Revenge vs. Compassion

I watched a movie in which 4 teen boys were brutally sodomized. Two grew up thugs, 2 were relatively successful. They had a chance to exact revenge upon their perpetrators, and through an elaborate set up accomplished just that! At one point their plan hinged upon a priest who had befriended them in their youth lying under oath in a court of law. I adamantly expressed that I wanted him to. I felt strongly that he should. I was sure I would. Lying under oath is something that I didn't think I would ever do, but in the context of this movie I was sure, absolutely positive that I would. I figured God would WANT it for there to be true justice. And then I got angry, because I can never exact revenge upon my perpetrators. I felt rage because I am powerless. I have felt rage all my life, it seems. What do I get, when I cannot get revenge?

I thought of Mandela's quote, the thing about how he knew he had to leave the hatred and bitterness behind or he would remain in prison. Those boys in the movie, they succeeded in getting revenge but the thugs ended up dead shortly after and the other two led empty lives. The revenge did nothing to assuage the searing pain that is betrayal. I thought of my own betrayal, the little child with the searing emotional pain that was so intolerable she never walked through it to the other side. Would revenge mean anything to her?  For a moment I saw her - wrapped up in her pain - and I felt compassion. That is what I get in place of revenge, the opportunity to feel compassion. I don't hate the man who brutalized me, I feel more of a general hatred and if I try to push myself to find an object for that hate I become the object I hate. I have hated myself forever. I have been exacting revenge upon myself forever. I have never, ever forgiven that little child for not being able to stop the pain, for feeling that overwhelming betrayal, and for giving in to the terror. But today I felt compassion for her, because it became clear to me that a little child's capacity to cope with and make sense of astonishing betrayal is quite minimal. And this little child that was me did an amazing thing - she survived by dissociating. Furthermore, because of dissociation, I have crafted a life that gives me this opportunity - the opportunity to feel compassion.

Betrayal becomes a dark shadow in a person's life - and revenge does nothing to kill the shadow because a shadow is inseparable from the flesh. If you have a body, you will at times have a shadow. No amount of sex, booze, or self-hatred will dispense of the body's shadow. I suppose I could have lived in darkness all my life and never have to see the shadow, but how is that different from being a shadow? Today I looked at my shadow and realized that it is something with me and will always be with me as long as I am flesh and blood on this planet. I am okay with that. Sometimes I won't have to see the shadow, sometimes it will seem like it's all I am. But I know revenge won't get rid of it.

That leaves me with compassion. I have some for the little child. I remain indifferent to the perpetrator, and ambivalent to the other main figure in my life. But I can entertain the idea of compassion for both. I won't push myself too hard on that front. I will, however, practice compassion for self. Self is temporary, as it is, and so with limited time on this planet I might as well give my self credit for the incredible feat of survival. And there really is no reason to be afraid of my shadow - it is an echo of pain and terror too great to bear as a little girl but maybe not for a grown woman (in bits and pieces, when well rested, with tea and warm bed available, and a chihuahua to pet...)

If I don't let go of the bitterness and hatred, I will remain imprisoned by my shadow. I'd rather walk with my shadow, and tell the girls inside that it's okay to step into the sun every now and then.

It's unusual for me to be up at 3 am. My mind is spinning with deep thoughts on our political system (an aristocracy, run by wealthy elites who cater to their constituency,  the businesses. Dem and Rep alike, party identificatiin is meaningless and only feeds the beast. There is no lesser evil, no way to not throw your vote away. Unless you vote your conscience you are voting to keep the corporate politicians in place and human dignity will continue to erode.) But politics isn't the only rider on the carousel tonight. My mind is holding up the images of the nice guys at work, people I want to be friends with, people who are nice to me. I don't know how to navigate friendships with men and I've been crying because there are interesting people I work with, people I'd like to hang with, but with narcolepsy, dissociation, and trauma related anxiety I don't have the time and energy and skill set to make friends. One of the guys made a cd for me. I'm up in the middle of the night blogging about it because it made me cry. I fucking hate friends. I want friends. But there's more. I found an awesome pattern for knit dolls and I am obsessed with making one. It's important to me, LA, and Rae. Maybe to Prowler, too. I imagine the process, the outcome, the feel of the yarn and I cry some more. But more... I can't stop thinking about the class I started at school specifically to deal with minority issues. I am passionate about social justice. But what if I do great things at work and make a difference in someone's life and then end up in the psych ward cutting rows of shame into my arm and babbling about knit dollies? How much more damage will that do to the cause? Am I worthy or making a difference in some kid's life? And more tears come because I know I already have and it terrifies me. My boss and I we developing a plan to deal with some social justice issues at work. At the end she said "when we're done here we're going to have to write books" meaning we both had a lot to say and because of our jobs we are required to be very careful with our words. I told her when I retired I would be on the lecture circuit, speaking frankly about a lot of things. She said she would be in the audience. That makes me cry, too, and I'm tired of crying.

The difference between mental illness and physical illness

Engaging in a stirring controversial argument on a forum is scary. I was doing that, and dropped out, as my feelings were getting hurt. Instead I’ll hide behind a fake fucking name on a blog where no one knows me except by my dirtiest little secrets. But I won’t shut up, because I have something to say.

Here’s the controversial questions: Is there a difference between physical and mental illness? Does the difference or lack of matter?

I struggled with DID and depression and PTSD to the point of hospitalization. These are mental illnesses. I was trained to believe that since mental illness was “in my head” I could somehow get them out of my head. My theory was that if I could understand WHY  I was depressed, multiple, and freaked out then I could deal with the emotions related to that WHY and “let go” and get better. In the psych ward it was explained to me in a way I could finally understand that the reason I was multiple, sad, and had emotional reactions proportionately out of whack was because as a two year old I was sexually traumatized over a 6 week time period during which time my brain became hard-wired to do this shit. I’m not sure I have all the medical facts straight, but it has something to do with my hypothalamus getting too much adrenaline at a crucial developmental phase in its actual physical development and in a sense became physically brain damaged. Therefore, when I am undergoing periods of ‘normal’ stress, my brain reacts ‘abnormally’ and I freak out. One psychiatrist described it as my ‘hypothalamus throwing a big party.’ That’s a physical thing, folks. And it will never go away. The brain damage will never repair. Finally I WAS able to ‘let go’ of my old ideas of how to heal and I began to put into practice the cognitive behavioral therapy I was learning about – how to recognize when my body was over stimulated, how to breathe so that I could calm my physical self down so that my emotional self would follow, how to wait out a panic without contributing to it, how to change my life so that my stress levels could remain in a safe zone, and on and on. Where’s the line between physical illness and mental illness???? It seems pretty blurry to me. Especially considering I can take medicines that also help with these mental problems. If medicines help, which seems like a physical thing, how can the issues be simply mental? Is it dumb to even try to separate the two?

A dear friend once said that a physical illness comes from a physical cause and a mental illness comes from an emotional cause, hence my emotions caused my trauma and therefore I have a mental illness. I pointed out that schizophrenia has a physical origin, but is considered a mental illness. She said she considers schizophrenia a physical illness….so……

There’s these hypothetical twins. Genetically identical. Separated at birth. One twin grows up in a great home and starts smoking at 15 and gets cancer at 40. Physical illness, right? The other twin gets molested a few times by a neighbor, but otherwise grows up in a great home. His PTSD causes lots of anxiety, stress, and physical changes in his body and he has a compromised immune system because of it. All those factors cause this twin to also get cancer. But the twins live in a society that treats illnesses that are mental differently than they treat illnesses that are physical. And the society has determined that cancer from smoking is a physical illness and cancer from stress is a mental illness. The twin with the physical illness goes to one hospital where people treat him nicely, compassionately, and he gets cards from his co-workers that say “get well soon!” and “we miss you!” That twin gets a benefit that raises all sorts of money for his treatment because there is an outpouring of community support. Everyone on his street wears cancer awareness ribbons for a month while he heals. His strength and courage is noted in a touching news story. His wife talks about how hard it is and everyone listens and helps her out with daily living. People show they care.

But the other twin, the one with cancer because of mental stress, well, he doesn’t tell anyone what is wrong because he is afraid he might lose his job. Most people kind of know what’s wrong, but no one says anything openly. When he goes to the hospital for treatment even the staff, jaded and overworked, treat him as if he is to blame for his problems. No one except his mom visits him and he gets not one single get well card. His illness is pretty hush-hush, because mental illness has a stigma. People all SAY that it wasn’t his fault. People all SAY there is no stigma, but the fact remains that he didn’t get any get well cards and NO ONE wants to talk about his cancer. His isolation and lack of support drive him to a deep depression. His wife, working hard to be his sole support and take care of the house and do all the chores gets teased because her husband doesn’t contribute. She carries the burden silently, because there is no other option. No one shows they care openly, they only look upon her with pity once in awhile and in quiet voices occasionally ask how she’s doing, but it’s pretty obvious they don’t really want to know. Her husband’s guilt over what his sickness is doing to her does not help the cancer treatment. Which twin is more likely to heal? Or doesn’t that matter to you?

This hypothetical story is not over dramatized for effect. In fact, I toned it down because unless you have been to a psych ward, unless you have suffered a lifetime of mental illness, you wouldn’t believe how shitty the reality of social stigma is.

I have narcolepsy, too. That’s a neurological disorder with a physical cause. It’s a physical illness. Do you know that because of narcolepsy, I don’t get deep sleep? I am chronically sleep deprived. It’s like how you might feel after staying awake for 2 nights in  a row, only I feel that way every day. I had psychologists tell me my tiredness was due to emotional factors. But I had one doctor who insisted I seek a physical cause, and I did. I currently take a medicine that knocks me the fuck out at night and I get deep sleep. My mental illnesses have subsided tremendously. Deep sleep has given me healing like no cognitive behavioral therapy could ever give me. My emotional symptoms have shrunk down to so minimal, I don’t think I’d qualify as mentally ill anymore. Treating a bona fide physical illness has made my mental illness completely manageable. Where’s the line between physical illness and mental illness in that scenario???? Does it matter? Maybe not to you, but it does to me. Because should I stop getting my medicine covered by insurance or should it stop working, I might go bat shit crazy again. Then, like the poor cancer twin who had to go to the mental illness hospital because his cancer was caused by emotional trauma, I will have to seek medical help from the mental health professionals that treat me differently than the physical health professionals. And they do. Believe me, they do. And so does society. And friends. And family. They all do. Because they maybe don’t get that the stigma really exists and really does matter. And it wouldn’t exist if people would realize that the line between physical and mental illness is non-existent. There’s no line, folks. There’s a really blurry gray zone if anything. As science progresses, that gray zone will probably disappear. When will the stigma?

So stop saying it doesn’t matter if it’s a physical illness or a mental illness. You’re perpetuating the myth that there are two separate and distinct kinds of illnesses, and as long as there is a distinction there will be stigma. And I fucking HATE going to the psych ward and not getting any get well cards. It fucking hurts.

The Price You Pay for Laughter

I had fun today. No students were in the building, staff were all burned out with their end of year tasks, and I had just finished having a conversation with my friend about poop in an effort to distract myself from the urge to cry at my desk all out there in public. I was walking down the hall to ask the technology guy about our email system and I saw the teacher from across the hall standing over what looked like a gurney or a surgical table or something. He was rolling it back and forth, asking the few of us out there in the hall what we thought it was. I voted for mobile surgical table.  So then he says "hey, someone jump on here. Let's take it for a ride." We all laughed and blew him off. But he said it again, and I thought "what the hell?" He stabilized it while I climbed on (not easy) and off we went down the hall with me screaming "I'm flying! I'm flying!" Teachers appeared in their doorways the length of the hallway. It was really fun.

My friend encouraged me to go out after work with everyone, but I declined. It is so much fun to gather with teachers at the end of the year. Teachers have a lot of steam to blow off, and drinks and summer are a lethal combination. I had to decline. I have been going home every day and crying or screaming myself to sleep for a week. I'm exhausted. I knew that going out, even for an hour, would wear me out like I had partied for 3 days straight, snorting coke and doing shots and dancing. Even if I didn't drink. I declined because my grandchildren are coming to visit tomorrow from the city and staying for 3 weeks. I declined because I still have work to do to end the school year and so I need to pace myself with taking care of grandkids, doing household chores, and taking time for naps. I declined because as fun as it is to listen to the teachers make witty comments about each other, the students, and the admin, it is a great lot of emotional and intellectual work to stay distant enough that I don't over share yet intimate enough to be a part of the group. I declined because I am fragile and raw, and if someone says something to me that I decide to take as a dagger to my soul, I might fly into a rage and loose the respect of those I work with.

I decided to go home, walk the chihuahuas for a few minutes, clean off the kitchen counter, and start a load of laundry. I cried a fair bit. I know it's bad when I do minor shit like blow my nose into my tshirt because getting off the chair seems undoable. Eventually  I rose up to get tissue, but my legs hurt like a mother fucker. I'm tired. This tiredness is a soul crushing, made worse by the fact I was carted down the hallway at top speeds laughing and screaming and having fun.

narcolepsy

I have been seeing psychologists and psychiatrists for 31 years. I have been seeing medical doctors for 46 years. Yesterday, for the first time ever, one of them said to me "you will never really feel good. Treatment for narcolepsy is an attempt to get you functional. You will spend a lot of time educating your friends and coworkers about narcolepsy and why you feel tired all the time. People won't understand."

You could easily substitute "depression" for "narcolepsy" but doctors never tell you that you will never get better from that. Nor do doctors ever tell you to educate your co-workers about your mental illness. Mental illness is to be hidden, overcome, coped with, and for God's sake not talked about at work. Neurological disorders, however, can be.

Here I have been suffering mostly silently for 31 years....and now because I have a label for my suffering that is recognized as neurological it is okay to educate my co-workers.  Fuck you society and fuck your mental health sigmas.

Now That I know Its Name, I Can Overcome It, Right?

God Bless my psychologist for telling me, over and over, that he believed there was a physical reason for my tiredness and to go to a doctor relentlessly, 4 times a year. My Tiredness, my Nemesis, the Enemy....I have discovered after years of trying to cope with mental illness that when I am not as tired I have fewer/less severe symptoms. So, I sleep a lot. My entire life is structured so that my sleep is protected. It is the single most important factor in my health, possibly second to my sobriety but not necessarily. Now I have the results of a sleep study that tell me the exact NAME of my Tiredness - Narcolepsy!

Narcolepsy. Possibly caused by genetics and trauma or virus or bad luck. Narcolepsy. Causes excessive tiredness, hallucinations, and cataplexy (loss of muscle control - especially during intense emotion.) Narcolepsy. It is the reason I wake up 59.6 times per hour all night long. Narcolepsy. I know Its name and WebMd has given me all sorts of information so I should be able to overcome It, right? Yet here I sit, crying, because it's only 5:38 P.M. and I'm exhausted and I didn't even work today and tomorrow my family is coming over so I need to clean the house and I can't, I can't, I can't because I'm too tired. Tiredness, I know your fucking name and it is Narcolepsy and Fuck You.

Why is it okay for me to be angry I have narcolepsy, okay for me to share with people that I have narcolepsy, but not okay for me to share that I have DID? Why can I say to a close co-worker that I have hallucinations due to narcolepsy, but no way in hell should I ever disclose that I have hallucinations due to PTSD? Can I tell people now that if I am overwhelmed with emotion I piss myself, because one symptom of narcolepsy is cataplexy (loss of muscle control)....or it could be an emotional flashback due to childhood sexual abuse. I'm angry at No-One because I have narcolepsy, and angry at myself that I have mental illness.

But now that I know I have Narcolepsy, I can surely use the secrets revealed to me through the internet to combat and overcome. Only the treatment is what I already have - a prescription for stimulants. And at 5:38 P.M. I shouldn't take more stimulants because I need to go to bed at a decent hour and get my sleep (interrupted every fucking minute by Narcolepsy). So nothing has changed and all the Knowing in the world doesn't help me get out of my chair and clean the bathroom for guests. No, now that I know Its Name, I CAN'T fucking overcome It. It still makes me tired.

PTSD and DID and the internal Game of Thrones

Political intrigue as each tries to control the realm. Sexual intrigue as each use their bodies to create new alliances or express lusty desires. Twisted actions follow twisted thoughts follow twisted childhoods. Flashes of gore capture attention and punctuate the pure rawness of the landscape. If you watch Game of Thrones, you know of what I speak. If you have DID, you probably do too. If you have PTSD, it's all too familiar - no matter the trauma.

Trauma. My mind is broken by trauma. The Landscape of my memories is trapped in a variety of seasons with little to no security and absolutely no promise of a stable future. Aren't memories the stuff that makes a person? What is the relationship between memory and personality? If memory is stored with fluctuating borders, than it only makes sense that personality will fluctuate as well. Like the royalty in Game of Thrones, the people in my system fight for control of my mind, sharing memories at times and then walling them off. My personality shifts as their control shifts.

Right now, I have a dark prince rising to control my entire mind. He has blood red eyes and will sacrifice anyone to reach his goal. He has the anger and the drive of someone who has been traumatized, without the memory of the trauma. He is PTSD, he recognizes the other identities without compassion for them, and his game is to claim the Throne. THE Throne - the center of control, the memories, the limbic system, nervous system, rational thought. I don't know what he thinks will happen to the emotion. He doesn't want the emotion. Perhaps he seeks to destroy the emotion so that it is no longer a stumbling block to preserving the realm.

War is beginning.

why I hurt myself

I don't want to be bad. I don't.  But I am sad and hurt and I hate. I hate so much. Those things make me bad, and I don't want to be bad. So there must be a punishment.  Punishment must happen because i do feel sad. I am hurt. And I hate. I punish not because I am bad, I punish because I don't want to be bad.

I want pot brownies

If the world were to end tomorrow, I'd eat pot brownies today. I'm a recovering drug addict, if you use "recovering" loosely. Some might call me a "dry drunk" because I don't go to AA or NA meetings and I'm craving, and maybe that label fits a bit. Really, though, I'm an odd size and nothing fits very well. Regardless of labels, I'd like a pot brownie tonight. And tomorrow night. And especially Friday and Saturday night. In fact, I'd eat fucking pot brownies all weekend if I wasn't so scared of killing myself in the face of crushing apathy or going to jail or disappointing everyone in my life.

I told a friend today I wanted some of the sweet herb. He told me he'd give me some. He told me he'd bake it into a brownie, that I shouldn't have too much since I've been clean for 11 years, that the art of growing potent pot has been perfected since 2000, and if I started to get out of control (again) he would be a good friend and reel me in. So really, I don't have anything to worry about. Sans knowing if the world is ending tomorrow, I can go ahead and eat the fucking pot brownie because my friend has my back.

Why am I trying to escape? I don't feel particularly "bad." I am, however, quite conscious of some others in my head screaming a lot and wanting to punish myself. My therapist says this self-punishment thing is based in deep seated toxic shame. Many of us are working this idea much of the time. On the one hand, a shame-based me is a painfully obvious observation. My behaviors and feelings and repetitive thought processes clearly declare a deep well of shame. On the other hand, I don't know what I am ashamed about. I know what happened to me as a child, I know it wasn't my fault, I know the feelings (physical and emotional) were expected and can be explained reasonably. It's so fucking frustrating that I can't find the disconnect between the logic and the feelings and just simply connect them. Or maybe I can....and that's why I  seek a luscious pot brownie.

These red herrings I toss before my selves, red herrings like beating myself up over craving pot brownies, they would make a nice sandwich. Followed by dessert - and you know what I want for dessert.

Crucified

Not with nails, not to a cross, but I am crucified nonetheless. The little scratch I made with the utility knife is a tardis - much bigger on the inside than on the outside. Inside that little, pathetic cut is myself, stabbing at my arm repetitively, digging out chunks of flesh, screaming. I am treating myself "cruelly," causing pain and suffering. I am hurting myself. I engage in sadistic self-torture because I feel shame and the result is more shame. SHAME on me. Heaped upon me. Burying me with its heaviness. I wish I could dig out of this shame but it is a tardis - much bigger inside.

I wish I had not given the drugs to my therapist. I wish they were on the counter where they have been sitting for months, calling me seductively but quietly, with class and tact. "Eat me, and float for 12 hours, on a couch of soft nothing." Now they are miles away, on his counter, screaming at me with vehement, white trash rage "you fucking BITCH! You left us and now instead of floating with us we sit in the dark, unconsumed, while your FUCKING rage consumes you! SHAME!" Instead I take the psychiatrically condoned anti-psychotic tranquilizer that I won't float upon, rather I will be smothered with. It is oppressive, not fun, which is why I can take it. But FUCK the doctors, I took a non-sanctioned lovely pill I got from a pharmacy from India, fair and square right off the internet. Does that make me a drug addict? Is this a slip? Did I just stab my sobriety in the back? Is it so wrong for one of my selves to take one pill to calm me down, while another one of my selves takes a pill to keep me awake? 

Maybe "crucify" isn't the right word. Maybe "sabotage" is more fitting.

It's been a hard fucking day, people. I dare anyone who has never been sadistically tortured by another to attempt to understand (i.e. crawl into the head of) someone who has been sadistically tortured by another. 

The mind itself is a tardis, transporting its soul to the past to relive, relive, relive. 

Jesus was crucified. For my sins, apparently, and the sins of the bad people of the world, so that we wouldn't have to die. But I want to die. I am sick of crucification and I can't seem to stop the shame and the rage and triggering that gets me to this place. I am dangerous like this, so much more dangerous than when I am simply "depressed." I am alive when I am like this, so much more alive than when I am depressed. I am lethal when I am like this, alive and deadly. I could jump off the cross and save myself, I suppose, but my purpose is a tardis, so big inside that I cannot see it from my vantage point here on the precipice of shame. I crucify myself, so that the little one inside can live without the heaviness of the sins of the bad people of the world. I rage so that I can feel alive, and even if the rage ends in my suicide then at least for awhile I felt alive. I bet right before Jesus died he felt the most alive. 

Faith in the Face of Rape

"Oh god!" It's the classic outcry of orgasm....and that's not a fluke. Sex is spiritual. Rape kills a part of your soul.

I can see the rapist's face when I was a teenager and I can feel him inside me and I can smell his dirty couch. How do I retain any sense of faith in the face of rape?

My mind wanders backwards in time to that place that is shadow and perception. I'm too young, maybe 3, to make much sense of anything. As I write this I become aroused and sick to my stomach at the same time. I don't know what the face of this rapist looks like. I have seen a picture of him, with me on his lap, but his face is blank. Yet I survived so I must have had some kind of little girl faith. Why would I not curl up and die? Why would I create these selves to protect me if I didn't have some kind of fundamental belief in things I could not at the time see (like 'hope' and 'goodness' and 'safety')? What was I saving myself for if not to redeem some small piece of my soul?

Maybe I have faith because I cannot see his face.