Sundrip Journals
Hanging In But Tired-Tuesday, November 21, 2006-6:01PM EST
Very tired physically and emotionally but hanging in nonetheless. I didn’t get much sleep, about 2 hours actually. I’m okay thought.
thank you very much to everybody for their support and concern. I appreciate it.
Austin
Everything I Can Do- for therapy Tuesday afternoon
Tuesday, November 21, 2006- 2:33AM EST
It’s everything I can do to keep my head on straight when I can feel my mother hitting me or when I turn around to say something to her and realize that I’m in my own home, in my own free life. It angers me. It’s hard to keep from hurting myself but so far I have managed to do just that. I haven’t written a whole lot about what’s been going on inside because I wasn’t sure I could do it without really crumbling. Hell, there’s a lot of stuff I don’t write in the journal simply because I can’t bring myself to do it.
The most recent upset came when I passed my grandmother’s house twice. Unknowingly the last two times I’ve come to see you Blossom drove right by my grandmother’s house. I asked her to take a different route to your office the second time. I didn’t figure we’d have to worry about going that route again but she did so I told her we might want to take another route. She had no clue we were on that side of town where the grandmother lives or lived. I don’t know if she’s still there or not but that house is still standing. I’m surprised evil hasn’t blown itself up, crumbled under its own strength and combusted. I swear that house is where some very ugly things happened. That house is where I was the first time I was molested by my male cousin at age 3. I got my ass beat for it too. The mother said to never let him do it again. Yeah, whatever, he did and she knew it but it was easier to keep her mouth shut and kick my ass when we got home than it was to confront him about it. He scared everybody in that family. Hell, he’s living proof that monsters can be created.
I don’t think I’ve been so paranoid as I have been in the last two weeks, afraid that when I leave the house I’m going to run into a family member. It makes me want to pick up and go right back to Tyler where I belong. I spent equal amounts of time in Indiana, Tampa and Texas but to me Tyler is home. I have no family there except for my ex-husband. I’m sure he’s either in jail or someone has killed his stupid ass so I don’t think I have to worry about running into him in Tyler. It’s not like I’m going to pick up and move anyway. That would only solve a few things but the majority of my baggage would come right along with me. Running with baggage doesn’t get me anywhere. I know that for sure because I’ve done it too many times.
Listen, the fear we feel right now is tremendous. We struggle to remember that this is our house and that we are safe. Dr. B we can feel her hit us. We can smell her. The back of my head throbs and my eyes are so heavy they want to shut but when I go to bed I dream of her and when I can feel her hitting me it scares the crap out of me so badly that I wet my pants. The humiliation is that I’m 35 years old and scared to death of the memory of her. You and I have talked about how she really can’t hurt me anymore. She’s wheelchair bound now, suffocating from Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. She’s on oxygen and wasting away quickly but I’ve not bothered to check the obituaries because dead or alive makes no difference. When I sleep she is right there in vivid colour, every colour of anger and rage and every form of filthy words she can come up with to describe just how disappointed she is to have me as a daughter.
I have not touched the book I Can’t Get Over It in a few days because I wasn’t in the space to do it. I’ve been doing general emotional maintenance. I’m scared and I’m angry about being so afraid. I hear every single sound, see every single movement and it drives me crazy. And it drives me crazy to think I can feel dowel rods hit my skin. What makes me furious is even though she has not hit me in years I still feel the warmth she promised me I’d feel. She said after being hit God gives a special gift of warmth so that you don’t feel the blows as much. She said it was a loving gift from him. You know what? If I didn’t feel that warmth when I was younger it told me that he really didn’t love me and that what Mama said was true, he is going to destroy me. When I can feel her hitting me, even though she’s not here in this house, when that memory is gone I feel that warmth … a sick and fucked up warmth sweeps over me and for a moment I’m satisfied….like maybe, maybe she was right maybe it’s a gift. When I was young I use to crave that warmth, that closeness to God. I hoped that if he knew I was here he’d come and get me and sweep me away from this madness. I swear I’d close my eyes and think of him sweeping me up, of me wrapping my arms around his neck, his huge hand holds my head on his shoulder as he shushes me saying, everything is okay. I’ve got you. I’m here now. I thought for sure he’d come and do that. I thought it would be the greatest gift in the world, to be swept up by God and taken out of that place.
Old lies hang on with a death grip. Why would God have me beaten then reward my pain with some natural anesthesia that would leave me warm? Why would he dole out pain then give me a warm blanket to wrap myself up in. My mother is that cruel, not my God. The funny thing is, when it comes down to it, I don’t trust either one of them. I trust my God more but not the way I would like to. It all gets mixed up when you’re told that if he loves me he’ll give me this warmth that sweeps over me to make the beating more comfortable. I have general trust issues and God is not exempt from those issues. I know where they come from but I still don’t trust him. And I feel like a hypocrite addressing him in prayer. I want badly to pray again but I can’t bring myself to do it. I’d like to ask him to please, just for tonight, please let me sleep a manageable sleep, just tonight. I can not ask him that, not knowing that he knows that I don’t fully trust him. I miss my relationship with him. I wish I could bring myself to call on him during these times but why? Why when I know I’m doing stuff that is just straight up wrong and why when most of the time all that I could get out of my mouth would be please help me cause I can’t keep going like this.
I left on your voicemail that we’ve been feeling suicidal but that we’ve worked hard to not do anything. We haven’t cut or anything at all. We’ve managed to eat a real meal daily, to shower daily, to take meds and to go outside for fresh air daily. We are hanging on by the skin of our teeth. Some triggers are harder than others. Driving by that old house is the most recent hard trigger, even worse than remembering my foster brother’s past.
What I need from you tomorrow is for you to remind me that I’m safe. I can say it forever but there is always that voice in the back of my head that says I’m fooling myself. So I’m gonna need an outside voice to give me a reality check please.
Blossom and I talked about suicide and how my view of it has changed. It may cross my mind on a daily basis but after being the surviving friend of that act my views are totally different. I’ve promised myself and my friends that I will go in patient before things get so bad that I try and hurt myself. Today when Blossom showed up she wasn’t able to wake me. She thought I had done something to hurt myself. You know what Dr. B? My word is good. I will ask for help way before I get to the point where I think I can’t rationalize and keep myself safe. But I thought it was important to talk to her about it because when a person is this depressed the last thing they want to do is keep it from their family and friends so I talked to her about it. I do not expect her to rescue me but I didn’t want her to be in the dark as to how I’m really doing.
See you in a few hours
Austin
Curse of The Hot Pink Brazier
Monday, November 20, 2006-2:44 AM
I am not a superstitious person but every time I put on that hot pink bra something happens. Let me start from the beginning. Finding a good sling for the “girls” is a difficult task when you’re a big girl with extra “gifts” in the upper torso area. I thought I was the luckiest big girl in the world when I found 6 count ‘em 6 bras for $35 on eBay. That very low cost included shipping and handling. Little did I know the hot pink one would be the bane of my existence. Little did I know I’d fear to turn my back on anyone or anything while wearing it. This rhinestone studded bra was the star in my show of humiliation when I spilled coffee on a white shirt I wore to therapy. So I don’t have to go into that whole story again I’ll just link to it here. I’ll just say that after trying to wash coffee off of a white shirt I was left exposing Big Pink but only on one side mind you. One half of my shirt showed the bra with its studs just a-standin’ out and the other side was dry and concealed my other “girl.” That was the beginning of my bad luck streak with this bra.
I was wearing that thing when I had a fire place malfunction and filled the house with smoke ruining my ambiance and setting off all the fire alarms. The day Blossom hit me with her car I was wearing said bra. I was probably wearing the bra when I got my first sinus infection ever a few weeks back and I probably had it on the day our good friend teenage pizza chef decided to make smores with pizza dough. That was so wrong, chocolate, graham crackers, marshmallows and PIZZA DOUGH. It was the bra that made him do it. I just know it. Continue reading ‘Curse of The Hot Pink Brazier’
I was in line to buy radically discounted chocolates. The line seemed to be dragging because the young cashier struck up a conversation with every customer. She wanted to know if they had any foreign coins she could have to add to her collection. She bragged about her Canadian coins and her coins from Mexico then about her coin from Zimbabwe. It became clear that she had mild retardation because of how she worded things but none the less her enthusiasm for coins gave way to complete strangers celebrating the 21st anniversary of one customer’s sobriety. The young cashier noticed a large coin in her wallet and said, “Oh you belong to the same club as a guy who just left.” The customer pulled out her AA coin and explained that on the 19th of this month she would celebrate 21 years of sobriety. The cashier said with a huge smile, “oh your family must be so proud of you.” The customer said they didn’t support her at all because of the mistakes she made when she was drinking. The cashier didn’t understand why but she never asked for further explanation as the line was getting longer. Once the customer said she had been sober nearly 21 years the lady behind me clapped and congratulated her. So there the whole line (6 people) clapped for her and congratulated her on her anniversary. A few stories were exchanged about personal sobriety, she gathered her purchases, thanked us for our support and left.
It never made sense to me why someone would turn to drinking or drugs until I started dealing with chronic pain and horrible anxiety attacks. Yesterday had someone offered me a joint to ease the anxiety there is no doubt in my mind I would have taken it. I thought about going across the street to see if a neighbor of mine had anything because the clonapin wasn’t working fast enough. I thought about this woman, I thought about Blossom and her sobriety, about Kathy, about others I know who have overcome addiction. I know they have set a good example of how to overcome this addiction, they’ve shared stories of how life was while using and it let me know that I just don’t want to travel down that road. It also has become clear to me that a person with an addiction doesn’t have some inherent flaw and that the most precious people, the most kind and loving high spirited people can fall to addiction. There is no evil within that causes a person to drink and become addicted. I never ever thought that, but I also never understood until recently just what drives a person to use and I never really grasped how easily a person can fall prey to addiction until recently either. Sometimes it’s as “simple” as numbing physical pain like with Blossom or numbing emotional pain like with Kathy. One thing is for certain, no one sets out to become an addict. I have a feeling that one day a person needs to numb and the next thing you know life is upside down and the losses rack up higher than you ever thought they could. I’ve heard of people losing everything, absolutely everything to drugs and other addictions. Blossom lost her family, her daughters and this customer lost her family over it too. It tells me two things, anyone can fall prey to this because everyone needs some sort of out let for pain whether it’s emotional or physical.
When it comes to abuse there are years that I can not get back, things stolen from me that I’ll never see again. As an informed adult I have to watch my step so as not to fall prey to numbing with substances that could take away what I’ve worked to preserve. People like this customer who celebrates her sobriety today show extra courage and strength when they pull out their coin and tell everyone that they have lasted 21 years without a drink or a drug and you can do it too. I was inspired by her and the reaction of the customers in line. They actually cheered for her. It was rather Hollywood but I thought it was nice and I think she appreciated it as well. All of this celebrating, all of the after thought occurred because one very social cashier asked everyone she waited on if they had any foreign coins. Its simple really, one conversation leads to another, leads to connection, leads to thought, leads to change and or prevention. I like simplicity, especially when it travels down complicated roads and lays understanding which leads to compassion.
CONGRATULATIONS DEAR STRANGER ON 21 YEARS OF SOBRIETY
and THANK YOU for your example of courage and the strength to overcome odds.
Austin
A Stranger Celebrates Sobriety
A Gratitude Monday entry- written Sunday, November 19, 2006-7:51AM EST
Full Blown Self Doubt
Sunday, November 19, 2006-3:53AM EST
Today in the store I was in full panic mode. I had an anxiety attack in the store and had to come home. I panicked like that because I felt foolish about writing the last post I wrote today, like somehow I was rambling on saying nothing at all, making no sense thinking I was making perfect sense as the world sat behind their monitor laughing at me. I crumbled right there in the store, reached for a clonapin that wasn’t there and basically ran to the car so Blossom could drive me home. I’d forgotten my keys and the keys have a small vile of PRN’s on it. I lifted my shirt to see if my keys were somewhere attached to my pants on a clip that I couldn’t feel with frenzied hands. It wasn’t there. I got home and the panic attack was on. I did some deep breathing, held onto my mind for fear of losing it completely. I sat down and closed my eyes and drifted to sleep. I fear insanity, I fear people thinking oh this poor sick girl or thinking, well Austin is sick again. The thought is humiliating and that feeling of humiliation strangles me.
Austin
This entry is in response to the entry by Beautiful Dreamer and the reply that I left on her journal. She talks about wanting a handbook for being a multiple and I try my dangdest to offer a little bit of insight into what is a DID problem and what is a problem relating to abuse without minimizing her feelings and experiences. I hope I accomplished at least the last part of that. So here is my all across the board thought process that I’m known for… I hope you can decipher this one Beautiful.
Well Beauty most handbooks are erroneous anyway. They’ve got advice for weight loss based on the Adkins diet. I mean come on, that diet doesn’t work… as a matter of fact people have died using it. And Ann Landers, as wry as she is, mostly spouts her opinion and has plenty of lawyers to back her up if her opinions backfire. Most of the world goes about life looking for a manual that isn’t there. Now, I don’t intend to make you feel all depressed by the lack of reliable manuals. What I mean to do is tell you that you’d be better off reading Sam I Am to find truth and guidance than read 100 how to be a multiple books.
Perhaps reading how to raise a child that has been sexually abused might be helpful in re-raising yourself and your inside family.
Perhaps reading a book about surviving divorce would help heal some of the hurt that is still there.
Also, if I can be so bold as to say this, many times having DID is not the cause of divorce but PTSD symptoms and Borderline Personality Disorder symptoms are. Our inability to truly trust, our choices in who we give our trust to, the way we cling then push away is often the true reason relationships fail for survivors of abuse, not just multiples but survivors. Hell, look who I’m with. And, I married a frikin murderer, unknowingly, but I did and it took me awhile to get away from him. We look to re-create situations that we hope to change, hope to win this time. That is not something exclusive to multiples.
It is difficult, almost impossible at times to get everyone inside to agree on one thing. the talking is incessant, the depression mind bending times how many insiders you have. The yo-yo, back and forth from I’m okay to I can’t keep going to numb to screaming inside back to laughing all in one day is something singleton’s usually do not have to deal with. They have no clue what it feels like to be one person then another and have to make sense of it all. But they also have no clue how to manage just one of their lives. They do not have a better understanding of love or the meaning of life because they only have one personality to deal with.
I will not lie to you, if I had the chance I’d be a singleton in a heartbeat but I wouldn’t want to give up the lessons I’ve learned with multiplicity. I’ve learned that nobody knows what they’re doing and that makes me just as tossed about as them. I’ve learned that it is better to withhold my hand and not strike than it is to let go and hurt someone else. I know what it can do. When a person has not experienced the amount of pain that a multiple has (and it takes a lot to become a multiple) then they sometimes do not always grasp the full extent of their actions. In some ways multiples have a better understanding of the world because we were dealt a cruel hand by that world but when it all comes down to it I think people in general toss about and toil not really knowing what to do next. They look at books and TV shows to figure that out. In that way I think multiples are just like everybody else. We lose touch with what we want to do. We lose touch with our hopes and our dreams just like they do.
I wish it wasn’t so odd that I switch in public. I wish it wasn’t so odd that there is a part so timid that leaving the house is not an option. I wish I did not fear that if a part speaks to people she’s going to offend and be unnecessarily cruel and leave the rest of us to do damage control. I wish I could have sex like everyone else and not become violently angry or immobilized by depression. But wait, hang on, others do that too, including people who happen to only be one person. My point in all this is the only major thing being singleton has over being multiple is less noise and fewer people to make happy. I believe everything else is the same. The reason I’d give it up in a heartbeat is that it would make some things a hell of a lot easier. It wouldn’t take away my difficulties with relationships, my trust and abandonment issues, my nightmares, my fear of mothers and mother figures, my fear of beds and a ton of other things. I believe that those who were abused but did not split suffer with the same PTSD symptoms and borderline symptoms that we do. I believe that those who went to war suffer with PTSD symptoms like ours, sleep problems like ours, trust, startle responses and the like. Most of the problems come from abuse (war is abuse) and how it shaped our view of the world in our adult life. If I were to become a singleton today these issues would still be here. Oh it would be a lot quieter in my head and basic choices would be easier but the other stuff would still exist. To cure that, or to tame it will take the very same thing for me as it does for people with one personality.
Lastly, just to make sure I’m clear, most of the time the problems you and I deal with have more to do with symptoms of an abused child than symptoms of someone with DID. Let me know if any of this made sense. You may have to clear out the rambling to do that.
Smiles to you and yours,
Austin
Struggling With Defeat- a jumbled post 8:32AM EST
I have the worst time making sure I don’t bend over and rock. I know very well if I do that I’m going to lose myself and that nothing good can come of it. I hurt today. I don’t know why but I hurt today. My heart feels really heavy. I keep taking deep breaths then sign. My eyes seem to catch something then lose interest just as quickly. I would call this more than depression. I think it’s a hopeless feeling, kind of an aimless longing puffed up or flattened (depending on how you look at it) with depression. My heart feels so heavy.
I see the pdoc December 5th. That’s the soonest I can get in. I don’t know if this is med related or what but I’d like to talk to him about it. Blossom said I have been sleeping quite a bit more. I never sleep, I mean dang to have slept every evening for the last 3 nights plus a nap during the day is not heard of with me. I have to fight to stay awake anymore. When I wake up I lay there for a few minutes holding my stomach as if doing so will make that hollow pain go away. If I keep laying there things will get worse. I’ll get even more depressed and it’ll suck me in and under. I have to get up and move around because it means my life if I don’t. I scare myself when I lay there too long. It’s too easy anymore to have suicidal thoughts. I know what to do to keep from acting on them. I know to get up to open the curtains, to make contact, to eat, get outside for fresh air, keep occupied and what not. If I lay in bed these things don’t get done and the chances of me hurting myself increase with each minute. I know I’m capable of it. I’ve tried before and really fucked up my heart. What scares me is that I know for sure I will attempt it but that same fear motivates me to get up so that I do not attempt it. That fear motivates me to get my ass up and move around. Usually the feeling of wanting to die will pass within an hour or two. If it does not then I go outside with the phone and sit on the porch talking to the crisis line or whomever. If things still are out of control I’ve promised myself and my friends that I’ll head right into the hospital.
The thing about suicide is, the feeling passes but if you do end up killing yourself you never get the chance to have it pass so you can find a way to enjoy life. I know how hard it is to stay alive. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about dying but there is also not a day that goes by that I don’t think about living. I just want to be happy like everyone else. I want to be alive like everybody else so as hard as it is I get my ass up out of the bed and open the curtains and put one foot in front of the other and walk. Sometimes every single step hurts but my hope and prayer is that the steps will lead to something bigger, something better, something that makes life less painful than it is today. Sometimes I’m closer to that and other times it feels like I’ve made no progress at all. But as long as I stand up and get out of that then its progress. I’m satisfied with that for now.
I’ve got to get on with my day. I have a muted sun waiting for me. There are chances of snow flurries and our sunlight is limited for today. I plan to soak up as much as it has to give. Defeat is not an option but one foot in front of the other is my choice.
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