Let's go back to the rock

How do you prepare to let the walls dissolve? Part of the joy of high-functioning is.. well.. high-functioning. That's kind of the point.

Admittedly after this weekend's disasterous behaviour high-functioning may not be the best description of this particular system..

Tonight I go to T and take the lid off. Oh I'm sure it's very safe and all that but I've spent every second since the weekend trying to force the lid back on so I can manage little things like.. go to work.. not be s*****al that kind of thing. So now I have to go and be told that I need to open up, to trust, to talk and all that crap so that I can then go and attempt to be high-functioning for the rest of the week. And I will feel sick and guilty and like a failure because I fail to produce whatever kind of performance is expected by T and by the more organised, responsible parts of the system.

It's all very silly.

And it sucks.

However on the upside I'm half way through the week and the sun is shining so it's not all bad.

Can you "make" yourself crazy?

This last weekend was the most out of control the system has been in a long, long time. Sense of unreality increased to whole new level, losing time,"waking up" in strange locations, discovering things that shouldn't have happened if I'd been in charge.

I admit, things have happened to disturb the security... secure items (people) have been removed from the environment and there has been a void in the support system. I don't know how people do this alone. I think the only reason I survived until now intact is having someone in my life who knows all my shit and still loves me. Even if I don't understand it... it's there. Even if not everyone inside knows or understands.. it is there and the feeling of support that comes from there permeates the emotions of the system but equally, when there is a removal of this presence, albeit temporary, the system notes the absence.

No amount of pseudo-support in the form of professional therapists can replace genuine emotion and love.

And now though back from travels, temporarily back but back at least for now a something, better than a nothing but things are still shaky and unstable. Holding together.. just holding. A chink of light in the darkness that soon will be extinguished.

For someone who always hated relying on others to have this much attachment in general is difficult, for the system - almost intolerable.

Never too late

I saw this quote on Missing in Sight's blog and I'm still processing..

It's Never Too Late to Be What You Might Have Been.
~ George Eliot

T says constantly that despite being high-functioning, career-type person I would have achieved much more if I hadn't had the start I did (details not required it seems the diagnosis says it all) which is both scary and depressing and confusing to those who think that really we've done quite well all things considered haven't we? haven't we?

But this quote - this means that we can start again right now. It doesn't have to be a "I'll do that when I'm better" or "I'll do that one day".. I can start now.. I just need to work out what it is and make a start.

Inspired and scared.

Nocturnal meanderings

Someone went walkabout last night. This is what happens when you keep everything "under control" for weeks then some nice therapist comes along and says "it's ok, you can let it all out" well yes for an hour and then you're on your own with it for a week or so left wondering if you weren't better off pretending and managing just the best way you can.

Feeling like the chap from Fight Club.. "People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden."

"Hey, you created me. I didn't create some loser alter-ego to make myself feel better. Take some responsibility! "

Pinball wizard

I'm going to write this before I come up with a title because I don't know what I'm going to write about only that I should write something just to get it out.

If I could map everything inside my head and everything in my external world then everyone would know why I am the way I am.

* Life. the external stuff. Work, relationships, obligations, worries, things to be achieved and done and ticked off the list
* Internal world. A mess of internal miscommunication repressed and shut down as much as possible, with the occasional escapee
* Memories. Fragmented, confused, real and yet not real, forced down with the voices inside but recurring and popping out when they shouldn't be, refusing to surface on demand in session.

These can be cross referenced with triggers that send thought processes hurtling from external world through memories into the internal realm and then.. dissociation. Sometimes I am gone for seconds, minutes.. I lost 2 hours in the middle of the day once but I was at home. It's funny that the system won't breakdown unless I am 100% safe, until there is time and space for a total collapse and time loss of this length it just keeps going, functioning, managing, coordinating limbs and words, speech, sensible thoughts that are sensible in the sensible world and make the normal people nod sagely and say "ah. this one is wise and businesslike and sensible and clever and will go far" but I'm not going anywhere. Just in circles. But not in circles, just in lines like a pinball machine firing between external..internal..external..internal..

It's amazing how many people you can fool into thinking you are sane.

The (mis)treatment plan

Somehow it seems this is set to be a year of change; inside and out.

Maybe move job, maybe move house, maybe end T if I run out of cash. Thanks NHS, thanks government. Too rich (ie employed) for free treatment, too poor to afford private, stuck in limbo somewhere between sane-and-poor or mad-and-solvent.

The only way to qualify for any help is to give up and have a total breakdown, lose job, lose home etc. Shame about the high-functioning part of me that won't give up.

Funny how one "acquires" responsibilities along the way. The responsibilities don't care if I get better they only care that I keep being responsible. If I fail to achieve, to provide, to "be" then they will go on to their next provider. Those trying to help (but being paid to do so) will find others to help.

Is it possible to get any work done in therapy when you are all the time worrying about where the next payment is coming from? Am I therefore wasting time and money?

Anyone got a dry cardboard box I can move into? It's starting to rain.

Avoiding familial obligations

We have to avoid the family and all the things they want and yet somehow they do not understand why I don't want anything to do with them. Are they all dissociated? Do they really have no idea what went on? Why is it that I have to take full responsibility for this. I will now appear as the bad child for rejecting the family and yet I cannot accept them in my life any more. Their toxicity and the silent denial of that which is never mentioned is too destructive for my system.

On one side I have friends and therapists telling me to bin them. Apparently there is no reason to keep working to fulfil their requirements. On the other I have the family expecting me to play along with birthdays and anniversaries and Christmases and Easters and really - I mean really - not understanding why I do not want to be near any of them.

Do I say, once and for all "I don't want to see any of you ever again"?

I cannot work through the memories in therapy and then happily spend 2 hours on the phone to my mother like she was not an enabler of the perpetrator's abuse.

"Never underestimate the power of denial."
Ricky Fitts. American Beauty 1999.

Favourite bank holiday weekend

Thing in the UK called bank holiday. The banks are closed; we have a holiday. No work, no school, all very nice.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday for Easter weekend. One good use for religion even though this country is mostly secular these days.

Never used to like them as a child. Long weekends meant time with the family and nowhere to hide. Rather be at school getting spat on and beat up. Some trauma is more acceptable because it comes from those we were never meant to trust.

Grown up bank holidays are a different beast altogether.

Don't have to spend time with family, only with people I choose. Can hide away even for the most part and say no this day I will spend with you but this day is for me only. Harder to find space when there are others around but it can be done.

Two days will be work for other people there are still commitments that cannot be avoided but at least one day of the four will be spent in my own space. Might even come up with some words to explain the world away given a couple hours, a laptop and a power point.

Need to find a way of alloting time to different ones inside. Not sure how to go about this. Need more work on internal communication rather than internal confusion. Need T to work on this but is away for weeks. Not too bothered about this except as a guide in the process, lacking therefore feels like no guide therefore lost.. no progress.. no forward movement.. must stay on hiatus until return.

Oh well.

Two four day working weeks either side most welcome also.

And... it's done

Amazingly I have managed to extricate myself from some of my many many obligations and a curious calm has descended.

I wonder if the system doesn't create the environment of chaos for itself.

Create activity in the real world > drowns out the noise inside > creates more busyness on the outside > creates more expectations and pressure from others > internalise need to achieve > pressure increased on system structure > increase in noise inside.

Whereas removal of stimulus (too many commitments, too many projects, too many friend requirements, too much with the twice weekly therapy all put on hold for 3 weeks)...

Less outside noise > less inside noise.

Hence the curious calm.

All I need now is a goof night's sleep and I'll be back on track, minus the noise I hope.

Or, I could be repressing the system and putting the world on autopilot. I guess this will become clear. If it's only a temporary solution then the system will kick back at me soon enough.

Over-commitment

Ever take on more than you can cope with without thinking it through?

Parts of me get very carried away with new ideas. We have a tendency to commit to new projects not realising that a few months down the line there will be several things happening at once that all require most of the time in the day... then things overwhelm.. and then things fall by the wayside and people get let down, angry, disappointed and the disapproval from outside at our failure becomes internalised.

If everything was written on a chalk board we'd just take a cloth and wipe the whole thing clean and start again, but life's not like that unfortunately. If only.

I can feel I am at that point again where everything is becoming too much. At least one of the projects involves building a new place to hide - yes, a new place to work but also far far away from the noise of the city and the people whose endless chatter and shout conflicts and competes with the noise of my system.

But until the new space is ready I must work within the current structure. Perhaps it is time to step back from a few commitments as quietly and subtly as possible so that no one notices and focus on the things that life most requires like the 9-5 and the housework! Possibly two of the least satisfying, most pointless and yet most central activities.

And neither requires much brainpower.

Inside and out

Didn't get home til late last night and spent some time waiting for public transport in the cold. Hence I have a cold. Or something resembling one which means that the physical incarnation of the paper bag is fffreezing and trembling and wishes it was in bed instead of at the office.

We are waiting to see how this will effect other parts which often respond differently to this kind of thing.. sometimes parts get more ill and sometimes parts feel fine and wonder what all the fuss is about.

I need to work on some kind of process for dealing with this - that's what I would do at work, so why wouldn't it work with the system?

There needs to be an instruction book for this stuff.

If X then try Y or Z. If A then B or C might work. If C then proceed to level G code red.

Hell knows, I guess I just have to wait it out and see what happens and in the meantime look for new and ingenious ways to stop these infernal headaches.

Suprise flare-up

Having been talking with T about alters behaviour outside session it surprised me today when I got snapped at at work by someone who I really don't like/respect. Although the front was maintained inside there was total panic and chaos leaving me physically shaky and almost revisiting the panic attacks of old.

Not sure why this was a trigger - it wasn't that something was going to go wrong with the work even though I was (sort of) in the wrong as one can always reorganise things and cover over the mess but somehow the criticism of someone whose good opinion I don't seek (don't trust him he is a threat he is divided into parts that are cruel and lie just beneath the surface ready to come out and attack that which is not what he wants) made everyone very upset.

Deep breath.

And also beneath that there is an angry one who says "It's not my fault - you're a jerk". This is true of course but it's not a rational way of doing things.

Need to plug the grown up back in and... drift away.

Where are the grownups?

Why is it that when things are triggered its always the young and the irrational that come out? 

Where do the grown ups go? 

I know they are around because they do the day-to-day, they manage things and make sure that bills get paid and work gets done but the minute my guard is down and something attacks the system then it's total chaos and the only way to stop it is to just shut down everything outside and completely internalise the pain.

Isn't this what got me into this mess in the first place?

Blogger type.. early days

Cool website Typeanalyzer shows what Myers-Briggs type you are from your blog. 

New blog + multiples  = utter confusion?

Here are results:

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters. 

Everyone in here is pretty risk-averse but I agree with 

"They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. "

Hiding is always better than conflict, but this is something that we are told is less than good in the longer term. Not hiding is something that we are trying to achieve in therapy so perhaps the blog is movement towards the right place?

Also the website results show:

So they show brain activity which is good... ;)

But I suspect that the reality would be something more like this:

Busy, busy

Today is a day filled with client meetings and busyness. It's fascinating that everything can switch off and be channelled in this direction. It is ironic that this is what is seen as "functional behaviour" by the world at large and yet this is me at my most dysfunctional. I will be presenting to clients for hours and walk away remembering almost nothing of it.

How can people not see?

But who am I to say that this is functional/dysfunctional? How do we know that we are not all acting. Sitting in a room with a group of clients I know that we are all "false fronts" - no one is who they really are. We are all sitting round a meeting table like actors in a play. Half the time we are playing at being grown-ups when at the end of the day we all go home and re-enact our inner child problems on loved ones and f*ck up the next generation of kids.

So am I more lucid than the rest because I see the play for what it is? Because I am the only one who knows that I am hiding the true me - the true "Me"s - am I therefore the most authentic person there?

Sometimes this is like taking a whole lot of drugs and then getting onto a rollercoaster.

Not that I'd know what that would feel like of course.

The dreaded dread

It is drawing near that time again when we have to go see the integrator. Time seems to speed up and slow down simultaneously and the world starts to move and slowly rotate.

People say they are torn between going to see their therapist and not each week but what if LITERALLY different parts of you have different plans? Even if you get there there's no telling whether you will be able or allowed to speak.

Or whats going to come out and if it will be of any "use" and based on the response that's how things will proceed for a few more days.

Keeps you on your toes I suppose.

..Or an echo

Mondays suck

In the words of one of my more stupid previous employers:

"Today is Monday.... and Monday... is the first day of the week"

Round of applause for the idiot in the suit.

But the point he went on to try (and fail) to make is that of new beginnings, new opportunities, a clean sheet and all that.

For us Monday means that we have survived the weekend without too many "out of the box" disasters (and gotten through mothers day unscathed!) and now everyone can go back in their box and the "false front" is firmly in place as we face a new working week.

This system is a finely tuned machine. Let's hope it can hold itself together for the next five days.

Something like a memory

Sights and smells

There are things that take me back so quickly to my childhood like bright blue skies, fresh cut grass and anything that smells of violets. My best sights and smells are outdoor ones because outdoors and away was the only place to be free.

For me it was a long wait to get away from my family. I knew I was stuck there until I was 18 but those were 18 very long years.

Summer was best because I could walk away until sunset and breathe the air of the promised land- that future that they would not be a part of and yet.. and yet.. we cannot really escape from these people as long as we hold them inside.

Obligation has kept me embroiled in their lives and their mundane trivialities until every emotion and every breath is stifled and so for years, until recently I have never really escaped. Only in body but always to return from time to time and emotionally never to venture outside the walls I built to keep them at bay.

Now that I am separating the worlds of them and me, the me becomes an us in itself and there are more to deal with. Those unacknowledged voices tearing their way out because the walls are coming down and so we ask ourselves -

Which is the prison? Where are the walls? Is it safer to stay inside where we know the rules or venture out truly looking for a world to call our own.

National day of mourning

Today I have declared a national day of mourning.

It is (British) Mother's day.

I am mourning for my mother. She is not dead but I must accept that the mother I always wanted her to be was never and will never be in my life.

Mother's Day has now reached a commercial par with Valentines. Half the country are seeing shrinks and the other half need to and, if you believe the attachment-based chaps its all down to crappy parenting (mostly mothers) then there are very few "good" mothers out there - and yet we are required to celebrate them on this day.

I'm not saying all mothers are crap but there are (running a quick survey of my close F&F) a large number of people who are really fucked in the head because of their mothers' behaviour - past and present.

So the discussion was - is this just normal? Do we just accept that we are celebrating and rewarding bad parenting?

I really want it not to be.

I want the fact that I no longer have a family be because they were terrible parents and I am finally free of them and not just because I am a crazy person.

And I refuse to celebrate.

And yes, of course I have sent her a card.

I have internalised enough of her poison to create a whole new alter (I almost expect it to put in an appearance at some point) and so riddled with guilt am I despite my denunciation of Mother's day as "a bad lot" I must still succumb to its rituals in the knowledge that whatever I do for the mother in question it will never be enough to fill the loveless void of self-and-other-hate that she has created for herself.

And so I do my duty and maintain my distance as best I can.

I am old

Not "today I am old" but just... I am old. I have always been old. I have always been responsible, accountable, conscientious, hard-working and just... boring.

Then there are the times that I have broken from that mould, rebelled and disappointed those that the older ones were created to impress and appease.

On the one hand I like the part that undermines my achievements and brings me back to Earth because it means that maybe I haven't sold out.. maybe there is part of my original soul there underneath wanting to create, to build to wonder at the world and make something else other than money... and that for other people.

I function in the real world as a slightly above-average professional. I could have been brilliant at my work or I could have been a successful starving creative living in a squat but I will never know.

Somehow I got everything and nothing and every front is false. Every part takes some of me; some of my time, some of my energy and expresses a different part of who I am and yet there is nothing concrete, stable and ironically nothing reliable.

And yet I am accountable for all, receiving the benefit of none.

I begin to mourn the loss of my childhood from the past as I begin to accept the loss of my family in the present.

Admittedly it is a loss of my own choosing because I cannot heal with them in my life.

It is a sad kind of loss, it is a sad kind of death that cannot be properly mourned.

And yet it must be done.

The Hungry Caterpillar

This is Google UKs homepage design today. Google has decided it is spring.

This graphic made me smile because I knew.. we knew.. exactly who it was immediately.

It is a book from childhood written before Youngest was born, written in 1969.





The book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

Its the story of a Caterpillar who eats his way through the book and a number of food items before becoming a butterfly and flying away.

This was not a book we owned but it was a book we read... and dreamed great things for the future. We are still dreaming of this freedom though it seems to Youngest still so very very far away.

Sunshine seeps in

It has been grey everywhere for so long this winter seems to have gone on forever and now that summer seems to be creeping in its hard to realise that the grey skies weren't inside all that time after all. You can forget that the grey can be inside and out and sometimes the outside can be internalised especially after long, long months.

Today there is sunshine, yesterday there was sunshine, the day before there was sunshine and somehow its starting to (almost) be seen by the insiders. They look out from time to time and if all they see is grey then thats all there is but now they are starting to realise that maybe its not the only thing to be seen. Maybe times are a-changin. As Mr Dylan said once.

I wonder how they will feel this summer as the first summer since the breakdown, breakout, bid for freedom. This will be the first summer that they have been allowed simply to be..

The youngest is looking forward to lying on the grass and watching the birds swoop overhead. It's been a long time since we were allowed to do that. Its something we want to do deliberately without it being a means of escape.

Dissociation is sky-blue in summer and dark grey in winter and pitch, pitch black at night.

Glorious anonymity

In a world where I am constantly asking and being asked and answering "who was that? who am I? where am I?" the total anonymity of the blogosphere is refreshing.. what shall we do? where shall we go?

Here I can creep about unseen if I wish. I can look into the minds of others who are not part of me and see what other worlds there might be beyond my own.

But most importantly I can explore my own without having to report in on every little detail as if to be assessed by some great medicine man in the sky.

"This week, Ms Brown, you have posted X,Y and Z therefore I am going to up your meds as you are clearly deluded."

Shhh.. no one knows I'm here.

A tentative first post

This is blog is where I keep the nonsense of my inner world. Right in full view where no one is looking.

I live in a world of constant chatter, time loss and confusion.

I move between them all with reluctant fear trying to cling on to the essence of what is me that I left somewhere.. a long time ago.

I move among the world and the people like a normal human being, carrying others in my head.

I am Legion. We are many.

I watch sometimes with amusement as they try to put my head back together like Humpty Dumpty who took a nasty knock and now something just ain't quite right.

He does some funny stuff from time to time.

Best just scoop him up and put him in a paper sack.

He'll be alright.