Manipulation and deceipt: you don't expect it from your brother

Hello virtual friends, I have just paused to say hello as I have been a bit distant lately from my blog (might not be reflected in the number of posts by us). I've had another really busy week. I'm starting to realise my work is never actually going to ease off; there is always going to be more to do than I have time to fit in. It stresses me out. I feel it may build up to a great big mountain of jobs not done and then I'll get fired. I need to draw up a timetable of what I have been doing each day over the last few months and a list of all the things I still need to do that haven't been done and take it to management to show that it's not my fault deadlines aren't being met, before they come to me. The problem is: I don't have the time to do that! Ptssh!

I've had a lot to do in the evenings too which is not good because usually I am fit for nothing in the evenings at the best of times. On Thursday, my brother in law asked me and Adam if we would babysit in the evening. I was already knackered after a full day of seeing patients and was just about ready to drive home from work and get into my jammies, but I agreed as babysitting just involves watching TV while the baby sleeps, so I thought it wouldn't be too bad. WRONG! 

It turned out that he obviously just blatantly lied to us to get us to come over as when we arrived we realised he actually wanted us to help them move house! I was so angry. I was really physically exhausted and the last thing I had the energy for was packing and moving furniture. He started delegating jobs as soon as we got there. I hadn't even eaten any dinner yet and we weren't offered anything. Eventually I had to just bite the bullet and say that I needed to get some food immediately, so Adam went off to the Chinese to get us some food which his brother managed to subtly express was inconvenient for him because there was so much to do. What added to my fury was that I had made it clear that I needed to leave at 9pm as I had my own things to do (the things included a whole lot of shaving for a hospital appointment the next day and getting an early night). 

At 10pm we were still helping (well by this stage I was lying on the floor because I was too physically exhausted to help anymore and 'on the floor' because the sofa had been moved out) when Adams brother came up to me to acknowledge that I'd said I needed to get away but to ask if I minded if they continue to move furniture. I said: “well I have things I need to do” and he just re-emphasized that he wanted to get the furniture moved. I felt so awkward. I hate confrontations and I had already made it clear at the start that I needed to get home no later than nine. If it wasn't bad enough that he had completely manipulated us into helping them move, he was now completely disrespecting my wishes. I didn't know what to say. Obviously he wanted me to say that I didn't mind, but I did mind. So I said: “I'll leave it up to Adam” hoping that Adam would have more balls than I did to tell him we needed to go, but he came back with: “Well Adam doesn't mind staying but he said you wanted to get away to do some things.” He then had the cheek to ask me outright exactly what it was I needed to do! 

Sorry, but is it just me that finds all of this really rude, inappropriate, disrespectful and manipulative? Am I overreacting? You don't ask someone if they can babysit when you actually mean 'can you help us move house?'! The only reason I can think of as to why he did that is because he knew that we wouldn't have come if we'd known what we were in for. 

It was so embarrassing for me to have to eventually refuse to help because I was so tired. Generally I just try to get on with things but with the way I have been feeling in recent months, often I don't actually have any physical energy left to move. I am actually going to the doctors on Monday about the problem as I've been starting to realise how bad it really is. I'm worried I might have a bit of chronic fatigue. 

I can't stop feeling really annoyed with Adam's brother and I wish I had had the confidence to say so to his face on Thursday. I'm wondering now if I should contact him by email to explain how difficult it was for me and that he can't do things like that in future. I know that he WILL do things like that again. I know why he does it; his mother (my mother in law) is exactly the same. She deceives people and manipulates them in the nicest ways possible in order to get what she wants. It pisses me off because Adam's brother gets angry with her for doing it to him yet he is exactly the same. 

So I don't know if I'll confront (or email, less confrontational) Adam's brother or not. I know Adam won't want me to, but yet I feel in not doing anything, it's letting others take advantage and giving them permission to do it again. People who want to control, need to know their boundaries. 

Any opinions welcome...

Dissociating by getting stuck: is it under my control?... and what happened next...

Alright, enough procrastination! I will now tell you what happened in the clinical psychology session of last week. Ironically... (or is it ironic? My husband gets on his high horse about people using the term 'ironic' when the situation isn't actually ironic, which makes me nervous about using the word incorrectly and being scoffed at by all the intelligent people in the world... anyway, ironically or not....) this ending of the procrastination is in itself a way of procrastinating from some study I should be doing for work. Best to do this though before this week's psychology session.

Just to give you a recap in brief of what had been happening previous to the session to set the scene... I'd had a difficult few weeks because of:

1. becoming aware of an apparent wish of some part of me to be dead (the 'becoming aware' part involving me being an observer of the act of preparing for a hanging on numerous occasions)
2. Some general internal chaos and a feeling of 'me' being dragged along behind while the other alters were on some kind of mission to break free.
3. having dissociated badly in the previous psychology session (which I talked about here) and feeling generally crap as a result of that
4. My T emailing me to see how I was after the dissociating badly in the session and then failing to respond to me at all when I told her I was not good; on the edge and really scared because of my thoughts and actions, hence leaving me feeling angry with myself for having thought she cared and trusting someone against other parts' better judgements and also leaving me no better off in the current crisis that I was in (which I also wrote about in this post).
5. work being really, really, really stressful (that has now eased off a bit, thank goodness)

So, I went along to therapy last week with all my parts in tow and all of these things hanging over my head. I always look forward to going to therapy but once I get there become really scared and anxious as my alters stir up inside and because of the potential threat of what terrible thing T could do to me or make me talk about. Sometimes she has an agenda for the session, sometimes she asks me what I want to talk about. I usually prefer it when she has an agenda as it takes the pressure off me a lot, but this week I did not like her agenda. 

She started off by stating, in a manner that seemed to me to be quite short, that the last session had run very late over time (because of me being stuck to my chair) and that we needed to sort out the 'dilemma'. She said that it's stressful for her and unfair on the caretaker who was waiting to close up the building. She said we could consider moving the time of the sessions to a different time of day but that it doesn't negate the fact that over two hours is much too long for a session (it should be an hour and a half) and that if she saw me earlier she'd probably see other patients afterwards and that she 'certainly wouldn't keep them waiting'. She said that she understands that it's a struggle for me when I am in that state but that it is in my control on some level because it is another part that's stopping me from leaving.

Now, these are all fair points and she had a right to raise the issue. But it seemed to me by her tone that she was quite annoyed with me and that despite acknowledging that it is another part that is causing the difficulty, that she feels maybe I could just try a bit harder if I really wanted to not be a nuisance. As a result, I instantly went into 'defensive mode'. If I am accused or confronted in a negative way I have an immediate reaction of a sort of closing off. It's like we are all living in a fortress. I try to keep the doors open and one or two people hanging around outside, but at any sign of attack, everyone runs inside, the doors go up, some parts go into hiding while others take up position in their stations ready to defend. I think she picked up on this pretty quickly as I went silent and probably didn't look too happy. My heart was hammering in my chest, my vision blurred, my head spinning. Someone inside was saying: “Lift your bag and make a run for it!”

T was repeating the aforementioned points and saying she hoped we could discuss it together and I was hearing: “I hate you! You are a horrible patient! You are trying to manipulate me by staying longer in the sessions. You are selfish and just want more time and you can't have it because I only get paid to see you for x amount of time. I don't care about you any more than that. In fact, there's probably not even anything wrong with you, you're just looking for attention!” Of course, that is not what she said. That is just me being over-sensitive. 

 

My silence continued. She asked how my parts were feeling about her having raised the issue. I told her I felt she was angry with me and she agreed that she got the sense that I thought she was and that I was annoyed in return. Well observed T (I probably had it written all over my face though)! She told me to stick to the facts of the case so I told her, that the fact was that she seemed annoyed. She didn't say she wasn't but she wanted to know what it would mean to me if she was angry (typical psychologist!).

Well, I don't plan to dictate to you my entire memories of the conversation (I'm sure you will be relieved to know) but it kind of went on that way. Me in silence, feeling like I was going to die off and seething with anger that she thought it was in my control to be able to get up and leave during those horrible episodes of whatever is going on and her going over the same statements about how she wanted to understand why some part of me doesn't want to leave the sessions and what I thought could be done to fix this problem. 

 

Her statements pissed me off for a number of reasons: one, is that they assume that some part of me doesn't want to leave and that I as the 'host' or whatever, would know if and why this was the case and also what would change it. Secondly, I felt angry that it was me who was being 'told off' when it's not 'me' who is causing me to be in that state. During those times, I feel so separate from myself. I am like an outsider, willing the other parts to let me back in or get up and leave. I was angry with her for holding 'me' responsible and angry with the rest of me for getting me in trouble when I spend my whole fucking life trying to be 'good' and 'normal' and blend in despite being full of a whole rainbow of nutters who are all bursting to get out and live in a way which would be conducive to losing my job and any relationships I currently could claim to have a feeble grasp on. 

 

I wasn't so much aware of the next reason for my anger at the time, but on reflection I know that am angry about it: I had been feeling like my alters were moving forward without me. They were learning or I was learning to let them be independent of me in communicating with T. The perceived attack of last session sent them scampering away back into hiding. Then she wanted to hear what their thoughts and feelings about the issue were. By this stage they were so far away, there was no chance of anyone communicating with them. I think Little C had already had her confidence knocked a few weeks before and given that I think it could be a part that is in great distress who has been trying to communicate with C during times that I am dissociating, they then felt castigated for having caused so much trouble. I feel this could be a big setback in the already possibly hopeless task of trying to learn to trust that people aren't going to hurt us.

T continued to want me to talk about the issue throughout the session. I don't think she could really understand how impossible it was going to be for me to be able to have the insight or let my guard down enough to talk sensibly about it. I tried going out to the toilet to pull myself together but it didn't help: every time she tried to raise the issue again I felt my heart rate rising and my vision going again. I kept trying to explain how I was feeling and she kept saying: “does that mean we can't have a conversation about it?” So frustrating!

On reflection in the time since the last session, I have been asking myself the question: “Did I have justification to believe she was quite short in her tone and manner of raising the issue or did I just perceive it to be that way?” In honesty, I really don't know. Maybe she was nervous about raising it with me in case I did react badly and this came across to me as blunt. Maybe it was just my wrong perceptions and that's all. It is important to me that she is not angry, because if she is, it suggests she really doesn't understand how out of my own control the problem is. 

 

I didn't want to leave the issue hanging without any attempt at trying to fix things though, so I sat down and wrote T a letter explaining what was going on for me when she confronted me in that way and then, what I felt we could try to do to help prevent the sessions from running over time in future. I also told her how I had felt about her lack of response to my email a few weeks back. I felt my suggestions for what could help were feeble (because if I had better ones wouldn't I already be trying to use them?). I still feel angry too. I guess I also feel, she should be the one with the answers. Surely I'm not the only person in therapy who experiences dissociation? Well, if there are others then can't she find out from some source what can be done to help? I sent her the letter by email anyway, although part of me feels she cares so little that she probably won't even bother reading it. Another part says, who gives a fuck if she doesn't. She raised the issue so if she doesn't read it, it's her loss. 

 

I have been feeling numb for the main part since the session. In the glimmers of emotion I have had over the last week or two I have noted 'fear' about going the next session which will be on Wednesday. I know that my anger is still not far from the surface and I also feel the part that thinks 'to fuck with therapy' is not far away either. I have also sensed feelings of 'loss' and a disappointing feeling of reconfirmation that no one could ever see anything good in a person like me and that I should have never hoped for anything different. I haven't seen the kids around much as I mentioned here, but I have a sense that they are feeling pretty bad for getting in trouble. Pan might be angry, but that's just a guess as I haven't seen him. I think they are hiding.

Controlling myself

Today I made myself throw up after lunch. I've only done that once in the last long time (maybe over a year?) when T told me she was leaving me. Why today? I guess it's to do with the wanting to be dead thing. Being more aware of the fact that there is a part of me who feels that way (I am trying not to be naive) makes me question why I am trying so hard not to do unhealthy things that make me feel better if I will then go and try to kill myself. I guess what I am trying to say is, what's the point in not cutting myself or making myself sick if I am going to die from hanging anyway? Maybe if I do those other things, I won't feel so much like wanting to die? Or maybe that's a fucked up logic. 

I just don't know the answers. I try to just get on with life and avoid unhealthy behaviours and it doesn't seem to help me any. I know that the throwing up issue has always come up at times when I feel most out of control in life. So maybe it's because being aware of the prospect of suicide not being something I may be able to prevent, makes me feel very powerless and this behaviour is something that will help me to feel more in control of at least one part of my life.

I have wanted to write a lot lately. Sometimes I can't focus or care enough to blog and sometimes it's all I want to do. I feel guilty if I post more than a couple of times a week, but I'm really not sure why I should feel guilty about that. Writing on my blog helps me to sort my head out, so it's a good thing isn't it? I used to keep a diary most days. A blog is better in a way because I don't have to worry about my mum reading it and it feels less permanent than something on paper, so in a way it's easier to write honestly. On the other hand, I still like to write on paper sometimes too. It's easier to express some things on paper than on a blog.