It's time. At the risk of sounding crazy, I will tell you that I am crazy. I have written here and have managed to string together thoughts that are mostly cohesive. In this black and white, it looks fairly believable and even easy.
In color, it is not.
Color is my real life, played out and carefully hidden from most who know me. I thought I could write here and portray my version of black and white; the sterilized version.
But it is not the real me.
"Me" has hundreds of facets. And the more I try to hide those facets, the more I struggle. I am on the brink of checking myself into a hospital. I don't write that to sound alarming because it's not. Not in the traditional sense that is...
My head is loud, even screaming at times. My husband doesn't really understand it. I don't know that many do and it's no ones fault either. But it is loud and I have nearly reached the point of talking myself into getting inpatient help. I am not suicidal; I know how hurtful that is firsthand. But I am in a great deal of pain. Mentally, emotionally, and even physically.
I originally began writing here for me; a place to collect my thoughts and assemble my feelings. But in this black and white, I have shut out the rest of me and that was wrong. I was able to purge here and then click that little "X" in the corner and close the window of my feelings. It was easy to do because I am only one facet.
I have an official diagnosis; one that I would be horrified if most around me knew. Here, I am somewhat anonymous which is good and bad. Bad because I can filter what I write; good because I can actually be honest.
So here is honest: I have dissociative identity disorder combined with major depressive disorder. I'm not Hollywood-like, I am not "Sybil" or "Eve", and no, my head doesn't spin or my face contort. Like my blog name, I am shattered. We are all born like a fine china plate. Most parents love and protect their fine gifts of children. All plates eventually have chips and dings while others are fractured.
Then there are others who are shattered.
My china plate was dirtied by abuse; think dried, stuck-on, or greasy food. It's hard enough to clean a dirty plate that has been neglected and sitting in the sink for a few days. It's even harder to clean a dirty plate that has been broken into many pieces. Most of us would throw away such a dirty and broken plate.
I have worked very hard for nearly 4 years to clean and glue my pieces back together. It's a hell of a process. Broken pieces are sharp; they cut the hands of those who handle, love, and care for me. In times of crisis, I even cut my own hands in my frantic efforts to gather and sweep my pieces away... to make myself "look" better. My hands are cut, figuratively, right now.
I will stop for now but I did want to take a moment to be broken and honest.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Nine
So I got my ass kicked in therapy the other night... I got a not so subtle push from my therapist to get moving in the right direction again. I guess I have been at some sort of a plateau as of late but sometimes I don't see that as all bad either. However, the longer I stay in one place emotionally, the more I realize that where I am is not where I want to remain.
It's almost sad; I am in a better place than I have ever been in my life. I have a great husband, an amazing daughter, a home, a job, food, and even a great dog. But the other night when my therapist asked if I was happy, as much as I wanted to answer "yes", I knew that my answer was "no". How much of a spoiled brat do I sound like right now? Probably a pretty big one.
Where my feelings diverge is where happy and grateful form a fork in the road. I truly am grateful for what I have. I am safe for the first time in my life. Seriously. But in my mental peripheral vision, I have blind spots and shadows. My depth perception and judgement are clouded and compromised. I have a lingering sadness in my heart.
I'm great at faking. I fake my way through my work day. I'm a VP at one of the largest corporations in the world and I do my job very well. I keep my husband laughing when we are together. I'm also a pretty good mom. But I'm a faker and I crumble when no one is looking. I could probably go through life continuing to fake my feelings but I don't think that would yield the relationships that I desire. Good but not great.
I have homework this week. Spend nine minutes telling my husband how I feel. Literally saying the words "I feel ______". He gets to listen and say nothing and then after those nine minutes, it's his turn. He is good at this assignment; I am not. That's why it is my homework and not his.
Feelings are messy. The first night we did this we got into a fight. We rarely fight. I also rarely share my feelings. I hope that is merely a coincidence and nothing more. I get nervous talking about how I feel. I'm afraid I will say something that will hurt; I'm afraid I will get hurt.
Another side effect of this assignment is the horrific nightmares and flashbacks I have been having. More intense than usual and the images stick with me long after the nightmare or flashback has finished. I guess that untapped feelings = untapped memories. I've tried all this before and after a few days I would quit. The feelings and memories were just too strong. This time however, I'm stronger.
The larger point in this exercise was for me to learn to express my feelings. But what I didn't expect was the growth in my relationship with my husband. Today was day four of the assignment and I can honestly say that I feel closer to him and more loved by him than ever before. I didn't expect this result but it makes me want to keep going.
Day five is tomorrow and I am almost looking forward to those nine minutes.
It's almost sad; I am in a better place than I have ever been in my life. I have a great husband, an amazing daughter, a home, a job, food, and even a great dog. But the other night when my therapist asked if I was happy, as much as I wanted to answer "yes", I knew that my answer was "no". How much of a spoiled brat do I sound like right now? Probably a pretty big one.
Where my feelings diverge is where happy and grateful form a fork in the road. I truly am grateful for what I have. I am safe for the first time in my life. Seriously. But in my mental peripheral vision, I have blind spots and shadows. My depth perception and judgement are clouded and compromised. I have a lingering sadness in my heart.
I'm great at faking. I fake my way through my work day. I'm a VP at one of the largest corporations in the world and I do my job very well. I keep my husband laughing when we are together. I'm also a pretty good mom. But I'm a faker and I crumble when no one is looking. I could probably go through life continuing to fake my feelings but I don't think that would yield the relationships that I desire. Good but not great.
I have homework this week. Spend nine minutes telling my husband how I feel. Literally saying the words "I feel ______". He gets to listen and say nothing and then after those nine minutes, it's his turn. He is good at this assignment; I am not. That's why it is my homework and not his.
Feelings are messy. The first night we did this we got into a fight. We rarely fight. I also rarely share my feelings. I hope that is merely a coincidence and nothing more. I get nervous talking about how I feel. I'm afraid I will say something that will hurt; I'm afraid I will get hurt.
Another side effect of this assignment is the horrific nightmares and flashbacks I have been having. More intense than usual and the images stick with me long after the nightmare or flashback has finished. I guess that untapped feelings = untapped memories. I've tried all this before and after a few days I would quit. The feelings and memories were just too strong. This time however, I'm stronger.
The larger point in this exercise was for me to learn to express my feelings. But what I didn't expect was the growth in my relationship with my husband. Today was day four of the assignment and I can honestly say that I feel closer to him and more loved by him than ever before. I didn't expect this result but it makes me want to keep going.
Day five is tomorrow and I am almost looking forward to those nine minutes.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Scabs
So, I started a new job last month and I actually made a friend in my office. That may not seem like much of a feat but for me it is because I have a distinct lack of friends in my life. This new friend left work suddenly the other day. About an hour later, she calls me and she is sobbing. The short story is that her mom tried to kill herself. My friend was following the ambulance to the hospital when she called me.
She doesn't know me that well or my background. Why she called me, I'm not sure. What I do know is that I'm probably the most ill-equipped person to talk someone else through a situation like this.
Her mom is fine now and is mad as hell at my friend. I've been in her shoes as the daughter of an angry, suicidal mother and it hurts to watch her go through this. It hurts almost too much to be considered a supportive friend. I have since told her that I have been through situations similar to what she is going through and I honestly thought that would be the end of my help for her in this ordeal.
But it didn't stop there and now I'm walking through this with a friend I hardly know, albeit I'm getting to know her better, and my own feelings are so strong that my chest hurts. I haven't been able to actually sort out the exact words for these feelings; all I can say is that suicide is an awful solution to any problem. It doesn't just hurt the person who is making the attempt...
Almost selfishly, this events of this week have pulled a few of my own scabs off. I want to tell my friend exactly what I think about her mother's actions but I know that would not be helpful or healthy. But as I type this I'm surprised by my anger towards my friend's mother and I wonder why I can't seem to be angry about my own situation.
She doesn't know me that well or my background. Why she called me, I'm not sure. What I do know is that I'm probably the most ill-equipped person to talk someone else through a situation like this.
Her mom is fine now and is mad as hell at my friend. I've been in her shoes as the daughter of an angry, suicidal mother and it hurts to watch her go through this. It hurts almost too much to be considered a supportive friend. I have since told her that I have been through situations similar to what she is going through and I honestly thought that would be the end of my help for her in this ordeal.
But it didn't stop there and now I'm walking through this with a friend I hardly know, albeit I'm getting to know her better, and my own feelings are so strong that my chest hurts. I haven't been able to actually sort out the exact words for these feelings; all I can say is that suicide is an awful solution to any problem. It doesn't just hurt the person who is making the attempt...
Almost selfishly, this events of this week have pulled a few of my own scabs off. I want to tell my friend exactly what I think about her mother's actions but I know that would not be helpful or healthy. But as I type this I'm surprised by my anger towards my friend's mother and I wonder why I can't seem to be angry about my own situation.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Failed
At the risk of sounding completely crazy... I see dead people. I know there's some sort of psycho-babble term for it; "ghosting" or something of that sort. So if it has a term then perhaps I'm not completely crazy. Right?
My most confused and contorted feelings of recent years are in regards to losing my sister and my mother. I like saying that I lost them; like we were all at a shopping mall and we got separated within the clothes racks at Macy's. But we didn't. I actually didn't lose them at all. They left.
It's been nearly four years since my baby sister ended her torment on her own terms. She always refused to confront the truth about our childhood, our home, and our family. Instead I was the crazy one; the angry sister; the disgruntled daughter. She and my mother routinely joined forces in an attempt to cover my truth and twist them into lies. It hurt. Hurt like it did as a child when I was told that even if I did tell, no one would believe me. In the end it was lies that killed my sister. My mother too.
My sister shot herself in the head. I have since learned that that act is uncommon for a female to carry out. I think it shows the enormity of her pain. She lingered in this world for a few days. Long enough for me to sit by her side and listen to my mother spew that she wished it had been me in that bed. Long enough for my father to make passes at me; at the fucking hospital of all places where my sister, his daughter, was approaching death. Sarcasm: my family reeks of appropriateness.
My mother exited this world a few days later. Overdose. The hateful part of me wonders all too clearly if she just couldn't stand to be upstaged by my sister. I went from a painful existence within a family to nothing. I was alone with my daughter and I couldn't get away from my father fast enough. As ugly as it sounds, for the first time in my life, I felt like I had a real chance for a life.
I went to work the days after both their deaths. I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't wrap my mind around who to grieve for first. Do I do it in death order? By age? By who I loved the most? I've been told that those feelings are referred to as complex grief. "Complex" is a polite word for you have a fucked up family and now they are dead.
What they did is called a suicide cluster. I can't lie and say that I wasn't tempted to join their exclusive little group. I saw that their problems went away. But in reality their problems might have disappeared but a whole new set of problems were pushed onto me. Ultimately, I knew that I couldn't pile my own problems upon my sweet daughter.
For nearly a week I have been seeing my sister. Not as I would like to remember her either. She stands there, holding a piece of her skull, brains, and blood in her hands. She is asking me to fix her head. I can barely stand to look at her and the ugly part of me wants to tell her to fuck off. Nice, I know. But she did it to herself and I am so very tired of cleaning up messes that only hurt me more in the end. I told her the other night in therapy to go away because I couldn't help her. My therapist said that I did good a good job. She left but I am still struggling with my response to her.
I always took care of her. I brought my father upon myself to keep him away from her. When she was very young, I would get her out of her own toddler bed and put her into bed with me. I wasn't more than 6 years old but in my child's mind I believed that we would be safe together. We were until he came in and moved her over to get to me. But when he was done, at least I knew that she was with me and he would not be walking into her room next.
I need to stop here because in many ways, I still feel that in her death the ultimate statement was made that I failed to protect her; failed to keep her safe. I'll pick this up later when I can string my words together in a sequence that makes sense because right now, everything is getting very jumbled up...
My most confused and contorted feelings of recent years are in regards to losing my sister and my mother. I like saying that I lost them; like we were all at a shopping mall and we got separated within the clothes racks at Macy's. But we didn't. I actually didn't lose them at all. They left.
It's been nearly four years since my baby sister ended her torment on her own terms. She always refused to confront the truth about our childhood, our home, and our family. Instead I was the crazy one; the angry sister; the disgruntled daughter. She and my mother routinely joined forces in an attempt to cover my truth and twist them into lies. It hurt. Hurt like it did as a child when I was told that even if I did tell, no one would believe me. In the end it was lies that killed my sister. My mother too.
My sister shot herself in the head. I have since learned that that act is uncommon for a female to carry out. I think it shows the enormity of her pain. She lingered in this world for a few days. Long enough for me to sit by her side and listen to my mother spew that she wished it had been me in that bed. Long enough for my father to make passes at me; at the fucking hospital of all places where my sister, his daughter, was approaching death. Sarcasm: my family reeks of appropriateness.
My mother exited this world a few days later. Overdose. The hateful part of me wonders all too clearly if she just couldn't stand to be upstaged by my sister. I went from a painful existence within a family to nothing. I was alone with my daughter and I couldn't get away from my father fast enough. As ugly as it sounds, for the first time in my life, I felt like I had a real chance for a life.
I went to work the days after both their deaths. I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't wrap my mind around who to grieve for first. Do I do it in death order? By age? By who I loved the most? I've been told that those feelings are referred to as complex grief. "Complex" is a polite word for you have a fucked up family and now they are dead.
What they did is called a suicide cluster. I can't lie and say that I wasn't tempted to join their exclusive little group. I saw that their problems went away. But in reality their problems might have disappeared but a whole new set of problems were pushed onto me. Ultimately, I knew that I couldn't pile my own problems upon my sweet daughter.
For nearly a week I have been seeing my sister. Not as I would like to remember her either. She stands there, holding a piece of her skull, brains, and blood in her hands. She is asking me to fix her head. I can barely stand to look at her and the ugly part of me wants to tell her to fuck off. Nice, I know. But she did it to herself and I am so very tired of cleaning up messes that only hurt me more in the end. I told her the other night in therapy to go away because I couldn't help her. My therapist said that I did good a good job. She left but I am still struggling with my response to her.
I always took care of her. I brought my father upon myself to keep him away from her. When she was very young, I would get her out of her own toddler bed and put her into bed with me. I wasn't more than 6 years old but in my child's mind I believed that we would be safe together. We were until he came in and moved her over to get to me. But when he was done, at least I knew that she was with me and he would not be walking into her room next.
I need to stop here because in many ways, I still feel that in her death the ultimate statement was made that I failed to protect her; failed to keep her safe. I'll pick this up later when I can string my words together in a sequence that makes sense because right now, everything is getting very jumbled up...
Friday, July 17, 2009
Break
Break. Brake. Stop. I needed a break; needed to apply the emergency brake. I needed to stop. I don't know that I'm a person easily overwhelmed because I can truly say that I juggle many items/issues/people/jobs everyday. But sometimes I do get overwhelmed and it's ugly when that happens. It's something of a breakdown; or brakedown. Either way, life comes to a screeching halt.
I always resurface but I can't really say that I'm refreshed. I ran hard in the other direction but here I am, in the same place, still being forced to face all the voices that tell me that I'm not good enough, undeserving, ill-fitting...
Spring and Summer are hard for me. Beginning with Mother's Day, followed by my late sister's birthday, Father's Day and then my father's birthday; all reminders of what is missing, what has been lost.
I struggle with wanting to fix what is broken and cleaning up messes that I have no business even touching. In this process, I lose myself. I don't take care of myself and then, before I know it, the brake is being pulled and I am caught in some sort of mental purgatory. It is a tough place to be but it does motivate me to press forward because I sure as hell know that stopped is not where I want to be.
So, I'm back. I can't say that I'm new and improved but I am more determined to heal and become a version of myself that I can be proud of.
I always resurface but I can't really say that I'm refreshed. I ran hard in the other direction but here I am, in the same place, still being forced to face all the voices that tell me that I'm not good enough, undeserving, ill-fitting...
Spring and Summer are hard for me. Beginning with Mother's Day, followed by my late sister's birthday, Father's Day and then my father's birthday; all reminders of what is missing, what has been lost.
I struggle with wanting to fix what is broken and cleaning up messes that I have no business even touching. In this process, I lose myself. I don't take care of myself and then, before I know it, the brake is being pulled and I am caught in some sort of mental purgatory. It is a tough place to be but it does motivate me to press forward because I sure as hell know that stopped is not where I want to be.
So, I'm back. I can't say that I'm new and improved but I am more determined to heal and become a version of myself that I can be proud of.
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