There’s been no wind today, thank god, it feels peaceful around me.

National won the election, that wasn’t a surprise. Not my ideal outcome but the fact is it was basically a given. What was uncertain was whether they would get enough to govern on their own, which politically speaking would be my worse nightmare. I love MMP, I love the ideal of it, the concept that it means parties have to work together, find compromises, negotiate. It doesn’t always work as well in practice as in theory but that’s real life. I wasn’t terribly happy that NZ First got in, to me Peters is a racist arrogant prick who gets off on power, but at least he has enough sway to not have National unchallenged. Banks is another arrogant prick I didn’t want to win his seat but did. But then I’m a tree hugging socialist so I’m never going to be overly fond of those on the far right. On the good side, the greens did really well, ending up with 11% of the party vote which I was pleased to see. So in the end NZ will end up with a centre-right government, and although it might not be my ideal, we are a reasonably peaceful western country, so its not like we’ll end up with fascist death squads on the roads next week or anything. Not that I won’t bitch about policies anyway.

I wanted to write something light, something that pulls myself out of this damn headspace, but I can’t find it in me right now. The wind keeps blowing. It’s that north-easterly or north-westerly I can never remember which one, but it’s strong and gushy, hot and inescapable. It is crazy making wind, common to here and Canterbury in the Summer. Warm days bringing warm and gushy winds, you can’t go out without being blown apart, and I end up having to shut the doors because the noise of it starts making me anxious and jumpy. It’s not an uncommon effect, as I said its crazy making, and a lot of people have a similar reaction to it.

I had a really explicitly detailed child pornography dream last night that’s really messing with my mind. My flashback nightmares are never pleasant, but usually I don’t get so caught up in them I can’t shake them off the next day. In the dream, everyone I’ve ever known seemed to be in a room, a lounge type room eating popcorn and watching the movies of me. They were all making derisive comments about me, how fat and repulsive I looked, what a useless fuck I must have been. Some people were openly disgusted and repulsed by me, others laughing cruelly as they were amused by my humiliation. It’s left me feeling shamed and disgusted, not just in myself, that’s a common reaction to when I’m confronted by the memories of my abuse, but I also feel shamed that these people will know just how fucked up I am, will see all the filth and badness of me. I’m kind of glad today that I live such an isolated life because I think if I saw or spoke with anyone I know today I’d end up dry retching from the exposure, from the knowledge of how visible all that is bad in me is. I know, yes, on some level those people never saw the movies, never really witnessed it, but I’m left with this irrational knowledge that its all be viewed.

So, I went and had a little freak out after writing that last paragraph. Then ended up in the kitchen preparing the mushrooms for dinner, it helps to ground back into reality, into knowing the normal of life. And also its 4pm, so I needed to get the prep done.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the alcohol thing. I think I’ve kidded myself for a long time about how bad my drinking problem use to be. It was easy to downplay it, since I gave up, I stopped drinking all alcohol for a while, and then was able to return to drinking responsibly, enjoying it without ever coming close to abusing it. I didn’t need AA or rehab, so yeah not really a problem. But the other side of that is the shame, the secrecy about how destructive I let it become. I got fired because of my alcohol abuse. I lost my job because I was stealing so I could maintain my level of drinking, I became homeless and rejected by a close friend and had to move back into my parents’ home, I had to return to an abusive environment or go live on the streets. I was talked to by the police, they were going to charge me, but for some quick talking and yes playing the sympathy card I got out of the conviction, instead being given an official warning and told my name would be on file for 10 years so they would know if I reoffended. This was not just some heavy drinking, this was a problem, this fucked up my life. Yes good stuff, well sort of good stuff, came from that, it was the start of my journey into recovery. But I had a good job, prospects, a very good relationship that I threw away because I couldn’t function without drinking. I am ashamed that I am now a theft, I stole because I wanted to drink, its not something I admit too much, but its the truth. Yes there have been times since then I’ve gotten drunk, most of that was when having a good time, and alcohol contributed to that good time, and there have been times when it was just an escape, a momentary stepping out of the burden of life. But I know myself, well I know enough to know this is a difference, this isn’t about relaxing, or an escape, this is about the numbing of everything, its about not feeling, not existing, not having the be responsible or invested. And right now if I give into that I’ll head back into old habits of drinking. I know where that road leads. So I am trying to avoid it, and by being open (well as open as an obscure online journal can be) about how I ruined my life with drinking once, maybe that will remind me not to do it again.

Ok, so, so much for creating a light and fluffy journal entry.

Had therapy today which was a huge deal.

We hadn’t seen him for a while, longer than usual, because the last couple of sessions had to be cancelled due to unforeseeable circumstances. So seeing him again brought up some extra issues on top of what’s going on.

Last night we convinced ourselves that when we got to see him, he’d tell us that he was cancelling permanently, that we’d be totally on our own. It was so believed that we could see no future but alcoholic numbness leading to a jump off Lawyer’s Head. I understand the fear as we have a history of rejection when we’ve most needed the support.

So before we started on anything we asked him directly if he was planning on cancelling our therapy. If we were going to open up we needed to know the rug wasn’t going to be pulled out. He didn seem amused by the question, not in the cruel making fun of me way, more in the fond exasperation that after all this time and all the effort he’s made to be able to continue to see us in some form we still expect rejection way.

So after he declared he had no such plans he asked me why it was I needed to ask. I was able to tell him I needed it to feel safe enough to take the risk of saying things are bad. There’s so much shame and guilt about saying that, fear of punishment for not playing by the rules. I told him about not being able to do the school work, I told him about not being able to control my thoughts, my reminiscence of the past, my paranoia, hyper vigilant hallucinations (I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eye, people coming at me, climbing in the window and have to look around to make sure it isn’t real), the unhealthy irrational thinking and the growing desire to numb myself in alcohol. He asked about self-harm, sleeping, and then he asked if I was contemplating suicide.

The thing is a couple of months ago I had gotten to a point when I truly believed suicide would never be an option anymore. I thought I had been able to put the notion of suicide behind me, but today I had to admit it was in my thinking. Now I have no active plans, or even real consideration about ending my life, but the thought is there, the option of it. I can honestly say I am not a suicide risk right now, but I know if I don’t change things, if I don’t find some grounding in this, the idea of suicide will grow in its appeal.

Talking to Sean, I don’t know if I would say it helped, it hasn’t really changed anything. It would be unrealistic to assume it would. But it did feel good in an awful heart wrenching way to speak about it all, good but still coated in so much guilt. He listened and commented. Comments that showed he understood, he didn’t buy into the craziness but he didn’t dismiss it. He confirmed my belief that I have OCD. I had wondered but it didn’t see extreme enough, important enough to deserve a label. He also normalised the crazy. He said there was a normal level of crazy people had, we were talking about my issues drinking water out of the tap, how I can’t take that first glass and he commented that he does the same thing because he’s always worried of spiders up in the tap. But where he has to be normal crazy about letting it run for a bit before filling a glass, I take it beyond normal crazy about having to empty out the first glass no matter how long the water was running first. He said people always have some level of crazy in their lives, that’s the normal crazy, but mine has progressed past the normal into the levels of unhealthy, dysfunctional crazy. For some reason that was reassuring, rather than dismissing or meaning I was a lost cause.

I don’t know what outcomes came from therapy today. I know I feel so guilty of not being able to play by the rules. We talked about that at the end of the session, how the rules tell me I need to get over it, need to behave appropriately, need not to draw attention to the multiplicity, not still be thinking about the abuse, not have it all crashing in on me, that I need to be productive and presentable, smile and be positive, and breading those rules brings out this guilt about being a bad person. I said to Sean, that I know he hates me clinging to the rules, but sometimes its only those rules that keep me stable, crazy and desperate maybe, but outwardly stable.

PS: On the way home there was a demand for a Big Mac so we ended up in McDonalds. While there we watched a ‘sane looking’ woman dipping her nuggets and chips into her ice cream sundae…. so maybe I’m not the most crazy person on the planet.

This is one of those journal entries I probably will just delete when I finish writing.

I’ve been seriously thinking about revisiting my misuse of alcohol. I used to have a drinking problem. I am not sure I would say it went as far as alcoholism but it got damn close. I stopped it, hell, over 15 years ago. It’s what got me started on this whole recovery thing. At the time I thought it was better if I stopped, that I was causing too many people embarrassment by drinking.

I think, well I used to think it was best that it stopped when it did, that it never became a major addiction. But now. Well now I keep getting drawn to the oblivion that alcohol used to give me. I used to be able to just not care, not feel, not have to think. I want that back. Things are so bad right now I am not sure how to cope with the supports I have. Alcohol isn’t the answer, I’m not stupid enough not to see the problems it will bring, but I also just don’t seem to care.

It just seems to be that everything is falling apart right now. I feel like I can barely keep it together. I know I should be more resilient, more able and willing to deal with it all myself, I shouldn’t be considering disappearing into a haze of alcoholic oblivion, but guess what, I’m not. There’s been too many disasters, too many failures, too many trauma related episodes and I just want a way out, moments of respite.

Alcohol is not the answer, but with little else that I can see available to me I don’t know what else to do

The voting woman turned up, yay for that, but then she turned up without the voting form. She brought the forms for the referendum, but not for the actual voting. Sigh. So she went back to the office and came back with the forms. This is the most complicated voting system I’ve ever been through.

I spoke with Sassy and Lea on the phone. It was wonderful, although like usual it brings up all those feelings from inside, about being hated, about not being good enough, about not doing it right. The same thing happened last time Sassy rang, the whole self-hatred explosion afterwards. But it isn’t that I don’t want to talk to them, in fact it’s the opposite, I love that I get to talk to them. I just still deal with all that crazy shit fallout that still comes. I’m sure they would both tell me they don’t hate me and I shouldn’t worry, but then its not really even about them, or about the actual conversation. Hell I could have been really witty and intelligent, amusing and interesting and I’d still think I was hateable. It’s just the craziness that is me.

It’s kind of ironic or just cosmic timing, I was about to write something about how it is to talk to people where I can be openly multiple when machinery noises distracted me. I thought it was one of the lawnmowers but when I got to the door to close it we found a digger in the school grounds drilling deep holes in the ground. So for the next 10 minutes an excited group of boys had to stand at the door and watch. They would really like to be able to talk to someone else about how thrilling it was, and how the digger was working and well…. all boy stuff about big machines.

Talking with Sassy and Lea brought up this whole thing about wishing I had somewhere I could just be, where being multiple wasn’t something I needed to hide. Now they are both multiples (I’m definitely not outing either of them here) so I should be able to talk freely with them. And I’m pretty sure I can. There were a couple of switches on the phone. But subtle I hope, god I hope. And a number of times we squashed people down because it would get too strange, too obvious, too bizarre, too whatever bad word you want to put in there. And I hate that, I want to just be able to be, without censoring just on the basis its odd. Sure there are some censorship that’s inappropriate, no matter how accepting someone is its not a good idea to let someone threat them with graphic dissection and disembowelment. But that’s the extremes, I understand those, just like we know there are socially acceptable behaviour rules we need to conform to.

I don’t know I just miss being able to talk openly, I miss being able to talk about what my life, our life is really like. And there were opportunities for that on the phone, more than usual. And in those moments, when I realised I didn’t have to edit and alter my conversation, that the systems in place that prevent people speaking freely didn’t have to be so tightly monitored, they were wonderful moments, and freeing and made me want more.

And because we don’t have a digital camera and somehow its important… this is the closest to what’s outside, not the same, but closest and believe me I’ve just looked at a lot of pictures of diggers.

Today is one of those “fuck I really want to smoke” days. I think if I hadn’t already gone 3 weeks without a smoke I’d have given in and brought a packet. Also I know that first one when you start/restart is god awful. I want to be a smoker, fuck do I want to be a smoker. I just can’t afford it, the budget will no longer allow over $50 a week spent on tobacco. It makes me depressed though, that I have to give up the one thing I just enjoyed. Yes it’s bad for me, yes it smelled bad, yes I shouldn’t smoke, but I loved it. Although I have to say, since I’ve been watching old episodes of the X-Files it’s amazing how much smoking in the media has been cut out and how much of a difference it makes. The main characters might not smoke, but product placement has a major impact.

Just looked into getting Sky, but that’s more than I can handle at the moment. Might do some rebudgeting and see next year.

I’m trying to arrange for an official to come to my place so I can vote. Last election I ran into a woman at the bus stop that not only gave me a ride but explained what she did with going to housebound people so they could vote in the election. We talked about that, and how I worry I won’t have the strength to go to the voting booth, to deal with all the people, so she arranged there and then in the car to set it up so she’d visit me. It was so easy, and quick I thought I’d do the same thing this year. It’s not like I am incapable, well, not really, sure people are terrifying at the moment and I find myself shaking when I take the rubbish to the street, but I push through, I do what I need to. I just want it easier you know, like last election.

Easy hasn’t been what the process has been so far. I rang the phone number the election material has, and since then have been given 4 more phone numbers. Each time I ring someone and tell them what I want, they say, yes that’s fine, call this number. Until finally I get an answering machine. I left my number, and if she gets back to me with a new number to ring, well I think I’ll throw in the towel and hope I get to the polling booth on the day.

I’ve always voted. I’m actually really interested in politics, not so much in the idea of being a politician, but more how the system works, or doesn’t work. And the truth is I would probably be a very active political and social activist if I wasn’t terrified of people and being seen and heard. Simply voting often doesn’t feel like enough, but for now its about all that’s available to me. What might come in the future, well one can never really tell.

I remember my father trying to explain why it was important for him to vote. He said, its important to vote because that’s what gives you the right to complain for the next four years.

I’m struggling pretty damn hard lately. And on top of that whole struggling thing I am also struggling with giving up my smokes. I want a cigarette so badly I’m even dreaming about smoking. I’m keeping myself broke so I don’t have the money to rush off and get a packet, its a good scheme for keeping me smoke free, not a good scheme for my bank balance. And then December I get access to my Xmas club money so I could end up getting some then, but I don’t want to go through all this just to give up giving up again. But fuck I’d kill for a smoke.

The rest of the stuff, basically I’m just a mess. I can’t handle going out from the home. I go to the supermarket, same time each week, same supermarket, but the idea that I’d go somewhere different, or at a different time just freaks me out. I can’t really talk to anyone, in person it really gets me into that high anxiety mode, even online or on the phone is just too much right now.

Supposedly we have a therapy appointment next week, I’ll need to check that. But again, not sure how I can get there, how I’d handle different buses, having to be out in public. I need the therapy, but I’m not sure how I’ll be handle getting there let alone actually talking with Sean. I’m a fucked up mess desperate for help, but at the same time running from anyone or anything that could bring that help.

I saw a thing on 60minutes last night about a multiple. My first response was the sarcastic, ‘I must be the only multiple that isn’t all creative and special’. It used to be something that got up my nose when I was on multiple communities, this idea that multiples were far more special than other people. This was especially proclaimed when it came to being extra creative and talented. Multiples, they proclaimed, were always exceptionally talented and creative. Now maybe it’s just bitterness talking here, because I’d love to be talented and creative, but I’m not even close. And I always found it a little patronising, this idea that you lived through a lot of crap but that’s ok because now you get to create these moving artworks about your pain. And I don’t actually buy into it. I don’t see anything all that moving and inspiring about painting pain. This is just me and my views, and really its not about the artists and their work, more about the condescending attitude others have to it. People that look at the paintings and go, wow isn’t she creative, all that pain and she can paint pretty things, the same people that refuse to hear, refuse to listen to the stark truth. The interviewer looked at the pictures, showed them to the viewers with the comments of look at the creativity, look at how she’s found to express the pain, but at the same time brushed over what that pain was, saying it was too much to discuss, too graphic and traumatic. The paintings stylise and sanitise what we in society don’t want to hear, don’t want to acknowledge.

Wow I was just going to write about another let’s look at the crazy multiple isn’t she bizarre type thing on tv, and instead I get all caught into this idea that we all refuse to bring the reality of abuse into the public eye. We sanitise it, we say words like molest and fondle because they are easier to digest, because they keep the graphic truth away. We praise survivors for getting over it, for not acting like victims. Victims it seem want to talk about it, want to remember and speak their experiences. That’s not acceptable for most, they are suppose to get over it, to never mention it and act like nothing bad ever happened (it also helps if they stay pretty when doing so). Did you tell anyone, the interviewer asked and the response was no, no one would believe, no one wanted to hear, I’d be punished. That hasn’t changed as an adult, people don’t want to believe, or hear and punishments might not come with fists and chains anymore, but they still come. People that speak out face the labels, the ostracisation, the rejection.

My mother rang about a question about bipolar. Why I would know that? Well because I’m mentally ill and all us crazy people are the same, there’s probably some truth in that, but really all it did was screw with my head. She has a friend who she thinks is bipolar. Why? Because he suddenly became down and very pessimistic and not as welcoming to her as usual. He might have some mental health disorder, I don’t know. I’m not a diagnostician, and I only have what my mother has said to go by, so that’s not a reliable source of information. That, however, isn’t the issue. My mother is worried about this guy, worried enough to call me to get information, she wants, even if she really has no clue how to do it, to be supportive. And it may seem selfish but by the end of the phone call all I could think was why not me. Whenever I’ve tried to talk to her about what its like for me living with mental health issues, when I’ve tried to get her to make adjustments, to take my shit into account she’s got snipey and basically shut me down. When I was at my sickest, she told my dad that she wished I’d kill myself so she didn’t have to deal with all this shit. I know this because she told me that the only time my dad ever hit her was my fault, she said the only time my father ever slapped her was for saying that. Now she’s worried about this guy, wants to know and understand to help this guy. She also mentioned my brother was complaining he couldn’t find the John Kirwan book in Australia, somehow implying that he had depression too. I don’t know, he might have just been interested, he might have friends dealing with depression, or he might have his own issues with mental health, he grew up in our family afterall, and no one got out of there unscathed. I don’t know, and I really don’t care, haven’t for a long time, not going to start now.

But this has stirred up a lot of the crap about not being good enough, that I’m not worthy of love and care, that I’m usable, disposable, and no matter what I do I’ll always be less than everyone else on this damn planet. It’s such an old message that keeps getting pounded in. I’m not deserving of love, of friendship, of support. You know, I think at the core of all the fucked up ness that is me, all those variety of issues, all the insanity, anxiety, depression, whatever label you throw on it, was this belief, this pure knowledge that there’s something abhorrent, something just wrong about me, it was there from the beginning, and it just stretched out, staining everything and everyone. Perhaps then its not anyone’s fault, not even mine, it just is what it is.