Whores and Martians

After my blog on Forgiveness and Judgment, I received a brilliant email from a friend. It was a very well-thought-out, compassionate and knowledgeable email and there were things said in it, that really set me back, made me think.

I spoke with my APRN about it today - gave her a small paraphrase from the email - to which her response was, "She's exactly right." My APRN is fantastic and has experience working with PTSD and DID.

The paraphrase was something like, "If I insisted you were a martian, you would laugh and think I need my head examined. It's the same with words like 'whore' and you have to dig down and find that wounded part of you that believes you're a whore and help heal that part, hold that part, assure that part that it's safe now and she's not a whore."

She said many other wise things. It hurt in some ways - mostly, though, because that "part" (or those "parts") of me, I avoid. I abhor. I don't want to see them. I don't want to hear or feel them. That makes it a bit difficult to embrace them. I guess it's sad to know some parts of me are crying inside, and if I saw someone else - some other child - crying fiercely over their pain - I would embrace them and comfort them but for me, it just feels so disgraceful, even though I know it's an important part of healing.

I've been working on a story. I'm up to about 30,000 words. I've written it in the third person and that keeps me detached from it. I've also fictionalized 80 percent of the first part of it, but it's my story....or at least, the story of a girl I no longer wish to acknowledge but who seems to control my thoughts, reactions, relationships.

Writing the story, brings up a lot but what's missing is the emotional element. I can't connect, can't understand. I can only imagine what she must have felt, what she must have believed.

Judy (my APRN) says it might be good for me to write about these things - the things it brings up. Truth is, I wish I had someone there, who knew what questions to ask.

"What did you feel when this/that happened?"

"What did he/she look like/"

"What was the environment like?"

"How did you respond? Why?"

Because these elements are missing. It is just as if I am telling someone else's story. Exactly like that. Exactly like it's always been. From a distance, looking through a lens at someone else's life and experiences.

It's a dream of mine, to publish this book. God how many times I have started it and never finished. So many unfinished manuscripts. But this one is different. I have avoided it over the past week. I've shared it with four people - it contains some humiliating facts about myself - so I have only shared with a select few and of them, only portions.

It is hard to write. Hard to remember. Hard to connect. Hard to stay focused.

Thank you, my friend, for your email. And RevAli, for your response. It is nice to hear words of wisdom, of healing, of guidance. Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging by a rope over a chasm and it's about to snap and all I can do is cling on and cry.

My relationships are suffering (except with Bill) because of the distance I've put between myself and the outside world. Most recently I suffered a severe epiphany which brought me great pain. Great, great pain and deep shame and I can't even bring myself to write about it. Perhaps one day I will.

For now, I cry almost nightly because of it. More and more shame, piling on.

Seems too much to share, and too much to bear and sometimes I just have to hang onto moments like this weekend when Bill came and forced me to buy a nightgown and robe. It's the first time in ...I don't know how long, I bought something for myself. Something I really wanted. He helped me plant flowers, and bought me some cacti to make a cactus garden in my dining room window box where the heat is too much for anything else. Somehow I have to hold onto those good moments, according to Judy. Let them in, let them permeate me.

I like that idea.

She told me that I have to learn to do this so when I  get flooded and overwhelmed, I won't shut down so automatically because that's exactly what I do. I get three text messages at once and I  go on auto-pilot. The phone rings and dinner's cooking at the same time, I  go on auto-pilot. I have an appointment and the school calls - autopilot.

She said this is something I learned very young and it is now automatic. So automatic that it happens even when I don't realize it. She is right.

Anxiety

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

I heard a term on a t.v. show that I looked up yesterday: Rape Trauma Syndrome.I read something that struck me immediately: "pronounced internal tremor."

I was knocked aback. I have described this before as feeling as if "my bones were shaking" - it was relieving to see there's a name for it, and an apt one, at that.

My anxiety has gone through the roof and has made me, at times, completely dysfunctional. The only option for me, for medications, is to go to the emergency room....which causes me huge anxiety. How ironic.

My therapist says the reason I don't find benzos (benzodiazapines) addictive, is because of the level of my anxiety. Rather than "getting high" from them -as I know some do - it brings my anxiety level to a manageable point so I don't feel any affects, other than that, which is why I am able to take them PRN.

I have always been an opponent of medications and, even therapy.

But my anxiety levels have gotten so bad that I have spent days at a time holed up and terrified. Now, I cannot tolerate touch - I can't even tolerate the touch of a door frame if I walk through a door. I have to be careful not to touch it. Every touch, it feels as if my all my cells are screaming, "DON'T TOUCH ME!"

The anxiety manifests itself in other, more troubling physical ways but I won't go into it because it is embarrassing and I don't understand it. It is frightening.

I have been listening to a guided meditation nightly  for about two or three weeks (I believe). I have to wonder if - because of this meditation - my mind is opening to levels of memory and awareness as I sleep. I like this particular one because - even though it claims to be for abundance - it is really about awareness and moving forward. I like this.

But I wonder if it hasn't opened some windows and doors in my mind because the symptoms I am experiencing have really intensified over the past couple weeks. It's hard to say because it collaborates with the timing of extreme stress and having no anti-anxiety medications.

So perhaps it is a combination. Who knows.

Regardless the cause, the memories and anxiety, sleeplessness and  nightmares, are debilitating.

The meditation works well to help me sleep, although it doesn't help me stay asleep.

Today I awoke (again), feeling as wound as a guitar string. It is difficult to function because such high anxiety causes physical exhaustion, but my mind won't stop spinning or slow down so I can't sleep. Everything is amplified. I am so damn tired.

I have to go out today - it's laundry day. I wish I had a dryer. Then I could do the laundry here. Ugh.

My anxiety shoots up on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It's not the typical "oh brother, it's Monday again," kind of thing. It's a dread that I can't even describe. It's a fear; it's a hope that I can make it through another four days of high-anxiety and high-stress. When Thursdays come, I relax more, but it is still very difficult.

I will be glad when I am through this.