htptherapyjournal

[htptherapyjournal]

The Center

It had to be you. I knew it was going to be too. I knew you were going to be the one who would crush me because being with you was like trying to make out the shape of the sun and feeling my eyes burn. My vision spotted and I wasn’t careful with myself. I even had a dream where I was a sun myself, but I burned out and engulfed every planet around me. Which is kinda like what’s happening now. I date. I fancy people who look at me the same way I look-- looked at you, but now I’m afraid to look and I no longer burn.

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Current mood.

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The moment where the underlying issue starts to emerge... Who the fuck am I kidding? I was grabbing tissues at therapy before my mascara could run down my face lol

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When the Dr Hands Over a Stapled Information Packet-- on Trauma

It’s been a while since I’ve made a post. I have to say that I am now doing so much better than I was two years ago. I’ve gotten over my scumbag ex boyfriend and realize his behavior and methods of dealing with stress aren’t healthy and were emotionally abusive at times. He still continues to talk about how “crazy” I am while he is literally wasting away playing video games non-stop on prescribed amphetamines. I have heard he looks so thin that his hair is starting to fall out or thin. I almost had the urge to text and ask him if he was really okay or not. Looking back, I am mortified that I continued seeing him. That relationship really did teach me a lot about who I decide to emotionally invest in, how to address a conflict without hurting the person you care about, boundaries... everything. I guess this is what they mean when people come into your life for a reason. I spent a year being single and just dating. Just little dates. Now after six months I am dating a great guy I don’t need, but want around. He makes me feel sound when I am with him.  Of course I told my new therapist everything that had been happening in my life. In addition to finding a healthy relationship, I also applied at a chain drug store for my Pharmacy Technician Certification and I think I have a good shot at the job. The same day I applied, my dad had his prostate removed and is now 100% cancer free according to the pathology report. We had also won a car and my new beau wanted me to meet his family. Most would consider the good news and steps forward as positive changes, right? It was definitely stress, but it was good stress. Right? That night, when I wanted to study further for my certification exam, I had the most tense drive to get rid of all the ingrown hairs on my body, make sure my face was blackhead/pimple free, and scratch out the dry skin (dandruff) around the areas that felt grainy or brittle. From 11:00pm to almost 6:00AM, I spent in my bed hunched over picking out each individual public hair with a pair of bloody tweezers and a safety pin to help dig out the ingrown hairs. My nose is still healing from trying to dig out the tiniest blackhead most would just treat with toner. I could have done my regular makeup routine, and even I would forget it’s there. I was so tense I couldn’t stop. I would take breaks, but it only lead me going back and forth to the same hunched position either over by the mirror or on the bed. The worst part was that I didn’t know why it had happened. I couldn’t pinpoint what triggered the event. I was shocked because it just happened and I hadn’t had an episode this extreme in such a long time. It was definitely not like the mini episodes that I usually encounter usually when I’m tired driving home or watching TV. So I brought it up to my new therapist (who is amazing, btw). She asked me how I feel when the episodes take place. I couldn’t tell her. I remember not feeling anything. Like, if you looked down my throat, you would find me daydreaming at the bottom of my torso. It felt like my body being flown by the rookie copilot while the pilot took the biggest shit of his life. Sure, the copilot passed with flying colors, but that straight face doesn’t stop his palms from sweating. Even thinking now, that’s not entirely the correct emotion either. When I experienced the episode or a episode, it starts off as anxiety, but it goes away so quickly. Something shocking happens and I shut down temporarily. Kind of like when I put the computer to sleep instead of shutting it down or when my eyes get fixated on staring at a particular object or direction. All of me is still there, my mind just goes into a blank meditative state. My therapist then asked me if I could remember any other times where I experienced feeling numb/blank. Boy, could I list so many events, and I did. But I remember the first time I ever shut down.  I told her events that happened to me in my old neighborhood from when I was in preschool up until 1st grade. My parents are hardworking people. They did everything in their power to make sure I had what I needed while still moving forward for a better life. This also meant leaving me in the care of others while she went to work, school, or both, usually early in the morning. My dad was also a truck driver who drove across the country. He’s been to every state at least twice (except Alaska Hawaii), so sometimes he would be gone for a couple of months at a time. During the summer I mostly stayed at my grandparents house. I consider them my second parents. I’m not upset about being passed around. I had fun by myself and with my grandparents and other family members. 

That’s the funny thing about ‘trauma.’ Hearing the word makes me and probably most think about physical abuse, rape and sexual assault, assault in any form, witnessing tragic events, and especially those who have come back from war. But what about experiencing endangerment, neglect, and abuse from the caregiver chosen by the parent? What if the caregiver allows their or other children (the victims peers) to cause distress to the target/victim? I have constant flashbacks of being teased, tortured, and exposed to content that should be talked about with a parent or explained by a fifth grade teacher via the most awkward video you will ever watch with your class. When my mother would drop me off to the neighbors house early in the morning, she would let me watch tv downstairs by myself while she went back up to bed and didn’t come back down until she was ready to leave. In between that time, her two children would come down and at first it started as her son (who was my age) teasing me which evolved into constant bullying, that turned into stealing and isolation. There was nothing I could do. I called for help so often, the mother eventually told me to, “stop being such a tattle-tale.” Well, it eventually got to the point where her youngest child didn’t understand that her older brother didn’t really hate me as much as she thought he did. She took matters into her own hands (literally) and chased me around the room with a yellow baseball bat until she cornered me between a wall and a fake potted plant. The daughter looked genuinely furious. Her eyes were so wide and her teeth where clenched together. I knew right then that this wasn’t bullying anymore; she ACTUALLY wanted to hurt me. I was pretty much in the potted plant when her brother screamed, “NOOOO!DON’T!” right as she brought the bat down and hit me.  Before the big event, I was five or six when I had cried to my parents about the bullying while eating breakfast before being dropped off at their house. I told my parents I couldn’t do it anymore and cried about how miserable I was, but it didn’t matter. The neighbors I got dropped off to in the morning were my parents only way of getting me to school while they worked. The last thing I remember about that day was the son giving me a big hug and holding me as I cried as his mom yelled at his sister and tried to figure out what was going on in her house. I realized what was happening to me was not okay or my fault, but there was nothing I could do about it and that’s when I shut down.  My therapist verified that what happened to me in my old neighborhood was traumatic. She said were I used to live and who used to care for me was not a safe place or safe people. It also made a lot of sense when she suggested that how I cope with stress and how I interact with others comes from how I learned to cope with stress and interact with others as a child in my old neighborhood. It kinda shocked me when she actually handed me a packet to read for our next visit. She advised that I begin practicing grounding techniques when I experience anxiety. I get to work on dealing with what happened to me once and for all and correct the way I handle stress.  I can’t wait to tackle it. <3

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It's been over a year now and your seasonal check-ins are still causing more damage. Just, when you're done playing, come home.

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My parents threatened if I failed that semester it would be my last. Which is totally fair after failing 3 semesters. My fear, the desire to prove them wrong, make them proud, and be seen as perfect by my family and peers drove me to acquire the most unhealthy habits that gave me a 3.2 GPA that spring semester. I even got over 100% on my prep-chem final, but my mom wanted to know why I didn’t get straight A’s. That’s when my mind began to really spiral.

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Stuck

I've been writing so many entries because I am stuck and haven't moved or turned on my lights since 5? It's now 9pm. Sometimes when I think about my past anxiety builds up to the point where my mind shuts off and I can only focus on the things that will make me feel better- like doing my makeup, art, listening to music, and especially journaling so I don't verbally vomit all my emotions or start my more destructive compulsions. If I find one piece of dandruff, I go crazy and I search my scalp endlessly until all the scales are gone and I feel flake free or my arms or tired... or i'll pick at my face for imaginary pimples and remove every single blackhead until my face is. I call this getting, 'stuck.' When I am stuck I am not thinking of what is actually bothering me and have focused my attention to something that will make me feel better once fixed so that I can actually feel comfortable tackling what is really bothering me. The problem is that I am so good at suppressing what the real problem is, and/or very good at avoiding whatever I am afraid of. When I would work on papers for college, my surroundings had to be perfect for me to sit down and feel comfortable starting. My room needed to be cleaned, I needed a snack and drink, my bed and laundry must be made/put away, my desk needed to have all my research papers around me and an outline next to me that has been reviewed and rewritten thousands of times. If I got frustrated at all while writing these papers or felt like my paper wasn't good enough, I would take a break, shower, and then cut my cuticles and pluck/dig out blenishes, pubic hair, and ingrown hairs until my nails bled, my face was raw, and my legs/bikini area was coveres in scabs and self inflicted wounds. And the cycle would continue because I had procrastinated.

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Makes a lot of sense....

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When thinking of all the shit I need to do and how overwhelming it feels and trying to convince myself I am not a total failure if I don’t complete all these things today. Scratching my head for 4-6 hours won’t make me feel better either lol

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Explaining myself to a new therapist like...

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When Being Alone Feels Better

I have yet to call the therapist. While I wait for tomorrow to start, I started thinking about my life choices lately. They aren’t so bad except for the increased drinking and the multitude of men I have let in my life. One in particular is in an open relationship and I thought I would be okay with it. I thought we’d be doing more than just sex. I thought when dating he’d at least be fun to get to know. Instead I feel like my personality is judged and I’m just there to fill his physical needs while I attempt and fail to fill my emotional ones. Which doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense on my part. It totally makes sense for him. I guess I thought, “here is the guy that I’ve had a crush on for over a year. He’s cute, smart, funny, an excellent artist, and we get along great at work. His girlfriend just got an internship over in London? Time to swoop on in on this.” That was my initial thought. Until I realized that I wasn’t comfortable helping the guy I’m interested in stabilize his relationship with someone else who is gone. Until I realized I can’t be myself around him. I thought, “well, I liked this guy enough, maybe being in this situation will help me get over Nick.” No. This won’t help me get over Nick. This won’t help me fill the void I’ve been desperately trying to fill with the presence of others. Luckily, I’ve realized that this situation doesn’t make me happy and if anything makes me really uncomfortable. Even if he was single and I was the only one in the picture, I am not sure I like how I feel when I am around him. I don’t want to be touched anymore. I don’t want my time wasted. I don’t want to feel bad for being me. Hopefully my fear of being by myself won’t get in the way of telling him I can’t do this anymore.

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“Boyfriend Interview” by Haley Mosley

This is the best slam poetry performance I have ever seen. Made me laugh and brought tears to my eyes. I really hope to see some more poems by her in the future, because she has such a lively, fantastic delivery.

A bit of a change from very formulaic poems with a medicore delivery.

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AFTER THE BOWLING STOPPED

Last night, this guy played guitar on stage, and it made me think of you, because you play guitar on stage. So I spent the next fifteen minutes running a mental slide show.

LOS ANGLES: You gave me half of your egg salad sandwich. INDIANAPOLIS: You grab me, because the smell of gasoline on my fingers turns you on. CHICAGO: We play Ferris Bueller and follow a kids’ tour group at the Institute of Arts. ASHLAND: You bowl five strikes in a row.

Etcetera, etcetera… I find this still happens a lot. Someone’s wearing shoes, so I think of you, because you wear shoes. You drink beverages. YOU BREATHE AIR! You can see how this might be a problem. Sometimes I just blurt your name out loud in my apartment for no reason like a Tourettes outburst, and I’m supposed to write this poem about you, because I keep saying I’m a poet. And I’ve been trying for the three years since you stopped bowling in my presence, but it keeps coming out like,

I hate you, I hate you I wish I’d never agreed to date you. or The day you left, the sun set for the last time, the trees wilted, and happy little creatures ceased to scurry. or My heart is a block of frozen, solid, petrified, cold, really hard ice without you. or I don’t need you. Never did. I CAN OPEN MY OWN PICKLE JARS MOTHERFUCKER!!!

Oh, I can write volumes about every little one-night-stand-pointless-encounter-waste-of-saliva I’ve tried to replace you, but you? You’re drying up the ink in all my favorite pens. You’re hiding all my journals and shorting out my keyboard. You are the quintessential cock block, if I had a cock. You are the ultimate writer’s block, if… No, wait, that one works. The point is, I know you can eat a whole egg salad sandwich, but I appreciate the gesture. And that stretch of 90/94 from Chicago to Rockford has never been the same since I drove it home from the end of time. And when you stayed over this past spring, you slept on the couch, took a shower, and left. But it took me three days to take your towel out of the bathroom and five more to wash it. I find I can’t really write about something until I have a little distance perspective, but you’re still mashed up against me like a Siamese twin. And the kicker is I can’t even say I want you back. You were all shades of fiasco. I was only on your mind if I was waving my arms in front of you. And having sex with you?!? I suspect you wouldn’t have known the difference if I had been inflatable. And you only gave me the sandwich because you were BEING SUCH AN ASSHOLE So if you asked, would I take you back? Yeah I totally would. And that pisses me off. But if I was with you right now, I’d be sitting in some hotel in New York, getting my ass kicked at Scrabble, or pitching a makeshift baseball game in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. And my debt would be twice as ridiculous. And I’d weigh a hundred pounds, because you supplement eating and sleeping and not in any good way. But I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be running my stupid life. You are the rockstar me I’m too impatient to wait for. And you’ve got nothing to do with anything. Most of my friends don’t even know what you look like. So you’re all mine. And a terrible kisser and a really sore loser. And I suspect you’ll litter my life with unfinished pages about the empty spaces you left in my apartment for years to come. And tonight, when someone asks to borrow a guitar pick, or uses the words, and or the I’ll think of you; snapshot something somewhere away from here and today. Not much I can really do about that, just thought I’d mention it, because it was on my mind.

–from Rattle #27, Summer 2007 Tribute to Slam Poetry

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Flexibility, Love, and Trust <3

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Someone should have told me...

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It’s nice to hear some accurate representation being brought into the spotlight. OCD isn’t just washing your hands or being neat and orderly. It’s exhausting and nerve wracking. I never identified with a character more than in this scene here. The clip is from GIRLS season 2, episode 8. <3

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When new friends ask me to come out with them.