I wasn't born broken.

This week, I bravely asked my GP to refer me back to the local mental health services, keeping true to my word that I would access help when I needed it. After stumbling out of psychotherapy this August, I managed to cope with establishing a new relationship with my parents, separating from my husband, losing close friends, and starting a masters in psychoanalysis. Oh, and the on-going infertility.

In actuality, I have asked for psychotherapy again because I'm moving forward, not sliding backwards. I'm meeting my therapeutic goals so well that I am increasingly overwhelmed by the emotional content of my increasingly authentic life. It's shocking how much anxiety I live with on a daily basis. The flashbacks continue as usual. I take the psychotic blips seriously. I am doing everything I can to avoid a crisis.

I am ready to process the trauma. I am sitting with as much as I can bear. The suicidal feelings (which I never talk about, lest I worry you) have been exceptionally strong lately. I know there is more under the surface that I can't cope with alone and that's why my body hides it away. I need help to move forward safely. I need help from someone who is familiar with dissociation -- who is smart enough to keep up with me, confident enough to challenge my defenses, and kind enough to sit with my frustration and fear.

I know I don't live a 'chaotic life' compared to many (most?) people with personality or dissociative disorders. I don't abuse drugs, cut myself, go off work with chronic sickness, behave aggressively towards others, abuse children, steal or drink or smoke... . I pay my bills. I say sorry. I do my best. I cling to this acceptable life, this sense of normality, as though it were my second skin.

But this method of coping makes you happier at my expense.
It makes YOU feel safer, at my expense.

I'm no trouble, no trouble at all. Until you put me in that chair. Until you close the door, sit down, and ask me "How are you today?" with your constant eyes.

I know the statistics. I know what happens to people like me. We go quietly, unexpectedly, in the night. No word, no warning -- just a sensible, selfish choice. You weep. You wonder. Some feel guilty. Some feel sad. Some feel angry. Someday, forgotten.

I have a quiet word with myself.

Yes, this feels awful.
Yes, dying is a solution. But we know this feeling doesn't last. And even if it did, I wonder what would happen if we did sit with this feeling. Living is the only way to find out.

I take death off the table by simultaneously tapping into my masochism and my thirst for knowledge. For good reason. So many people say we are fixed -- at conception, at birth, at two, at ten, at adulthood. But I can't believe that. It will take a lifetime of fighting this for me to finally concede. But I won't concede, not to the last moment, because...

I wasn't born broken.

The world around me changes and, dammit, so can I. I can turn this chaos into a symphony, one of MY choosing, not my parents', not my peers', not my teachers', not my managers', not my neighbours', not my husband's, not my therapists' and not yours. It's worth the pain, the despair, the anxiety, and the grief. It's worth a lifetime of wanting to die, because at the end at least I'll be able to say I did everything in my power to live.