Me Time

As I mentioned, I was so abused as a child that, although I'm amazingly functional now at 40, I'm developmentally in my 20s. My husband is about my age, but he's set in his ways and concerned about security, while I want to express myself and embrace independence.  Further, though, I'm an ISFP: a freedom-loving, live-and-let-live kindof introvert. I need alone time, uninterrupted, to process life. If I'm allowed "me time" (and that's not work or the commute), I find I'm excited about "us time", but if I'm not, I'm struggling to squeeze bits of "me time" into every second and doing "us time" because I *have to* makes nobody is happy. 

I'm working full time now, which is a stresser - dealing with people so much. Then I come home and deal with someone all the time when I want silence to recoup from a long day full of people. 

I understand a person has needs, but I feel like I'm about to explode and it's not his fault for wanting companionship out of (god forbid) a relationship. When I'm running in the red in my socialization tank, though, I just can't do it.

He says I need to tell him when I need time alone and for how long, specifically. He does it, "I'm going to go do this now." I have to. I'm so not used to being so blunt; it's... disturbing. I guess it's having learned not to say no, but it's what I need. 

I have to admit, I'm also a bit resentful since I'm unable to express myself as I need to due to his need for security. My tattoos are an important part of my identity now, and being stifled in that area is really, really holding back my development and making me explode everywhere else. My shopping has been out of control, trying to express myself in other ways. I'm trying to reign it in, because that could be tattoo money... that is, if I believed it ever will be. He says we have to just budget for it, and that's all there is to it. The budget is looking better, but I've been both exploding and losing hope.

Anyway, something needs to work out. Schedules, money, whatever. We're trying to make the cats happy in their environment; I want to be happy too. :-(

~DC

I Ain't Hatin'

I don't know why people think I hate men.

Maybe it's because people who were abused by men tend to? I don't know. To me, like everyone else on the planet, everyone is different. While I'll admit to an irrational fear of balding men, since most men who abused me were, I'm convinced all pedophiles are balding; I know

rationally that can't be true. 

Like one person of one race or religion or culture, the behavior of a few people of one gender doesn't speak for them all. I, of all people, know that there are individuals going "Hey, not all <enter race/religion/gender/orientation> is like/likes <stereotype>, and screw you for thinking we all do."

So, no. Men are the best, oddly. One messed me up in ways I will never entirely recover from, but it's my mother who iced that cake. He was under age, in her care too. She knew, and continues to know what he's capable of. She didn't raise a finger. She kept me quiet. She eventually contradicted everything I screamed. She turned everything I asserted back around and made me the bad guy. I was evil for accusing her of any failure, and how dare I! 

Hattie Dorsett in Sybil, a movie I relate to ALL too well.

She had it in her hands to stop it. She didn't. She let me know she never wanted me, and let it continue as if she were punishing me for failing to die before I was born. My brother, meanwhile, punished me to get back at her for having me. What a wonderful web.

Woman haters.

I've seen my mother in other women, though. Where men generally seem to be rational, open-minded, and naturally protective, the women in my life have been combinations of irrational, jealous, and spiteful. From what I've seen of the "Feminist" movement lately, this isn't limited to women in my life. :-/ (Again, I know not all women are like this. I'm not. There just seems to be a trend t'word it, and... I'm just unlucky.)

In any case, I find it harder, by leaps and bounds, to give women trust, and yet my doctors fear giving me a male Doctor.

Tough & Sexy. My kind of heroine.

No. Please do.

It's just an assumption, I guess, that, being abused by men, that you'll cling to women. It's like the assumption that, as a woman, you'll agree with other women, or that you want children, or that you're "closer to nature", or that you find porn evil, or that you need approval from others, or that you find chain mail bikinis offensive, or that you want to clean toilets.

No. I ain't hatin'. I'm rational. I just accept that I have irrational thoughts sometimes based on my past. Knowing helps.

~DC

Kindred Spirits in Housekeeper Hell

I found a post from a horrible housekeeper with PTSD today: MENTAL housekeeping - the diary of a working housewife with PTSD

It really helps me that she's with a woman.

I've been thinking about it a lot  - being in a subservient position and how much that has ALWAYS disturbed me. The men in my relationships have always expected me to do the cleaning - one to the point that the day after we married, he plopped in front of the TV and I didn't exist anymore. He expected to fall asleep in his chair and get food and clean dishes like his dad did. It always earned a boatload of resentment. My second husband just wanted me to work where he could see me. This one says I just "should want to".

But I don't. I never have, well, except for my first lady love. Man, I was such a lap dog. I'm sure that'd pass right quick if gay marriage had been legal. :-/ I guess that's why she was stringing me along, though. Of course, 15 some-odd years later, the next lady wanted to stay home, and bless her, some gals do. (Then again, I'm not a normal girl.) I can only express my whole-hearted desire to want to be the yang to her yin. I wanted to work, and earn, and give her the world. We'd be partners.

That's what my husband says he wants, but he doesn't see how my being gay really messes with this perspective. Whether or not the abuse played any part doesn't matter; that's many decades beyond debate. It's not a fetish, or a "political statement", or a choice; it's how I relate fundamentally. (And, sure, I suppose the people who wield it as a political statement are ruining it's credibility for those of us who are sincerely attracted to our own gender for the same reasons straight people are.)

What I need to pull off any relationship, especially one that feels unnatural and unequal, is equality of choice. We both need to be able to embrace the roles we need to be in, and fill the ones that we suck at and make us wish we were dead. It's like hiring a carpenter because you know you both suck at it and wouldn't check it as a career option on a job site. BUT, I'm not given a choice. I'm the girl. Girls clean toilets.

I see how this woman helps me, though. She has a lot of the same reactions that I do, like constant anxiety over expecting severe punishment. She beats herself up all the time and flashbacks take her down hard. She's transgender, and has gone through a lot of personal and marital issues due to her sexuality. 

Like my last post, she made cleaning about taking care of herself, and, it sounds like, in healing, she cleaned house in more ways than one. Go her. 

I'm beginning to think the growth and healing process is inevitable once it's really begun. It's like the huge-ass boulder chasing Indiana Jones: it gains speed until it's done, and nobody is going to stand in the way. 

~DC

"Its not a sacrifice to be with me, or to love or be loved by me. My femaleness is not a curse, my prettiness is not a slap in anyone's face, my womanly voice is not an affectation or a subtle form of sarcasm. Facial hair removal is not a selfish indulgence. SRS is not a terrible irreversible mistake I may later regret. Transition is not a clever way of getting out of commitments, a form of midlife crisis, or a desperate attempt to get sex. I reject the assertion that I can never be a real woman. A woman is the only thing I have ever been, even though I hid from it for many years. I do have needs. I do have feelings. I do have passions. I do have fears. I am real. Pinocchio does not have strings." Maddy, or someone who understands, if not from a different angle.

The Sum and the Parts

I just realized for the first time that today, September 14, 2013, I feel like a whole person. It's a strange experience. 

I had a huge Disassociative Disorder, to the point where, I spent most of my life viewing myself like I was someone else looking at me. If I were walking, dressing, bending, or having sex, it was all in third person - outside of my body. Things still happened to me and I watched, like a movie. I guess I still protected myself then.

My next step was in the late 2000s when I finally stepped into my head. Where I used to dress to please others, I dress to please me and screw the world. It's also when I began modeling to please me too. I broke off from what I'd done before and made it a hobby - solely from the heart, for the sake of creativity and not to impress anyone but myself. I've done my best work since.

There's one thing that I didn't realize I needed to overcome: my bosom.  I had no idea how much I relied on it for approval until today. Modeling, for me, has weighed heavily on them as a draw. People flip if I do one photo without them in it, and to that I've said, "hey, they can't all have it." Now, though, that pressure is entirely gone. 

In the week since my mega-flashback, I've worn more conservative tops where I never had before without noting until, well, I noticed. Before then, I felt "wrong" if I weren't showing several cups of cleavage, and creepy if I weren't. This week, however, though I've been cleavage-free, I've been snappily-dressed, and charming, creative, helpful, and smart. This week I realized I didn't need them. They're like... the flashy part distracting from the substantial sum.

I doesn't mean I'll ever resort to minimizers or, like, never show them ever again. From my life I can truthfully say people who get their undies in a bunch over someone appreciating a grown woman's cleavage have no fricking idea what real problems are.

... but, that said, they're not my crutch anymore.  

~DC

Song of the Selfish

My whole life I've heard that word: selfish. I can't pretend it doesn't hurt. When I was a kid, I didn't have a choice. Looking back, I had to make hard decisions that nobody should have ever had to make like do you get raped or does somebody else. It was just another mind game he liked to play, and when you're young, and been through it, of course you aren't going to choose yourself because you can't take any more.

Of course, later in life, my cousin talks about all she did to protect me and until recently I had no idea what she meant, but I do remember over and over how often she "reminded" me how "selfish" I was.


I hear it today too, too often. It's tended to break my spirit. It's when I saw this quote here ---------->
I came to understand why. It's a misunderstanding of how I relate, since I've never been cared for, since I've had to make these tough choices. It's my need to feel loved and the only love I've known was either those who broke my trust in the worst ways, my dad who showed affection though buying it, or my husband who shows affection mainly through financial support and tends to shy from expressions of distress. 

Through most of my life I've loathed myself, and, yes, at some point I accepted myself physically,  but not as a whole. That came recently (and those moments of insecurity, as you've read, never stay away entirely). Still, I begun to show my self-respect by treating my nails so I can't tear my skin off like I do or treating myself to facials to making sure my hair is dyed and so on. It's how I am surviving; it's how I'm finally crawling out of the pit. It's not that I don't care about debt and bills; it's that I need to get better. Treating myself like a human, who deserves to be here, is so goddamned important. 

My therapist goes on and on about my myriads of talents, knowledge, experience, and crazy-high i.q., so... I'm getting a real job. I guess it'll be around people more often and use my powers for good. Hopefully, when I'm doing my thing, I'll have enough confidence that it won't cost so much to survive, but we all need to do what we can to live another day. 

~DC

An Enema For What Ails

You'd think after what I'd been through yesterday, I'd be in bed, in the fetal position, rocking back and forth and blubbering my finger over my lips. You'd think. I'd think.

Right after that third wave, I'd have put money on that. Funny.

After my staring spell I needed to go out. It was important. After several stiff drinks, and even after they wore off, I found myself more determined to succeed as I am on my own terms. It wasn't so much as if the flashbacks had never happened, but more like... my brain had released a huge clog and it was more open that it had been in years. 

Sure, I feel numb, but numbness toward my past is good. It's the future I need to be in and if I can't do what makes me happy here and now, the bad guys win. 

So, how about I not let that happen?

~DC

Scratching the Wall

Ah, Sam. In hell, I see.

In the show "Supernatural", Sam Winchester went to hell, but he came back and had a barrier placed in his mind to prevent him from reliving the horrors he'd witnessed there. He was warned, however, not to scratch that wall, however, because it would all come rushing out and he would never be the same. 

The actual show reality didn't quite live up to the super-cool threat, but the idea here is the same. 

Shortly after the third wave, I sat down to talk about it and suddenly memory after worse and worse memory came flooding into my head. I remember telling my husband, since I speak a lot in metaphor, that "I must have scratched the wall". 

I saw clips, moments, flashes in time that I couldn't place one after another after another.... and at some point, I froze.

I don't know how long I was out, but it happened again. It's been 4 years since my last staring spell - since the last time my mind came across something it couldn't handle that badly. The next thing I knew he was tugging at my arm, which fell limp. I tried to move, but I couldn't. I tried to talk, but I couldn't. Everything within me pulled me back in, like mud pulling me back under. I knew I was holding a can and I couldn't move my hand. I saw him waving his hand in front of my face and I couldn't acknowledge it. He whistled and told me it was my mind - that I could pull myself out.

Cat therapy.

Ultimately, it was the meow of my darling cat that snapped me to. I relate to this one. Her big brother chases her and bullies her and she whines about it a lot. I protect and coddle and baby her; I feel like she needs me, so when I heard her little cry I suppose that instinct kicked in. I blinked a lot and sat up enough to watch her, and she made me smile. 

I remembered so much in so little time. It was like I'd been through 3 years of flashbacks, and yet I know I'd forgotten more than I'd seen. It was more than enough, though.

I saw his fetish for doggie-style while forcing me to eat dog biscuits  and the felt the pain I got if I stopped. I felt the pain of anal rape and yeah, dual penetration with one, or more, of his friends; I don't know - I didn't see a face. I've had bags over my head, I've been held underwater, I've had my face in dirt, shit, god... it's all just clips. If it were meant to desensitize me maybe it might just work. 


Obviously I couldn't handle something at some point there. Obviously I was overloaded, but at this point... maybe the barrage is for the best. In Psychology class I learned they sometimes do a thing called "exposure therapy" to desensitize a person from a phobia by overwhelming them with it - like spiders, or heights. 

Maybe I need a nice, big old scar there. Gods know I've earned it.

~DC

Third Wave

It happened: another flashback. It wasn't what I expected, either.

I kept hearing "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" in my head and I felt in my gut that it was wedging one in, so I kept blocking it with another song. It was resilient, though, and kept coming back. 

What I didn't expect at all was another song to shove its way in, as if through a back door, and BAM. 

I'd always held the memory of me running through his room when I was... 7 or so. He'd moved downstairs off the dining room. I really don't know anything surrounding the move, but I know I was running around his bed and I knew I shouldn't be there. I was having fun. The radio was on and "Run Like the Wind" was playing. So, yeah, it was silly. The memory ended there.

The flashback started there. 

He rushed in like a tornado. He grabbed me by the throat, as he apparently loved to do, and picked me up. Didn't he tell me I wasn't allowed in there? Now he'd have to make me pay. He threw me down and, keeping his hand on my throat, digging it into the mattress, he went to rape me. JUST as he started he must have heard the front door open. (I couldn't hear a thing with my head so shoved down.) He pulled out and pulled me up. It was time to make like everything was normal, though by now I knew at least my mom knew better.

Smile and pretend. Smile and pretend. Smile and pretend. It's the story of my life: smile and pretend. I suppose it's how I survived and how I honed my people skills, but at the core I'm someone they probably won't ever know even if they are my friend. 

Smile and pretend. Everything is okay. Really.

~DC

Things Yet Forgotten

Lately, I've had one hell of a lot of trouble with my coccyx. Yes, it is a fun word to say: coccyx. Try it.

In a nut shell, it's my tailbone - the lowermost tip. The past 4 days it's been making life very difficult. Besides nigh unbearable pain, I haven't been able to bend most of the time. I can now, but when I do, well, there's the nausea. The pain has crept up half of my back, too. 

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time this has flared up. I went to the doctor about it a couple of years back. Now, I've shared that I was abused, but not any details, so when the always cheery man who wears bright patterns to work nodded grimly at me and said that was common among adults who'd suffered anal trauma as a child. It very well could have been fractured at the time.

Now, I remember playing double-penetration with my girlfriends when I was 10 or so, and I know there's no a way a child that age should have any concept of that. So...

I just don't recall anything like that. Still, there's so much pain and so much behavior I understand now that I didn't a few years ago. 

Before my first surgery, I cramped for months upon months, but I had the flashbacks to guide me to the problem. I'm not saying I want them; some things I feel I'm better off not knowing. My mind seems to be guiding me to them, though.

I've had two in the past 3 weeks and now I'm seeing "cracks in the wall" to another. I'm hearing a song over and over and I keep trying to counter it with another, like I had with the Rod Stewart song he played. I keep trying to plug up the holes in the dam, but I feel it's all related to this pain and my mind is telling me it's time - like it or not.

After the last 2, I feel like barrages of waves are rolling me over and it's ultimately time to be sunk by them or ride the wave. Sadly, I'd likely feel more like surfing if it didn't hurt so much to stand. :-P

~DC

Cue Dexter Intro

It begins the same way every week: 

Scenes of a serial killer preparing for his morning... but menacingly. Ketchup spatters across

his breakfast, his blade slashes across his eggs, his shirt pulls over his face as if to suffocate him, and the stings of his shoes cut into his hands like a garrote. His eyes throughout reflect nothing, or perhaps simply a primal instinct.  ... Yet when he emerges from his door, you see an every-day, unassuming man in a polo shirt, and a pleasant smile crosses his face. 

 It was one of those moments that I was (unsuccessfully) lying down for a nap when I realized that my life was also a Dexter intro. Of course, I'm no serial killer, but my life indoors and out are just as starkly different. 

Perhaps it's years of isolation. Somehow I recall home and work being much more similar. But now, it goes like this:

Scenes of an on-again-off-again model preparing her morning: cats crawl on her head while she tries to sleep, her hand slaps the snooze button at 11 a.m., she eats breakfast at 1 p.m., she answers emails at 2 p.m., she naps at 2:30 p.m., she sits and thinks until 3 pm., and she cleans in a disorganized fashion until 4 p.m. ... Yet when she emerges, she looks absolutely perfect and smiles like she can take on the world.

Everyone thinks I have it together. The funny thing is, the more I'm out of the house, the more I feel I do too. I have so many skills I use out there, and here I have nothing but time to wallow and sink.

Man, I need to get out more. :-P

~DC

Synapse in a Brainstack

I started looking into how many cases of PTSD there were in the country today, and how many might be caused by what. It was all started by a stupid foodie conversation about the Gluten-free fad, really, and it probably should have ended there.

I had never known life with a memory captured only in small, non-coinciding fragments, before the age of 14. I remember very clearly my Mom telling me I was a mistake and wishing I'd never been born, for example, and I remember the bathroom we were in to a tee, but I don't remember the day, month, or year. I remember her clearly telling my third grade teacher "no" when asked if she'd seen signs of abuse at home. I remember always being disassociated, falling into staring spells that lasted for hours.  I remember losing myself into a collective of personalities only to lose them and find myself looking at myself in third person (I only just got to where I'm entirely in my own body looking through my eyes). And, once forced to recognize the staring spells for the dam that they were, once the dam cracked, I haven't known life without flashbacks and constant, jaw-clenching anxiety. 

Somehow I've managed to, well, manage, and even succeed, but sometimes I feel like it's all dangling on a thread. 

~DC

PS: Here's some things I found:

-Child protection services in the U.S. get around 3 million reports each year. This involves 5.5 million children. Of the reported cases, there is proof of abuse in about 30%. From these cases, we have an idea how often different types of abuse occur:

• 65% neglect
• 18% physical abuse
• 10% sexual abuse
• 7% psychological (mental) abuse
•  (Note: It is thought that two-thirds of child abuse cases, like mine, are not reported.)

-Three factors have been shown to raise the chances that children will get PTSD. These factors are:

• How severe the trauma is
• How the parents react to the trauma
• How close or far away the child is from the trauma

-Children and teens that go through the most severe traumas tend to have the highest levels of PTSD symptoms. The PTSD symptoms may be less severe if the child has more family support and if the parents are less upset by the trauma. Lastly, children and teens who are farther away from the event report less distress.

Other factors can also affect PTSD. Events that involve people hurting other people, such as rape and assault, are more likely to result in PTSD than other types of traumas. Also, the more traumas a child goes through, the higher the risk of getting PTSD. 

Besides PTSD, children and teens that have gone through trauma often have other types of problems. Much of what we know about the effects of trauma on children comes from the research on child sexual abuse. This research shows that sexually abused children often have problems with

• fear, worry, sadness, anger, feeling alone and apart from others, feeling as if people are looking down on them, low self-worth, and not being able to trust others
• behaviors such as aggression, out-of-place sexual behavior, self-harm

information courtesy of www.ptsd.va.gov

Fallout

Today I feel like a baby taking first steps; my center is all off. At times like this I wonder if I have one.

I'm downloading and installing a game that's taken nearly two days and it's only given more more times to sink into my shell. Anything could distract me for a moment, it seems the more I need someone, the more alone I am.

One song keeps playing in my mind, the chorus specifically:

How can we dance when our earth is turning?
How do we sleep while our beds are burning?

It's times like these that my I feel I'm weebling on my whole crumbling foundation. I feel just like that.

Intellectually, I know this will change; I know I need to make sure it does sooner than later.

Right now... 

~DC  

Flashbacks R Us

So I've been officially declared not Bi-Polar and taken off of those drugs. Yay. My anti-depressants have been kicked up and I haven't flown through the roof or anything.

I've had two flashbacks since this new regimen and, well, I was on vacation during the first. I was able to acknowledge it and walk past it. I kindof had a feeling it was coming - like cracks in the wall had been showing, but I couldn't see the whole picture. The one I had today just came in a rush and I feel like I've been hit with a hammer again. 

I never thought anything like that happened, or when it did, and I was totally taken by surprise.
Fuck.

I'm having a hard time writing, or thinking, but I thought, just maybe, getting it out would help somehow. I just can't let this take me down.... again.

I suppose the first one might have been easier because it was a slow reveal. I had a feeling about it, then little bits of a scene, before I saw it all. I still don't have the complete context as to why he did it.

I originally remember the official story: his cat had gotten out and disappeared. What I remembered now (the real story) was that he walked she and I down to the river and smashed her head in front of me as a reminder to keep my mouth shut. Then he threw her in and made sure I told everyone she went missing. The thing is, I really don't know if I'd actually done anything to earn that; sometimes he'd do things just to be cruel. I know I tried to say things to my parents without saying it, but they never payed attention. If it was a picture, they'd burn it, so... anyway, I don't suppose it matters. 

I've worried about being able to brush that off, but as I write it I'm feeling rather ill. 

Haunted by ghosts.

On to today, though. 

When I was a teenager, while I was upstairs alone, I felt hands grab me and throw me down on my bed and hold me there. It happened somewhat frequently. Hands grabbed my throat or my shoulder from behind, making me jump, but nobody was ever there. I believed, at the time, that it was ghosts. I may not have been too far off.  I was in his old room.

Today I remembered a time when I was 8. He was 16, and he'd moved out of the house to be with his girlfriend and future wife. She might even have been pregnant at the time. He came to visit and had a look around my room before, out of nowhere, grabbing me, throwing me down, and actually raping me. I remember him saying afterward, "sorry, I don't have time for more." (After, he threw my panties at me and said all friendly-like, "Come down. You wouldn't want anyone to think anything BAD happened or anything." All the while, downstairs, he smiled, and I pretended *so* hard not to be in pain.)

The actual event had to have taken minutes, but I seriously never thought we had that type of contact. I suppose it's possible we didn't until then; he'd always had a fondness for sharp objects instead. That could be what the comment meant, but.. oh, man, I have no way of knowing now. I mean, it's possible now.

My mind keeps revealing things I seriously just don't want to know. I mean, it explains some things - fears, behaviors. Still, when someone makes it their mission to destroy you (straight from his mouth), what the hell is going to be next?

~DC

Doing over the do over.

So what if you could live your 20s over again? Like, say, it sucked and you had a chance for a "do over" 20 years later. That's where I find myself. 

Yeah, I know that sounds weird, and deserves and explanation. 

My Therapist calls it going through an important stage of life that I never got to because of childhood trauma. In my early 20s, I relived my childhood. I was married to a pedophile, and spent my time playing Barbies with my niece because I didn't remember my childhood. My late 20s I spent drinking and playing the star, but I was terribly miserable playing it straight. My early 30s fell right into a pit of flashbacks and depression, but later I discovered school which took the edge off. Nine years later I'm just now clawing myself entirely into the light and, for the first time ever, wanting to take my life by the horns.

The only thing is... now, when I talk about self expression and tattoos and work and leaving the nest and not compromising myself, everyone hears someone in their 20s. It isn't just that, though. Looking at me, everyone sees  someone in their early/mid 20s. I am in all ways, but in memory, college age. So, I've been wondering what will I do if I now that I can do those years over again? 

Do over the do over. 

The possibilities are awesome.

~DC

Who Can I Be Now?

It's been awhile. It's funny how you think, or you hope, you might have answers when the answers are always in front of you. It's okay though. 

If only the co-pays had been that much.

I saw my new Psychiatrist. It took long enough with all of his cancellations, but finally... after 3 months of dodging my bullet I saw him. I knew he was skeptical at first since he'd been briefed by my old Psychiatrist. He knew a lot had gone down, and in truth she made me sound raving. He listened, though. 

I told him how my former Therapist had been unethical - insisting the only reason I said I was gay because of my abuse (not to mention that my first crush and every attraction except he-that-shant-be-named was female) and went on to say that I didn't have PTSD, causing me to look it up on the Veteran's website and try to prove it to her. I went on to tell my Psychiatrist about her behavior, to which she, at first, became upset since she'd made the diagnosis years previous. When I returned, though, she became upset at me when I mentioned seeing a cognitive therapist and said my lack of results with my former one was that I "wasn't consistent" with my visits. 

I was very upset when I left then, but when she called my new cognitive therapist who I've been having excellent results with and began asking probing near unethical questions, I pulled the plug. 

Starting over is never easy, even when you're doing well. 

She's out there, somewhere.

I'd just come out of the closet less just over a week ago, and even though my current relationship is friendly and supportive, there's still a bit of nervous energy on my end. Right now I'm looking for work and planning for the future. There's finally hope that I can really be with someone I feel right with. It is a bit complicated when I care so much about who I'm with, but again, I mentioned trust.

So, there's finally a light at the end of this long, long dark tunnel thanks so much to this cognitive therapy, but opening up to new people always has me down.

I talked to him about the idea of ADD, but after listening to everything I had to say about growing up and how life is, he said, well... the lady before him was nuts to think I was Bi-Polar (so scratch that), and everything he sees is someone suffering from PTSD. That's never been in doubt, but I guess I never saw it applied that way before. I suppose, someone on edge all the time might just react all scatterbrained. /shrug

It's made me think a lot more about it. I've had to adapt a lot - deal with other personalities and integrate them, do a lot of reality testing to deal with the world, and find out the hard way how people relate. I guess it's good I'm smart. 

There's a lot of places I go, while I never look like the people around me, I almost fit in. I get along and talk to people and they like me, and I teach them something wonderful I know, but they never have any idea - can't even imagine. You know, I even wonder how I can be so positive sometimes. Human spirit, huh?

~DC

AD&D, 5th Edition

So this is ADD.

I like this better. Can I trade? :D

Even when I was a kid, everyone I knew said I had it half-teasingly. I was the child who you hear throwing screaming fits in the toystore. Yep. Me. The difference is when I did it, my Mother shoved honey down my throat until I passed out from a blood sugar overdose. 

As I said, I was reading and writing by two and doing Algebra in kindergarten, but damned if I could tie my shoes. I was a good kid, as long as I had a pencil and paper with me, but if I had to sit too long through anything boring (like church) you could believe a fit was on. Boredom still means I have to change or create friction. 

By 5th grade I quit studying and doing homework while acing my tests. That was good enough. The district had put the kabosh on moving kids ahead in class, which sucked because they'd planned to move me ahead two grades the year before; I think that would have helped a LOT. As it was I was a "brilliant girl who didn't apply herself", and by 8th grade I began skipping whole weeks, then whole years. I refused to participate in classes so I could get sent to the quiet of in-school, or because the teacher was a jerk. I got in fights, did drugs and partied. I also took a lot of my time out to study, though... things that interested me, like Czarist Russia and Egyptology.

See, I could focus when I was interested. That was one thing a 9th grade English teacher didn't get. I'd always looked like trouble - shaved and or colored hair, piercings, spikes, torn nylons, dark/theatrical makeup. People come to knee-jerk conclusions about kids like those sometimes. She was one who was hard on me before even reading an assignment. So, strong proponent of "what's good for the goose", I decided she'd get what she gave. I marked her "one of those" teachers that I'd pick on to get into the sweet, sweet silence of in-school suspension ... a place where I could think. :-) 

Some teachers. 

One day she handed out logic problems to finish for next time. I LOVED logic problems and started on it right away. Then, she told us to get into groups of 4, and that meant working with preppies. This was a perfect opportunity to get my ticket to in-school, so I stayed still in my desk and kept working on my problem. My "team" (which I'm the "I" there isn't) called for me, but told them they'd do fine with out me and shot them a smile. Eventually she called me up to her desk where I told her I wasn't going to do what she asked. She asked why not and I said, "I have more interesting things to do... like my Social Studies assignment or this cool logic problem; I'm done with that by the way." "It's only been 5 minutes! There's no way you can be done. You have to have gotten a lot wrong; bring it here." So I did. As she inspected it, I saw her face turn new shades of red, but she had to give it a perfect grade... before sending me to in-school. 

As I said, I skipped the next few years of school except for a couple weeks here or there. I always had more important things to do. I only graduated through a college where I walked in and aced the HSED, without studying  mind you, in 2 days. For the record, I CLEPed through English 101 & 102, without studying, before starting college as well... 16 years later.

Oh, those Wild-West days.

Keep in mind, this whole time my family didn't get on me. They didn't have the right, as far as I was concerned, and rightly so. Teachers were concerned that I was being abused, but my mother brushed it off. Some rare teachers saw a bunch of potential and worked *with* me, and in return, I gave them my best. Still, I left school into a spotty work record.

I've never been used to structure. Nobody made me get up for school; when they did I was always late. (Worse, I was in pain and stressed out from the abuse.) So, when I was a teen, I came and went as I pleased, and did what I wanted, where and when and I was accountable to no one. 

Marriage CHAFED. Work CHAFED. ...And I discovered my true love, modeling, the one all-

Strike a pose.

pervasive thing that's in my head always - colors, backgrounds, moods and presentation of clever concepts. When I was at the factory I thought about makeup, at home I thought about locations. My mind was busy when I threw that slab of bacon into the pan and burned the living crap out of my arm... yeah. 

When people talk I have a hard time hearing past all of these thoughts - the more that's going on, the worse it is. Sports bar + game time = Complete static. I like to say, I only have so many CPUs and it doesn't take much to tap them out. Music and work, I can handle. Music plus talk plus work means it all goes to static. Forget talking and television - both get shut out. Forgetting things at the store (or just forgetting things), getting fidgety during watching or someone's long-winded descriptions, missing things when cleaning, etc etc., hasn't been a huge problem until recently. 

Nobody really chided me over my life. My parents didn't care, spouses didn't seem to notice until now. Now, I'm expected to clean and pay bills and do laundry and dishes and all of these things I can never seem to find time for. What's *really* frustrating is, I can never seem to find time for things I want to do either! I've worked up schedule after schedule that shows how many free hours I have a week, but they've never made a difference.

For all of the lists, schedules, inspiring comments, etc. I've posted on my walls, I still have never been able to be consistent with anything. My husband's gone on about this flaw over and over again. It's been a major source of pain and contention with us. He's said I don't care about him because I don't take care of him, and what else could I do but wonder? He says I don't listen and wondered if I have a learning disability. ...but he didn't know. WE didn't know.

In this book I'm reading accounts of those with ADD and how their lives were, and how their loved ones acted until they found out. It's hitting way too close to home. Maybe now, just maybe, I can get out from under this - maybe we can - and that can help me get out from under the PSTD too, because I didn't know it, but this is a mighty heavy anvil.

~DC

Eight Months...

It's been eight months.

I keep saying "I had a flashback in August. I had a flashback in August.", but I hadn't realized I'm still reeling from it. Nothing is the same. I even said then that it was like I'd been hit in the head with a really hard, fast moving object, and my life hasn't stopped spinning. I wish it would.

I try. I've really, really been putting on a facade of normalcy in hopes that it will become reality. I became hapless prey in a horror shoot to work out my feelings of fear, thus creeping out my photographer a bit with the "reality" of my emotions. Yes, that was a bit cathartic.

Still, I sleep a lot. I'm angry all the time. I'm constantly tense. No doubt the perimenopause isn't helping, but everything was there to begin with - only now amplified. 

Eight months later and I'm still pretty much where I was right after.  I've been putting out immediate fires in Cognitive Therapy when I need to work on this raging one. I've never been good at prioritization...

~DC

The Thing About Dishes

How Not To Have To Dry the Dishes

By Shel Silverstein

If you have to dry the dishes

(Such an awful, boring chore)

If you have to dry the dishes

(‘Stead of going to the store)

If you have to dry the dishes

And you drop one on the floor—

Maybe they won’t let you

Dry the dishes anymore.

This poem has been my mantra. I've spent my entire life never having to do anything. As a kid, nobody had my respect. I lived in squalor and was beyond abused for the most random of things. So, when my mom shut my in my room that one time and told me to clean it... I sat on the floor and refused. Nothing came of it. When she decided to make me do the dishes she'd stacked to the sky, I took all day about it. I don't think I ever finished. 

When I wanted something, likewise, I found if I screamed enough, and fought enough, I could outlive their resistance (or my dad's anyway). This is why gifts are love to me.

Later in life, say in PhyEd, I found mindless sports dumb and refused to participate. I'd literally sit in the center of the court, fully clothed, and tell them I preferred to use my brain, so no, I wouldn't play their monkey games. That put me in in-school suspension where I could read and learn things. I went further, though. I skipped most of 9-12th grades. I learned valuable college-level knowledge and beyond on my own. At 18 I graduated w/ an HSED in 2 days by acing tests; I never even studied. 

I'd spent most of those years hitch hiking, partying, drugged, I suppose. In later moments of clarity  I realized this brain was better and did better by it. I still wonder what good that is sometimes... so much useless knowledge wasting away in there.

Anyway, my point is that on and on I continued to refuse. I'd done enough I didn't want to do, after all, and who is anyone to tell me what and when and how? It's become second nature. People made me do things I didn't want to. People didn't deserve my compliance or acknowledgement . There has to be a line I need to draw - a line I need to SEE.  It's hard, because I've gotten what I wanted if I just refuse hard enough.

The big problem is my husband isn't giving in, and, well, when I don't want to get up... or get dressed... or clean anything.... entropy and a slow death is all there is left. While I feel there's nothing left but more of the same, I'd hate to be a bed-bound blob in 10-20 years with no way to turn back the clock. I need to somehow change this pattern of thinking.

Hoo, boy. I'm in for a ride.

~DC

Thanks For the Memories

So, I'm on a few drugs, as one might imagine. One, for Migraines, makes me sleepy, and another, to kill my awful symbolic nightmares, puts me under too. The net result of this marriage is that I'm dead to the world until between 10 and noon. So...

I dropped my dose of the miracle nightmare inhibitor a bit and, though it took a week or so, the nightmares started returning. Once again, every night was filled with dreams of my parents' old house, of rot and decay, and nothing overtly meaning what it was, but my mind knowing what it represented. Imagine my surprise when I had a dream of my brother and I getting along - before I remembered it all. All-the-while there was something telling me there was more, but I didn't know what. All-the while he made hints that I didn't understand, but I do now in hindsight. We got along. And this morning I'm left facing that end of his betrayal. 

When I was 16, he sat me down and apologized for what he'd done to me - knowing I only remembered one incident. He said he'd never have done it if he knew I would have grown up to be so cool. (As if there's any time it's okay.) He said he did it to get back at my mother for having me. ...and she didn't care. We were together against her.

Et tu, Brute?

This dream forced me to face the fact that I liked him. I didn't remember. We had so much in common once I'd grown up enough, and I liked him. And all-the-while he kept hinting at things he'd done, interjecting it into conversation with a straight face. What word is there for a cut  like that, or an evil like him?

I feel ill.

~DC

On With Her Head!

I've always had a fascination with Alice in Wonderland, since I was a kid. Though I'd seen the movie, I read the books on my own. Maybe I related to being a strange girl in a strange world where nobody understood her, maybe I related to the girl tormented by the capricious the queen-mother figure who was friendly one second and the next had declaring her death sentence, or maybe it's how I seem to keep giving myself good advice but rarely ever follow it.

So many times I've had revelations about how my life correlates to my family and how I need to change, but I forget. Yesterday, in the shower, I remembered that my mother has no respect for her house or her husband. I remembered the state of their place and how nobody could ever take a shower if they wanted to with all of the cat feces and clothes in the tub. They must never wash! And here, after not washing my hair on upwards of 10 days, and not bathing for two, I felt a bit ill. I don't want to be like them. I keep thinking I have a higher standard than they do... and here I was. Granted, I was depressed, but I have to draw a line.

...if only there were a way I could remember I'd thought this so I could make sure I keep doing something about it.

:-) 

I should get back to cleaning now. My cupcakes won't bake themselves.

~DC

Hammer of the Gods

Migraines. Just when I think depression is enough, there's one more thing to keep me down. 

And in case anyone reading doesn't fully grasp what a migraine is yet:
imagine a headache in, say, your right temple. Then, say, Hephaestus, God of the Smiths, decides to smite you by using that very spot as his personal anvil. Oh, but that's not all. Say, in an unlucky and unusual alliance, King of the Gods, Zeus, decides you've further offended him and blesses his hammer with lightning. So, now you've got Hephaestus with a twice-blessed hammer pounding and shocking an already hurting head.  Now, say, Apollo decides you're his bitch too (why not), and every time you even come close to cracking your eyes the Sun God enhances that mother a gazillion times causing those rays of light to not only murder that head, but make you ill. Everyone fear that moment you lose it, because that pain you thought couldn't get worse doubles, or triples. 

Though I've had them since I was 27, I've only gotten sick twice thusfar in my life - once on a Greyhound bus with nowhere to stop for hours. Oh yeah, fun.

Still, you see where I'm going here. Migraines are not headaches. You can't just "get up, take a tylenol, and move on like a normal person". No. You lie in bed and hold your head, perhaps cry, and hope you can sleep, until it's over.

I've been on migraine prevention meds for ... about a decade now and they've been wearing off over the past couple of years. I'm on something new, plus pain meds to catch one when they start, but, well, if I don't catch it in first bloom... hello Hephaestus! 

That was today.


I can understand why it happened. Last night I went to bed fists clenched, teeth clenched, muscles tight. The idea of taking a full-time job, as much as I wanted it, had me in knots. This is why I'm seeing my Cognitive Therapist. This is why I'm doing the workbooks. I know the self-talk isn't rational. Hell, I know I'm valuable and can do it from an outside-looking-in-level, but I'm panicked illogically. I'm panicked in a staying in bed head-under-the covers way. 

I'm thinking I'm not ready yet for this kind of responsibility just because of my reaction, though I know it'd likely be healthy for me - if not for the fricking migraines. That's something I can't control. 

I know I need to go back to school for a few classes if I want my own business. If I don't get a job I need to find ways to get out, though. Being stuck behind the same walls is no good for anyone's state of mind.

~DC