I'm pissed off with Blogger today. Why does it think it's OK to randomly change my blog url without letting me know? And where has the fucking 'edit' button gone at the bottom of the posts so that when I've posted my ramblings I can easily go back and fix it after Blogger has decided to spontaneously delete a chunk of my writing? Love hate.
I mentioned briefly last week that New Psychologist asked me to fill in a chart of everything I was doing every hour for a week and rate on a scale of one to ten: fatigue, stress and dissociation. I think she wanted to do some kind of statistical analysis on the data to see if there's any link between the chronic fatigue syndrome and the psycho brain. I only remembered half way through the week though that she specifically said, I could edit the scale or charts but to make sure I kept the hour by hour ratings going. Oops. For the first three days I was rating the parameters by activity e.g. 1300-1530: sitting on my arse watching TV... Fatigue = 6 Stress = 3 (Home and Away can be pretty nail biting at times), Dissociation = 5 etc.
Once I'd realised that I had fucked it up I had a look through to see how difficult it would be to fix it into an hour by hour chart but it was looking like it would take someone with a fatigue of less than 'two' and I was at about a 'six' at that point so I decided it was something she could do herself if she's that bothered.
Turned out, she was bothered because she has now asked me to do the ENTIRE task again. Sigh. It's quite a consuming task and as a few of you rightly pointed out, it's sometimes very difficult to rate dissociation. I'm just doing my best though. Generally dissociation doesn't really go below a five, because I rarely feel 'real' or 'alive'. Most of the time I feel like I am an observer sitting far back on the edge of my consciousness watching a robot going about my life for me. A six would probably be once I start getting visual disturbances or floaty feelings and a seven is zoning out etc. But even then, if I'm on my own, sometimes I'll zone out without realising it and so it's impossible to rate that. There have been a few hours I haven't been able to account for.
Anyway, NP did have a look at the first weeks charts and at the session last week she proudly announced that after reviewing my charts she felt there is a strong link between stress and dissociation... get that girl a medal! Who would ever have thought that dissociation might happen when I'm stressed? OK so she's new to this maybe. I nodded and let her continue. She said it was very clear that I 'use' dissociation as an avoidance technique when I'm in stressful situations or triggers arise. I know this, but from her explanation of her views, I got the sense that she feels it's something I consciously do. I don't think to myself: "I don't like the way this man is looking at me so I might just zone out now and come back to in a few minutes". It's not conscious like that. It just happens. She says that on some level it is intentional though. I get what she means but it doesn't mean that I can stop it from happening. It just happens.
I had also decided to rate 'pain' as a parameter as I've always felt sure that the recurrant varieties of pains I get are related to stress and dissociation. NP agreed with this theory and talked about somatic symptoms which can occur with dissociative disorders. Sometimes it's easier for the body to express it's reaction to trauma than for the person to feel the emotions. She was preaching to the choir with that one, but it's good that we're singing from the same hymn sheet (huh... she must also be in the choir).
She did have some other interesting insights though: she noticed that I tend to get higher levels of dissociation as well as 'flashbacks' and intrusive thoughts around bedtime and when I'm showering/bathing. She wondered if this might be something to do with the process of undressing and being naked. It's not something I'd consciously thought about. I do struggle with showers at times. Sometimes I find myself becoming overwhelmed with anger for no apparent reason and banging my fists on the walls in the shower, which brings Adam running up to see what I need. Oops. Sometimes I've found myself curling into a ball and crying or most commonly, scrubbing my skin raw like a maniac thinking "I can't get clean! Must wash off the badness!" But bedtime... well there's the theory of getting undressed... or the whole 'bed' thing. But really I think the main reason it happens when I get into bed is because there's nothing left to distract myself with. During the day, no matter if I have the energy of a normal person or of a person with chronic fatigue syndrome, there is ALWAYS something I can do to distract myself and prevent intrusions into my consciousness. I think I just spend my whole life doing that... avoiding. Then, once I get into bed at night, it just all comes flooding back in.
I expressed this view to NP and she must have thought of that herself because she whipped out a pre-copied diagram and gave it to me to look at. It showed a flow chart of a dissociative brain which suggested that there is avoidance, where the individual (so to speak) doesn't allow consciousness of traumatic material, then there is the other extreme, where they become overwhelmed and too immersed in it and then this either leads to dissociation or switching to an alter personality. Sigh... I'll look for it and give you a better explanation. She suggested that we need to learn to be able to tolerate thinking about the difficult things without dissociating, so she wondered if perhaps we might start with thinking about something more current that causes emotions and try to talk about that. She felt this could help me 'learn' how to be present with less painful things and so I could build up a tolerance so that I might get to the stage of being able to think and talk about the really bad stuff.
Something about how she explained that freaked me out and I ended up zoning out and getting dissociated right there in the session. I think in my head, it felt like she meant that this would happen very quickly and I was scared that I'd be asked to talk about things I'm not ready to even think about. She can be quite astute. She reassured me that this was not going to happen any time soon and that she didn't expect that work would be done with her (meaning, T is still due to return after six months) and that I should be reassured that I won't be rushed into anything. It didn't mean a lot to me at the time but I have found those words comforting this week. She's not so bad. She is trying.
I sense that she's anxious about working with me. I wonder if it's the 'label' of dissociative identity disorder. Maybe she feels ill equipped to deal with the condition and so is relying heavily on text book advice and research papers. I do think that those are important, however, I can't help but think if she relaxed a bit and got to know me she'd learn a whole lot more about the condition.
To finish with a final Blogger complaint: the spell checker is not working today (either that or I haven't made any mistakes, which would be a frickin first) so I apologise for any mistakes in this.
Showing posts with label work stress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label work stress. Show all posts
Tuesday, 20 March 2012
Friday, 30 December 2011
Altercations with alters
Ugh! Fuck.
...gathers self...
I mean, 'Hello World.' You may have noticed I am feeling a little bit peeved just at this moment. That is mainly due to two things, one being that I went back to work today. Did I tell you about the email I sent my manager on my last day before Christmas? I can't recall if I did, but it was basically explaining that the 'little extra work session' she had given me to do each week is turning out to be much more than that and that I don't have the time to do all of my other work. Well today I found a courteous email from her saying that we would need to discuss my workload and that she had looked at it previously and felt that I didn't have too much on! (Fucking ba&"*&d c$^"!!!!... ....gathers self again....). Now I am fucking shitting myself because I will have to defend myself face to face and confrontation makes me crumble like a fucking digestive biscuit. OK don't panic people... breathe... be logical. There's only one thing for it: I will have to prepare my case. Enough thinking about it for now though.
The second thing that has gotten on my goat is fucking SHAN (alter). She doesn't bother me much. She doesn't engage with me much. For the most part she doesn't come out much. She has a relationship with the world and Adam but not so much with 'us'. I am generally happy not to think about her or engage with her too. Not that I don't appreciate the role she has in our life, but I just don't feel the need to be best buds with her. But I can't help but feel she is responsible for T's Christmas card going missing before we got to give it to her.
For some reason, this year Shan decided to write her own card to give to T. Don't ask me why because as far as we're aware she has never really communicated with her in the sessions but meh. Candy did feel a bit embarrassed about the fact that Shan felt the need to write T a separate card whenever we had planned on sending a card from Candycan that would surely do as an all rounder. So anyway, we had the card from 'us' and the card from Shan and a letter from Pan which was really special. We really liked what Pan had said in it and it held an explanation about a picture that Pan and Little C had done for T with some assistance from Candy.
So the last thing I remember is it being the night before we were due to see her before Christmas. I had the card from 'us' and I was putting the letter and the card from Shan inside the envelope of the card from us. At this point Shan told Candy she shouldn't be so fucking arrogant and pompous to think that Shan was just an alter and Candy was the 'main person'. She didn't want Candy to put her card inside the other one and said that she had every right to give it to T herself and was not a sub part. Candy kind of ignored her and kept putting it in, thinking that it was fucking embarrassing anyway that we even had to give the fucking card to T... and that's the last I remember about it. I can't for the life of me remember what I did with it after that and I haven't seen it since. I felt sure it would turn up but this was now (erm hold on, I've lost count of what day it is...) over a week ago and I have looked everywhere I can think of, several times. I am coming to the conclusion that Shan has done something with it and not told me to spite us all. She's so stubborn! Ugh!
T said that if it turned up it would be OK to drop it into her tomorrow, which I think may be her last day. But it hasn't turned up and it doesn't look like it is going to. I just hope it hasn't gotten into someone else's hands cos that would be really embarrassing. It's embarrassing enough showing these parts of myself to T, even through written communication. I would not like for someone else to be reading things written by us. I'll get over it. I'm sure it's no loss to T, it's more Pan's letter that I am annoyed about. Shan, if it was you, why and where the fuck have you put it?!
So anyway, those are the two annoying things. Sorry for the swearing; although my apology is probably a bit late because anyone who is offended by the F word will likely have stopped reading long ago. Sometimes it just needs to be used though I'm afraid.
So, presumably, one day I will look back at the end of 2011 and wonder how it was for me then when T left. I will want to find some words of expression about how I reacted and what I was feeling, so I will try hard not to hide from blogging. Although at the very moment I say this to you I am aware that while I was combing through the papers earlier, I was piling them up and putting them inside a plastic folder and shutting it and someone inside me was saying "good bye everyone, I'm locking you in here until T comes back." So I guess I need to think this through and make a decision. Am I going to face how things feel and try my hardest to express them and even to feel them, or am I going to let a shut down happen and switch myself into function mode? Part of me is tempted to not go to see the new psychologist next week and just see what happens if I try to pretend I am not someone with mental health problems for a few months.
I also went to the doctors today and asked about medication. She invariably has tried to convince me to take it every time I have seen her and I've usually declined, but now I am seriously thinking it's time I stop being a fucking naive ostrich and realise that I'm not doing too well on my own. She spent half an hour talking through the different types of tablets and wrote me a list of names of types. She said I should research them myself and let her know what I thought. They are: SSRIs (which I took before and she said we would probably avoid because they made my already barely existent libido, non existent altogether), venlafaxine, duloxetine and mirtazepine (she seemed to think this mirtazepine one might help with my sleeping problems a bit). She also talked about tricyclic antidepressants and said that these were too sedating and not beneficial enough to warrant that effect so she wouldn't recommend these. She also questioned whether my problems with libido were due to being on an antidepressant or other factors and I felt my head whooshing and she started to look a bit blotchy but I managed to get out that I knew it was to do with other things but that the SSRIs had made it worse.
She strikes me as the kind of lady who thinks that we should all just look on the bright side and that things are never that bad and maybe you're just being a bit over dramatic and you can't be that sick cos you go to work etc. That's great for her. I think that's a good ethos... I doubt she would be saying that if she saw what is going on in my head and perhaps got a few snapshots of me at various moments throughout any given week when I'm not going to work or sitting in her office looking like a half normal person. Or perhaps if she had some of the flashbacks and nightmares, she might feel a bit less motivated to look on the bright side. Not that I would want to burst her bubble, and besides, my hope rests in the knowledge that people like her exist: people who don't know what it's like to feel like your innocence and joy and peace and ability to trust were taken from you before you even knew the meaning of those words. I rely on people who see the good in life, because she help me to think that perhaps there is good in life and there is a way to wake up in the morning and feel like you are embracing being alive in this world.
So that's all for today. I am still feeling surprisingly OK. But then, I am still knowing that T is at work, I get a lot of reassurance from that. How will I feel come next week when I am sitting in the waiting room outside of her office waiting to meet new psychologist and T is not there?
...gathers self...
I mean, 'Hello World.' You may have noticed I am feeling a little bit peeved just at this moment. That is mainly due to two things, one being that I went back to work today. Did I tell you about the email I sent my manager on my last day before Christmas? I can't recall if I did, but it was basically explaining that the 'little extra work session' she had given me to do each week is turning out to be much more than that and that I don't have the time to do all of my other work. Well today I found a courteous email from her saying that we would need to discuss my workload and that she had looked at it previously and felt that I didn't have too much on! (Fucking ba&"*&d c$^"!!!!... ....gathers self again....). Now I am fucking shitting myself because I will have to defend myself face to face and confrontation makes me crumble like a fucking digestive biscuit. OK don't panic people... breathe... be logical. There's only one thing for it: I will have to prepare my case. Enough thinking about it for now though.
The second thing that has gotten on my goat is fucking SHAN (alter). She doesn't bother me much. She doesn't engage with me much. For the most part she doesn't come out much. She has a relationship with the world and Adam but not so much with 'us'. I am generally happy not to think about her or engage with her too. Not that I don't appreciate the role she has in our life, but I just don't feel the need to be best buds with her. But I can't help but feel she is responsible for T's Christmas card going missing before we got to give it to her.
For some reason, this year Shan decided to write her own card to give to T. Don't ask me why because as far as we're aware she has never really communicated with her in the sessions but meh. Candy did feel a bit embarrassed about the fact that Shan felt the need to write T a separate card whenever we had planned on sending a card from Candycan that would surely do as an all rounder. So anyway, we had the card from 'us' and the card from Shan and a letter from Pan which was really special. We really liked what Pan had said in it and it held an explanation about a picture that Pan and Little C had done for T with some assistance from Candy.
So the last thing I remember is it being the night before we were due to see her before Christmas. I had the card from 'us' and I was putting the letter and the card from Shan inside the envelope of the card from us. At this point Shan told Candy she shouldn't be so fucking arrogant and pompous to think that Shan was just an alter and Candy was the 'main person'. She didn't want Candy to put her card inside the other one and said that she had every right to give it to T herself and was not a sub part. Candy kind of ignored her and kept putting it in, thinking that it was fucking embarrassing anyway that we even had to give the fucking card to T... and that's the last I remember about it. I can't for the life of me remember what I did with it after that and I haven't seen it since. I felt sure it would turn up but this was now (erm hold on, I've lost count of what day it is...) over a week ago and I have looked everywhere I can think of, several times. I am coming to the conclusion that Shan has done something with it and not told me to spite us all. She's so stubborn! Ugh!
T said that if it turned up it would be OK to drop it into her tomorrow, which I think may be her last day. But it hasn't turned up and it doesn't look like it is going to. I just hope it hasn't gotten into someone else's hands cos that would be really embarrassing. It's embarrassing enough showing these parts of myself to T, even through written communication. I would not like for someone else to be reading things written by us. I'll get over it. I'm sure it's no loss to T, it's more Pan's letter that I am annoyed about. Shan, if it was you, why and where the fuck have you put it?!
So anyway, those are the two annoying things. Sorry for the swearing; although my apology is probably a bit late because anyone who is offended by the F word will likely have stopped reading long ago. Sometimes it just needs to be used though I'm afraid.
My final thought for the day (I'm aware that I still haven't told you anything about Christmas and there are a few other things I need to talk about too but they will have to wait for another day) is that whilst combing through every scrap of paper and diary I own this evening (again) looking for the cursed card, I noticed that I didn't keep any kind of written record of the time between my old psychologist leaving at the end of 2008 and my starting with T or the weeks surrounding that time. From memory, I know it was really, really hard and I was not coping well or functioning on any real level, but I didn't write a thing down about it. This has always been my way. I've kept diaries on and off from the age of eleven and when I've looked back to search for words written about my pain years ago, I find pages and pages of writing about stuff but very few mentions of the real pain and the real hurt in my life. I have tended to shut down from those things and not record them. There is very little talk of my father in any of my diaries, even though he has been probably the biggest cause of why I am so fucked up now. The first psychologist leaving was really hard and I did the same thing obviously. I went into myself and didn't express how it was on paper because I didn't want to have any reminders set down on paper for the future, I guess.
So, presumably, one day I will look back at the end of 2011 and wonder how it was for me then when T left. I will want to find some words of expression about how I reacted and what I was feeling, so I will try hard not to hide from blogging. Although at the very moment I say this to you I am aware that while I was combing through the papers earlier, I was piling them up and putting them inside a plastic folder and shutting it and someone inside me was saying "good bye everyone, I'm locking you in here until T comes back." So I guess I need to think this through and make a decision. Am I going to face how things feel and try my hardest to express them and even to feel them, or am I going to let a shut down happen and switch myself into function mode? Part of me is tempted to not go to see the new psychologist next week and just see what happens if I try to pretend I am not someone with mental health problems for a few months.
I also went to the doctors today and asked about medication. She invariably has tried to convince me to take it every time I have seen her and I've usually declined, but now I am seriously thinking it's time I stop being a fucking naive ostrich and realise that I'm not doing too well on my own. She spent half an hour talking through the different types of tablets and wrote me a list of names of types. She said I should research them myself and let her know what I thought. They are: SSRIs (which I took before and she said we would probably avoid because they made my already barely existent libido, non existent altogether), venlafaxine, duloxetine and mirtazepine (she seemed to think this mirtazepine one might help with my sleeping problems a bit). She also talked about tricyclic antidepressants and said that these were too sedating and not beneficial enough to warrant that effect so she wouldn't recommend these. She also questioned whether my problems with libido were due to being on an antidepressant or other factors and I felt my head whooshing and she started to look a bit blotchy but I managed to get out that I knew it was to do with other things but that the SSRIs had made it worse.
She strikes me as the kind of lady who thinks that we should all just look on the bright side and that things are never that bad and maybe you're just being a bit over dramatic and you can't be that sick cos you go to work etc. That's great for her. I think that's a good ethos... I doubt she would be saying that if she saw what is going on in my head and perhaps got a few snapshots of me at various moments throughout any given week when I'm not going to work or sitting in her office looking like a half normal person. Or perhaps if she had some of the flashbacks and nightmares, she might feel a bit less motivated to look on the bright side. Not that I would want to burst her bubble, and besides, my hope rests in the knowledge that people like her exist: people who don't know what it's like to feel like your innocence and joy and peace and ability to trust were taken from you before you even knew the meaning of those words. I rely on people who see the good in life, because she help me to think that perhaps there is good in life and there is a way to wake up in the morning and feel like you are embracing being alive in this world.
So that's all for today. I am still feeling surprisingly OK. But then, I am still knowing that T is at work, I get a lot of reassurance from that. How will I feel come next week when I am sitting in the waiting room outside of her office waiting to meet new psychologist and T is not there?
Monday, 28 November 2011
Alters fighting with each other: sabotage and rescue
I'm still alive! It's been almost two weeks since I last blogged and I'm sorry about that (for myself too), but things have been hectic to say the least. First of all, here is a post I half wrote last week but didn't get finishing:
"Things are different. I'm losing time a lot. Just small amounts. I think it's mainly just moments where I am going somewhere else in my head and then realising time has gone by. It's because I'm stressed.
I have another work 'event' this Thursday which I am organising. My colleague who is supposed to be helping me has offered to do a twenty minute session of the entire half day and no help whatsoever with the organising. So I have had to do all of the practical things like venue, food, invitations etc plus research the entire topic, come up with a seminar on the topic and design all of the displays and demos and group work, plus do all of the printing, getting resources, confirming attendees etc. I actually think it would be better if she wasn't helping at all because at least then I could take the credit for the hard work. She does this every time: offers to help and then does a tiny amount but it is so that she can say she organised it with me and that will be recorded on her work record as something she has done.
She's more than happy to give her ideas about what I should be doing in my parts though and she's really quick to tell me I should be doing things differently. Most of the time, it's just that my different way is only that... different. Not wrong; just not how she would do it. I have been working every minute that I have been awake, more or less ('more' because I seem to spend the night dreaming about work as well and actually found on more than one occasion that I solved a few work related problems in my sleep... 'less' because sometimes DID just makes the focus impossible and I have been doing a good job at procrastinating at times) and need to probably stay awake and work every second between now and Thursday if I want to have it all organised.
Anyway I didn't come here to complain about work. I've been dying of the cold the past several days which is like the cherry on the icing on the cake at the moment. It really hasn't helped things. The good news is, if I survive until Thursday, I am going to be off work for SIX WHOLE DAYS afterwards! Yippee! This will be the first proper time off I've had since my trip in the new year and it is long overdue. Seriously overdue. I have found myself taking an annual leave day several times in the past few months just to lie in bed and get my head around psychology sessions, or because I have been unable to function. I don't want to wither away all of my holidays on crisis situations.
Hopefully having a proper break will get me rested and psychologically improved so that I will be better able to cope with my work/therapy/physical health/life juggling act. And maybe after that I might even be able to start looking forward to Christmas. Christmas is 'my' time. A lot of people with mental health problems find (and understandably so) Christmas to be the hardest time of year. For me it's always been my favourite time of year. I'm the annoying person who doesn't go along with the rant about the decorations being up in the shops straight after Halloween. I'm the one who says thinks 'the earlier the better'.
I'm not sure why I love Christmas so much. I have split memories about it. I would say it was the time of year my parents were more likely to make an effort to make us happy as a family, so we had some nice times at Christmas. Yet at the same time, I remember that my dad hated Christmas and on more than one year banned us from having a tree up or any decorations. So maybe my over embracing attitude about Christmas is a rebellion from my scrooge of a dad, or maybe it's just..."
That ended quite abruptly and I don't know what wisdom I was about to impart but I'm guessing it was possibly saying that my love of Christmas could be to do with the fact that sometimes Christmas was a happy time for us. I never liked to admit it to myself at the time, but Christmas was always the one time of year where my church (cult) didn't meet and I always kind of enjoyed not having to go to the meetings, which were usually at least twice per week and not just for a few hours but the whole of my Sundays.
The sad thing about this year is that, despite my usual love of Christmas, I have not been able to really feel any excitement about it. If I'm honest, I have been quite depressed recently. However, I have been quite depressed on previous years and this hasn't stopped me from appreciating the Christmassyness. This year I have found myself dreading it a little bit, mainly because of my lack of energy and physical tiredness. This could be largely due to my new diagnosis of a genetic disorder, so I am hoping that once I start my treatment for it, my energy levels will improve. I have been trying to do some Christmas shopping online, because my energy for actual shopping is quite low, but you kind of miss out on the 'festiveness' of it all.
I was reflecting on this with Adam after Thursday's event and observed that I think I do this on purpose. Let me explain this in easier terms: in the plural. Basically, there is a part that tries to sabotage me. They intentionally cause me to not do the work I should be doing. They want me to fail or for things to end in disaster. There were a lot of times I knew I should be getting organised but would intentionally do other things instead. I feel that this part wants things to go wrong. It wants drama and bad things to happen (is it because that's what's familiar to that part?). Then there is the rescuing part: the one who stays up until 2am getting everything done. They come in and take over when it's getting to that disaster point. Why does this happen? Part of me only knows chaos and drama in their life and can't cope with things being good and straight forward, so they try to recreate that on a daily basis. The other part wants for a better, straight forward life and strives to achieve that. The two parts are at war with each other. It makes for a lot of stress.
In my clinical psychology session this week, T and I got to talking about my relationship with Adam and her reflections ran along a similar vein. We noted that there is a part of me that tries to sabotage my relationship with him and drive him away or make him angry. I asked her why someone would do this or to be precise, I think I said something like: "Why? Why?! I don't get it! WHY?! Why would someone live with something they hate all their life and then try to recreate it? Why?!".
I think my seldom seen passion in my question must have warranted an actual answer for once (don't psychologists have some kind of policy of never answering a question?) because she explained that it is what that part knows, therefore it has the coping strategies to deal with someone being horrible. It hasn't developed the coping strategies to deal with a male being nice and so this feels uncomfortable. She then said, that there is a part who does match with the good things too, because I got into a relationship with Adam in the first place. I agreed that there is a part of me that's really good at picking out the things that would make for a good life: I have found a lovely guy to live with, I have worked hard despite my setbacks and made a good life for myself. I've gone into an area of work that helps people to include practical things in their lives that were often missing from my own as a child; yet the other part is still there because I can help other people to improve this but I still don't do it myself... and there is always that voice saying I don't deserve that for myself.
I said that statistically, people like me don't end up with people like Adam. Statistically, people like me are more likely to end up with abusive partners. T felt that the part that is able to feel a match with 'good' things is there because I must have had some relationship as a child that provided this. She says there must have been someone who showed me love and kindness in a safe way. She has said this to me before. It suggests she is working on a theory that you can't know what love is unless you've experienced it. You can't know a good thing unless you've seen a good thing. It's hard for me to pinpoint one person who was that influence. I think it must have been my mother. But even she, although loving and kind and caring to me, was at times abusive and scary and unsafe. Could I have developed those skills based on how she was in the good times? Did I develop a self who saw and related to only the good side of my mum and another part to deal with the other side of her along with my father? Is that why there would be a part who could know good things and trust them despite not having a consistent source of that from one person? It must be; otherwise, if we're basing this belief on the aforementioned theory, I couldn't have the part who knows what a good relationship would be like. I hope you can get your head around my wording of this. I don't know that I've explained it very well.
It has given me things to think about anyway. It brings up one big question for me: how can I change so that I don't continue to try to sabotage every good thing in my life? How can I change my desire for life to be chaotic and painful and lonely? I feel that part won't be content until they have driven Adam away (they have already managed to make sure I have no other relationships worth talking about by cutting us off from people) and caused me to lose my job. And like T says, there are no winners in this situation. That part won't be happy then either. I wonder if that part actually wants to drive everyone away so that they can justify suicide, being that my only real reason for not having done it is the knowledge of how it affects those left behind.
Phwew... getting a bit heavy there. I don't want to end on that sad note so despite this post being of a length that makes up for all of the posts I normally would have done in two weeks combined, I will finish on a better note by saying that I am so relieved that 'Thursday' is over and I am now in the middle of my lovely break from work. Adam and I are away on our jollies for a few days. Nowhere exotic, just a lovely hotel in Fermanagh and I am enjoying not thinking about work at all. I have decided that I am not going to feel guilty about anything if I can help it for the next few days, which is a good thing because the food here is to die for.
It's currently 1pm in the afternoon and after having a mammoth cooked breakfast this morning, I am sitting in bed typing this while Adam is sleeping in the other bed (our bed at home is Super King Sized and downgrading to sharing a double bed for this weekend wasn't working out so I have ended up in the extra single bed, but between you and me, I'd be happy if I had my own bed on a permanent basis!) after coming down with some kind of bug and cold combination (probably wouldn't want to be sharing a bed with someone in that condition anyway). I feel sorry for him that he is sick but I hope it will pass. Is it bad that I also feel secretly relieved that he may be too ill to want to have sex with me too? It has been on my mind, that going away for a romantic break means there's a kind of expectation for that intimacy too. I have struggled from day one with sex with Adam and it's not getting any easier with time. Damnit! I didn't want to end on a negative note and it has gone down hill again... OK something positive.... the good news is it's Monday and I'm not at work and it's raining outside and I don't need to be out in it and for the next few days there's not a thing in the world I have to do if I don't want to. I might go and sit in the jacuzzi later... this is the life!
"Things are different. I'm losing time a lot. Just small amounts. I think it's mainly just moments where I am going somewhere else in my head and then realising time has gone by. It's because I'm stressed.
I have another work 'event' this Thursday which I am organising. My colleague who is supposed to be helping me has offered to do a twenty minute session of the entire half day and no help whatsoever with the organising. So I have had to do all of the practical things like venue, food, invitations etc plus research the entire topic, come up with a seminar on the topic and design all of the displays and demos and group work, plus do all of the printing, getting resources, confirming attendees etc. I actually think it would be better if she wasn't helping at all because at least then I could take the credit for the hard work. She does this every time: offers to help and then does a tiny amount but it is so that she can say she organised it with me and that will be recorded on her work record as something she has done.
She's more than happy to give her ideas about what I should be doing in my parts though and she's really quick to tell me I should be doing things differently. Most of the time, it's just that my different way is only that... different. Not wrong; just not how she would do it. I have been working every minute that I have been awake, more or less ('more' because I seem to spend the night dreaming about work as well and actually found on more than one occasion that I solved a few work related problems in my sleep... 'less' because sometimes DID just makes the focus impossible and I have been doing a good job at procrastinating at times) and need to probably stay awake and work every second between now and Thursday if I want to have it all organised.
Anyway I didn't come here to complain about work. I've been dying of the cold the past several days which is like the cherry on the icing on the cake at the moment. It really hasn't helped things. The good news is, if I survive until Thursday, I am going to be off work for SIX WHOLE DAYS afterwards! Yippee! This will be the first proper time off I've had since my trip in the new year and it is long overdue. Seriously overdue. I have found myself taking an annual leave day several times in the past few months just to lie in bed and get my head around psychology sessions, or because I have been unable to function. I don't want to wither away all of my holidays on crisis situations.
Hopefully having a proper break will get me rested and psychologically improved so that I will be better able to cope with my work/therapy/physical health/life juggling act. And maybe after that I might even be able to start looking forward to Christmas. Christmas is 'my' time. A lot of people with mental health problems find (and understandably so) Christmas to be the hardest time of year. For me it's always been my favourite time of year. I'm the annoying person who doesn't go along with the rant about the decorations being up in the shops straight after Halloween. I'm the one who says thinks 'the earlier the better'.
I'm not sure why I love Christmas so much. I have split memories about it. I would say it was the time of year my parents were more likely to make an effort to make us happy as a family, so we had some nice times at Christmas. Yet at the same time, I remember that my dad hated Christmas and on more than one year banned us from having a tree up or any decorations. So maybe my over embracing attitude about Christmas is a rebellion from my scrooge of a dad, or maybe it's just..."
That ended quite abruptly and I don't know what wisdom I was about to impart but I'm guessing it was possibly saying that my love of Christmas could be to do with the fact that sometimes Christmas was a happy time for us. I never liked to admit it to myself at the time, but Christmas was always the one time of year where my church (cult) didn't meet and I always kind of enjoyed not having to go to the meetings, which were usually at least twice per week and not just for a few hours but the whole of my Sundays.
The sad thing about this year is that, despite my usual love of Christmas, I have not been able to really feel any excitement about it. If I'm honest, I have been quite depressed recently. However, I have been quite depressed on previous years and this hasn't stopped me from appreciating the Christmassyness. This year I have found myself dreading it a little bit, mainly because of my lack of energy and physical tiredness. This could be largely due to my new diagnosis of a genetic disorder, so I am hoping that once I start my treatment for it, my energy levels will improve. I have been trying to do some Christmas shopping online, because my energy for actual shopping is quite low, but you kind of miss out on the 'festiveness' of it all.
I was reflecting on this with Adam after Thursday's event and observed that I think I do this on purpose. Let me explain this in easier terms: in the plural. Basically, there is a part that tries to sabotage me. They intentionally cause me to not do the work I should be doing. They want me to fail or for things to end in disaster. There were a lot of times I knew I should be getting organised but would intentionally do other things instead. I feel that this part wants things to go wrong. It wants drama and bad things to happen (is it because that's what's familiar to that part?). Then there is the rescuing part: the one who stays up until 2am getting everything done. They come in and take over when it's getting to that disaster point. Why does this happen? Part of me only knows chaos and drama in their life and can't cope with things being good and straight forward, so they try to recreate that on a daily basis. The other part wants for a better, straight forward life and strives to achieve that. The two parts are at war with each other. It makes for a lot of stress.
In my clinical psychology session this week, T and I got to talking about my relationship with Adam and her reflections ran along a similar vein. We noted that there is a part of me that tries to sabotage my relationship with him and drive him away or make him angry. I asked her why someone would do this or to be precise, I think I said something like: "Why? Why?! I don't get it! WHY?! Why would someone live with something they hate all their life and then try to recreate it? Why?!".
I think my seldom seen passion in my question must have warranted an actual answer for once (don't psychologists have some kind of policy of never answering a question?) because she explained that it is what that part knows, therefore it has the coping strategies to deal with someone being horrible. It hasn't developed the coping strategies to deal with a male being nice and so this feels uncomfortable. She then said, that there is a part who does match with the good things too, because I got into a relationship with Adam in the first place. I agreed that there is a part of me that's really good at picking out the things that would make for a good life: I have found a lovely guy to live with, I have worked hard despite my setbacks and made a good life for myself. I've gone into an area of work that helps people to include practical things in their lives that were often missing from my own as a child; yet the other part is still there because I can help other people to improve this but I still don't do it myself... and there is always that voice saying I don't deserve that for myself.
I said that statistically, people like me don't end up with people like Adam. Statistically, people like me are more likely to end up with abusive partners. T felt that the part that is able to feel a match with 'good' things is there because I must have had some relationship as a child that provided this. She says there must have been someone who showed me love and kindness in a safe way. She has said this to me before. It suggests she is working on a theory that you can't know what love is unless you've experienced it. You can't know a good thing unless you've seen a good thing. It's hard for me to pinpoint one person who was that influence. I think it must have been my mother. But even she, although loving and kind and caring to me, was at times abusive and scary and unsafe. Could I have developed those skills based on how she was in the good times? Did I develop a self who saw and related to only the good side of my mum and another part to deal with the other side of her along with my father? Is that why there would be a part who could know good things and trust them despite not having a consistent source of that from one person? It must be; otherwise, if we're basing this belief on the aforementioned theory, I couldn't have the part who knows what a good relationship would be like. I hope you can get your head around my wording of this. I don't know that I've explained it very well.
It has given me things to think about anyway. It brings up one big question for me: how can I change so that I don't continue to try to sabotage every good thing in my life? How can I change my desire for life to be chaotic and painful and lonely? I feel that part won't be content until they have driven Adam away (they have already managed to make sure I have no other relationships worth talking about by cutting us off from people) and caused me to lose my job. And like T says, there are no winners in this situation. That part won't be happy then either. I wonder if that part actually wants to drive everyone away so that they can justify suicide, being that my only real reason for not having done it is the knowledge of how it affects those left behind.
Phwew... getting a bit heavy there. I don't want to end on that sad note so despite this post being of a length that makes up for all of the posts I normally would have done in two weeks combined, I will finish on a better note by saying that I am so relieved that 'Thursday' is over and I am now in the middle of my lovely break from work. Adam and I are away on our jollies for a few days. Nowhere exotic, just a lovely hotel in Fermanagh and I am enjoying not thinking about work at all. I have decided that I am not going to feel guilty about anything if I can help it for the next few days, which is a good thing because the food here is to die for.
It's currently 1pm in the afternoon and after having a mammoth cooked breakfast this morning, I am sitting in bed typing this while Adam is sleeping in the other bed (our bed at home is Super King Sized and downgrading to sharing a double bed for this weekend wasn't working out so I have ended up in the extra single bed, but between you and me, I'd be happy if I had my own bed on a permanent basis!) after coming down with some kind of bug and cold combination (probably wouldn't want to be sharing a bed with someone in that condition anyway). I feel sorry for him that he is sick but I hope it will pass. Is it bad that I also feel secretly relieved that he may be too ill to want to have sex with me too? It has been on my mind, that going away for a romantic break means there's a kind of expectation for that intimacy too. I have struggled from day one with sex with Adam and it's not getting any easier with time. Damnit! I didn't want to end on a negative note and it has gone down hill again... OK something positive.... the good news is it's Monday and I'm not at work and it's raining outside and I don't need to be out in it and for the next few days there's not a thing in the world I have to do if I don't want to. I might go and sit in the jacuzzi later... this is the life!
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Trying EMDR
I promised I would tell you about EMDR (not that I think you're hanging on my every word and waiting desperately, wondering if I'll keep my word or anything!) last week. It was the first time I've tried it. I've had a lot of apprehension re starting EMDR since many people I have communicated with online about it in relation to DID felt it was a risky thing. It's been on the cards lately in psychology sessions and it seemed we were preparing for it although I felt we were still waiting for something or that T didn't want to rush into it... until my meltdown last weekend. She suggested then that we would do some EMDR at the next session to help with the disturbing images etc I'd been having.
If you haven't heard of EMDR, it is short for 'Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing'. That sounds about as easy to get your head around as a crash course in rocket science might be, but in my very layman's terms, it's something to do with causing eye movements (usually left to right, alternating) combined with thinking about certain things and this speeds up the brain processing of that thing. It goes on the theory that if you experienced something traumatic, sometimes the event gets 'stuck' in your brain and you might not process it, so every time you are reminded of it, you might feel the same way as just after it happened (ie symptoms of PTSD: post traumatic stress disorder).
EMDR is a process of making eye movements which do something fancy to the connections in your brain and help your brain to process things. The eye movements are usually done by you sitting in front of the EMDR therapist and following their left to right to left to right hand movements. It can also be done by tapping alternating sides of your body or by using sounds which alternate from left to right ears. I must emphasize that this is my interpretation of what I have been told and read and that it may not be exactly how EMDR is (because contrary to apparent popular belief (I'll tell you about that in another post), I AM NOT A THERAPIST!), but it's how I understand it. If you want to read more, I am sure Mr Wikipedia would oblige.
EMDR is a process of making eye movements which do something fancy to the connections in your brain and help your brain to process things. The eye movements are usually done by you sitting in front of the EMDR therapist and following their left to right to left to right hand movements. It can also be done by tapping alternating sides of your body or by using sounds which alternate from left to right ears. I must emphasize that this is my interpretation of what I have been told and read and that it may not be exactly how EMDR is (because contrary to apparent popular belief (I'll tell you about that in another post), I AM NOT A THERAPIST!), but it's how I understand it. If you want to read more, I am sure Mr Wikipedia would oblige.
In my very limited reading, I am pretty sure I read that the use of the visual movements is quickest and the use of sounds is slowest. Unfortunately, I freaked out a bit when T first tried doing EMDR with me. I found the eye movements very uncomfortable and so she tried the tapping, but I felt really anxious having her so physically near to me. So we are going to try using the aural version. So last week we did a very short session of EMDR...
T gave me some ear phones and a CD player and I listened to some nice music which alternated between the left and right earphones while T asked me to think about my safe place and to imagine myself there. She said to think about how it feels in my body and to think of one word to associate with the feelings of being there in the safe place.
I found this to be a challenge because firstly, it's surprisingly hard to concentrate on listening to music, whilst listening to someone give instructions (my hearing problem doesn't help here either) and simultaneously trying to imagine myself in a safe place while also feeling extremely physically anxious and on edge (just how I normally feel in therapy sessions).
I find that when I feel anxious, it's really hard to imagine a safe place. I know it's imagination so I should be able to come up with some kind of impenetrable fortress but I tend to always end up imagining my safe place being invaded by something or someone dangerous. It's seldom safe enough. Sometimes it is, and that feels great. It's just hard to always feel that way, then I get annoyed at myself for 'failing' in the task and feel like if I tell T, she will be disappointed in me and give up.
On the positive side though, the music was lovely. It was hard to listen to the music because I was holding in a lot of emotions about the dreams and in life in general, I am holding in a lot of emotions about everything that's gone before, so I tend to avoid listening to sad music anyway. The song was kind of sad and I felt emotions coming up that I couldn't afford to tolerate at that moment. T thought this was a good thing and a sign that the EMDR was doing what it should. I don't have an opinion although I did feel that I would have felt the same way simply listening to that song without any alternations in sound in my ears. Another positive was that after trying it for a few minutes, I am feeling a lot less anxious about the prospect of doing EMDR in general and possibly even might be looking forward to doing it again!
So to summarise, I liked the music and I'm less anxious about trying it out now than I was, but my concerns are:
1) that I will have problems hearing her speak and listening to the music as well, because of my hearing problem and this will mean needing to go back to tapping and then I might feel anxious all over again
2) if I can't relax enough while she is EMDRing me a safe place, will I then process my safe place in a way that makes me feel anxious when I think about it?
3) how am I going to listen to the music without feeling like I'm about to burst into tears?
Then there is my new job offer, which has been a lot to take in. I'm still not sure what this will mean for me but it could mean huge change at work and this is something I'm not sure I want because it's not likely to lessen my work load at all. Thirdly, there's the news of my new diagnosis of a genetic disorder which affects my blood. This has been a lot to get my head around.
And lastly, there's been the added stress of some twat writing horrible things about me on her blog. I may or may not write about that on here. It really upset me. I understand that some people don't believe in DID, but I let them get on with their ignorance and would like to be left to get on with my own business, not used as a case study in an effort to try and prove why people with DID are a danger to society (if the person I am referring to is reading this, please go away and leave me alone). At the same time, I don't know if I can even be bothered getting bogged down with a post about it, because I just wonder, is it worth my time?
Wish me luck for T day tomorrow.
C
Saturday, 12 November 2011
Update on the mini crash and things in general
Good afternoon world and friends.
It's been a week and it feels like it's been a year, yet still just a minute since I last wrote to you. What's new hey?
Erm, so to fill you in... hmm, I'm not really sure myself how things have been to be honest. Last time I wrote I was in the middle of a mini crisis where I felt my world had just come crashing down. This was triggered partly by some nightmares and then body pains which seemed to be more than a coincidence, combined with not getting along with Adam and a big argument where he told me he didn't like me anymore (to be fair, I had just said the same thing to him... well, Pan had, but Pan is part of me so I can't pass the blame... but I believe I am unlovable and I know I love Adam so when I say it I know it's just anger (not trying to excuse it) but when he says it, it's confirmation of how no one in the world, including Adam could possibly love me or even like me). Anyway, I don't want to tread old ground (is that even an expression? I'm still learning about figures of speech. Either I'm a bit autistic or was a bit busy growing up in an abnormal life to take on board the wonders of metaphors and the like).
So the weekend was difficult. I was thinking about the dreams a lot and feeling depressed and despairing and hopeless. Light fittings were not just light fittings and bannisters were not just bannisters if you know what I mean and I found myself rummaging through the bin to find a glass jar or bottle that I could smash and then throwing it back in the bin after staring at the object for some time on more than one occasion... but apart from Thursday night and Friday morning, I didn't self harm or try to hang myself, so that's pretty good going all in all! It's hard to describe what a crash feels like. A minute feels like an hour in that state. I feel so completely alone and being with Adam just adds to the feeling of aloneness. It's like I am trapped in a bubble which someone has filled with painful emotions and bits of memories of hurt and loss and I can't get out of it and no one can get in. It doesn't matter what the world is doing, if the sun's shining or the rain's falling because it can't affect me except to make me feel more alone and hopeless. I want to cry. My body feels heavy. Movements are very slow. I don't care what I look like, but I look different...pale, puffy eyes (probably because I don't sleep the same way when I'm like this), bedraggled. I curve into myself because holding my head up is an effort I don't have the motivation or will for. I stare, but I'm not looking out at anything. I'm just seeing a blur.
I felt despairing and I felt hopeless at the weekend but I guess I couldn't have been completely hopeless because I was holding onto the thoughts that a) I could remember feeling this way and worse in the past and had survived and b) if I could make it to Monday I'd probably switch to a more life compatible version of Candycan.
Monday came and I went along to see T at clinical psychology. Erm... trying to remember... erm... Oh yes! We talked about... gosh, I'm not sure. I'm not doing very well here. But I know it was difficult and I talked about, oh yes!... the dreams. I was pleased with myself I guess that I was able to tell T at least one of the dreams because I definitely wouldn't have been able to talk about it out loud last year, or even perhaps earlier this year, without dissociating and ending up feeling everything physically or switching. So I feel that is huge progress, or else I was just in a different state that was more able to talk without getting overwhelmed. It was difficult and I felt my heart hammering in my chest. I know it's stupid but I still worry that T won't believe me, even though in reality she probably believes it more than I do myself. But while I was talking about the dreams and how I felt that the pains I had couldn't be a coincidence, I was worrying that she would think I was just making things up for attention and then I start to convince myself that I am. Or at least just blowing things out of proportion. And I start doubting everything again.
Last night I had a dream that I was in a car that fell off the road into a lake and I was in the sinking car trying to get the windows open to get myself and the others in the car out. I've had this dream a thousand times and when I drive near water I always feel freaked out. That doesn't mean this actually happened to me though. So why should I assume that dreaming about terrible things happening to a child and then feeling physical pains means those things happened to me? I don't know. Why would I dream about those things happening to me if it wasn't because of past experiences? Then I say (inside), 'I know it's real because it feels real'. Even though I don't consciously know it, in a way, I kind of do at the same time. But then in another way, I know it's not. OK so to conclude... we can't rely on any opinions or feelings that come out of my brain!
So, I told T about the dream. She didn't say an awful lot although she did ask me if I had considered if these things might have happened to me. I think she was trying to get me to think for myself and come to that conclusion. I'm sure we talked about other things but I can't bring them to mind. Then, at the end of the session, we tried EMDR for the first time. I will tell you about that in another post.
My week has been pretty huge in some ways. First of all, I found out the results of my liver tests. I haven't spoken with the doctor yet, I just found out by looking up my blood results at work and have extrapolated through this my diagnosis, which is a genetic (therefore lifelong) disorder which can cause chronic fatigue like tiredness! I don't want to go into too much detail about this on here because I'm worried about my anonymity for various reasons but suffice to say, it's a lot to get my head around. In a way, I am happy that there is potentially an answer for the exhaustion I have been plagued with for some time now and therefore hopefully a treatment that can help. On the other hand, the treatment for the condition sounds like it could be pretty hard going in itself and might make me feel worse instead of better for the first long while. But, I need to speak to the consultant again before I get ahead of myself and thanks to the NHS being as it is, I will have to wait another two months for an appointment. I tried several times to contact his secretary this week to find out if there's anything I can do in the meantime and have come to the conclusion that they make it almost impossible to find the number on purpose so that patients can't ring up to bother them. I eventually got through to an answering machine, which proved to be pointless because two messages and several days later and I haven't heard a thing back from them.
The other big news of this week is that I have been offered a new job! This is a good thing in that it gives me job security until 2013 instead of until Christmas, but bad in that it potentially means starting in an area of work I always said I'd hate to work in and I'd be working under the supervision of the very person who bullied me when I was a student. Now, to be fair, I have come to like this area of work a bit more this year seeing as half the patients I am currently seeing would fall into this client group and although I haven't had much dealings with this bully from hell of a manager since I started working, I hope it might be different now that I am working as a professional and have a lot more confidence in my abilities. The other bad thing is that the girl who is currently doing this particular job is so stressed out, I feel it will kill me... and I see her as much more competent than I am. :S Given my current physical and mental state and the fact that I am just about managing to get through each working day by the skin of my teeth (teeth don't have skin...what's that about?) I am finding it hard to feel excited about the prospect of work in general, never mind starting a new job at the moment. Sigh.
These two things have kind of been occupying my head this week; the diagnosis much more than the job, so I haven't had too much time to think about my meltdown of last weekend until now. I've felt like I've struggled through each day. I'm now having to work late on a Wednesday evening as well and starting an extra project at work. It's all fun and games isn't it?
Emotionally I've just numbed myself through the week. I've been too busy to feel. This morning was my first moment of rest since last Sunday. Adam went out after lunch and I watched a bit of telly for half an hour then switched off the box, lay down on the living room floor and stared at the carpet while tears rolled out of my eyes and I thought about how empty and hopeless my life is looking. I went back into the kitchen and looked at the glass jar which is still sitting out from last weekend, for a moment... contemplating. Then I shook myself and got my laptop out to do some of the work that I can't fit into my working days but that is building up and causing me to have dreams about car crashes all night.
I'm starting to resent Adam. He hasn't been working now for a year. He could have been working if he'd wanted to. At the same time I understand why he hasn't taken a job but his line of work means he earns at least double my wage when he does work. If he was working now I'd have the option of cutting down my hours or even taking some time out to get well, but as it is, the mortgage needs paid and I must keep going in order to pay it. Last weekend I found myself asking Adam what would happen to the house if I died and he said that our insurance policy means the mortgage would be paid off. One of the things that has been on my list of 'reasons not to kill myself' is that it wouldn't be fair to leave Adam with the debt of the house. Now, it appears it would actually do him a favour in this regard. There are however, still two other reasons on the list at the moment so unfortunately, that's not an option.
It's been a week and it feels like it's been a year, yet still just a minute since I last wrote to you. What's new hey?
Erm, so to fill you in... hmm, I'm not really sure myself how things have been to be honest. Last time I wrote I was in the middle of a mini crisis where I felt my world had just come crashing down. This was triggered partly by some nightmares and then body pains which seemed to be more than a coincidence, combined with not getting along with Adam and a big argument where he told me he didn't like me anymore (to be fair, I had just said the same thing to him... well, Pan had, but Pan is part of me so I can't pass the blame... but I believe I am unlovable and I know I love Adam so when I say it I know it's just anger (not trying to excuse it) but when he says it, it's confirmation of how no one in the world, including Adam could possibly love me or even like me). Anyway, I don't want to tread old ground (is that even an expression? I'm still learning about figures of speech. Either I'm a bit autistic or was a bit busy growing up in an abnormal life to take on board the wonders of metaphors and the like).
So the weekend was difficult. I was thinking about the dreams a lot and feeling depressed and despairing and hopeless. Light fittings were not just light fittings and bannisters were not just bannisters if you know what I mean and I found myself rummaging through the bin to find a glass jar or bottle that I could smash and then throwing it back in the bin after staring at the object for some time on more than one occasion... but apart from Thursday night and Friday morning, I didn't self harm or try to hang myself, so that's pretty good going all in all! It's hard to describe what a crash feels like. A minute feels like an hour in that state. I feel so completely alone and being with Adam just adds to the feeling of aloneness. It's like I am trapped in a bubble which someone has filled with painful emotions and bits of memories of hurt and loss and I can't get out of it and no one can get in. It doesn't matter what the world is doing, if the sun's shining or the rain's falling because it can't affect me except to make me feel more alone and hopeless. I want to cry. My body feels heavy. Movements are very slow. I don't care what I look like, but I look different...pale, puffy eyes (probably because I don't sleep the same way when I'm like this), bedraggled. I curve into myself because holding my head up is an effort I don't have the motivation or will for. I stare, but I'm not looking out at anything. I'm just seeing a blur.
I felt despairing and I felt hopeless at the weekend but I guess I couldn't have been completely hopeless because I was holding onto the thoughts that a) I could remember feeling this way and worse in the past and had survived and b) if I could make it to Monday I'd probably switch to a more life compatible version of Candycan.
Monday came and I went along to see T at clinical psychology. Erm... trying to remember... erm... Oh yes! We talked about... gosh, I'm not sure. I'm not doing very well here. But I know it was difficult and I talked about, oh yes!... the dreams. I was pleased with myself I guess that I was able to tell T at least one of the dreams because I definitely wouldn't have been able to talk about it out loud last year, or even perhaps earlier this year, without dissociating and ending up feeling everything physically or switching. So I feel that is huge progress, or else I was just in a different state that was more able to talk without getting overwhelmed. It was difficult and I felt my heart hammering in my chest. I know it's stupid but I still worry that T won't believe me, even though in reality she probably believes it more than I do myself. But while I was talking about the dreams and how I felt that the pains I had couldn't be a coincidence, I was worrying that she would think I was just making things up for attention and then I start to convince myself that I am. Or at least just blowing things out of proportion. And I start doubting everything again.
Last night I had a dream that I was in a car that fell off the road into a lake and I was in the sinking car trying to get the windows open to get myself and the others in the car out. I've had this dream a thousand times and when I drive near water I always feel freaked out. That doesn't mean this actually happened to me though. So why should I assume that dreaming about terrible things happening to a child and then feeling physical pains means those things happened to me? I don't know. Why would I dream about those things happening to me if it wasn't because of past experiences? Then I say (inside), 'I know it's real because it feels real'. Even though I don't consciously know it, in a way, I kind of do at the same time. But then in another way, I know it's not. OK so to conclude... we can't rely on any opinions or feelings that come out of my brain!
So, I told T about the dream. She didn't say an awful lot although she did ask me if I had considered if these things might have happened to me. I think she was trying to get me to think for myself and come to that conclusion. I'm sure we talked about other things but I can't bring them to mind. Then, at the end of the session, we tried EMDR for the first time. I will tell you about that in another post.
My week has been pretty huge in some ways. First of all, I found out the results of my liver tests. I haven't spoken with the doctor yet, I just found out by looking up my blood results at work and have extrapolated through this my diagnosis, which is a genetic (therefore lifelong) disorder which can cause chronic fatigue like tiredness! I don't want to go into too much detail about this on here because I'm worried about my anonymity for various reasons but suffice to say, it's a lot to get my head around. In a way, I am happy that there is potentially an answer for the exhaustion I have been plagued with for some time now and therefore hopefully a treatment that can help. On the other hand, the treatment for the condition sounds like it could be pretty hard going in itself and might make me feel worse instead of better for the first long while. But, I need to speak to the consultant again before I get ahead of myself and thanks to the NHS being as it is, I will have to wait another two months for an appointment. I tried several times to contact his secretary this week to find out if there's anything I can do in the meantime and have come to the conclusion that they make it almost impossible to find the number on purpose so that patients can't ring up to bother them. I eventually got through to an answering machine, which proved to be pointless because two messages and several days later and I haven't heard a thing back from them.
The other big news of this week is that I have been offered a new job! This is a good thing in that it gives me job security until 2013 instead of until Christmas, but bad in that it potentially means starting in an area of work I always said I'd hate to work in and I'd be working under the supervision of the very person who bullied me when I was a student. Now, to be fair, I have come to like this area of work a bit more this year seeing as half the patients I am currently seeing would fall into this client group and although I haven't had much dealings with this bully from hell of a manager since I started working, I hope it might be different now that I am working as a professional and have a lot more confidence in my abilities. The other bad thing is that the girl who is currently doing this particular job is so stressed out, I feel it will kill me... and I see her as much more competent than I am. :S Given my current physical and mental state and the fact that I am just about managing to get through each working day by the skin of my teeth (teeth don't have skin...what's that about?) I am finding it hard to feel excited about the prospect of work in general, never mind starting a new job at the moment. Sigh.
These two things have kind of been occupying my head this week; the diagnosis much more than the job, so I haven't had too much time to think about my meltdown of last weekend until now. I've felt like I've struggled through each day. I'm now having to work late on a Wednesday evening as well and starting an extra project at work. It's all fun and games isn't it?
Emotionally I've just numbed myself through the week. I've been too busy to feel. This morning was my first moment of rest since last Sunday. Adam went out after lunch and I watched a bit of telly for half an hour then switched off the box, lay down on the living room floor and stared at the carpet while tears rolled out of my eyes and I thought about how empty and hopeless my life is looking. I went back into the kitchen and looked at the glass jar which is still sitting out from last weekend, for a moment... contemplating. Then I shook myself and got my laptop out to do some of the work that I can't fit into my working days but that is building up and causing me to have dreams about car crashes all night.
I'm starting to resent Adam. He hasn't been working now for a year. He could have been working if he'd wanted to. At the same time I understand why he hasn't taken a job but his line of work means he earns at least double my wage when he does work. If he was working now I'd have the option of cutting down my hours or even taking some time out to get well, but as it is, the mortgage needs paid and I must keep going in order to pay it. Last weekend I found myself asking Adam what would happen to the house if I died and he said that our insurance policy means the mortgage would be paid off. One of the things that has been on my list of 'reasons not to kill myself' is that it wouldn't be fair to leave Adam with the debt of the house. Now, it appears it would actually do him a favour in this regard. There are however, still two other reasons on the list at the moment so unfortunately, that's not an option.
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Don't make me question my memory
Sometimes in my job I find that people lie to me. It doesn't bother me that people lie to me. I can see why they do it: because they are ashamed to tell the truth about themselves or don't want to hear the advice that would come from me if they told me the truth. Patients lie to me. I support other workers as part of my role, individuals working in other areas of health... they lie to me too.
One thing I do mind though, which happens more than I would have expected, is people who lie to me by telling me I told them something I didn't. Want a for instance?
OK, for instance, I tried to get in touch with a patient to arrange an appointment with them and found I didn't have the correct telephone number for them, so I sent out a letter asking them to contact me before a deadline date to arrange an appointment, or I would discharge them. I heard nothing from the patient for weeks. Today, several days after the deadline, they rang my office and told someone that I had arranged to go and see them but didn't show up. I asked to speak to the individual on the phone and questioned them about when they had rang, who they spoke to and what was arranged. Now, perhaps you are thinking that as I have dissociative identity disorder, maybe another alter did this and didn't inform me? It wouldn't be the first time this has happened at work but I have developed a pretty good system now of record keeping which allows me to check what has been done or said ie I try to record ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. If I, or any of my alters had spoken with this patient, they or I would have a) made a note of the appointment, b) made a note of the new contact details and c) not have made the appointment time that this individual told me I made because it was not at a time that would have suited me.
It's almost worse in a way when it's other health care workers that do it. I had a lady who rang my department to say I had promised her a place on a training course I was running the next day. I checked my records and found a note saying that I had informed her that she had been too late in sending back her registration and that there were no places available. Again, my blood boiled. It's so hard to be polite and say that they have misunderstood when I feel like yelling down the phone: "Don't you FUCKING lie to me!"
I don't mind being lied to but this INFURIATES me and it's simply because of the DID. Isn't my life hard enough, managing a life where I regularly find that I have done things I have absolutely no memory of? Isn't it tough enough that I have to write down every tiny minuscule detail of my day so that if another part is out during working hours they can know what has and hasn't been done? Isn't that hard enough without patients
who are just too fucking proud to ring up and admit that they are sorry they missed the deadline and could I still see them? I try to rationalise it in the same way I do other kinds of lies: they are only lying because it's important to them that I see them and they don't want to risk me saying 'tough luck' and discharging them. I try to remember that but it doesn't stop my blood from boiling because I am trying fucking hard enough and I don't need people throwing me into self doubt about how I am managing life with alters. It's hard enough.
I can live with people lying to me, but I don't want people doing it in a way that implies I am in error. I'm sure it appears strange to my colleagues that I get so angry every time this happens. I go on a rant about how it's disgraceful that people lie this way. I don't think they really get why it annoys me so much.
One thing I do mind though, which happens more than I would have expected, is people who lie to me by telling me I told them something I didn't. Want a for instance?
OK, for instance, I tried to get in touch with a patient to arrange an appointment with them and found I didn't have the correct telephone number for them, so I sent out a letter asking them to contact me before a deadline date to arrange an appointment, or I would discharge them. I heard nothing from the patient for weeks. Today, several days after the deadline, they rang my office and told someone that I had arranged to go and see them but didn't show up. I asked to speak to the individual on the phone and questioned them about when they had rang, who they spoke to and what was arranged. Now, perhaps you are thinking that as I have dissociative identity disorder, maybe another alter did this and didn't inform me? It wouldn't be the first time this has happened at work but I have developed a pretty good system now of record keeping which allows me to check what has been done or said ie I try to record ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. If I, or any of my alters had spoken with this patient, they or I would have a) made a note of the appointment, b) made a note of the new contact details and c) not have made the appointment time that this individual told me I made because it was not at a time that would have suited me.
It's almost worse in a way when it's other health care workers that do it. I had a lady who rang my department to say I had promised her a place on a training course I was running the next day. I checked my records and found a note saying that I had informed her that she had been too late in sending back her registration and that there were no places available. Again, my blood boiled. It's so hard to be polite and say that they have misunderstood when I feel like yelling down the phone: "Don't you FUCKING lie to me!"
I don't mind being lied to but this INFURIATES me and it's simply because of the DID. Isn't my life hard enough, managing a life where I regularly find that I have done things I have absolutely no memory of? Isn't it tough enough that I have to write down every tiny minuscule detail of my day so that if another part is out during working hours they can know what has and hasn't been done? Isn't that hard enough without patients
who are just too fucking proud to ring up and admit that they are sorry they missed the deadline and could I still see them? I try to rationalise it in the same way I do other kinds of lies: they are only lying because it's important to them that I see them and they don't want to risk me saying 'tough luck' and discharging them. I try to remember that but it doesn't stop my blood from boiling because I am trying fucking hard enough and I don't need people throwing me into self doubt about how I am managing life with alters. It's hard enough.
I can live with people lying to me, but I don't want people doing it in a way that implies I am in error. I'm sure it appears strange to my colleagues that I get so angry every time this happens. I go on a rant about how it's disgraceful that people lie this way. I don't think they really get why it annoys me so much.
Thursday, 20 October 2011
Last week's clinical psychology session, a mouse and a job interview
It's T day tomorrow and I've just realised that I don't think I told you about last weeks session.
The session last Friday was a lot easier for me, in terms of emotions and physical aftermath. Normally, I feel really anxious during the sessions and usually have fluey type aches and pains for the rest of the day afterwards and headaches etc. This week I felt like I was talking more about myself with T, as though I were someone else and we were reflecting together on this other person. It made it a lot easier because we could discuss things without me feeling anything. Not that we talked about anything too difficult.
We were thinking more about EMDR and about what the future holds in terms of therapy. I expressed that my fear is that if EMDR doesn't work for me I will be discharged and told I can't be helped. I feel confused by T's response. At first she said that she wouldn't be doing that and then later on she said that she wouldn't think of it in terms of 'can't be helped' but more in terms of 'maybe now's not the right time and a break from therapy would be needed...or a second opinion'. What does she mean by 'a second opinion'? Does she mean, if she can't help me she would send me to see someone else? I feel like she contradicted herself a bit. First she said she wouldn't be discharging me and then she said that therapy can't go on forever and that I would be told to 'take a break'. Huh? I don't like this and it's made me worried, but then I just think, hopefully I don't need to worry because hopefully EMDR is going to help me. I am confused about something though... if EMDR is to help a person process traumatic memories, don't they need to know what those memories are first?
In other news, my cat brought a mouse in through the downstairs bathroom window today while I was out. My husband shut the cat in the bathroom with the mouse and when he opened the door later the mouse was gone so he concluded that the cat must have eaten the mouse. When I came home I noticed the cat seemed to be still looking around behind the toilet for the mouse and I remarked that this seemed strange if he had eaten the mouse. Later, we discovered the mouse hiding in the hand towel (yikes!) and my husband shook it out and it ran out and up the hallway. My cat started chasing it around while Adam and I hopped about trying to shoo them towards the front door. I was screaming my lungs out, especially when it ran right up to me and over my foot! It was huge! The poor cat didn't know whether to try to catch the mouse or run away from the screaming Candy. I just couldn't help it! Eventually the mouse ran out the front door and the cat went to follow but couldn't have been that hungry because when he saw the rain he made an about turn and came back in! He's definitely miffed though that the gift he brought home for us got away!
In other, other news, I came second again in this years interviews for my job. The way the NHS work a lot of the time is to just interview once a year for the job title I do and then make a waiting list which they use to offer any jobs to people as they come up. That's how I ended up doing the job I'm seconded to at the moment. Last year was the first year I went for the interviews. I didn't bother before because I didn't think I stood a chance and then I came second out of hundreds! This year I went again, because although I am now working in the job, it's only supposed to be until the end of the year and so I need to reapply in case anything else comes up. But I felt like I didn't have a hope and was really worried I'd done badly afterwards. I was surprised to come second again! It is more evidence to me of the DID than any internal voices, because I know I am not capable of doing the job I do and doing it so well. It's not me being modest, please understand. I actually couldn't do it because I don't have the knowledge. Someone else holds it and the skills too. I'm just glad that someone seems to know what they're doing!
The session last Friday was a lot easier for me, in terms of emotions and physical aftermath. Normally, I feel really anxious during the sessions and usually have fluey type aches and pains for the rest of the day afterwards and headaches etc. This week I felt like I was talking more about myself with T, as though I were someone else and we were reflecting together on this other person. It made it a lot easier because we could discuss things without me feeling anything. Not that we talked about anything too difficult.
We were thinking more about EMDR and about what the future holds in terms of therapy. I expressed that my fear is that if EMDR doesn't work for me I will be discharged and told I can't be helped. I feel confused by T's response. At first she said that she wouldn't be doing that and then later on she said that she wouldn't think of it in terms of 'can't be helped' but more in terms of 'maybe now's not the right time and a break from therapy would be needed...or a second opinion'. What does she mean by 'a second opinion'? Does she mean, if she can't help me she would send me to see someone else? I feel like she contradicted herself a bit. First she said she wouldn't be discharging me and then she said that therapy can't go on forever and that I would be told to 'take a break'. Huh? I don't like this and it's made me worried, but then I just think, hopefully I don't need to worry because hopefully EMDR is going to help me. I am confused about something though... if EMDR is to help a person process traumatic memories, don't they need to know what those memories are first?
In other news, my cat brought a mouse in through the downstairs bathroom window today while I was out. My husband shut the cat in the bathroom with the mouse and when he opened the door later the mouse was gone so he concluded that the cat must have eaten the mouse. When I came home I noticed the cat seemed to be still looking around behind the toilet for the mouse and I remarked that this seemed strange if he had eaten the mouse. Later, we discovered the mouse hiding in the hand towel (yikes!) and my husband shook it out and it ran out and up the hallway. My cat started chasing it around while Adam and I hopped about trying to shoo them towards the front door. I was screaming my lungs out, especially when it ran right up to me and over my foot! It was huge! The poor cat didn't know whether to try to catch the mouse or run away from the screaming Candy. I just couldn't help it! Eventually the mouse ran out the front door and the cat went to follow but couldn't have been that hungry because when he saw the rain he made an about turn and came back in! He's definitely miffed though that the gift he brought home for us got away!
In other, other news, I came second again in this years interviews for my job. The way the NHS work a lot of the time is to just interview once a year for the job title I do and then make a waiting list which they use to offer any jobs to people as they come up. That's how I ended up doing the job I'm seconded to at the moment. Last year was the first year I went for the interviews. I didn't bother before because I didn't think I stood a chance and then I came second out of hundreds! This year I went again, because although I am now working in the job, it's only supposed to be until the end of the year and so I need to reapply in case anything else comes up. But I felt like I didn't have a hope and was really worried I'd done badly afterwards. I was surprised to come second again! It is more evidence to me of the DID than any internal voices, because I know I am not capable of doing the job I do and doing it so well. It's not me being modest, please understand. I actually couldn't do it because I don't have the knowledge. Someone else holds it and the skills too. I'm just glad that someone seems to know what they're doing!
Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Too many dicks in the workplace
Ever feel like with some people, it doesn't matter how hard you try to do the right thing, it's always going to be wrong? I feel like that with my team leader at work. I double check everything I do with those above me when I'm unsure, so as to make sure I am doing the right thing... but I still get it wrong! Today she pulled me aside. First off, I was annoyed because she didn't give me any warning but just approached me and requested that I join her in a meeting right away, not telling me what it was about. This is unprofessional at best and at worst could actually be called bullying. Yes, bullying, which surprises me but as I have been bullied in the past, I have read a lot about it and one thing a bully might do is not give people notice for meetings or time to prepare. I did well to stand my ground, telling her that I was in the middle of something and asked what was it about. She lied to me that it was about a form I have to fill in.
After about two minutes of sitting at her desk looking at me, she asked me how long I was going to be before I'd be ready to meet so I gave in a went to her stupid meeting. She had actually gone to the trouble of booking an interview room out. She talked about the form for about one minute before telling me that the real reason she wanted to talk to me was because I had sent back two patient referrals to the sender because they had no information on them about why they had been referred and that this was wrong. I should have rang the referrer and got the information. I explained that this is not written anywhere on the instructions for how to process referrals and that I was doing as I had been instructed to do at the start and that I had also checked it out with a senior member of staff and been advised to do as I did and that I had in fact rang the referrer and wasn't able to get through so sent it back to request more information.
A pretty good argument? NO! Not good enough for her. Apparently I should have held on to them and followed it up again on Monday. I explained that as I knew I was out of office all day on Monday, I thought it would be more time efficient to sent it back as I wouldn't have been able to ring. This wasn't good enough either. I could go on and on explaining her logic and my logic but the fact is she wasn't going to accept that I did what I judged to be best and that maybe she would have done it differently but that it's not necessarily wrong. It just went on like this and I was getting more and more upset.
In the end I gave off that things need to be written down in black and white because I'm trying to do my best but no matter who I ask, there's going to be someone telling me to do it differently! I don't know why I bothered trying to get my point across because she just argued, argued, argued with me. I was fucking raging and hurt and confronted and trying so hard to hold it together and not burst into tears while she sat there staring at me and telling me it wasn't a big issue.
I went to the toilets afterwards and couldn't stop the tears from seeping out of my eyes. I hated crying about this but it just seems like I can't do any right with her. I had to pull myself together though and get back to the office and I guess I just tried to put it aside but thinking about it now I am starting to cry again. I am doing my best. I feel like so much of my work is kept vague and grey and I like things to be clear. I try to make things clear but it's never right. I don't like being told I'm doing things wrong when I have no clear guidance as to how I should be doing things.
I'm angry with myself for being upset, but I guess it's because my confidence in my own abilities is so low at times that things like this just serve to remind me of how hopeless and incompetent I really am.
And where the fuck was Grace when I needed her?!
After about two minutes of sitting at her desk looking at me, she asked me how long I was going to be before I'd be ready to meet so I gave in a went to her stupid meeting. She had actually gone to the trouble of booking an interview room out. She talked about the form for about one minute before telling me that the real reason she wanted to talk to me was because I had sent back two patient referrals to the sender because they had no information on them about why they had been referred and that this was wrong. I should have rang the referrer and got the information. I explained that this is not written anywhere on the instructions for how to process referrals and that I was doing as I had been instructed to do at the start and that I had also checked it out with a senior member of staff and been advised to do as I did and that I had in fact rang the referrer and wasn't able to get through so sent it back to request more information.
A pretty good argument? NO! Not good enough for her. Apparently I should have held on to them and followed it up again on Monday. I explained that as I knew I was out of office all day on Monday, I thought it would be more time efficient to sent it back as I wouldn't have been able to ring. This wasn't good enough either. I could go on and on explaining her logic and my logic but the fact is she wasn't going to accept that I did what I judged to be best and that maybe she would have done it differently but that it's not necessarily wrong. It just went on like this and I was getting more and more upset.
In the end I gave off that things need to be written down in black and white because I'm trying to do my best but no matter who I ask, there's going to be someone telling me to do it differently! I don't know why I bothered trying to get my point across because she just argued, argued, argued with me. I was fucking raging and hurt and confronted and trying so hard to hold it together and not burst into tears while she sat there staring at me and telling me it wasn't a big issue.
I went to the toilets afterwards and couldn't stop the tears from seeping out of my eyes. I hated crying about this but it just seems like I can't do any right with her. I had to pull myself together though and get back to the office and I guess I just tried to put it aside but thinking about it now I am starting to cry again. I am doing my best. I feel like so much of my work is kept vague and grey and I like things to be clear. I try to make things clear but it's never right. I don't like being told I'm doing things wrong when I have no clear guidance as to how I should be doing things.
I'm angry with myself for being upset, but I guess it's because my confidence in my own abilities is so low at times that things like this just serve to remind me of how hopeless and incompetent I really am.
And where the fuck was Grace when I needed her?!
Saturday, 16 July 2011
Dermatillomania (compulsive skin picking)
It is probably fair to say that my dermatillomania problem is more an issue for one of my alters than me as a whole, but it certainly affects me as a human being.
Dermatillomania, as defined by Wikipedia (the answer to all of life's definition dilemmas) is 'an impulse control disorder characterized by the repeated urge to pick at one's own skin, often to the extent that damage is caused'. The way in which a person may suffer, depends on the person: for some it might be picking at bits of rough skin, spots, any blemishes or imperfections. For others it might be peeling off cuticles or scratching at skin.
It is also known as 'Complusive skin picking' but on this blog we will stick to using the more obscure title of dermatillomania simply because the thought of 'compulsive skin picking' incites nauseating mental images that result in the feeling of impending hurling.
Dermatillomania tends to be caused or worsened by anxiety and stress. It is certainly the case for me and my anxious alters. In my experience, the problem tends to lead into a spiral where it gets worse and worse: the more you scratch and pick, the more damaged and scabbed the skin becomes, so the more there is to scratch and pick at and so on...
When my dermatillomania takes off (as it is not consistently a problem, but if I switch to a specific alter or if I am very stressed it will become problematic) I find myself picking and scratching at my skin: mainly my face, head, behind my ears, my upper back, arms and chest but it could be anywhere. I don't consciously do it, but I will run my hands over my skin looking for any rough or loose skin, any blemishes or lumps and will then pick, squeeze and scratch at said parts uncontrollably.
At the moment, I am a sight. I've got several really ugly sores on my face where I perceived there to be a spot developing and squeezed and picked it to death. I am sure if I hadn't, the blemish/spot would be long gone by now (if it even was one at all) but instead I have ugly scabs which I can't leave alone. Every time they scab over again I pick them off again. It sounds rather disgusting when you think about it.
Today in work I was scratching away behind my ears (OK that makes me sound like a dog... just to clarify, I wasn't using my foot) for so long that it started bleeding quite a bit and then I had to mop it up with tissues whilst hoping no one would see.
So what helps dermatillomania? Well, since it's often induced by stress and anxiety, it follows that reducing these symptoms will help reduce dermatillomanic tendencies (easier said than done, we all cry). For me, when it is at it's worst, the problem in itself adds to my anxiety, because I want to stop but feel out of control. At times like this, it is often my husband who is the help. He notices it more than I do (because I'm not consciously doing it but it upsets him to see me damaging myself) so will keep telling me off and may even resort to holding my hands so I can't use them anymore. This can actually be really helpful in the middle of an uncontrollable scratching session (woof woof) and can give time for the urges to pass.
Something else that can help is to find tasks to keep your hands busy and your mind distracted. This is one I haven't really tried, because as I said, it tends to be unconscious, but it seems like a good idea. You might want to try wearing soft gloves (you could also do a mime act with these...that might distract you).
This next suggestion may seem a little odd but really works. I have found myself in the past, pasting PVA glue onto my skin, letting it dry and then peeling it off. It gives the satisfaction of the action but without the damage. I guess it doesn't really help to break the habit, but it is fun!
Anyway, I'm not going to try to advise any more than that, because I am hardly one to talk, with a face currently resembling a map of the Northwestern Passages but if you are a fellow dermatillomaniac feel free to give me some suggestions!
C
Dermatillomania, as defined by Wikipedia (the answer to all of life's definition dilemmas) is 'an impulse control disorder characterized by the repeated urge to pick at one's own skin, often to the extent that damage is caused'. The way in which a person may suffer, depends on the person: for some it might be picking at bits of rough skin, spots, any blemishes or imperfections. For others it might be peeling off cuticles or scratching at skin.
It is also known as 'Complusive skin picking' but on this blog we will stick to using the more obscure title of dermatillomania simply because the thought of 'compulsive skin picking' incites nauseating mental images that result in the feeling of impending hurling.
Dermatillomania tends to be caused or worsened by anxiety and stress. It is certainly the case for me and my anxious alters. In my experience, the problem tends to lead into a spiral where it gets worse and worse: the more you scratch and pick, the more damaged and scabbed the skin becomes, so the more there is to scratch and pick at and so on...
When my dermatillomania takes off (as it is not consistently a problem, but if I switch to a specific alter or if I am very stressed it will become problematic) I find myself picking and scratching at my skin: mainly my face, head, behind my ears, my upper back, arms and chest but it could be anywhere. I don't consciously do it, but I will run my hands over my skin looking for any rough or loose skin, any blemishes or lumps and will then pick, squeeze and scratch at said parts uncontrollably.
At the moment, I am a sight. I've got several really ugly sores on my face where I perceived there to be a spot developing and squeezed and picked it to death. I am sure if I hadn't, the blemish/spot would be long gone by now (if it even was one at all) but instead I have ugly scabs which I can't leave alone. Every time they scab over again I pick them off again. It sounds rather disgusting when you think about it.
Today in work I was scratching away behind my ears (OK that makes me sound like a dog... just to clarify, I wasn't using my foot) for so long that it started bleeding quite a bit and then I had to mop it up with tissues whilst hoping no one would see.
So what helps dermatillomania? Well, since it's often induced by stress and anxiety, it follows that reducing these symptoms will help reduce dermatillomanic tendencies (easier said than done, we all cry). For me, when it is at it's worst, the problem in itself adds to my anxiety, because I want to stop but feel out of control. At times like this, it is often my husband who is the help. He notices it more than I do (because I'm not consciously doing it but it upsets him to see me damaging myself) so will keep telling me off and may even resort to holding my hands so I can't use them anymore. This can actually be really helpful in the middle of an uncontrollable scratching session (woof woof) and can give time for the urges to pass.
Something else that can help is to find tasks to keep your hands busy and your mind distracted. This is one I haven't really tried, because as I said, it tends to be unconscious, but it seems like a good idea. You might want to try wearing soft gloves (you could also do a mime act with these...that might distract you).
This next suggestion may seem a little odd but really works. I have found myself in the past, pasting PVA glue onto my skin, letting it dry and then peeling it off. It gives the satisfaction of the action but without the damage. I guess it doesn't really help to break the habit, but it is fun!
Anyway, I'm not going to try to advise any more than that, because I am hardly one to talk, with a face currently resembling a map of the Northwestern Passages but if you are a fellow dermatillomaniac feel free to give me some suggestions!
C
Thursday, 7 July 2011
Positivity and procrastination
I have two things to say.
Firstly, I left my clinical psychology session yesterday with a.... wait for it... drumroll please...... smile on my face!!!!!!!!!!!! Ta da! That does not happen often and certainly hasn't happened this year. I still spent the evening feeling ill and went to bed and woke up this morning with a splitting headache BUT the body pains and psychological exhaustion did not plague me to the same extent and I had a general feeling of positivity about the session.
More on that later.
The other thing that I have to say is that if I continue procrastinating about work in this manner I won't have a job for much longer and then... well I guess that wouldn't be a good thing.
Tomorrow I have to give a talk on a complicated health condition which has been complicated by another complicated health condition, to a group of carers and between you and me, I have done about 5% of the preparation I need to do, but I have this really annoying trait of not being able to focus and do good work until the work is almost due and then I am only able to be motivated by the impending crisis. I could have done all of this preparation last week. Yet, the morning of the day before still seems to be too much time for me to be able to work on it. Hence, I know what I'll be doing this evening... and possibly all night. I will never learn.
Firstly, I left my clinical psychology session yesterday with a.... wait for it... drumroll please...... smile on my face!!!!!!!!!!!! Ta da! That does not happen often and certainly hasn't happened this year. I still spent the evening feeling ill and went to bed and woke up this morning with a splitting headache BUT the body pains and psychological exhaustion did not plague me to the same extent and I had a general feeling of positivity about the session.
More on that later.
The other thing that I have to say is that if I continue procrastinating about work in this manner I won't have a job for much longer and then... well I guess that wouldn't be a good thing.
Tomorrow I have to give a talk on a complicated health condition which has been complicated by another complicated health condition, to a group of carers and between you and me, I have done about 5% of the preparation I need to do, but I have this really annoying trait of not being able to focus and do good work until the work is almost due and then I am only able to be motivated by the impending crisis. I could have done all of this preparation last week. Yet, the morning of the day before still seems to be too much time for me to be able to work on it. Hence, I know what I'll be doing this evening... and possibly all night. I will never learn.
Monday, 13 June 2011
I hate the world today
Today I am angry and tired and weary.
I feel like I am at the end of my tether. I know this is only temporary and just because of situations. Looking at it logically, it's just a matter of energy and maths. The energy I am expending on work is large and the energy I am expending on processing what's going on in my head is large. The energy resource I have for these things is not very large, therefore, there is no energy left after work and craziness for anything else, such as feeling like I want to be alive. I am in negative energy. The good news is, I don't really have the energy to care a lot of the time.
I cared in work today though. I felt so close to tears at several points.
I told my team leader (again) today that the work I have been expected to do is too much and that I have been working until 8 and 9pm most evenings and for hours at the weekend in order to reach the deadlines that I told her in April were too ambitious. She suggested (again) that I am not working efficiently enough. Except now I know that I am. I know I have been working harder than anyone else in my team. It's not me, it's them. I feel stuck though, because no one else has any insight into the kind of work I am doing except for one colleague, who won't support me in complaining because she knows some of my work would then be delegated to her.
Over the next few weeks I am delivering several days of training to a large group of people. My colleague was asked to attend to help deliver the training but when we sat down to decide what sections we would do on the days, she wasn't volunteering herself for barely anything. I felt pressurized into taking on most of the work. I looked over the allocations afterwards to find there was a 25/75 split in what we were doing. I approached her to ask if she would consider taking on more (not an easy thing for a mouse like me to do) and she was NOT happy. She got really annoyed and said that she thought that we had split it fairly. I then showed her the statistics on the amount of time we would each be talking for and she said: "Ugh, well I didn't realise we had come down to the level of counting minutes now!" I should have asked her if she could think of a fairer way to split the workload but instead I said something like how it would really help me out. She agreed to do slightly more but it barely changes the proportions. I am so angry with her. She hasn't done anything to help with the planning of the training so today's lack of co-operation has just been the icing on the cake really. But you can be assured she won't be shy about taking the credit for the training when it comes to feeding back at the next team meeting.
Work on it's own at the moment would be enough to send me to the edge but I feel like internally there is so much happening too. I feel like I can't stop the processes that are happening. It's hard to describe. I feel less able to control the others in my head lately. Like there is a mutiny; they've had enough of me holding them in and are determined that now is the time to break away from me. It's not necessarily a bad thing seeing as I have been trying not to be so much in control all the time but I'm scared. I feel like I am being dragged along behind.
God! I am sick of all the negativity. I bought some lillies the other day in a moment of clarity (the clarity involving realising that my life doesn't have many nice ingredients so I should try to inject some) and I am loving how they smell. They have lasted so long and every night when I get home from work I come in the door and smell them and it's like a little reminder that there is something in the world to be alive for, even if it's just a little thing like the smell of flowers (OK, that was my feable attempt at a positive comment!). I just need to find those little sparkles of hope in each day for the next few weeks and I will get there. I am sure I will feel better soon.
I feel like I am at the end of my tether. I know this is only temporary and just because of situations. Looking at it logically, it's just a matter of energy and maths. The energy I am expending on work is large and the energy I am expending on processing what's going on in my head is large. The energy resource I have for these things is not very large, therefore, there is no energy left after work and craziness for anything else, such as feeling like I want to be alive. I am in negative energy. The good news is, I don't really have the energy to care a lot of the time.
I cared in work today though. I felt so close to tears at several points.
I told my team leader (again) today that the work I have been expected to do is too much and that I have been working until 8 and 9pm most evenings and for hours at the weekend in order to reach the deadlines that I told her in April were too ambitious. She suggested (again) that I am not working efficiently enough. Except now I know that I am. I know I have been working harder than anyone else in my team. It's not me, it's them. I feel stuck though, because no one else has any insight into the kind of work I am doing except for one colleague, who won't support me in complaining because she knows some of my work would then be delegated to her.
Over the next few weeks I am delivering several days of training to a large group of people. My colleague was asked to attend to help deliver the training but when we sat down to decide what sections we would do on the days, she wasn't volunteering herself for barely anything. I felt pressurized into taking on most of the work. I looked over the allocations afterwards to find there was a 25/75 split in what we were doing. I approached her to ask if she would consider taking on more (not an easy thing for a mouse like me to do) and she was NOT happy. She got really annoyed and said that she thought that we had split it fairly. I then showed her the statistics on the amount of time we would each be talking for and she said: "Ugh, well I didn't realise we had come down to the level of counting minutes now!" I should have asked her if she could think of a fairer way to split the workload but instead I said something like how it would really help me out. She agreed to do slightly more but it barely changes the proportions. I am so angry with her. She hasn't done anything to help with the planning of the training so today's lack of co-operation has just been the icing on the cake really. But you can be assured she won't be shy about taking the credit for the training when it comes to feeding back at the next team meeting.
Work on it's own at the moment would be enough to send me to the edge but I feel like internally there is so much happening too. I feel like I can't stop the processes that are happening. It's hard to describe. I feel less able to control the others in my head lately. Like there is a mutiny; they've had enough of me holding them in and are determined that now is the time to break away from me. It's not necessarily a bad thing seeing as I have been trying not to be so much in control all the time but I'm scared. I feel like I am being dragged along behind.
God! I am sick of all the negativity. I bought some lillies the other day in a moment of clarity (the clarity involving realising that my life doesn't have many nice ingredients so I should try to inject some) and I am loving how they smell. They have lasted so long and every night when I get home from work I come in the door and smell them and it's like a little reminder that there is something in the world to be alive for, even if it's just a little thing like the smell of flowers (OK, that was my feable attempt at a positive comment!). I just need to find those little sparkles of hope in each day for the next few weeks and I will get there. I am sure I will feel better soon.
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