Pink Dresses, Baby Dolls and Christmas

Tough session today - tough in the sense that I had to open up a little...more. It hurt.

Last night, I cut again, though not as bad as last time. I was just so angry.

I went to my session with a sense of trepidation. I had emailed her last night. It was sent at 12:45 a.m. and it said:

Hate sending this to you.
So angry.
Want to cut.
Lost most of Christmas Eve.
Melt down Christmas Eve night - remember only part.
Want to cut so bad. Punching myself, furniture, so I don't cut or destroy things.
Heavy night.

Sent from my iPhone

And at 10:52 this morning:

I'm sorry. I was really upset last night. Stupid to email you. I don't know why I did.

-C

Sent from my iPhone

Not sure when it started. Christmas was on a Tuesday - this I know. That's the "anchor" day. I can count forward from then, but not backward - at least not without help and prompting.

Christmas Eve is a blur; as I explained it to my adoptive father, it's kind of like my memory is a set of piano keys. There are white keys and black keys and the black keys are the parts that are missing. I awoke Christmas morning feeling as if I'd just returned from someplace I didn't know I'd gone. Everything was off.

Talking with Michelle tonight, I was half in, half out the door. Part of me felt like the teenager who was so long ago abandoned and who abandoned. The young girl who ran away.... and kept running.

Hasn't really stopped running.

So many questions. So many uncertainties. So much confusion and anger. I look at a pair of pants (or even just envision them) and I think, "I can't wear those. They're stained with this night or that night," or "I can't wear that shirt ever again because it is saturated with the day this-or-that happened. Need to throw it away."

Running. Even from my own clothes.

Running from my thoughts and beliefs. Running from people. Running from myself.

Running, running, running. Always... and I'm so tired.

My shoulders ache.

The session was all over the place, really.

"Christmas is hard for me," I told her.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I think maybe because it was the first time I ever met Daddy. And I was god-awful sick that year," I recalled. It was a hard Christmas and it was a door that was opened that I was shoved through, into a world of terror, unpredictability, insanity, violence.

And then.....it bubbled up like lava, searing my throat.

"And...and..."

She sat in her chair and just waited while I tried talking through unfallen tears that were choking me.

Finally, the familiar sting of warmth down my cheek. I saw the drop form on my eyelash, felt it drip, and then they came.

I didn't use the tissue I'd grabbed from the box she gave me. I only grab the tissues out of etiquette anyway. I prefer my sleeve.

This time, I let them roll down my face, beneath my chin, and drop on my breasts. I didn't care. I was speaking to darkness. Even though Michelle was there listening, I was seeing a different time. Darkness.

"I was so cold," I said bitterly. "I would be huddled outside, alone and...and..."

It seemed she wasn't even there, and I was back in time.

"...I would look in the windows and I didn't see Christmas trees or lights or anything. I just saw warmth. I wanted to be warm."

Instead I would find a big box that I am sure a large gift was delivered in and I would use it for shelter against the harsh St. Louis winters.

I couldn't call home.

I couldn't call the police.

I couldn't be seen.

I simply hid.

Sometimes urinating on myself, making me even more freezing because of the biting cold.

There was nowhere to go.

As I emerged from my reverie, she sat watching me, listening intently... my tears still falling like angry little pebbles of fire.

"And I fucking hate Easter," I said through clenched teeth.

"Why do you hate Easter?" she asked simply.

I gathered myself. I said, "Well, some of it, now, has to do with my spiritual beliefs..." but then I trailed off.

"Daddy used to trick us into thinking he could see the Easter bunny," I told her, not with anger but with nostalgia.

"What is your memory of that like?" she asked, probably trying to gauge if it was an abusive time or not.

"It was exciting," I told her matter-of-factly. "He would take us to the sliding glass doors where--" and I paused, shrugged, my voice lifted slightly, "where the 'family meetings' took place, and he would say, 'There he is! Did you see him?!'" and my brother and I would bounce up and down and crane our necks to see where Daddy was looking. We were excited.

Then, I was at Grandma's house and things were different.

"I had to wear a stupid dress," I told her. "A stupid fucking dress. Pink."

I told her how Grandma would give me dolls or - one year a little stuffed lamb came in my Easter basket and I only know this because I have seen a picture of it.

"We would sit at the kiddie table," I told her. "But I didn't fit in, so I just tried to."

"What do you mean you didn't fit in?"

"Because of what Daddy did to me," I told her.

She nodded her understanding. I continued.

"One Easter, my wrist was broken and the kids were all playing and I went inside and I said something like, 'I can't play because of my cast,' and all the grown-ups went 'Awww' and it was the worst sound in the world to me."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want their fucking pity."

"What did you want?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly, giving it no more thought.

There was a silence.

"I would play with the baby dolls because Grandma got them for me. I thought that was what I was supposed to do, but I hated them. I hated the tea sets. I hated all of it. Mostly, I hated the dresses. I didn't belong in a dress."

Silence.

"Grandma's house was like two worlds - inside and outside."

"Yes, you've mentioned that," she said, and I remembered telling about it. "Were you safe there?"

"Inside, yes. Outside, no. Well, they weren't nurturing, but they made sure we had all we needed. They did the best they could, I guess."

I told her of the two times Pop hurt me (or almost hurt me) "but that was it," I told her.

But when I went outside, it was different.

"It never occurred to me that I would have gotten the attacks and cat calls whether Daddy had molested me or not," I told her, speaking strictly from my intellect. "I guess I just thought I had this scarlet letter and all of them could see it."

"What was the scarlet letter?"

"I was dirty. I was soiled."

Then came the incident of last night, the reasoning behind which I hadn't known, until this session.

Bill and I sat together on the couch. We were discussing superficial things because I was still weighted down by the shame I felt over Christmas Eve. It was the elephant in the room and Bill wasn't saying anything about it.

"Were you angry that he knew and remembered and wasn't telling you," Michelle asked.

"No. No, I wasn't mad about that. I remembered enough."

I finally brought it up - at least, as good as I could. I said something like, "I know something happened the other night. I don't remember all of it, but I remember some."

It was my lame attempt to get him to talk.... to open it up, pop this blister that was suffocating me.

But he said little, just nodded.

I don't remember the order of events last night. But I do remember that we talked about business and, having been with Gary for five years, I learned a lot about business and how to start one and tips and tricks to making it successful.

I offered these up to Bill.

"I will never be Gary," he said.

As I retold this to Michelle it occurred to me why I became so painfully, bitterly angry last night.

I was angry at myself - and I knew it at the time, just as I knew it today.

"I was stupid," I told Michelle, half shocked by my own realization. "I shouldn't have said anything...."

I paused and I thought a moment.

"...I should have just kept my mouth shut. How stupid of me."

I was flooded, then, with the same feeling from last night. This rage within me, anger at myself for saying or doing something stupid.

"I have a meditating frog," I told Michelle. "My coffee table candle burned up so I had to put something in it's place so I put the frog there and I remember just staring at it and wanting to grab it and throw it. I wanted to take all my stupid books and just throw them all, break things, hit things..."

I was crying now. "I should have never said anything."

My voice...

My voice is stupid. My thoughts are stupid. I am stupid. I can't do this. I can't say anything. I shouldn't say anything. Who am I to say anything? You can't say anything! You don't know if it's the right thing to say! YOU'RE STUPID!

And I was angry at Bill for thinking I was saying something I wasn't intending to say, yet I couldn't find the words and, instead, just turned everything inward...burning.

Angry because I had one side of my brain needing to be comforted, while the other side was chastising me, telling me KEEP THEM AWAY! KEEP THEM AWAY! ALL OF THEM!

Spare him. Don't let him see this. Don't let anyone see this.

Don't let anyone near.

"When," I sobbed, "will this be over? When does PTSD go away? When will I stop having these goddamn dreams of Gary every....single...night. Every single fucking night?" I was aching and I could tell Michelle saw my agony.

She was honest. She told me she has no answer to any of those questions.

There was much more said in this session. I felt more in this session than any past.

Why did I cut last night?

So I wouldn't hurl the frog at the nativity set or the curio, for the satisfaction of hearing glass shatter, as I was inside. So I wouldn't rip apart every book I could see - books that I cherish - but which, at that moment, felt fake and fraudulent. So I wouldn't hurt anything else. I would never hut anyone else, but I wanted to break something - anything.

Instead, I was broken.

I feel hollow now.

I am afraid to speak. I am afraid to move. I am afraid to believe anything.

The floor could crumble any time.

I know  this.

I know this.

Cutting and Self-Harm

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

This isn't an easy blog to write... it's full of stuff that nobody wants to talk/hear about: Self-harm.

I attempted suicide more than once in my life but more recently, in October (?) of last year and then March of this year. Tried overdosing. I'm not the only person who does this, who has my disorders.

Yesterday was a bad day for me. I was overwhelmed and buried, flooded and confused.

Yesterday was Gary's birthday. I cried most of the day.

That wasn't the worst, though...knowing he's celebrating his birthday with his new girlfriend and all the old friends I once knew. (I did call and leave him a voice mail, wishing him a tearful happy birthday).

I also went and got my driver's license renewed, and I got fuel for the house - for heat. Now, this might not seem like a big deal, but to me, it was shameful that it was a big deal. Like whoopy-doo...you managed to do something pretty much anyone in the world could do? I was ashamed for feeling I'd accomplished something. "I feel so stupid," I remarked to Bill in a text, but I couldn't elaborate on it. I just felt so stupid. Celebrate getting your license? You idiot...

I was also overwhelmed by increasing evidence of my DID. I'd apparently spoken to Bill on the phone and spoke in the voice of a child...whispering...saying "Shh! he's coming! Here he comes! Shh!"

This really threw me because I didn't remember it but when I put it together with all the other DID stuff that's happened, the mounting evidence that I suffer from this affliction makes me sick. Sick. I don't want to be that fucked up! No no no! But, alas I must admit I dissociate. A lot. In fact, I was with Michelle when I actually remembered that I'd gotten my driver's license yesterday.

There were a few other things but the worst came when I thought about going to court tomorrow. I began to panic, and I mean PANIC. What if they take me to jail? They'll take Trevor away! OH MY GOD!

I was inconsolable. I was making plans. I called Cindy, I called Bill I told Cindy where there's money so she could buy Bill a plane ticket home. "Please, please don't let them take my baby," I cried desperately. The feeling that was flooding me is indescribable. Trevor....Trevor is what keeps me going every day. He has no idea the strength he gives me. I don't lean on him, mind you. I know the harmful effects of that, but I look at him, and I watch him and I know he needs me and it keeps me straight, although there are nights when I can't be a "mom" and - because Trevor is so, so smart and we're so attuned to one another, he knows that it's a bad night for mom. He's autistic - supposedly incapable of feeling emotions - but with me, he gets it.

We've talked about our disorders. For many years I never told him anything but one day, he asked me about the cuts on my arms and I explained to him that it's part of my disorder (anyone with any experience with an autistic child, knows you can't bullshit them and just coming straight out with the truth [to their capacity] is the best way). He asked a few more questions. I don't feel he has a complete grasp on my disorders, but he understands more than any teenager you'll meet.

I don't know what happened but I cut last night... somehow it serves so many purposes. I emailed my therapist, told her I'd cut. I actually said, "I am emailing you to tell you that I cut tonight. The reason I'm emailing you is because I don't want to talk about it."

Incest survivors, particularly, are prone to self-harm and self-injury. It could be in the form of bulimia, hair-pulling, cutting, overdosing, alcohol abuse, or any other kind of self-destructive, self-effacing, self-abusive means.

There's all kinds of literature out there about it but I'm just gonna tell you straight out: It relieves pain. It releases a rage you're afraid to feel. To see blood or vomit helps you know you're alive - you're a living person, not a shell.

In reference to cutting, I've actually read that - in the schools nowadays - it's the new "anorexia" for teenage girls. Many girls cut.

But most cut in hidden places. I have one friend who cuts on her inner thighs. I've known them to cut on their ankles, their upper arms, their stomachs. Anywhere....anywhere, just to bleed.

Me, I've always cut my wrists. I had a short bout with bulimia and I was a hair-puller in my 20's.

There's another reason people do this: It's a scream for help. It's a way of saying, "I have this pain inside me and it's eating me alive but I can't show it to you or tell you about it." And they won't. They won't tell you about it.

Today, in therapy - though I had said I didn't want to talk about it - it was the elephant in the room. I know - because of the many moments of awkward silence, that she was giving me room, just in case I brought it up.

And I did.

There's practically no worse feeling than waking up with a couple gashes in your arms (one of them really needs stitches but you can't go to the emergency room for stitches on your wrist because most doctors don't understand that it's not a suicide attempt) and then knowing you scared the shit out of everyone who matters to you.

You feel like a loser, a failure, a mistake, hopeless, omg what's wrong with me?

Yet, there's also this strange fascination and even a sense of pride... you want everyone to see....but you want nobody to see.

Oh God if I could stand in the middle of the world on a huge podium and shout, LOOK! LOOK AT MY WOUNDS!! and somehow, magically, everyone would understand it's not a manipulative way of getting pity; it's not "for show" (as I've been accused of by my ex); it's not to show off how you've hurt yourself.

If I could show everyone these wounds and these scars, and somehow give a voice to them...let the wounds and scars talk for themselves... oh how I wish people would/could learn.

Gratefully, those closest to me (Cindy, Bill, Hannah, Howie) understand (and understood last night) that calling the police or ambulance is the worst mistake in the world. They understood I was overwhelmed. They know (a couple of them because they, too, experience this insurmountable pain and rage), that it's a temporary release.

I just want to note here, that I would never let Trevor see me cut and he does not know it happened, just in case anyone's wondering. He was safe in bed, asleep.

Self-injury is punishment for the "bad" that we are, because we did things. We performed fellatio on our fathers or cousins or uncles. We "allowed" ourselves to be raped. We created our own misfortunes and we must be punished. It's so, so, so much easier for me to turn my anger on myself, than it is to be angry at the father who beat, humiliated, tormented, molested and abused me (and my brother). Being angry at him is just unheard of.

In therapy today, I finally broke down and cried.

"Why do I do this?"

"What?"

I couldn't respond. She gave me a minute as I held my wounded wrist (covered by a long-sleeved shirt) to my face, wiping my tears, staring out the window.

"Why I cut. Why do I hurt people I love? Why do I cut and then tell everyone? Why do I cut?" I asked.

Very gently, very calmly, she responded, "If all your scars and your wounds could tell me their story, what would they say?"

Oh dear God what a great question.... and one I must mull over. It was frightening to even answer it to her.

Cutters are not losers. They're not idiots or manipulators. They know exactly what they're doing, even if they don't always understand why.

Next time you see a slit wrist, just know it has a story to tell.