Living in My Head

hi guys,

I know that I said I would update this blog more but things have over taken a little...quick update, I was sectioned (on a2) 3 weeks ago and although off section now I am still in hospital for another week. The chronic lack of sleep left me with no energy to fight Jenny's reaction to the reply to the email to my dad (see previous post) which left her feeling very very unsafe and hurting too much to cope, also amount of lack of sleep meant that I started hallucinating very very badly. I am sleeping in hospital with the help of a strong sleeper that I am not sure that they will give when I leave...so who knows! I am much much better than I was, I am trying very hard to make everything (well as much as I can) better. I am going out and going home every day so I can get used to it again. The long term plan is to move me to somewhere with night time support but this is going to take a little time.

I went to my local survivors group on Tuesday and something that I brought up that has been bothering me for a long time has made me decide to devote this post to it.

I HATE my body I hate feeling any part of it and it stresses me out and freaks me out to the point of body memories where the control is taken away and I am back in that really horrible place of years ago. This distress me a lot so I (as much as I really can) live in my head. For a lot of people I think that the opposite is true and neither is that healthy.

My head isn’t a nice place to be, I struggle with my anxiety with the depression and thoughts...how I hate thoughts...and the alters that can take over and can be very dangerous or vindictive against all of us. I live in my head because its the lesser of two evils.

In therapy we have been trying to do a lot about grounding, but so much of the time this involves feeling your body, whether it be breathing, or feeling your feet on the floor. I know this works for a lot of people, and it helps them stay in the here and now, but for me, right now, it takes me back to a time when I was really badly hurt, not just physically and sexually but also emotionally. I will give you a quick example, regulating and mindfully thinking about breathing is used a lot in anxiety and also in keeping you here. It freaks the hell out of me, and there is a reason for this, during the abuse that I have suffered I was suffocated (to point of passing out no further) and breathing reminds me of how hard it was. Doesn’t help that I badly struggled with my breathing when I came off the ventilator in ICU after the fire...so concentrating on it just is too much of a reminder so freak and go back. Even writing this is so so hard as I am fighting the huge panic!!!! We have gone back to even smaller steps to try and allow me to feel my body and no freak (using little finger and switching between that and a physical anchor such as a picture) its really hard but I am getting there slowly.

I think part of the problem is I completely fear my body...it let me down, it let the abuse (including ritualistic) happen and that’s not safe...if I feel it will it let me down again??? will it just continually take me to places I don’t want to go to? Will it not let me live in the present???

People can get so much pleasure from their bodies, not just sexually, but different textures, a simple hug, and I don’t get that. I wish I could, and don’t know how to make it safe enough.

Living in my head is horrible, and I wish that I could share the burden with the whole of me, but right now that’s not an option its just not safe!

huggles

lou

letter to my dad

this is a email i sent my dad tonight, i have been thinking i needed to do this for a while, but havent talked to anyone about it. i hope people think its ok. just worried about the response/lack of one.

luce xxxx

Hi,

this is not going to be an easy email to write, or even read, and for that I am truly sorry. But this is something that I have to do. I am not asking for apologies or even an admission as I know in my heart that I will never get these. I just want you to know how things are for me because of my life.

The abuse that I suffered as a child and adult has seriously damaged me, I have a diagnosis of complex PTSD because of this, as well as dissociative dissorder nos.the dissociative disorder means that I have alters within me,, these have been there for years, but I am finally getting the help I need in order to move on and get on with my life.

Thanks to going to Lavender Lodge, I have grown out of the borderline personality disorder to the most part. When I get ill I do get aspects (traits) of it, but doesnt everyone?? no one really wants to get rejected etc. whilst its still on my records I am trying to get it changed to recovered. My CPN is supportive of this. I dont freak out so much at change, its more to do with my high anxiety levels due to the PTSD than anything else.

Thats enough of that. The main reason I wanted to email is to explain how controlling you and mum were when I moved home. I do understand this was done out of love and care, and I have no question in my mind that you did love me wholeheartedly. You were the one I could go to if I had a problem, but now I have friends that have become my family.

Going back to when I moved back home in 2008, when I was really ill with the BPD (and the undiognosed ptsd and ddnos). I do not blaim you for the way you decided to handle me, I must have been a complete nightmare, but this continued because I had no control. You both took all my control away from me, and that just made me mad, but also feeling extreemly out of control, so I used my (maldapative) coping mechanisms to deal with it, the od'ing, cutting and my eating disorder. As I have said I know I put you in a completely unatural situation and nothing could have prepared you both for living with me in that state. I do also blaim the MH services at the time for not supporting me enough...especially when psych liason wanted to admit me but couldnt because my GP was still in Wales. I am not trying to take away my own responsbility but I felt completely out of my depth after living on my own and coping (well not coping very well) as best I could to suddenly not having hardly any autonomy over my life. I was no longer a child at this point, but an adult. And as long as I wasnt physically hurting other people I think I should have been left to make my own mistakes so that I could learn from them; saying this and as I have said I put you in an impossible situation, a child of yours was seriously mentally unwell, and how does anyone cope with that? I do not blame you for your decsions as I can see that they were done out of love and concern for my safety....im just saying it didnt work and made me worse.

Going to lavender was the best thing I could have done, I learnt skills to deal with the affects of the BPD.

Enough of this negativity. I thought I would breifly bring you up to date. I am still struggling, but in very different ways. My anxiety is seriosuly high constantly, and have chronic low mood. Plus my alters that all have very different ideas. All very confusing. I have ended up back in hospital a few times for short times when things get on top of me, but I hate it. And as I said I am in therapy for the dissociation that has plagued my life (including the freezing that I know you witnessed) all tis makes sense to me now as I slowly remember more and more.

I dont live on my own but in a group home with staff during the day. This works quite well for me as I dont really cope living on my own iam not going to tell you where I live (and still angry at aunty Dororthy for telling you about the flat when I asked her not to) as I need to keep my safety but online is ok. I work occassionally on an ad hoc basis for various people to improve services for other people, as I am called by the CQC I am a expert by experience. I go all over the country to try and get the message across that I want to mainly to treat anyone (Mh/minorities etc etc) as if you would like to be treated yourself. And this is the message I want to get to you. I hope you never end up in that situation again, but controlling people leads to resentment and anger, plus a desprate plea by the person to keep control over something, often their owm body. We can all learn from every situation, and I hope you can reflect on this.

I do miss you more than words can say, you for all your faults and mine, were the one person I could go to with almost litterly everything. I see things that I know you would like and feel sad that I cant share it with you.

Keep going dad,

Luce

Anniverseries

Hey guys,

I know that its been a while since I have been on here, but I have been back in hospital over my birthday and had several “anniversaries” since. These are not the good ones, not the ones where you get flowers cards and presents, but ones that take me back to a place that I do not want to got.

Everyone in the world, I imagine, has dates that they would rather forget. Ones that remind them of bad times, but for me they lead me to an all encompassing depression and I have no energy to fight them. It doesn't help that the different personalities within me react differently to them.

Tomorrow is Fathers' day in the UK, and this is a hugely bad day for me, it was one of his special days (Along with my birthday and his, plus Christmas) and at the moment I am really struggling to stay safe. The pain from the memories of both the SRA and the abuse from my dad is so strong, that it feels that death is my only option. But I don't want to hurt other people, and so I struggle on. Holding onto that need not to hurt other people and prove to everyone beyond reasonable doubt that I am Evil.

So what do we do? How do people get through these dates? Answers on a postcard please (or on the comments)

I am trying to keep busy, and put things in place. Every year after this time of year I say to myself that I will be more organised and have things in place, but it sees every year it creeps up on me. I do have things planned for today and tomorrow, and hope that it will get me through, as I hate letting people down, so we will see how successful this is.

I think the fact that I have started therapy has meant that a lot more has come out in my mind (and hopefully to my therapist at the right time) and that has made this year a lot harder than before. But as it is said, no pain no gain. I just have to trust in the therapy that I am doing (Which I do) and hope that by this time next year I will be in a lot better place in order to deal with individual dates that have such a huge meaning for me.

Life is shit but you have get up dust yourself down and get on with it!!!

sorry that this doesn't really have any answers, but I am at a lost at the moment.

Love

Lou xxx

Guilt and responsibility

hey guys,

I went to my support group last night, and we had a long talk about responsibility and guilt, and we all pretty much felt the same. First thing I have to say though is ITS NOT YOUR FAULT ANY OF IT, YOU CANNOT CONTROL SOMEONE ELSE, IF YOU DIDN'T TALK AND IT HAPPENED TO SOMEONE ELSE THAT'S THE ABUSERS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR ACTIONS!!!

This is where I am a complete hypocrite as I feel completely responsible for the risk of the abusers I had hurting others. I have got better with my dad as I did try and get justice and it was the CPS who decided not to take it further, but I still worry to the point it makes me ill that he'll hurt someone else. But my biggest guilt is around the ritualistic abuse and the fact my brain wont tell me enough to know who the abuser’s are, and I am completely convinced that I cannot of been the only one,

its a horrible feeling to have, the guilt that you think that you may have been able to stop someone else suffering but my friends tell me (as I just cant see it yet) that I was a child, programmed by my parents to keep things secret and its never a child’s responsibility (or anyone who is abused) to stop others hurting, they just have to do what they have to do to get through and survive. For me this was dissociation and “splitting (bad word for it but cant think of another one) into my different parts.

I have to remember that I have survived, I have survived seriously terrifying and horrifying things that should happen to no one, but I have done it. I struggle with it, and I still feel my parents have a lot of control over me through their grooming of me. I just hope that one day that I can truly break free from them, not just physically (Which is have) but also repair all the stuff they have ingrained into my head so that I can actually enjoy life. At the moment it just doesn’t seem possible, I still feel that it was all my fault because I am inherently evil and they were all just trying to make me good....what they told me.

Children look to adults, especially parents, for guidance and love and I didn’t get that, I got narcissistic mother who wants to throw everything under the carpet to make sure the world sees us as perfect family...in other words so people see her as a perfect mother (so far from the truth its ridiculous) and my dad sexually abused me or 20 + years, but yet its my fault....writing that makes it seem what I think is stupid. However i'm struggling to see it any other way, especially as this way gives me some kinda of control over something that was completely out of my control. Maybe this is why I struggle with using food as a way of control...but that’s for another post.

Hope you all stay safe, and this helps in some random way. Sorry

Lou

Its not my fault

Its not my fault – by Seren.

Why do those four words – its not my fault – send us into panic? Its not like if it was anyone else I know, I wouldn’t dream that what happened with the abuse to be their fault. But its ours!! what makes us so special? Even if we imagined the abuse we suffered was someone else, we still wouldn’t blame them. I wish that there was a simple solution into not blaming ourselves and internalising all the emotions that should be thrown at my parents. I hate to think of us as special, we hate being the centre of attention we just want to fit in (and never seem to). However we are the only abused child that its our fault....if only we could change how we perceive ourselves and I am sure that many other survivors feel the same.

I did some online research and found that adults who abuse, paedophiles, must except control and this is one of the ways that they do it. They don’t just hurt us physically and sexually but also emotionally. This emotional abuse is the centre to it, its not so much a sexual thrill they get (I think) but its the power balance and how they manage to transfer the blame to the child. They can do this in a variety of manners, through actually saying its the child’s fault, to giving them “presents” to keep them quiet. In our experience and those of people I know, it often means that we are the ones left wondering if we had done or been x y z then it wouldn’t happen. And so further believing it is our fault.

Having done some reading around I have realised that it was just the punishments that put me into the situation, but also the presents I used to get. This is a huge realisation for us, as we thought that was showing his “nice” side the side society sees, but from what I have read it was further bringing me into the damaging relationship. Having said that no person is all bad or all good. We all are a unique mixture of both. (I have mini dad (one of the alters) shouting in my ear that YOU ARE ALL EVIL NO GOOD CAN COME OF YOU) having DID does make things complicated!!!! anyway back on subject, my dad and mum do have good qualities just when it comes to me they turn bad. What Mini Dad was shouting is what I heard constantly for well over 20 years. And that is the part of the reason that my dad got away with it, I knew that it was my fault, and he was trying to help...after all 5 year old believe just about everything a parents say. Its not been programmed into my brain, and Mini Dad keeps reminding me of that very reason. And so the guilt continues. The guilt of turning them into the police and what happened from there I do see as my responsibility, although as some will tell me that they had brought it on themselves.

This is something that we struggle with a lot. People ask us why we are so different and special that if it is our fault why isn't it anyone else's. This question I cannot answer, maybe cause there is no answer, but we have been programmed for so long that it is our fault that in a way it lets feel that we have (non existent) control over our life for so long, its our fault therefore we deserved it. It also allows us to still see my parents as parents rather then them messing up our lives, which everyone else can see. I have to feel in control, we all do. I am guessing that it has a lot to do with our childhood and early years. Currently we are trying to do with with food :s if I am honest a lot of my life I was out of control, not with substance misuse, but because both my parents controlled me so much as I wasn’t the perfect vicars daughter that society believes I should have been. I wasn’t that happy go lucky child, I was suffering from the abuse my dad and his friends inflicted on my sexually and the emotional abuse from my mother. I wasn’t allowed emotions, and so I still internalise them as its safer, safer than getting rejected by the two people who are meant to be my care givers.

No child should be inflicted to what I was. However I was, and the reason for that is my evilness, I was born with it and they were just trying to get rid of it, and then using my to be for blame for everything because of it. This thinking is so wrong in a way, being a child includes innocence. Its all so conflicting.

Grooming, as they call it, meant that I didn’t talk for 20 years about what was going on, but I find it difficult to accept that it is his stuff that has made me feel like this. I feel responsible for so much including what happened to me. Will I ever feel differently? How will that affect how I see myself. I see myself with such detest, and distance myself from the body as its not ours, it belongs to them. In a way when I am hurting myself I’m not, I'm hurting them as it belongs to them always.

What gives the adults the right to transfer what they want to on a child? What gives them the right to use a child’s body as an adult plaything? Why when the adult may feel the guilt they transfer this to the child. I have no life really, I am only existing, as the past rules my life forever.

[EDIT: Seren had some help with this from some of the others, sorry its so difficult to understand.]