I started to write a response to a post by Dr. Kathleen Young on What Makes a Good Fit in therapy and realized I was gonna get pretty wordy.  I don’t usually do this kind of thing and actually I think I kind of wrote about it on my “Into the Darkness” blog on LiveJournal a while back (link in sidebar) but, what the heck.  I have updates on my perspective since then so … here goes.

Trying to feel safe in a therapeutic relationship when relationships in general feel unsafe is really difficult for me.  I had a really hard time getting up the motivation to look for/ask for help finding a therapist.  I’m not really sure how I got through that part of it.  I guess things just got bad enough that I had to do it, for me my worst nightmare is ending up in a hospital.  That is just not an option for me, so that was kind of my push.

I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was around 12 years old or so up until I was out on my own my mom always was the one to get the recommendations and set me up with therapists.  The last long term therapist I saw was a psychiatrist and in the end that went very badly.  I think some of my getting back into the search and trying to feel comfortable was hearing from people who raved about having a fantastic therapist.  If it was out there for them could it be out there for me? I went to see a therapist at the university I was at and for awhile it worked and I liked her a lot, I think that helped too.  While it didn’t work out I was able to take away from it better knowledge of what I did and didn’t want.  I was so close to finding “it”, “the one” if you will haha! Still, it took things getting really bad before I set up that first appointment with her.

When I started my first search on my own this past summer I did start to evaluate before meeting the therapists.  I definitely noticed I was analyzing voice mail messages, one woman had a cold message voice and with a German last name (my mom of German descent too) my head was going all kinds of places about what would she really be like.  In the end that one didn’t work out because I ended up feeling like she was trying to slap a ton of labels on me and wasn’t really seeing me as a person.  Another person I was having mixed feelings about because he was, well, male.  Got what seemed like a very short, pointed email response from him and started to think, no. Later on he followed up and the tone felt a little warmer.  Another voice mail message from a female therapist had me really anxious to meet her because her voice mail messages seemed warm and upbeat.  My current therapist sometimes seems a little, I don’t know not cold, down? or I’m not sure how I would characterize her voice mail really just that it usually doesn’t fit how she is in person.  I did go through therapists websites, found myself evaluating photos if they put one up.

What made me feel safe enough to go into meet with my current therapist I think was that she was part of the ISSTD, Sidran, and EMDRIA.  She mentioned on her site that she kept current with the information put out by those organizations and other organizations, as well as attending education lectures she teaches as well.  My therapist at the university didn’t seem to know anything but acted like she was an expert in trauma which in the end scared me and is why I left that one.  I think mainly though I felt safe going to her because she was recommended to me by someone I already trusted.  I not only trusted that person but liked her quite a lot and she mentioned she thought they were somewhat a like.  I think I kind of thought “Wow! If I could have you as a therapist that would be perfect, this could be the next best thing!” I also noticed on my therapists site that she was holding groups for art therapy and that the practice she was a part of often had groups.  I thought that was really cool because sometimes therapy can feel so isolating and to maybe have opportunities to talk to others (no matter what they were dealing with) would be really nice.

Contact wise I don’t really mind phone tag.  I really hate to talk on the phone!  I have yet to really do the email back and forth thing aside from contacting potential therapists about setting up a meeting.  I’m still not sure how I feel about trying that.  Sometimes I want to but it doesn’t seem ‘right’ to me somehow.  I like to write I think sometimes I express myself better in writing because I can really take the time to think but sometimes I worry about misunderstandings.

Location wise I’m confined to a small area because I either walk or take public transportation so that was big for me.  I knew too that I was very resistant to having a therapist in the same building as my old psychiatrist.  I think I do need the in person meetings, while I sometimes think it might be nice to do anonline thing I again worry about miscommunication and things

Scheduling wise my therapist seems pretty flexible.  I like that she does offer me names and numbers of colleagues who have the same training and experience she does for when she is out of town.  I haven’t used them but it’s nice to know there is someone.

My preference for training was to avoid the psychoanalytical types.  I really have it in for Freudians haha! I felt kind of unsure of social workers only because I hadn’t had any experience.  In the end though that’s what I went with.  I was really looking for someone who kind of ‘dabbled’ in everything (maybe dabbled is the wrong word but you know).  Ok, minus heavy on the Freud ha! That’s what I had found I really liked about my therapist at the university she kind of was always coming from new angles, art therapy, assigning me homework, light role play, etc.

Demographically I don’t think I cared too much about age as long as the person wasn’t ’stuck in their ways’.  I’ve had regular doctors like that and it sucks big time.  They don’t care what the latest research is, they don’t care what you think.  I was done with people like that.  Gender was a little sticky for me.  I went back and forth on it, my psychiatrist was male and I guess that left an imprint on me.  On the other hand I was worried a woman might be to easy on me and I have a history of bullshitting (not lying but avoiding) instead of talking about what’s really going on with me.  Luckily I was able to tell my current therapist that and she thanked me for letting her know so she could recognize when I might be doing that.  I’m slightly more aware of it in myself but I do need help with it.  I kept thinking it would be awesome if the character Judd Hirsch played in “Ordinary People” could be a real therapist! haha! I think I’d be ok with him being a guy. I think another reason I was considering a male therapist is I tend to be more open with my male relationships (even in talking about abuse – minus the experience with my  Pdoc), I think that goes back to my posts of feeling more wary around females.  In the end of course I went with the female.  Sexual orientation was not a factor for me.  Religion how ever is, I categorize myself as spiritual but not religious and am very opposed to organized religion.  I just talk about spiritual things in general sometimes with therapists but don’t want it to be majorly or overly present in our work.  The second someone goes into God, Jesus, what not, I have a tendency to tune out. (For anyone feeling the urge to jump on me about this, this is neither the time nor the place. Thanks.)  Race and ethnicity came to play in a different sort of away in that I was hoping for someone who understood issues regarding international/racial adoption.  I got really lucky that my current therapist is knowledgeable (even taught in the local schools) about the area I’m from.  So it’s nice when I can save a lengthy explanation and get straight to the issues.  Same with disability (not mentioned but I’m throw it in ) I was looking for someone who understood/was knowledgable about both learning disabilities and chronic pain (specifically Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue).  The latter was really important to me because I’ve already been through, well, pretty much all of my life not being believed around that issue.  I didn’t want that to be treated as a psychological issue (“You’re just depressed that’s why” “It’s all in your head, I can fix it”).

It was funny because when I walked into my therapists office I knew.  Everyone else I had ever seen had really boring offices, I know that might sound kind of dumb but hear me out for a bit.  The worst one was the above mentioned “German” therapist, the office was nearly empty.  It was not a new practice or anything either.  I think I can still tell you every single thing that was in that room haha!  It was ‘cold’ which is how I kind of ended up feeling about that one.  My psychiatrists  office was usually dim, ugly furniture, huge desk, Freudian couch, textbooks (not like interesting ones but the ones that look like a law library) galore and his chair was way on the other side of the room with the lamp next to him.  Images of speaking to God come to mind haha!  In the end that’s how I felt about that one too, he was off on a power trip to say the least.  There were others but then there was my therapist at university.  I liked her office, not a lot but it was different from what I was used to.  She had pictures of her family and not just her degrees.  She had clocks galore!  Plants of various sorts, hmm she takes care of her plants ok haha!  She had interesting books of all kinds, feminism, workbooks of various sorts, ethnic issues, etc.  She invited me to sit anywhere even on the floor, pull my feet up on the couch (REALLY?! Couldn’t believe it, I never did though. Wanted to but couldn’t quite do it), grab a few pillows, wrap myself up in the blanket (never did that either) if I wanted, whatever it was fine with her.  That was big too me, the other big thing… there were a few stuffed animals on her book shelf.  So when I found my current therapist and walked into her room…  Books of all sorts this time including DID and trauma, she had her EMDR equipment, art work of all sorts, plants, chairs of all sorts, pillows, and…toys and art supplies galore!  She’s a put your feet up kind of person too (and as of yet still haven’t taken the opportunity).  The thing about the office is this for me, it feels safe.  It’s inviting, she’s invited me to try to be at home.  I think there is still a shyness about me and the parts of me but knowing she’s said it’s ok is big.  Seeing toys and art supplies might seem silly to someone else but to me it says it’s safe for me to acknowledge those parts of me and that she’s probably ok with those parts of me too.  It says she must care about kids and have a genuine liking for them, it’s kind of hard to fake.  I think I’d spot it if a therapist just threw toys, etc out and didn’t really care.  Probably like most people with DID there are a good number of parts that are fiercely protective of the younger ones and therapy will go nowhere if the therapist/office/process doesn’t seem safe.  I mean that pretty much goes for any part of my system but the adult ones sometimes will stick things out longer, doesn’t fly with the younger ones.

We talk about safety almost all the time and while sometimes I find myself annoyed with it because I want her to believe that I think she’s safe and that I’m safe in her office, I do greatly appreciate the acknowledgement of the issue.  I do think I need to keep evaluating that for myself, sometimes I’m not aware when I feel unsafe.  I might feel something is off or some other feeling so it helps that it’s always being evaluated.  I’m still in someways working out what safety means to me so I’m glad we can talk about it or I can go home and think on it.

I like that my current therapist comes off as very human.  One of my first therapists was too paly (is that a word? lol) with me, I felt like I was talking to my babysitter or something.  She wasn’t professional enough, I ‘got away’ with a lot (meaning my bullshitting).  Most of my other therapist were too …clinical shall we say.  It was like going to the doctors or something and it was all business.  They knew their stuff, this is how this is gonna go, I’m the doctor and you know nothing.  The sit there and do nothing types I’ve run into too.  That was pretty much my psychiatrist.  Or as one chick I knew called it “Stareapy” (look her up on YouTube haha!).  My new therapist admits she’ll make mistakes if she hasn’t already (I know, I think to myself, but it’s nice to hear haha!).  She doesn’t get bent out of shape when I’m late once in a blue moon, when she’s late she’s kind of funny about it sort of scolding herself, to me it’s funny anyway because every other therapist I’ve been to acts like “No, big deal. This is my time not your time or our time, soley my time”.  If we do something with art she’ll draw with me and sometimes quickly share what she did.  I like the company when doing those otherwise I feel like I did with my mom and other therapists, like a specimen.  I like that she shares because well, it just seems like the human thing to do and I get to see she’s not afraid of creativity/art so that makes me feel a little freer and safer.  She can laugh when I make a good natured joke about myself and not go looking to analyze something that’s not there in the joke.  She can offer up appropriate examples from her own life either in relation to or as contrast to my own at appropriate moments.  That’s really important to me because I wonder about how other people grow up and families but at the same time my mother threw way too much information about her life on me and my dad is walled off.  I need to know where that balance is between closed off and too much.  She doesn’t push me when I’m trying to talk about difficult things, she knows when to offer me other options of communicating.  Heck! Being able to offer me other options of communicating. (ok, I went off topic there) I guess what I was trying to say there is she doesn’t shy away or try to normalize, trivialize things.  She alerts me to my body language, facial expressions, asks me if I MIGHT be having this or that feeling or ask if I am aware of what I’m feeling and If I can name it, not telling me I AM feeling this or that feeling (Seen to many therapist who will say “You’re angry/sad” Something my dad would do was to tell me how I felt or how I should feel).  Which to me makes her seem very human, empathetic.  She’s just able to be professional with out being a high and mighty expert.

Over the last few months I’ve been thinking maybe I should just stay here (originally I had planned to move out of the state. Economy killed that idea for awhile) because I can’t really imagine finding someone else this is working so well.  As much as I hate being in my hometown, I’m really getting somewhere in therapy.  I know it probably is possible to find someone new but…ugh it really is a process to find a fit! I do now know a lot more from ’shopping around though and have a pretty good idea what I want.

Feeling a little better but not completely sure if all of this is over or not.  I’m hoping I actually post this and it doesn’t wind up in my draft box like so many posts.  I’m really not sure where I wanted to start on this one except maybe to say what a rough day this has been.

Last week was rough too.  Last week was a big anniversary day and I’m only I think now really making some sense out of it or at least as much sense as can be made out of something like that.  Several years ago a friend of the family was killed, I like barely knew this person but I was deeply touched by her life.  I feel like I don’t remember a lot of things in life but one thing I do remember is kind people like that.  Anyway, what happened to this person closely related to something that would happen to me a few months later and so I’ve been realizing in the last few days how much I use it as an excuse to grieve for myself.  I guess for a ton of reasons it doesn’t feel right to be sad or upset about what happened to me but I feel ok crying about this other person.  I do genuinely miss her, it does genuinely hurt, there are a lot of feelings about it all without linking it to me.  It’s just hard not to think of what happened to me though, it’s hard not to do the why her, why not me thing.  So that’s where I’ve kind of been since mid February.  This persons birthday is coming up in a few days and I still have to get through that.  I do feel better but I know that sometimes in the past I will have thought everything is past and I’m over it only to realize later that I was in fact blind sided by it and didn’t realize what “it” was.  I’ll lash out at someone for seemingly no reason, I’ll zone out and drop the ball on something major, who knows all kinds of things have happened, then later I realize “Oh, that was actually around a big date and I didn’t even consciously realize it”.

So last week I went to my session and well…it was hard.  I remember now an insider bugging me a few days before or so wanting to call up my therapist and tell her how bad things were I think.  I managed to hold out till the appointment and there was no holding back anyone.  It still feels weird when we let the switching be more …what…obvious (I don’t know if it really is, maybe just to us).  I was trying to be ok with it, I didn’t know what else to do I was so tired.  So two insiders ended up showing.  The first was to voice the feeling of “Oh good god! Not this crap again!” and the second to express how much “this crap” was hurting.  Ok, yeah at least the first was nice enough to let the other through and at least after that everyone managed to be respectful etc.  I was just a basket case after I left even though things on the inside felt better.  The second insider couldn’t talk at first so ended up drawing, I haven’t looked at it again yet but I think I might put it up in the art section if I can remember (ha!).  There is still one part of it I don’t quite understand and I meant to bring it up today but we got off on other things.  *sigh* Maybe next week.

So this week I was really nervous about going back.  I wasn’t sure, did my therapist know what happened last week?  She had to right?  Crap. I was feeling really self conscious and at the same time I just didn’t want to go through that again.  I’m probably still in a denial zone but after last week it was hard.  I wanted it to be ok to switch but at the same time I think I was fighting a little.  I don’t like that feeling.  It feels like I have an itch in my brain, then it becomes this weird pulling sensation, can’t focus anymore, then at some point I hear this stuff coming out of my mouth and it’s like “Crap! Don’t say that! Geez!”.  So, I was so nervous going back in and this time it was a hard session as well.  My therapist wanted me to try and stay present the whole time as best I could.  It wasn’t long after I had sat down, done the chit chat thing, that I started to feel the tugging.  I can’t remember what we were talking about but I felt like I was being pulled in 10 different directions by different people/hands.  My therapist mentioned that my body posture looked like I was pushing away from something, I said basically that’s how I felt.  I felt like I was trying to push all the tugging away.  So she had me try a physical motion of that and it actually did help.  I felt let go of and like ‘everything’ had just gone “Ok, we’ll leave you alone”.  So we went on talking about the week then at some point we got off talking about just random things (I wonder now if I was hyper-aroused at something at that point and she was trying to chill me out by talking about day to day stuff) I realized later I think some part of me was feeling pissed about that like “I’m not here to chit chat right now!” she noticed another change in my posture I guess and had me do the physical motion thing again.  It wasn’t working this time, it panicked me a bit because this time I felt like I was in a fight.  I guess it wasn’t just that either but also that this feeling was different from tugging feeling earlier.  Earlier I felt like whatever/whoever was tugging me was safe, I’d be ok if I went and it was just I didn’t want to at that time.  This time it felt like I was going to drift off somewhere or with someone I didn’t trust.  It’s kind of flipping me out to think about it even now but I know it’s over for now.  I can’t remember what happened next but my therapist had me try something else and it worked a little better so she asked if I felt ok to try and use the EMDR light bar to help strengthen that little bit of grounded feeling I was getting.  It took some doing (if you want the details of how this EMDR went, meaning what she had me do, let me know I’m a little too tired at the moment but I’m happy to share) but finally the third time an epiphany struck!  I remembered that morning somehow a few insiders and I got into this semi-argument about our internal persecutor.  I can’t remember if I mentioned this or not but he’s been literally on ice for the past several months, it’s worked pretty well!  For some reason I found myself wondering though ( I don’t even remember why because now it seems kind of silly for some reason) if he was gonna thaw out now that it’s Spring.  So there was this big argument that followed about “Is it gonna hold”, “maybe it’s mean to keep him all frozen like that”, “Maybe he’s changed”, “No, keep him froze”, “No, maybe we should think about letting him out”…ugh! So I related all that to my therapist and in the end we decided it was a little complicated for now so we’ll keep him frozen for a bit longer till we have another session to address it all.  I felt so much better after that, that scary drifting feeling was gone and the Others decided we needed a freezer!  I just kind of laughed cause it seems like new places are popping up internally all the time so, big walk-in freezer in the basement now haha!

I was just so exhausted though when I walked out of the office.  The rest of the day I was so out of it, I was to tired to fight zoning out.  A series of crappy things followed I’m not even sure exactly what was crappy but it was haha! Something about selling a ring, then finding out my bank account was not what I thought it was, I was afraid I was not going the right way to get home (meh, good think I don’t drive or it probably would have been worse lol!).  I finally was able to find someone to call and talk to and that helped a bit.  I ran out of the house to work with out my keys though, nearly got hit by a car (I was looking right at it too, don’t ask lol!).  So after the hard part at work I was able to go outside and just recollect myself, now I feel ok.  I’m a little nervous because the nights have been hard on me, I can keep my mind busy in the day but night (especially when I’m getting tired) is so much harder.

I did catch up on United States of Tara, it still makes me go…meh.  I think I’m just kind of sticking with it cause I like the kids characters but this is kind of the thing I could skip for months and just watch when I’m bored out my gourd!  Funny because I read some of the message boards about it and there are so many people who are sooo into it (cue eye roll), the arm chair psychs!  I think there are a few points I could jump off into a conversation with someone and I don’t know maybe for the non-trauma or non-DID people it would spark a good convo but …not too many and with the one ‘normie’ friend I have that I know is watching it hasn’t happened yet.  So, I’m gonna go check this last episode and chill out.  I know maybe not a good idea of chilling but at this point I kind of give up.  Oh did I mention a friend loaned me Robert Oxnam’s book. Haha yeah, should be a real chill night!  Naw, I’ll find something…surf movie, music, something.

Whoohoo I finished and I stuck with it! That’s twice in one day (only I’m not as exhausted doing this!).

I am currently taking a break from …my break. I keep putting of posts and things but I need a time out especially after the last couple weeks.  I’ve kind of identified a “new” trigger of mine which has to do with fragile people.  I am pretty sure I did a post a while back about support groups and the internet where I might have sort of been trying to figure out why I don’t use them very much anymore (or at least with extreme care and only a few…ok 2, which I haven’t visited in a long time…because they are run by people I trust to have a level head).  Anyway, I kind of broke a few rules about this kind of thing I had for myself and now I find myself really triggered out by what I encountered.  My bad. So, I need to take a breather but I think I will be reading a few blogs still.  I think though I won’t get to much and then I’m hoping this week to get away for a bit since I’m off work til Monday!

Um…what else was I gonna say? (I’m so distracted because I had one of those cupon codes for a Mystery Case Files game  and as it’s downloading the internet craps out. Typical! *grin*) Taking a break, reading but not really, maybe going on vacation, triggered out, little upset with myself…

Had a good day at therapy, went really fast though! I really threw down some major trust too, I’m a little shocked at myself haha! We worked on getting everyone together for meetings, which we do on our own but this was different with an outside person in on it.  The trust came because the therapist had me close my eyes (yeah I could have said no but I decided to try and see how it felt) I hate closing my eyes in front of other people, it took a little while for me to be ok with it but it worked out.  Leap of faith or whatever, I’m tryin! Then it was a little scary because it was one of those count down exercises you know like she gets to 1 and everyone is supposed to be in the room. So for me that’s a little scary because it’s like hypnosis and we’ve got a great aversion to that except when we self-hypnotize but even that we haven’t done since mid-high school.  After that though it was interesting because I felt more in our living room than I ever have, it was really 3D.  Normally I feel like I have one or two view points of it, I think that’s cause I have my eyes open and we have kind of one foot in our inner world and one in the outside world if that makes sense.  At the end I came out very dizzy. I’m not really sure how it went cause pretty much everyone was just “shy” except our pre-teen (I loath that new word tween. Random sorry.) who was horsing around but didn’t want to talk directly to the therapist. I felt a little bad talking for her but we all were trying to be encouraging that it was ok to say what she thought even if it was to say she thought the whole thing was silly.

So that was that. Anyway, I’m going to go finish cleaning and try to go sort myself out for getting away! Ah and I have my internet connection back to post this so better do it now before it dies again!

I’ve been so ‘crazy’ this last week, there is so much I want to get caught up on and comment on here! Today I ran around with errands so I didn’t get to start in on this stuff like I wanted to until now.

I’ll start with a post about my appointment first.  After talking about feeling so out of sorts with the fibro fog and the dissociative stuff my therapist let me know she wanted to put the EMDR with the mild negative memory off for a bit longer.  She said she realized we needed to explore this dissociative stuff further.  I was somewhat glad but at the same time I have really really been wanting to kind of ‘wake up’ and realize I’ve been making it all up.  In other words I’ve been in that place of denial again.  Maybe that’s why it’s kind of slapping me around a bit more?  Sometimes it happens that way.  So anyway, she asked me if I’d map out everyone for her and I tried.  It felt really stupid at first because I was hoping to prove somehow that it’s just me and no insiders.  Plus, we really hate the circle in the middle is “Me”, put other circles in relation to that, kind of map.  Works ok for the little kids but drives the rest of us mad!  Everything feels way to complex to just use circles so instead we have several different maps and charts.  Seems like everyone has their own way of doing things.

I’m struggling though, I feel like it’s ok to talk about this all but I’m still afraid because of what has happened in the past when we’ve told people and other insiders didn’t feel we should.  I get the feeling though that this time they are all ok with it but, I’m still nervous.  Maybe that’s the denial thing again though?  We started to have a formal meeting about it but a few of us were just to drop dead tired and it was late.  I’d like to clean up our one chart and share that maybe, just clean it up a bit because there is stuff I’m not comfortable sharing yet and it’s kind of big.  I have the edited version up in our info section (the Box.net box) but I might add some stuff to that one from the big one.  I don’t know I just can’t stand going off those damn circles haha!  I wish there was some great ideal way to map/chart but everyone is so different, I’m so glad for all the other multiples I’ve talked to and who have shared what works for them because it helps so much in figuring it out for myself/us.

So I’m going to try to get on that chart in a bit and get on with this meeting again.  I just have a feeling this chart thing is gonna wig me out too much right now…take it in little bits maybe?  *sigh*

Cause my brain is FRIED!

I am seriously about to give up and …I don’t know cry, crawl into bed and never get out, run away? I don’t know.  I’m just about to lose it that’s all I know.  The fibromyalgia is trying to kick my butt, the dissociation is trying to kick my butt and that’s just not a good combination!

Yesterday I ran down to the basement twice to get my laundry and forgot my laundry basket, I nearly went without it a third time! I’m crashing into stationary objects…  I put on this shirt yesterday, a shirt I have worn a billion times since I got it last winter or so and only yesterday did I think “Why the hell am I wearing this shirt? It’s waffle weave, I hate waffle weave. Why am I just now realizing I have this shirt and that I have several of these!”.   I laughed but at one point I almost did cry.  Then all of a sudden I realized I had lost 15 minutes and I was going to be late for work.  I couldn’t understand I had been right on schedule where did those 15 or more minutes go?!  Then today I go to drop a check in the bank, I get the balance… $57.  I try not to panic, get home check everything out, no funny business or anything, just me.  This maybe happens to me once in a blue moon.  I don’t really know where I screwed up, luckily it’s kind of ok I just will have to transfer some things around.  Just, now I seriously want to cry.  Why?  ‘Cause I really just want to have it all together, I’m so afraid of this all coming crashing down around me.  All of the “crazy” spilling out, taking over.  I just feel like it’s starting to crumble a little again.  Losing my grip on being able to keep it all in and organized.  I wish I could just go back to bed and wake up with something different.

I’m not sure that todays session is going to be too good for all of this either.  More about that later though, I should get really really ready for work.  Basically though we ended up not doing the EMDR session after I let her know what happened yesterday.  Going to work on trying to make my work day a good one so the day is not a total f*ck up!

Note: Apparently I’m so fried I thought I posted this yesterday, came in today to find it sitting in my drafts.  WTF!

Sorry, not gonna get to the Tara post tonight.

That Remeron last night knocked me into next week lol! Seriously I shook myself out of sleep at 8:40 am thinking it was much later and I had missed my shrink appointment but thankfully, no.  I just wanted to stay snug in bed (partly because it was so cold today) and sleep till 4pm or so! Got home chilled out for a minute, watched some “Scrubs” and now I’m feeling like I could sleep till Friday (I can hardly type)! So I think I’m gonna call it quits but I hope to get to that post some time between coming home from work and Lost haha!

Next week is going to be round two of the EMDR so, I’m a little anxious about that.  At first I was really nervous and about to back out of it because I thought my therapist was saying she wanted to do one of my major negative ‘memories’ but thankfully I misunderstood.  So we are going to try out one of the negative ones but one that is low in distress.  I picked the one that centers around me and drawing.  So I’m curious to see what will happen but I’m nervous too.  What will happen? What if it brings up other things?  I’m not really sure.  I’m trying to stay focused on the now, for now.  She told me how to modify what I’ve been doing with my “safety zone” because while it works fairly well, I still sometimes have a hard time ‘holding on’ to it.  If I’m really distressed then sometimes it starts fading away and the distressful comes back in.  So she had me fold my arms ( I guess you can do it either as regular fold your arms or more like hugging yourself) and then alternate tapping your hands on your body/ribs/arms while thinking of this previously ‘engrained’ place.  It seemed to work a lot better for me having that physical component.  I can’t quite put my finger on it but it makes a big difference for me.

Off to bed with me for now.  Round two of Tara some other day.

I didn’t get to sleep until about 3:30 am last night.  I’m not sure when exactly it was that everything came closing in on me but I was already to go to bed when it did.  I think maybe it started with an SI urge then went from there.  Well, I mean that’s not were it started but that’s when started to notice things changing.  It was something to do with feeling trapped, I didn’t feel right in my own skin, my own life.  I went to go try and sleep, I noticed I was feeling anxious about what had happened on Monday and even about what I wrote here yesterday.  I wanted to take it all back, pretend like I didn’t say any of that or something.  I tried to tell myself I’m just worked up because I have to go back to the therapist tomorrow and I’m nervous about where we’re going.  I’m sensing major resistance here, hoping I can get that fact out to her at least.

Rough day at work and I’m exhausted but I’m afraid I won’t sleep again.  I did finally get up and take some Benadryl, I didn’t want to take the Remeron (anti-depressant used for PTSD symptoms) because I’d be knocked out till Spring!  Tonight though I decided to take the Remeron and not take any chances of not sleeping.  I’m really loathing sleep right now though because I am still dreaming like mad!  I don’t usually dream because of the Fibromyalgia so when I do dream it’s overwhelming and leaves me exhausted.  Last night though I really thought I was gonna go nuts if I didn’t get to sleep.

I’m starting to get sleepy but I wanted to write another post since I did catch the second episode of U. S. of Tara.  I think it may have to wait though having trouble with keeping awake.

Ugh I was really hoping to be back with it this weekend a bit more but guess what?! I’m now working on getting rid of a 4th virus! 2 colds, the ear virus, and now a throat thing! So excuse me if I am way more out of it than usual! I took a Benadryl a bit ago so…I’m hoping to do this really fast before it gets completely swept under the rug.

I went to my session this past Tuesday after a really rough week.  I was at such an end that I finally messaged a bunch of friends to let them know what’s been going on with me (many of them didn’t know before about what’s going on and I only told them in my message about the Complex/PTSD. Not comfortable with letting them in on the other just yet only three of them know I think cause I did feel comfortable and that was an in person conversation). ANYWAY…they were really great and just more proof to me of what real support is and that I can trust myself and others.  So that made me feel a little more grounded.  I got to my appointment and let the therapist know what was going on and she asked me if I’d be ok with trying out creating a ’safe spot’ using EMDR.  I said I was game and so she went about showing me all the equipment and how it would work.  I had just hear things here and there before but wasn’t really sure how it worked, I guess probably every therapist does it differently.  My therapist has 3 different ‘tools’, one is a light strip that has lights that blink from left to right, head phones that play a beeping noise from the left side to the right (kind of like those hearing test head phones), and then these little round disks that vibrate/buzz that you hold in your hands (they also go from left to right).  So she told me I could try it all out or pick one or two, I picked out the last two.  Then we went through this whole process of creating a safe spot, I picked out a spot I’ve always loved and that I didn’t think held any bad memories.  She’d read my description of it to me to help me envision it and then ask how I felt about it to get me to concentrate on that feeling too.  So we went over it a couple times, all the while the equipment going.  It was pretty wild I have to say.  Each time it seems like I’d remember some old memory about that spot, so I can see now what people were saying about how important it is to have a really good therapist doing this and really having knowledge for dissociation.  I mean if that much was coming out on a good memory…eeps I’m trying not to think to much about the bad ones.  It got interesting on the third practice, I heard some insider tell me “But, you do realize this has always been your safe place right?”.  That got me really feeling emotional because I wasn’t entirely sure why I picked that place (I was debating between two places at first and almost didn’t go with the one I ended up picking), I remembered how several months ago I was looking at a doodle I did.  I just thought it was a silly doodle but shared it with some people and one friend said something about it that triggered me into realizing that the scene I doodled was from my childhood!  Not just that but that it’s been a scene that I’ve doodled over and over again through out my life.  So it’s a pretty strong place for me I guess and I do believe that voice, that this was also a place that I used to escape to in my head.  Then the test came, she asked me to think of something that bugged me not a lot, just a little.  I thought of my work week had been going ha! Then she asked me to think of the cue word we had set up for my safe place.  That was really weird, I have to say!  I was so chilled out for a good many seconds, my feelings of frustration did kind of wax and wane after that but it wasn’t nearly as bad as before I thought of the safe space.

So, I’ve been trying to practice it and it’s still helping pretty well.  The funny thing was I think I was having a nightmare a few nights ago, I was trying so hard to wake up I think, and all of a sudden I heard some voice in my head telling me to go to the safe space! I thought “Oh, yeah!” then I woke up shortly after and thought “Holy ….it works in my dreams too!”.  I don’t know how other multiples are but seems like my insiders are so much louder and have more ‘power’ in someways in that in between space of sleep and waking life.

I’m so glad my therapist really understands all of this (she did point out a few things before we started for me to keep in mind because of the dissociation, like I’m thinking when/if we use the EMDR for the other memories I might be better using the light strip. )  So that ended up being one of my best sessions so far, I left feeling like “Ok, maybe I’m really getting somewhere and maybe I really can do this!”  I’m kind of nervous about this Tuesday though because, I handed in my ‘events’ timeline last session too.  I think we will probably talk a little more about what I put on that.

I think I’m gonna just chill out for now though, get some sleep.

At least one of my questions is now answered. I went to my appointment today we covered a lot but I was having trouble remembering crap again lol. I hate that when someone asks you a question and then asks for an example, I have so much trouble with that.  Of course now I remember stuff lol. Anyway…

We were talking about this little assignment with the ten good memories and the ten bad memories and I said that I was really frustrated with the good memories because they were just like pictures in a photo album.  All the bad memories were really vivid full of emotion and action, I could tell you pretty detailed what was going on.  I always wondered what that was about but I didn’t even have to ask cause she told me.  She said yeah that’s the funny thing about how the brain processes and stores.  With the good memories it’s pretty clear how you feel about it and so it’s just kind of like yeah, that was fun what next!  With the bad memories though they remain vivid because your brain still tries to make sense of it and process it.

So I thought that was kind of neat, frustrating and annoying as hell but neat.  She says that it’s a “Good” thing that I have the images and things because then if we do the EMDR I’ll have some good ‘reference’ stuff.

I got the DES (Dissociative Experiences Scale) today.  We talked a little about dissociation but I told her I was still really uncomfortable talking about what level I think I do it at.  I told her that I had done the questions from the book “Stranger in the Mirror” …but I didn’t say I had done the DES (cause well I did the online one and that…doesn’t count does it? lol). I’ve never done anything like that with a professional looking at it. I’m finding that this thing is like burning a hole in my …hand,purse, pocket?…  I have heard from some people out there that they did it handed it in and then went “Oh, crap didn’t really mean to turn that back into you!” LMAO! I’ve done that with other things and I have a feeling this might end up feeling the same way.

I’m feeling really run down today. Need to try and catch a quick couple winks before work. I think there were some other things I was gonna say but…brain shutting down.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my new adventure in therapy.  I think I have found a really great person, we met Monday and I think it went really well.  She let me know that she does do EMDR but it’s not something we’d jump into.  I’ve been mulling that option over ever since I’ve heard about it a year and a half ago.  I’m realizing how badly I’d want something like that to work for me.  I am realizing how far I have come in the past year (or little over) and now that I have a taste, I want so much more.

It’s a little scary though sometimes.  Sometimes I slip back into wanting to think nothing happened, ever.  Sometimes I slip into thinking things will never get better and I will always end up a victim, that’s getting less and less though.  The big thing though I’m realizing right now it that sometimes I slip into a train of thought that I brought up in my first post I think it was, “what if it does get better?”

There is that big fear of the unknown going on.  I don’t know if this sounds really silly to some but it’s a scary thought to me that I could really have a great life.  It’s scary thought that I could go through therapy and EMDR and maybe I wouldn’t be so symptomatic, I could just live.  What if I do change all my thinking around and I’m not constantly afraid or weighing my life choices.

I don’t expect to be “cured” but I’m sure in some fashion it would help and I already see the regular talk therapy (and my own personal work with writing and art) helping tremendously.  I went out the other night and while I wasn’t 100% present, I was ok and I was able to chill out, reframe my thinking when I did freak out.  It felt a little bizarre to be honest when I did “freak out” because it wasn’t quite as bad as in previous years and for whatever reason I knew it would be ok.  I kept waiting for it to get worse and it didn’t.  So now I’m thinking back on that and thinking how cool that was and if only I could get rid of the not being 100% there part as well as a few other things, how neat would that be.

There’s just so many emotions wrapped up in getting better.  I went through something like this when I started Al-Anon so I’m trying to remember that experience and how great things have been since.  When first heard the suggestion of Al-Anon I felt so protective of my issues, why would I want to share those they were mine?  It felt like if I shared them then some piece of me would be taken away, if I got better some part of me would be gone and those things wouldn’t be mine any more. It’s like clinging to a strange fucked up/perverted friend/security blanket  I know maybe sounds kind of sick but I was really ’sick’.  I’m feeling in the same spot now, that if I start to heal somehow this won’t be me anymore and my issues won’t be mine, I won’t have this “friend” anymore.  It’s a bizarre for me and I need/want to give it up.  So, I think this will probably come up for me in session.  I’m trying to make a list of things like this anyway that I’d like to delve more into at some point.

I just got back from my new therapist…and…I really think this could be it.  She was really nice and ok, I know this sounds maybe wierd but she has STUFF in her office!! lol! No that was the one thing that creeped me out a bit about my last therapist was there was literally nothing in the office except chairs, a desk, a lamp, and a small clock.  I walked into this one and immediatly felt like this is right! There was well…toys (you may have no clue how happy we were about that!), lots of books on trauma (have to keep an eye out next time see if there are any on dissociative disorders.) and…DRAWING PAPER.  I told her about how I had started drawing at school and stopped because I moved home and it didn’t feel safe, she said we could do some drawing things there if I liked! I was uber excited for that! She mentioned she ran an art group it sounded really neat! The other really big thing was it felt like I was there forever! I think I wrote about how with the last therapist I tried out it felt like I was there for 15 mins or less! We really talked about a lot today and I didn’t really feel rushed at all.  She talked a little bit about EMDR and asked me about my thoughts on it, I just basically said it was something I was curious about.  She said it wasn’t just something she jumped into with people, I said that was really good cause I’d heard about it but wasn’t too sure just yet.

I started to dissociate at the end a bit so leaving got a bit awkward I was a little lost about what we were supposed to be doing lol! I didn’t really get up to talking about that, I wasn’t sure how to bring it up exactly. I want to add that and the topic of support to my goals.  One of the other nice things was I had really wanted to ask about could I have had PTSD longer than I thought.  She pretty much brought that question up for me, that helped a lot and she said lots of times she see’s that people with PTSD really have a string of incidents. I said yeah I wondered about it because thinking back I realize I had a lot of the same behaviors since I was really little and it’s something I want to explore a little more.

So I’m feeling really optimistic but at the same time, I’m a little afraid.  I’m afraid of what if it turns out not to be the right thing.  I know I’m getting ahead of myself but I’m feeling so desperate right now.  I told her one of my goals was to stop this whole pressure cooker thing and really let people know what’s going on with me.  I said I was really sick of it, I am.

The other “weird” thing was about my mom, I’ve been kind of realizing that she’s “narcissistic” in her own way and I’ve been really trying to figure it out. I guess now thinking about it is the difference with her is she’ll admit to it, my dad can’t/won’t.  The new therapist kind of brought up that thought I had though, so I thought that was pretty cool.

So, I’m looking forward to next week. She did give me an idea for a writing assignment.  10 best and 10 worst memories. I think I might try it out, little scary but…I feel like I need to do more things like that right now.

Ugh, I finally finished that LiveJournal post.  It’s here or the side link over there (Into the Darkness). I think I got kind of rambling on it, as usual ha!

Feeling like I’m zoning in and out and I’m really not liking this feeling.  Been a while I think since it’s been this intense of  a feeling.  Can’t seem to keep a good watch on the time, driving me nuts at the moment.

Still been struggling with the SI urges ended up drawing on myself, it worked.  I think some of this stuff is hitting me with a vengeance because of that 2 + week cold, I had gone of the anti-depressant since I didn’t want to be mixing meds that make me drowsy (oh and then I think I had been on and off before that with taking pain stuff for my knee…geez…).  I’m really not sure how long then I’ve been off it.  More signs that it probably really was helping me, I knew it was helping the flashback. Back on that tonight then!

I still haven’t called the social worker person, so gonna go do that in a minute (crap now nosy family hanging about).  I’m so nervous to do that for some reason.  Feeling like I’m really really starting to go insane though with my living situation.

I don’t know if I was gonna say anything more.  I feel really wound up or something, need to go find something to do see if I can get myself back to planet Earth.

Oh I remembered! Triggered myself out again but I remembered what else I was gonna say.

I got one of those links that other bloggers were getting to people that steal your blogs and post them with some other name.  So I forget how everyone was dealing with that? What the latest happenings with that were?  So I’m not sure what I should do about it.

I triggered myself out reading about the Be Bold! Be Red! Campaign. You can find the link at this blog. It’s October 31st, bringing awarness to violence against women of color by wearing the color red.  I was being too pushy with myself again and trying to throw myself into my color red trigger.  Sigh.  So obviously no…still haven’t worn the jacket.  (See there I go again! *bang head* I’m really bad at being nice to myself. Reverse Golden Rule.)

It’s a pretty nice day today so I’m able to stay on my laptop a little longer.  *shakes fist at the fan that’s dying*

I feel like there is all this stuff I’ve been wanting to write about, wanting to get out. It’s all gotten bottled up though. I did write a little in my paper journal not much though because I’m just paranoid about privacy (lack of) here.  I’m realizing though, yet again, how when I am here everything seems to go ‘underground’.  I have a feeling I’m probably more switchy-twitch blacking out etc. than I really care to admit.  It just seems to happen when I’m back here that I fall into the old way of functioning.  It’s really hard to describe because only sometimes am I aware, aware I guess meaning that I get the banging on the glass walls feeling.  Only occasionally does it come smack me in the face a little (Like I told a family member something was on a certain day thinking it was a long way off still and the family member was sort surprised because it was in three days. Oops!) It’s not really a big change it’s just really really different after awhile.  Everything seems very quiet, any conversations that do go on in my head are either short or I block out (I think quite a number of conversations go on when I sleep though. That’s an odd thing to explain. I’m not even going to try right now though.) Switching has gone back to being totally fluid again (I rarely get the off/funky feeling I did when I was away from home). I am aware that I still do the more normal levels of dissociation (zone out/space out, disconnect from myself which is not the same as N stepping in). I’m mostly aware of me and only me.  It’s a little scary that the walls are back up a bit.  I guess because the last time they were needed it was to keep everything safe from bad stuff both physical and mental.  I don’t think there is anything I really need to fear like I did back then, it’s still just scary thought though that … if I did it then what’s to stop my brain from coping that way if something bad did happen again.  So constantly trying to reassure myself it’s safe, this is now not then.

I guess I kind of wanted to say all this too because it’s about the things we (as in all people) don’t see or things we refuse to see.  For a long time I’ve been wanting to write more about how I think this mind of mine walled up parts of me.  I was reading a fellow survivor/blogger’s entry and we talked for a second about how you might not even see how things that happened were bad or that they even happened to you.  The signs that they did happen then pop up in other ways.  For me, I guess it did seem a bit odd at the time but now going back it’s just really scary sometimes how that fits.  I had various obsessions with things, I acted out in certain ways but, I just always thought abuse (especially sexual abuse) was this certain narrow definition and (at the time) that didn’t fit me.  (I say at the time because I think there was abuse when I was in my infant – toddler years that did fit that narrow definition.)  Majority of the abuse was covert.

I’ve been wanting to say something about it forever.  I am just waiting for the courage and direction (from myself) to say whatever it is I want to say.  So I’m kind of writing this as a reminder to myself and to see if it helps me figure out what it is I want to say about it.  I do want to make some links in my LiveJournal blog when I’m feeling up to it, that much I know.  I know I don’t want it to be excedingly personal.  Other than that…  It’s a hard thing for me to say anything about, there are still these battles and walls that get put up around it.  Denial, denial, denial.  When I started talking about the things that happened when I was 18, it was so scary to see that these things too were abuse.  All the things I wondered if I was just being overly sensitive about really fell into the abusive category.  There is this fear about opening a can of worms so, it kind of feels like being silenced in more than one way.

I’m still debating on this new shrink (he’ll be back from vacation in a few days I guess) that I was going to go try out.  I woke up out of one of the night conversations trying to allay fears. This stuff kind of comes up though when thinking about trying this person out though.  So, I don’t know…we’ll see in a few days what happens I guess.