11.13.07
Posted in Recovery at 8:06 pm by TheShire
Ok another couple of days, and I’m trying to think of something worth journalling about. I’m sorry we made you worry Campbell, we weren’t dead, just terribly lost in isolation. We fell into it and found it nearly impossible to pull ourselves out. There is something comforting in the normality of hiding away from the world. Of course its not that healthy, but old habits are hard to break.
Ok so we’ve just gotten back from group and emotionally I am tense and angry. The woman I spoke about in the other entry that doesn’t like me spent about an hour blaming me, calling me disrespectful and attacking me. One of the therapists tried to get her to see it wasn’t about me, but about her, but that just was like beating their head against a brick wall. She called me dangerous. See, second group I freaked myself out, and almost got up and left the group. What it looked like from the outside was basically a very abrupt violent movement. I didn’t leave the chair but yeah I can see for people that didn’t know me it might have looked scary. At the time I apologised, said it was about my old habits to run when I was scared and made a promise to the group that I would do everything I could not to do it anymore. Now, 12 groups later this woman is still calling me dangerous and scary because of it. I pointed out to her that yes, I panicked that one group, and shouldn’t have responded like that, but the fact is since then I have faced things, and not reacted that way, so maybe she should get over it. That didn’t go down well. One of the therapists brought up that more people in the group were probably scared of her rather than of me. Another group member spoke up about how the whole thing was effecting her, and well, she became one of the bad people as well. Basically this woman decided we conspire against her all the time and set out to make her feel small. She said I don’t do any work in the group, that I play the victim and am damaging her recovery.
There were things I could have said, probably things I should have said. But I made a rational decision to not confront her. I do believe there are some times when it is easier, when it is simply more healthy to not get into a fight with someone. Especially someone I do not feel will be able to hear anything but her own rage and issues. She didn’t take if from the professionals, raising her voice and getting angry at them, she won’t take it from me when she sees everything as my fault anyway. The fact is, I do feel I have done some major work in that group. I talk more than a lot of people, I work through some majorly big issues. I sometimes can even feel proud. I don’t like the woman, I don’t like the box she’s put me in. I don’t believe in the box she’s put me in. I understand that that box is about her need to have someone in it, it’s a projection of her own stuff. It’s just hard for it to be me that has to be her victim in all this. I’m angry and hurt, and feel very attacked and not sure how I will deal with that. I try to tell myself all these messages about it being about her shit, about me knowing myself better, knowing myself enough not to get caught up in her shit. I never liked her, I feel she’s attacked me from the first group. So I shouldn’t let it get to me now. But fuck it still does, and now I have to go to group next week and face her knowing she believes me to be a small useless victim who is mean and cruel and disrespectful. Two more groups, I remind myself and then I won’t have to deal with her again. I just need to let her shit go. It’s just not as easy as it sounds.
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11.08.07
Posted in Recovery, Relationships, Study at 2:01 pm by TheShire
Ok, not like anyone will probably be reading this, because I haven’t updated in about 8 months, but those that notice, yes, surprise surprise I’m actually putting up a journal entry. Shocking beyond shocking isn’t it? So I’ll full in what has been happening.
School. I had an interesting year really. First semester I almost failed a paper. I went into the exam with a very low mark. Basically the main assignment I managed to miss a huge and very important segment. So I was under a lot of pressure to do well in the exam. I must have because I came out with a B grade for the paper. Now I’m not happy with getting B’s, but at the same time all things considered I was amazed at how well I did. I got my “mini-thesis” done and in. With appendices it was about 17 000 words. It’s damn scary. I need to get a good grade for this if I even stand a chance to get into Masters. I won’t know until I get the grades back. What I’m holding onto is my supervisor who read what I have wrote still thinks I should go for Masters, so if it was total crap she wouldn’t be saying that. On the bad note, I dropped out of a paper but forgot to do the withdraw thing. So with this one, and a couple from last year when I was dealing with Dad dying, I’ve got a few fails on my transcript. This is not going to look good when I apply for Masters. So I might have managed to shoot myself in the foot over that. Seems sabotaging achievement is still a major issue for us.
Relationships Ok David. Well it seems I’ve broken up with him. I say seems because he simply dropped out of my life and I have no idea why. He was talking to moving to Blenheim for work, and we were talking about moving up there with him. He went up to look around and I told him to call me when he got back to let me know how it went. Now, some 7 months later I still haven’t heard from him. The thing about this that pisses me off is what is it with people that can’t give someone the respect of saying, sorry it’s not working I’m moving on. Actually what pisses me off the most in all this is all the bdsm toys I had were at his place and although I’ve emailed him to ask for them back, I’ve never heard anything from him. There was a lot of stuff there and a few of them actually had some emotional connections to them, memories attached to getting them. Also it was a lot of money to get them all. It’s not like I have anyone new in my life, but that’s not the issue.
Breaking up with David, I don’t know, it didn’t really rock me. I remember when Chris said he’d not be with me anymore it really hurt. I was a mess for a few days. But with David, it felt more like resignation. I think there was always a part of me that knew it wouldn’t last. Don’t get me wrong, I still wanted it to, I still cared a lot about him, even loved him. But when it all stopped it just felt, I don’t know, inevitable. Also I think there were a few things that in the long term might have become issues. I will always be grateful that he supported and loved me through my father’s death, and that for awhile there he treated me like a wonderful partner. I have happy memories that I will cherish. But in all things I still don’t feel devastated by the break up.
Therapy I’m coming to the end of a period of group therapy. It’s been an interesting experience. Both good and bad. On the bad side, there is a woman in the group that really angers me, and I think the feeling is mutual. She doesn’t like me, I don’t like her. Second group she attacked me because I disclosed I was multiple. I nearly stopped coming to the group because of, and because of how Sean responded to it. I felt like I was dealing with my mother all over again. And that is never a good feeling. I do think though that was part of the reason I kept going back. Since then she’s taking snips at me, calling me a victim often. I hate her, I really do. Last group Sean had convinced me to disclose my abuse history to the group. It was very scary to do so. I felt like I was breaking every rule in my head and I’m trying to deal with that. Her feedback to me was I anger her and I drain her. It really didn’t help. I know she has a right to those feelings, but I felt attacked for speaking up, which brought into all the pain and messages about not disclosing, but it being bad and wrong and selfish of me to speak up about my own pain.
On the good, or at least better side of the whole group thing, being there has helped me deal more with some of the rules in my head. I speak up, I share and respond to others, I push myself out of my comfort zone. I’ve actually become rather friendly with one woman, she drives me home from group, and like another one. It’s been really weird to be part of a group but its getting better.
Writing I’ve decided to take a big risk in my life and share my writing with people. I’ve always written. I love writing, but usually I just delete everything I’ve written. I have major esteem issues around my writing. No matter how much I love doing it I always have feelings of shame attached to it. Basically I think its crap and people would laugh at me and all sorts of other wrong and horrible things. Then a friend asked me to write a piece of fan-fiction for her and I did and well she loved it. I started to write more and post them in a livejournal account. That was going to be it, just sharing with a couple of friends. However I was reading a journal of an online writer who I really respect for her writing skills and she was doing an October-Fest for writing and asking people to sign up. I commented I would love to except my writing was so incredibly bad. She read a couple of pieces in the livejournal and encouraged me to join up. After a lot of panicking I actually did, and then panicked a lot afterwards. I ended up posting a number of drabbles in the month and one longer fic. I got really nice feedback. It scared me shitless, but I am so glad I did it.
I’ve never had anyone read any fiction I wrote since HighSchool. When I did there I got positive feedback from a family friend which resulted in major beatings from my mother for being too proud and conceited. Since then I’ve been scared about sharing. So the fact that I posted them online, in a forum that allowed people to comment was a big deal. I did expect laughter, I expected people to tell me I was crap at writing and shouldn’t post anything more. I expected ridicule. I didn’t get any of that. I got both supportive comments and constructive criticisms. It turned out to be an amazing experience for me, even with all the fears associated with it. I’m going to keep writing, keep trying to improve my skills. I remember a lecturer at teachers college saying that writing is like any art form, you have to practise it. You should write something every day, even if it isn’t good. I’m going to try that. Not sure how much I’ll post publicly, and for now its just fanfic, but it’s a start of something that makes me feel good. I am close to considering myself a writer.
Ok, I know probably more than this happened over the eight months, but for now I can’t think of anything important to say. I am going to try to get back to journaling regularly. Hopefully.
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