It has been an awful long time since I last wrote. Several reasons have caused this; pain, psychoses, instability, altered realities and so on. Yet, I'm still on my feet, barely, but I'm here.
Moving from the room to the apartment had an important effect on my state of being, it slowed down the turmoil in me. I didn't see it at the time, I didn't see it before, but now I understand. Interacting with others causes me to switch to an alternate me, often to one that is 'created' for the person or situation I'm interacting with. If there is a new situation or a new person, a more generic and safe me appears, until a suitable version (read safe, non-disruptive) has been created. Now that I'm not having many new situations or meeting (new) people, the turmoil has diminished and left me with a calmer state.
This creation process as well as the switching has been observed and confirmed by my therapist. At least I'm not imagining this happening, but being pointed out while it happens is shocking. Caught like a child with its hand in the cookie jar, is how that feels. On one hand it's understandable, it's a protective mechanism, but now working against me. On the other hand it surprises me, I trust my therapist, I want her to be able to help me, so why feel guilty, ashamed, trapped? I don't have the answer to that (yet).
The calmer state is great, until it gets disrupted. Unexpected events cause bigger disruptions than before, sometimes so much that it leaves me trembling and curled up sobbing in a corner. Frustrations about my powerless state to change things around only increase it.
I still have no news about my treatment, although I did have 4 diagnostic days back in November. I did hear something through my therapist, but it's not official yet. By the looks of it, I'm getting a different therapy first, to get the psychoses under control. In effect it means I need to add at least 6 months, possibly a year, to the total estimate. However, due to the complexity of my problems, making an estimate is almost impossible. MPD/DID, CPTSD, and a bunch of other abbreviations can be added to the mix. It no longer matters to me what they call it, I'm insane and I know it. The only thing I can hope for is to function in (societal) life again.
I am alive, but I don't have a life. I just drag myself from one day to the next, with hardly any hope for changes. I could just as well be dead, I can't even feel or appreciate the help and support from the few people who do seem to care about me. The realization of just that is making it only harder to pull myself forward. I don't make plans for the future, barely for the near future other than appointments. I don't have much to hope for, I have a very bad track record on relationships, heck, I have a very bad track record on maintaining my life.
The safety of communication from behind a screen did show me a couple of things. I see myself with all the good and bad sides, I see the ugly monsters, the beautiful women, the helpless children, all inside me. Someone looking at me can't see that, they tell me what a warm, kind, caring, beautiful and loving person I am. Some even dared to say I'm their muse! How screwed up is that?!?
The admiration of some for my surviving is sickening at times. I just want to run away.
Oh, I do know darn well why I want to run, I can't be loved, I can't let it in, because it's referring to betrayal. All my life I learned that being loved is associated with being hurt. My parents started the sequence with making sure I was well aware I wasn't wanted and I lived by the grace of their 'goodness'. In effect, they just wanted servants instead of children, thus raised us (me and my younger sibling) as such. That kind of childhood left me as an adult seeking -subconsciously- for the same. That doesn't work of course, seeking abuse will cause rebellion against it. Thus wrecking my life as soon as the rebellion starts.
As I said above, it's complex, very complex. Physical and emotional abuse from my childhood onwards, combined with sexual abuse and rapes during my adolescent years, turned me into the adult who can't really love and live. Attempts to heal in the past have been turned into disasters, due to misdiagnosing, adding to the damage. Most issues have been discussed at one point or another, but other than that, nothing changed. All thanks to my MPD/DID. The sad thing of trying to deal with a trauma as a multiple is that a safe part will come forward when these difficulties need to be addressed, thus the actual hurt part never gets a chance to be addressed and cared for. It is similar to being traumatized, dissociation or even splitting happens at that very moment in order to protect myself. The system doesn't recognize the difference between an attack or an attempt to address the issue.
One of the most difficult issues of the moment is reliving the horrors of my rapes. I didn't expect the flashbacks to return with such an intensity, not after nearly 30 years! They didn't really leave, they only got less and less, making me believe I had outgrown the horrors. It's easy to think that when you're alone and have no references to the events. Only now I can see the impact they had on my past relationships. If only my past partners could have understood the needs, the complexity, the contradictions in feelings, and my bodily reactions, maybe then I could have healed. Instead my partners became victims too, they suffered from what has happened to me.
Now for the scary part...
I discovered that I'm seeking abuse again, probably since I can't deal with anything positive, after all I'm intimately familiar with the abuse. One seeks familiarity in life, right? It's all so sick and twisted. I can only hope for a miracle to happen, but miracles don't exist, not in this world. Perhaps there where Santa Claus, the faeries and other do-gooders live. Oh yes, people say I'm a do-gooder, another way of being an easy target for abuse. *sighs* I know I'm always trying to do good, not with the purpose of being abused, but in an attempt to show I'm worth something. It just doesn't work. Maybe it is time to throw a brick through the windows of the police station, perhaps it will result in being really heard. Probably not, I just might end up being drugged into a zombie state in the closed wing of a mental institute, never to be heard from again.
It's tempting...
Equally tempting is stepping out...
Yet I can't, something keeps me from doing something bad. After all, I must be a do-gooder, I can't even do bad for and to myself.
I keep ploughing forward, to destination unknown.
