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.