Hello, before I start I just want to say thanks to you if you've commented so far and to anyone who might in the future. It is great to hear from others about my blogs.
This evening I am feeling fucking knackered. I have been on another planet of late, emotionally. As in, if I am having any emotions, they are being felt by someone who isn't present with me. Well, except for the feeling of being annoyed. My husband just sitting next to me minding his own business manages to piss me off and at work I find myself becoming absorbed in my work and not bothering with conversation and chit chat. I dont actively feel like I want to be alone, but I am content alone at the moment and other people just seem like much too much hassle to deal with. I am fine as long as no one speaks to me; I just can't handle any interference in my life at the moment. It's a kind of function.
So, I went to my therapy session today. You may remember that last week T told me she is going to be off work for a minimum of six months and this came as a huge shock.
So today was the first since then. T started the session with a variation of the question I always hate to hear: "What would you like to talk about today?" It always throws me off guard because 95% of the time T already has a set agenda for the session. She asks the questions, I do a pretty poor job at providing the answers. So to have the ball in my court is something I'm never prepared for.
It is good sometimes to be able to just talk about stuff that's going on in my life though. I just find that specific question hard to answer. Sometimes I've come into sessions feeling like I have just about managed to survive the previous two weeks without having a mental breakdown and there has been so much going on that it would be great to just process that with someone but that's not really the focus of my therapy. It can be hard though, when I'm really struggling with present day-holding myself together issues, to then delve into the inner workings of my brain and start talking about which part is who and why they are there.
I am guessing that she decided to take a step back from all the 'parts' business (actually now that I say that, I think she may have said that herself last time). Maybe it's something to do with it being just before Christmas, or maybe this is something to do with the fact that I'm going travelling in a month's time. Or maybe both. It is a relief though. I find the whole: "Which part is this and which is that?" project extremely stressful and unsettling.
We ended up talking about my dad (not really an easy topic either but hey...). I don't like to think about him as he causes so much pain inside when I do, but she asked me about his recent visit and how it affects me when he visits and we talked about some of my experiences of him as a child and teenager. I never like to admit to myself how much of my problems with DID are as a result of the way he treated me. T hypothesized that as a child it was easier to split my emotions about him into another part so that I didnt have to believe painful things to be real. I reflected about times when I'd expressed that I had been the lucky one out of my sisters and me because my childhood was easier and happier than theirs. Then I reflected on some of my memories of my childhood and I realised the two reflections don't really tally. I wasn't lying when I said I'd been lucky, I just was not tuned into all the bad memories and emotions. They were too separate from me.
She asked me what it was about being eleven years old that I was so depressed at that time (because I said a few times that I didn't have any emotions before the age of eleven). This is an interesting question and I don't really know the answer to it. I must have had stuff going on inside my head before that stage: I remember self harming at age eight; before that I remember feeling wrong/not normal at the age of five. I remember doing things that didn't reflect healthy child activity even before that.
I don't know what it was about being eleven. Maybe it was puberty. To say I struggled with this stage of life is 'the understatement of the century' (as they say on 'Neighbours'). I was deeply ashamed of developing into a woman. I hated that I was growing boobs and I remember crying and trying to pull out the hair that was starting to grow in places I thought it definitely should not be. I spent a couple of years in dread of the day I would start having periods and when it did come I was too mortified to tell my mum. I used to use my pocket money to buy sanitary towels and I'd go to great lengths to keep it all a secret. It was probably around this time that my eating problems changed (I always had a tendency to comfort eat) to starvation tactics.
Throughout my teens I had a strong resentment of being female. I lamented that I should have been a man and was quite open about my annoyance of being a girl until at the age of sixteen someone in my church mentioned that I should be grateful for what God had blessed me with and I then 'realised' that I was sinful for being so ungrateful and I stopped hating being a woman (although, I'm not sure but I think that person in still in there somewhere).
Anyway, I've run out of energy for thinking about being eleven now. Maybe I'll come back to that another day.
So I was surprised T didn't mention the 'big news' although she did ask me how I was since the last session. I was kind of glad not to have to think about it this week to be honest. I think I just want to keep it in the 'unreal zone'.
I was pleased to see she had the Christmas card I made her sitting out on display. It was beautiful even if I do say so myself. It took me hours to make...literally. Probably mainly because I am so indecisive and perfectionist that I didn't want to commit to something without being sure it would be perfect.
I also made her a cross stitch piece a while back which I loved and actually felt a loss at giving it away...lol. But I think she was pleased with it but I'd love to know what she did with it. I wonder if it's been put in a drawer and forgotten about. I don't know why that's important to me but it is.
I was also really pleased to get a Christmas card from my T in the post today. This was a surprise because I always get the feeling she tries hard to keep a distance from her clients and I almost feel sometimes she doesn't want me to give her cards etc (this may be my imagination) but anyway, it was such a nice surprise and it really made my day that she thought of me and wishes me good things. It's always a surprise to find evidence that a person in my life doesn't hate/despise/loathe me.
This post has kind of gone from one thing to the other without a clear structure but I have enjoyed writing it although I do feel a little bit guilty about the lack of the 'beginning, middle and end'. Well done if you made it this far! I'm impressed that I did.
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