Where Did the Time Go?

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

It's been a really tough few weeks. It's actually been a rough two months but the last couple weeks have been particularly hard, despite some help I have received and am grateful for.

Still, I cannot control how my (using the word "my" loosely) mind will respond to these things. At least, so it seems.

Session today. I know I saw Michelle last week.

I couldn't tell you when, if I didn't know our sessions are regularly on Mondays and Thursdays. I don't remember the last time I saw her. Today was an anomaly because of a scheduling conflict she had which happens sometimes. Not often, but sometimes.

I almost cancelled today's appointment because I am completely disconnected from everything which means, nothing is wrong. This sounds contrary to what I mentioned in the opening of this entry, but the thing is I have shut down and nothing is emotionally affecting me so I need no therapy. I told her I almost cancelled because I didn't want to waste her time. I literally had nothing to complain or talk about.

I mean, I had updates and told her things I've done because I needed to see them get done, but Michelle even admittedly had a hard time navigating this session. She didn't know "who" she was talking to. She was trying to determine what was going on and I was at a loss, until she started telling me things.

Apparently last week I had a very emotional session wherein I told Michelle I didn't know if I could continue therapy and dealing with these emotions.

I don't remember this. I only vaguely remember a little bit about a very intense session not long ago, but I don't know when it was. When she said "well, last week we had a pretty tough session," I stared up at the ceiling, stared out the window, very disconnected, tried so hard to remember, and that's when I realized I didn't remember anything. This is truly an earth-rattling thing. So I really wracked my brain, trying...trying... Oh God I can't remember...what happened last week? What do I remember about last week?

This led me to the realization that it wasn't just the sessions last week that I don't recall, but the entire week last week. I don't remember anything. Thinking back, the first thing I remember is Saturday and pieces since then but nothing last week. Not one single moment.

This is where my DID diagnosis makes me angry, makes me hurt. Because I hate it and I deny it because I judge it and I don't want it yet it's there slapping me, laughing at me, daring me to challenge it.

It wasn't observably troubling today as we discussed it in session, really. Not until the end, when I realized I was feeling alarmed because I didn't remember last week.

As the session came to a close, Michelle told me the emotion part of healing is going  to be very difficult for me because of my experiences with emotions. I know this to be true. It makes logical sense. It is cognitive; measurable. I can make logical sense of it so I can intellectually accept it.

Even if I feel nothing.

Which is what I did today, until a tiny little bolt of lightning struck me and I began to feel that fiery sense of alarm. That remembrance that - no matter how much I hold myself or pull myself together - I am still in need of healing, and a lot of it, and I cannot pretend my way through it. I cannot ignore it and make it disappear.

As I was leaving, Michelle suggested to me that I try meditating and mindfulness - both of which I am very familiar with and have studied and/or practiced at length. I talked with her very matter-of-factly about it, told her I was familiar with it, etc. I felt a bit shaken, but very much in control.

But then I watched her drive away and stood waiting for my cab and things started to pile on. My brain went into overdrive. I started thinking, "I don't understand this. How can I not remember? This is crazy. You are crazy!" and then I was thinking about emotions and I was thinking I need to write...

And that led me to thinking, as I stood there staring at a bitterly cold outside through a six-pane window, that I was going to write about emotions. No. No I am going to write about what I think about emotions.

Then I thought, no maybe I should write about what I feel about thinking.

This made sense to me. Logical sense. Intellectual sense. Perhaps, by writing about how I feel about thinking, I can touch emotions somehow.

So...

How do I feel about thinking?

I feel safe, thinking. I feel in control, thinking. I feel secure, thinking. I feel confident, thinking.

Because nobody can mess with my thinking.

This is quite ambiguous, isn't it?

Here's what I suppose I mean:

My intellect and street smarts are hard-earned and concrete. If I do not know it, I can and will learn it (if I need to). I watch everything and everyone closely. I seldom miss much because of what is called "hypervigilance," a label I consider to sound negative but which I embrace as "normal" and even a gift.

I don't know that I would still be breathing if not for my "hypervigilance."

There is control and, thus, security and safety in thinking. There is control in having no emotions. How's that for an oxymoron? Or, do control, security and safety count as emotions?

I am over-thinking, aren't I?

And I, myself - whoever "I, myself" happen to be today - am messing with my thinking and this is not a good thing.

There is nothing concrete or stable in having my thinking disrupted by something as alarming as DID and the analysis of such.

I am going to have a beer.

Worse, before it's Better

As Michelle (my therapist) has pointed out, the closer we get to the underlying issues and memories I have, the closer we get to the emotions. This is turning out to be painfully - excruciatingly - true.

I find I am far more sensitive now and more easily triggered. I want to cry more often. I ache more often. I am confused more often and I shut down more often. I am overwhelmed far more easily and I panic more often.

When she called me yesterday to cancel our appointment for today because she's been recruited to help counsel those involved with the Newtown shooting, I was immediately panicked. Not just because of that, but because I'd just gone to the grocery store and it started then. I was getting some groceries with Bill and I began to feel things closing in on me - the walls began to close in, the people got closer and louder and I was starting to get confused. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

We go to the car and I lit a cigarette with slightly trembling hands.

"It's okay, honey," Bill assured me.

As we drove to the gas station, my angst grew and I was trying desperately to do the "belly breaths" and calm myself down. I wasn't sure entirely what was causing my anxiety but Bill got out of the car and it got worse. Part of me was glad he wasn't there to see it. It is embarrassing to be so visibly helpless, to feel so afraid.

I jolted when my phone rang. Ironically, I just downloaded a new ringtone - something melodic and calming. Still, the sudden shatter of the quietness in the car, startled me.

The name was my therapist. At first I was overcome by a fear that I'd done something wrong and she was calling me to tell me I was bad. I know this is irrational, but this was my instantaneous first thought. "Oh God I did something bad and now she's going to leave me!"

I answered the phone. "Hello?"

I heard her familiar voice, "Cristina? Hi hon. How are you?" she asked, probably detecting my unrest. She is exceptionally perceptive.

"I'm - I'm okay," I stammered. "I just had a minor panic attack that's all. Just let the grocery store."

"Oh no, take some deep breaths," she reminded me gently. "You're safe now."

I tried. God I tried but then she said, "I'm calling because I have to cancel our appointment for tomorrow," she said calmly and apologetically. "I have been recruited to go help in Newtown," she explained.

She's leaving me! She's leaving me!

I was immediately trembling ten times worse. Not only because she was cancelling, but also because it brought up the Newtown incident, which - for me - brought out a whole slew of irrational emotions that have been holding me down since I wrote about them.

"Okay," I answered, shakily, trying desperately to hide my fear and disappointment.

She assured me that we would be in touch and do our regular session on Thursday and I told her good luck, before hanging up.

Unable to control my pulse, the heat of my skin, my trembling and the nausea, I grabbed frantically for my purse, reached inside for a Risperdal disintegrating tablet. I was glad the windows were fogged up and that Bill had not yet returned to the car.

When he finally did, he took my hand. He asked me if there was anything he could do. I shook my head, no and pulled my coat closely around me, frustrated by the seatbelt that was serving as an inconvenience to the task.

We had to go to the laundromat. I didn't want to go in. "I don't want to be seen," I told Bill after he asked me if I would like for him to put the clothing in the dryer.

"But I have to do it," I said.

I blocked out everything. Turned everything off. Just shut down and did whatever I had to do, still a little jumpy; Everyone in the laundromat seemed suspect. They were all staring at me. I felt small - so small - but defiantly (as I was when I was young) continued with the laundry chore.

"Do you want to go back out to the car?" Bill asked. Yes... Yes, I need to get out of here.

Everything is a little bit of a blur. We came home. I made dinner. Bill stayed with me the whole time.

My thoughts race. My heart pounds. My decisions are difficult. Sometimes I just wish I could go to sleep and not wake up.

Relationships and PTSD/DID

My therapist and I have talked about relationships...how you're always in a relationship, whether with your partner, children, neighbors or the grocery store clerk. These are relationships.

In having these discussions, we've talked about regulating emotions - something that's super hard. I wish I had a map, or some way to draw a picture of how it works.

I can have a relationship with someone and if they're doing things that hurt themselves, I try to be a good friend to them, I try to help and support and encourage. On some level, there's compassion and understanding and it doesn't put me off. I don't take it personally, for example, if someone cuts. I know it's part of their journey and struggle. I just try to be there for them.

I can also have that same relationship and have them do something that frightens or angers me and I shut down. It goes through my brain, processed immediately - instantaneously - and I completely shut down.

Intellectually, I am realizing, "Okay people are fallible. Everyone makes mistakes." but this part inside of me that's shut down is saying, "No, HELL no! DANGER! DANGER!"

I recently had a falling-out with a friend. A good friend. A good, good, good long-time friend. And the timing was really bad, too, because I was "mourning deeply" (as my therapist put it) the loss of my relationship with Gary and all the friends that went with it.

It affected me so badly, that I essentially cut everyone off. I really didn't want to talk to anyone, although I did briefly. For days, though, I screened my calls and was relatively unavailable. I mean, if it could happen with this person, it could happen with anyone!

But because we're so close - and always have been - we're kind of talking about it. Kind of. I'm trying to be different, trying to handle things differently than in the past where I would simply walk away....fast.

I'm trying to use my intellect, rather than my emotions....people are fallible, it's not fair to blame him, it's okay... but the dialogue inside is so much different. The fear of abandonment; the fear of hurt and pain...the story that plays in your head your whole life about not being good enough (all on the heels of a very loud and clear such message from Gary and his friends). It hurts and even if I recognize the irrationality of it, I don't know how to fix it.

Regulating emotions. I've written about it before....it's a struggle. The emotions are so intense.

That's why relationships - at least for me, and I'm sure, many other incest survivors - are so intense.

To my dear friend: I love you. I always have and always will. I'm so sorry that I am so damned difficult. I know I am fortunate to have you in my life. There is absolutely nobody in this world like you and I know you love me... I'm just afraid and trepidatious right now.

All my love.