#im too scared to talk to my therapist about it so we're microblogging like its 2015

[venovenous]

I really want to start reflecting on my time in sixth grade through the beginning of middle school. it's difficult because I have significant memory loss around this time in my life. I was watching a lecture on clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia, where it was said that most people present with many years in the prodromal phase throughout childhood and adolescence with hours spent in daydream and overly relient on imaginary friends to cope, but still manage to hang on by a thread. then it's usually around the transition to young adulthood where some crisis happens, a loved one dies, they break up with their first serious boyfriend/girlfriend, or something significant stressor happens that triggers a psychotic break. To this day, I don't know what happened to me to cause me to break from reality for the first time.

When I look back, it seems more like a gradual decline. I can remember clearly my first panic attack in the sixth grade during English class. My teacher had sent one of my close friends Naomi after me as I was walking to the school nurse, because she was so worried about how I had presented, it was so out of character for me. Before that point, I was incredibly high functioning. I was social, had plenty of friends, was involved in sports and did well academically. I can't remember the summer between grade school and high school. I can't remember when I first became ill in seventh grade. I am almost sure my first hospitalization was in 8th grade after months of outpatient therapy. I was gone for more than a month. I was thirteen. when I came back, my English teacher, someone I had been somewhat close to because I really enjoyed her class, had everyone make me a poster where they had signed notes saying they hoped I would feel better soon. everyone in the whole school avoided me, my best friend through grade school included. I had special privileges to leave class whenever I wanted to go to the counselors office, but I usually just went to the bathroom to cry and use toilet paper to dry off the massive amounts of sweat I shed constantly. I won't get into my experience of psychosis, that's not the point. I want to know what happened to me that made me break.

My mom had been consistently abusive my whole life, but it didn't get too bad until she started drinking after my diagnosis. I doubt it was something she did. My (step) dad wasn't home often, and I didn't have much of a strong relationship with him until the end of high school. Before that, he was a good, caring father to me but we weren't all that close. There was a time in our old house around the holidays where I was sleeping in the attic in the room attached to my sister's because we had friends and family staying over. There was one morning I woke up and took off my blanket to find my wool pajama bottoms and underwear had been removed sometime overnight. I thought this was strange but figured I might have gotten hot sleeping in the carpeted floor and kicked them off in my sleep. I have a memory of being extremely paranoid about being pregnant whenever I looked at my body while showering, and worrying that my parents would find out and kick me out of the house. I can't recall if this fear began before or after the attic incident. I place the attic incident after age 13 because I remember having a tumblr account then, and I used to blog on my grandpa's laptop in that attic as I hid from all the holiday company. The last time I was hospitalized, this forensic psychologist who took immense pity on me and always fretted about my high suicide risk as a trans person told me that I had the behaviors and presentation of someone who was sexually abused. I remember him leaning in and holding my hand I was picking at and asking me if I had ever been hurt by someone badly. and I said something about how my mom was always hard on me growing up and he just shook his head and changed the subject. I don't know if I was hurt badly, or experienced some traumatic event around the ages 11-13. I truly cannot remember.

I think it makes sense, but I also can't point fingers at anyone without any clear memory. When I think back to the attic, I always start towards my uncle Andy, who isn't really my uncle but my dad's close friend who has been accused of sexual assault before and is an alcoholic who my dad has since cut contact with for beating his wife and running off to another state with another woman. It wouldn't be out of the box thinking, but I feel no strong way when I think of him in mind. I can't rationalize it. I can't think of anyone in my life who would hurt me that way, though it wouldn't surprise me. Maybe I'm making things up by thinking too hard about them. Maybe I wasn't sexually abused, but some other traumatic event happened around that time I can't think of. My memory is very boggy from the surrounding trauma of the sudden rejection and loneliness I faced in school, the unsupportive home environment I had, and the daily prescription Klonopin I was on at the time. Whatever happened was a very formative moment in my life that changed my trajectory forever. It's the seed inside me that all my current deep troubles have grown from. I don't know what it is. I have to keep digging.

I don't know what it is.