No I without We

"Would you like to have a cuddle?" The mother smiled warmly at me, holding out her baby.

Blood drained from my head, and I put up my hands in protest. The walls started falling down, but something stopped them. Maybe it was her smile.. or the way she looked so gently at me. My mouth was ready to say no, my heart wanting yes, and my head, defeated. For once, defeated.

"I don't know how." My eyes filled and I blinked, grateful for my glasses and the low light. "I've never held a baby this young before."

She stepped over to me, holding the baby to my chest. "Just support her head." I stared at the bundle. This was a person. A little person. My great-niece, in fact.

I set her down immediately on my legs, propped up as I saw her grandmother (my sister-in-law) do just moments before. I stared at her, terrified, lonely, and confused. The baby began to sniffle and then cry. I looked to her mother, who sat calmly nearby. I looked back to the baby, holding her tiny hands with just a finger, stroking her cheek, and finally her head, just behind the ear. She quieted.

She quieted. But something in me woke.

Just the thing

To be perfectly honest, I'm not doing very well right now. I simply have no time to process "all of the shit" that is raised in doing my current course. All of the other factors (poor nutrition, poor self-care and now poor sleep) have joined together in another pre-psychotic chorus. Did I mention I'm treading water with my relationship? And my parents still haven't called since I told them Drew and I separated?

It could be worse. I at least recognise the early warning signs now, and I know how to manage it on an emergency basis. But this isn't a fire. This is my life, and I cannot keep this up. God forbid something truly catastrophic happens. I nearly broke down in Tesco when I couldn't find the vegetable oil.

I've already taken a hiatus from a few life ambitions and now I'm weighing up more long-term options for how to cope:

(1) Decrease hours at work (again) but also this time decrease responsibilities. Major con: loss of income (that we desperately need).

(2) Change jobs to working with CYP so that I can quit volunteering and get my weekends back. Major con: loss of income (again), but also stress of managing change.

(3) Quit my masters course. Major con: losing a life ambitions.

(4) Death. I wish I were being funny, but sometimes it does feel like I'm stressing myself to death: the poor physical health, the obesity. Other times it feels like I'm already dead. Major con: losing all life ambitions.

How do I ask for help when asking for help is more traumatic than going it alone? ...when being seen, being held, being loved... these are the very things that hurt me most?

I'm trying to make sense of myself. I have a deep empathy but no experience of caring. They aren't the same thing. They are not the same thing at all.

Can I change my stripes?

Can any of us change our stripes? This is the question that hangs on every discussion: that passes between our eyes, that our fingers rub into the papers on our laps. All of this knowledge. All of this therapy. All of this unpinning of our human condition.

Is it too late for me?

Will I, stripped of my defences, always find pain underneath? Will it always be grief behind the next door? Do I lack the reserves, lack the desire, lack the ability to sustain a connection to you?

These are unanswerable questions. But in our minds, how we feel about them matters. It makes the difference between hope and despair.

I feel like a monster.

I feel like a monster, because I am, in part, a monster. Inside me, part of me, defining me, is a reflection of the face that the world turned to me. And for me, that face was either silent, prescriptive or abusive.

Even in my silence (especially in my silence), I feel like a monster. I am a monster and I am becoming more chimeric every day, as I hacksaw these unacceptable pieces of me and stitch on new ones.

I don't know how to do this. Be me. I just know that part of that means being uncomfortable. Part of that means being anxious. Being afraid and alone, and with everyone against me. Or maybe not everyone. Except sometimes it might very well mean everyone. Today, it feels like everyone.

I need help.

But that's just the thing. What exactly does 'help' mean?

Thoughts on Anxiety

Why I am anxious:

• The last time I was in post-graduate education, I had a different background to my classmates. They isolated and teased me, and I’m too kind to call it harassment. This re-triggered (like PTSD) the extensive bullying I experienced in school. As such, I have an intense need to belong and be accepted by my peers.
• I have a ‘gifted’ temperament, which includes being highly motivated to learn (even borderline obsessive about it).
• I did not have many opportunities to build a sense of self, so being authentic means being vulnerable means opening myself up to more loss and disappointment. I am afraid of being abused and unseen again.
• I don’t meet your expectations.
• No matter how much I am, I’m never enough.

How my anxiety manifests:
• I become over-excited and talk too much, which in many cases just means talk (period).
• I become extra charming, pleasing, and helpful.
• I obsess about finding solutions and fixing things.
• I become restless, itching at my skin.
• I binge.
• My IBS is triggered.
• I become depersonalised.
• I get a migraine.
• I become dissatisfied, wanting to quit everything and run away.
• I become childlike and want to be taken care of.
• I cannot tolerate being touched.
• Praise, intimacy, love, or sex makes me uncomfortable.

Why I hide all of this from all of you:

• You are dangerous and I don’t trust you.
• You cannot help me.

how to stay (in one easy step): stay

It was Drew's turn to speak. He said he felt insecure. He said it felt like I was just waiting for him to leave me, and without a pause I said, "Yes." He winced. I felt gentle and open.

"Yes, I am waiting for you to leave me." I looked to the counsellor and saw her face transform into surprise. She said nothing. She waited. I looked back at Drew. His eyes were wet.

My parents left me. They left me for lesser things. So you can say, 'of course I love you unconditionally,' but what does that really mean? What does that really feel like? My parents also said they loved me. And they never had me in mind, especially when I needed them.

So yes, I am capable of attachment. I'm capable of attaching to people worth attaching to. People with strong, safe boundaries. People with room for me. People who know that saying 'I love you' means nothing compared to showing they love you. People who know that the only way to show someone you love them is to stay. Stay in the quiet moments. Stay in the angry moments. Stay in scary moments. Stay.

That is the only way I will learn how to stay.

Stay.

wanted Hope, given Despair

I became uncharacteristically emotional on twitter yesterday. The pain of the migraine and the concurrent anxiety were just too much. I know most of the migraine and physical pain is conversion disorder, but I don't really know how to convert it back into meaningful psychological pain that can be readily communicated and resolved. Once I become depersonalised (which is way before we get to the 'pain' stage of migraines) it seems impossible to solidify the emotions into something identifiable.

I still have a migraine. But it's worth noting that with each tweet, the pain lessened. I was sitting in my private office, simultaneously restraining myself and letting go. Tears were pouring down my face, and I refused to sob. I wanted to. I didn't. The walls are too thin.

hellojusteliza:
Listened to radio bit on Romanian orphans last night. I, with my middle-class life, should not have so much in common with children in care.

hellojusteliza:
I think perhaps the greatest trauma was not the bullying but everyone acting like it was fine because I could handle it.

hellojusteliza:
I am precisely what they made me: dissociated, perfectionist, self-sufficient. Monsters.

hellojusteliza:
You stupid people. No one is meant to handle abuse on their own, especially not a child. What you gave me wasn't hope; it was despair.

Some people make it look easy. Just throw out a few slurs, raise your voice, wave your fists, hit something, push someone in a corner, snarl at them behind their back, set them up to trip or fail, and kick them when they are down. Blame it all on them.

Do we ever have the right to be angry? My first psychotherapist nearly destroyed me by asking me to admit I was angry at her. And then somewhere in my files went the note that the first emotion I was able to admit to was anger. So my second psychotherapist, despite coyingly explaining how therapists never read files (prefer to get to know you first!), again suggested that anger is easy for me to recognise.

What?

It isn't. Not at all. 'Scared' was the first emotion I named to my psychotherapist. Anger is a word she put in my mouth. It's an important distinction, because anger is the very first emotion to be dissociated. It's too much, too impossible to deal with. And telling my therapist I was angry with her ripped my insides out. It was the beginning of the end of us, as she was more comfortable with pain than me. I boiled in it until the kettle finally tipped.

Can I let myself be angry?

I was never allowed anger. They want me to be a lovely, well-behaved, independent, intelligent, confident woman. Anger wasn't ever a part of that. By disallowing me the experience of being mean, rebellious, needy, stupid and vulnerable, they taught me that the only way I'll be appreciated in life is by:

putting a smile on my face (even when I am in pain)
following the rules (even when they are unfair)
being self-sufficient (even when help would lighten the load)
pretending I understand (even when I don't)
believing I can do it (even when I can't)

The worst part is how their frail, inadequate beliefs have infected me. Inside me is a version of Him (the Bullymonster) and a version of Her (the Control Freak) that keep tightening the noose around me, the more I try to do things differently.

I am angry. Or rather, I could be angry, if someone had ever made room for my anger the way I'm having to carve out room now. I am angry, and I'm angry because you never taught me how to be angry. So instead of being angry, I'm paralysed by a fear of hurting others like you hurt me, wondering if there is ever a right time or way of saying that I'm disappointed. That you disappointed me. That you hurt me. That you failed me. That you, you had responsibility for me, and you weren't enough. I wasn't enough for you, because you weren't enough for me. You weren't enough for yourself. And I will no longer be the container for your anger, your fear, your pain.

I wish it were as easy as believing it.

But I inherited that pain. It's in me whether I like it or not, and pretending otherwise is what got me in this dissociated mess. My parents denied their pain and fear, projected their insecurity and anger on to me, and I, I had no other choice. Be their sponge or... be their sponge. Suicide hasn't ever been on my menu, though I think often of it.

Yesterday, one of the girls I volunteer with climbed into my lap for the first time. I was breathless, and I wondered if this is how my mum felt, with me: overwhelmed by the presence of someone who needs you, someone vulnerable but also incredibly intelligent, someone capable of making their own choices. A Person.

The physical closeness was difficult for me. It reminded me how I would run from hugs as a toddler. How, the longer I went without touch, the harder it became to accept it. As a mature adult, I felt obligated to fulfill people's social expectations, but each time their arms went around me, I went inside myself. Not touched, not touched.

I missed the point completely.

And people look to me as though I am brilliant. How I know so much about being human! And yes, I notice a lot. I know a lot. But what I don't know is how to recognise and fulfil needs that I was never allowed to have, the greatest of these being physical intimacy.

So it happens I am a fully grown adult, and a child climbs into my lap of her own accord, wanting closeness with me, because she trusts me and needs me to help contain the feelings inside that overwhelmed her.

I sat, my face inches away, and watched as she declared "I like to punch the face of my doll". She punched the face of the doll. Then she turned to me and looked at me intently, watching for expression. But I, I am expressionless. "I like to punch my face." She demonstrates.

The conversation continued until it was interrupted by group activities, but the feeling lingers. Two weeks before, I noticed she was showing a False Self, and struggling at that, so I asked her about school and was floored to actually get past the mask. Her vulnerability was right in front of me as she quietly explained how unhappy she was. Again we were interrupted. I talked to the leader, she talked to the girl's parents, who cited an incident at school, but I can't help feeling like there is more going on...

She was poorly last week, so I told her that we missed her. Did she realise then, that she was in my mind, even when she was gone? Is that why she trusted me enough to want to share the feelings inside but not enough to avoid coding them in her play?

I wanted to be there for her. So when she went quiet as I asked how it made her feel, to punch herself in the face, I told her quietly that it made me feel sad to see her hurt herself. Something in me knew, though, that this wasn't enough. That this girl needed acceptance. She needed to know that I was okay with the punching. That I could handle the scary feeling inside her, even when she struggled to.

I won't see her for another two weeks and even then there's no guarantee she'll be there or that I'll have the time to spend with her that she needs. I suppose I need to learn how to let go, and trust that even the little time I have to spend with her is enough to show her that she does matter, that it is okay to share her feelings, and that there are people in the world who can cope. Who can show her how to cope.

Can I be one of those people?

Bullymonster, I hate you.

You are a mean, mean man.
And I can't beat you alone.

I survive.

But I can't beat you alone.

#IfICouldDoItOverAgain

hellojusteliza:
It's so strange. #IfICouldDoItOverAgain, I wouldn't. Who I am today is an achievement and each tomorrow adds to it.

There is a scene in Being Erica where she is sent back to her life post-accident, as though none of her therapy with Dr Tom ever took place. It drives Erica nearly over the bridge, until suddenly she realises that even though those experiences might have been a dream, they were still real to her. She still learned from them. The grief of being Unreal could be contained, so she could, even in the darkest hour, hold on the only Real thing that mattered: her Authentic Self.

Cheesy acting aside, it is a powerful moment, because Erica is whipped back to Dr Tom's office to learn that she passed the test. She will now become a doctor in training, helping others like Dr Tom helped her.

I'm reminded of an earlier, similar test when Erica was told to select a door which ultimately led into group therapy. At first she couldn't understand the task and followed Dr Tom through the door he chose. He gently chastised her for not appreciating her own agency: the power of a decision. Erica was bewildered: which door was she meant to choose? How can she choose if she doesn't know where the doors lead? Or what criteria form a good choice?

I commiserate with Erica. If faced with the same task, I would have failed too, in my own way: selecting a very fine door but ignoring completely my own desires and needs. In other words, I would have chosen someone else's door.

I've been through lots of doors, and by virtue of being chosen by me (for whatever reason) they've become my doors. #IfICouldDoItOverAgain, I wouldn't change the doors. What I am changing is my selection criteria.

It's an uncomfortable process (for example, losing a friend) but necessary. The only thing that will give me congruence, coherence and consistency is learning to be myself, for all the suffering and joy that it brings. The story is mine: mine to write and mine to share.

I took this step on faith, but I have to believe it was the right step to take. Nothing has been certain. Nothing ever was, and that is precisely why learning to feel secure in myself is so important. It is the only thing that will always be mine.

#IfICouldDoItOverAgain, I simply wouldn't.

It's taken me a long time to get here. I'm not happy. I'm not depressed. I'm not hung up on If Onlys. I'm not angry. And I don't deny: I'm sad. I'm tired. I sometimes make mistakes. I'm often scared. I'm not even close to the person I want to be. But I accept it. Today, I accept it.