Being human…

I started 2016 with high hopes. I was feeling good and felt strong. Then I spent over 2 months fighting off infections one after the next. I am normally quite healthy so to have 7 infections of various sorts in a row was very shocking. It finally ended and now I am back to my usual self. 🙂

Once I finally got better and stayed well, I decided it would be a good time to my art studio and a spare room painted. This endeavour is the only thing that really turned out since the beginning of 2016. Thank goodness for this!!!

And then April arrived.
My husband works seasonally at the only workplace available to people in our area. We live on the east coast of Newfoundland Canada and the only business here on the “north shore” is fishing. My husband worked on the wharf and the months that he spends at work are the ones that get us through the whole year. Of his 5 siblings that live here, 2 couples are retired and the other 3 all depend on the plant for their yearly income.
We were all ready to get back in to the swing of things and the crab plant was ready to run at full tilt… until it burnt down the day before everything was to really go wild for the summer. This means no work (or scrounging up a few hours wherever he can). It will devastate us financially until the plant is rebuilt in a year (best) or two (reasonable).

That alone was enough but then I found out that my hubby was sneaking smokes. I will not say a lot except to say that he has severe health issues that will only see him deteriorate with the smoking coming back in to his life. This causes me a great deal of stress because I love him and do not want to watch him to decline as he did before he quit. He almost died twice last year… it is scary.

Due to my therapist becoming a grandmother again, I did not see her for what should have been 3 weeks. It is now 4 weeks because the car broke down while trying to go see her this past Tuesday. IF next week works out, I will see her then. A full month of no therapy… seriously not at all good for my head space. 😦

The biggest issue this past week was even bigger to me because I was already so depleted and psychologically tired but that aside, I had a HUGE trigger this week that has just knocked me right over.
You may recall me speaking about my son Marcus and his death. I have not given a ton of details regarding his actual last moments except to say that they were horrific and caused by someone who should have loved him.
This week in my area (very rural – everyone knows everyone). A 5 year old girl was murdered by her father and then he set his house on fire to cover the crime. It is damn close to exactly what happened to Marcus and I have found this whole week triggering in a way that I have rarely been tested before.
The father had been charged with domestic violence 3 times yet the court dismissed the charges each time. Due to the fact that he had no record, he was given shared custody.
The mom did what she could to be heard but no one would listen.
And now her child is dead.
Trigger, trigger, trigger…

To add to those triggers, I was privately discussing the loss of Marcus when one of my Monster/mother’s friends interrupted to call me a liar. That just pi$$ed me right off and being seen as a liar is probably my biggest trigger. I know she is misinformed but it still sent me spiralling downhill at an even quicker speed.

These are the reasons why I was so quiet last week. I was just feeling so anxious, depressed, and triggered. I wanted to drink or just be done with this world and although I did neither one, the thoughts alone scare me plenty. I do not like it when these options begin to look like reasonable responses to the issues in my life.

I have also been feeling so very alone. In reality, I am not alone. I have my blog which is always a source of comfort in hard times, I have wonderful friends, I know good coping strategies now and life when I am more stable, looks really good.
Sadly none of this seems to be enough when things get really bad. I just feel terribly alone. I feel unlikable, unlovable, unworthy, and untrustworthy. I feel terribly unimportant. I do realize that my mind is playing tricks on me but it doesn’t seem to really matter in the moment.

Now the rebuilding begins. Self care, self-care and more self-care.  I have the skills to find my way out of this and I have supports to turn to but it is the actual action of doing it when my energy is so depleted.

I don’t write this to make you worry or feel badly for me. I write it because I can so often come across like I have everything together, that I am calm, capable and have my biggest storms behind me.
The truth? I have weathered many storms, I have managed to make huge changes in my life and I am proud of my accomplishments.
Some days really just “bite the big one” though and I am quickly reminded that I am human. Fallible, occasionally weak, messed up, and confused. So totally human.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

I thought it might be wise to go back to a topic I covered almost 2 years ago. The basics of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I have a lot more readers now (YAY!) and new friends whom don’t really understand DID. No criticism here at all. Before I was diagnosed with it, I knew as close to nothing as one could get.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is portrayed in the media as some sort of wacky, wild, really cool to watch phenomenon. If that isn’t their angle? They are usually discussing the controversy of the diagnoses. I hope that if I share what it means to me, it will take some of the confusion out of it and hopefully inspire some understanding.

Everyone has multiple personalities/identities. Even you.
If you stop to think about it, you are not really the same person when you are out with your friends as you would be if you were out with your children. You are different with your spouse than you would be with your parents. You can become the professional at work then transform to a carefree spirit when you go out for an evening with your best buddy. Even your pets get a different side of you.

If you think of your own life thus far, I am sure that who you were as a child is quite different from who you became as a teenager and then that teen became a young adult. Eventually you grew past the age of being a young adult and perhaps started making some more adult decisions like getting married or having children. You continue even now to mature and change with each passing year. Ask someone who’s in their 60’s and they will tell you that they are very different from who they were at 30 and few 50 somethings that I know are still acting as though they are 20.

The difference between you and all your sides/personalities are that they know each other. Each part knows what the other was up to and went through. Who you are right now knows what you have done good or bad over the course of your lifetime. Not perfect memories of every little thing but you have the big picture. At 40, you can recall being a teenager especially as your own teenagers are now giving you the same hassles you once gave to your parents. There is an easy flow of communication between these parts of you.

When you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, this ability to easily communicate is severed or severely affected. It is like growing up and the 4-year-old you doesn’t know the 5-year-old you. Each one is compartmentalized in a separate box and each box is locked. Usually this is caused when there is trauma so severe and so constant that the host could not have survived psychologically without creating a very handy coping tool. Rather than being totally overwhelmed by what is going on and absorbing all that trauma by oneself, some children unknowingly begin to dissociate. This is a very clever secret door that a traumatized mind is able to create to help survive the fear and pain.

Sadly, if dissociations happen regularly and a total “split” occurs, the child will have very few memories of this age. Good or bad. If the trauma continues for many years, these splits can happen over and over. The biggest difference between a dissociative mind and one that has not needed to develop this skill to survive is the ability to recall life in an orderly fashion.

This issue of segregated memories is used to help diagnose cases of DID. When I am asked to give a family history or a history of even my past week, it can be very confusing for me. I don’t always recall who came in to our lives or who went and and when. I have years of missing time scattered throughout my life so I can occasionally recall moving to a new home but not recall leaving it or I could suddenly be in a new home and not recall leaving the last one. People with DID need to constantly juggle what they know with what they can’t recall.

People with DID, myself included often have very large chunks of their life missing. One dissociative part of me from when I was 4 might not even know about me or any other parts. For 43 years I did not consciously know about any of my other parts but most of them knew me. They did not all know about each other though. Some did, some didn’t, some parts formed groups, some stayed isolated, some even thought that they were the only one. They seemed to not even realize that there was me.

These parts and pieces of my life have a very chaotic order to them and they almost all are still the ages that they were when they came to being. This is where it gets really hard for me. That silent 3-year-old that needs to be held and hugged is always 3 and always needs to be held and hugged long after it is “appropriate” to want this from those around her. I can and I do try to take time to fill those needs if I can but I have a LOT of Helpers and taking care of each one would be 3 full-time jobs at this point.

I really like this graphic as a way to explain what I am trying to share here.

For me this happened 34 times. For a long time I only heard 3 but that was when I was still assuming I was psychotic or just truly bat shit crazy. In time, with a great deal of support and compassion, I allowed myself to begin to hear others and there are 34 in total that have made their presence known. I don’t know them all yet and I don’t have all of their memories.

I work daily on hearing them, finding out what their needs are and trying my best to fulfill those needs. I feel as though when parts of me feel heard and hopefully healed as much as possible, they can get a well deserved break from needing to protect me from what they deem as dangers. This will reduce the “need” for dissociations.

I am not a professional with all this nor do I have all the answers. I am learning day by day and sometimes I get it all very wrong. I’ve been able to help my Helpers at times while hurting them at others. I am working at it though. Every day.
One day I hope that my 4-year-old will know my 6-year-old. My teenagers will know the adults and the adults can allow me to take care of my daily needs without whisking me away. I will not integrate them, I just want us all to communicate more easily with each other rather than living in all these separate locked boxes. My goal is to find peace.

Attachment

I never understood how attachment theories worked nor how they affected me personally. I just knew how I felt inside and felt this deep longing to belong somewhere in this world but no matter what I achieved or who cared for me, I still felt that ache just as strong as the day before. It was a deeply lonely feeling as though I was separate from every single other person around me.  I’ve heard others describe it as “being alone in a crowded room”.

About a year ago I had a conversation with a doctor who has taken a keen interest in attachment issues. He explained to me that a child attaching to its mother is not just a good thing, it is a biological need that MUST be met. It is not a want or a wish, it is a need.
In healthy infant development, the baby will attach to mom first for food and comfort. The father is usually the next attachment and then gradually over time after the age of about 6 months, that infant will gradually begin to expand his or her circle. If mom and dad have given the child everything they need, this attachment to others is a very natural process. Auntie Kate to visits the most regularly may be the first outside attachment perhaps Grandma and Grandpa are next. It will usually just be whomever the child sees the most often and has positive interactions with.

The trouble for neglected infants is that when the mother and/or father do not adequately bond with  or care for their baby, that infant will still have that biological need. Generally neglected infants do not have good support systems either. There might not be an Auntie Kate or a set of grandparents that either live close enough or perhaps care enough to be there on a very regular basis. Even if these people do try and do care, that infant is still going without. He or she needs mom for certain and in the best circumstances, dad too.

To explain the gravity of this situation… if this was to happen in the wild? The infant would die. In some ways this is also true for human beings.

If you watch this short video, it shows how a good and connected parent affects the child and then this same parent refuses to engage at all. Watch the difference in the child.

So what happens as these babies turn in to preschoolers, become school age, turn in to teenagers, and then become adults??? That unmet need is still there and it will never leave unless that need is met somehow. Some people will say they do not care what happens to their parents and that may be absolutely true but they will still hold that biologically unmet need within themselves.

Quite often these people seek out acceptance to a much greater degree than those with healthy upbringings. “Looking for love in all the wrong places” as the song goes. We can grow up, get in to deep relationships too young and sadly even accept abusive relationships easier than most people would because that need for a bond is so overwhelming.

I recall my thoughts after my first marriage crashed and burned… I realized that I had not chosen well or been picky enough. I had my children when I was not yet old enough  or fully equipped to handle them (I was married and in my 20’s but I really wasn’t equipped). I just wanted to be married and have children because I was desperate for a connection of my own. Sadly this rarely ends well so I got a divorce then swung to the other extreme where I need NO ONE for ANYTHING and totally shut myself off from anyone outside of my own children. That doesn’t end well either just in case you are thinking of trying it. 😉

So here I am at 46 years old and I know many others just like me who are even in their 60’s and yet they still wish for a unconsciously look for a mother to take care of them. We attach to others too quickly. We can force bonds which can often freak other people out. We can be seen as needy, sometimes even childish or many other varieties of “messed up”.
Please do not blame yourself if you see yourself in this situation. Your needs were not met and you are behaving as your mind feels that you need to in order to get that need met. It is not acceptable to continue this behaviour long term but do not berate yourself for needing something you couldn’t get.

I am not a professional on this in any way so I can’t give a laundry list of suggestions but perhaps even just being aware of your reactions and accepting them for what they are, an unmet need, could be helpful.
In my own life I am still in mourning for the things I never had but I am also getting healthier and being sure that my boundaries are as appropriate as possible.
A spouse is a spouse.
A therapist is a therapist.
A friend is a friend.
A sister or sister-in-law is a sister.
Those are the lines and attempting to put these people in a mothering or fatherly position holds our progress back. We will be once again seeking and not finding what we need and this can be devastating even if you are not totally aware of what you are doing.

The only true healing comes from beginning to give ourselves what we need. Starting to mother and/or father ourselves. Accept that there is that little girl or little boy in there that really needs to be shown true parental love. I will admit that I am still at the point where I feel like this just sucks and I shouldn’t have to be my own parent after everything else I’ve had to do for myself… but I know cognitively that this is where I need to go and I have started in some ways.
I just found this post and think it might be helpful to say to ourselves. Either this or something like it but we need to start to nurture that inner child.

The Human Brain Overrides the Instinct to Discharge Trauma

Do you ever wonder why people with trauma experience pain years after the trauma happened? This pain often has no real cause and it is then called a “somatic illness”. Basically this means that it is pain caused by your trauma with no underlying physical cause (until you are older and years of pain catch up with you). Why does this happen to us and not to other animals that can experience trauma/life and death situations on a regular basis???

It is all because The Human Brain Overrides the Instinct to Discharge Trauma.
Special thanks to my friend who writes “The Healing Arts Therapy” for quite a bit of the research and writing included here. 🙂

Animals in the wild routinely experience life or death situations that stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, dump adrenaline into the bloodstream, and provide the energy or “charge” for a fight, flight, or freeze response. When a zebra is chased by a lion, adrenaline surges and the zebra runs for its life (a flight response). When the zebra knows it has reached safety, it instinctively “discharges” the remaining adrenaline energy by trembling, shaking, twitching, and jumping around. Because the animal completely discharges the excess adrenaline energy after the chase is over, it doesn’t hold the memory or the energy of the trauma in its body.

A zebra doesn’t hold tension in its body from every chase and live in the past thinking, “A lion chased me yesterday and I barely got away.” “A lion chased me last week and I’m still stressed out about it.” “A lion chased me last month and I’m still having nightmares.” (LUCKY ZEBRA!)

Humans have this same discharge instinct available in our hindbrains (reptilian brain), but our frontal lobes overwhelm the hindbrain. Following a traumatic event, we do tremble and shake, but as soon as our frontal lobes engage and become dominant, the discharge process is interrupted, and any remaining excess adrenaline energy is locked into the body.

For example, following a severe car accident, it would be good to shake and tremble until you were done, and you wouldn’t be done until all excess adrenaline energy had been discharged from your system and you felt calm. But you will have to override this shaking and trembling instinct and activate your thinking brain to take down driver’s license and insurance information and answer questions for emergency responders and police reports. Some of the trauma energy may naturally discharge, but the adrenaline energy remaining in your body when your frontal brain becomes dominant will be stuck there.

When the discharge of trauma energy is interrupted and incomplete, the excess adrenaline is still surging around the body trying to do what it is designed to do: provide energy for a fight, flight, or freeze response. When the frontal brain overrides the hindbrain and demands that the body stop trembling and shaking, the body has to do something to contain the adrenaline energy. So it “freezes” it into body tissues with chemical bonds to hold it still. This frozen adrenaline energy remains locked in the muscles and fascia and organs and nervous system until it can be discharged, sometimes for the rest of a person’s life. This held energy can create a multitude of symptoms and compensating behaviours.

Any human behaviour that we can do to release this trapped energy can be very useful to aid in healing.

My story.

It was suggested to me by a long time reader that allowing my story to be told might help reach others. I have hesitated doing this is the past because I just felt the details were not really important. That said? I do agree with this reader and have decided to share some of my story (minus the nitty-gritty) with you today. I do hope it helps you understand me better and I hope it reaches some of you so that you know that you are not alone in this fight for your survival.
I am going to leave my siblings out of this story because I do not feel it is fair to assume how they felt or what they went through personally. If there is a day that the ones still living wish to share with you? I’d happily post it.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a princess.
Scratch that. This is no fairy tale. 😉

I was born at the beginning of 1970 in a winter storm. A fitting beginning for the life that would follow. A winter storm of sorts that lasted decades.
I was born to a family that was quite wealthy and had every available support to raise a child as easily as possible. From other family members, I have been told about how my father was thrilled by my birth but my mother hated me from day one. Probably long before day one in reality. I am sure she viewed her pregnancy as a real inconvenience.

My beginning could have been a good one but right from the very start of my life here on this earth, my mother would begin making choices that would seal my fate and my father would not do anything to stop her.
Their first decision? My name.
Heather was the name of a girl whom my father and mother hated. She’d chased my father around and my mother hated her for it. This is the person whom I was named after. Someone they hated.

I have a few memories of my early childhood but none are good. From 0-4, all I recall is being afraid. Many years ago my grandmothers both told me stories of how I was left in filth and ignored while my father was at work. I was also told that I would scream and beg others to take me with them as they left our house or begged babysitters to keep me. That is just not normal behaviour for a young child. Wanting to leave with anyone rather than staying home with their mother.

Starting at age 4, I was given a gift of new underwear for my birthday. Not the best gift for a 4-year-old but they were a tiny hint as to what that birthday would mean. I would be sold to men who liked little girls and my hair was cut so short that I also looked like a boy and could satisfy men who liked boys as well. This was not a rare occurrence. It was done as often as there was demand and there was ALWAYS a demand.

It was also around this time that I learned to mistrust what people said vs. what they actually did. My mother could be the sweetest, kindest, most gregarious person to anyone on the outside but then a monster behind closed doors. It was her perfect “outside face” that allowed others to believe that she was trying her best but that I was a child with some real issues. She convinced therapists, social workers, a child psychiatrist, doctors, teachers and strangers that the problem was set squarely on my own shoulders. I was the one who hurt myself and then lied with crazy stories to cover it all up. This lasted for my entire life with her. It still goes on to this day! She is perfect while I have mental illnesses.

There was a lot of sexual and physical abuse but even worse than that was the sadistic nature of the emotional abuse. I was made to believe that I was only sold to men (and some women) because I liked it and caused it to happen. If there were bruises or broken bones? I had obviously done something to deserve that. If I got ill. that was my fault too. That woman (my mother) made sure that my self-esteem was now only low but non-existent. I felt less than human and not truly worthy of any kindness. This is the part of her abuse that is the hardest to get over or heal from. I feel like I am worthy and then someone talks about me or doesn’t like me and I am plunged deeply right back in to feeling absolutely worthless. My brain knows that I am a good person, that I give a lot of myself to helping others, that I am smart, and have a lot going for me but my heart still says “You don’t deserve any of it and you are just as worthless as you always were”.

I did try to speak out and I tried to reach for help but these efforts were always met with my mothers wrath. I recall being made to eat a “poop” hot-dog in a bun. If I was going to spread “filthy lies”, I was going to eat filth as well. After a certain number of times where I reached out to ask for help and having that come back at me with a vengeance, I gave up. I still find it hard today to speak up about it because my automatic feeling that accompanies this openness is fear.

There are so many details and situations that I could discuss but I am sure you get the idea by now? It wasn’t just a hard life. It was a life filled with monsters that never hid under my bed. They just stayed out in the open and did as they wished with me as often as they wished it. I many ways this abuse started before I was born and still continues today. 46 years of situations and stories that would make your blood curdle.
If you read my list of Helpers from last week, there are a few more details of which Helpers came in to being and when/why.

I wish I could say that I grew up, moved away and never had to deal with my mother again but I moved 3,500kms to get away from her and 2 months later, she was living 1km down the street from me in her newly purchased home.
I have not spoken to her in over 11 years yet she still speaks about me in public to anyone who will lend her an ear. She tells them lies and makes me look horrible. We live in a very small community and there are many people who have never even met me whom hate me with passion. I’ve been called a liar, a bitch, a whore, a selfish daughter and worse by these people who just believe the words my mother shares. Supposed grownups and mostly “church friends” of my mothers. I really try hard not to let it bother me but she has even gotten to my own children and 2 of my husbands extended family members. The words said under hushed breaths make me want to just run away again and never look back… or just give up and leave this world altogether. It is hard not to taint the good that I have created in my life with that poison. I am only human. It is hard to be hated and even harder to be hated for something you never were.

Sadly it is not only my monster/mother that drags me down like this. My father takes part as well. He is quieter about it but when discussions of how my brother abused me surfaced, it was his voice on the other end of the phone calling me a sociopath. In my heart I know that he believes every word and knows the truth but he is unwilling to face it and it seems that hurting me instead is acceptable to him. I recently cut off all contact with him and I know it was necessary for my future mental health but I feel like a 46 years old orphan who never knew what it was like to have a mom or dad.

I’ve felt very lonely lately. I miss those whom have loved and seen die by suicide due to their PTSD. I ache for my murdered son. My heart has cement poured all over it while my living children find their way home. I really miss the nurse I felt close to while in hospital and the doctor whom I got to know before his sabbatical. Now my current therapist is retiring in a couple of months and I must say goodbye to her as well. I know these supports are not meant to be lifelong friendships and I am good with that but it doesn’t make missing them any easier. These people got me, they understood me, They believed me and truly heard me. They made me a better person. I am just tired and I am trying to find and keep my spark. I will find it again. I have faith in that.

I’ve had some comments about how I do not share negative stories on my blog but I feel that my intentions are perhaps a bit misunderstood. I do not keep things positive because I want people to think life is just all great and I am flying high. I keep it positive because I have dealt with and still deal with more negative in the run of a day that some people experience in a lifetime. By remaining positive myself, I feel like I am adding to the good in the world and that somehow negates some of the bad. It takes a lot of effort on a daily basis to live a good and positive life but I almost always feel that it is worth the effort.

This blog is very important to me. YOU are important to me. When someone says that they heard what they needed to hear or got what they needed to get because of a blog I wrote, it helps me add to the balance of positive in my life. Thank you for that.

If there is more you wish to know, just ask. If it is too personal to be on the blog, I will respond with a private email.
All the best to each of you. ❤

Hand drawn by Heather. For sale. $20
Buy an 8×10 “Be Gentle”

Unexpressed emotions.

I believe this to be true 100%. It may not be true for everyone but in my experience, most people will trauma need to talk about what they went through before they are able to heal from it. I can not fairly speak for others so this blog will be my own experience. That said? I’ve heard the same thing over and over again.

In most of my therapy, there is a real unwillingness by psychiatrists or therapists to discuss what happened in any detail. Attention is given to the here and now with the goal of working on how the trauma affects you present day. I do agree with this for a certain amount of time. Safety needs to be established, trust needs to be created, supports need to be in place and perhaps a few other things before discussing the actual story takes place. This takes time. Sometimes a lot of time. Perhaps for many people the time to discuss the details just never arrives. They do not want to or just never feel ready. That is their own personal choice and I respect that.

The trouble for me began when I wanted my choice to be taken seriously. Keeping all my secrets buried inside of me led me to the edge of a huge cliff and I was hanging on by one small fingernail. My story had never been discussed, never been opened up for discussion… and never believed by anyone. I’d only ever been 0-24 when the bulk of my abuse happened. I’d tried reaching out but no one had ever heard me. Those who did hear me found ways to brush it all off or turn around and blame me for what happened. I’d given up and I’d remained silent for decades. That silence was nearly the death of me. Piece by piece. Day by day.

The first time I ever told my story as an adult was while I was in hospital. It nearly cracked my soul in half to tell even little parts of it and I felt like my mind would never find a way to get put back together. I felt so exposed and I assumed everyone could now see how dirty, disgusting and pathetic I really was.
As hard as those first days were, it was also the beginning of my healing.

My secrets began to feel the air and began to travel along beside me as a part of who I was rather than weighing me down like the rocks they had been before. My shame was heard and disputed. My guilt was seen and I was taught how to place it in the proper place. I learned that my story was just that. My story. It was not who I was.

After leaving the hospital, I had a psychiatrist whom was a very kind and helpful man. I know he cared but he didn’t really see me. He saw my mask. My Helpers came out to him but he didn’t know me well enough to realize it so he was never able to help them. We never really discussed anything in detail. We tried a couple of times to just scratch the surface but it was almost like he was afraid to upset me. I do not know if that is why he pulled back or not but I can think of no other reason.

I also had 2 therapists. One who never believed anything that I disclosed in the hospital because she was too busy writing copious amounts of notes and being totally ticked off that I had opened up while hospitalized and not while I was with her. Her only way to explain that? I was lying.
I will tell you know. She was another trauma. Just one more professional who wasn’t willing to really stop and look. If she added up my symptoms, my life, my triggers and fears? It all pointed to exactly what I’d been through.
Eventually I picked myself off the floor and never went back to her.

Another therapist was found and she worked alongside my psychiatrist. They both felt that it was better for me to stay with current day issues and deal with those rather than dig up the past. That is all well and great but guess what happened? My mask got better looking while my secrets started to find their way back in to my soul. One heavy rock at a time, they got in, settled down and grew larger. On the outside, everything was just great. On the inside? I was beginning to die again.

You see… these professionals had the best of intentions and I am sure they would be hurt if they knew they had caused me to just close back up and put my mask back on but that is what holding secrets does to you.
The things that bother me most today are deeply rooted in what happened years ago. I do not need to discuss it infinitum, but I do need for the back story to be known so the troubles of today can be worked on effectively. By being unwilling to go where I needed to go, their help was of no use. They were really great people and I liked them both but they were not helping me nor were they willing to hear me when I tried to tell them what I needed.

I finally found a trauma centre with trained trauma therapists and I am beginning to continue healing again now. We do not spend each session deep in the trenches of what happened in the past but when an issue comes up, we do look at where it began and how I processed it at the time. It is in that moment of my history that the damage occurred. I do not need to fix the spirit of the woman who I am today. I need to heal the young, confused, scared, helpless child who is still inside of me just waiting to be allowed to come out and once again walk alongside me rather than dragging me down.

I wrote a poem while in hospital about this and I will put it in its own post. I hope you’ll like it.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Helpers

What a week I’ve had here! How has yours been?
I have been very busy each day so I am grateful for a chance to sit down to write a blog and relax a bit. I hope you’ll enjoy sitting down for a bit while you read it.

I haven’t discussed the Helpers in quite some time because I’ve been going through a very uncertain time with them and felt it was time for that side of my life to be private for a while. I think we all needed it.

On Wednesday I was in to see my therapist and what a wacky session it was from my point of view. I’ll have to ask her how it was for her when I see her next week. I try very, very hard not to dissociate while there but at times it is impossible. Wednesday was just such a day. I arrived for my appointment feeling the anxiety of at least a dozen parts of myself. A man answered his phone in the waiting room and I nearly jumped out f my skin. Doesn’t everyone know that silence and complete stillness is a good thing? 😉

It wasn’t even just Wednesday. It’s been at least a week now of odd feelings and confusion that has not existed in a very long time. An urge to self harm, drink, drive off the road, say a hearty “F*** YOU” to anyone who was even looking at me. I guarantee you that these are not traits of mine alone. I know the Helpers that feel these ways and want these things. I do my best to give them what they need so that the destructive side of them will be calmed down and we can live life the way we have all chosen to live it. The trouble is that I am sometimes not in a good place to be giving much to them if I am having a hard time myself.
We have made it through the week without any “maladaptive” behaviours but I am quite frankly exhausted from holding it all back. Only 2 more really busy days and then a day off. A much-needed day off.

I have been working for the past few months to create some co-consciousness with my Helpers. If you are unfamiliar with that term (as I was until rather recently), co-consciousness is having awareness of another part and if all goes really well, working with that part/Helper to deal with issues together. It is not integration or becoming one. It is more like both being in the room at the same time. Some people seem to have this ability or skill right off the bat but for me? When my Helpers are out, I am not. I had no clue what they were up to. I am hoping that developing some co-consciousness will help us work together in a smoother fashion.

While at my appointment, my therapist seemed to know that it was not “Heather” who arrived at the appointment and she was partially right. I felt like I was there with a half-dozen others and all their feelings were all over the place. A little closer to the end of the appointment, she asked me how the little ones felt about her retirement in June. The adult Heather (me) has been taking it really well. Almost too well. When she asked how the little ones felt about it, I felt this overwhelming presence of the little ones. They did not take over but their obvious distress was felt full force by me. They/I began to cry and feel heartbroken. We were suddenly very little again. I felt them. Small, scared, heartbroken, wanting to be held and hugged, wanting a real mother, and such a huge amount of loss.

I take my therapy very seriously and I have promised myself to always be willing to go wherever I need to go for healing to take place. It does not matter how painful it is. I truly feel that things hurt more when left to fester inside and are worth the discomfort of allowing them to come out.
That said? On Wednesday? I wanted to beg my therapist to stop. It just hurt SO MUCH. I felt like I couldn’t possibly take it for even one more moment. I held on though and still feel like I was kicked in the gut.

I am sorry if todays blog is a bit disjointed but I am dealing with a lot of Helpers still today. Co-consciousness is my goal but getting there is going to be a very bumpy road. I’d actually love to hear from others who have either tried to develop this skill, already have it and how you control it, or those whom support others through it. Do you have any advice for me? Tips and tricks that could help me or others whom read my blog?

I really hope that you have a great weekend and I think that next week I am going to try to let a few of the Helpers lead the blog for that day. Who knows? It might even happen. *laugh*

As a parting note. For those of you whom are newer to my blog, I wanted to post the quote that gave me the inspiration to call my other parts “Helpers”. A positive quote and a positive connotation for my Helpers.

 

Hard work.

As you all saw a few weeks ago, I have a new puppy. He is growing like a weed and eating like a horse, yet he has found his way straight in to my heart.
That said, puppies are hard work. A LOT of hard work. For every minute of cute, there are at least 9 minutes of hard work.
I’ve seen a lot of ads lately on a “Snowdog” site that I am a part of where they are offering their slightly older puppies up for a new adoption at a greatly reduced price. These are not bad people with bad intentions, they are people who saw the cute puppy and assumed that sweet little face wouldn’t be as much trouble as they are. I am NOT making a judgment here. Not at all. It has made me think though…

First of all, here are my 2 favourite fur babies in the world.

They are both beautiful, cute, sweet as can be… and a LOT of hard work.
We are up with the puppy twice each night to let him outside in to the cold for a pee. We are out in the cold too and it is not fun at 4am!
We must keep an eye on him at every second because with each new day of growth, he hits a new height of treasures he could not reach before. This week it was the 3 recycle bins, the garbage in my office, my husbands neatly stacked wood splits for the fire and the edge of almost every table we own. Tonka will soon believe his name is “Tonka-No”
His food is super expensive because a puppy that grows as fast as he is (he’s gained 8 pounds in the past 3 weeks) needs excellent nutrition.
We can not just leave him alone for hours and go off to do whatever we wish to do. His bladder is not strong enough yet and we do not wish to stall his house-training.
And poop duty… oh gross.
And he bites. HOLY CRAP those little razor-sharp puppy teeth want to sink in to everything. Hands, ankles, earlobes, my hair and head… it is all fair game. He is not a bad dog or a “biter”, he is a puppy and puppies need to learn that human beings are not chew toys. Until he learns that? We are.
He’s earned a second nickname besides “Tonka-No”, he is also known as “Jaws”.

I do not list all that to complain. He is not our first puppy. We knew what we were getting in to and we did so willingly because we know that as he grows and learns, he will become a very well-behaved and treasured part of our lives. I just feel that some people do not really know the reality of puppies when they get one. It really is 1 part cuteness and cuddles vs. 9 parts hard work.

The same can be said for almost anything that is really worthwhile. How many months does it take to get those tomato seeds to go from where you are making a huge mess planting tomatoes in your home (if you are Canadian you have to start them inside LOL), remembering to water, fertilize, split, replant and weed on a regular basis before you get to pick even one tomato off of your plant?
It is like a puppy. 1 part yummy and beautiful vs. 9 parts hard work.

Your job (ANY JOB) is often the same. How many days do you work before someone says something nice to you or you complete a project? How many snotty noses until an “I love you mommy/daddy”? 1 part “pat on the back” vs. 9 parts of no one giving you a glance.

Does this mean that we shouldn’t bother with puppies, fresh tomatoes, children or jobs? Of course not!!! The end, no matter how hard the work, is often so worth it.

This is one place where I think we can often lose motivation when it comes to ourselves though. Mental or physical well-being takes a lot of hard work. Recovery can be such a huge uphill climb and like these other examples, we might manage to raise ourselves up one notch then fall back 3, or 6, or 9 times…
We might get so fed up with all the hard work that we feel like giving up. This is why I wanted to write today’s blog about my pain in the arse yet really cute puppy. He is just a really good example of well-being. It is hard work. We get him on the lawn for his business then turn around to clean a mess he did in the house. Our own skills are much the same. You will get it right and you will get it wrong. You might get it wrong a lot at first and right only now and then. BUT!!!! If you stick with whatever you are working on? You will eventually master your goal.

Hard work doesn’t mean it is not worthwhile.
Hard work often means that it is.

Now back to that 1 part cute and not the picture of the poop I cleaned up out of the house an hour ago, the clump of fluff he pulled out from the box-spring mattress this morning, the mess he made with the bit of oatmeal and fruit he had for breakfast (that I am still removing from his fur), or the scratch marks on my husbands face from an early morning wake up call…
He is such a lot of hard work but look at him right now asleep with his sister.
So cute… and so worth it all.
Have a great week and work hard. It’ll be worth it in the end. 🙂

My Shame Story

I wrote a blog about guilt and shame almost 2 weeks ago. I have since realized that what I really discussed was guilt and not shame. I had them balled up together like they were one entity. I still think the blog was a good one and gave a lot of suggestions for easing guilt. I just need to go back and change the title to “Guilt” and take “Shame” out of there.

Since I didn’t know the difference (but thought that I did), I will explain it as I understand it so far. 🙂
Guilt is something that you can start feeling at about the age of 3 when you are able to do something and feel badly about it or someone else can make you feel badly for doing something wrong. We do not always own the guilt that is given to us but we are able to feel guilt at that point.
Guilt now seems to me to be the easier of the two to deal with. With a big dose of self compassion, quite often a good therapist or life experiences, we can learn that what we did or was done to us at various ages was either not our fault or it is forgivable.

My guilt was trauma based. I did not yell loud enough, run fast enough, tell enough people, force doctors or social workers to pay attention, run screaming to a teacher… the list is endless but you get the idea.
I have learned that I am in no way responsible for anything that happened to me no matter what anyone says to the contrary.

Guilt is also the culprit when we use words like could or should. I should have known better. I could have been smarter. I should have remained silent. When you look back and feel badly about how you’ve behaved or something you’ve said. That is guilt.

Shame… oh that sneaky snake of an emotion.
Shame begins at birth. Before we are even verbal. Shame is taught to us. Shame is the lesson or lessons that tell us who we are. Have you ever heard someone say “I don’t know why I was even born”? Perhaps you are the one who has said it or thought it? There is a reason it is said. A shame story was put on them in some way in the earliest days of their lives. Mom or Dad may say or feel “I don’t know why on earth I had this baby” or put blame on the baby for restrictions caused by parenthood. A baby can pick that up and it becomes shame story that he or she can feel for the rest of their lives. There are often no obvious words for our shame. We just feel it.
Shame is a cruel gift. Parents or caregivers often think that a pre-verbal child is too young to understand but they are very wrong. Seeds are planted and those seeds will become beautiful flowers if they are kind and gentle but they can also become weeds that are almost impossible to get rid of when the words are unkind or uncaring.

Shame is also the messages that we all pick up throughout our lives. If the base of the person is already damaged, shame given by the world around us is also too easily absorbed.
An example:
A child with a good base. A positive beginning can get called stupid because he or she made a mistake and they will often reply with “I am NOT stupid!” They may even run to a trusted adult to tattle on this mean person who called them stupid. How dare they!
A child with a shakier base, a more negative beginning may be called stupid and rather than fight it, they can absorb it. “I probably am stupid.”
Sadly, it is really easy to add to a shame story once it has begun.

Sent in by a reader…
Non-verbal shaming is perhaps the most insidious (as spoken of in the Dr. George Simon quote). You can argue with words but how do you argue with a sneer, a tone of voice, a look in the eyes?

Guilt is external and more easily verbalized “I did something wrong”.
Shame is very difficult to verbalize. “I am wrong.” There is something wrong with me as a person. I am not as worthy as others. I am not good enough in a very deep-seated way.

For me, shame presents itself first in the form of this thought.
“If anyone ever REALLY knew me, they would realize how worthless/horrible/stupid/_____ I really am.”
I have a very deep fear of being outed as a liar and assume I need to hide this trait… even though that trait does not exist in me. I was taught that lesson from my earliest moments in my life and still believe it to this day despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. My husband and good friends have actually said that I don’t lie even when I should. I can be a tad “direct”.
I feel less than… less than everyone else. Everyone comes above me. It takes a great deal of strength and practice to say no without feeling badly or for putting my needs on the chart. At all. Ever. I am working on that one.
I feel unlikable. While others assume that I am happy, chatty and comfortable, I always leave with the feeling that I have likely done something to turn them off of me.

The really tricky thing about shame is that you can KNOW none of this is true but these messages of worthlessness are far more deeply planted than rational thought.

The good news… you KNOW I have to end off with good news right? 😉
I feel that once we have found our shame and find a way to put a name on it, we can start to really question these beliefs. I do not for one second believe that I am suddenly going to get over all my shame filled thoughts just because I finally figured out what they were. It will take time and a lot of positive reinforcement from those who know me telling me what they see in me. Not buttering me up but truthful statements that I know people say to me already. I just have to put more effort in to believing them.

So… I hope you will answer these questions for me silently in your own head. You do not need to admit them to anyone. They are for you only.
Are you worthless?
Are you useless?
Are you deeply and irreparably faulted?
Are you stupid?
Are you selfish or thoughtless?
Are you a liar?
Are you a waste of space?
Are you ugly?
Are you a misfit?
Are you slow?

Now, take a moment to ask yourself this one last question.
Who just answered? You or shame?

Value Your Survival Skills

It can be really tough to look at the symptoms that are caused by whichever disorder we’ve been burdened with and feel thankful. Who would feel thankful for dissociations, unexplained body pain that never ceases yet a mind that feels nothing? Anger, depressions, anxiety, feeling absolutely crazy, and afraid to make friends or trust anyone at all. There are so many different symptoms that I just can not cover them all but you know what you deal with and it really sucks doesn’t it?

So let’s look back a bit to the time when those behaviors were not symptoms yet.
Back to a time when they are what helped us survive.
They were not symptoms then, they were SKILLS.
We needed them. Quite often they saved our lives.

Any good therapist or doctor will tell you that although these skills were useful in the past, they are not helping us now. We know that but we need to be taught how to cope without using them.

It is in that in-between time that we often feel very critical of ourselves.
Why can’t we feel things?
Why can’t we trust someone who we know is trustworthy?
Why do I struggle with addiction? (Food, alcohol, drugs, sex…)
Why do I hurt myself to feel better?
Why do we feel such anger that it is more like a venomous rage?
Why do we then feel nothing?
Why do we eat so much or so little?
Why can’t we stop zoning out?
Why are we depressed when everything seems to be going well?
Why are we so anxious that it can be hard to leave home?
Why do we say or do things to cause distance with others?
We can often feel dead inside. Why can’t we feel?
Why do we want to be alone yet feel shunned?
What the heck is wrong with us?
Why can’t we just be “normal”?

Those questions haunt so many of us and I am sure you can relate to at least a few. It feels awful to be stuck where we do not want to be. It is very easy to be unhappy with ourselves and we want to do better but it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of time to change.

Maybe we can do something a little different when we feel like being hard on ourselves for our now dysfunctional coping.
Perhaps we can look at these “symptoms” and see that they were not born out of weakness but rather born our of the will to survive. We are not weak or frigged up because of them. These symptoms just show how incredibly resilient we were.  We made it through all that we dealt with thanks to those skills.

We also know that we need to work towards healthier coping skills in our lives now but I find that making steps forward is a lot easier when we stop putting ourselves down for who we are at that moment.
Accept yourself for who you are and where you are. You are a survivor. Nothing less. You are strong and good and kind. The people who’ve been hurt the most almost always are.

You will change in time. You will make healthier choices and move forward in positive ways. Allow yourself to accept who you are right now and that change will happen faster.

I learned to value my skills and it changed my life. I had more compassion for myself. I was no longer sorry for how I acted or felt. I had every good reason to be exactly where I was. Any person who lived through my life would do no better.
Maya Angelou said “When you know better, you do better.”
Wherever you are right now is the best you can do. As you learn? You can do more.
Maya Angelou also said “When you learn. Teach.”
One day you will be in a place where others will look at you and learn from your climb.

You survived. However you achieved that? Good for you!!!