chihiro1984-blog

[chihiro1984-blog]

February 2017: Up, up and away

They kept asking me if I ever floated above my body and saw myself. “No.” I would always quickly tell the doctors or therapists. I knew what these questions where about. Did I disassociate? It was a question I never seriously considered before because I knew I didn't have any alters.

But I’ve had those moments. Those moments when relentless criticism of the abusive nature wore me down to the point where my brain felt as if it were a twig about to snap in half. That’s when it kicks in, or rather shuts down. I’m awake yet my brain is taking a mental timeout. Everything is surreal feeling even my own body and I am on autopilot until I slowly come back. It’s a rare occurrence in my adulthood. I would say only in extreme situations. (Or a few days straight with my mother)

But as a child, I had to do this to survive. My mom would berate me, yell, insult etc for hours on end sometimes. She ‘gaslighted’ me. Made me question my own reality because her version of events was nowhere close to what I was living through. Pure hell. And you never knew when it was coming. It could erupt out of anywhere and led to holes punched in the walls, furniture smashed, my dad leaving abruptly to escape her verbal rampage…

I could never leave. I was a child.

So I remembered recently from discussions with my therapists something I used to do as a kid. I used to zone out and walk on the ceiling. My mother’s nonsensical tirade would fade to the background as I walked across the room from above. I remember always taking note of how you had to step to go through a door frame from that angle.

Are these the things that made me so strange? Or was I just surviving? My therapist told me tonight, that it was good and normal. Congratulations your system is working correctly! These are normal things that your brain does in fight or flight (or freeze) mode that enables you to survive. You feel endangered, and it kicks in instinctually.

I wish I didn’t have to shut down part of my brain at times as a kid just to survive my childhood. I wish I wasn’t broken this way, or working however you want to look at it…. tigers aren’t THAT much of a threat to me at the moment.

But I do realize I may not have immersed myself in art and music like I did if I wasn’t looking so hard for an escape. But with that also comes immersion into self destructive behavior. Anything to distract you, right?

In the end, I come back to a recurring dream I had as a kid. It was so vivid I still remember how green the mossy grass was in it, the air was moist but breezy, and I also vividly recall how extremely frustrating this dream always was.

I was in the front yard. I was floating… like I drank the soda pop from Willy Wonka’s factory. I was elated in the beginning. YES! I’m flying! Then I would start to slow down. Then the air became thick and my body felt heavy whenever I began to reach the power lines that seemed to surround the property. There was some kind of ethereal force field keeping me from going any higher! This turned to panic! I wanted to fly away. I tried so hard to fly higher every time I had that dream. Time after time I woke up, defeated again. Even in MY dream I had no control.

I just wanted to escape.

[chihiro1984-blog]

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Maya Angelou

[chihiro1984-blog]

April 2015

My mother came to visit. My sister, Amanda was living with me at the time. My mother always makes snide comments. "Kacie's too cheap to buy paper towels", "This is the most like a real house I've ever seen any of your places look". (That was a compliment by the way) They are the kind of remarks that give her complete deniability. If they piss me off- as she wants them to- then once again it's me being too sensitive and I "need help" (her favorite phrase to say to me). But it's not just 1 or 2 comments, she is relentless and the comments get nastier and nastier the longer I go without a negative reaction to them. Then when I finally have enough and say something or react in some way, it looks like I am overreacting. It was just 1 comment and I probably misunderstood right? No. This has been happening since I was little and I know this game. It's the accumulation of all the rude comments and insults disguised as compliments that breaks you. And she does it on purpose. I watched her do it to my dad during their marriage. Push him to the point that he would finally explode and punch a hole in the wall. Then he's the monster and she's the victim. Like I said before, she is relentless. So a few days into her visit, it's just Noah, her and myself at the house. Noah was napping and my mom was irritated his nap was taking so long. She wanted to get shopping. I'm not waking him early to make him go shopping. He was 2 at the time, he would've been fussy, tired and not wanted to sit in a cart while my mom looks at fucking throw pillows or whatever crap she doesn't need. Also, I really didnt want to shop. We were broke at the time and like I had said before every visit, I just wanted to have family time at the house; the way we would if we lived in the same town. She doesnt have to turn every visit into a mini vacation full of tourist activities. Why cant we just play and talk, eat at the house? I preplanned every meal for that visit and then we didnt even make them because she just kept wanting to go out to eat. So I'm in the kitchen doing dishes and she was sitting in this chair next to the couch and just glaring. She was looking around with this look on her face like she hates everything. This is the quiet before the storm. Out of nowhere she starts telling me I'm depressed and, "I need professional help and to get on some antidepressants." Now, she doesn't say it like she is concerned for me, she says it with her mouth twisted like they are vulgar words being spat at me. With her squinting judgemental eyes burning holes of hatred right through me. I remain calm and disagree. This is my sensitive subject with her though. She tried to admit me against my will to hospitals as a teen and adult before I moved as far away as I could. She also kept making me go to therapists until they would inevitably need to speak with my mom. She would come in and they would tell her I was a normal teen but there were serious parenting issues they were concerned about. She would fly into a rage and threaten to have their medical licenses revoked. Finally, she found a psychiatrist that talked to me for 5 minutes and wrote me a prescription for Wellbutrin. As one of the many conditions of me attending college that my mom put on me, I had to be medicated or I couldn't go. I had a terrible reaction to the Wellbutrin, my art and therefore schoolwork suffered deeply by me not being able to access that part of my brain. Also, it triggered the irritability part of my brain and that further alienated me from the few friends I had made in a new city. I felt bitchy, but no control because the meds were driving my brain. So, yeah a sore subject with us. I started to stew inside. She was getting to me. I wanted to avoid a confrontation. I went to my room to cool down. I sent her a calm text that said I disagreed about antidepressants and I'm just a little stressed over finances but it was just circumstantial. I was hoping that she would be empathetic for once in her life and understand where I'm coming from and drop it. I thought a text would go over easier than trying to verbally discuss it. Nothing goes over easy with her. I went back into the kitchen and continued the dishes. She sat there, stewing in her own thoughts. Then she said it, the words I cannot for the life of me get out of my head. "You know what your problem is Kacie? You make everyone around you miserable and that's why nobody wants to be around you." The words cut deep like a knife jabbed right through my heart. She found the right button to push finally. Relentless. I have a photographic memory, so these moments replay like little movies in my head stuck on repeat. I will never forget those exact words. Yet later when I tried to explain what happened to my sister, Amanda and boyfriend Jay, they both concluded that I must've remembered it wrong, she probably didn't mean it like that. Also, what did I say that pushed her to say that? Why cant I just get over it and enjoy the rest of the visit? Because I can't anymore. I just can't. These things hurt coming from my mom for as long as I can remember. She crushes me. She makes me feel so low. And she always figures out how to do it. *This incident caused issues with both my boyfriend and sister. It never just effects me and her, everybody else has their opinion and the general response is, 'You know how she is, just ignore her. She doesn't mean it...' I just don't understand how she always gets a free pass to say anything abusive she wants, yet when I respond to it I'm always the "unstable/crazy/difficult" one that "needs help". Yeah, I do need help, someone please save me from my mom. SOS

[chihiro1984-blog]

January 2017 part 2

It was a Saturday night. I laid in bed living through my usual nightly cyclical hell of nightmares and panic. Always followed, of course, by a period of torturous self reflection. Was I really as bad as my mom has always made me felt? Or said? The same vivid memories replaying over again. Confusion, worry, self doubt and more plagues my mind until the exhaustion wins and I once again slip into my dreamscape. That dreamscape inevitably becomes another realm of pain in which my mom attacks me mentally and the cycle repeats. This had been going on since I last visited home and my mother in June/July. I was getting no quality sleep. All the stress was even more compounded by the fact that my mother was coming to visit, and she wanted to see my son. We hadn't spoken since July 4th. I woke up Sunday morning. My body and mind beaten down by this pattern of sleepless nights and just constant never-ending panic and I couldn't do it anymore. I was so run down. I made the terrifying decision to go to the psychiatric hospital for an evaluation. I knew I didn't need to be admitted but I also knew that I didn't even know where to begin on my own. I walked through the double doors and quickly up to the receptionist before I could chicken out. I asked to be evaluated and then sat down to fill out my paperwork while American Pickers played on the flatscreen in front of me. You have to sign a paper basically signing over your rights in case they felt they needed to hold you against your will. Thoughts of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" ran through my mind and I wished I could opt out of this one signature. Nevertheless, I signed it and waited patiently- but not very calmly- for my name to be called. Finally a nurse came out a door and called my name. She kindly informed me I needed to lock up my purse as nothing, especially cell phones, were allowed beyond that point. We entered a small room with a desk, two chairs, and a poster on patient rights. Oh, and of course a box of tissues. I gave her the spiel; I'm not sleeping, I have internal anxiety that literally never turns off, diagnosed before with PTSD due to a severe trauma but that I felt the root of my issues was my childhood and my mom. Tears poured as I began telling her things my mom has said and done to me. I tried to kill myself at age 13 because I couldn't take one more second of her relentless abuse. SHE WAS ALWAYS SO RELENTLESS. My mom would be here in 2 weeks and I was so panicked over how to handle the situation, so scared to see her, confused to the point of dysfunction.... The nurse was very empathetic. She excused herself to go call a dr, determine a game plan with him and confirm it with my insurance. She came back and stated the recommendation was the PHP, Partial Hospitalization Program. I started the next day. Wow, that was fast. I told her I was scared and didn't know if I could do it. It was a group therapy setting and that freaked me out. She's said to go home and think about it, but that she hoped that I would try it. That's what I was looking for wasn't it? Help, no matter how scary that prospect was...

[chihiro1984-blog]

January 2017

I had been having nightmares every night since July. Awaking in a total panic, heart racing as if I had just ran a mile. This time the nightmares were different. They used to be about being stalked, held down, assaulted (this is when I would wake up), they would escalate quickly and I would sometimes wake up screaming or trying to fight… ready to fight. But I had for the most part gotten those nightmares under control years ago. They didn’t happen every night anymore unless there was a trigger. A sexual assault in a movie I accidently allowed myself to see or a rape victim on the news being blamed and/or questioned, etc. Now the nightmares are about my mom. Every single night. It slightly varies but its basically always the same. Always the same house which is a combination of old family homes and the step families current homes. It’s massive, a mansion with a huge balcony outback that has multiple swimming pools and a hot tub. This area overlooks a cliff and water. Sometimes it’s a river, sometimes it’s the ocean. The water is always maliciously rough. Usually I escape this way, a dangerous trek through rough terrain and water with jumping fish (why are there always jumping fish?) If you travel far enough you come to a platform that overlooks the water, all of a sudden it’s a display at the Smithsonian. Is it real? Or just one of those natural history museum set ups? I can’t tell, but I descend down some adjacent escalaters and I’m at the airport to go home, broken once again. Like the setting, the theme is always the same. I come home to visit. There are a million rooms in this gigantic house but none for me. Where are all my clothes and belongings from when I was younger? Before I left home? Everybody else has theirs. I am busy searching all the rooms to find mine. Simultaneously, my mother is telling everyone in the house things about me. Bad things. And ALL the extended family live there. Eventually there is a confrontation. In a room that is out of my mom’s mother in laws real house. The whole family is there. My mom is telling me horrible things about myself in front of everyone. Nobody says anything, they just stand and watch! I grow desperate as each insult cuts deeper and deeper. I start running around to everyone in the room, “She’s lying, don’t you know it’s not true?! Don’t you believe me!?! She’s the problem, not me!” Nobody responds to me. It’s almost as if they aren’t real because they have absolutely no reaction. My mom is endlessly berating me and nobody is bothered as they watch. I grow more and more frantic and irrational. Im searching the crowded room for one ally, pleading with each individual to please stop this! I dont deserve this! Do, I?!? My mom’s words hurt, but everyone watching doing nothing to stop her hurts the most. Now I feel everyone looking at me like they are judging me, as if I’m the crazy one. Finally I feel as if I am going to just explode, I can’t take one more second, I fight to get past my mother blocking the doorway, run and jump off the balcony plunging to the dark scary waters below that are still more comforting than my own mothers words. Now I make the trek. It is both long and short at the same time. It is both hard and easy at the same time. I’m in my element; finally. Alone in the wild like a female version of a Jack London character. Minus the dog of course. Eventually, I make it to where the water flows backwards. There is a platform that extends out with a thin metal railing. I walk to the end and gaze in every direction. All this beautiful untouched terrain I made it through. The house is in the far distance still. A speck in the horizon. Suddenly I notice museum signage. I’m at the Smithsonian. There’s a hall now that leads to escalaters. TSA is at the bottom. My luggage is filled with nonsense. I don’t care anymore. It is so stressful I just want to get on the plane. As the plane takes off I look out the window and think to myself, “I’m never going back there”. Yet, I still feel like I’m a prisoner. There is no peace anymore, even in leaving.

**This fullest version of the dream came to me the night of my first EMDR session. It’s recurring and varies. Sometimes I escape in a car but I don’t remember how to get home. Sometimes I awake during the escalation moment with my mom. Etc.