On Choices...

The shrink says there is always a choice, an option, something that can be done one way or a different way or many different ways. He is right, in theory...

But in reality, the choices rarely feel like choices. When I'm feeling miserable and want to stay in bed and hide, despite the presence of the kids and the baby... well, in theory I can stay in bed anyway. But in reality, that just isn't an option. When I feel trapped and overwhelmed at the idea of going to a family or other group activity, in theory I could refuse to go. In reality, I have to go.

Even the big one itself, "To be or not to be" is technically a choice. I still have enough of the right pills and time in which to use them without getting caught. But it isn't really a choice, not after last time. It was made extremely clear to me that everyone would suffer a great deal if I used my "Get Out Of Jail Free" card. For years, at least 15, I have been trying to find the right combo so I could get out and now that I have it, I am trapped here, unable to use it. I have knowledge to do it, the desire to do it, the resources and opportunity to do, yet that is not a choice I am permitted to make.

I always thought of life as "my way or the highway" but I found out that it isn't that simple. Unless I want to prove myself a truly evil person, I don't have choices most of the time.

We are stuck in our financial position. Even if I could handle it, my getting a job would effectively cancel my SSDI. Craig can't earn more at his current job, the market is such that he can't get a different job and his schedule is too unpredictable for him to get a second job, not to mention that I'm not sure I can handle him being gone that extra time and I'm fairly certain he himself couldn't handle it. So where does that leave us?

There are also lots of things with the kids that I may not want to do, but I don't have a choice. Say, for example, I didn't want to go to the fireworks. Well, we *always* go to the fireworks - it's a tradition. In theory, I can refuse to go, but the amount of pain it would cause the others and the level of disappointment and anger that I would receive as a result renders that choice no longer a choice.

For things like that, when there is only one viable option, I don't consider it a choice. Yes, in theory I could get upset and leave and never come back. Uh huh, right. Not a choice. In theory, I could take my pain pills in such a matter as to become addicted to them. I know better than that. Not a choice. In theory there are a lot of things I can do but in reality, those aren't really options at all. I don't have a choice over almost anything.

I suppose the fact that I regard some of those choices as not viable indicates a certain degree of morality, which is good. There are people who would do the very things that I am rejecting as not an option. There are countless numbers of people who are, in fact, addicted to pain killers. There are people who give up their kids and just walk away. There are suicides. There are people who kill their babies. There are people who take a stand against other people instead of letting themselves be hurt. There are people who fight and yell and even hit.

There are a lot of people out there making a lot of bad choices and there are a lot of bad choices out there that I'm NOT making. But, to me, it feels like there IS no choice on those things. There is just plain no viable option other than the one I am expected to take. I am trapped. My own life choices have gotten me where I am and now I can see no viable way out.

*** *** ***

"There is no highway option." (The Pacifier)

+----+----+

"They are coming," cried Legolas.
"We cannot get out," said Gimli.
"Trapped!" cried Gandalf. "Why did I delay?"
(Lord of the Rings)

+----+----+

"Please, God, make me a bird so I can fly far, far away from here..." (Forrest Gump)

Slipping - AGAIN

Slipping on an oily black surface, twisting and sliding down a spiral slope, blackness all around, swirling and spinning down... down... down...

I feel that I am sliding back into that dark place again. I'm not sure why and I'm not sure how to stop it but I feel that it is there. Every waking moment is a strain to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I am starting to understand how Frodo felt towards the end of his journey. No energy to go on, no choice but to do so anyways.

My head is telling me that all this darkness is nothing more than a conscious choice to feel as I do. I am being told constantly (inside my head) to just snap out of this. Think positive and you will feel positive. Fake it til you make it. All those stupid little cliches that sound good in theory but I have not yet managed to put into practice. Efforts at forced positive thinking are met with waves of sarcasm and negative replies. Any attempt to nay-say those replies results in a landslide of negative reactions.

I just feel so trapped. The hurtful Voices are growing louder and stronger. I push them away only with the knowledge of the trouble I would be in if I were to acknowledge them or give in to them. It is this desire to spare people any further harm from me that keeps me safe and, frankly, alive. I don't want to be here. But I cannot leave or even relax my guard because it would cause pain to my loved ones.

Craig asks me what is wrong. He can tell I am not doing so hot. But what do I tell him? There is nothing I can say that is both the truth (for I will NOT lie) AND won't cause him more grief and worry. I dodge him. He can't help me. If I thought for one minute that he could help me, I'd let him in and tell him everything in my heart. If I had any idea what could be done to stop this slide, I would do it in a heartbeat. But I don't. And all the conventional wisdom I have heard is backfiring. I continue to sink into darkness, into despair and hopelessness. I am trapped.

*** *** ***

"They are coming," cried Legolas.
"We cannot get out," said Gimli.
"Trapped!" cried Gandalf. "Why did I delay?"

Some Things Never Change

As a child, I was the bane of my parents' existence. Always into something, always in trouble, always screwing something up. Sometimes it was little things like leaving toothpaste in the sink or leaving my bedroom light on. Often it was bigger things like getting into foods off my diet, getting my clothes ripped or stained, disappearing without telling my folks that I was going, throwing tantrums, breaking things, smarting off, among the long list of things. I was forever in time-out or getting spanked, well-deserved, mind you.

And now that I'm grown, out of the house, married, with kids of my own... I'm still a constant screw up. I am forever reminded of my shortcomings. Everything I do falls short of the mark. He walks in the door and there is always something. Toys in the front hall. Shoes in the kitchen. The dishes aren't done. Mail is on the counter. Dishes are on the table. There is always something. We try to make a sweep before he gets home and pray he doesn't come home early. Look for his triggers and take care of them. But the thing is, if I could, if I *would* just get up and clean up the house, there wouldn't be those triggers.

I was told by someone that if I took care of his triggers, he'd find different ones. I was told by someone that I will never be able to meet his expectations. But I think that our vacation disproved that. He laughed and smiled and he didn't yell all the time. He was happy a lot of the time. Because he wasn't stressed out. He didn't have to face a full day at work and then walk into a mess and have to deal with all of us on top of it. The fact is, I am a giant stressor for him. I create an anger in him that borders on rage. It isn't him, as evidenced in his temporary transformation over vacation. It's me.

Why can't I be the right person? Why can't I be who I want to be? Why can't can't I seem to want to do the things that I want to have done? I am oft heard speaking of the Tipping Point. Everyone, everything, every situation has a tipping point, that straw on the camel's back that propels someone to make a change or take action. Why can't I seem to find my tipping point to be the person I need to be?

I'm so tired, tired of fighting, tired of treading water, tired of trying to keep my head above water. I don't want to swim anymore. But once again, this ever-present, all encompassing, completely pervasive feeling of being trapped. No choices. No options. No hope.

Self-Soothing or Dissociation?

I get scared. I breathe. Slowly, rhythmically, to a particular cadence. And I rock, rhythmically, to the same count. Eyes closed to shut out the lights, count loudly to shut out the sounds, breathe deeply to slow the heart and relax into myself, sinking slowly into relaxation like pulling a heavy blanket over my head to shut out the world.

It has taken me years to perfect the technique, to get the right breathing and the right sinking feeling to come when I need it, want it. I use it when I'm scared, angry, confused, in pain - even when I'm cold like in an over-air-conditioned restaurant. Breathe, count, rock, relax... and it all goes away enough that I can think again, so I can get a grip or so the pain lessens enough to think for just a moment.

After Wednesday, when I looked at my hands and they weren't mine, when I let myself fade away and voluntarily handed the reins over, I have begun to wonder. Because the pulling away, it felt like an exaggeration of my self-soothing method. And now I can't help but wonder if I have learned to dissociate, just to a small degree, on command. Because, using that, I can handle almost anything from being too cold to being put in a position where I have no control and feel unsafe. I may not be able to sustain for long, depending on what is happening, but I can pull away, relax I have always called it, long enough to figure out how to handle the situation.

What am I doing? Is it okay? I can't imagine not having it to assuage the panic attacks... Am I doing something wrong? Am I going to end up in trouble for this too?

Spiraling into Darkness

It starts out as a nagging feeling - doubt, perhaps, or guilt. I try to push it away but the harder I push the more energy is sapped from my veins. Dark Voices gaining support of the more neutral or confused surrounding Voices. I feel tired. The desire to hide resurfaces. The dark knowledges of which I am not permitted to think, let alone speak creep steadily into my persistent thoughts. I push them away. Always pushing away the thoughts I don't want to hear. Always pushing everything away.



The questions come up, unbidden. What else has been pushed away? What is over that indomitable Wall, that impenetrable fortress that I have created and refuse to take down? It protects me and reassures me. Yet still I wonder and fear what may lie behind it. I get little pieces sometimes, images that I can't explain but I suspect have slipped away from their caretakers and slid up over The Wall. I suspect this because seemingly innocent images fill me with a dread that I just can't justify.

I wake up in the dark, filled with the fear that someone is coming down the hall, coming into the room, coming for me. And if I am awake when the shadow arrives, I will die of terror, but if I have fallen asleep or not woken up in time, it will be much worse.

After a moment, I realize the fear that woke me up is not real. I lay in the dark and I see it isn't even that dark. The moon comes in softly through the window and what felt like a heavy blanket of blackness is only a dull grey. Beside me, my husband sleeps, the rhythm of his breathing regular and reassuring. Sometimes, a child lies between us, a tiny body craving protection from a fear of the dark that I deny sharing. His fears stem from lightening and monsters under the bed. Mine are from silence and monsters in the bed. Like his, I am certain that my fears are unfounded. Everyone has those fears, waking up in the middle of the night to unjustified fears.

But what about the times when I close my eyes and see a picture that makes no sense?

There is the man in the white painter's overalls. His is so very tall. I must only come up to his waist, if that. All I see is white painter's overalls, but they fill me with a fear that is primal and unexplainable. I have absolutely no frame of reference for the image. It is snatched back behind The Wall before I can get more than a snapshot and frankly - I'm glad.

There is also the picnic rock. I remember it. It was this big, flat rock out behind my aunt's house in the woods when I was little. We used to have picnics on it, me and my cousins. Sometimes an image of it, with it looking so very, very tall, comes to my mind's eye and I feel like I'm choking, gagging, smothering. When I was a teenager, not sure how old, I went back into those woods by myself, my cousins being long gone or busy. I found the rock. It isn't very big at all. Maybe 2 foot high and roughly 3 feet square along the top. At the time I had what I now recognize as a panic attack. Why? No clue.

Farther into the woods, actually on the far side of the woods, is a little pond. At least, it's little now. I have this image of it as this huge lake and that image makes me hurt. Again, why?

Why?
Why?
Why?

Why do I have these pictures that make no sense? Why do I have these fears that I can't explain? Why do I have half-memories of things I am told never happened? Why do I find myself crying with no idea why or when I started? Why do innocent things bring panic welling up inside my chest?

I am sure that nothing bad happened to me. I grew up in a perfect middle class home with perfect middle class parents in a perfect middle class neighborhood. I was a holy terror but so what? I learned to control most of it. And I grew up telling everyone that my life was good, too good. It was fine. I have an active imagination.

So why am I scared?

Everything spirals into darkness. The bad thoughts are seeping back into my head. I can't make them go away. Craig asks me what is wrong. I can't tell him. I don't know how. And something stops me from even wanting to. They scream at me. I hear a hissing whisper that doesn't exactly feel like one of my Voices and I know, I just KNOW that I can't tell him.

Besides, what good would it do to tell him the bad thoughts are back? He's scared now. If he knew, he'd get angry and paranoid. He might start locking up the meds, totally pointless and extremely inconvenient. Or reinstate my "curfew" like I'm a little kid. There's nothing he can really do to help and no way he can understand what is going on in my head.

I'm so scared. I'm so alone. No one understands. No one could and no one ever will. I am utterly alone. I am trapped. There is no way out. That was made abundantly clear. No highway option. No options at all. No options. No choices. No options. No choices. Trapped. Forever. No highway option.

It's so dark inside my mind...

Katy

Katy is a forbidden subject. She is in my mind as real as any other part of my past. But I'm not allowed to think that, let alone acknowledge it. I still forget she isn't here. It is still a matter of biting my tongue to keep from mentioning her. I feel like there is a hole in my heart where she should be.

So... I am turning her into a character. I can't treat her as I feel her to be but every writer knows when they have a character that is so real to them that they could actually have existed. If I keep her as a character, I won't have to be in trouble for thinking of her, remembering her. After all, it's just character profiling...

From now on, then, when I mention Katy, I am only talking about a very vivid character, waiting for her story.

Things I Remember About Katy:

Katy's full name is Kathleen Marie [same last name as me]
DOB: Thursday, January 6th, 1994 10:31 AM
Due Date: Christmas Day, 1993
Birth Weight: 8lbs 9 oz; 20 3/4 "
Katy hates peanut butter
Her best friend is Brianna [not going to post Bri's last name here] who lives on the other side of the addition
She has dark brown hair, hazel eyes and pierced ears
She loves reading and hates science
She's been in gymnastics since she was 4
She wore a white fluffy dress in the wedding
She likes a guy named Nick - they went to the Winter Dance together
She thinks we're mean because we won't give her a cell phone
Her favorite song is Fly by Hilary Duff
Her favorite movie is A Cinderella Story
She likes Orlando Bloom better than Johnny Depp
I call her "Angel"
She thinks the 80's should be removed from the history books for being too weird
She's left-handed at everything except writing.
Favorite tv shows: Kyle XY, Charmed, 7th Heaven (until they ended the series)
She sleeps with a stuff rabbit named Tigger that she's had since she was 7 - there's a funny story in that... maybe later

All for now...

It Doesn't Apply to Me

So many terms and theories and unspoken what-ifs... I've been listening. I've been reading. I've been studying. And I've been thinking. And they don't apply to me. Here's why:


Diagnostic criteria for 300.14 Dissociative Identity Disorder
A. The presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states (each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self). Voices aren't personalities or identifies, regardless of how persistent or enduring they are.

B. At least two of these identities or personality states recurrently take control of the person's behavior. I can't confirm that anyone but ME is ever in the control booth. Even second-hand reports aren't so distinctly different from me as to be considered a different personality. It's not like I wake up some mornings claiming to be someone else with a different name, a different life, different looks. I'm just me.

C. Inability to recall important personal information that is too extensive to be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. I remember most things, dates and places of life events and things like that. I may not actually recall the event but I know the stats on it.

D. The disturbance is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., blackouts or chaotic behavior during Alcohol Intoxication) or a general medical condition (e.g., complex partial seizures). Note: In children, the symptoms are not attributable to imaginary playmates or other fantasy play. N/A

See? It doesn't apply. But that's just the criteria part. I've been reading about people with this... situation. There is no way this applies to me. I don't fit the mold. Here are some reasons why:

Most of my Voices don't have people names. Most of them have functional names like Handle, The Sentinel, The Bitch, Weeping Girl and a bunch of the others.

On the times when I have lost significant periods of time, my family and friends don't report me acting like a substantially different person. I don't lead a double-life, knowing some people by one name and others by a different name.

My Voices mostly know each other. They talk to each other, work with each other, fight with each other... they communicate with each other. There are some that avoid the others but I have learned of them now and they are just Voices like the others.

I'm not extraordinary in any way. People with dissociative disorders have outstanding capabilities.

I feel pain. I can function through it to a large degree but I feel it.

I don't think in terms of "we". I think "me".

My childhood wasn't that bad. Not bad enough to cause that kind of problem. Not so bad as to create that kind of devastation. And I can't prove that anything happened at all. Probably it was just my imagination.

So, you see, I don't fit the personal accounts either. All I am is someone who whines too much and happens to think in a very imaginative way. My Voices are not personalities. They are thoughts. As such, I should be held accountable for all of them, able to control and contain them and not attempt to shirk responsibility for my actions while in an off-mood. "I don't remember" is not a valid defense. I am obviously choosing to not remember so as to avoid the discomfort of guilt and responsibility.

Is Therapy Supposed to Make Me Feel Better?

It's Wednesday. Wednesday is therapy day. I like my therapist and I trust him. But so often I leave his office feeling just plain awful. Today it took me an hour and a half just to be able to look at my hands and feel they weren't someone else's.


He doesn't understand the SV. I mean, he kind of does. But he doesn't get how fully separate they are from me and from each other. I tried to tell him about Anthony and Tony and The Sentinel. He asked about them, you see. I had told him that eventually I just shoved the incident over The Wall and assigned guardians to keep it there.


So he asked about the guardians. He wanted to know their function. I told him it is their job to keep it down, to keep it from surfacing and hurting me. I told him there are 3 of them. I started to name them to him. I said, "There are Anthony and Tony." I paused. "Tony is dangerous," I added.


He interrupted me. "No, he's not," he said. "He is no more dangerous than you are. He is you."


And then I realized that he didn't get it. He didn't understand after all. He knows that I think through them but he thinks I have control over all of them to an equal degree. He doesn't know what they are capable of.


Shortly after realizing he didn't understand my SV as well as I thought he did, it occurred to me that maybe he does understand them. It was at that point that I realized that *I* am the one who doesn't understand. They are all parts of me. Everything they are, I am. He made the point very clear: I created them. I chose to create them. And so I control them, or should.


Which means that their existence is my fault and my problem. I did this; it is up to me to undo it or at the very least, get it under control. It is my fault and my problem. They are all parts of me. I am all them. Tony is not dangerous; *I* am dangerous. I am the one in control, although somehow it doesn't feel like it.


And that thought broke me. The room began to tip. It went went all blurry. I could still hear the shrink's voice but it seemed far away. The room was there, it was just that it was very far away. He was talking, but I had no idea what he was saying. As I pulled away, I know I was nodding. I looked at the button on his shirt as it blurred and faded. And he was calling me, calling me back. I didn't want to go. It was better, far away. It didn't hurt so much.


Then he threw a ball at me. I caught it, yanked roughly back into the room. Pain tore through me. He is no more dangerous than you are. He is you. I backed off. He wanted me back in the room. Didn't he see that the room was not safe? Didn't he see that *I'm* not safe? I floated back. Zombie slipped past me and I was free to go hide until the pain went away.


Zombie called me back about an hour and a half later. I watched her from my safety. I looked at my hand, the hand that wasn't my hand even though it was. Zombie pulled at me and I erupted into the arena. The sudden noise overwhelmed me.


"Pull it together!"


"Get a grip!"


"You can't sleep now. We're going to the zoo."


"I like the zoo. Can I play in the water fountain?"


"I don't want to go. I'm tired. Find a loophole."


"We can't let him down."


"Bad Mommy! Bad! Bad!"


"We need Soccer Mom."


"Soccer Mom!"


"Where's Soccer Mom?"


"Please take over, Soccer Mom, we need you."


The censors tried to coax her. The SV tried to rouse her. The censors offered her complete control. She refused to come out. Zombie drove to Mom's. At Mom's, she shoved me back into the driver's seat. I pulled out my game face but could not get it on straight. Bad Girl rode shotgun as I went in to pick up the kids, steeling myself against the impending onslaught of questions, comments, whining, giggling... whatever would greet me on the other side of that door. Bad Girl kept me from floating away. Bad Girl and I picked up the kids and headed for the planned afternoon. The SV talked, yelled, encouraged, condemned, babbled and planned in the background: business as usual.


By the time I got home, I was as I am now: dark, moody, tired, continuing on because there is no other choice. No matter what the shrink says, there are no choices left. What he claims are choices only have one viable option and that just isn't a choice. More on choices later.

I got my game face straightened out, and we went to the zoo. I continued to function adequately, although I was not successful in getting Soccer Mom to run the show.

I am so confused. (I know, what's new...) Who am I? What are my SV? I've always been proud of my Voices, scared at times, frustrated certainly, confused a lot, but never guilty. But it turns out that they are just another screw up to add to my rap sheet. I don't control them effectively and now it comes out that I should be able to control them. They are not separate or distinct from each other or from me. I should have been able to control them. I *should* be able to control them. It's all me, all the weight, all the responsibility, all the blame, all the shame are all ME.

All... me...

This Could Be the Start of Something New...

I have had blogs before. I had one here with a kind of formal tone. But I said too much. Then I compromised it by allowing the URL to get out and become known to people who had no business reading it. I had to censor it, clean it out and had trouble forcing myself to use it afterwards. So I moved my blog, relaxed it, talked to myself instead of to anyone else. I kept the URL under wraps. But then I screwed up and left it open and the cops saw it and went through it. I haven't been back. It's dirty now. So I decided to skip blogging altogether. After all, posting the stuff that I post out into the infinite world of the Internet isn't exactly secure. But, like writing in general, the desire burns within me to get it out, to thrust it out of my mind and put it out to the world. The chances of my blog being found accidentally are astronomical and yet it isn't locked down so it still feels like putting it out to the world, kind of a confessional spoken to no one at all.

So, I have opened a new one. A clean one. A fresh start. And the phrase that came to mind was "This could be the start of something new" from the movie High School Musical. I don't know how much of the craziness in my head I will be able to put into here. The more I can get out of my head and onto the paper/screen the better I will feel ultimately, I am sure. But it's hard, knowing that the last two were violated and wondering if it will happen again.

All for now...

love from jenn