Scattered pieces

I think I’ve mentioned here before that we have a young one called Aimee who is 9, happy and illiterate.  Similar to S being a sexual being, I’d pigeon-holed Aimee in this way, quite forgetting all the other things she does for us.  Quite often in therapy, if we’re worried about saying something that is a little scary, we’ll ask Aimee to say it for us – things like we’re scared of talking about food, etc.  She’s also incredibly happy, no matter what is happening.  When things are too out of control, she’s often nowhere to be found, but when we’re tired beyond belief, she will often be there to help us through.  To put it bluntly, she’s incredible…  If there’s any aspect of the different ones that we’d like to have consistent access to, it’s Aimee’s optimism.

Over the years, Aimee has learned that she can communicate with people online if she gets one of the others to read and write for her.  Usually this job was Sophie’s, but recently W was doing the interpreting for Aimee.  What we’ve noticed, is that with W doing the reading and writing, suddenly Aimee seems to be able to do more reading and writing herself.  It’s not like she’s gone to school and suddenly learned how to read, but rather some of W’s literacy seems to have leaked over to Aimee.  It’s the first tangible sign of healing and growth that I have seen within the system…  I know this may sound silly, but yesterday was a very long day filled with triggers and sharing of secrets, so Aimee suddenly being able to read and write a little bit is huge.

I know that this should be a further lesson in why I shouldn’t stereotype or pigeon-hole any part within the system.  I suppose I get caught up in wanting them to be one- or two-dimensional and forget that some of the different ones are quite complex personalities.  Recent blog reading would indicate that it would be easier to heal if the different ones weren’t so complex, but even the act of one part becoming seemingly more complex has given me hope… Aimee is becoming less extreme in her personality, so maybe that means we will all move toward being more balanced and co-operative…

Reading and writing signify intelligence, high scholarly expectations and being serious…  This is why I think Aimee was never able to read or write, those skills don’t fit with her role of being happy and carefree.  So if she is now reading and writing, but still happy, her personality is becoming more complete and rounded.  Whether this means she will be integrated, or continue to exist as a separate one within the system, I don’t know.  But I see it as an important step in our healing process…

Last night, one of the lives that one of us leads, intruded on our normal functioning.  This made us wonder how many lives we lead and what impact this has.  Everyone talks about having different roles or persona’s they present to the world, e.g. how you act and appear at work is possibly different from how you would act at a dinner party on a Saturday night.  It appears as if this sort of thing is usual for the singleton population.  As someone who experiences dissociation, I’ve often wondered whether my experiences are all that different from this sort of usual occurrence.  That is, until the way the two different parts run their life collide, then it becomes obvious that we may not fit “usual”.

As a singleton with various aspects of one personality, there seems to be some consistency in the way you interact with the world – that is, your ethics, morals and way of viewing the world don’t change significantly.  There might be more slippage in the way some things are viewed, but overall you are consistent.  Whereas I experience what I would consider more of a sliding scale, especially when it comes to morals and our way of viewing the world.  Our ethics seem fairly consistent – a desire not to intentionally harm others is one common denominator; but our morals especially, seem to be more variable.  This seems to contradict some of the research I have read where morals and ethics are consistent across the dissociative system – if one part performs an action then it is something that the rest of the system is capable of.  So, I as CG are capable of my usual shyness as well as Sophie’s outgoing happiness and S’s overt sexuality.  I’m also capable of the actions that occur from the way those parts view the world.  I struggle with this concept greatly…  Sophie’s outgoing happiness and innocence is a direct contrast to S’s overt sexuality; how can these be morally consistent?  Each part has their own group of contacts online and when there is a collision between these groups, the differences become obvious.  The other night, we were chatting online with a friend, during the chat we received a message for S from one of her online contacts.  The confusion and resulting anxiety lead to a dissociative switch with S coming forward to try and get rid of the person we were talking to so she could talk to her contact.

It is rare for all of us to respect or consider anyone a friend, but there are a few that S doesn’t feel the need to control, manipulate or please.  Does this mean that we are morally consistent?  Or, does it mean that S is healing and learning that controlling people isn’t always necessary?  I’m not sure of the answers.  What’s interesting, is that it’s our male friends that she is more likely to have contact with, but yet she doesn’t fall into the old patterns of sexual manipulation.  I’m not really sure if she considers them friends, authority figures or objects to be studied out of curiosity.  But it’s a marked contrast to our female friends, whom she expresses no interest in talking to.  Possibly because in some respects the abuse we were subjected to by women was physical as well as sexual and psychological, so there is a different dynamic going on.

I’ll take this to Liz on Tuesday and see what she thinks…  I’m not sure that I’m fully grasping the difference between a singletons presentation of different persona’s, and someone with DID presenting with different dissociative parts.

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Now playing: U2 – Running to Stand Still
via FoxyTunes

As a warning, this might not be one of my most rational entries – and there have been some pretty irrational ones over the past year…

Today we went to see Liz for our scheduled appointment.  It was a monumental disaster.  We had to talk about a report for ACC to ensure we continue to receive funding (yes, this funding seems to be a continual battle).  We were in protection mode, pretty much shut down with Sophie only able to look at the keys she was playing with in her hands.  We’re very aware that ACC want to see improvement – no matter how small.  But, we haven’t improved much and if we put that in the report, we would probably end up being sent for a psychiatric assessment.  We had this knowledge sitting in the back of our head and were trying to tailor our answers as a consequence.  Then Liz casually dropped a bombshell…

“We can’t have you functioning too low or out of control or they’ll refer you to mental health services for the DBT programme.”

This is one of our nightmares… being sent to DBT in New Zealand.

I know people are helped by that programme every day.  I know it helps with emotion regulation and mindfulness… I know it could potentially help me immensely.  BUT over here, there is no streaming or grouping according to functioning, you are placed in the first opening they have.  There aren’t any evening courses, so I’d end up having to take time off work.  This means that I could end up in a group which is incredibly low functioning and triggering for me.  I don’t cope well with groups, so I’d sit there like a stuffed dummy, avoiding the whole situation – I didn’t talk once during a Mindfulness course which lasted for six weeks.  What’s worse is that it will odds are trigger M to come forward to protect us, so we’d end up appearing saner than the therapists and be ticked off as “cured” very quickly.

Yes, I know this hasn’t happened and was just an idle comment by Liz… but with the changes in ACC policy, it’s a very real possibility.  I never thought I’d say it, but please let them decide that I need a psychiatric assessment.  Anything but DBT.

The flip side of this conversation, is that we now think that we’re too much for Liz to cope with and this is her way of introducing the idea of us moving on to someone else.  So the concept of testing her with our trust, went flying out the window.  Again, I know that she hasn’t said that she’s going anywhere…  It’s just our damaged perception of what happened.

Problem is, our damaged perception seems very real right now.

I was 24 when I last talked to the father. It was during my first year of being on-campus at university and I’d agreed to stay with him for a long weekend. He hadn’t been contributing to our care since the divorce when we were 16, but we still a sense of duty to him because… well, he is the father. To say that the weekend was a disaster, would be an understatement. He lived alone in a cold, small, two bedroom semi-detached house situated at the bottom of a hill. The house felt dirty, but I think that was our association of his dirtiness getting mixed up in the perception of the house. He had become a bitter, mean old man who took pleasure in putting others down and feeding his narcissistic desires.  He was not pleasant to be near.

In a move similar to asking the mother to leave when she came to visit, I left the father’s house earlier than planned. I couldn’t cope with him. The day I left I knew that I would not be able to see him again as he was too toxic. I grieved on the drive home… grieved for the father I realised I would never have, and the one I was now leaving behind.  While listening to the radio during the drive, a song came on that started the tears – Stand by me by Ben E. King.  To me, the song is about being strong enough to face the darkness of your fears, as long as there is someone standing beside you.  During that car trip, this was particularly meaningful… I knew I was about to tell the family about my decision to no longer have contact with the father.  I also knew that I was probably going to have to confront the father as well.

At the time I was living alone – I didn’t even have Winnie (our cat).  So, I knew that there would be no one standing beside me, instead it would be up to the dissociative system to come together in a meaningful way to protect us all.  This was at a time when I had no working knowledge of my dissociation, but I remember the internal conversations which evolved as I was taking the long trip home…  There was fear, screaming, celebrations and physical pain caused by tension…  But then, in a shift that I’ve now come to identify as M taking over, there was a sudden calmness and knowledge of what needed to be done.  This calmness allowed Sophie to listen to the song and begin our grieving.  I don’t think we fully explored the grief, but the song allowed us to cry for things we wouldn’t have and to get to a place of accepting what was happening.

When we got home, we made the necessary phone calls to the family.  I don’t remember much about that time, but I do remember slamming the phone down on the father with the parting words that he and I had “never been able to talk”.  I have seen him since that time – grandfather’s funeral etc.  We’ve tried to be civil to him, purely out of fear and not wanting to cause more trouble within the family.  But I know that under that veneer of civility, Frank is waiting to tell the father just what damage he has done.  I also know that such a discussion would be pointless, as he is incapable of seeing his own faults and it would only serve to frustrate us further.

There have been other versions of the song done, but it’s Ben E. King’s version that affects us the most…

I’ve mentioned previously that I exhibit avoidance behaviours – this is especially true of my relationship with therapists.  We respect Liz and her abilities, but we don’t particularly like her and some of us actively hate her.  So any notion of becoming attached to her in any way, feels alien and odd.  Up until now, I’ve been dubious as to whether any sort of attachment or reliance is necessary – surely we can learn and heal without these silly emotional concepts getting in the way…  Well, apparently not.  Apparently, at some stage you have to trust your therapists strength to carry some of the burden.  We’ve reached that point and it’s terrifying beyond words…  What if Liz can’t cope?  What if she isn’t there like we need her to be?  What if she looks at the problems we’re bringing, and says it’s too much… that we’re too damaged?

I have an emergency session with Liz this afternoon to try and work on a safety plan.  I didn’t cope well with the ex-husband’s birthday and I need help.  My heart sinks as I write those words.  I don’t want to need help.  I don’t want to appear less than perfect.  I sure don’t want to rely on anyone else for that help.  People have a habit of being human and making mistakes or not following through on the things they say… What if Liz turns out to be very normal in her mistake making abilities and lets us down when we really need someone, how are we meant to work through that?  Carol is the last therapist who let us down when we needed her.  She had us sectioned under the Mental Health Act because of a misunderstanding.  This one mistake nearly destroyed Sophie and changed the system significantly.  We can’t risk something like that again.

So, I’m going into this session on tenterhooks.  I know I need help, but I’m not sure what help I need.  I do know that we hate needing to ask.

Note: This post could be triggering, please read with care.

There was once a little girl who got hurt by the people who should have taken care of her.  This experience taught her about keeping secrets, packing the bad things into containers inside her head and to forget about most of the bad things altogether.  She became good at playing the parts and emotions that were acceptable to those around her.  Compartmentalisation and dissociation became her way of life.

As this girl grew, the dissociative walls became higher and more entrenched.  Her core beliefs were that she was a nuisance, stupid and ugly.  But she wasn’t a victim.  Oh no, she knew that bad stuff had happened, but she believed that it happened to every little girl, and no one else seemed to be complaining.  So when the girl became a woman and met a nice man, she didn’t tell him about the bad stuff; instead she listened to his stories of being abused by his sister when he was a boy.  She didn’t understand how that could have happened to this seemingly big, strong man.  It made him cry and she comforted him.

So began, what would become 8 years of physical, psychological and sexual abuse for that woman – us.

In many ways, the man came into the relationship more honest and open than we did.  He said he’d been abused, we didn’t. We got so caught up in his past that we didn’t say anything about ours – we didn’t really consider it that bad or worthy of talking about anyway.  Abuse was what we had come to expect.  So when he raped us for the first time, we dissociated it away and considered it normal.  Besides, he was good to us – he gave us flowers, cooked for us and treated us with a form of delicate care (when in front of other people) we’d never experienced before.

A pattern developed over time, he would have a crisis of some sort and we would save him.  He needed us to be strong, so we were.  We were hardly innocent within this scenario.  The woman at work used to feel sorry for him as we appeared to pick on him and order him around.  I can understand why they would get this impression – he needed to be saved and we needed to be a saviour.  The weaker he became within his work and mental health, the stronger we had to be, and the more he would abuse us when no one was looking.  The strength we showed to the world was one of us organising our world to gain some control.  When we got behind closed doors there would be a dissociative switch to one who enjoyed the pain that he inflicted sexually and physically.  He became good at triggering our switches, so we built the walls inside our internal house higher and stronger.

About four years into the relationship, we were in a side impact car accident.  We sustained a mild concussion.  In that one instant, our lives changed forever. Our coping mechanisms fell apart.  Suddenly we were weak.  Suddenly he had to be strong, but he wasn’t able.

He had been intermittently seeing different therapists over the years, but had never seen one for more than three sessions.  They were always useless or changing their fees or playing games…   We realised we were in trouble and started counselling again.  He began to self-injure, often in front of us or because of us.  He was fired from his job for assaulting a supervisor.  We tried to be strong, but were slowly falling apart.

He got a job as a security officer – a job where he could “get some respect”.  We also changed jobs.  But nothing fixed the things that were happening in each of our heads or in that house.  We were two people who had serious mental health issues crashing into each other.  We became suicidal and were regularly assessed for danger, always to be released back into the care of the strong man who was now our husband.

On the 9th of February 2008, we attempted suicide.  It wasn’t our most serious attempt, but it landed us in A&E and then the secure psychiatric ward.  On the 10th of February 2008, the strong man took us home.  What followed is blurry, but I know M made a smart arse remark to him about how he needed to grow up.  He then showed us how strong he was by trying to kill us.  His level of violence scared him and he called our mother, screaming that he’d done it this time and it was all over.  The mother thought he’d killed us.  When she talked to us, she asked if we wanted someone to come up to be with us.  Sophie said “yes”.  With our family there, he couldn’t cope with what had happened, so left the house on the 14th of February 2008.

Looking back, I can see how our different issues collided to cause what happened.  If he’d married someone who wasn’t dissociative, this probably wouldn’t have happened.  We were so conditioned for abuse, if it hadn’t been him, it would’ve been someone very similar.  Could we have ever made it work?  I doubt it.  He was not interested in healing.  He paid lip-service to therapy, but wasn’t prepared to invest the time and energy.  I was too defensive and in deep denial.  I wasn’t prepared to heal myself, instead I was so caught up in his problems that he was all I could see.  My life became about fixing him.  He has refused to attend the court ordered counselling as part of the Protection Order, so I don’t think he’ll ever heal.  I hope he does and proves me wrong…

The following clip is one we did a year ago to try to work through the events surrounding the marriage.  It may trigger.

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Now playing: Powderfinger – Sunsets (acoustic)
via FoxyTunes