flowers. It was here that Rose and I played.

We crawled and climbed through every inch of those trees. We created stories, told each other of wild imaginary adventures. And there was one constant path we went through. It involved one branch that was bouncy and our ‘trampoline.’ We had to always hold the branch above it, and then jump up and down. Then there was another branch that we used to swing across the tiniest of clearings. Then we ended up on the top of a shed in someone else’s yard. It was completely overgrown, and our fort. We’d sit up there and read comic books, color with our crayons (or, more often than not, melt them) and paint each other’s nails with polish snuck out of her mother’s drawer. Basically, we were kids.

I thought Rose was very beautiful and smart. She had long black hair, everyone in my family was a blonde or redhead. She was taller than me, braver than me. She knew about make-up and there was never any in my house. She knew about boys and rocks and I think had a rock polisher. Sometimes we traded stones, or stickers. The smurfs were popular ones then and Lisa Frank I think was just starting out with her colorful creations, so we would trade those.

I remember the happiness, the freedom. When we were swinging from those branches we weren’t just kids, we were the next generation of Tarzan, we were Wonder Woman, we were super heroes, we were independent, and we were laughing. It was Rose and me on the fort.

And oh how our biggest dream was to decorate that fort. We were never pink Barbie girls, but we did recognize the power of a good makeover, even if we couldn’t afford it. I think the most we got was a sheet to cover the top of that shed and maybe some crackers to snack on. But it was still magical, it was still ours.

And it’s still a happy memory.

I Do Not Have Depression, I Am Just Depressed.

I hope I do not have depression.

That worried me, because for two weeks I was agitated, I was restless. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. I was waking up early in the mornings and walking through Central Park. My legs didn’t stop moving even at work, I’d anxiously shake them while at my desk.

And I didn’t really mind, because hey, who can’t stand to lose some weight?

Ennui. That’s what I said. And to make it more fun, Emu. I was feeling like a flightless fowl, unable to free myself from the earthly bonds. I stopped seeing my future. I stopped seeing the good around me.

Then I looked up the real definition of Ennui- depression. I took the survey from my therapist, I had to mark everything yes.

But that doesn’t mean I have depression, it means I was in a state of depression.

What I’ve had, for quite some time, is Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder, PTSD. Being a Manhattanite, that’s a trendy diagnosis. But it has nothing to do with the towers falling, it has to do with my ‘childhood trauma’ which are likened to over 20 years of torture.

My mother has a diagnosis, presumed by her actions: Bi-polar.

That scared me, for so many years as a child, as a teen, I was afraid to show emotions because she was like a shark ready to attack. Hell, she admitted later in life that she enjoyed making me cry, causing pain, doing what she could to feed off emotion. So I stopped crying, stopped everything.

Then, in my twenties and having severed ties with her, when I felt happy or sad or anything else I feared I was bi-polar. I am really still learning what emotions are and how to not be afraid of them. I have been tested many times, and so far a clean bill of health. Not bi-polar, PTSD.

The thing is, I get triggers. And after finding out what depression was and only knowing about Cymbalta I dive-bombed and found I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t make any decisions, felt like everything was futile.

But now that it’s past, I realize what happened.

Triggers.

When something happens that threatens my safety I become that teenager I was who couldn’t control anything in her life and had to deal with the irrational parent that enjoyed causing her children pain. That was a time when I felt I wouldn’t live to be twenty.

I feel so silly now, knowing that construction outside my house coupled with fleas in the apartment threatened my feeling of safety. I’m upset that such seemingly normal events can send me spiraling.

But I suppose that’s why I’m in therapy.