11.30.05
Posted in Recovery at 8:19 pm by TheShire
Therapy yesterday, I’ve been meaning to write about it since I left the building, but then with the bike crisis and today’s shit day at work I don’t know if I can find the right words, to get my mind together long enough to make sense.
So therapy. It would appear we have a high trust in our therapist. It scares us to think that way. Trust is a scary thing, trust is something that makes us want to run, that brings this unending sense of brewing storm. But with Sean we seem to ignore the warnings and rush headlong. A couple of sessions ago we told him about the words, about our need to be able to see and read words no matter where we are. If there are no words we panic, we lose our connection with the world and with ourselves. We have never really got into that with people, sure we say we like to read, and like having something to read with us, but we don’t usually go into how deep that need is. We told him though, it didn’t seem a scary thing to say until we started talking, until we realised he had a secret of ours now. That’s the thing about the trust with him, we are giving him our secrets, secrets that we have keep so deeply hidden.
We started talking to him about how much we are struggling right now and how we don’t really understand what is going on. He thought it was pretty obvious, he talked for a while about our reaction to success, that there are things going well in our life right now and we are being given all these messages that we are not worthless, that we are not bad, and this is hitting headlong into all the messages we carry around with us in relation to our past. Confronting such long held beliefs brings pain and confusion and fear, so it is no wonder we are struggling under the weight of it. I think as part of this conversation we mentioned the shame of going into work with our arm all cut up. Which lead onto our habit of being secret about our craziness. We are crazy, there are things we do, things we think that are crazy (or if that word offends you, unhealthy). But those things are always secret things, things that are kept hidden from the world. At times I do wish my craziness was more overt, that people could see it, and therefore it is acknowledged and recognised. But in saying that of course I know that because these crazy things are hidden it enables me to get on with my life, with doing my work, with being normal.
But somehow we got talking about some of those secret craziness. I told him about some of the things, about the eating and the self-harm that we talk about but never in depth, never really telling the truth about. But we found ourselves letting him know those secrets. There were other ones, ones that we even too shameful to think about telling him, but the shame and disgust we felt in ourselves by speaking of the hidden ones was immense. We disappeared into ourselves the way we do at times like that and Sean had to pull us back out. I have to admit it was nice to know someone noticed when we went deep into oblivion. Usually people, friends, family, others don’t even notice we are gone. But even with that the shame is still strong, he says he is not disgusted in us, and how he helped us through our major meltdown with the bike shows he doesn’t despise us, that there is “caring” there. But now that someone knows our secrets, knows them in more detail than anyone has we are left with this terribly exposed and shameful feeling.
Trusting your therapist is suppose to be a good thing, but it feels crazy making, it feels like it is ripping me apart with shame.
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11.29.05
Posted in Just Stuff at 7:47 pm by TheShire
Therapy tonight was intense, so much stuff to process and I will do that later. But for now I need to bitch. I had shifted my therapy to 5pm so I didn’t think about that when I parked. When therapy was over and we walked to our bike we found out that it had been locked in the carpark. I have no idea why they padlock the gates at night, but they do so my bike was behind the chained gate and I had no way of getting home. We end back in Sean’s office, crying, shaking, completely out of control. No one knows what to do, no one can cope with it. Sean was reassuring and firm with us, which helped to ground, and he gave us a lift home because we have no money. Tomorrow I am going to have to get up really early and walk down the hill to get my bike so I can be at work at 9am. Sent my boss an email to say I will probably be late. Fuck it was not a good end to a day that has been high stress and bubbling emotional trauma.
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11.28.05
Posted in Recovery at 5:49 pm by TheShire
Kate told us Bob was coming up at 5 tonight, he must have said he was coming up at 4. Either way we missed him and it brought home just how desperate things are for us right now. We feel on the verge of some complete breakdown. Holding it together for work, have to keep it together for another 4 weeks, I just don’t know how we are going to manage that. Had to go to work today with my arm all cut up, which was so shameful. I’m getting a little scared
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11.27.05
Posted in Just Stuff, Vents at 3:28 pm by TheShire
I’ve lost my orange chocolate truffle recipe. Fuck It!!!
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Posted in Recovery at 2:05 pm by TheShire
It hasn’t really been a good weekend. Productive, but emotionally we are really struggling. I don’t know what exactly is going on. A couple of times now we come to the computer hoping to write it out, the task of putting things into words is often helpful, a start to processing what is going on. But instead of that happening we end up sitting here with that blah feeling, not being able to take it any further, Sean said recently that flashbacks can happen like that, something triggers them off, but because at the time of the original event we were dissociated we don’t have a story with it, we get hit by the emotions without any corresponding story. He said something along the lines of these memories are more accurate because narrative memory is stored and reinterpreted and altered, where the flashback of emotions is clean of distortions. I sort of get that, but Kate heard him and now she thinks that is proof we are lying about the abuse. *sigh*
As I write this I am suddenly thinking, is it that important to know why these emotions are there. We spend so much time trying to work things out, trying to get some intellectual understanding. It has always been the goal, understand but don’t feel. We hide in that intellect, in cognition, it prevents us from feeling, it keeps all those messy ugly emotions away. We know enough, we know our life was not happy, we know we were badly abused, we have enough details enough general awareness, so does it matter now what these emotions are connected to? I mean, sure if it was all a mystery then I think it would be essential to work it out. But the truth is this isn’t a mystery, this is a reaction to a known past, or at least generally known past. So instead of spending all our energy trying to work out the details, identify the cause, should we just instead allow ourselves to feel?
It makes sense on paper, to feel, to let the emotions be expressed. But even on paper we get so frightened of the idea we run a mile. We don’t trust ourselves, we don’t trust we have the ability to feel without being drowned in it, without it taking over our minds and spirits. Even after all these years, after all the work we still fear our own emotions and want nothing to do with them. I don’t know what it is we fear. I usually say I am afraid of becoming a victim, of getting lost in that victimhood and remaining there. But I am not sure that is true, I am pretty sure no one here would ever allow that to happen. So although there is that fear, although not reality based, I don’t think it is what stops us, I just don’t know what is so frightening. I don’t know why I am so terrified of feeling, or is it not the feeling, but giving those feelings time and space and allowing them to be seen, to show themselves. Is it like talking about the abuse? Do I want to be able to feel without it becoming ugly, do I still need to keep everything civil and polite? And therefore I can’t express all those things, because it will end up being nothing like civil or polite.
-Isabella
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11.26.05
Posted in Relationships at 1:48 pm by TheShire
Brian messaged me last week, with the whole I haven’t seen you, I’m missing you deal. I told him I had a job now so was working all day. But then went on to say that not seeing him in a month had given me time to think and I could no longer continue doing what we had been doing. I didn’t want to be anyone’s casual fuck anymore. He said he would change, he would try harder, but I don’t really believe him, he has said it before. I told him that, I told him we have had this conversation twice before and he side steps the issue every time. I said that it’s his choice, that if he wants only a casual thing then that’s his choice, it doesn’t make him a bad person, it just means I won’t be involved. I said I deserve better, which I don’t know if I really believe but it made the point. We left the conversation with him saying how much he has missed me, all the amazing words he often says to me, but I still doubt anything will change. Well that’s not entirely true, we have changed, we won’t do the sex in the middle of the day thing anymore. But I don’t think he will change that much. And without that happening, there is no reason to see him anymore. I would like to think that this is a wake up call for him, that he cares so much about me that he doesn’t want to lose me from his life. But that’s just a dream and the reality is probably nothing will change for him.
So that probably means I am back to being sex and celibate. There is still that Holly chick, but it’s becoming clear that she just wants a lot of sex without any sort of relationship. And I am not willing to go from one type of situation straight into an identical one. I’m going to be 37 in three weeks, and beginning to doubt that I will ever find any sort of stable long term relationship. I know you never can tell but the track record isn’t looking good for it. Will that stop us looking? Probably not, but it does sort of feel a bit disappointing. And you know I miss sex, I enjoy having sex a lot. Usually my desire for sex gets to a point when we settle for something casual just to be able to fuck someone, it means we aren’t so choosy. I hope this time that it won’t happen, that we will hold out, that we wont’ just settle. I don’t know, time will tell on that one. It’s only been a month, so I am not at that “fuck I am so horny” stage.
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11.23.05
Posted in Just Stuff at 9:11 pm by TheShire
You Are 50% Weird
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Normal enough to know that you’re weird…
But too damn weird to do anything about it!
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BASiCS
001.Name: non-legal name… Shire
002.D.O.B.: December 1968
003.Location: New Zealand
004.Religion: Witch
005.Occupation: Research Assistant
APPEARANCE
001.Hair: more grey than brown
002.Eyes: Hazel or grey
003.Height: 5′8”
STYLE
001.Clothing: Mostly jeans because motorbikes and skirts don’t go well together
002.Music: Nearly anything, although lately it’s been a lot of rock
003.Make-up: Very seldomly
004.Body art: Not enough money.. one day we will get our tattoo
RIGHT NOW
001.Wearing: black jeans, brown top and ugly green cardy
002.Listening to: SVU playing in the backgroung
003.Thinking of: Running out of tobacco by tomorrow, oh the horror
LAST THING YOU…
001.Bought: coffee
002.Ate and drank: fish burger and coffee
003.Read: an article about Curriculum Integration
004.Watched on TV: Campbell Live
EITHER/OR
001.Club or houseparty: Neither I’m too old and boring
002.Tea or coffee: coffee
003.Achiever or slacker: I want to say slacker, might not be the accurate response
004.Beer or cider: beer
005.Drinks or shots: Drinks
006.Cats or dogs: either
007.Single or taken: single
008.Pen or pencil: pen
009.Gloves or mittens: motorbike clothes or else nothing
010.Food or candy: good
011.Cassette or cd: CD
012.Coke or Pepsi: Coke.. especially Raspberry Coke
013.Hard or mild alcohol: Hard
014.Matches or a lighter: lighter
015.Sunset beach or the bold and the beautiful: um…what?
016.Ricki Lake or Oprah Winfrey: Used to be Oprah
WHO DO YOU WANT TO…
001.Kill: God that’s too long a list.
002.Hear from: oh anyone who wants to chat with me
003.Get really wasted with: Too old and boring for that now
004.Look like: Sukey (sp?) from Gilmore Girls, oh to be that attractive and still be fat
005.Be like: Shit I don’t have a clue
006.Avoid: my neighbours, my family
LAST PERSON YOU… AND WHEN?
001.Touched: Bob last friday
002.Talked to: Phil from work at 5 tonight
003.Hugged: Brian three weeks ago
004.Instant messaged: Holly 3 days ago
005.Kissed: Brian three weeks ago
006.Who broke your heart: Oh one person did that, and won’t embarrass him by giving details.
WHERE DO YOU…
001.Eat: living room
002.Dance: at home when I’m alone
003.Cry: everywhere I feel I shouldn’t.
004.Wish you were: Travelling the world.
HAVE YOU EVER…
001.Dated one of your best friends? no.
002.Loved somebody so much it makes you cry? Only cried when it ended
003.Drank alcohol? yes
004.Done drugs: yes
005.Broken the law: yes.
006.Ran away from home: yes
007.Broken a bone: yes
008.Cheated on a test: no
009.Skinny dipped: yes
010.Played truth or dare: yes.
011.Flashed someone: no.
012.Mooned someone: no
013.Kissed someone you didn’t know: no
014.Been on a talk/game show: no
015.Been in a fight: yes
016.Ridden in a fire truck: no
017.Been on a plane: yes
018.Come close to dying: yes
019.Cheated on your boy/girlfriend: no
020.Gave someone a piggy back/shoulder ride: no
021.Eaten a worm/mud pie? yes
022.Swam in the ocean: yes
023.Had a nightmare/dream that made you wake up: yes
WHAT IS…
001.The most embarrassing CD in your collection? Heresay, British television manufactured band. oh the shame, .
002.Your bedroom like? Very small.
003.Your favorite thing for breakfast? coffee and cig
004.Your favorite thing for lunch? Coffee and something fattening
005.Your favorite thing for dinner? Chicken
006.Your favorite Restaurant? Never have the money to eat out
ARE YOU…
001.A Vegetarian?: No
002.A Good Student?: it would seem.
003.Good At Sports?: No.
004.Good At Wakeboarding/Snowboarding: No
005.A Good Singer?: Fuck no, just ask Uslot
006.A good Actor/Actress?: probably would be, I can act normal most of the time
007.A deep sleeper?: Nope
008.A Good Dancer?: no
009.Shy?: yes
010.Outgoing?: no
011.A good storyteller?: Pretty good
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11.22.05
Posted in Work at 4:51 pm by TheShire
Today sucked. I think it was doomed from the start. We spent most of the night awake and crying, so when it came time to get up and head into work we put it off to the very last minute. Then at work it was a day of everything going wrong. For some reason a number of the pdf files we downloaded yesterday had errors in them this morning so wouldn’t reload. It took forever to get the ones that were working to download again from email (same as I was doing last night). Then proquest went down and I couldn’t do any more work, so I head back to the office to do the photocopying, but the instructions weren’t clear, although it ended up I made the right sense out of most of them. Then I go back to the library to find the ISP for the library is down and won’t connect to anything outside of the University server, so I can’t do any work there. When I got back to the office my boss was away, so I decided to use her computer, but I couldn’t find how to insert a disk on her Mac. I even asked one of the other lecturers but he couldn’t find it. So although I spent the day working hard I didn’t seem to get any work done. It was stressful and I was on edge most of the day.
I end up going to therapy at 3. Therapy was distressing but the good news is it has moved now to 5pm, so I don’t have to worry about making up the missing work. I just hope tomorrow is a better day.
-Isabella
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11.21.05
Posted in Just Stuff at 5:13 pm by TheShire
I had thought about doing this entry whilst I am at work. I have a lot of really slow work to do. I am searching databases and downloading any new articles I find. This takes forever, for the file to download so I can save it. There is probably a quicker way to do it, but right now I can’t think of anything. So I thought fill in the waiting time by writing for the journal, or reading/writing email. Well the journal entry is going to be difficult because I can’t remember the access page to my journal, it’s bookmarked on the home computer, and there seems to be absolutely no email to waste time with.
After last night’s hissy fit about coming into work, I feel surprisingly relaxed and comfortable being here. We woke up really early this morning, well early for us anyway, and were all on task about coming in. It took me forever to get out of the house though, because the weather was so horrendous. My boss said she thought she might get an email from me saying I was working at home. And I think if I knew I would be working on the internet all day I probably would have done that. So instead I am working in the disability room in the library. Which would be brilliant except I didn’t think I would need my wallet today, because there was no money in it, so I don’t have my university card and every time I want into the room I have to go and ask the assistant. It isn’t a big deal, it’s more an inconvenience. It’s good though having my own space to work, although I worry now that it is taking so long to download them that I might not be working at a good pace, especially when you consider I am writing here as well.
I am writing this from work, as I wait for pdf files to download. Man they take forever.
The thing about the job is that it has hit home to us how “unwell” we are. We cope so well, even with this job we are still coping, but there is this knowledge of how much a struggle that is. Sometimes I really wish I wasn’t so damn brilliant at coping. Sometimes I wish the struggles showed more on the surface. But then again I am also grateful that they don’t, it allows me anonymity, it means people don’t stare, it means I don’t look “crazy”. Some of the struggles are things we would have to face anyway, the whole restructuring of our day, to allow people to have their time outside of work, it also means I, personally don’t really have much of a weekend, because I have taken up so much of the week that it is only far I take a step back when I don’t have to be at work. Of course that makes my life incredibly boring right now, I work, I go home, and then it isn’t until the next morning that I take over to go to work. If this was a forever job I might have to restructure that a little bit because a life of only work would be incredibly boring. But there is also an awareness that underneath that business like, calm façade there is all this crap trying to be sorted or at least contained. I can’t show that, I have to be normal, I have to be capable. But that doesn’t stop it being there, it doesn’t stop it slamming into me.
I talked to Bob last week about what my life could have been if I had had other choices. If I had been allowed to be academic, if I had just been left to it, ignored in those pursuits I could have my education finished by now, I could have a decent job. I missed out on so much, or at least had to start so late in life. And I wonder how it would be to work if I didn’t have to deal with all the bullshit that is my life. I sometimes get really jealous and yeah, pissed off as I watch other people, the sorts of people that can just go about their life without having to be slammed by their past, without having to spend hours preparing for the outside world, without having to work through compromises and the like so you can just function. I sometimes want to yell, fuck give me a break you don’t know what I am dealing with here. But that isn’t an option, that isn’t even something I would do. It’s just sometimes I want people to know, sometimes I get so tired of being strong and capable and really just want to be viewed as a Victim for a little bit. But then in saying that we tend to “bitch slap” anyone that treats us that way, so it’s probably not something we really want, I just want to be like them, to not have to face that and when I see that isn’t going to be that way I get a little sorry for myself.
-Isabella
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11.20.05
Posted in Work at 9:24 pm by TheShire
No one wants to go to work tomorrow. They are upset at me for telling them we have to go. We will go, we have a commitment to fulfil. But it’s difficult and everyone is struggling under the weight of crap, but we know we have to put on our normal face for the week, and four weeks after that. It seems like an eternity. We are so not ready to be working full time. I remind myself of the money and of the benefits of having this experience but I want to just go to bed and hide away from the world.
-Isabella
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