forgottenyear

[forgottenyear]

i am feeling better

i rewrote most of the letter

without negotiating the poison from the pen

i feel more at peace than i have for weeks

i seriously doubt this was the p.a's intent, but in one phrase addressed to him, "please do not ever try to talk with me again," i may have set a boundary to the ghosts of abusers past

it may mean nothing, but my sleep deprived state likes it

of course, i now worry that i have conflated him with the father

i will trust tomorrow to work that out

tonight can feel good anyway

[forgottenyear]

i told the p.a. about my fear of seeking help for did in our first session

it is almost like he took this as a plan of attack

--

i have been working on the letter

i was still on the fence about whether or not to try to work it out in discussion

the rest of the system ruled it out already

but i felt i ought to try

but what we wrote tonight settles the matter for me

i have been feeling like i had to maintain contact with this person, the same as i felt about the father before he died

like i am a bad person if i do not try to work it out

i felt like this was what i deserved for accusing the father of abuse

this has led to feeling like hell

feeling like i am a child who has to take punishments because this is all that life is about

i cannot go back to that life

it is a different context, but the lines, "i'd rather die, i'd rather die / than to be with you," come to mind ("when i'm small" by phantogram)

this p.a. has done enough damage

[forgottenyear]

i am maintaining

i am trying to avoid life decisions

i feel like absolute hell

there are feelings for which i have no name

feelings that behave like a toothache - they are so intense that they cannot be ignored, and they burn through my energy quickly and then move on to burn away my will to keep going

i am here in this moment, but i can make no promises about the next

moment to moment until it passes

it is not being frugal about the number of moments it spends

but i am still here

--

i am not sure, but it feels like what i imagine Angela would have experienced

after the "party"

it feels like everything is wrong, that i am irredeemably wrong, and there is nothing left to justify lingering in this world

it is extreme nausea that overlaps a calm and settled stomach

i suppose this is a flashback or body memory, but i am not sure

it sucks, whatever it is

[forgottenyear]

sleep? sleep!? we don't need no stinking sleep around here

--

i am not sure what to do with this realization

but

the PA, "W," i have been dealing with actually mansplained the paragraph i brought for him to read

i mean

should i be flattered that he spoke to my not-male-ness

[forgottenyear]

thought i finished the last post

--

when i was consistently defined as good, intelligent, and valuable

i was still only accepting the definition i was told by others

i still did not feel i was good enough

the initial definition remained in place

and the recent definition only brings it out of dormancy

i am desperate to hang on to the good definition

the good definition is what made me distinct from the other parts

if i lose the good definition, i lose myself

[forgottenyear]

growing up, our identity was whatever we were told it

our favorite color was blue because that was what we were told it was

we were unquestionably bad, stupid, and worthless because that was what we were told by everyone

it was not until my time that i had to adjust to people telling me the opposite

but i still worked a field i had accepted, not chosen

i liked that at least i was being told that i am good, intelligent, and valuable

but now i must work with several professionals who are trying to redefine me closer to the definition we had in childhood

[forgottenyear]

maybe i do not need to explain

but the PA's favorite term to use against me is to say that something i said is a "cognitive distortion"

he also claims that facts i bring up are only my "feelings"

to be honest, it feels (literal use of the term) like he is gaslighting me, by pushing me to second-guess my perceptions

[forgottenyear]

This is what I have written so far. This is after I have drained the bulk of the protector part's poison from the pen, mind you. Clearly I have more negotiating to do with the protector part.

[no triggers that I am aware of.]

[Approx. 560wds]

--

Mr. [W],

I am writing this down to avoid the cognitive distortions you have demonstrated, that cause you to feel that I am somehow jostling against your authority.

I have never said, implied, nor intended that I should enter therapy without goals. In our second meeting, when first asked my goals, I stated clearly that my personal goal is that the system of DID parts should work together better than we have so far. When you said this was not good enough, I then turned to you for help in bringing my goal in line with [your office]’s policies and practices.

The excerpt I brought with me to our third session was intended to show that if professionals have a hard time with developing goals and measures, it is unreasonable and irrational to expect me to be able to satisfy your demand without assistance. Again, I never said, implied, nor intended that this paragraph of text should make the issue of goals, “moot.” Again, this is a cognitive distortion on your part.

You reject the notion that treating severe dissociative disorders is not as simple as treating depression. When I have brought this issue up, you have demonstrated that your ego pits you against any suggestion that there can be areas in which you still need to grow. (“Needing to grow” is not synonymous with “underqualified” or “inadequate,” as you appear to think it is.)

The immediate issue is that your ego needs have crowded my treatment needs and my trust out of the room. (Given the pattern you have demonstrated so far, I fully expect you have something paternalistic and condescending to say about everything I have written. Please consider these things already to have been said. I do not need to hear more of your pettiness.)

[--]

The greater issue, however, is that I am not-male. I present as male, and the body is male, so I am frequently subjected to the usual sparring from male presences. Since our (/my) system is the result of a dominating male ego that poorly hid the fragility of the father’s perception of his own maleness, the protector part developed to step in for this sort of foolishness – and you have already brought the protector part to the fore through your fragility.

While this dominating fragility is not limited to males, it is certainly less prevalent in females.

Since the only distinct part of our system that approached overt is Angela, female, and the rest of the parts are more or less agendered, I am not-male. I am rarely up for sparring with fragile male egos. It does me more harm than good. I really think I would be better helped by a female.

If you intend to bar my entry to therapy until I have adequately stroked your ego, I expect that ego will bring you to poison the well of McGeachy – to guarantee that if you cannot help me, no one else will be allowed to do so.

If you are a professional, it is time to bow out and to allow another to take your place. Whatever the case, I now cede victory to you, with good conscience, as I depart your immediate theater of combat.

I appreciate the at least ostensible intentions with which you began. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

[forgottenyear]

what i feel does not makes sense

on the one hand, i fear the other parts and loathe everything they choose to be

on the other hand, i feel for the lives it was never safe for them to live

i feel their hurts, or feel hurt for their hurts, or i do not know what the hell i feel and it hurts that something that ought to be easily understood is such a screwed up mess for me

i feel like i am slowly drowning in this did stuff

and the one person who could help is irresponsibly playing childish games as he watches me drown

[forgottenyear]

i am now extremely overtired

i spent the night writing a letter to the boneheaded new doctor (although he is technically a physician's assistant)

i do not see him again until the end of the month

but i want time to edit it before then

i figure that if he is eager to distort my spoken words

it may be more difficult to do so with printed words

(not to underestimate his determination, mind you)

[forgottenyear]

words were nothing he did not agree the decision was hers so achingly young in the once-upon time in only moment all tomorrows ended when we stopped waking awake was the cruelest thing finally we slept in the years of me we were not we little did i know awake is the cruelest thing

--

this is a poem written in my / our voice

but my memory of writing is suspiciously vague

i am not suggesting it was written by another part

just that i am forgetful and inattentive

[forgottenyear]

the new doctor continues to talk down to me

but more importantly

he refuses to refer me for therapy

[forgottenyear]

i believe i started this for attention

i was told that was the only reason i would lie about such horrible things

i believe i made up angela because my life is boring otherwise

because my plain vanilla childhood was so ordinary

i wanted to add some color to my meaningless existence

and like magic - poof! - it goes away

except

(always f*ing "except")

--

if angela is not there, there is nothing between me and childhood

not that there is any real separation between the past and the present, with

but there is no surreal period to indicate the past cannot be more real, without

the two-year period is a blank either way

i have no explanation for the blank

i have no way to distinguish myself from this nearly tangible fear and loathing for who "i" once was

or even why i was that way

or how i changed to what i am today

--

"with" is not necessarily more rational than "without"

it is either this lamely concocted story or that one

and if i never accept any of the possible pasts - if they all remain impossible - then there is nothing to remember or to forget

if i never open the box, the cat is neither one state or another

[forgottenyear]

after being awake for fourteen hours on tuesday

i was barely awake for two hours on wednesday

i have been awake for four hours today

and i am already falling asleep

[forgottenyear]

the plan was changed

the mother was back in the emergency room

so the sisters took me to see her there

it was a very long day

but my sister who did the driving had a longer day

i did not realize until later that we were all the still living members of the immediate family

--

the mother has been unable to eat

she told me during the weekly phone call that her weight is down to about a hundred pounds

she went on to say that she could not remember when she last weighed so little

in high school our malnourished body weighed between eighty and ninety pounds

i say nothing

it serves no purpose to say anything

silence can be painful

[forgottenyear]

my partner did not manage their behavior well tonight

a sister made a surprise visit from europe to family in another state

it has been seventeen years since i last saw her

tomorrow, she and another sister will visit me

and my partner felt a loss of control over the situation

my partner tried calling to change the plan

but talked with the third sister who will not be visiting

it is old behavior, or i thought it was

my partner drives away my family and friends

[forgottenyear]

tuesday has all the earmarks of a switch

we had to have left the office and gone home

and i am Inattentive & Forgetful™

that is what follows switching:

tired excuses and lame explanations

but nothing i can call actual memory

--

it unsettled my partner

they were uncharacteristically supportive

down to ordering out for dinner so i would not need to cook

they also reminded me that they were not brought in to schedule the next appointment

--

it is hard to break from the answer to every memory dropout is that i am inattentive and forgetful

i am sure that this answer truly applies to some occasions, of course

but there are times when it is more an answer of preference or convenience

it is very easy to replay the old recordings of adults from our childhood

it is very easy to decide that i am absent minded and irresponsible

it is so ingrained that it is too easy to ignore signs of switching

i have a carefully honed talent for creating a narrative from what must have happened

of bluffing a solid memory

honed to where i will believe it myself

that i believe that i was front all day tuesday

but my partner was worried by the difference they observed

coupled with the lack of details that would differentiate this time from any other

i have no good arguments against switching

and the environment does lend to this potential

--

this is not what i envisioned of "recovery"

"getting used to it" feels like a cop out