Ann Garvey's List: 8-21-12

• I’ve been trying to keep politics off my blog. I guess I’m afraid I’d lose readers, people wouldn’t like me anymore, they’d say mean things, and I’d be all alone again.
• But no one talks about politicians’ stances on mental health care. We like to pretend there’s no longer stigma attached, but anything that can’t be discussed openly is still stigmatized. And when there is public conversation about mental illness, its causes and solutions get way oversimplified. We need to have a real, in-depth public conversation about it.
• My worry with politicians who have very little knowledge of mental health issues–and even many who are knowledgeable–is the tendency toward forcible and/or coercive treatment.

• I wanted to punch him. Repeatedly.

   

  But I think my reaction comes, in a large part, from growing up in a very conservative family where both financial success and happiness were thought of as something you could achieve if you just follow the formula and work hard enough. If you didn’t succeed, if you weren’t happy–it was your own fault. Obviously you just weren’t working hard enough.
• That’s the insidious thing about indoctrination: if you tell a kid the same thing over and over for years, she’ll believe it. She may grow up and realize the logic is faulty, realize she would never judge anyone else so harshly. But she’ll never be able to stop judging herself. She’ll still feel like a failure at both independence and happiness.

• I had an interview today for an internship doing legal research and trial prep for a defense attorney. It’s unpaid, but it’s the kind of thing that will look good on my resume and applications for undergrad and law school.

   

  The interview went really well, and he offered me the job on the spot. He asked me to come observe/take notes on a discovery motion tomorrow.

• Yes, I am one of those people “who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.” Hell yes, I believe everyone is entitled to those things! Tell me, Mr. Romney, do you believe that because I’m poor, I should’ve been denied life saving brain surgery? Because I’m poor, should I have to live in my car and eat out of dumpsters? I’ve done that, but I’d be willing to bet the little money I have that you haven’t lived that.

   

  I wonder, Mittens, when the last time you read our Constitution was. I recall this bit where it says our government was established “to promote the general welfare.” Generalmeans everyone, Mittens, not just the rich elite. If you’re instituting policies that would deprive people of basic needs, you’re not promoting the general welfare.
• I feel like I frustrate people because I can’t break these rules. I know I should be able to take up my therapist on her offer of twice a week sessions, call people on my treatment team when I’m in crisis, or tell my therapist she upset me. I know good and well that these are not socially unacceptable things, and I know it would be for my own benefit. But when people tell me it’s okay, I shoot them down because I know I can’t break my own rules.

• And I’m upset about what happened with NT, even though I know it’s a dumb thing to be upset about, especially a week after the fact. She did call me on wednesday and asked why she hadn’t seen me in a while. I said I dunno and didn’t say I’d shown up and she hadn’t. But unbeknownst to me, my team leader called her later that day and did tell her. Apparently she didn’t think to tell me she would be away and reschedule the usual appointment. I’m seeing her again on Monday.

   

  The feelings–anger, sadness, guilt, betrayal, mistrust–are flying every which way, too fast for me to deal with them. There’s a strong urge to just not show up–whether it’s to protect myself from being hurt again or to show her how it feels to be stood up, I don’t know.

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• It may seem strange for me to say at this point in my life I would not look back and bemoan any of the abuse of my childhood IF — IF it had not harmed me in my development in such a way that I am a different person in a different body than I would be IF that abuse had never happened to me.
• There was a time, a very long period of my life, actually, when I was completely oblivious to the truth that I had experienced abuse in the first place.
• And yet I sit outside this morning writing this in my thriving garden still asking myself two questions:  ”Linda, who are you?  What do you want?”
• I am re-addressing these concerns as I approach a brink of change that I anticipate as another life-changing difficult time for me.
• I am not ‘what I do’.  I am not ‘where I am’.  I am not ‘who I love’.  I am not what happens to me.  I am not even what I know.  I am not what I don’t know.

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• Last night I wrote “the letter“.  In true blog addict style, and the fact that I’ve been documenting my life here for the last year (and because I’m intrigued as to what your feed back would be) I’ll post it up here along with the rest of the story.
• I’ve experienced a whole range, a roller coaster between fear, abandonment, anger, apathy, self loathing and more.
• Each time it has happened, I eventually found a light at the end of the tunnel.
• For someone who said they understood me and would always be there for me, you didn’t understand at all.

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• Sometimes we have "episodes"...that's what we call blank spaces is what has currently/recently transpired.
   
   Last night we had one. It's been awhile.
• Thank goodness midterms mean we're half done with classes. That class, anyway. Science gurus, we are not. Not one single one of us.
   I'm too old for most of this shit. Mid-December can't come soon enough.
• Just let us write, forever, let us write, and paint, and be...well paid, so we can cook nice foods, and drink good alcohol, buy paints and canvas...and that's all we really want.
   And to die, someday, to go silently in the night.

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• Photo taken by a woman in her thirties who has major depression, anxiety, and is on the bipolar spectrum. She has been through countless treatments, including tons of medications, an army of doctors, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and most recently ECT.

• In the last few weeks I have overcome a massive amount of grief – a double whammy – grief of what I never had, and grief of what I will never have.  At times I did not think I could get through it, it felt like I was drowning.  And more often than not I didn’t even want to get through it, I wanted to drown (and die).  But now I have turned a corner in that grief to do with the family who I no longer want anything to do with, I have turned a corner also in accepting what I do have in my life and making the most of the unconditional love I do have around me.
• When it feels like people in your “real life” have become distanced, seemingly tired of your continuing repetitive struggles (whether rightly or wrongly), it means everything to have your therapist off her own back fill you up with such love and care to remind you that you are lovable even when you are struggling with so much on a daily basis.
• Today was a bit of a landmark because today I made an adult decision to not go to therapy.
• I haven’t had a night terror like last night in a while.  You were in a very fearful state Cat related.  Oh it isn’t fear, I replied, this is on a completely different level to fear, this is pure terror.  My blood ran cold- there is literally no other way to describe it.  You can’t put words to something that intense.  At least now I am quicker to respond to it to try and ground ourselves back.  I know what works – getting Raggy out of bed, going outside on the balcony, checking my emails/facebook on my phone… stuff like that.
• To be able to internalise a safe attachment is all what attachment therapy is about.  And it looks like we are going to be able to do this after all.  We are not too damaged.
• Of course I can’t assume that because I am feeling this kind of stability right now I will be able to hold onto that into the distant future.  Of course not.  This is one of those yo-yo experiences.  I’m fully aware of that.  But for now I will hold onto the peace that this brings because these last few weeks have been extremely hard and extremely chaotic and we deserve this quiet.
• Young children need a lot of sleep.  The young alters in my system talk like children, think like children, act like children, so it makes sense that they also have the same needs as children.  Suddenly I don’t feel so “ill” or ashamed for needing as much sleep as I do.  The core of my system (i.e. those that are present practically 24/7) is made up of 5 alters with an average age of 11.8 years. 

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• I’ve never really don’t understand poetry.  I don’t understand the hidden meanings, and I get lost very quickly.  But, as I was reading the following poem about hope by Emily Dickinson, the tears came.  I could easily see the bird as a metaphor for hope…
• I’ve often joked about the figurative neon sign above my head that reads “Go away!”…  But, those jokes cover a variety of issues that I experience – an inability to trust, be vulnerable, and basically experience any emotion without dissociating.
• I do things which I consider to open the door to communication, but also look for any hint that the person isn’t genuine, interested, or able to reciprocate in any way.  Depending on the level of involvement that I am expecting to have with the person, I then decide how much energy, and risk I’m willing to take.
• This is the question that I’ve been asking myself… I wonder about it because if I’m more aware, then that indicates a level of healing that is positive in the long-term… But, if this year was bad purely because I approached it in a different way, then that could indicate that I’m back-sliding by “looking for triggers”.  Either option is possible, but the latter seems more likely. 
• I could do with some hope…
• I’d look at food, and it would morph into something unpalatable and impossible to eat… or, just the thought of food would make me have a panic attack.  Often there would be no context for these previous issues with food, and they seemed like random occurrences.  I could attribute some of them to stress, but not all of them…  Now, things are different, it’s like I’m living in that space all the time. 

• How dare I be so bold as to ask such a question?  How dare I think that I deserved an answer?  How dare I even exist!

   

  Haven’t I learned anything by now… the only solution, is to be invisible!!

   

  This was me going beyond my comfort zone, or working on the edge.  It was uncomfortable and destabilising.  What was interesting, was my reaction to being in that place…
• I realise that this was me challenging different aspects of my reactions… I would usually remain silent, rather than ask a question; and I would do almost anything to avoid a confrontation.  But this time, I acted differently.  I wasn’t aware of doing it consciously, practising what I would say, or any of those other things that are often talked about when “working beyond your comfort zone”…  Instead, it felt like I was driven to pose the question. 
• Another friend once told me about looking for the windows of opportunity in a situation… the windows where there is the possibility for you to choose a different option, or way forward. 
• That’s a really positive challenge to those old beliefs.  I know it will take more incidents similar to this before I really believe that the punishing consequences won’t suddenly happen again… but, that’s about learning by experience.

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• That is what I heard from three different lawyers when I complained about the “medication error,” The Institute of Living (IOL) had inflicted upon me.
• I don’t blog much about me and my parts or the relationships between us. I am still trying to figure out if it is because I feel that it is private or secretive.
• Victims of “legitimate rape” can’t get pregnant because a woman’s body will shut down and prevent the pregnancy. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) actually said that—in other words, he’s saying that if a woman does get pregnant, she must not have been raped.

• I made this for Resident’s Council today. I used all-purpose flour and split the top. It was quite tasty, a cross between french bread and sour dough!

   

  Peace out y’all!
• There is a list of difficult clients that floats around each Local mental Health Authority (LMHA) called Personas Non Gratis. It has clients considered “high utilizers”and “Axis II’s” in essence, people who are challenging or even high functioning who just don’t shut the fuck up and take what measly crumbs are offered.

• I suppose it might not matter if it taste good I’ll let you know k.

   

  Edit: The bread was really quite tasty. I think next time I’ll add  1/2 teaspoon of instant yeast for ww instead of 1/4.
• Down South when someone is bestowed a good turn or they are considered lucky, people say, “They stepped in shit, “or “I must’ve stepped in some shit!” Today, I stepped in shit! Actually, I first stepped in it around March but I didn’t know it then.
• You know what this extremely kind and patient woman who happened to work also in customer retention did? She gave me a 25.00 credit for next month and upped my package from 300 to 450, which means I now get HBO and Cinemax in addition to SHO, Starz, well you can go see for your own self http://www.att.com/shop/u-verse.html#fbid=gRExfKwiJY7. See, I stepped in it again!

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• My surgery is scheduled.  November 22nd.
• • It truly doesn’t seem far enough away.
   
  • They added on extra to what was initially planned, which has wrecked my psyche a bit.
   
  • I hate hate hate surgery.
   
  • And doctors
   
  • My surgeon is a guy. I am more uncomfortable with male doctors than anything.
• But I’m mostly just terrified.
• He also touched a bit on mental-health (I tried to be honest in the paper evaluation that touched on it) but was kind about coming back to it, since the hypertension is more pressing at the moment.  But I feel like he isn’t going to leap at me.  He was so very very sweet about my memory problems (he wanted to know a lot of details but I couldn’t recall them; especially hospital details, where I tend to disassociate the most).

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• A month or so ago (?), I said to myself/my brain, “Look, I want to remember.  I want to process this stuff and move on with my life.”  I asked whatever part of me is blocking to step aside.

   

  I have already written about this, but I expected something like movie reel memories.  I knew they would be difficult, but I guess I thought it would be sort of like watching them on a screen.  There would be feelings involved, of course (ew, yuck, not FEEEEEEEEELINGS), and they would be painful, but hey, at least I’d know what was going on.  I’d have my neat, tidy memories and I’d figure out how to unwrap them, process them, and then let them go.

   

  Oh, how naive!  
• I am physically miserable all night long, and it’s a combination of anxiety and things that I can connect to abuse, even if I can’t connect them to specific memories.  It is awful.
• What’s funny is that the moment it becomes the tiniest bit light outside, I conk out with no problem.  It’s like a switch gets flipped.  Of course, during the school year, this is when I would need to be getting up!
• The message is that my body experienced extremely unpleasant things.  That dread and shame and fear and anxiety and disgust and deep sadness are all pieces of my experience.  I say to myself in the night, “This is intolerable.  I cannot live another minute of this.”  That is me, as an adult, trying to process these feelings from childhood, tapping into them just enough to see that they are overwhelming.  And then I get it.  I understand the dissociation and the compartmentalizing and the amnesia and all of it.

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• At what point do you say to yourself, “I need help”? And how many times do you say it before you actually reach out?
• I spiraled down to a point where no one could avoid the fact any longer.
• This was a battle I’d endured for years, a battle I could no longer hide or run from.
• Going into a clinic for “mental problems” is scary.
• In order for therapy to be effective (as effective as possible), you have to be ready for the therapeutic process.
• But it is necessary to find some form of stability, some semblance of a life worth living.

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• i know i am going to be ok. i know it because i have two moms.
• We me and Alexa are watching pink, live in wembly in London on dvd. Its fab. Right now the song who knew is playing. We both love pink a lot.
• But I still feel i am responsible. I feel like I should have seen it coming, I should have known. I didnt, I can honestly say I was blissfuly unaware.

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• One of the interesting things about checking blog stats is that the search that brought people to my blog is recorded.  Most of the time it is just random searches for quotes I posted or other stuff but this question I thought needed an answer.
• "I have learned that the greater part of our   misery or unhappiness is determined   not   by our circumstance but by our disposition."
    - Martha Washington
• Roots to Blossoms courage to hit publish tilted my courage to write today's post.  The debate ran around like squirrels on a hamster wheel.  NewCounselor mentioned at my last session that I dress like a frump.  Shouldn't have bugged me, but it does.
• Ironically in an effort of improving myself I caused part of my own depression since all I saw was the mistakes I was looking for. KavinCoach spent considerable amount of time teaching me to see the positive in myself and my life. It wasn't all bad. #9 of the things I must give up to move forward by Marc, I must give up overlooking the positive points in my life.  The pitfall of self improvement is I focus on my short comings.  KavinCoach and MyCounselor both encouraged me to take a full inventory of my strengths.
• Shock waves rocked my world when I realized after integration that dissociation into multiple personalities was how I coped with PTSD.
• My mother used fear to keep me from premarital sex.  She had worked in a children's hospital and told me of the deformed babies and birth defects of babies born of teenage mothers.  (She left out the part the early teenager years or those on drugs or any other qualifier.) 
• Enjoy your day what ever it holds...it is your day...I am headed to work. 
• Funny thing is I don't talk to other people about my kids very much.  They are precious to me.  I want to protect them.  I want more than anything to be the best mom in the world. 
• These books are actually very challenging to read.  I read them slowly.  I read a little and then try to fit the ideas into my life.  A basic step KavinCoach taught me is: "I am a good person." 
• I mostly shook off the feeling but kept necklines as high as possible to cover my nothingness.
• Integration proved to be hard in some ways and the main way was the realization that all those weird clothes in my closet were all mine.  The shame I felt intensified. 
• iding in ill fitting clothes that totally camouflaged and hopefully made me invisible. 

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• Good morning.  This is just us.  We've been up for about four hours.  We've been moving around our general resources of people and answering correspondence.  This seems to be taking more time now than it had before, but communicating with people was what it was all about, so have to think we're doing the right thing there.
• I say that especially, because we are having such a good life.  We're still figuring out how to handle our system, to be helpful to others in the Multiple community, and to work with them on making it a nicer place for yet, others.  PLUS, we enjoy the sewing, particularly the volunteer work.  Maybe it is contradictory working on volunteer instead of helping Rich make money.  That thought comes up periodically.  I feel strongly though that I'm on disability for a purpose.  What Dr. Marvin and I've worked on is making our life more livable so we're not at the point of wanting to commit suicide all the time.  I'm not saying it doesn't come up, but again as mentioned before we don't want to live in that kind of space by being forced to do what's good for others, but not good for us.
• Ahh, I know one conversation we're now remembering.  Casey was out and complaining about Annemarie.  Casey was explaining that she was the one trying to wait very patiently for Rich's pie to be out, but then when the apple pie was finally done, Annemarie ate the pie and didn't share.  No amount of stomach counting was going to convince Casey it was LIKE eating, because it wasn't to her.  Holding up the fork was a tease, but then it went to Annemarie and not her.  Annemarie was out for a snarly moment, scared Casey and then disappeared.  I don't know who had it after that.  Someone who understood the story at least.

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• When we came home from the hospital we could have gone for a kayak paddle. We did not as we could not know if that was best. There are many more out now and they have changed and are changing. They have been out over the last years we have always been so beat up that they could not be really. They are the ones that we had to fight them going away from the other and that is kinda still true. Difference is we can get back to the others at will. Meaning if we work really hard to create a situation where they can be than they can be. Disruptive in the now does not cover it.
• One thing that does not work for me is the I am special because I am multiple or traumatized. I see that all the time and it sometimes get put on me.
• So we messed up three weeks ago and went to Maine. Pretty much we overrode the reptilian brains with our cognitive brains. In part this happened as we went to maine with some people. We kinda went with society’s understanding that going to the ocean for a paddle must be wonderful for everyone at all times or something is wrong with them.
• he end result was learning how not to sleep. For us this manifested itself in one of us was always awake. Think a water bird whose brain sleeps on side at a time. There are many reasons for this and one of them is the time in the sensory deprivation tanks. We learned to stay awake in the tank so that we did not have to be touched when they let us out.
• We really started to figure out that we were on a different level than the rest of our family and they knew it. It did upset us and our solution was to push physically very hard. We just did our chores all day and went very very fast.
• t is not really that one of us is always tired it is more when we are tired we are them. That is kinda the way it is with multiplicity. As there is no connection with time between us then they never rest. It is on some level shutting different parts of us down. There is no protection from horrors in our life. That would be nice it is just not reality.

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• My mind has been racing with images, information and questions surrounding my teen years.  Still trying to answer the question of my involvement at that time.   Ever since my defector appeared to me at my high school in my senior year, I cannot lay the suspicions down.   I have asked all parts to help confirm or deny this and what I have been receiving is a dream life full of junior high and high school images. 
• My son and daughter just finished a unit in their high school that discussed abuse and violence warning signs and what to do if you or someone else are a victim.  Additionally, there are specific laws for “professionals” to report suspected abuse.  If they suspect and do not report, they can be prosecuted on “neglect” charges.   I looked at a large list of “warning signs” for “professionals” and was aghast over just how many of these signs I displayed during these years, to several specific people. 
• Ever since I can remember, the minute I got the impression that an adult was a caring person (usually noticed them being caring to another child) I would insert myself into their world so they would have to care about me.  Once “care” was established, then all of these above named behaviors would push through.   Insiders crying for help in every way possible except for the taboo, actually speaking the need. 
• What is clear is that I was continually disturbed, dissociated, and desperate for help through all my teen years’ schooling.  What is unclear is if those feelings were coming from parts who were still stuck in past terrors feeling “safe” enough to cry for help OR if those feelings were present day fears that I literally had no idea of.
• Nothing else accounts for their looking the other way.  If it were just one person, that’d be one thing, but there were several.
• Of course, it was also my father who didn’t want me dressing like a hooker, hanging around with the kids who were known to use drugs, or get into any other “trouble” that would put a magnifying glass on my family.   Not out of love, mind you, but out of a need to keep everything hidden.

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• It stood before me in the dank basement storeroom, its chromed edges glittering in bare bulb’s dim yellow light.  It was huge – an American Schwinn bicycle – fire engine red with a thick padded seat.  I stared at it, my heart pounding with excitement.  To me, a twelve year old boy trapped on an Army base in Germany, it represented freedom.
• I learned these were the first things one should learn when arriving in a foreign culture – the words for politenesses and requests for basic necessities required for human life.
• In it we had come back to the ‘hood – the object of my hidden desire: to be once again where my true friends did not change, where the neighborhood and everything in it would remain the same. The same dirt road with the same people living up and down it, pretty much as I had left it . . .
• I took it down to the last bearing and wheel.  Then I put it back together, lubing the parts and studying how it worked.  A few round bearings were all that were left over.  While a bit stiffer in the pedals, it still rode proud and tall among the lithe German bikes.  Its padded seat was comfortable compared to some of the lean machines I had seen – not racing bikes, mind you, just ‘normal’ bikes the Germans used.  And boy, did the Germans ever use them!
• With my bike I could truly wander and roam, get into things.  I could join my ‘friends’ (casual classroom or playground acquaintances, changing like the wind) – on long rides through the woods, or along German roads.  It was so ratty nobody wanted it – and once again, I owned the poorest bike in the neighborhood.  Not that it bothered me any.  I was just glad to have a bike to ride.
• And yet our inner child held onto that dream – still does; I can see it in his shining face with his memories of sunshine and running into the wind across the white sand, the cloud puffed sky blue, the sun warm on his back, and the excited calling of his friends ahead; bare feet pounding on the road . . .
• There were a lot of things to see and do, but the Germans – they were good. Just strange to my twelve year old eyes at the time. As I learned it all seemed normal, until I was being accepted by them – which is good.
• The sixth grade class was quiet.  Preternaturally quiet.  Normally you would think twenty some odd kids trapped in a classroom would make some noise – but no.  You could just barely hear pencils softly scratching as students finished their assignments, but aside from that – nothing.  It was so quiet you could almost hear the dust settling.  Behind a huge slab of a desk sat the teacher, her long hair pulled straight back into a ponytail.  It was dark, like her expression as she glared at us with hawk like eyes that followed every move, every twitch.  We sat huddled, heads down, eyes rolled up, following her every move in turn.

• But we always stood out – Americans always did. And it seemed no matter where we went – we did not ‘belong’ there. We were there for a reason, and that reason was leaving . . . all the time.

   

  And so it went on . . .
• How they managed it – teaching us at all – is bewildering.  I managed to change schools over four times one year – a lot more in the years before and following – and somehow the Army always seemed to have a new school ready for me.  No matter when I arrived – I would fit in with the rest of the strangers and the course – just like taking a step in class.  A few times I arrived I would be a few pages ahead or behind, but never very much.

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• This is Jack, I had a question that Id  been wondering about, if anyone can answer Id appreciate it. Is it possible for  the core to resign from his position as core and hand it to an alter? Basically  making someone else the core from then on.
  
• If there's a lull or if we do anything that might involve or interest me, I  take over sort of automatically. But I've been host for decades and the others  just don't have the experience I do, the quick responses to life situations, nor  some of the other skills. And we're pretty sure the job simply necessitates that  I remain. Like it or not, we seem to be stuck with me. And I'll be honest and  say we don't like it. If we had a low-key job somewhere, several of us could  handle the life.
• If by "core" you mean the original personality, the one that everyone split  from, then no, it is not possible. The core will always be the core, whether  they are in control or not.
• However, it is possible for systems to change "hosts" and for someone to give up  control to a new "host". This puts someone else in control and has them dealing  with everyday life, switches, time loss, etc. But the "core" will always be the  "core", whether they're in control or not.

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• William Bergen Greene was a troubled man who started with a troubled childhood.   He apparently suffered severe abuse as an early child until he was made a  ward of the state at age eight.
• His prison sex offender therapist, known to the public only by the initials M.S.  (because she later became another victim of Mr. Greene's many sex offenses), was  the first to diagnose him with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) otherwise  known as multiple personalities.
• Malingering, of course, is not a disorder that is treatable under Medicaid but  is described as "the intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated  physical or psychological symptoms, motivated by external incentives."   Typically, external incentives have to do with financial gain, or  avoidance of responsibilities or consequences.
• She met him for therapy on a routine of bi-weekly sessions, but if so, they must  have been extremely long sessions, because by the end, when he finally assaulted  her in 1994, she had racked up over 2000 hours of therapy with this single  patient.
• Yet more evidence of enmeshment if not outright obsession on the part of the  therapist
• Greene plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but in his first trial, Judge  Thorpe ruled that DID could not be used in an insanity defense due to lack  scientific consensus on the existence of the disorder.
• Packard diagnosed the chronic sex offender with antisocial (AKA psychopathic)  personality disorder and a sexual paraphilia disorder.  Packard further  stated his doubt about the veracity of DID as a legitimate disorder.   Packard firmly believed that Greene had simply been faking DID from the  beginning.  

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• Joining Mariah Carey and her Hello Kitties! at the American Idol  judging table will be Nicki Minaj, who  should actually count as 3 people. Because she likes to pretend she has multiple  personality disorder, you see.
• Nicki Minaj, whose success is owed in part to the studios that created her, and  Randy Jackson, who’s only advice  ever is to stop being pitchy.