God made the world and then Adam and Eve fucked it up. Then God came again and the Romans killed him and he rose from the dead. People continue to fuck up the world, but somehow the world keeps revolving, around and around and around. In the midst of it all I am sad and I hurt because some kind of trauma happened to me. Poor me. Every now and then I rise above the sickness and feel joy. Every now and then something cool happens in the world, like a man walks on the moon or a man walks across the Himalayans to honor his commitment to non-violence. But mostly there are earthquakes that kill tens of thousands of people (innocent and evil), or a handful of soldiers die in a battle, or someone gets raped, or a kid doesn’t share his cookie with his buddy. The world is an Ouroboros, revolving around itself, eating its own shit and needing nothing beyond what it produces. The world is a Phoenix, continually arising from ashes of destruction, bold and beautiful and free. I am an Ouroboros, trapped in a pre-ego state because I split off from myself before I could differentiate myself from “other.” I am alone and unable to connect with anyone but myself. I revolve around myself, meeting my own needs, eating my own tail. Likewise, I am the phoenix, survivor of trauma, child of the Earth, child of Love. I rise from the ashes of my grief, over and over again, a testament to the healing power of time and the healing power of mind and the joy that is Life. While I eat my tail and rise from the ashes, faceless masses starve, nameless children are abused, and the human race turns on itself and kills for land or power or oil. While I orbit myself in autistic self-absorption, someone kisses their lover, a company funds research for a cure for cancer, nameless and faceless masses sing songs to their dead/risen God, deep and soulfull eyes gaze on the beauty of a mountain/river/tree/butterfly.
Bring it home, to what really matters. As trapped as I am in the cycle of the Ouroboros and Phoenix both, as drawn as I am to total withdrawal from life and total surrender to death and total one-ness with Earth and all that is Samsara and Nirvana and Resurrection, I still have a heart that beats about 70 times per minute. In that minute I feel emotions, think thoughts, and of my free will determine action. Like Adam and Eve I fuck up. Like Jesus I rise from the dead, eternally committing suicide and eternally choosing life. Like people everywhere I am selfish and self-less, giving and taking sometimes consciously sometimes impulsively. I kiss my lover. I laugh with my friend. I cut my arm. I lie to my mom. I say kind and then unkind words to children. I might as well have walked on the moon or killed an Iraqi soldier for all it matters. But it does matter, doesn’t it. It certainly mattered to me that I was traumatized, and loved. It matters to him that I choose to live, or bake him cookies, or touch his hand. Inside the Ouroboros eternally revolves and the Phoenix eternally rises, my heart beats. Externally I inhale and exhale, a timeless gate swinging open and shut on nothing. Yet it’s everything.
Book information: http://inandoutoficeglass.weebly.com/
Sarah's Take - Dissociative Identity Disorder Unplugged: A true and raw telling of the thoughts, musings, meanderings of a woman with a Dissociative Disorder, Sarah's Take takes readers on a little ride through what most people can't really imagine.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Real Memories, False Memories, and All That Is Inbetween
Trying desperately to make sense of a mix of emotions arising from a mix of memories and my thoughts relating to those memories. What a fucking mess. It's Christmas, almost, and that means lots of family time. Up from the ashes of my dissociated mind rises the black phoenix of what I experienced at the hands of mom. It is memory in all its forms - thought, emotion, sensory - but it is not integrated memory. I know what happened. I stand outside the memory and judge it objectively - not particularly traumatic but confusing as hell. I have feelings about the memory - strong and diametrically opposed. I judge my feelings from a distance as over-reactive and embellished. I tell my little child self that I am mistaken, that I have made more out of a simple thing than I should, that the physical sensations I apply to the events are evil and do not belong. I tell myself that any difficulty I'm experiencing in my adulthood related to these memories is because I've mis-interpreted the events, both as a child and as an adult. Another objective "me" replays the events, and determines they were indeed abnormal and painful. Quickly he is "shushed" and shame creeps over my soul and I reach for a hammer to hit myself. I simultaneously think my memories are false and real, as well as embellished and mis-interpreted. I question and question and question all the therapists who have placed such an important label on these memories, question why they think what happened is "traumatic." I wonder if in their zeal they hold up these memories as The Source and help me embellish them. And I embellish them to please my therapists. The Objective One refutes this thought, proclaims that the memories are Real. The shame spreads into my blood and is the air I breathe. I used to ask her to tuck me in. I cling to my shame and all that tells me it was my fault, and I cling to the ideal that I am innocent, was always innocent. How will I ever navigate this Christmas????
Book information: http://inandoutoficeglass.weebly.com/
Book information: http://inandoutoficeglass.weebly.com/
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Gnawing
I'm sitting on my couch, home from work for the second day in a row. A friend asked me “What do you think is gnawing at you?” I didn’t have a reply per se, only echoes and whispers bouncing around in my head uncatchable, undecipherable. That gnawing became an itch and the itch became a burn and the burn became a hurt, a dull hurt, non-cataclysmic really. An ordinary hurt. The deciphering began with thoughts of my school guidance counselor. We had an affair when I was senior in high school. I thought he loved me, thought he would make good on his promise to disappear over the summer in the BWCA so that his family would think he was dead. Thought he really would run away with me into happy-never-land. I didn’t know that he was doing the mid-life crisis thing. He was 40 (I remember our first kiss – his birthday in his office at school with black balloons floating about). Even after he told his wife about his secret feelings for me (he didn’t mention the actual physical stroking to her) and he dumped me, I still loved him. I also still believed he loved me. I believed in his love until recently. I’m 40-ish now, and a teacher. The thought of kissing or touching or promising a student I’d run away with him makes me sick. I’m just now beginning to transfer that sickness onto my view of what the guidance counselor did. He was sick. I was vulnerable. But that’s not the hurt that’s gnawing at me.
The guidance counselor was a kind man, a pillar of the community, respected in his school and in his church. He had two lovely daughters, one vivacious and outgoing sweet-heart and one beautiful and precious child with special needs. He was compassionate and nurturing. Truly, he was. I looked to him for help with my extremely confusing mental health issues – described my dissociation to him – turned to him for support in my effort to stop doing drugs. He tried to help me with all of it, by turning his comfort sexual. In no time I ceased going to his office for legitimate help and began going to his office for butterfly inducing kisses and thrilling sexual touching and to make plans to finally consummate the love. As upsetting as this story is, it’s not the hurt that’s gnawing at me.
She is a beautiful, funny, outgoing, compassionate woman. She is respected in her community and in her church. She has three successful and charming children. As a child I turned to her for comfort and safety and to meet my most basic needs. Indeed, she did meet some of my needs. I had food and shelter and clothing. She “enriched” my life with camping and ballet lessons and trips to the ice skating rink. Our extended family went on snowmobile trips and cooked hot dogs over open fires and drank hot cocoa from thermoses. But she hurt me.
There is a hole into which I peer sometimes. The blackness swallows me and my stomach twists in knots. Sometimes I see things that are like a movie to me. Sometimes I make up horrible stories to go with the blackness. This is what gnaws at me. I don’t know if the hole is the reservoir of feelings in which I dumped my reactions to my mother and the guidance counselor, or if it is another abomination, darker than the others. This blackness that pours from the hole and swallows my soul is shame, even a deep hatred for my self, a desire to be nothing for I hurt so badly I can’t survive. I have harbored this hole inside for as long as I can remember. It’s who I am. I believe it is beyond what mom did. I believe something happened when I was very young. I know Sarah has some knowledge of it, but even she only has vague shadows of foggy memories.
I remember being pre-school age, and wanting to play in just my underwear because I wanted to be an Indian. And as I paddled my canoe down the hardwood hallway, I was ashamed of my nakedness and felt dirty for wanting to play naked. I remember being 6 or 7 and having a fever and walking into the living room and announcing to my mom and dad that I hated myself. I remember always wondering why my parents loved me, because I was such bad girl, so I had to keep up the act I was performing so that they would continue to love me. I remember sitting on the couch with my sister playing a game and she explained to me that she was the best and I whole-heartedly agreed with her. I remember crying myself to sleep in fear that I would go to hell. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and creeping into my parents’ room to check to see if they were still there or if the rapture had come and taken them away from me, knowing I’d be left behind with my sin. I remember at age 5, singing in church, wondering if I was really the only one singing and everyone else was pretending or if it was me pretending. I remember how easy it was to please my grade school teachers. I remember walking on rocks at a campground when I was 3 and wishing I was dead.
Forty years later I still wish I was dead. That’s what gnaws at me.
The guidance counselor was a kind man, a pillar of the community, respected in his school and in his church. He had two lovely daughters, one vivacious and outgoing sweet-heart and one beautiful and precious child with special needs. He was compassionate and nurturing. Truly, he was. I looked to him for help with my extremely confusing mental health issues – described my dissociation to him – turned to him for support in my effort to stop doing drugs. He tried to help me with all of it, by turning his comfort sexual. In no time I ceased going to his office for legitimate help and began going to his office for butterfly inducing kisses and thrilling sexual touching and to make plans to finally consummate the love. As upsetting as this story is, it’s not the hurt that’s gnawing at me.
She is a beautiful, funny, outgoing, compassionate woman. She is respected in her community and in her church. She has three successful and charming children. As a child I turned to her for comfort and safety and to meet my most basic needs. Indeed, she did meet some of my needs. I had food and shelter and clothing. She “enriched” my life with camping and ballet lessons and trips to the ice skating rink. Our extended family went on snowmobile trips and cooked hot dogs over open fires and drank hot cocoa from thermoses. But she hurt me.
There is a hole into which I peer sometimes. The blackness swallows me and my stomach twists in knots. Sometimes I see things that are like a movie to me. Sometimes I make up horrible stories to go with the blackness. This is what gnaws at me. I don’t know if the hole is the reservoir of feelings in which I dumped my reactions to my mother and the guidance counselor, or if it is another abomination, darker than the others. This blackness that pours from the hole and swallows my soul is shame, even a deep hatred for my self, a desire to be nothing for I hurt so badly I can’t survive. I have harbored this hole inside for as long as I can remember. It’s who I am. I believe it is beyond what mom did. I believe something happened when I was very young. I know Sarah has some knowledge of it, but even she only has vague shadows of foggy memories.
I remember being pre-school age, and wanting to play in just my underwear because I wanted to be an Indian. And as I paddled my canoe down the hardwood hallway, I was ashamed of my nakedness and felt dirty for wanting to play naked. I remember being 6 or 7 and having a fever and walking into the living room and announcing to my mom and dad that I hated myself. I remember always wondering why my parents loved me, because I was such bad girl, so I had to keep up the act I was performing so that they would continue to love me. I remember sitting on the couch with my sister playing a game and she explained to me that she was the best and I whole-heartedly agreed with her. I remember crying myself to sleep in fear that I would go to hell. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and creeping into my parents’ room to check to see if they were still there or if the rapture had come and taken them away from me, knowing I’d be left behind with my sin. I remember at age 5, singing in church, wondering if I was really the only one singing and everyone else was pretending or if it was me pretending. I remember how easy it was to please my grade school teachers. I remember walking on rocks at a campground when I was 3 and wishing I was dead.
Forty years later I still wish I was dead. That’s what gnaws at me.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Forever Finality - Couldn't It Just Be For Awhile?
I'll start out by saying I'm basically safe. My husband is aware of all this, as is my therapist. I am in contact with both on a regular basis. I feel a little guilty dumping this on any readers who will be tweaked out by it - like I'm a drama queen stirring up shit - but then again I'm not twisting anyone's arm to read this. I'll be honest, I'm an exhibitionist and I want to expose myself, and you get to be the voyeur.
My boundaries within have crumbled and the shame I try to hold in seeps out into every bone, muscle, tendon, nerve, and thought that is me. I am shame. I am deep, ugly, hateful, depressed shame that comes from before I was old enough to know what shame was. I feel like I was born evil and although my adult brain can comprehend the flawed reasoning, I still feel the shame. I worked it all out with my therapist last night - how as a child it's not ME who did anything abnormally wrong, the shame actually comes from the messages I received as a child from THEM and those ugly messages became internalized and here I am, 40 some years old, and shaming myself. Shame on me. Shame on me. Shame on me.
I have no place to go, now, to escape. I am steeped in shame. As usual, I turn to the Final Solution that comforts me, the ultimate escape from which there is no return. They have taken away the guns and locked them up, and I'm beyond the passive suicidal gestures of popping pills or slashing wrists. I want to do the real thing with no chance of survival. Guns, I know, are the best, but what if there are no guns? I've thought about this conundrum a lot.
I figured it out. It's about -15 F here, fucking cold, and there's a huge lake in my hometown that is not frozen. If I jumped off the bridge into the freezing water I can't imagine any rescuers could reach me before hypothermia sets in and my body quits responding to my brain's messages to swim and I sink. My guess is that it would take about 5 minutes.
I still have a hard time justifying the Final Solution. On the one hand, it represents a final peace and resting for me. But does that sweet ending justify the sadness on the other hand? I have learned that people love me; my husband, my children, my friends....As much as I'd like to think they would quickly and easily adjust and move on, I know the truth is that there would be some grief. My sweet ending would result in their grief. But there grief would not be forever, so what's the proper balance? Is my forever ending worth their temporary grief?
I've been here before. I've traveled this road. I know it's twists and turns. Somewhere in my head I hear a voice telling me that my logic is not sound. Another voice tells me that this in not a matter of logic, but rather a matter of the heart. Yet another voice tells me that the I'm not looking for a Forever Finality, I'm looking for some rest for awhile. But the loudest voice right now says I should jump.
My boundaries within have crumbled and the shame I try to hold in seeps out into every bone, muscle, tendon, nerve, and thought that is me. I am shame. I am deep, ugly, hateful, depressed shame that comes from before I was old enough to know what shame was. I feel like I was born evil and although my adult brain can comprehend the flawed reasoning, I still feel the shame. I worked it all out with my therapist last night - how as a child it's not ME who did anything abnormally wrong, the shame actually comes from the messages I received as a child from THEM and those ugly messages became internalized and here I am, 40 some years old, and shaming myself. Shame on me. Shame on me. Shame on me.
I have no place to go, now, to escape. I am steeped in shame. As usual, I turn to the Final Solution that comforts me, the ultimate escape from which there is no return. They have taken away the guns and locked them up, and I'm beyond the passive suicidal gestures of popping pills or slashing wrists. I want to do the real thing with no chance of survival. Guns, I know, are the best, but what if there are no guns? I've thought about this conundrum a lot.
I figured it out. It's about -15 F here, fucking cold, and there's a huge lake in my hometown that is not frozen. If I jumped off the bridge into the freezing water I can't imagine any rescuers could reach me before hypothermia sets in and my body quits responding to my brain's messages to swim and I sink. My guess is that it would take about 5 minutes.
I still have a hard time justifying the Final Solution. On the one hand, it represents a final peace and resting for me. But does that sweet ending justify the sadness on the other hand? I have learned that people love me; my husband, my children, my friends....As much as I'd like to think they would quickly and easily adjust and move on, I know the truth is that there would be some grief. My sweet ending would result in their grief. But there grief would not be forever, so what's the proper balance? Is my forever ending worth their temporary grief?
I've been here before. I've traveled this road. I know it's twists and turns. Somewhere in my head I hear a voice telling me that my logic is not sound. Another voice tells me that this in not a matter of logic, but rather a matter of the heart. Yet another voice tells me that the I'm not looking for a Forever Finality, I'm looking for some rest for awhile. But the loudest voice right now says I should jump.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Mouth Fucking Causes Nirvana
Muddled messages from inner space eek out in intellectual visions jam fucking packed with emotion. Shit. I see this little girl up against the wall getting mouth fucked. I’m not even going to sugar coat it. Mouth fucked. Then, back on earth, my back hurts. Then my head. I try to figure out if it’s a fairy tale. But my therapist, he says to maybe just leave the “why” hanging. But to know if it’s a fairy tale or not, is that a “why?” I want to know if something like that happened to me. But maybe I’ll never know. But that’s not good enough. I want to fucking know what happened. It really freaks me out the stuff I see in my head. There’s stuff I know, like the rape when I was 18, but I was dissociative well before then. Big split as a baby – 2? 3? 4? When stressed beyond capacity I go to a place where I can’t really talk, but I think. The stuff I think is basic, like “this soft,” or “make myself small.” I'm not thinking in words, more like pictures and senses and the action. No words. When I’m that way, I feel….I can put words to the feelings in retrospect but not when I’m there. I identify fear. I identify terror. I identify despair, hopelessness, and being alone forever and ever and ever. I experience giving up in that place, a surrender that is complete and not of my own free will. A surrender that brings me to a place of no suffering. You know, we humans are supposed to have free will, but there comes a point as a little one when complete surrender to terror is mandatory, because there is no way out. That suffocates me. It fills my mouth and throat and chokes me. It makes me pee my pants. And when I look back on it, makes me feel aroused. Kinda. Not normal arousal….more like an uncomfortable stimulation in my privates coupled with a sick feeling in my chest and my throat closes up. Right now, my back hurts and I feel panic. Panic and arousal. That doesn’t make a lick of fucking sense to me. Sometimes I look back on the birth of Sarah. I’m 12, and cannot integrate the deep shame and depression I feel with who I act like. You know, it’s not like I could label the feelings shame and depression back then. No. I hated myself. I loathed who I was. I made myself sick. I did everything I could to portray a different person to everyone else. That’s how Sarah was born. Grown up at 12, hateful, angry. The anger protected me, I see now, from the self-hatred. I was 12, and didn’t know what to do with the hate. So I gave it to her, she turned it on Amanda inside and everyone else. What about all those years between 2 and 12? Barren? No...I was such an outgoing child. Adults liked me. I was full of energy and wit, full of ideas and desires. I read. I read everything I could get my hands on. I performed at school. I performed at church. I spent every waking hour in a book or watching the adults watch me, deciphering their reactions, so that I could manufacture the best performance. When I could. Sometimes I holed up in the closet, playing with marbles. I played with Barbie dolls too, acting out the dreams in my head. Acting and performing for myself. Working it out. Playing. Playing. Imagining. Children imagine stuff a lot, right? So that’s normal. And I had friends. We imagined stuff all the time, and acted it out. I like playing with Kim and Sherry and Bella. I like pretending with them. I liked them because they knew how to play with me. And every night I put my self to sleep by touching myself. Every night. Couldn’t stop. Deeply ashamed. Which, as an adult, makes me wonder if I’m a born sicko. Born fucked up. Born with no self. Or something happened, something ike ‘trauma.’ Only I don’t know what it is. If I don’t know what it is, then that means maybe it didn’t happen and that means yes, I’m a born Fuck Up Psycho Twisted Yuck. If I’m a Yuck, then yes, I should just go ahead and drink until I blow my head off. Because if I’m a Yuck, then I can never trust myself. And if I might act out the fantasies in my brain then I’m better off dead as is the rest of the planet. Oh, and then, the 3rd major break – took on the Rae name and persona. I renamed myself. I was drinking a lot. Rae drank a lot. Rae got treatment. Rae goes to AA meetings. Rae teaches. Where is the "core self" Amanda in all this? Still very ashamed, I can tell you that much. Still hating herself. Still a little baby. Still terrified. Still hoping to make herself small. Getting fucked in the mouth in a corner, that’s where. Only, I think I’m fucking myself. That’s why I hate myself so much. Sure ain’t no on else fucking my mouth. No one else makes me do anything I don’t want to do. So I fuck my mouth. I choke my throat. I press against my chest and have to pee. Always, that fucking having to pee. I can’t hold the pee. Surrender. Surrender to terror. It’s awful, empty, and zen beautiful, this sense of surrender. In his book Essence of the Heart Sutra, His Holiness the Dalai Lama defined Nirvana as the "state beyond sorrows," or a "state of freedom from cyclic existence."A child can reach nirvana. I know I reached Nirvana, but only when I was two and getting fucked in the mouth.
Book information: http://inandoutoficeglass.weebly.com/
Book information: http://inandoutoficeglass.weebly.com/
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Wolf
I saw a huge black wolf stand in the road, staring at me. She just stood there- and I slowed the car down- and she just stood there. I was almost at a crawl and she sauntered off, into the ditch and beyond. For a moment, I was stunned as I was certain she spoke to me. This is what she said...
“I am a wolf, so what?” She said as she padded across the cold November pavement. She stopped in the tall grass sticking out of the snow, turned her head to me, and said again, “So what?” I sped by. But the look and the moment remained.
“I crossed the road, but I have my own path.” It leads deep into the lonely wood. She longs for something.
“I find prey, I gorge myself. So what?” Fine predator, she is. And scavenger. And thief. Nature is cruel in its circle, ritualistic in its rhythm. She eats and hungers for more, and she sleeps.
In her eye I saw that cool acceptance of her life, that cool acceptance of her hunger. I saw the longing that drives her to her own. Loyal to her instinct, loyal to her pack, she runs along the path hungry.
“I howl at the moon, so what?” A cry of union, a vocal tear dropping into the air, a song of calling. I do not run from emptiness, I fill it with my own tears. I surrender to its mystery.
I am a wolf, so what? I would rather shed a million tears, than have nothing to cry about. I’d rather feel the absence of you, than never know I was alone. I’d rather celebrate my hunger, driven to feed, than blindly starve.
I am a wolf, I say, so what? I will not run from her magic. I surrender to her power, cease fighting for control. It is the life that flows through me, silent and intuitive. I will obey its rules. I am It.
As in all life, I saw her message: Accept. Surrender. Live. And now, be hungry. The hunger moves me along the path.
Turning to the deep longing, rather than away, I discover its echo. I think we see ourselves and god in the bottomless eyes, windows to the soul, of the ones we love. I think this is the magic of connection; we taste and we know we belong, and if we must leave we will someday return. It's a taste of who we really are. It's no perversion of something holy. It is holy.
“I am a wolf, so what?” She said as she padded across the cold November pavement. She stopped in the tall grass sticking out of the snow, turned her head to me, and said again, “So what?” I sped by. But the look and the moment remained.
“I crossed the road, but I have my own path.” It leads deep into the lonely wood. She longs for something.
“I find prey, I gorge myself. So what?” Fine predator, she is. And scavenger. And thief. Nature is cruel in its circle, ritualistic in its rhythm. She eats and hungers for more, and she sleeps.
In her eye I saw that cool acceptance of her life, that cool acceptance of her hunger. I saw the longing that drives her to her own. Loyal to her instinct, loyal to her pack, she runs along the path hungry.
“I howl at the moon, so what?” A cry of union, a vocal tear dropping into the air, a song of calling. I do not run from emptiness, I fill it with my own tears. I surrender to its mystery.
I am a wolf, so what? I would rather shed a million tears, than have nothing to cry about. I’d rather feel the absence of you, than never know I was alone. I’d rather celebrate my hunger, driven to feed, than blindly starve.
I am a wolf, I say, so what? I will not run from her magic. I surrender to her power, cease fighting for control. It is the life that flows through me, silent and intuitive. I will obey its rules. I am It.
As in all life, I saw her message: Accept. Surrender. Live. And now, be hungry. The hunger moves me along the path.
Turning to the deep longing, rather than away, I discover its echo. I think we see ourselves and god in the bottomless eyes, windows to the soul, of the ones we love. I think this is the magic of connection; we taste and we know we belong, and if we must leave we will someday return. It's a taste of who we really are. It's no perversion of something holy. It is holy.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Angry
I don't usually write poetry, but I've tried a few times. I really wanted to be in a poetry slam once, and I wrote this one because it sounded angry enough to be in a slam, and was kind of a slam against the slam. I never read it because I was too afraid.
I could write poetry like you-
All pissed off at white man’s
Oppressive culture eating my freedom
Like maggots in a wound.
And the atrocity of war – Big Business
Christian Nation claiming oil under
The sands of heathens.
And the gross injustice of rich men
And women, visible over the layers
Of poverty and disease in Africa,
New York, Superior Street.
But instead, I write angry poems
About me.
Pissed at me for getting raped,
Being a drug addict.
Wasting years and brain cells.
Pissed at identity confusion –
Maybe I’m gay and that’s why
I hate myself so much.
I could write like you,
Throw in a “Fuck” or two.
But I’m busy
Being pissed at how
I’m too afraid to Love.
I could write poetry like you-
All pissed off at white man’s
Oppressive culture eating my freedom
Like maggots in a wound.
And the atrocity of war – Big Business
Christian Nation claiming oil under
The sands of heathens.
And the gross injustice of rich men
And women, visible over the layers
Of poverty and disease in Africa,
New York, Superior Street.
But instead, I write angry poems
About me.
Pissed at me for getting raped,
Being a drug addict.
Wasting years and brain cells.
Pissed at identity confusion –
Maybe I’m gay and that’s why
I hate myself so much.
I could write like you,
Throw in a “Fuck” or two.
But I’m busy
Being pissed at how
I’m too afraid to Love.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The Lilac Bush
I transplanted a lilac bush right outside my bedroom window. I dug it carefully out of the ground at my grandma’s. As a child I played in her wild wood, which was also my backyard. She had pin cherry trees, lilac bushes, rose bushes, birch, and moss and ferns. There was a ditch through the whole area, as a child it seemed like a river. Wonderful place to run to. The dream, of course, was to transplant this happy bit of my childhood into my adult life and wake up from restful dreams to the sweet smell of lilac wafting through the open window on lazy summer mornings. The bush is dying.
It’s been thriving for 6 or so years. Every year more blossoms, every year more growth. Two years ago it began to turn brown in the summer, a fungus or rot or parasite. I don’t know the intricacies of lilacs. I pruned. I watered. Last fall it seemed hopeless. By July it had curled up leaves, black/brown, and I anticipated cutting it down. I couldn’t do it in the fall with so much already turning from bright flaming colors to the ash grey of winter. And during the winter months, well, one can hardly discriminate the dead from the sleeping. Now it’s spring, with the yellow green of buds barely coming out to the sun. This time of year is ugly to me, as that which was coldly beautiful in the white frozen winter thaws to dirty life.
My lilac tree has green buds on it. Just a part of it, not the whole thing. It’s sickly. The leaves that dried and curled last summer are still on some of the branches and other branches live with those lovely buds of promise. I cannot cut it down now. But I am terrified to prune. So much would have to go. This branch, with its decay, that branch with its death. Another branch with its criticism of life itself, and the branch whose demons have choked the promise of spring from memory. In the pruning I could kill it. There might not be enough left sustain life. The roots of my happy childhood are shallow and the soul of the tree is not at home. If I begin to cut away that which is dead and that which is dying, the sickness, who can tell me if I might not cut away the soul of the tree? Who can tell me if the soul of the lilac is still not deep in the ground at grandma’s, in the wild wood, where I ran when I was sad?
It’s been thriving for 6 or so years. Every year more blossoms, every year more growth. Two years ago it began to turn brown in the summer, a fungus or rot or parasite. I don’t know the intricacies of lilacs. I pruned. I watered. Last fall it seemed hopeless. By July it had curled up leaves, black/brown, and I anticipated cutting it down. I couldn’t do it in the fall with so much already turning from bright flaming colors to the ash grey of winter. And during the winter months, well, one can hardly discriminate the dead from the sleeping. Now it’s spring, with the yellow green of buds barely coming out to the sun. This time of year is ugly to me, as that which was coldly beautiful in the white frozen winter thaws to dirty life.
My lilac tree has green buds on it. Just a part of it, not the whole thing. It’s sickly. The leaves that dried and curled last summer are still on some of the branches and other branches live with those lovely buds of promise. I cannot cut it down now. But I am terrified to prune. So much would have to go. This branch, with its decay, that branch with its death. Another branch with its criticism of life itself, and the branch whose demons have choked the promise of spring from memory. In the pruning I could kill it. There might not be enough left sustain life. The roots of my happy childhood are shallow and the soul of the tree is not at home. If I begin to cut away that which is dead and that which is dying, the sickness, who can tell me if I might not cut away the soul of the tree? Who can tell me if the soul of the lilac is still not deep in the ground at grandma’s, in the wild wood, where I ran when I was sad?
Wolves in the Distance
A makeshift tent in the wilderness, complete with fire ring and fire, becomes my home away from home. The flames lick my toes and warm them against the cold. I’ve gotten so lost I don’t quite know where I’m supposed to rest my soul let alone where I should next go. I’m a nomad in my own life, not that that’s such a bad thing. Beyond my fire ring I hear the howl of wolves, not that that’s such a bad thing either. The sound keeps me alive in fear and wonder and amazement. The fire brings me hope. Dissociative Identity Disorder is the same – the same as the howl and the tent and the fire. If I think about it, my head gets a little loopy. I can go from holding a loaded gun in my mouth to carrying that wisp of hope one might call integration, another might call salvation, another joy. I feel suicidal and at peace. I think I get lost in despair, only to find someone inside holds great promise and a bright future. I sink into my personal shame and then burst forth with acceptance of my selves and my past. I crawl into my tent after putting another log on the fire, and howl with the wolves.
Monday, November 15, 2010
The Soul Inside the Jar
The Soul Inside the Jar
Once upon a time there was a girl who wandered the forest with a jar in her hand. She was young and frail with long thin blond hair flowing in the wind and a dress, just as thin, flowing around her body. Her face wasn't as bony as you would expect for such a small girl, and in fact it was hauntingly pretty. Her blue eyes looked everywhere for the home of the jar's contents. It was important. God said it was important. He told her that inside the jar was a special magical essence called a “soul” and it needed a place to rest. This lovely girl thought of herself as a shadow, and everyone knows shadows don't have souls, so she set about on a journey to find a resting place for the soul. She came upon a woman near a waterfall, weeping, and touched her shoulder. The woman looked up, tears running down her eyes like the water ran over the rocks behind her. The girl saw that she was not a shadow or a ghost, though she had no energy. She wondered if the soul would give this woman energy, and if the woman would give the soul a place to rest.
She held out the jar and asked “do you think this is your soul?” But the woman turned away and cried all the harder, with tears that seemed to wash away her life.
“No,” she said, “it's not my soul. I don't deserve a soul for I gave mine away long ago.”
“Well then, come with me and help me find a resting place for this soul. This waterfall is beautiful but there's so much more to the forest. Come with me, we can always return here when we need to.”
The woman got up slowly. It had been more than twenty years since she moved about of her own free will. Her body was stiff and her muscles hurt. She was tired, but she rose up and followed the girl, curious to see if she could help find a resting place for the soul in the jar. They traveled along a path through the forest, looking for the resting place of the soul, as God had said. Before long they found a demon-man. He was chopping down a tree with hacksaw, and so intent was he on his work that he didn't even know they approached. The girl and the woman were both a little fearful of him, so strong and tall and potent he was. They stood and watched him for a short while, and suddenly he turned and looked at them.
“I felt you! What do you want?” He thundered.
“Do you think this is your soul?” the little girl asked, holding out the jar for him to see.
The demon-man laughed at the question. He laughed until he was crying and holding his stomach. “My soul??!!?” he bellowed. “Do I think that is my soul????!!! I'm part demon, stupid girl. I lost my soul to fire in a time I don't even remember, so long ago was that. It's not my soul, my soul has burned to ashes.” His laughter subsided and a grimace took his smile's place on his red and tough face. It softened a little. “It's not my soul.” he whispered.
“Well, we're trying to find a resting place for it. God told us it's a soul and that it needs a place to rest.” The little girl took hold of the woman's hand, a gesture not lost on the demon-man. “This forest can be dangerous,” the little girl said. “Will you come with us and perhaps your strength and power will scare away the creatures that would harm us?” She looked at the tree he was cutting down. “You can always return to you task when we are done, or you get bored.”
The demon-man looked at the hacksaw and at the tree. He'd been cutting the tree for so long he didn't even remember why he was cutting. He only knew he was compelled to cut and that the job never seemed to get done no matter the force he used or the strength he spent. “All right,” he said, “ I'll come with you. I'll help you find a resting place for the soul in the jar.”
And off they went, down the path in the forest, all three of them. Before long they came upon twins, a man and a woman. The woman was solid and plump, with rosy cheeks and a smile on her face. The man looked just like her, only like a male version, and was taller and thinner. He carried no emotion. He was sitting on a log watching the woman play with some forest critters. She had a few squirrels, a raccoon, and a fawn in front of her, and she was trying to teach them to read. The forest critters paid attention, then scampered about, then came back, then ran off again. The woman just laughed and kept to her lessons despite the antics of her class. It was all a game, and it made the little girl laugh and the woman smile.
The rosy cheeked woman greeted the three strangers warmly, though she was unsure of them. “Well, friends” she said, “what a lovely jar. What have you in there?”
“A soul,” said the weeping woman. “The little girl is looking for a resting place for it.”
“A soul!” The thin man and rosy cheeked woman both exclaimed together. “We were born without souls, and have been trying to earn one.”
“Maybe this is it,” the little girl said, holding out the jar.
The thin man shook his head and the rosy cheeked woman just laughed. “We haven't earned our soul yet, child. We have much work to do before we can have a soul.”
At that moment, the jar began to shake. The little girl, in fear, placed the jar on the ground. She grabbed for the hand of the weeping woman, who grabbed for the hand of the rosy cheeked woman, who took the hand of the thin man, who clasped the hand of the demon-man, who placed his hand in that of the little girl. The were in a circle around the shaking jar, and they themselves shook with fear and even a little excitement. As they touched each other a deep magic began to flow through them, deeper even than the magic of the God who set the little girl on this mission. The magic was sadder than the weeping woman's tears, stronger than the demon-man's strength, more joyful than the rosy cheeked woman's laughter, and quieter than the thin man's emotionless face. The magic was as frail as the little girl and as thin as her dress and as pretty as her face. It moved among them and through them and around them. It shook the jar until the jar began to break into pieces.
All of a sudden, with a whoosh and great beating of wings a number of tiny birds emerged from the jar. The birds flew straight into the air, and around the circle of magic, and in between the soul-less wanderers. There were white birds, and grey birds, and bright birds of yellow and red. There were green birds with orange wings and blue birds that matched the sky. As they flew around the magic circle they seemed to settle, one on each of the wanderer's heads and one on top of each of the trees and one upon the rocks and one for each of the critters that scampered about. The wanderers were holding tight to each others hands and looking up at the birds above their heads as each of the birds folded their wings and fell right into the wanderers themselves! The little girl who thought she was just a shadow became real as she held the hands of the others. The weeping woman whose life had washed away with tears had eyes that no longer cried, but gleamed with a new life. The demon-man found a new direction for his strength, one not bent toward destruction but rather one that protected. The thin man smiled, for his little bird helped him feel happy. The rosy cheeked woman's mouth was wide open in surprise and wonder, for she realized she no longer had to earn that for which she yearned.
“Why, it's not like I expected at all!” cried the little girl. “I don't know if God deceived me or if I misunderstood what He was saying! The jar held my own soul, and yours, and yours, and it was a deep magic that brought us together in this place to release them.” Still holding hands, the troupe of wanderers laughed and cried all together and all at the same time, their souls now resting inside.
Once upon a time there was a girl who wandered the forest with a jar in her hand. She was young and frail with long thin blond hair flowing in the wind and a dress, just as thin, flowing around her body. Her face wasn't as bony as you would expect for such a small girl, and in fact it was hauntingly pretty. Her blue eyes looked everywhere for the home of the jar's contents. It was important. God said it was important. He told her that inside the jar was a special magical essence called a “soul” and it needed a place to rest. This lovely girl thought of herself as a shadow, and everyone knows shadows don't have souls, so she set about on a journey to find a resting place for the soul. She came upon a woman near a waterfall, weeping, and touched her shoulder. The woman looked up, tears running down her eyes like the water ran over the rocks behind her. The girl saw that she was not a shadow or a ghost, though she had no energy. She wondered if the soul would give this woman energy, and if the woman would give the soul a place to rest.
She held out the jar and asked “do you think this is your soul?” But the woman turned away and cried all the harder, with tears that seemed to wash away her life.
“No,” she said, “it's not my soul. I don't deserve a soul for I gave mine away long ago.”
“Well then, come with me and help me find a resting place for this soul. This waterfall is beautiful but there's so much more to the forest. Come with me, we can always return here when we need to.”
The woman got up slowly. It had been more than twenty years since she moved about of her own free will. Her body was stiff and her muscles hurt. She was tired, but she rose up and followed the girl, curious to see if she could help find a resting place for the soul in the jar. They traveled along a path through the forest, looking for the resting place of the soul, as God had said. Before long they found a demon-man. He was chopping down a tree with hacksaw, and so intent was he on his work that he didn't even know they approached. The girl and the woman were both a little fearful of him, so strong and tall and potent he was. They stood and watched him for a short while, and suddenly he turned and looked at them.
“I felt you! What do you want?” He thundered.
“Do you think this is your soul?” the little girl asked, holding out the jar for him to see.
The demon-man laughed at the question. He laughed until he was crying and holding his stomach. “My soul??!!?” he bellowed. “Do I think that is my soul????!!! I'm part demon, stupid girl. I lost my soul to fire in a time I don't even remember, so long ago was that. It's not my soul, my soul has burned to ashes.” His laughter subsided and a grimace took his smile's place on his red and tough face. It softened a little. “It's not my soul.” he whispered.
“Well, we're trying to find a resting place for it. God told us it's a soul and that it needs a place to rest.” The little girl took hold of the woman's hand, a gesture not lost on the demon-man. “This forest can be dangerous,” the little girl said. “Will you come with us and perhaps your strength and power will scare away the creatures that would harm us?” She looked at the tree he was cutting down. “You can always return to you task when we are done, or you get bored.”
The demon-man looked at the hacksaw and at the tree. He'd been cutting the tree for so long he didn't even remember why he was cutting. He only knew he was compelled to cut and that the job never seemed to get done no matter the force he used or the strength he spent. “All right,” he said, “ I'll come with you. I'll help you find a resting place for the soul in the jar.”
And off they went, down the path in the forest, all three of them. Before long they came upon twins, a man and a woman. The woman was solid and plump, with rosy cheeks and a smile on her face. The man looked just like her, only like a male version, and was taller and thinner. He carried no emotion. He was sitting on a log watching the woman play with some forest critters. She had a few squirrels, a raccoon, and a fawn in front of her, and she was trying to teach them to read. The forest critters paid attention, then scampered about, then came back, then ran off again. The woman just laughed and kept to her lessons despite the antics of her class. It was all a game, and it made the little girl laugh and the woman smile.
The rosy cheeked woman greeted the three strangers warmly, though she was unsure of them. “Well, friends” she said, “what a lovely jar. What have you in there?”
“A soul,” said the weeping woman. “The little girl is looking for a resting place for it.”
“A soul!” The thin man and rosy cheeked woman both exclaimed together. “We were born without souls, and have been trying to earn one.”
“Maybe this is it,” the little girl said, holding out the jar.
The thin man shook his head and the rosy cheeked woman just laughed. “We haven't earned our soul yet, child. We have much work to do before we can have a soul.”
At that moment, the jar began to shake. The little girl, in fear, placed the jar on the ground. She grabbed for the hand of the weeping woman, who grabbed for the hand of the rosy cheeked woman, who took the hand of the thin man, who clasped the hand of the demon-man, who placed his hand in that of the little girl. The were in a circle around the shaking jar, and they themselves shook with fear and even a little excitement. As they touched each other a deep magic began to flow through them, deeper even than the magic of the God who set the little girl on this mission. The magic was sadder than the weeping woman's tears, stronger than the demon-man's strength, more joyful than the rosy cheeked woman's laughter, and quieter than the thin man's emotionless face. The magic was as frail as the little girl and as thin as her dress and as pretty as her face. It moved among them and through them and around them. It shook the jar until the jar began to break into pieces.
All of a sudden, with a whoosh and great beating of wings a number of tiny birds emerged from the jar. The birds flew straight into the air, and around the circle of magic, and in between the soul-less wanderers. There were white birds, and grey birds, and bright birds of yellow and red. There were green birds with orange wings and blue birds that matched the sky. As they flew around the magic circle they seemed to settle, one on each of the wanderer's heads and one on top of each of the trees and one upon the rocks and one for each of the critters that scampered about. The wanderers were holding tight to each others hands and looking up at the birds above their heads as each of the birds folded their wings and fell right into the wanderers themselves! The little girl who thought she was just a shadow became real as she held the hands of the others. The weeping woman whose life had washed away with tears had eyes that no longer cried, but gleamed with a new life. The demon-man found a new direction for his strength, one not bent toward destruction but rather one that protected. The thin man smiled, for his little bird helped him feel happy. The rosy cheeked woman's mouth was wide open in surprise and wonder, for she realized she no longer had to earn that for which she yearned.
“Why, it's not like I expected at all!” cried the little girl. “I don't know if God deceived me or if I misunderstood what He was saying! The jar held my own soul, and yours, and yours, and it was a deep magic that brought us together in this place to release them.” Still holding hands, the troupe of wanderers laughed and cried all together and all at the same time, their souls now resting inside.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Dissociative Disorder or Past Lives?
I had a tarot reading done this weekend. The witch who did the reading was pretty adamant that I was completely sane. She suggested that one of my parts was someone from a past life. I've entertained this thought before, wondering if perhaps a residual past life came to help me survive in this life. I'm not creeped out by the thought, and it doesn't really affect my goals in therapy or how I view this part. It seems to just add another layer, or element to my system. Any thoughts?
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Finding Gratitude
Gratitude comes to me in peculiar packages. I have been trying to train myself to be grateful every day for something, and yesterday was a real first and a testament to how far I have traveled from the depths of despair to where I am now. Living with DID is certainly an up and down experience for me, and the past week has really been "down." I was crying in my therapist's office (cliche, right?) about to have a system crash. One of my "parts," violent and angry, was hating on me, and my therapist asked a very poignant question - "why did Rae come into being?" My answer was "because the system couldn't function." We all stopped for just a moment, as that statement percolated throughout my system. I became Rae because otherwise the system couldn't function. At a crucial time in my teen years, I had been raped and it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. Rae came to save the system. She graduated from high school, went to college, and became a teacher. For just a moment, I was grateful for the strength I found within to become who I needed to become to survive. I survived a childhood of trauma, and I survived that last assault. But I did more than survive. I gathered all that was strong inside and I became who "we" are today. I am many, and in my plurality I maintain close friendships, a marriage of 24 years, and a career as a teacher (going on 19 years). I have children, grandchildren, and a home full of love. I am working on co-consciousness in therapy, so that all of us can more fully participate in this life. I am grateful I have this strength. I hate that I have to hide behind these false names, as I worry that any knowledge of my mental illness would affect my career. It's self-perpetuating - the stigma of DID pervasively exists, requiring that those of us with DID step forward to share our stories so that the world may know who we really are. However, those of us with DID fear stepping forward as the stigma of DID and all mental illness could seriously negatively impact our lives. Someday I will have the strength to let the world know who I am. Someday I will use my voice.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Guns
With placid detachment I view the scene placed in my mind by some unidentifiable "other." Testing, testing....Will my fingers reach the trigger? How cold is the muzzle? I shake my head and try to go someplace else, horseback riding perhaps. It's not safe in this room, alone as I am. Why isn't the Seroquel working? But like a television whose channels I can't control, the scene changes back. I've placed myself in the tub to cut down on the mess, and yes, my fingers reach. It's awkward. The pounding in my chest drowns out the screaming of those who don't want to do this. I try again to watch another scene, but the "other" draws me back. Yes, the muzzle is cold. The stress moves to my stomach. I shouldn't be alone....Instead of this passive dreaming I make my legs move me - pee and get some coffee. Instead I find myself by the door, searching behind the jackets hanging there. It's there- cold muzzle and all. I touch it and then there is darkness. Suddenly I'm on my couch, laptop in hand, writing about it instead of doing it in an effort to get it out - out of my head, out of my reality - out of my touch. He comes back from hunting and I'm not alone anymore. I'll tell, because most of me doesn't want it to happen that way. Most of me wants to lay in his arms tonight. Most of me wants to walk with the dog. Most of me fights to live.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
A Question
Question:
There's no frakkin' title on my blog, yet in the "Design" tab I have a title and it shows it....why is this????
There's no frakkin' title on my blog, yet in the "Design" tab I have a title and it shows it....why is this????
Friday, November 5, 2010
Attachment and Dissociation
Read an article this morning about attachment issues being the starting point of dissociation. This article discussed how a mom that is emotionally unavailable to her child can cause these attachment issues, and then active abuse knocks the child into the realm of dissociation. I thought of my mom, and how our joke is that "the mom is always the problem" and then I thought of me as a mom, and wondered about my own children. Then the wondering stops. I'm wearing a Spider Man band-aid today, as I cut my finger (not on purpose.) Luke got them for me, thinking I'd enjoy having more Spider Man. I think that's incredibly thoughtful and I love the band-aids and I love him. I marvel at his capacity to reach across the dark realms and connect with almost all parts of me. I don't think he is even aware that he does this. I have attached to him. I can trace this attachment from the drug-induced young lusty total capitulation we had in the first years to an anxiety-ridden on again/off again attachment we had for a number of years. Then there was a superficial attachment phase when the parts of me tested, tested, tested and "love" was experimented with through layers of protective parts. Something died, eventually, to leave the flame of my spirit exposed to his love, and the flame did not extinguish. I attached, as did all of us, with a rare trust. I never attached like this before, not to my mother or my father, not to anyone. I thought I was unable to do it. But I did.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
I Like Drugs
I like drugs, all kinds of drugs. I like pot, acid, meth, alcohol, and 'shrooms. I have been sober for about 8 years now....but I still like drugs. And want to take them. But I guess I AM taking them, aren't I? I mean, I've been having a hell of a time lately, fighting with the parts that want to cut my arm off, fighting with the parts that want to blow my head off, fighting the ugly words that demean and shame me...so I up the dosage of my drugs. More seroquel, more ambien. Enough to quiet the emotional static that has been buzzing in my head, enough to make me stumble all over my words in school like a drunk stumbles on his own feet, hopefully not enough to give me tardive diskynesia.....or however the fuck you spell it. I like that I have this pharmaceutical solution to the chaotic disorder in my brain. But it makes me angry...why does it make me angry???
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Incomprehensible
Got a present from a student today - it was beautiful - she drew a picture, colored it in, and framed it. So much thought was put into it and it was so carefully done. It was wrapped in newspaper, carefully and perfectly, with a string bow. It came with a little letter. I don't understand the duality of my life.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
My Therapist, the Archaeologist
My therapist, god bless his soul, is digging like there is no tomorrow. He digs and and digs and holds these fucking artifacts up for me to see as we analyze them together..."When did this happen?" and "What did you do with your hands?" and the ever famous "How does this make you feel?" I know, it's his job, but we have been digging at sites I have long ago labeled DANGEROUS and left alone in, what I think, is well reasoned fear. Now, with the arm amputation compulsion plaguing me most of the time and vivid as any real event, the DANGER is really in not digging. We discussed how I replay a scene over and over and over and after viewing this scene I am awash in shame and disgust and physical sickness. He retold me what I told him, like it was a story, but maybe a story in which I am a character. He asked me if I thought it was accurate. I told him I both knew with certainty it was true, and also knew without doubt that it was not. That's the craziness of dissociation, and the danger.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Riding the Wave, anonymously
Pulled under, pulled out....like riding a wave....can't quite decide what all I should do. One of me is pretty active letting people know about the book. My public me is dying to let everyone know about the book, but won't, because it's anonymous for a reason. So the me that is on here, and on the fb page, and on all the DID pages is super excited and wants everyone to know all about EVERYTHING. But the public me is afraid, afraid, afraid. Check out the interview with Donna Williams, at any cost. And please - give me some advice on how public to be about my story...
http://blog.donnawilliams.net/
http://blog.donnawilliams.net/
Thursday, October 14, 2010
My book is available!!!!
You can order my book now!
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/in-and-out-of-iceglass-living-with-dissociative-identity-disorder-and-chemical-dependency/12937725?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1
or just go to Lulu.com and do a search for "In and Out of Ice/Glass"
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/in-and-out-of-iceglass-living-with-dissociative-identity-disorder-and-chemical-dependency/12937725?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1
or just go to Lulu.com and do a search for "In and Out of Ice/Glass"
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Dot-to-dot
She struggles to connect the dots – a little child with a new book full of puzzles to puzzle over. This one is particularly difficult for the dots are events in a person's life and the lines that connect them need to be emotional as well as rational. The ensuing picture that is created can then be colored in with the vibrant colors of life. As you can see, this puzzle book is nothing less than magical.
So the little girl begins her puzzling, as scenes pop into her mind teasing her, the scenes she anticipates might emerge as she connects the dots. One line is drawn – connecting the event that is shadowy and at the beginning, the number 1. Just a 2 year old, overwhelmed with sexual advances of a faceless man while mom is away for forever. These emotions are hard to color, as they are physical sickness, vomit that pushes its way up; and fear and panic and terror and a deeply confusing sense of not knowing where this mom is, and not knowing how to differentiate between self and this man and absent mom and the actions that happen then. The line is shadowy, thick, and for all her efforts to draw a solid line it will never be solid as this event happened not only in its fullness in reality but it happened to this sweet child who could not incorporate it fully into consciousness. So it is shadow, and she left herself then, and what she knows she really does not know and besides, it should never be brought to our knowledge. The line will be left in this puzzle book incomplete.
Then come events 2 – 12. They are warm and pleasant and confusing and shameful and hurtful and bad and good and everything that is incestuous as well as bizarre. She colors them lavender and gray and yellow and black. Looking back on the lines she has drawn she is mostly sad, for children should not have to try to layer these kinds of emotional events onto their public lives. She sees the lines have layered themselves over the first line, the shadowy one, and despite the raw emotion pounding with force in her chest she can see that these lines defy rationalization. They are not reasonable. And because the 2 year old left herself these new lines are not actually connected but layered in another dimension. You can peel the line that connects 2 to 3 for it is on its own sheet of transparent paper. You can peel the line that connects 3 to 4, for it is on its own sheet of transparent paper. And so on to number 12. She continues her puzzling, despite the vomit again rising in her throat. As always, she swallows it down.
All the events from 12 to 18 are gray with streaks of black. All the lines are lines only because the brain insists on creating a gestalt, so this child puzzler frantically connects dots that cannot be connected because the 2 year old left herself, and continued to do so, and continues to do so even as she works to connect the dots. When she stands back to look at this part of the picture she is amazed at the depth of the depression and rage, the intensity with which she fought to hide these shameful emotions, and the shallow smile painted upon the horrific canvas that cries for death. She can almost see the holes in the picture. Add some drops of red, for rage and the blood she so wanted to spill. Place some olive green in there, carefully, and only a spot of it, for the compassion it represents is painful.
Next comes an event that insists on being circled, many times, with heavy strokes. It is a defining event, complex, and experienced by many selves of the child. It is rape and in its aftermath came both surrender and fight. Layer this event upon the rest of the lines, the shadows, the colors and the holes within an emerging picture and it overwhelms the story the picture is trying to tell. It is the color of vodka and pot smoke. It is both erased and reinforced by the next event, a smaller and less colorful one, in which the hand of a beautiful man with kind, deep, blue eyes appears to touch the child's very soul. The puzzling child stands back, takes a breath, as the memory of this man's hand and eyes both draw and repulse her as did the incest. And then both are gone, represented in a dot-to-dot, as a rape followed by an illicit affair/molestation. Events 18 and 19 are both blue, but different shades. One a cold steel gray blue and the other a warm ocean green/blue. The child is compelled to circle the rape event a few more times with heavy strokes. She resists the urge to gouge out the eyes of the other man, there's just not enough room in the picture to express the love and the hate and the gentleness and the pain. As she layers this upon all the other lines the overlap of the affair/molestation with the lines from 2 to 12 are striking in their emotional similarities. It cannot be helped to equate this tenderness and affection coupled with confusion, loss and pain to self-injury. Here the saw that cuts one line from another, separates the events and layers the sheets of transparent paper becomes the saw that dismembers. She leaves herself again. Dissociation (emotional dismemberment), self-hate, and the urge to physically dismember herself by cutting off the left arm layer nicely but do not connect.
Participants in a study were paying attention to a particular task as a bear walked through their midst. Oh gosh, I forget the details. I just know they were so busy paying attention, they didn't notice the bear, even though the bear was completely incongruent within the context of the task. What am I supposed to be paying attention to? What am I actually paying attention to?
Next come lines connecting 19 though 30. These are vibrant lines, from powdery white lines of crystal to primary color lines of childrearing to jagged black lines of sexual dysfunction to rich leathery browns of academia and professionalism. The juxtaposition defies forming a comprehensive, intelligible picture yet somewhere in the layering a picture does indeed emerge. It becomes clearer as dots 30 – 40 connect, without the blurring caused by alcoholism, with the painful clarity provided by therapeutic insight. The colors dull with medication. The tears she weeps dry – the bear that walked through the picture both captured her attention and pulled it away from the picture itself, but was meaningless.
The child apologizes for such a shitty picture. Dot-to-dots are not fine art, and this life though complex and intricate with terrifying and disturbing events punctuated by a will to live and fight to survive and hope in a peace to come and moments of joy, laughter, love is a drop in the bucket of a million lives past, present and future. It is what it is, and to end it may be tragic but tragedy can also describe the fucking dot-to-dot. The child resists the urge to rip her piece of work into tiny bits of meaningless confetti. Some people, I would guess, find meaning in the living of life, the very act of day to day connecting the dots. But this poor child's dots don't connect and so much meaning is lost in her day to day struggle to just keep breathing. There was plenty of joy in life as she was growing up – riding her friend's horse, playing with her dog, walking through the fields and streams of her childhood home...and plenty of joy in the events of the present – camping and having lunch with her friends and listening to music....but those dots don't connect to the deep despair that surfaces in the face of past memories that don't connect to each other. Nevertheless, she has puzzled out quite a bit in this one page of her book of puzzles.
The quest to find peace and meaning and a comprehensive picture of life for a child who is many and has boundaries established that prevent the events of a lifetime from connecting, from emotional processing, from integrating into a whole picture is a mighty quest, and a sad journey, and an ineffective though on some level intriguing use of time. Above all it hurts, a painful quest, and she chuckles through the tears because she knows tomorrow may bring a hearty laugh and a comforting hug and feelings of love. Then she cries some more.
So the little girl begins her puzzling, as scenes pop into her mind teasing her, the scenes she anticipates might emerge as she connects the dots. One line is drawn – connecting the event that is shadowy and at the beginning, the number 1. Just a 2 year old, overwhelmed with sexual advances of a faceless man while mom is away for forever. These emotions are hard to color, as they are physical sickness, vomit that pushes its way up; and fear and panic and terror and a deeply confusing sense of not knowing where this mom is, and not knowing how to differentiate between self and this man and absent mom and the actions that happen then. The line is shadowy, thick, and for all her efforts to draw a solid line it will never be solid as this event happened not only in its fullness in reality but it happened to this sweet child who could not incorporate it fully into consciousness. So it is shadow, and she left herself then, and what she knows she really does not know and besides, it should never be brought to our knowledge. The line will be left in this puzzle book incomplete.
Then come events 2 – 12. They are warm and pleasant and confusing and shameful and hurtful and bad and good and everything that is incestuous as well as bizarre. She colors them lavender and gray and yellow and black. Looking back on the lines she has drawn she is mostly sad, for children should not have to try to layer these kinds of emotional events onto their public lives. She sees the lines have layered themselves over the first line, the shadowy one, and despite the raw emotion pounding with force in her chest she can see that these lines defy rationalization. They are not reasonable. And because the 2 year old left herself these new lines are not actually connected but layered in another dimension. You can peel the line that connects 2 to 3 for it is on its own sheet of transparent paper. You can peel the line that connects 3 to 4, for it is on its own sheet of transparent paper. And so on to number 12. She continues her puzzling, despite the vomit again rising in her throat. As always, she swallows it down.
All the events from 12 to 18 are gray with streaks of black. All the lines are lines only because the brain insists on creating a gestalt, so this child puzzler frantically connects dots that cannot be connected because the 2 year old left herself, and continued to do so, and continues to do so even as she works to connect the dots. When she stands back to look at this part of the picture she is amazed at the depth of the depression and rage, the intensity with which she fought to hide these shameful emotions, and the shallow smile painted upon the horrific canvas that cries for death. She can almost see the holes in the picture. Add some drops of red, for rage and the blood she so wanted to spill. Place some olive green in there, carefully, and only a spot of it, for the compassion it represents is painful.
Next comes an event that insists on being circled, many times, with heavy strokes. It is a defining event, complex, and experienced by many selves of the child. It is rape and in its aftermath came both surrender and fight. Layer this event upon the rest of the lines, the shadows, the colors and the holes within an emerging picture and it overwhelms the story the picture is trying to tell. It is the color of vodka and pot smoke. It is both erased and reinforced by the next event, a smaller and less colorful one, in which the hand of a beautiful man with kind, deep, blue eyes appears to touch the child's very soul. The puzzling child stands back, takes a breath, as the memory of this man's hand and eyes both draw and repulse her as did the incest. And then both are gone, represented in a dot-to-dot, as a rape followed by an illicit affair/molestation. Events 18 and 19 are both blue, but different shades. One a cold steel gray blue and the other a warm ocean green/blue. The child is compelled to circle the rape event a few more times with heavy strokes. She resists the urge to gouge out the eyes of the other man, there's just not enough room in the picture to express the love and the hate and the gentleness and the pain. As she layers this upon all the other lines the overlap of the affair/molestation with the lines from 2 to 12 are striking in their emotional similarities. It cannot be helped to equate this tenderness and affection coupled with confusion, loss and pain to self-injury. Here the saw that cuts one line from another, separates the events and layers the sheets of transparent paper becomes the saw that dismembers. She leaves herself again. Dissociation (emotional dismemberment), self-hate, and the urge to physically dismember herself by cutting off the left arm layer nicely but do not connect.
Participants in a study were paying attention to a particular task as a bear walked through their midst. Oh gosh, I forget the details. I just know they were so busy paying attention, they didn't notice the bear, even though the bear was completely incongruent within the context of the task. What am I supposed to be paying attention to? What am I actually paying attention to?
Next come lines connecting 19 though 30. These are vibrant lines, from powdery white lines of crystal to primary color lines of childrearing to jagged black lines of sexual dysfunction to rich leathery browns of academia and professionalism. The juxtaposition defies forming a comprehensive, intelligible picture yet somewhere in the layering a picture does indeed emerge. It becomes clearer as dots 30 – 40 connect, without the blurring caused by alcoholism, with the painful clarity provided by therapeutic insight. The colors dull with medication. The tears she weeps dry – the bear that walked through the picture both captured her attention and pulled it away from the picture itself, but was meaningless.
The child apologizes for such a shitty picture. Dot-to-dots are not fine art, and this life though complex and intricate with terrifying and disturbing events punctuated by a will to live and fight to survive and hope in a peace to come and moments of joy, laughter, love is a drop in the bucket of a million lives past, present and future. It is what it is, and to end it may be tragic but tragedy can also describe the fucking dot-to-dot. The child resists the urge to rip her piece of work into tiny bits of meaningless confetti. Some people, I would guess, find meaning in the living of life, the very act of day to day connecting the dots. But this poor child's dots don't connect and so much meaning is lost in her day to day struggle to just keep breathing. There was plenty of joy in life as she was growing up – riding her friend's horse, playing with her dog, walking through the fields and streams of her childhood home...and plenty of joy in the events of the present – camping and having lunch with her friends and listening to music....but those dots don't connect to the deep despair that surfaces in the face of past memories that don't connect to each other. Nevertheless, she has puzzled out quite a bit in this one page of her book of puzzles.
The quest to find peace and meaning and a comprehensive picture of life for a child who is many and has boundaries established that prevent the events of a lifetime from connecting, from emotional processing, from integrating into a whole picture is a mighty quest, and a sad journey, and an ineffective though on some level intriguing use of time. Above all it hurts, a painful quest, and she chuckles through the tears because she knows tomorrow may bring a hearty laugh and a comforting hug and feelings of love. Then she cries some more.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Am I Running or Traveling?
The dreams keep coming - I'm in a hurry to get somewhere but it will take days and miles. Sometimes I'm on a motorcycle, sometimes on foot. I usually have to travel in stealth mode, hiding from some evil pursuer. I usually do not mind the traveling. And obviously, such is my life. I'm trying to get away from the past as I move toward a pleasant future, and the present is not so bad despite the horror of the past. I need new shoes.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Stone Temples
Seems like I am obsessed with temples – ancient stone temples, huge Medieval churches, my body….and the holiness of these temples and the mystery and the stories untold and the sacredness. I want to sit in quiet, still temples deep inside myself and deep inside them. I want to touch that holy place where man should not go.
And I wonder what is the mystery there. And why it is covered in stone.
But I know, I know the secrets just like everyone knows the secrets. Some can put words to the mystery, some cover up the words with symbols and rituals and liturgy, some sing the mystery or paint it or dance it. Some are hardly aware it exists. But everyone knows the secrets, they just manifest in various forms.
So I sleep deeply and waken in a coldness that feels like dead bones in the winter woods. I try to warm myself the only way I know how, and suddenly my fantasy turns too real. I am overcome with physical release and the door to the locked part of the temple opens and out pours the mystery in the form of feelings, with images attached that I cannot understand. It aches and it aches like the temple in my soul has suddenly been abandoned by all that is good and loving and safe. I cry and cry and cry and run to Larry’s bedroom to be held. He’s there and he holds me. I tell Prowler to shut the door for me, I cannot reach the handle and I cannot push it shut against the waves of emotion. And it needs to shut or I will drown. Prowler is there and he shuts the door.
But like all epiphanies, this one fades (thank god) but does not disappear. Like all sacred temples the walls are now etched with new words and pictures that tell the mystery. But I cannot speak them, or dance them, or sing them. I cannot paint them or even hold them. I can only make them ghosts in this world.
And so I run to the holy places, the churches and the temples, the woods and the sauna, my bed. I sit quietly and still, listening, and the words are empty of the real thing, the real mystery that aches. The real mystery is that no holy place inside me can be touched by the hands or swords of men. The real secret is that though It hurts and destroys and changes and desecrates, It is not as real as the temple’s holiest of holies where no man should go. The greatest mystery is that the sacredness remains, untouched, because not only should no man go there, no man can.
I am so lonely.
And I wonder what is the mystery there. And why it is covered in stone.
But I know, I know the secrets just like everyone knows the secrets. Some can put words to the mystery, some cover up the words with symbols and rituals and liturgy, some sing the mystery or paint it or dance it. Some are hardly aware it exists. But everyone knows the secrets, they just manifest in various forms.
So I sleep deeply and waken in a coldness that feels like dead bones in the winter woods. I try to warm myself the only way I know how, and suddenly my fantasy turns too real. I am overcome with physical release and the door to the locked part of the temple opens and out pours the mystery in the form of feelings, with images attached that I cannot understand. It aches and it aches like the temple in my soul has suddenly been abandoned by all that is good and loving and safe. I cry and cry and cry and run to Larry’s bedroom to be held. He’s there and he holds me. I tell Prowler to shut the door for me, I cannot reach the handle and I cannot push it shut against the waves of emotion. And it needs to shut or I will drown. Prowler is there and he shuts the door.
But like all epiphanies, this one fades (thank god) but does not disappear. Like all sacred temples the walls are now etched with new words and pictures that tell the mystery. But I cannot speak them, or dance them, or sing them. I cannot paint them or even hold them. I can only make them ghosts in this world.
And so I run to the holy places, the churches and the temples, the woods and the sauna, my bed. I sit quietly and still, listening, and the words are empty of the real thing, the real mystery that aches. The real mystery is that no holy place inside me can be touched by the hands or swords of men. The real secret is that though It hurts and destroys and changes and desecrates, It is not as real as the temple’s holiest of holies where no man should go. The greatest mystery is that the sacredness remains, untouched, because not only should no man go there, no man can.
I am so lonely.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Question for you....
Everything I experience internally seems "normal" to me, like everyone must experience the same inner life. I'm wondering how my "parts" seem like your alters, roles, different faces, etc and how they seem different. Anyone want to share?
I Take It With Me
Sitting with my therapist, crying (of course - it gets so cliche in there) I just wanted him to tell me it was safe. So I told him that. Pretty much verbatim "I just want to know that it's safe." But he didn't answer me directly. I don't even remember what he said because it was his expert method of dancing around something he either didn't want to discuss or didn't know how to address. So we talked a little bit more and it was almost time to go. He asked if there was anything any one of us would like to say before time was up. I said "yeah. you didn't tell me it was safe." He asked if I was talking about my arm, but I wasn't. I was talking about the world - out there - everything outside myself. We took out a collage I made and I showed him how on one side all was serene and protected and on the other side was chaos and pain and fear and violence. I just wanted to know if that other side - the bad side - was still bad or if it was safe. He explained that when I emerge from that protected place inside, I emerge with all that violence that is on the other side, I BRING it with me, so NO- IT'S NOT SAFE. I didn't expect that. But I understand it. I do not live in a violent world. No one is hurting me anymore. Yet when I try to interact with the world I still have all these violent, rageful, intense emotions and once I step beyond my walls that is what I bring with me. I am my own enemy and I am a danger to myself. He told me that it could be safe. That as we work on things slowly and carefully, I can emerge safely into this world. This is an astounding revelation.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Integration
I don't know how I feel about today. In the back of my mind since finishing "Switching Time" I've been thinking about what INTEGRATION means to me.... does it mean all of us becoming ONE???? I sat in the car and thought about the collage I made, with all of us by the waterfall (except Rae - she was off in the darkness drowning.) I really focused on that collage, and there was Sarah, thinking about the collage as "I" was thinking about the collage. And then I looked out the window at the trees and the grass and the homes we were passing, and there was Sarah looking at the trees and the grass and the homes. We've had what I believe is co-consciousness before, but this time it was really intense. It was really "co." So I think about "integration" and how that maybe is taking co-consciousness a step farther, where there is not a "co" but rather the lines between the parts are erased and there is only a consciousness, and instead of two there is one. I know that sounds simple and anyone could understand those words, hell, I understand those words. Logically. Emotionally and in a very real sense it baffles me. I understand, but I don't "know." That's the essence of this whole DID thing, I guess. There are many many things I understand. Logically. But the emotional "knowing" is kept separate and so I don't have that full knowledge of things. That's why I feel like I don't really LIVE sometimes, like my life is only a shadow on this planet. I wonder if INTEGRATION would make me feel alive????
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Where the Wild Things Are
Just can't get enough of that movie. I imagine everyone identifies with the little Max, and at some level connects with the way Max talks to the Wild Things. But I love the movie because it's so like my inner life - I really really DO have others inside that I talk to and that fight with each other and with me and form alliances. At the end of the movie, right when he says "I wish you guys had a mom" and then announces he is leaving them, I break down and sob. I sob with great heaving sobs that crush my chest. I don't understand why I have that reaction. Anyone with any insight - please share!
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Violence
Spent hours yesterday on the floor, cutting and pasting. You'd think I was 12 and not 43....oh wait! I AM 12 sometimes! (DID humor.)
I was making a collage. It was emotionally exhausting, and I don't like how it looks, but the message is a clearer message than I expected. One side is chaos and violent, the other side is a serene room with a window looking out on a waterfall. That's my room inside. I cut out words that say "Which side would you rather be on?" And then there's a little note to Craig off to the side, written on notebook paper with a gold frame around it. The note says "If I create the violence, I control the violence." Makes me think of how my mind goes so naturally to cutting off my arm. Somehow that statement is connected to that particular violent act. It's about control and it's about cutting off the violence that I perceive in the rest of the world. I've heard before from people close to me that "It's not happening anymore," and I know intellectually that it's not, that I'm pretty safe in the world today. But it doesn't FEEL like it....it still feels like the world is a raging dangerous place. And my job is to keep us "cut off" from that violence. If I create the violence, I control the violence.
I was making a collage. It was emotionally exhausting, and I don't like how it looks, but the message is a clearer message than I expected. One side is chaos and violent, the other side is a serene room with a window looking out on a waterfall. That's my room inside. I cut out words that say "Which side would you rather be on?" And then there's a little note to Craig off to the side, written on notebook paper with a gold frame around it. The note says "If I create the violence, I control the violence." Makes me think of how my mind goes so naturally to cutting off my arm. Somehow that statement is connected to that particular violent act. It's about control and it's about cutting off the violence that I perceive in the rest of the world. I've heard before from people close to me that "It's not happening anymore," and I know intellectually that it's not, that I'm pretty safe in the world today. But it doesn't FEEL like it....it still feels like the world is a raging dangerous place. And my job is to keep us "cut off" from that violence. If I create the violence, I control the violence.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Shutting the door on rage
As Craig tonight expressed his belief that cutting my arm off or doing any serious self harm like that would not provide the "escape" or whatever outcome I'm seeking, I could literally see a door close in front of me. I began to rage inside, and R. smirked. Craig was saying something about how he believed I had important things to say and that we should focus on what cutting my arm off MEANS, and that I can SAY what I have to SAY in a safe way. All I wanted to do was scream "FUCK YOU" at him, tell him to stop patronizing me, but R. held my lips closed. So I screamed and kicked at the door. I am reminded of when I used to hold my suicide plans near and dear to my heart - they are what got me through the day. I no longer perseverate on suicide, but I still hold arm removal near and dear to my heart...gets me through the day. Shutting the door on that makes me ANGRY.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
In and Out of Ice/Glass
There's a lot of mystery surrounding Dissociative Identity Disorder. People automatically think "Sybil." But here I am, a professional in the community, a contributing member of society, with a disabling disorder that "flares" up every now and then, incapacitating me for a while. I want to share my story with you.
Smith/Ice-Glass
In and Out of Ice-Glass
Living with Chemical Dependency and Dissociative Identity Disorder
By Sarah Smith
Prologue
Nothing could stop us. “Ride the Wave” was our motto, and we began to believe that our path lay in following it to the shores of fate. We finished off the beers, paid the tab, and jumped in the car. Laughing, we stopped on the way home to buy a 12-pack. Windows down, smokes in our hands, we drove down the highway drinking and throwing the empties into the ditch. We’d leave our husbands, move in together, and do exactly what our egos demanded. We felt free. The sun dipped below the horizon on our way home, and I chose to drive to the lake so we could talk in private just a little longer. I blacked out somewhere on the dirt road leading up to the lake and woke up as the car was flying through the air and Wendi was screaming. We had hit a chunk of ice wedged between the road and the lake, and we were on our way to a crash. The airbags deployed as we hit. In retrospect, Riding the Wave during winter was just not a good idea. Wendi lost sight in one eye from the impact of the airbags, the car was totaled, and we had to lie our way through the emergency room protocols in an effort to avoid a DUI for me and a violation of probation for her. The seriousness of the situation stunned me. I drank more, and more, and more, the next week. I started as soon as I got home from my teaching job and stopped when I passed out in the evening. I don’t remember talking to Wendi, I remember only a gripping fear that life had spun completely out of control. I had almost killed myself and my best friend, my soulmate.
Book 1
And I hate disintegration, watching us wither, black winged roses that safely change their color.
-Tori Amos
Chapter 1 – Chemically Dependent
1-5-02
I am full of empty wanderings. Half-full glasses of vodka. There and here and no-where at all. Such are the meandering streams of consciousness that work their lazy way through my mind. I wish I could explain their presence by simple categorical entries, but it’s not that easy. I am trapped inside an egg shell. I am the embryo. Blood flows into the cavity in which I am curled, slowly filling the space around me with warm, salty liquid that will eventually steal my breath. I am comforted by the blood. How do I categorize that? I don’t know if I am curled up on the floor or inside an egg. I can’t distinguish the real images around me from the images inside my mind. I only want someone to take care of me, to tell me what to do.
1-06-02
Disaster. The egg shell cracks. I repeat to myself “you are born alone, you die alone” and I don’t see how it’s possible to get up in the morning to teach my classes. I don’t know how long I can manage this way of life, this constant drink and constant image of blood interrupted by eight hour shifts teaching children ancient history. I have to change, it’s obvious, but the question is HOW. Trying to control one more variable is just too overwhelming. Alas, as much as I have become, have overcome, I’ve hit a brick wall and a dead end. Twenty years ago I survived a suicide attempt and I remember thinking “But I’m not dead yet, as long as I’m alive there is a chance.” Ironically, hope is supposed to be the value I focus on this year in my life, and hope has completely slipped through my fingers like water through a sieve.
1-11-02
Watch them pop up one by one by one in shots of memory that jump to the front as a twitch, an ache, a tear, a fear. From curled up catatonic lump to twisting, writhing, screaming ghost with flesh but having no soul, I was captured by the men in pressed uniforms and guns and billy clubs. The Police cuffed and hobbled me, while my husband Luke stood in the background yelling “Rae! Rae! Don’t fight! Please don’t fight!” But I did. The police handed me over to the men in white, the psych ward orderlies. Confined in the Rubber Room, I saw eyes watch me as I lay on the bed strapped down for others’ safety and mine, and the eyes looked through a watch door disembodied and curious. Other mental patients on the ward bugged me and I was ashamed I was there. I heard the pop….pop….pop…..like pieces of a puzzle, like popcorn all the same color and all the same shape but fitting together without forming a form. I felt a twitch in my eye, an ache in my chest, and I traced the path of my tear back to its origin – my blind eye.
A memory – Blood dripping down the water faucet spigot- help me eat the roast beef crawling with bugs. Stop this lonely feeling locked in the walk-in pantry. I think it’s my soul. Read to me – the Mighty Mouse book- who comes to save the day. Read it again. Read it again. I hate the dank, dark basement. I hate the half-done screen house. I got lost in the alley by the trash. I’m cold, Mommy. My stomach feels funny. I’m so fucking tired.
Bubbling up from brackish bogs of still water sitting in long forgotten hollows – memories. Mist that evaporates so quickly, like smoke from fires dead ages ago. Fires not started by me. My brain is fertile with decomposed dung rotting over the years. If you plant a thought, I’ll help it grow. The shadow of the past can earn bones and blood and flesh.
Coiled, tense, rattle shaking, alert to every sound. This snake is dangerous to all who enter the bubble of her space. She strikes at threats true and perceived. She taunts and teases to entice an innocent victim who might (oh please!) wander close. All hell then breaks loose; she bites. The strike hits and the flesh hurts. Venom rushes out and infects the bitten one. But my soul is encased in stone. Poison is running, running, running.
I dreamed of goldfish in a bowl that was too small and the water was murky. There was a big drawer of containers and I was trying to grab a bigger glass bowl – more appropriate. But by the time I got it under the spigot it became the small plastic bucket again. So I grabbed another, and it too became small, plastic, and colored. I tried to grab another and it became a used oil container and the poor fish were dying in the small, polluted bucket. Then I dreamed another dream. I was sleeping in a hotel on the floor. Mom and Dad were sleeping, too. I woke up and there were cats on my bed roll. At first I thought they were “cute” but then I realized they were ishy-dirty-diseased. They crept up on me and I ran. Mom and Dad slept through all this, unaware of my intense fear. One cat bit me and another scratched me. I was yelling and terrified but I knew I was on my own. Then I got pissed because I realized I would have to miss the whole vacation in order to get rabies shots.
I remember how I got here, to this psych ward/treatment center. I drank so much! Luke was getting annoyed. I began drinking straight from the bottle. I ran for a knife and managed to make two deep cuts. I ran to the bathroom and tried to drink rubbing alcohol, I remembered hearing it could kill you. But the time frame is sketchy. I ended up on the floor – catatonic – while Luke, ever my protector, always level-headed, dialed 911 and tried to get my boots and jacket on my limp body. Of course, the limpness was a trap, a game I played to sucker the poor mother-fuckers who might show up to help me. I was ready to strike like the rattlesnake and strike I did. They cuffed me and put a hobble on me and I bit and screamed and kicked and hit. I fought like a wild cat. All the way into town, locked in the back of the squad car I banged my head against the window. At St. Catherine’s General Hospital they were ready for me with two more big guys and still I was tough to handle. Mostly I remember screaming, the primal scream crap that comes from deep within. One cop asked for an HIV test, as I drew blood when I bit him. Seclusion and restraints. Safety. Now I’m in the semi-crazy ward with the Chemical Dependency patients and so be it. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go back into my classroom – teaching kids. I’ll stay here in the nut ward getting treatment for my alcoholism. Really, I want to die. I want sedative drugs. I want intensive one-on-one treatment. I want to cut my flesh. I want to bleed. I want to be high. I want to fight.
Showers of emotions rain down into the crevices of my heart, but fall off the stone around my soul. It’s a rain shower – the water of Life meant for me. Yet my center is a desert and that refuses to drink. The cactus is a strong plant, reaching deep and storing necessary moisture. Even a desert blooms and is beautiful but only for a short time. I am both, unforgiving and harsh, a thunderstorm and a fragile cactus flower.
1-12-02
Craig came to see me today. He pulled up a chair in this dark hospital room and asked “How are you, Rae?.” I wondered how I should respond to this question, how I could manage to be appropriate with this former colleague turned private psychologist. I spoke but I don’t know what I said. I cried and hid behind my bed, but I don’t remember what we talked about. Afterward, I regressed. I engaged in self-mutilation with a pop top twisted to have sharp ends and I cut, cut, cut. Finally, some blood. Isn’t cutting supposed to be some adolescent trick to get attention? I’m pathetic, bleeding to find love in a psych ward. I want to be held. I want to cry on someone’s shoulder. I’m an empty box, wrapped in festive birthday paper and a big yellow bow. Exciting to look at, fun to unwrap. But there’s nothing inside! Space. Empty. Blank. Not even any words to explain why. Who would love such a gift?
1-15-02
A resting soul wandering through the darkness of a crowd sitting still and reading – energy expended – energy taken - and the angels laugh at our feeble attempts to reach peace. Temporary rest, but I know I will rage again at the unyielding space that encases the essence of my soul. I cannot protect her forever. Daily she dies. She screams for the freshness of light and air out of the shadow. She cries for the unity of self. She grieves for the lost years, the songs never sung. How did it get so dark? We’re frightened.
Shadows flit across the table, brown little memories catching my eye, rushing by the consciousness of the Formica. None fall into my hand.
I had to call the University of MN today. Imagine trying to explain why I wouldn’t be able to start teaching the Middle School Social Studies Methods course to aspiring young teachers-to-be until two weeks past the start date. Imagine! I made the call from the fucking PSYCH WARD! I said I was having medical issues and would start in February, and would plan with the students when and how to make up the missed classes….presented options like holding extra classes or lengthening the classes….oh God. I can’t believe it went okay. I’m hardly able most of the time to make sense of the echoes in my fucking head and I go and make professional arrangements with the head of the education department. I’m not even sure I made sense.
1-22-02
Streams of consciousness make waves through my body, or could it be the Effexor? What pain and humiliation hides behind the rage? Closets with dolls and then a shut door. Boom Boom Boom on daddy’s knee and I thought it was naughty but why? Dreams of dark rooms and more shut doors. I’m a princess in a tower locked up in stone and no one touches me so I can be free. Birds out the windows, a glass bottle on the pane. Pain. Grey room with hardwood floors – she’s just a little girl and she’s so very sad. I finally understand Sylvia Plath stuck under the bell jar. When it rings it cracks and she pours out like red jello – brains that spill onto the floor filling up the cracks with gooey mess. I want to lap it up like Hannibal Lechter. Can’t, ‘cause it drips down into the other rooms of the house.
TOO MUCH INFORMATION.
Here is my version of a bunch of sorry alcoholics living their days in a chemical dependency/psych ward and attending daily rehab: We’re lost in the lightning of souls waking up with a start, or a moan. All in pain, afraid, tearful. Ready now to not die. It doesn’t really matter how we wake up. The sleep gets wiped off our eyes and we take turns pissing. Then maybe breakfast, words for our souls and bread for our bellies. No one can feed us what we truly hunger for; the past that is gone, the present that is shrouded in fog, the hope of an easy future.
My thoughts wander in rehab class. I remember a friend; we were so close. In those last days of drinking I was hammered (!) and went to his house to sleep it off. We fought. No, I don’t mean we tossed around some angry words. I mean we fought. I hit him, kicked him, bit him until he had black and blue marks all over his arms and shoulder. My God! I WORK with this man – he teaches down the hall from me! He wrapped his hands around my neck and choked the breath from me until I passed out. I came to as he was leaving. Terrified at the prospect of being left alone, I begged him to sit with me for one more minute. He tucked me in. And now, I have severed a cord and I’m free-floating. He can pat my leg and say “everything’s back to normal” all he wants but I know I scared him. That was my reflection in his eyes, with all the craziness and fear that drove me over the edge. I’ll miss him. Our friendship will never be back to “normal.” After all, he finally saw me, and he was afraid.
I became angry about this lost friendship, and I took my anger out on the fucking chemical dependency counselor. He was telling us in group to be more positive, laugh a little, see the fun in life. And he said it in his usual detached monotone voice, devoid of emotion. I called him on it, called him a mopey mother-fucker. He got up, told me to never use that word again, and said if I did I would be kicked out of rehab. Did I touch a raw nerve? Or was he just drawing a line in the sand? Playing off my cries for attention? Curbing my obnoxious venting? Who says I didn’t mean what I said? Maybe he should learn to laugh at himself, the mopey, dull, son-of-a-bitch.
I must express this whole chemical dependency treatment experience like this: Shallow platitudes, expecting no challenge and accepting all nods and smiles as affirmations of the TRUTH. Your world is so black and white! You make such simple moves on the checkerboard of life. I never quite fit in, chess is much more suited to my idiom, with its three-dimensional figures and a variety of moves. Too bad my life is not your game.
Men….Gather together the pink crystals of my pussy, sweet folds of hungry flesh, wet anticipation of you. Arms enfolding, legs entwining, hearts together, drifting off to sleep.
1-25-02
OK, now I’m scared. In “spirituality group” yesterday (yes, this chemical dependency program has a weekly spirituality group!) Steve saw a rainbow on my forehead, a reflection of some stained glass and sunshine. First of all, I was feeling very ‘lesbian’ at the time, so the rainbow thing is a little weird. Then, even though I didn’t know what Steve saw, and while the meditation was in the unguided stage, I ended up actually holding Sarah – in my arms – all in my head but also very real. Sarah, that little girl who lives in a grey room with hardwood floors and one window (all in my head), has been quietly angry for years. I wasn’t imagining holding this blond haired, thin waif; it was too real to me to call “imagining.” While we meditated, I carried Sarah through a rainbow. She had never seen colors before and as we walked through each I told her its name; green, yellow, orange, red. It amazes me that Steve didn’t know what was happening in my head, but he saw it anyway! As I carried Sarah, we waded into a pool of water. I held her tight. She’s so very alone and so very pissed. I’ve left her for far too long. I locked her in the room in my head, and forgot I had the key. I drank her into nothing. But here she is, sobriety the key, and I held her in my arms. What happens now? I finish treatment and just go back to work, teach, start my life again?
Wash out the stains and hang the laundry to dry. The Russians use hand soap and rub the hell out of their garments to get out the dirt. I use tears and words, my soul and breath, and then fold it. Put it away. To wear again.
3-1-02
Well, I did it. I worked for a week. I look good. I function. I’m done with the chemical dependency program. Instead of discussing the history of my alcohol use I took roll, gave lectures, assigned homework. I did my regular job teaching those adolescent bundles of energy. I started at University of MN too, the night class for college students/teachers-to-be. They didn’t even blink when I told them I had some medical issues but now was ready to get some work done. At my regular school, lots of kids asked where I had been, and I told them “I was sick,” which isn’t so far from the truth. Many staff hugged me. They all ‘know.’ But me, I’m confused as hell, acting one way and feeling another. I want to die. I do and don’t want to go to school tomorrow. I want “it” to be over quickly. Done. Finished. So I trot about the house, smiling, acting like everything is fucking great and inside death boils, ready to bust open my bowels and spill my brains. I’m ready to off myself or I’m ready to take a fucking bath, either one sounds just as desirable.
My cold hands grip the steel barrier, limited access to the walkway beyond the lighthouse. Its beacon calls me to peruse the options out there. Pursue the options I don’t dare express….way to slamming waves, frothy tomorrows. Cold water pulling me under and dragging me out. So many symbolic endings, leading to fresh starts….to ache. Out to being who I am, or out to death, or out into faith, or out to the sea. Cold watery grave, with nothing but a lighthouse flashing warning strobes.
3-9-02
Stars and seas and black holes and a maelstrom. Emptiness and timeless violent turbulent spinning unraveling storm that tosses victims. Arguments in my head. Questions of identity. Obsessions, compulsions. Impulses. Screaming for an answer, begging for peace.
This is not just the way I am today, GOD, this is the way I was. When was young, seventeen, staring out at the stars, waiting for the glass to cut, waiting for the blood to run. The same imagery is all still there. Same song and dance, only now I’m thirty-five and more desperate, closer to death, less inclined to fight. I throw my arms up and get sucked under, in, around, to spin the same old same old same old record.
Chapter 2 – Dual Diagnosis
3-19-02
I have a dual diagnosis. That means I’m twice as fucked up as the average alcoholic, because not only am I an alcoholic but I am also mentally ill. DIDNOS. It doesn’t surprise me much, but scares the hell out of me, now that it is a label glued to my forehead and written down on insurance forms. Dissociative Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Means I’m like a multiple personality, only I have quirks that most other multiple personalities don’t have. Like I’m more of a jumble of Siamese twins, sharing organs and parts of brains and some limbs. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter. I thank God for Wendi who has inspired me to write it all down. She and I sat at the computer, looking at a variety of diagnoses, trying to figure out which one Craig would slap on me….we were right. We came up with it before he announced it. But I still don’t believe it. Because if he’s wrong, I’ll hate him with every ounce of energy I have. If he leads me down a dead end path I’ll chop him into pieces and eat him for breakfast. If he screws up, I’ll die.
Timelessness as the world caves in….
I had a conversation with Wendi, in my head, to explain why I did what I did.
I was listening to Sarah M. and you said “No wonder you want to kill yourself, my brother and I call those CD’s suicide tracts.” I remember talking to you how many years ago? 20? Holy shit. We were in a study hall and hadn’t talked for ages, maybe all summer. Weren’t even hanging out together though we were still friends. I asked if you wanted to hear about the shit I went through over the summer. I was a senior and you were a junior. And you said “yeah” and I was a little nervous because I thought maybe you were too into being a cheerleader and being friends with the cool kids like Sue and Terry and Jill. But I told you anyway, how I cut my wrists and swallowed a bottle of Sominex trying to kill myself. How Mom and Dad threw me in a treatment center for six weeks of the summer, and they told me I was an alcoholic. An alcoholic! And you listened. As self-absorbed as I was, I don’t think I much listened to your response. But I knew you listened to me and you shared about your own hell, and we connected. God I was happy to have you back in my life! Despite the fact that we were inseparable during my freshman and sophomore years, we drifted for a year. I thought you hadn’t noticed and sometimes I don’t think you did, but that connection was still there and man, I needed you! That study hall was the start of the Black Climax – me and you and our two buddies– Angst Personified. What a crew, what a quad of holy terror, what sadness and anger. Sadness and anger. I thought back then that yes, I was an alcoholic, and I was gonna try stay sober, do the AA thing, find Jesus, whatever it took. It didn’t last so long. I am amazed at the similarities of what happened then and what happened this past month. I quit drinking, I attended AA, I worked the steps, and I was consumed with sadness and rage. Remember? I went to the Assemblies of God Church where my old boyfriend was, and beat the shit out of him. It was Sarah who did it, really, just like it was Sarah who tried to kill me, and Sarah who hit the cop in the nuts when Pastor Delmar called them over. And now, the same damn thing happened 20 years later – I quit drinking, did the AA thing, was looking for Jesus, and BAM – the cops storm my house and I kick one of them in the nuts! Okay, so the cops didn’t just waltz into my house, I had a gun to my head….but it’s still the same thing.
Wendi, I know how mad you were. I was home from school that day, called in sick, tired of teaching and tired of trying to stay sober and tired of being crazy. We talked on the phone in the morning, and I told you I was fine, and I really thought I was. You have since called me a BITCH for that, for talking to you and then hanging up and putting a gun to my head… That was the first time you really felt betrayed by me. You talked to me on the phone an hour before it happened…your gut told you something was not right but you wanted to believe it was okay. I know you thought, “How could she try to leave me to deal with LIFE by myself?”
Wendi, I want you to understand, the hour before I loaded the gun I was okay! That’s the whole dissociative thing – I flipped a switch somewhere in my brain and suddenly my hands got the bullets, the gun, and put it in my mouth. Thank God one of my hands called Craig. Thank God my first responder/neighbor came over in response to the 911 call. I would have pointed the gun at the cops, to get them to shoot me, because I was too scared to do it myself. It would have happened. I would have left you. I’m so sorry.
Look for the rest of this book on lulu.com!
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/in-and-out-of-iceglass-living-with-dissociative-identity-disorder-and-chemical-dependency/13224073?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1
Smith/Ice-Glass
In and Out of Ice-Glass
Living with Chemical Dependency and Dissociative Identity Disorder
By Sarah Smith
Prologue
Nothing could stop us. “Ride the Wave” was our motto, and we began to believe that our path lay in following it to the shores of fate. We finished off the beers, paid the tab, and jumped in the car. Laughing, we stopped on the way home to buy a 12-pack. Windows down, smokes in our hands, we drove down the highway drinking and throwing the empties into the ditch. We’d leave our husbands, move in together, and do exactly what our egos demanded. We felt free. The sun dipped below the horizon on our way home, and I chose to drive to the lake so we could talk in private just a little longer. I blacked out somewhere on the dirt road leading up to the lake and woke up as the car was flying through the air and Wendi was screaming. We had hit a chunk of ice wedged between the road and the lake, and we were on our way to a crash. The airbags deployed as we hit. In retrospect, Riding the Wave during winter was just not a good idea. Wendi lost sight in one eye from the impact of the airbags, the car was totaled, and we had to lie our way through the emergency room protocols in an effort to avoid a DUI for me and a violation of probation for her. The seriousness of the situation stunned me. I drank more, and more, and more, the next week. I started as soon as I got home from my teaching job and stopped when I passed out in the evening. I don’t remember talking to Wendi, I remember only a gripping fear that life had spun completely out of control. I had almost killed myself and my best friend, my soulmate.
Book 1
And I hate disintegration, watching us wither, black winged roses that safely change their color.
-Tori Amos
Chapter 1 – Chemically Dependent
1-5-02
I am full of empty wanderings. Half-full glasses of vodka. There and here and no-where at all. Such are the meandering streams of consciousness that work their lazy way through my mind. I wish I could explain their presence by simple categorical entries, but it’s not that easy. I am trapped inside an egg shell. I am the embryo. Blood flows into the cavity in which I am curled, slowly filling the space around me with warm, salty liquid that will eventually steal my breath. I am comforted by the blood. How do I categorize that? I don’t know if I am curled up on the floor or inside an egg. I can’t distinguish the real images around me from the images inside my mind. I only want someone to take care of me, to tell me what to do.
1-06-02
Disaster. The egg shell cracks. I repeat to myself “you are born alone, you die alone” and I don’t see how it’s possible to get up in the morning to teach my classes. I don’t know how long I can manage this way of life, this constant drink and constant image of blood interrupted by eight hour shifts teaching children ancient history. I have to change, it’s obvious, but the question is HOW. Trying to control one more variable is just too overwhelming. Alas, as much as I have become, have overcome, I’ve hit a brick wall and a dead end. Twenty years ago I survived a suicide attempt and I remember thinking “But I’m not dead yet, as long as I’m alive there is a chance.” Ironically, hope is supposed to be the value I focus on this year in my life, and hope has completely slipped through my fingers like water through a sieve.
1-11-02
Watch them pop up one by one by one in shots of memory that jump to the front as a twitch, an ache, a tear, a fear. From curled up catatonic lump to twisting, writhing, screaming ghost with flesh but having no soul, I was captured by the men in pressed uniforms and guns and billy clubs. The Police cuffed and hobbled me, while my husband Luke stood in the background yelling “Rae! Rae! Don’t fight! Please don’t fight!” But I did. The police handed me over to the men in white, the psych ward orderlies. Confined in the Rubber Room, I saw eyes watch me as I lay on the bed strapped down for others’ safety and mine, and the eyes looked through a watch door disembodied and curious. Other mental patients on the ward bugged me and I was ashamed I was there. I heard the pop….pop….pop…..like pieces of a puzzle, like popcorn all the same color and all the same shape but fitting together without forming a form. I felt a twitch in my eye, an ache in my chest, and I traced the path of my tear back to its origin – my blind eye.
A memory – Blood dripping down the water faucet spigot- help me eat the roast beef crawling with bugs. Stop this lonely feeling locked in the walk-in pantry. I think it’s my soul. Read to me – the Mighty Mouse book- who comes to save the day. Read it again. Read it again. I hate the dank, dark basement. I hate the half-done screen house. I got lost in the alley by the trash. I’m cold, Mommy. My stomach feels funny. I’m so fucking tired.
Bubbling up from brackish bogs of still water sitting in long forgotten hollows – memories. Mist that evaporates so quickly, like smoke from fires dead ages ago. Fires not started by me. My brain is fertile with decomposed dung rotting over the years. If you plant a thought, I’ll help it grow. The shadow of the past can earn bones and blood and flesh.
Coiled, tense, rattle shaking, alert to every sound. This snake is dangerous to all who enter the bubble of her space. She strikes at threats true and perceived. She taunts and teases to entice an innocent victim who might (oh please!) wander close. All hell then breaks loose; she bites. The strike hits and the flesh hurts. Venom rushes out and infects the bitten one. But my soul is encased in stone. Poison is running, running, running.
I dreamed of goldfish in a bowl that was too small and the water was murky. There was a big drawer of containers and I was trying to grab a bigger glass bowl – more appropriate. But by the time I got it under the spigot it became the small plastic bucket again. So I grabbed another, and it too became small, plastic, and colored. I tried to grab another and it became a used oil container and the poor fish were dying in the small, polluted bucket. Then I dreamed another dream. I was sleeping in a hotel on the floor. Mom and Dad were sleeping, too. I woke up and there were cats on my bed roll. At first I thought they were “cute” but then I realized they were ishy-dirty-diseased. They crept up on me and I ran. Mom and Dad slept through all this, unaware of my intense fear. One cat bit me and another scratched me. I was yelling and terrified but I knew I was on my own. Then I got pissed because I realized I would have to miss the whole vacation in order to get rabies shots.
I remember how I got here, to this psych ward/treatment center. I drank so much! Luke was getting annoyed. I began drinking straight from the bottle. I ran for a knife and managed to make two deep cuts. I ran to the bathroom and tried to drink rubbing alcohol, I remembered hearing it could kill you. But the time frame is sketchy. I ended up on the floor – catatonic – while Luke, ever my protector, always level-headed, dialed 911 and tried to get my boots and jacket on my limp body. Of course, the limpness was a trap, a game I played to sucker the poor mother-fuckers who might show up to help me. I was ready to strike like the rattlesnake and strike I did. They cuffed me and put a hobble on me and I bit and screamed and kicked and hit. I fought like a wild cat. All the way into town, locked in the back of the squad car I banged my head against the window. At St. Catherine’s General Hospital they were ready for me with two more big guys and still I was tough to handle. Mostly I remember screaming, the primal scream crap that comes from deep within. One cop asked for an HIV test, as I drew blood when I bit him. Seclusion and restraints. Safety. Now I’m in the semi-crazy ward with the Chemical Dependency patients and so be it. I don’t want to go home. I don’t want to go back into my classroom – teaching kids. I’ll stay here in the nut ward getting treatment for my alcoholism. Really, I want to die. I want sedative drugs. I want intensive one-on-one treatment. I want to cut my flesh. I want to bleed. I want to be high. I want to fight.
Showers of emotions rain down into the crevices of my heart, but fall off the stone around my soul. It’s a rain shower – the water of Life meant for me. Yet my center is a desert and that refuses to drink. The cactus is a strong plant, reaching deep and storing necessary moisture. Even a desert blooms and is beautiful but only for a short time. I am both, unforgiving and harsh, a thunderstorm and a fragile cactus flower.
1-12-02
Craig came to see me today. He pulled up a chair in this dark hospital room and asked “How are you, Rae?.” I wondered how I should respond to this question, how I could manage to be appropriate with this former colleague turned private psychologist. I spoke but I don’t know what I said. I cried and hid behind my bed, but I don’t remember what we talked about. Afterward, I regressed. I engaged in self-mutilation with a pop top twisted to have sharp ends and I cut, cut, cut. Finally, some blood. Isn’t cutting supposed to be some adolescent trick to get attention? I’m pathetic, bleeding to find love in a psych ward. I want to be held. I want to cry on someone’s shoulder. I’m an empty box, wrapped in festive birthday paper and a big yellow bow. Exciting to look at, fun to unwrap. But there’s nothing inside! Space. Empty. Blank. Not even any words to explain why. Who would love such a gift?
1-15-02
A resting soul wandering through the darkness of a crowd sitting still and reading – energy expended – energy taken - and the angels laugh at our feeble attempts to reach peace. Temporary rest, but I know I will rage again at the unyielding space that encases the essence of my soul. I cannot protect her forever. Daily she dies. She screams for the freshness of light and air out of the shadow. She cries for the unity of self. She grieves for the lost years, the songs never sung. How did it get so dark? We’re frightened.
Shadows flit across the table, brown little memories catching my eye, rushing by the consciousness of the Formica. None fall into my hand.
I had to call the University of MN today. Imagine trying to explain why I wouldn’t be able to start teaching the Middle School Social Studies Methods course to aspiring young teachers-to-be until two weeks past the start date. Imagine! I made the call from the fucking PSYCH WARD! I said I was having medical issues and would start in February, and would plan with the students when and how to make up the missed classes….presented options like holding extra classes or lengthening the classes….oh God. I can’t believe it went okay. I’m hardly able most of the time to make sense of the echoes in my fucking head and I go and make professional arrangements with the head of the education department. I’m not even sure I made sense.
1-22-02
Streams of consciousness make waves through my body, or could it be the Effexor? What pain and humiliation hides behind the rage? Closets with dolls and then a shut door. Boom Boom Boom on daddy’s knee and I thought it was naughty but why? Dreams of dark rooms and more shut doors. I’m a princess in a tower locked up in stone and no one touches me so I can be free. Birds out the windows, a glass bottle on the pane. Pain. Grey room with hardwood floors – she’s just a little girl and she’s so very sad. I finally understand Sylvia Plath stuck under the bell jar. When it rings it cracks and she pours out like red jello – brains that spill onto the floor filling up the cracks with gooey mess. I want to lap it up like Hannibal Lechter. Can’t, ‘cause it drips down into the other rooms of the house.
TOO MUCH INFORMATION.
Here is my version of a bunch of sorry alcoholics living their days in a chemical dependency/psych ward and attending daily rehab: We’re lost in the lightning of souls waking up with a start, or a moan. All in pain, afraid, tearful. Ready now to not die. It doesn’t really matter how we wake up. The sleep gets wiped off our eyes and we take turns pissing. Then maybe breakfast, words for our souls and bread for our bellies. No one can feed us what we truly hunger for; the past that is gone, the present that is shrouded in fog, the hope of an easy future.
My thoughts wander in rehab class. I remember a friend; we were so close. In those last days of drinking I was hammered (!) and went to his house to sleep it off. We fought. No, I don’t mean we tossed around some angry words. I mean we fought. I hit him, kicked him, bit him until he had black and blue marks all over his arms and shoulder. My God! I WORK with this man – he teaches down the hall from me! He wrapped his hands around my neck and choked the breath from me until I passed out. I came to as he was leaving. Terrified at the prospect of being left alone, I begged him to sit with me for one more minute. He tucked me in. And now, I have severed a cord and I’m free-floating. He can pat my leg and say “everything’s back to normal” all he wants but I know I scared him. That was my reflection in his eyes, with all the craziness and fear that drove me over the edge. I’ll miss him. Our friendship will never be back to “normal.” After all, he finally saw me, and he was afraid.
I became angry about this lost friendship, and I took my anger out on the fucking chemical dependency counselor. He was telling us in group to be more positive, laugh a little, see the fun in life. And he said it in his usual detached monotone voice, devoid of emotion. I called him on it, called him a mopey mother-fucker. He got up, told me to never use that word again, and said if I did I would be kicked out of rehab. Did I touch a raw nerve? Or was he just drawing a line in the sand? Playing off my cries for attention? Curbing my obnoxious venting? Who says I didn’t mean what I said? Maybe he should learn to laugh at himself, the mopey, dull, son-of-a-bitch.
I must express this whole chemical dependency treatment experience like this: Shallow platitudes, expecting no challenge and accepting all nods and smiles as affirmations of the TRUTH. Your world is so black and white! You make such simple moves on the checkerboard of life. I never quite fit in, chess is much more suited to my idiom, with its three-dimensional figures and a variety of moves. Too bad my life is not your game.
Men….Gather together the pink crystals of my pussy, sweet folds of hungry flesh, wet anticipation of you. Arms enfolding, legs entwining, hearts together, drifting off to sleep.
1-25-02
OK, now I’m scared. In “spirituality group” yesterday (yes, this chemical dependency program has a weekly spirituality group!) Steve saw a rainbow on my forehead, a reflection of some stained glass and sunshine. First of all, I was feeling very ‘lesbian’ at the time, so the rainbow thing is a little weird. Then, even though I didn’t know what Steve saw, and while the meditation was in the unguided stage, I ended up actually holding Sarah – in my arms – all in my head but also very real. Sarah, that little girl who lives in a grey room with hardwood floors and one window (all in my head), has been quietly angry for years. I wasn’t imagining holding this blond haired, thin waif; it was too real to me to call “imagining.” While we meditated, I carried Sarah through a rainbow. She had never seen colors before and as we walked through each I told her its name; green, yellow, orange, red. It amazes me that Steve didn’t know what was happening in my head, but he saw it anyway! As I carried Sarah, we waded into a pool of water. I held her tight. She’s so very alone and so very pissed. I’ve left her for far too long. I locked her in the room in my head, and forgot I had the key. I drank her into nothing. But here she is, sobriety the key, and I held her in my arms. What happens now? I finish treatment and just go back to work, teach, start my life again?
Wash out the stains and hang the laundry to dry. The Russians use hand soap and rub the hell out of their garments to get out the dirt. I use tears and words, my soul and breath, and then fold it. Put it away. To wear again.
3-1-02
Well, I did it. I worked for a week. I look good. I function. I’m done with the chemical dependency program. Instead of discussing the history of my alcohol use I took roll, gave lectures, assigned homework. I did my regular job teaching those adolescent bundles of energy. I started at University of MN too, the night class for college students/teachers-to-be. They didn’t even blink when I told them I had some medical issues but now was ready to get some work done. At my regular school, lots of kids asked where I had been, and I told them “I was sick,” which isn’t so far from the truth. Many staff hugged me. They all ‘know.’ But me, I’m confused as hell, acting one way and feeling another. I want to die. I do and don’t want to go to school tomorrow. I want “it” to be over quickly. Done. Finished. So I trot about the house, smiling, acting like everything is fucking great and inside death boils, ready to bust open my bowels and spill my brains. I’m ready to off myself or I’m ready to take a fucking bath, either one sounds just as desirable.
My cold hands grip the steel barrier, limited access to the walkway beyond the lighthouse. Its beacon calls me to peruse the options out there. Pursue the options I don’t dare express….way to slamming waves, frothy tomorrows. Cold water pulling me under and dragging me out. So many symbolic endings, leading to fresh starts….to ache. Out to being who I am, or out to death, or out into faith, or out to the sea. Cold watery grave, with nothing but a lighthouse flashing warning strobes.
3-9-02
Stars and seas and black holes and a maelstrom. Emptiness and timeless violent turbulent spinning unraveling storm that tosses victims. Arguments in my head. Questions of identity. Obsessions, compulsions. Impulses. Screaming for an answer, begging for peace.
This is not just the way I am today, GOD, this is the way I was. When was young, seventeen, staring out at the stars, waiting for the glass to cut, waiting for the blood to run. The same imagery is all still there. Same song and dance, only now I’m thirty-five and more desperate, closer to death, less inclined to fight. I throw my arms up and get sucked under, in, around, to spin the same old same old same old record.
Chapter 2 – Dual Diagnosis
3-19-02
I have a dual diagnosis. That means I’m twice as fucked up as the average alcoholic, because not only am I an alcoholic but I am also mentally ill. DIDNOS. It doesn’t surprise me much, but scares the hell out of me, now that it is a label glued to my forehead and written down on insurance forms. Dissociative Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. Means I’m like a multiple personality, only I have quirks that most other multiple personalities don’t have. Like I’m more of a jumble of Siamese twins, sharing organs and parts of brains and some limbs. Whatever. It doesn’t really matter. I thank God for Wendi who has inspired me to write it all down. She and I sat at the computer, looking at a variety of diagnoses, trying to figure out which one Craig would slap on me….we were right. We came up with it before he announced it. But I still don’t believe it. Because if he’s wrong, I’ll hate him with every ounce of energy I have. If he leads me down a dead end path I’ll chop him into pieces and eat him for breakfast. If he screws up, I’ll die.
Timelessness as the world caves in….
I had a conversation with Wendi, in my head, to explain why I did what I did.
I was listening to Sarah M. and you said “No wonder you want to kill yourself, my brother and I call those CD’s suicide tracts.” I remember talking to you how many years ago? 20? Holy shit. We were in a study hall and hadn’t talked for ages, maybe all summer. Weren’t even hanging out together though we were still friends. I asked if you wanted to hear about the shit I went through over the summer. I was a senior and you were a junior. And you said “yeah” and I was a little nervous because I thought maybe you were too into being a cheerleader and being friends with the cool kids like Sue and Terry and Jill. But I told you anyway, how I cut my wrists and swallowed a bottle of Sominex trying to kill myself. How Mom and Dad threw me in a treatment center for six weeks of the summer, and they told me I was an alcoholic. An alcoholic! And you listened. As self-absorbed as I was, I don’t think I much listened to your response. But I knew you listened to me and you shared about your own hell, and we connected. God I was happy to have you back in my life! Despite the fact that we were inseparable during my freshman and sophomore years, we drifted for a year. I thought you hadn’t noticed and sometimes I don’t think you did, but that connection was still there and man, I needed you! That study hall was the start of the Black Climax – me and you and our two buddies– Angst Personified. What a crew, what a quad of holy terror, what sadness and anger. Sadness and anger. I thought back then that yes, I was an alcoholic, and I was gonna try stay sober, do the AA thing, find Jesus, whatever it took. It didn’t last so long. I am amazed at the similarities of what happened then and what happened this past month. I quit drinking, I attended AA, I worked the steps, and I was consumed with sadness and rage. Remember? I went to the Assemblies of God Church where my old boyfriend was, and beat the shit out of him. It was Sarah who did it, really, just like it was Sarah who tried to kill me, and Sarah who hit the cop in the nuts when Pastor Delmar called them over. And now, the same damn thing happened 20 years later – I quit drinking, did the AA thing, was looking for Jesus, and BAM – the cops storm my house and I kick one of them in the nuts! Okay, so the cops didn’t just waltz into my house, I had a gun to my head….but it’s still the same thing.
Wendi, I know how mad you were. I was home from school that day, called in sick, tired of teaching and tired of trying to stay sober and tired of being crazy. We talked on the phone in the morning, and I told you I was fine, and I really thought I was. You have since called me a BITCH for that, for talking to you and then hanging up and putting a gun to my head… That was the first time you really felt betrayed by me. You talked to me on the phone an hour before it happened…your gut told you something was not right but you wanted to believe it was okay. I know you thought, “How could she try to leave me to deal with LIFE by myself?”
Wendi, I want you to understand, the hour before I loaded the gun I was okay! That’s the whole dissociative thing – I flipped a switch somewhere in my brain and suddenly my hands got the bullets, the gun, and put it in my mouth. Thank God one of my hands called Craig. Thank God my first responder/neighbor came over in response to the 911 call. I would have pointed the gun at the cops, to get them to shoot me, because I was too scared to do it myself. It would have happened. I would have left you. I’m so sorry.
Look for the rest of this book on lulu.com!
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/in-and-out-of-iceglass-living-with-dissociative-identity-disorder-and-chemical-dependency/13224073?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)