Strands of Trust

Trust begins as a thread of glass. The smallest, most fragile glass your mind can conger. To compare it to a strand of silk, torn from a robe or that of a spiderweb, would not only be too cliche', but also inaccurate.

You see, the web of a spider can be repaired and the thread of silk can be re-tied.

But the long, slender, fragile length of glass that represents trust, shatters into a thousand pieces and cannot be repaired. Sadly, it takes very little in these formative stages, for this shard of trust to disintegrate as if it never existed. It falls into darkness and dissolves there, never to be retrieved again.

This, however, is only how it begins. Begins as a small strand of fragile glass from one heart to another. Sometimes, of course, the strand never forms. The trust is broken before it is even created.

There is really no limit to the number of crystalline strands of trust one can have, although some do intersect and combine.

As time passes, this fragile strand of glass trust, thickens with consistency and patience; love and attention; compassion and caring.

As this happens, this strand of trust strengthens more and more. So that slight transgressions might create hairline cracks or cause little chips in what is now a thicker band of  glass trust. Fragile, but still in tact, if just a little worn.

As time continues, this trust begins to calcify and what was once smaller than a grain of sand, just like that grain of sand slowly emerges and evolves into something larger, harder and less breakable.

The difficulty and problem with this is that trust can be built - albeit with some hard work and a lot of patience and "I'm sorry's" - but then, when one who has calcified that trust, who has built a solid, sturdy band of trust, hurts you deeply, the trust won't break. And so you keep allowing it and allowing it and allowing it. You must deserve it, right? After all, this person built this trust. I know this person. They wouldn't hurt me unless I did something wrong.

This trust - this solid, calcified trust - is toxic and painful. The reverberations this band of trust echoes, shatter other, small, fragile forming bands on trust - the ones as thin and fine as a hair.

Trust is fragile. Until it is solidified. Then it is destructive.

Big loss

I remember when I was young, when I would write, I would be glad when a tear fell on the ink and smeared it because that way I knew whoever read it, would know how much pain I was in when I wrote it.

I still have quite a few old letters and poems with tear stains on them.

Times have changed, though, and nobody can see these tears and the keyboard doesn't stain if you cry on it - just stops working.

The past few days have been so hard. I did have a good - if nerve-wracking - time Sunday when my son came over for my youngest son's birthday, and we had guests. I was really nervous, but it went well.

The hardest part has been that I had a falling-out with my therapist. But instead of just ceasing to see her, I thought about it - thought about what she'd said to me that shut me down immediately and truly hurt my trust - and I wondered if it was me....was I just overreacting? Maybe I was sabotaging my relationship with her, the way I have with just about anyone I've ever had a relationship with.

So I owned this and, in an effort to rectify the situation, I sent her an email. It would have had tear stains on it, if it were written.

I told her about why the things she'd said had hurt me so badly and scared me so much. Those closest to me read the email and also knew how distraught I was over the session.

I think a couple of them even contacted her, when she did not respond to my email.

Two days later, I got a very brief, distant, removed and formal kind of "If you'd like to make an appointment, just give me a call," response.

I bawled.

I just kept thinking, "She called me 'honey'".... And "She held my bleeding wrist..." and "she wiped away smeared make up from my face out of kindness..."

How could she be so cold?

I don't understand, now. I got frantic. Now I am sadder than I have been in a very, very long time.

Prior to this happening, I had said some horrible things to two of the most important people in my life. I hurt them deeply. There's no excuse, truly, but I was just completely out of my mind. Too much at once going on and I snapped. I felt like a monster. I felt horrible. I wanted to die. In fact, I wanted to die worse than I remember ever wanting to die.

Then this happened...with my therapist.

Now I don't know what to do. I don't know what I would even say to her. Could I trust her again? I keep thinking it's my fault because I'm too much. I've always been too much. I'm too much. It's my fault.

I learned so much with her. She helped me see so much. I considered her a friend. Maybe that's what was wrong. But I needed that. I needed to feel that kind of connection, but within certain parameters, obviously.

She probably doesn't even think about me. Probably doesn't even know that I think about her incessantly, wishing to God she knew and understood...wishing I believed she knew and understood. But now it just seems like I said or did something wrong and now... now she's gone.

Gotta wipe some tears before the spacebar quits working.

Never Safe

My name is Cristina D. Johnson

From somewhere deep inside, tonight, I came to a realization: nowhere is or has been ever safe. In my "live blog," Is This Where It Starts?, I sometimes get stuck. I get stuck in my head - where I've spent most of my life, away from the reality of yesterdays and days before yesterdays, in denial of (or absolute unawareness of), sicknesses that riddled my life, my toddlerhood, my childhood; sexual perversions that twisted, tormented and distorted every sense of everything a normal child would have.

Yeah, yeah I get it. This has always been my mantra.

"But me. Well, I'm okay. I don't need fucking therapy," I'm known to say. "You're the one with the fucking problem," I often chastised and argued. "I'll send you back to your psych professor with your highfalutin' tail between your legs," I would challenge.

No...I have no problems. Never have.

Right?

No.....

Not to my knowledge. Or, should I say, not to my awareness. I simply was, who I was and at times in my life - here and there - I was good with that. Comfortable with that. Other times....well....

Mood swings.

I remember talking with Bill when I was living with Gary - the man I loved and intended to spend the rest of my life with. Still, we had our problems and I would lament to my best friend: Bill. He was always kind, considerate, understanding and - most importantly - honest.

He once said to me (paraphrasing), "Well your mood swings definitely kept me on my toes." (Bill and I were together either as friends, roommates, loves and partners or all or one over a period of about five years prior to my relationship with Gary).

Anyway, I'm veering off track here...............

There's an ache in me tonight. I can't vocalize it. Just like last night. We watched the film, Trust and I cried multiple times. Cried over the 'blame the victim' attitude of the unwitting father.

Cried over what I never had.... Cried over never mattering enough. Cried over never being able to say, "I love you daddy," with confidence and without fear. (incidentally, I also cried at the end of The Little Mermaid when she said, "Thank you, Daddy," for the same reason. I never got to say that nor did I ever have any reason to).


Tonight, we watched "Voices Within" which is based on the true story of Truddi Chase and the Troops - after the book, "When Rabbit Howls." This book I've read and if you can get past the first three or four chapters which can be a bit confusing, it's a profoundly informational and insightful book on the life (and inner life) of someone with DID (formerly known as MPD, or Multiple Personality Disorder). This is a must-read for anyone with the diagnosis or anyone who wants to know and understand better, the inner workings of the disorder.

Anyway, watching "Trust" and "Voices Within" last night and tonight, respectively, with each violent/sexual assault scene, Bill would ask, "Do you want to watch something else?" or "are you okay?" and to him I would say, "Oh yes. These are the easiest parts to watch."

This is true.

Rape, violence.... oh those things are just.... things to me. I'm so disconnected from these things that I feel nothing watching them. This sounds brutal and callous, I know, but it's really just another brilliant part of my defense mechanisms, built over a lifetime of abuse, abandonment and dissociation.

So I watch these scenes and it never occurs to me that I'm not feeling anything. I said this to Bill last night, watching Trust.

"Are you okay watching this?" he asks, as the scene goes to a motel room where a 14-year-old girl is being manipulated and sexually assaulted by an online predator who is at least 35 years old.

"Oh yeah," I tell him. "It's the parts after this that will get me."

And they did. The outrage of her parents. The support. The openness she had to counseling. The support. The SUPPORT she had. It literally tore me apart inside.

I watched while one of my favorite male actors - Clive Owen - portraying the father, made mistake after mistake through the eyes of a survivor. No, no no I wanted to scream (and even once said). Blame the victim. Big mistake. Oh God....

Yet that's what I do to myself. What I've always done. What society seems to demand.

Why put myself in the position to be gang raped by 4, 6, 8, 10 men? Why not go home? Why run away? Why did I stay on the streets? I was asking for it, right? So I shouldn't be mad. Right? I shouldn't be hurt or angry or scared or upset. I brought it upon myself. Rather I should just own my mistakes (those of an 11-, 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-old CHILD.

A CHILD

Tonight, I listened to a (poorly done but okay enough, I suppose) movie - Voices Within - and I was struck by a couple of things that were said but most striking, to me, was when she talked about how "the stepfather" came out of the darkness and if it wasn't dark, he made it dark.

Somewhere, deep, deep inside, far away, hidden, buried, a part of me felt exposed.

"It didn't matter where I was, he would find me," she said.

And in that instant, I realized - for the first time in my life - that I was never safe. Not inside, not outside, not in St. Louis, Pensacola, North Carolina, Louisiana.... nowhere. Not even with my mother whose husband - my stepfather - saw fit to molest me, too.

Rape and incest and molestation and beatings.... oh  those are norms.

I am so accustomed to it (whether emotional, mental, physical or sexual) that I disconnect and feel nothing.

That is my grooming.

And truly, nowhere is safe.

This is spoken from a far away place. Untapped, young, afraid, easily hidden like the way a turtle jolts into its shell the slightest tap on the head or perception of threat.

These parts of me that feel just disappear and I am left with an ache and a curiosity and a need to know, a desire to heal. A desperation. An internal cry, "Please please come out. Please, please talk to me. Please, please tell me what I don't remember. Please, please....please...."

I don't want to be crazy but the world thinks me so.

I am not.

Yet I cannot show my face, nor go into public, nor literally speak my truth until people know - we are not crazy.

We are survivors, trying so hard to fit in.

Trying so hard to give meaning to atrocities many never see and still others see and never speak of.

Oh my voice.........

Give me my voice.

I want to be safe. I don't want a gun or any weapons. I don't want some man to be responsible for making me feel safe. I want to shed this lifetime skin of constant vigilance; this pervasive awareness of the ugly in the world; this unwitting knowledge of the perversions that exist in reality that so many  choose to be ignorant of.

I want to be safe. I want to be free.

Inside Out and Backwards

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Another nightmare... about Gary.

Times like these I wish there were some way to convey how deeply he hurt me, to him. I know - or I have to believe - that he's not an all-out monster. I want to believe that it would somehow matter, that he would somehow "get it" and.... I don't know.

Easier, I suppose, would be convincing a rock or talking to the cat who would undoubtedly turn abruptly away and shove her backside towards me in an urgent call for massage.

No, he'd never get it and I don't suppose he would ever want to. I suppose if he ever really wanted to "get it," he would have when we were together.

I know a lot of this is transference. He happens to be the poor sap who simulated my father so well in so many ways that my brain has these wires crossed now, and I can't figure out how to uncross them.

Mixed messages. He gave me horribly painful mixed messages and that is why these nightmares won't go away. That, and he verified a truth for me that hurt, even though I know it to be true and always have: there is an "us versus them" in this world. And it's immensely painful.

With the typical interaction, I am safe behind my wall, viewing very cautiously with an Eagle eye, watching every single move, motion, word, action, reaction, expression.... everything. I seek inconsistencies. I look for reasons not to let people in. I do not do this with malice; just self-preservation, like a deer who runs into the woods, so as not to be seen or a bobcat who peers every direction before coming into the open.

I spot inconsistencies like a hungry wolf spots a rabbit and this keeps me safe. It works in two ways:

One, it tells me with pinpoint accuracy who to trust and not trust.

Two, it makes the blows of that person(s) anticipated and, so, they don't hurt as much. I can - for the most part - let their angry, judgmental, uninformed, unkind words/actions roll off my back like water on a duck.

But then there are the less-than-a-handful of people who I allowed "in" and when I say less than a handful, I am not exaggerating. I can think of only four who were so close to me, they were beneath my skin, running in my blood. I saw no wrong in them. I trusted them with my entire being.

The first was my father. Naturally.

Also my ex-husband and my oldest son (long story) and, finally, Gary.

These people managed to come behind the curtain. I embraced them and trusted them.

My father's transgressions were many but my love for him never died. My adoration and need for him survived the pain he caused. Today, there is still a sickening need for his love.

My ex-husband did a number of hurtful things to me. He was (and still is) a very cocky, arrogant man; the kind of man who is unkind to waitresses and poor people. A stereotypical southern man's man. Years of infidelity, abuse, and a host of other toxic elements of our relationship did not sever my love for him. It was not until - just like Gary and my father - I realized he was deliberately hurting me, just to get a reaction, that something inside of me broke. I could almost feel it physically - like the snap of a rubberband that's been stretched too far. Just snapped shut. He knew, that day, it had happened. He knew me so well, that just by the look on my face, my cold countenance and the way I looked at him and said, "You deliberately hurt me," that it was over. Our marriage was over.

My son... as a child bride, I had a painfully inaccurate and askew view of him. He was a protector, rather than my son. I would be remiss if I did not say I know this is wrong and inappropriate and in my conscious mind, he was my child - someone to take care of and teach and guide. But subconsciously, unbeknownst to me, I had developed a dependency on him and through years of turmoil (his and mine), he never failed to be loyal. When he grew to be a young man, things changed and he began to make mistakes that - at least once - garnered my rage at the many pimps, gangsters and rapists I grew up with. This was transference, again. Wreaking havoc in my life. But like the son he always was, he took my heated words and let them scorch him, without saying a word back. When the day came that his loyalty was tested and he left, I was devastated beyond words. This was the same betrayal I felt from my father.

And finally, Gary.

I didn't let him in right  away. It wasn't for years, actually. And, in truth, I questioned whether the relationship was viable in the beginning. But my determination won out and I stayed, telling myself - and him - that my past did not affect me any longer.

At the time, it was true.

In the end, when he urged me to seek help through therapy, I was leery, but I was also weary and I agreed. I went to see his therapist. Mistake number one, I suppose.

Ultimately, after months of swearing he loved me and would never leave me, it happened. I was in utter disbelief. But that's not what causes the nightmares.

The nightmares come from the correlation between the way Daddy hurt me, then loved me and the way Gary hurt me, then loved me. I begged him - Gary - not to do these mixed messages. If our relationship was over, fine but please....no mixed messages, no deliberate hurt. Please.

I may as well been begging the sun not to rise.

I can't know what his reasons were but for whatever reason(s), he needed to be in charge, needed the power to hurt me, and needed to use it. I don't know what he gleaned from it except to save his own skin. It went like this:

He would come home, be nice to me, then suddenly kick me (figuratively speaking), walk away and leave me there crying over what'd just happened, then go out and tell others that he didn't know why I was acting the way I was acting.

Over and over again, day in, day out, night after night, this happened until the mere sound of his footsteps caused me so much anxiety that I would gag (which eventually turned into vomiting). I felt like a prisoner. But then he would do something kind - and make sure everyone knew he'd done it - only to turn around and kick me again.

Mixed messages. For someone with PTSD and DID this is horrendous. But for someone with PTSD and DID who dared to let you in and trusted you, this is beyond horrific pain. It's astonishingly unbearable. It was very much like being raped over and over again. Like being locked in that basement when I had nowhere else to go and tormented. How much this resonates with my childhood abuse cannot be overstated.

I tried explaining, but he didn't care.

I didn't understand and I am still in such guttural pain over it that nightmares pervade my sleep.

Disbelief and pain; anger and fear.

Some might ask: What about Bill?

I've never let him in, because of the phenomenal person he is. Paradoxical, I know, but true. Why let someone as wonderful and beautiful as he, in my ugly world of muddy water, gutter snow, biting cold and darkest dark? Why subject him to it?

He's been the best friend I've ever had. Why risk losing him? Why risk showing him?

Everything is backwards. Everything is inside out.

My tears fall inside. Tears over Gary and what he did to me. This wound he ripped open even further and now it hemorrhages and I can't stop the bleeding, no matter how hard I try.

I am not angry at him, though I am angry at myself.

With him, I am hurt and confused. Shocked.

Scared.

When will these nightmares go away or, at least, move aside so the true shadows, ghosts and demons can be released?

Relationships and Rescue

My name is Cristina D. Johnson.

Today, as I was helping my son out, I drove past exit 7 and then exit 10. It was bittersweet - my former home. The two main exits. On the way back from Middletown, I cried as I passed them again, but I quickly wiped the tears away, refusing to be hurt.

"That's kinda normal," Michelle (my therapist) told me later. "That's pain. That's anger. That's part of grieving."

I started to cry.

I think I started to cry because a part of me never wants to admit I ever loved him. Good riddance. You were no good for me. You sucked. Etc. It's so much easier to be angry.

But once you get to the tender spots, the pain is there.

I had a heavy session today and it left me feeling kind of drained, berating myself...angry at myself, questioning myself and every relationship I've ever had of all time.

I have to say this is hard - this is hard for me to write. Hard for me to admit to and one of those things that I haven't yet had the chance to ponder. That's the problem (or has been the problem) with this whole "healing process": things are so crazy and out of whack and there's so much to do that when I have one of these spellbinding, earth-rattling, nerve-cracking, tear-jerking sessions, I don't have time to sit on it and really reflect because I'm so worried about everything and everyone else.

So I'm writing about it here, being painfully honest.

We (Michelle and I) talked about Gary and Bill.

When I went into my relationship with Gary, I'd expected something different than what I got. We didn't always have bad times. Sometimes, we "got" each other and those were really magical moments. Sometimes....sometimes it was a beautiful thing. One time in particular, it was one of the most beautiful things I'd ever experienced in my life (he'd know what I'm talking about but it's too personal to go into). My point is, that it wasn't always that bad, although it was always unstable.

I had a picture of Gary in my mind; a picture he put there, the day we met. I thought, "He's the one. I could do this. I could spend my life with this man because he'll teach me things. We'll go to museums and operas and plays...." I truly loved him. I still do in a far away, aching place. In the most authentic part of me, I want nothing but happiness and peace for him.

I idealized him, as Michelle said.

Now, she says, I demonize him.

I suppose there's some cognitive truth to that, although I have my own little pocket of broken secrets in my heart....utter pain and disbelief. I'm still so crushed, so hurt. I cry now, because of the deliberate nature of some of what happened.

"Maybe it wasn't deliberate," Michelle offered. "Insensitive, cruel, cold, callous? Yes. But deliberate? Maybe not."

I argued this - pointed to several things that were done that were deliberately hurtful. So painful.

Then the conversation turned to Bill. I sighed a heavy sigh.

Bill and I dated for three years. He was always good to me, always. Consistent, charming, loving, affectionate, passionate, honest, loyal.

We split up because we valued our friendship - that was in 2006 - and remained roommates and best friends. In 2007, I started dating Gary.

I told Michelle how it seemed like no time had passed when I most recently saw Bill. Same Bill, same friend, same everything, except a little stronger and a little more driven.

"What's wrong with Bill," she asked? I had a hard time coming up with an answer.

She proved her point.....

The black-and-white view I have of relationships and how it's always, always, always been that way: demonize or idealize. There is no gray.

This pains me. It hurts me so much because now I feel like I'm broken somewhere and I don't know how it happened or what caused it and I just feel like a total fuck-up. I looked back at the relationships in my life and it's always been that way - even with (I cringe to admit) my own son, Tony.

I told her about when I ran away - I was 11 when I hit the streets; 12 when I hit the truck stops - and somehow in my mind, I thought (even at that tender age) "I don't know what I'm looking for but I know I'll know it when I find it...and I know it'll be in a man."

Through every rape and beating, I believed something would happen and magically, somehow, this person hurting me would stop and realize what they were doing and realize - yes, I need rescuing, not beating, not rape, not abuse or neglect or judgment. Somehow this man would love me.

All my life...and I cry here now, sitting here, thinking about all the black-and-white relationships, all the idealizations and all the demonizations....Oh I'm so sorry.... I didn't know.

Yet I can't take all the blame. Or can I?

Like a record, playing in my head, "What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you?"

Oh this hurts to admit.... this hurts. This hurts to own and it hurts not to know what to think or do or say or believe. I don't even know what to believe. Can't even trust myself. How can I trust myself?

How many people have I hurt? Certainly there are those who've hurt me, but how many people have I unintentionally hurt by my idealizations and vilifying?

And at the same time there's this part of me that argues that I have a sort of old-fashioned part that wants to be a caretaker - I can cook and clean and do laundry. I can do all those things. I can "mother" and I don't mind it - I'm good at it. I'll show you....I'll show you I'm worthy....

Of being rescued?

Maybe?

For you - Gary - It's not all your fault. I loved you so much. I believed in you, perhaps too much and I'm sorry for that. But you also hurt me, so deeply. Perhaps not deliberately, as Michelle pointed out, but God... now I'm lost. I don't even trust myself.

For you, Bill - my best friend ever - I love you and I am so grateful to you and for you. I am afraid.

For you, Cindy - I've marveled at your wisdom and insights these past few months and I've needed the validation you've given me.

For you, Ron - Thank you....you know for what.

My head is spinning. I am so confused and I hurt. I hurt deep in my heart. I feel like such a failure. Like why didn't I catch this? Why didn't I know this? I could have fixed this? I could have been far ahead of the game if only I knew this about myself..... why? Why? WHY?

It's the same thing I've done my entire life.... (ugh I hate this part): waiting to be rescued.

Called Police

Had to call the police the other night when I discovered two of my email accounts were shut down and my website was shut down. The officer was nice but at first didn't understand the gravity of the situation.

He asked if I would be willing to go with a police escort to get my things from "him" and I said, "You don't understand, officer. I have PTSD and DID and he triggers me worse than anyone or anything ever has."

Once I explained this - as well as the email and website issues - he contacted the ...other party, and then called me back.

He said the "other party" would be returning my things to the Essex police department, and an officer would bring them to me, but said there would have to be some contact in order for him to transfer ownership of my website. This is the most dreadful thing in the world to me - having to hear his voice. Just the thought of the things that happened, cause me to throw up. People have no idea...just have no idea....God...

The officer then told me there should be no further contact between us and I assured him that I have absolutely no desire to see, speak to or hear him at all, ever. Not because I hate him, but because I loved him so much, and I am still beyond mortified over the things he did to me. Deliberate things, horrible things, agonizing things.

He accused me of "stalking" him because I went to the same sitting spot I've gone to for months, with Bill, with no idea of whether or not his boat would be there. While there, his boat did show up and, yes, I yelled a few obscenities but I didn't really figure he heard me. It just felt good to scream...God it felt good to scream. He hurt me so bad, and still is. Just needless, vengeful, childish stuff...just exerting control, like always.

It hurts that I had to defriend a number of people from my friend's list because simply seeing a picture of his boat triggered me. It got that bad. It got that abusive. Plus he's concerned about his image. Ironic, I think, given what he's done to mine.

I immediately emailed my therapist. I was so shook up Friday night. I couldn't eat, kept gagging, crying, scared. I don't know why scared, but scared. Scared, I guess, that one person could have so much control over your life and you feel helpless to do anything about it. Scared of myself ...scared that my choices have led me to all these horrible relationships that always end up with me feeling terrified.

But never like this. I've never been affected like this.

All it does is make me question everyone and everything (including myself) even more (which is why I defriended so many people).

How can I trust, after this? How can I ever trust anyone with my journey? My pain and my experiences? How can I ever open up to anyone again when it was spat in my face, used to deliberately hurt me?

Gagging now, just thinking about it....

The no contact order was initiated by me, for the record, which isn't officially a 'no contact' order because there's no need - clearly we want nothing to do with each other. It was just an unofficial police officer telling us no contact.

Fine with me.

For you: You'll always have a place in my heart - I loved you deeply, and that doesn't just go away. I wish you the best and hope you have a happy life.