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Anyways! *climbs out of the scattered and ruined debris of my feelings*

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"i like your personality" thanks it's professionally diagnosed

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no one will come to save you but some will offer you their hand to hold when life gets tough and those are the ppl that matter

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the documenter and the documented

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The push-and-pull of knowing I have heard myself tell our therapist something and not believing the words out of my own mouth even years later, hahaha.

I had a psychiatrist in like, junior high. The Peak of a lot of the abuse from, I guess, every source we had. I was volunteering where my grandpa worked for a few months; my dad would visit for holidays; we'd moved in with the stepdad and he was abusing us; my older sister would kick the shit out of me every day.

So there was a psychiatrist and doctors because I was had "anxiety" and I remember telling this guy I heard voices. I didn't really know how else to describe it. I just became different people sometimes. I just heard arguing in my head all day long. I don't know. I didn't have the vocabulary to describe how I felt (and it would be another 20 years before I realized what I felt was toxic shame, constantly) other than "bad" and "weird" and "sometimes I think I hear things" and "I'm scared all the time but don't know why."

And the meds he put me on did so much damage. I don't remember very much of anything coherently from that period but I know that psychiatrist was friends with my stepdad; I know the antipsychotics made me sleep like the dead at night; I know they made me start hearing and seeing shit for real and I started having genuine hallucinations and thought ghosts were attacking me a lot.

But at the time I didn't have a choice about whether or not I took them either, or I'd be "sabotaging everything" and my mom would have meltdowns about how bad having a kid in therapy made her look and why would I do that to her, etc. I know this same period is when I started self-harming. Like there's a lot of little overlaps I can piece together now.

So now I have a psychiatrist appointment booked and I cannot sleep and all I have is The Fear. I absolutely refuse to go on antipsychotics again but I think what's not entirely registered is that I do, actually, have that choice this time. Odds are this doctor will just listen and try to help, not, you know... medicate me into oblivion because my stepdad wants him to and then take advantage of that. I can just not take stuff or ask for alternatives. This is hitting as Extremely Unlikely to 13 year old me and I'm realizing just how long she's been stuck there.

I can remember telling my (good) therapist about all of this before in bits and pieces. I can mostly remember him explaining that, yeah, unfortunately doctors like the one I had in jr. high exist and predators are attracted to the profession, too. Unfortunately all of that (the trafficking, the drugs, the working with my stepdad) probably happened.

I am just trying to remind myself that this time I will have a choice and there are probably options to help reduce symptoms to the point I can be a bit more stable again. I'm so tired of clawing my way to a few weeks of stability and then just getting fucking shipwrecked by flashbacks and nightmares and The Fear. The major reason I haven't met anyone in this city (or even been able to reliably reply to a DM for, like, years now) is just The Fear of The Worst Thing Happening Again. Every potential social interaction spirals into obsessing over the worst possible outcome and it's exhausting. I'm fried.

If it's two months of this level of red alert anxiety between now and the psych appointment I am going to lose it all over again. But also: trying to be understanding of where that fear originated from and validate it. But also, also: god just let me relax and stop thinking about this.

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day 6 / ???

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therapy can't replace getting so angry alone in your room you feel lightheaded

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You think you can't be plural because there aren't any other voices in your head?

You already have one. Her name is tinnitus.

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Instead of Depression

by Andrea Gibson

try calling it hibernation. Imagine the darkness is a cave in which you will be nurtured by doing absolutely nothing. Hibernating animals don’t even dream. It’s okay if you can’t imagine Spring. Sleep through the alarm of the world. Name your hopelessness a quiet hollow, a place you go to heal, a den you dug, Sweetheart, instead of a grave.

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I should also not be too down on myself, really. There are small changes. Every spiral is a little more stabilized, just like... however very smart and descriptive way my therapist put it to me. Something about how he sees me getting de-centered sometimes but every time there are more parts of the system around to help and step in and keep us on the rails. This is very true.

Depressive episode from hell and switching so many times a day I often forget to respond to my own name? Check. But I also kept stuff clean, kept my hair washed, changed my bed sheets, am actively trying to work through it rather than numb it and drink, have a cross stitch prepped to start, did a bunch of writing I really enjoyed. It's been almost a year since I stopped biting my nails constantly, and I've cut back on smoking by like, 50%. My little smoking cessation app tells me I've saved $57 in smokes this week. Rad.

So now my question is dear god how did we keep this under wraps for so long and go to school and get degrees and hold down a job. (And as always, the answer is dissociation + addiction + workaholism + intricate systems to function, so the cycle of "but we don't have that" or "but it wasn't that bad" continues. Alas.)

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something i constantly struggle with as a psych survivor is that "self-improvement" or "self-care" were utilized as punishment in adolescent psych treatment. "you self-harmed, fill out this worksheet about it" "we will be kicking you out unless you agree to use three skills before using behavior" "you spoke out of turn in group, go sit alone in the room for hours for self-reflection + write a plan as to how you are going to reintegrate into the community"

it wasn't collaborative; it was imposed. it wasn't curious about my needs; it was imposing their vision of how they wanted me to behave. it wasn't about addressing my pain; it was about addressing specific things i did with that pain which were deemed undesirable.

in contrast, self-destruction was routinely a way to act against power + authority that were causing me to feel belittled, unloved, trapped. finding ways to self injure when every second of my life was monitored. finding ways to use 'coping mechanisms' against themselves as ways to harm myself. cultivating self-hatred because i knew that's what i wasn't supposed to be doing + i needed to rebel against the people telling me what i was supposed to do (this rebellion is sacred, btw).

now, as an adult, taking care of myself still feels like something i'm Supposed to Do under Penalty of Punishment, while self-destructing still feels like resistance + freedom. self-destruction feels like a precious thing that proves that i belong to myself + self-compassion feels like people trying to take away that belonging.

anyway. kill the psychiatrist inside you but be mindful of the terrified child he created who is still bloodying their nails on the insides of the asylum walls.

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The psychiatrist appointment isn't for two months, and that part's fine. Anything under 12 months here is considered a miracle and I'm fine so depressed and disregulated that I've watched 25 seasons of South Park in four weeks just to fill time. (But I didn't kill myself, so technically, that's a win.)

Point being, nothing will happen between now and March.

But I am already spinning in my head about all the ways it could go wrong. What if he doesn't believe in my diagnosis, what if I just don't tell him about the DID, what if he decides it's all in my head (so to speak), what if, what if, what if. Part of me is scrambling and part of me is already ruthlessly trying to plot out the best scheme like it's a chess match and decide what it's tactically best to reveal or conceal.

Just, chatter chatter chatter.

And it's not like I know the answer. Last time I spoke to a psychiatrist it was at ~*the nation's leading mental health institute*~ and she just wrote down BPD because CPTSD isn't in the DSM, yadda yadda, and ignored the letter from my doctor stating I had been diagnosed with DID, el-oh-el.

So for all I know, the inverse will be true this time and the shitty little podunk hospital guy here might be out of this world helpful.

But my hopes are not, uh, high.

There's another track in my brain just... whispering the story of what happened to us. And it's full of feelings of unfairness and rejection, and bracing for more of it. I think it's been triggered by just reaching out and asking for help, and is bracing for impact, but it's going to be a very long and draining 8 weeks if this fear doesn't recede a little.

There's something there about how all the abuse and trafficking is just unbelievable, no matter what. The only person who's ever believed us about the whole thing has been the neuropsych we've been seeing for, oh, five years now (yikes), which means it feels pre-determined that this next guy won't believe us, either.

Because most days it's not like we even believe ourselves. Or... we do, but it can only be little pieces at a time. Intellectually and in that third-person camera way, I can see it all, but oh my god is awareness ever not the same thing as processing. A lesson I relearn every few months, I feel like. We've been filling in our little timeline of memories document and every time I open it I just reel back into my brain a little bit because surely not all of this could have happened all so close together, or all at once. Just little zings of denial.

I'm trying to give my permission to act sick and fucked up because I am sick and fucked up, but that's its own fucking zoo to navigate, too.

Also I say "nothing will happen between now and March" but there is one of our most major trauma anniversaries around then and every year we go deep-end insane, so. Also trying to figure out how one shores up resources for that now that we know enough to know it's coming.

Tempted to just order a bunch of colouring books and drugs and new markers because maybe dipping out on reality is a valid strategy sometimes.

Also I just really want a fucking hug and wish I had a friend in this city. That tug-of-war between wanting companionship and avoiding it all costs is keeping me up at night, too.

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Please, no more temporary people.

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Continuing to embrace the long journeys toward hope, even when despair is just next door.

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My doctor here might be... good? He said he didn't want to prescribe me any more stimulants (we were on like, the third attempt that was making me [more] insane) because he'd rather a psychiatrist deal with medication interactions at this point.

When I was like, that's really fine, I'm just trying to find anything that works and helps me hold on/avoid the ER until that referral goes through, and he fucking. Picked up his phone, dialed a psychiatrist friend of his at the hospital, asked him how his new year had been and how his family was, and then said he was gonna fax a referral over and if he could please get me in for an appointment immediately, it would be a huge favour. I can schedule an appointment tomorrow morning.

Can't even be mad I no longer have ADHD meds because they really were horrible and I'd rather exist in a contextless fog with no memory day-by-day than deal with whatever the fuck those side effects were. Pros: energy, focus, "presence," some weird increased communication. Cons: suicidal ideation so intense I'd just go do drugs and be comatose anyway.

Which is frustrating because the same med from a different manufacturer across the country worked fine for years, but it is what it is.

Anyway, holy shit, I got to both avoid the ER and have access to a psychiatrist I guess. I'm glad we were brave about it and went to that appointment today.

We did also manage to blog a bunch in the old journalspace today and have decided to keep the etsy shop closed until we can handle orders again.

Fucking hate this backslide and descent into non-functional bluh, but I just keep thinking about those moments we've had in the last couple years where we're okay, actually, and were enjoying things and healing and planning a future.

The road is rocky but it is not permanent.

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I am not whatever negative things I think people think of me

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love my therapist sometimes, we unloaded on him and finally were like. i miss drinking and i miss drugs and no matter how many benzos we take or prescriptions we try, this time of year is always hard. we blacked out a couple days ago and woke up in the bath tub chewing on our own arm. i am at a loss but don't want to go to the hospital in town because they'll just make sure i'm stable and send me home again.

and he thought about it for a bit and was like, you know. there's this one book i read recently about trauma is over-diagnosed and blah blah blah--and i'm not saying i agree with that or anything--and anyway there was a part in there about not encouraging 'negative coping mechanisms.' and i think, in your case, you could probably--again, i am not formally recommending this, i was just thinking in terms of this stupid book--you could just sit on the couch and get as high as you fucking want to get through this and do whatever you need to do. it's a terrible book.