That's Not Me!!

I love psychology and read voraciously anything to do with it. That includes a lot of psych blogs. One of my top favorites is ShrinkTalk.net. I highly recommend it for a good laugh with insights behind it.

In this post about the therapeudic effects of personal blogging, he interviews another blogger who delves extensively into her personal issues and has been for 10 years. I hadn't read her before and her blog didn't make me wanna rush right out and read all of her stuff, but what ended up in Dr. Rob's post hit so close to close to home that I promptly had an anxiety attack and struggled with nausea off and on the rest of the day.

It could have been me writing this part:

...I came from a decent family; had two loving parents who'd been raised in stable homes. My family was good folk. Hardworking folk. German and Irish immigrants mostly, with a little bit of Iroquois. My parents had been married 30 years and I had an extremely close relationship with my mother. I probably hadn't had an idyllic childhood, but that was my own fault, because there was something inherently wrong with me at my core, from birth, and that was the reason I was suffering. I was too stubborn, too sensitive, too selfish. Nothing particularly bad had ever happened to me; I was merely inferior to everyone on earth, and there really wasn't anything good about me. Because of this, I was eating disordered, in and out of controlling and abusive relationships with jerks, addicted to a handful of different substances, alcohol, pills, sex - anything that would put me out of myself, to be honest. Not to mention, I was at war with a depression that had gripped me since before puberty, the source of which was just...fate, I guessed. I was in a lot of pain, and I had tried to commit suicide twice the previous winter. Because I was bad at everything, I failed at both attempts, but I was pretty certain I wouldn't be alive much longer. I couldn't take the hurt because I was weak.

I use a totally different way of getting out of myself. Instead of drugs and sex and things, I dissociate, sometimes to the extreme. Other than that - this could be me, right down to the geneology!

This just... clicked. But then I read this paragraph:

Its difficult for people to understand how you can think you are a bad person when there is no evidence supporting that fact--I got straight A's and no detentions, and truly believed I was a bad kid. But you're brainwashed. Your ability to self assess is taken from you, and feelings are not allowed. No one can feel. If they did, they walk the fuck out, so it's declared selfishness to feel things. Moreover, the message is: you do not matter as a person, beyond the material, or your ability to sacrifice for the family, and so you further suppress feelings. Sit on them. That's a dangerous way to move through life, particularly if you're seeing things through as cracked a prism as mine.

And that's where I lost it. Because that is me all over the place. I truly believe I am a bad person and that I was an evil kid. And yet if I try to explain this to people, they don't get it, they never get it. I've never yet managed to successfully explain where this deep-seated confidence in that reality springs from but I know it is there.

But she felt that way too. And she had so many things similar in her life to what I had in mine. And she ended up screwing up her life in so many ways, as did I. But she came to the conclusion that it was her LIFE that was messed up, that it was her LIFE that was bad, her situation - not her. And she came through the other side and is starting to see herself as not a bad person and that maybe she wasn't a bad kid.

Honestly, that very concept terrifies me - that maybe it isn;t/wasn't me after all. Maybe I'm not bad and it was the circumstances that were bad. The conditioning is so strong from The Mother - she built it right in there that psychology, therapy in particular, is awful because it introduces the concept of "toxic parents" (her terms not mine) that assume the problems of the child are because of the parents. She used to say I was a perfect example of pop psychology bullshit (also her terms) because nothing in my life necessitated the way I behaved and the depression I fell into. It had nothing to do with her and yet they labeled her a toxic parent and how stupid and horrible that concept was and she would go on and on about it. It never occurred to me to dispute her because that would have put me right there with the infamous "them" which she railed against so strongly. It's built in to never question her role in my failings and always place it squarely on my being a bad person and fate choosing me randomly to assign "bad" status to.

But if she can walk away from the cult mentality and work towards a better life and self... and I saw so much of my own thoughts in her words... what does that say???

I'm Angry!

Okay, no I'm not really angry. I'm just irritated. By everything. Frequently. Ugh.

I don't like anger. I don't handle it very well. I don't know what to do with it. For the past week I have been biting people's heads off. It's like my filters are nonoperational. I'm probably no more snippy than anyone else who gets snippy but it has a bigger impact on people because it is not usually there. This constant irritability is very out of character for me.

My MO is to seek and destroy. I will find out what is getting me mad and eliminate it, either by thinking my way out of it, turning it onto myself, or tossing it over The Wall to make it not exist at all. I have been informed this not exactly the most healthy way of handling things but old habits die hard.

So I've been trying to figure out where the anger is coming from. To this end, I have been examining what types of things are irritating me.

The kids have just been driving me up the wall. They are constantly fighting with each other, physically and verbally. They are refusing to pull their own weight around the house. And the whining!! OMG - the whining is going to be the death of me!

Alright, from the POV of Jung and his immortal Shadow, that behavior in them is getting to me because I hear and feel the same desires and reactions inside my own head. I don't want to do the crap around here that needs to be done. I hate it like I hate very few other things. The very thought of cleaning makes me tired and irritable and whiny. And when people say things that bother me, I have the urge to lash out at them instead of blow it off. Everything in my head wants to be acting like they are. Thus when they do act that way, it bothers me intensely.

Other than the claustrophobic fighting with the kids, in the past couple of days, I find myself irritated by life in general. The past 6 months have been full of complications. And the more of them that pile up, the louder the cries of It's not fair! and Why me??? become. And then I start trying to answer those questions and the only answers I can come up with fill me with despair and - yup... more anger.

I keep thinking that life shouldn't be this difficult. It's like I have this assumption of entitlement. Life shouldn't be this difficult and it isn't fair that my life is so complicated. I want to give up. I want to throw my hands in the air, tell the world to stick it where the sun don't shine, and take my leave of absence from it. I won't. Because I can't destroy my kids. But I so completely want to. And being thwarted in that arena as well just builds the frustration.

Of course, realizing that I'm raging at the world and at life in general actually creates more friction in my mind. It's not like being angry at someone for something they did and being able to confront them and resolve the situation. Who am I going to confront? God? So I feel impotent. And I cannot stand feeling like I have no power. Even when I know I have handed my personal power over to someone else, I still feel like it is my power and I made the choice to hand it over. But when I'm pissed at life and the random bullshit that it has been dishing out lately - I have no control over that. There is no power to take back here.

And so the anger builds, the irritation bubbles to the surface and I have been getting snippish and having to bite my tongue. Instead of turning the situation around until I can manipulate it, I am sitting on it. It's like riding a roller coaster - up and down and too fast and too jarring. It makes my stomach feel gooey and while I'm not scared, I'm not having the "fun" I was assured I would experience.

Anger is NOT cool. It's NOT okay. I DON'T like it and I want it to go away.......

Catching Up (a post in brief)

I have other things I want to talk about. But I also think I need to give a brief update to catch anyone (including me) up to speed that may need it. So this is going to be quick and without analysis. Perhaps I will go into more detail later, perhaps not.

- I am home from the hospital. In fact, they only kept me 7 days. The doctor got me back to a semi-stable place and then sent me home. The fairies have gone. The memory is back. As near as I can tell, the entire fiasco can be boiled down to a 2 drug interaction. NOTE TO SELF: DO NOT MIX XANAX AND AMBIEN!

- We are back home. We had that horrific ice storm the week before Christmas. It knocked out our power which in turn meant we had no heat. We were staying at The Mother's - 10 people crammed into a house that is used to running for 2. Then a pipe froze in our heating and flooded the living room. And I lost my mind. And Hubby was gone with the railroad most of the time. We had Christmas at The Mother's and New Year's at The Mother's. Well, things are repaired and warm and everything and we are back in the house.

- Kid-1 still has not stabilized. His mood and attitude have spiked. We have had the police out twice to contain a rage and we are always butting heads with him. I am so far beyond frustrated that it isn't even funny. We have been back to the psychiatrist and tweaked his meds but we are not there yet. And not all of this is going to be fixed by meds - he needs an attitude adjustment.

- My cousin, or rather Hubby's cousin, had an accident. He raced motorcycles in the motocross thing. Well, he flipped over his bike and landed on his head. He is now comatose, on a respirator, and not sure what will happen next. His vitals are stable but there is still pressure on the brain and all sorts of complications. It's going to be a long road and I am praying both that he does wake up and that he won't be sorry he pulled through when he does wake up.

- Hubby got laid off. On the train they call it "put on furlough" but it means the same. They are expected to be called back anywhere from 6 months to close to 2 years. It all boils down to the economy. The trains are supposedly the last to feel it, but they are feeling it. How soon he gets called back will be determined by how quickly the economy bounces back.

- He has returned to his former job for now. Lucky for us they are having a rush and need more help than they have. He has only been taken back contract and we don't know about the number of hours they will give him or how predictable those hours will be. But at this point, at least there will be some income and something for him to do. We can try to fall back on unemployment if we need to but I don't think that will be sufficient - we were barely making it before. I have applied for the state's health care plan for the kids. I think it is too soon to apply because we have no idea how many hours he will be getting. But we shall see what we shall see.

I think that is all the major plot developments for now. There are some other big minor ones I didn't touch on, like my asthma spiking and the current status of Baby and Baby-Mommy. But I can go into those at some other time as necessary.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Does anyone know where I was during these times? I know I ended up at the BIL's once while the power was out. And I was inpatient at the psych ward for a couple days once. Currently we are living with my parents because the ice storm took out the power which took out the boiler which froze the heat pipes which flooded at least one room of our house. We have heat now but we aren't going home because Baby-Mommy has her BIG TEST sometime this week and can't watch all 5 kids and Hubby is in and out (more out than in) with the trains and I can't be left alone.

I keep forgetting everything. I don't remember people or places or things I've done. I have no memory of Christmas except the evidence left behind. They can't leave me alone because there is no telling what I may do, from going back to bed (leaving the 2 year old unattended) to thinking I haven't taken my meds and taking them again (and again and again...) Mostly I disappear into my head or into a book or into a book that lives in my head.

They are sending me to the hospital. I don't know exactly when. They have been making plans for who will cover what duties while I am gone - it's like eavesdropping on someone planning your funeral. I think we are waiting for insurance confirmation of which hospital is covered. Or maybe to see the doctor Monday. Or maybe to find a new doctor like we were talking about.

I'm very scared. The hospital takes away everything I treasure. I can't see my kids or my family. My freedom is gone. The things I like to do are forbidden. Most of those things are the only ways I know to calm myself down when I'm scared. I can't use MAC (my laptop) or BOB (my Nokia) or watch any of the television shows I like to watch. I hope to be able to take a book that I like to read but I have trouble concentrating when I'm upset. I can't have my writing notebooks and ink pens. I don't know about sketchbooks and pencils and erasers. No Dog-Dog or Fuzzy blanket to hide with. No music to calm down my head. They will even take away my wedding ring! At the same time, they will probably stop all of my meds and then get cranky with me when I totally fall apart.

I want to hide. I want to sleep. I want to go away so far into my head that no one ever finds me again. But they won't let me.

The Men in the White Coats

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS DETAILS ABOUT A MENTAL BREAKDOWN. IF THIS WILL UPSET YOU, PLEASE DON'T READ IT.

They really did come to take me away. (Ha ha, hee hee, to the Funny Farm......)



It might have been the pressure I put on myself from Hubby being gone, the rough transition of him being back for just one week and gone again coupled with that strangely changing power dynamic. It could be that the hypo-manic episode I had in early October swung the other way and led me into a vast crash, not suicidal but not in any way competent. Maybe there is just something about this time of year that sends my brain into emotional overload and I take a nose dive. Maybe the Lexapro destabilized me just enough to see the upswing in October and the downturn in December. Oh hell! maybe a butterfly flapped its wings in Central Park and someone around the globe wished they hadn't forgotten their umbrella.

Whatever the cause, the result was the crash. The cutting intensified - the pull of the urges so strong that even the desire to not have the urges faded away into a foggy background. The song Fake It by Seether became my mantra, my theme song. I felt like I had this grand elaborate mask on, trying desperately to fool everyone around me (including myself) into thinking I was doing just fine. And I wasn't. I don't know how much others realized I was sinking because I got so much encouragement and praise - that could have been in hopes keeping me going or out of ignorance that it wasn't true. But I sold my soul to fool the world and lost my self-esteem along the way.

Then Hubby came back for a week. Things were strange in a wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff kind of way. I wanted things to go back to how they were before he left. I wanted him to become the me I had become while he was gone. I wanted him to fall in line with the changes we had made without him. I wanted to make it easy on him. I wanted him to make it easy on me. It was a very confusing set of emotions and contradictions packed into one short week.

And then he left. Again. And this time I knew how it would feel to know that my heart was only beating half-way because its other half had been ripped out and shipped off via airplane to Atlanta, Georgia. And I knew the kids were going to feel that too. I knew the whole schedule had fallen back onto my shoulders. I knew then that there would be no going back or staying the same: everything was changing and we didn't have an adapt or die choice, we simply had an adapt option.

I blamed myself for him being irritable and out of sorts while he was home. I blamed him for it then blamed myself for blaming him. The world seemed to speed up around me while I trudged through the mud trying to catch my bearings, my breath. I didn't see how we were going to make the rest of our lives work if we couldn't even make one week work, forgetting that the water is coldest in the first moments after you take the plunge.

I let myself slip away inside myself more and more, sleeping as often as I could, sleepwalking when I couldn't sleep, dissociating when I couldn't do either. Predictably the headaches came on in full-blown glory, along with the shots of Happy-Juice. Instead of taking one xanax, I'd take 5 or 6 or forget I'd taken a couple and take a few more. That Wednesday, the 3rd, I snapped. And everything else is like a memory of someone telling me about a movie they once saw when they were drunk.

The straw that brought the men in the white coats actually ended up a bipolar rage - mine. Well, Kid-1 started it. (I sound like a kindergartner! LOL) He went into a rage and in my basically incoherent state, I responded likewise. We tussled, physically, and the exertion gave me an asthma attack bad enough to call in the EMTs for me and the cops to calm Kid-1 down. In the process of getting me breathing again, the EMTs saw my arm. The latest gash is deep and long and wide and was bleeding quite grotesquely. For some strange and incomprehensible reason, they were not impressed.

The men in the white coats restored oxygen to my body, bandaged up my arm and called The Shrink to find out if I was bloody nuts or harmlessly crazy. The Shrink was literally in the process of telling them that if I promised I wouldn't do anything that I could be held to my word... when I pulled out the IV and stripped the bandage from my arm, got dressed and tried to leave. Thus came the court ordered 72 hold.

When informed of the hold that had been placed against me, I was less than pleased at the prospect. In fact, I tried repeatedly to leave the hospital, thwarted by a HUGE guy who, if his name wasn't Bubba, it ought to have been. When they told me I had no choice and brought out the HANDCUFFS(!!!!!!) I began to shriek. And shriek. And shriek. And shriek.

The running joke amongst my friends is to use a patronizing tone of voice to tell someone: "Don't worry. The men in the white coats are your friends. They will bring you a coat that lets you hug yourself. And the big shiny needle only stings for a minute."

Wow. How true it is, only substitute the huggy-coat for handcuffs and there you have it. The sedated me for transport - twice. When I came out of my stupor, I grew more and more coherent. I quickly realized where I was and that this was NOT a good thing. But the fog was also clearing and I began retrieving control over my mind. Within 24 hours, I (me, not someone in my body that wasn't me) was back. I was released from my 72 hour hold after little less than 48 hours. (This caused them some paperwork issues but I don't care - that's their problem.)

Now I am back from the funny farm where life is beautiful all of the time and I am trying to pick up the pieces I dropped over the past few weeks. I didn't OD or attempt suicide this time so I didn't break too many people's trust in me. I went to the hospital via ambulance because of an asthma attack and that is the story that the vast majority of people heard so I am not getting lecture upon lecture upon lecture. I am feeling better, a definitive upswing (that has me worried but that's for another time) and not sleeping all the time. Hubby will be back TOMORROW!!!! And I have gained some new insights into some issues here at home.

I guess all's well that ends well but the next time we use the men in the white coats joke or sing that silly They're coming to take me away haha song... I guarantee I will think of this. Maybe it will take the edge off the joke and dull the humor; maybe it will increase it exponentially like the "Are you psychotic?" snafu did. Time will tell.

Echoes Past and Present

The Shrink hit me where it hurts today. I started it. I said it first. We were discussing Hubby still being irritated and frustrated and snappish. He asked what Hubby needs to feel loved and I said things like being listened to and supported and things like that and I remarked, almost offhand, that he would probably like more intimacy and me to start it too, but oh well. The conversation migrated and all I ended up hearing was blah blah blah If you want Hubby to be be happy to have to prove you want to be intimate with him blah blah blah.

And that is so much the message I feel I got from the worst of sources: You owe me this. If you want me to like you, be nice to you, stand up for you, loveyou, then you need to show me you want this (and if you don't, you'd better be very good at pretending). It felt like my past had come full circle and every horrid thing I had been trained to believe and started to question had turned out to be accurate after all.

I lost it. To be honest, I don't remember hardly anything else he said. I remember him laughing at me then trying to apologize for treating the subject so cavalierly. I remember him trying to call me back to the room a couple times. I remember him not wanting me to leave because he wasn't sure I was safe. I don't remember much else.

Actually, I think that gave me the final push over the edge into a breakdown. More on that that later. I am writing this now, on the 12th of December, what was started late on the evening of the 3rd of December and occurred early on that morning because everything else in between was like driving at high speed through dense fog. Hopefully I am through the worst of the messy emotional storms and back to a safer pace of life.

Self-Destruction Inside and Out

NOTE: THIS POST CONTAINS POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING DESCRIPTIONS OF SELF-HARM. IF YOU ARE FEELING SUICIDAL OR THE NEED TO CAUSE HARM TO YOURSELF OR OTHERS, PLEASE CALL 911, CONTACT YOUR DOCTOR, OR A FRIEND WHO CAN TALK TO YOU, OR SEEK HELP FROM SOME SOURCE. THIS IS NOT!NOT!NOT! MEANT AS AN ENCOURAGEMENT OR TO CONDONE SELF-HARM OR SUICIDE IN ANY FORM.

I cut at my arms. I refuse to eat. I sleep as often as I can get away with it. I take too many pills or not enough or the wrong kinds. I walk around barefoot in the snow and don't really notice or care. I take showers hot enough to raise welts. I am generally a self-destructive person. I mostly do it in ways that don't affect others, except when they find out by accident or when I slip and overdo one. I hide this well enough that my kids don't even realize it happens, Hubby and The Shrink don't know about it unless they ask me directly in such a way that I can't dodge it.

But by far my physical self-destruction is much less than what I do to myself mentally and emotionally. If anyone said most anything that I say to and about myself to my children, they would get such an earful as to leave them deaf for a long time to come. I have worked very hard and with a specific intensity and purpose to keep my children from feeling and thinking the things that fill my head and heart most every moment of every day. I would not wish me on my worst enemies. The things I say and feel about myself cause me far more pain than anything I do to my physical body.

I love my kids with an intensity that overcomes nearly everything. They are my sole purpose for living. All I want is to be gone from this world, this life, this self. I despise myself more than an ugly stepsister and feel the harshest of punishments, whatever they may be, are well-deserved and insufficient. If it were not for these lovely, wonderful little children, I would be gone in a heartbeat. And though I will not do that, because of the trauma it would cause them (despite their lives becoming far better for not having to deal with me), I won't leave them.

Resolving not to leave them until they are grown and flown the nest and able to cope a little better does not ease my self-loathing. It does not keep me from wanting to rip myself from limb to limb in any way available. A few weeks ago, I made quite a mess of my arm. Baby-Mommy saw a small part of it (the only one who ever notices, thank goodness) and gave me a minor tongue-lashing but ultimately decided she can't control me and what I do is my problem. (Again - thank goodness.) I stopped the destruction because I was afraid Hubby would see it when he was home this past week. Though the scabs were gone by the time he got here, the scars are a bit obvious if you see the arm (long sleeves are my friends!) yet mercifully, he didn't notice.

I found this encouraging. Cutting, as horrible as this sounds, is reassuring and almost self-comforting. Some of my cuts and things have been highly symbolic - the crosses, the Ms, the horizontal slashes that count the days he has been gone - whereas some are just anger and loathing rising, literally, to the surface. I choose whether or not it hurts, which The Shrink says is not normal but whatever. I feel the bite and sting as it happens and watch the blood rise to the surface and all the hate and rage and disgust at myself gets poured into that. All the pain that I feel inside that I don't feel I can express to anyone becomes a physical thing - a legitimate reason to feel the pain that I otherwise do not feel entitled to. As I move my arm under my sleeves as it heals, I feel the pull and ache of the wounds and it reminds me that I have a "real" reason for hurting that isn't just in my head. It also serves as a release of some of that self-hatred that whispers (or shouts) at me to just die and be done with it.

If the pain becomes a problem for whatever situation I am in, I push it away and I don't feel it any more. I know it is there, like I would know it is cold outside by looking at a thermometer without actually feeling cold. The only pain I can't disengage from is pain in or around my head. Migraines, toothaches, sinus infections - they get to me. Everything else will generally go away on command.

The Shrink says one problem with self-harm is the tendency to escalate. Apparently it is a release for "cutters". They want to "feel something, anything, even if it is pain" and seeing the blood or injury "makes them feel alive, that if [they] can bleed, they must be real and living". I don't understand that. I don't have issues with escalation. Apparently, for these people, once the blood stops and the cut begins to heal, it is no longer enough. The same degree of injury doesn't suffice to bring about the same feelings so more, deeper, harder, longer, whatever, becomes necessary (in their minds) to generate the same release. I don't feel that way.

Another problem is supposedly the tendency to accidentally cause too much harm and create an "accidental" suicide. How on earth someone manages to "accidentally" cut their body enough to lose enough blood to die is beyond me. I have caused problems by overdosing before but those were not self-harm attempts; they were something completely different altogether. And though I have occasionally wondered what it would feel like to cut deep enough to need stitches, fear of being caught has always held me back from causing even that degree of injury.

The other thing that is apparently common for cutters is motive. This is what keeps me from getting caught more than anything except the threat of being separated from my children. It seems many cutters do it for attention. They want to cause harm to others by making them feel responsible for the harm they do themselves. Some even simply want attention. These are classic Borderline Personality Symptoms. I am many things but I fit very few of the diagnostic criteria for BPS. I get very angry when I do get caught and people automatically lump me into that category. I know and love many people who are BPS, but I find that assumption (that because I SI, I am BPS) to raise my blood pressure with just the thought. If I "simply" wanted attention, I can think of far better ways to do it than to upset everyone who finds out, cause them to revoke all trust in me and treat me like an errant child, and risk being separated from my kids. And I DO NOT cut (etc) "because" of someone else. I do it for me, not just to me.

All that said, I honestly don't understand why this is being made such a big deal of. I am not in physical danger of irreparable harm (save for some minor scarring that doesn't affect anyone else). I'm not hurting anyone else. I'm not trying to emotionally hurt anyone else. And I makes me feel better, not counting the vast guilt and shame that getting caught brings about. So why can't they leave me alone??? At least I'm not attempting suicide.