Daily Archive for February 1st, 2006

Both – I Should Be Able To Have Both

Published on February 1, 2006 in For the Record and Soapbox. 2 Comments
Mic is in a good mood today. He surprised me big time. His was the first voice I heard when I woke up this morning. He called me and man was the sun shining on him today. Barney and I have walked around this house bored to death. I made us some soup and cheddar cheese biscuits. I did an entry on the Food ForThe Fragmented Mind journal. I’ve neglected that poor journal the same as I have Cappy’s journal. I’ve noticed that towards the end of the month my entries get morbid and down. I know it has to do with PMDD. I seem to think that the world is ending and I’m not making it and there’s no hope for me and everything is bleak and death is close behind me. That’s not me all the time. I feel that way when I’m not on my period but usually the PMDD stuff brings out the morbid side of me.

The therapist and I talked about me appearing to always be strong and in charge of things. I know I seem that way a lot. It makes people…well, it catches people off guard when I crash. They don’t expect it. They don’t know what to do when the one that usually appears to have it together can’t take one more thing. If I break a nail I look like I might call and ambulance. They don’t know what the heck to do. She asked me if I wanted to appear to be empathetic or strong. I told her I want both. I want to be the balanced human being that we all need to be. I use that word a lot in this journal, balanced. It’s something I seek but rarely find.

The subject of strength and weakness came up when we discussed the death of my friend Vm*. Slave Girl didn’t understand what happened to the strong Aussie. She was baffled by my response to her death. She was baffled by my depression and by me not being able to let her go. This is the big problem I have with being seen as strong. If a person sees me as strong then they begin to see me as not having the same weaknesses and the same human reactions as everyone else. So when I react like others and fail like others they can’t seem to understand why. It’s like, well, what’s going on with Austin? She’s not acting like herself. And when someone sees me as strong it seems to leave me outside of the support circle. I don’t need the support the same as others. I’m the one that they come to for shit. I’m the one they come to when they need a laugh, when they need a shoulder. When Aussie crashes they just look at me like they have no idea what to do. I know in my heart that it is me, it’s me that gives the appearance of constant strength. I don’t intend to.

A lot of times my upbeat attitude overshadows the things others need inside. Maureen is on the verge of another frikin break down. There is rage inside that we barely hold back. Sometimes it feels like they are running on empty but not me. when people look at me they can’t imagine that things are so divided because that’s now what I, Joan, show them. It’s there, it’s all inside but I’m stuck in this role and I can’t stop. I’m the one that helps us make it through the day. I get us to appointments. I deal with the outside public. I answer the phone. I deal with everyone when we have to leave the house. I deal with Barney most of the time. I’m the front, that’s what I do. And I’m supposed to make it look like I’m the only one here. I’m supposed to appear unbreakable, unable to be hurt again. But damn, that shield is keeping help out too. This isn’t working and we, I don’t know how to stop.

We’ve been doing this too long. Morton’s Pride works in such a military manor. Our chain of command is set up and we go by it without wavering. We have rules, we have ways of doing things that seem natural to us but odd to others. But the truth is, our way doesn’t work with those not inside Morton’s Pride. If Morton’s Pride wants to be seen for who we are, we have to learn to show who we all are and not just who Joan of Arc is. That’s a huge step. My goodness, it seems like it would be easier to turn an apple into an orange or make a pig fly and a bird squeal like a pig. Oh well, the only thing that will change today is how we look at who we are. We have to seriously consider just how wise it is for only me to be the front runner. I just got some objection on that. There is some serious upset going on inside. I gotta go handle it.

DON’T ASK !!!

Published on February 1, 2006 in Dissociative Identity Disorder and For the Record. 0 Comments

Wednesday, February 01, 2006
11:22 AM
DON’T ASK !!!Sometimes you just don’t ask questions because you might not be able to live with the answer. This morning I woke with a gram cracker under my breast. Yes, that’s what I said; I had a gram cracker under my breast. Imagine my surprise when I woke up being scratched and poked by the pointy sides of those green elves’ magic tree deliciousness. Yup, sometimes DID offers humor.

I woke up the other day.. heck, I say that like it’s only happened once. Let me be truthful, many times I’ve gotten up and walked into the living room and thought to myself, why didn’t they invite me to the party. The 3 silk trees are turned over like a twister came through. There’ll be clothes everywhere and dishes stacked all high like I'd been gone for days. Like I just got back off a business trip or something to find that the roommate threw a party while I was gone and then a twister came through and he just left everything where it lay. Seeing as how I'm the only one who lives in this part of the house and that I’ve lived alone most of my adult life there is no way anyone came through, had a party and then left. But I do not ask what happened.

There have been times when, while living alone, I’ll get up to use the restroom and the toilet seat will be raised as if a man forgot to put the seat down. Again, I don’t ask why. There is some information I don’t need to know. It’s kind of like putting your hand in gunk on the escalator at the mall. You don’t look to see what it is. You don’t ask yourself, I wonder if that was this or that. You just wipe it off (or put the seat down as it were) and go on like nothing ever happened. There is just some information you’re better off without. The raised toilet seat in the house of a single woman with no boyfriend is one question you should never stop to ponder.

On the street I’ve been called Beatrice and Geoff repeatedly. Of all the names why Beatrice? Why? Well, I eventually did ask if there was a Beatrice and a Geoff because it kept happening when I'd go downtown. Then there was the time when I showed up dressed rather unprofessionally when I work as the secretary of a law firm that was also downtown. It felt right, natural even as I dressed then fit body in a tight white shirt, a short, short black mini-skirt, black hoes and black high heals. It felt right walking into the office this way. It felt right sitting at the front desk with my hair up looking like a lady of the night. But then I came back to myself. It no longer felt right to look like a ho for the law. So, I went home. They didn’t ask and I didn’t tell. The next day when I came dressed in a black dress with a black scarf over my head looking like a nun they didn’t ask anything either. They just said things weren’t working out and that it was best if we parted ways. I didn’t understand.

The phone rang this morning. The caller asked for Rodney. I told her she had the wrong number. Once the doc’s gave me the diagnosis of DID those “wrong number” phone calls became, “this might be the wrong number” phone calls. You never really know any more if the caller has the wrong number or not. But, I didn’t ask if there was a Rodney inside who had an older white woman looking for him. I just didn’t ask. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sometimes you just have to let things go. You have to roll with the punches even when those punches come one after the other relentlessly. One must exercise humility and be willing to see the humor in things if they plan to live life successfully with its many stressors, ups and down and flat out disappointments.

Smiles to you,
Aussie

Independence Day

Published on February 1, 2006 in Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gratitude Journal, Letters Home, Mental Health, PTSD, Segments and Therapy. 8 Comments

I write about my Independence Day every February 2nd because for me, this is the day I began living. I was born August 28th but I began living on February 2nd, 1992.

Let me start from the beginning. I grew up with that woman thinking that today would be the day she’d kill me. I’ve been backed into a window and threatened with being thrown off from 6 stories up. I’ve had a knife to my throat too many times to count. The threats she never went through with paled in significance to those she carried out. I always thought I’d die under the dowel rods. I’m not sure why I didn’t. Sometimes I wish I had. It seems like it would have been more merciful to died than to have survived. One thing that just would not die was my spirit. She always said I was the favorite because she knew she couldn’t break me. She said I was a challenge for her. Yeah, okay.

Around the early 1990’s the song Fast Car by Tracy Chapman had grown in popularity. Since I liked her a lot I took on her hair cut, but I added a bit of shocking pink to mark the cut as my own. The words that I kept hearing so loudly in my head were, “Leave tonight or live and die this way.” Those words just kept going through my head.

February 2nd, 1992, 10:30PM was like every other night because the mother was off her rocker. She was sitting on the sofa with a slip up to her underarms and no underclothes beneath it. She always sat with her legs open. This night was no different. What was different was me. She called me out to the living room and said, “Did you steel some of my peanut butter?” I said to her, “If you’re looking for an answer I’ll give one, but if you just want to argue I’m going back to my room.” She didn’t like that too much. I’d come up with answers like that before. It seemed like there were times when I could get up in her face and yell and walk away unscathed but I could also sit on the sofa doing nothing and be accused of everything. This day topped all of that. When she repeated the question I turned and walked back to my room. She came in the room and told me to get back out there in the living room. I went back out there. We exchanged a few words. The subject of abuse came up. She told me she wanted me to do something I wasn’t going to do anymore. She told me I could either do it or get out of her house. I shocked the hell out of her when I turned and walked back into my bedroom and put my shoes on and walked out of her door.

We lived on the 6th floor in a beautiful apartment. Man it was gorgeous. I loved the woodwork and the cathedral ceilings. The thing I hated was the service elevator. It looked like a cage and it seemed to take forever to get to the 6th floor. Well, when I started walking to the door the mother came running after me. I took off running for this stupid elevator. I pushed the button and then said to myself, “Why are you waiting for the elevator?” Before I could get the door to the stairs open the mother yelled to me, “Go on! Hurt yourself!” I have no idea what that meant. I haven’t asked. I have a feeling she thought I was going to end up on the street and that I’d come begging for forgiveness and a warm place to sleep. What she never expected was for me to pull from resources that she had no prior knowledge of. I did not sleep on the street that night. I didn’t leave with just the clothing on my back and no money. I walked out with what I had on but I also walked out with a full time job, health insurance and a nice nest egg. The day that she kicked me out I shocked the hell out of her. She saw me stand on my own two feet and survive without her. She expected me to fall. I went to a hotel and slept. I got up the next morning and went to work as if nothing happened. After work I went to a friend’s house to tell her what happened. She let me stay until I found another place. It only took a few weeks before I found my first apartment. I was there shortly and then I started school. I got into student housing within walking distance of the campus. I wasn’t going to Brown University like she wanted me to. I wasn’t studying Law or Economics like she wanted me to. I was going to school to be a Chef, something I knew I needed to be when I was about 8 years old. Oh, yes, and she didn’t pay a dime of it.

On the day of my independence the words “Leave tonight or live and die this way,” never seemed more true. I couldn’t live under her roof one more second. I was 20 years old and still being abused by her. Enough was enough! I still smile when I think of that day because I’ve never again felt more whole. I just walked/ran out. I never went back. I have never moved back home and I will never go there again. She knows I’m not coming back. She knows life without her is possible. She knows that the little girl she raised to fear her showed strength and spirit, the very things she worked so damn hard to kill. So on February 2nd, 1992 at 10:30 PM her little girl became a woman and refused to live like that anymore. She kicked me out at 10:30PM. What kind of crap is that?

I later talked to my then therapist and told him what happened. He said, “You can eat crow and go home or you can make a go of it and make a life for yourself.” I said, “Dr. So-in-so, I’m a vegetarian. I don’t eat crow.” (I was a vegetarian then so the statement made sense.) He laughed. It was a proud laugh though. I never went back. God, I never went back and that is the strongest statement I could have ever made to her. HOW YA LIKE ME NOW??!!!

She was right about some things. I did hurt myself. I hurt myself the same way that other people did that just started out on their own. I made poor decisions. I took unnecessary risks. In other words, I was young and free and didn’t calculate my steps before I took them. I didn’t do anything others haven’t done. There are mistakes I made with lasting consequences. Some of the times I was homeless as an adult were my fault because I chose to do something else with rent money. That’s on me, not her. I was young and foolish. So yeah, I hurt myself but I didn’t destroy myself and I didn’t go crawling back to her.

My sister hasn’t been off her knees since before I was born. She has no place to crawl back to because at age 36 she’s still at home with the mother. I look forward to celebrating her independence day. I look forward to the time when I read about it online. When she sits behind a keyboard and screen and smiles and cheers for herself. When she sips a cup of coffee and smiles in her heart because even though life is still hard, it’s less of a burden than under the thumb of the mother. I want her to feel this. I want her to be able to taste it because once you get a taste of freedom you can never, ever go back to slavery.

This isn’t where the fireworks go off or where people start singing Free At Last and We Shall Overcome. This is where I log off and go on with the rest of my life like the plan was when I walked out her door. This is the part where I value the time I have away from her. It’s when I renew my resolution to not squander opportunities, break relationships, burn bridges or destroy myself. This is where I continue to be the woman I was supposed to be.

Until again,
Me

When The Clock Strikes Precisely
-see also-

Independence Day
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Midnight