Waves

Waves of exhaustion
Wash over me
Long before bedtime
So I medicate earlier
Every day
In the hopes of maybe
Getting a good nights rest
And waking up rested
Tomorrow morning
And the wave
Washes over
Again

DID poem-hospital assignment

DID

what's wrong with

me

lots and lots

of

parts and stuff

singing

inside my head

I

can't even hear what's

said

anger, sadness, hurt and

pain

split in parts inside my

brain

life's more fun but

also

a doozie-when Tired takes over, I feel

snoozie

little ones, big ones, in

betweens

to me this is what

DID

means.

Overheard

On the bus to therapy:

"Please stop ringing the bell [so much]. If you like it so much, I'll buy you one for Christmas."~very polite but annoyed bus driver, after the string was pulled ten times while the bus was stopped letting people on and off

Holocaust

I have learned my history well, but I am sure I won't get in all the comparisons there are. Feel free to chime in if you know of any others.

At the beginning of WWII, the Jews of Europe didn't want to believe it was happening. It wasn't real. It was all just a whole lot of rumors. So too, at first, we didn't want to believe sexual abuse, or any abuse, existed in our communities. We didn't want to believe it was happening to us. It couldn't be real.

Then reality hit the Jews of Europe. This was the real thing. Hitler had a Plan. So they wanted to get away! Escape! Run! Hide! And they turned to others for help. But there was no help. All the countries turned their backs on European Jewry, because it wasn't their problem. And with abuse, it was the same. Everyone said, "he's from a different community. we don't have to worry about people in OUR area."

The countries of Europe said "If we give him this country, he'll stop. He won't invade more. It'll stop." And us? We said "we can't do anything about the ones he hurt. But he said he was sorry, so surely he won't do it again."

I have just one question: When is the Nuremburg trial for sexual abuse?

Highway

We are speeding
Along a highway
20 mph above
The speed limit
All of us
Crammed into a tiny
Car on a long
Winding highway
It crosses over itself
There are no traffic lights
But barriers
In nonsensical places
If we stop
We will likely crash
CRASH!
The scenery makes
No sense at all
Nothing does
In this car
Eva says
Pull over
You don't have to drive
But we do!
We need to drive
There's nowhere to pull over
So the colors around
Continue to blur
Nonsensical
Why are these colors here
In this order
Along this road
I don't need to stop driving
Whether I do or not
There will be a CRASH
Because no one
Can drive
Forever....

(Artistic rendering of the scenery below)

Understand II

I think some people did not understand my last post. See, people actually in my situation seemed to get it, but those outside of it, didn't.

(my apologies, in advance for not replying to comments on the last post and not publishing all, I'm using a mobile device and can't seem to comment.)

I am Jewish. I am religious-Hassidic, in fact. Yes, there are organizations-tikvah at ohel, ohel itself, the Jewish Board, and others.

If you have read my blog from start to finish, you know that my current therapist is number 11. Although I have never explicitly stated it (that I recall) I have been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder. (No apologies here-if you comment on my blog in any way denying the existence of my very real illness, I will mark it as spam.)

Do you know how hard it is to find a therapist that works for any given client? Do you know how hard it is to find a therapist experienced in treating DID?

Sure, I can go to a clinic and get low cost therapy, pay five dollars a session. But at what cost to my health? I'm with an amazing therapist, one who gets me, understands me, and actually knew enough to suspect my condition, and knew enough to know where to send me for a proper evaluation. None of my TEN previous therapists saw that. I was just called lazy, and told I wouldn't get better if I didn't do the work and I could never understand what was WRONG with me, that I was killing myself (metaphorically) working in therapy and not getting better! Turns out, it was all the wrong work for me.

Still think I should leave a therapist who has helped me make great strides, and works with all of me, for someone who doesn't know how to screen for DID, let alone treat it? Walk eleven therapists and fifteen years of trying, after (probably more than) seven years of sexual abuse. Then judge.

Understand?

We as a community
Don't stand as strong
As we'd like to pretend

We don't protect
We don't support
We don't avenge

So if you are in a position like mine
I hope you don't mindy
But there's nothing we can do to help

We don't have money for you
Because you mean nothing
You're just someone created
To abuse.

Drowning

We feel ourselves
Going underwater
Fast
Can't swim
A whirlpool
Dragging us down
Into quicksand
The money
Needed to send
Rescue crews
To get us out
Must come from
Somewhere
But where?
They don't want to help
Because we don't exist
After all
You can't see
What's not there
And you only see
One Little Sheep
The rest of us
Are hidden deep
Already
Drowned

To donate to my therapy fund, mail checks and cash to the person who ha kindly arranged for a tzedaka fund to write checks to my therapist:

Keren Zichron Gedalyahu
C/O Rabbi M. Keller
565 East 8th Street
Brooklyn, NY 11218

Voices

For so many years
I have feared
Voices.

Voices should come from outside your head.
Unless you're talking to yourself inside, then it's okay.
But they should generally be other people's voices
Coming from outside.

After all, if you have voices coming from inside
They take you to an office where you wait for hours
And a man talks to you and asks you questions about the voices
And then gives your mother a paper with a medicine written on it
And you have to take it every single day
To make the voices quiet.

So I made them go away.
Far away.
Hearing voices is bad.
It's like a sickness.
And you only have to take medicine when you are sick.
So if you get better, then you don't need the medicine anymore.
No more voices.

And then, someone finally figured out what was really wrong.
Someone listened.
Someone realized that it wasn't just abuse, a normal case of PTSD
As if PTSD is ever normal
They looked deeper
and they found the others.

But they wouldn't talk to Little Sheep.
All those parts...they could talk, most of them.
Or draw pictures.
Or write.
Or cry.
But only some people could hear them.
Not me, just not me.

Which is why, when at 2:00 this morning, I heard someone say
"STOP THAT! IT TRIGGERS ME!"
I kinda freaked out.
More than a little.
And I shouted back.
"WELL, WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO!"
And Me answered "use a tangle, doofus!"

And I played with the tangle.
Til after seven in the morning.
When I finally cried myself to sleep,
Tangle in hand.

(edited for anonymity, but otherwise, completely true, completely Little Sheep. No false details, just some removed)

Rage

This is some middle of the night art and writing. Please note, if you are a relative of mine and know it, this information is not to be passed among family members. You are welcome to comment or email me any questions you may have.

Red, Blue, and Yellow Yarn

There's a book I have in my picture book collection (title above) about a little boy whose Bubby has come to visit. Bubby has lots of rules, and he doesn't like them. Bubby is staying in his room, and he's not supposed to go in, but he does anyway, to get a car he forgot on his bed. While he's there, he sees his Bubby's balls of yarn, all perfect in a basket, and it's so tempting to juggle them...but he's not very good at it, and every time one drops and rolls away, he just grabs another. By the time he is caught, the entire room is a giant, colorful web of yarn.

I just finished reading an autobiography of a woman who had DID, and successfully integrated her 24 personalities. Unlike Sybil, her book is written from her own perspective, with her therapist's notes included.

Here's a brilliant quote from her book (which I highly recommend) that I really think describes what's going on inside me right now:

"...Yet the flock seemed worse, with personalities further apart an acting out more vigorously now than we had been before beginning therapy. Lynn had said that therapy was like separating the strands in a tangled web of yarn. It made sense that things would keep getting more separate for a while so that we eventually came back together in a more organized way."

I have a beautiful life to knit. I just need to untangle all the red, blue, yellow (and other colors!) balls of yarn so I can put them back together and create the wonderful person I am supposed to be.

(quote from The Flock, by Joan France's Casey with Lynn Wilson)

CYS Day

Was today. I spent it crying in bed. Joy.

I'm so strong! Yay!

Celebrate Your Strength Day

A few years ago, a therapist suggested that I use the day I told my parents as a special day, rather than a dreaded one. The past few years, I've been painting and going out for ice cream to celebrate my strength.

This year, I'm not feeling it. I know I should do something anyway, but I can't seem to think of anything that excites me or even interests me.

Tomorrow is Celebrate Your Strength Day, but I don't know if I have any strength to celebrate.

Deception

The deception of my online friends is easy. People here only know about Little Sheep what Little Sheep tells them.

So if the last thing I posted was that I'm doing well, out of my parents' house, and done with therapy, why shouldn't anyone--everyone--believe me?

You should believe me, because you don't know any better.

I tried to not tell you. I told myself there's no reason so many people need to know of my struggles, that it's best kept among a select few of my real life friends, that I'd do better keeping this more private.

There's a problem with that. You see, I have come to depend on the support of my online friends. My real life friends shouldn't have to carry the burden of being my support without the help of the people who supported me in the past-because this is bigger.

If I needed this support when I was just a run-of-the-mill PTSD sufferer, I need it all the more so now. I love my real life friends-they do a lot for me. But I need the support of the online community, because there are so many more of you. Because no one in my real life world seems to really be struggling with the same issues as me anymore, and I feel so alone.

So, so alone.

So no more hiding for me. I refuse to cower behind the masks anymore. I am not okay. I am not okay. I am NOT okay.

I am suffering immensely. In the past year, I have been kicked out of a home, I have been forced by said home to leave a therapist who was quite helpful to me, I moved back into my parents home for lack of anywhere else to live. I lost my faith in people, and worked hard to start gaining it back again. I returned to the therapist I liked, was hospitalized, and gained not one but two new mental health diagnosis, one medical diagnosis, and had to leave my therapist again.

I am back.
And I'm not leaving anytime soon.