The first thing: something I wrote

When I was cleaning and thinking, this is what I was thinking about. Here is the something I wrote, that I gave to Bea to read.
The first thing I kept thinking about is the email I sent you, and your later than usual reply. I wasn’t upset because logically I understand that things happen, you are very busy, and that you did email and even acknowledged that you had meant to write back and hadn’t had time. But, and this is that big scary but (at least for me) emotionally, it’s not that simple. It felt like I had finally let something out, after holding so much in for months, and you weren’t there. It felt like maybe you had decided I was “better” or something, so I maybe didn’t need a reply as quickly as I used to. I don’t know. And then when you did reply, some of the reply felt like I’m expected to cope all the time now, and not fall apart, or end up in the bubble, because I coped this summer. It felt like because I was able to function this summer, and able to still be aware that I was shoving things away, burying them in a box until it was a better time to deal with them, that I’m expected to function like that all the time now. Which led to thoughts of “Bea thinks I’m just a drama queen. Bea is annoyed with me and my meltdowns. Bea is tired of dealing with me. Bea is sick and tired of needy broken Alice and she likes coping Alice a lot better. Bea thinks I should be over this crap by now, and is tired of hearing me whine.” And so on, and so on. And while most of me is pretty sure those are crazy thoughts and not true, a part of me is pretty sure they are true. And I’m pretty sure you attempted to talk about some of this that next session with me; I really wasn’t very there. I think I dissociated enough that I don’t remember that conversation very well at all. As soon as you brought up the email, I felt frozen and scared and like this was too much. I know I didn’t say a lot. I hate talking about the relationship. I hate talking about hurt feelings, or stupid thoughts like the ones I just wrote down. It’s so uncomfortable. Really, calling it uncomfortable is like saying that a severed finger is “just a scratch”. But I feel like somehow we need to talk about this, i just have no idea how to do that. Just writing this is making me sick to my stomach and itchy (did you know I sometimes break out in hives when I’m really anxious or upset?). And I think the little girl is sort of wary again, in a way. Because I trust you, because logically you have never given me a reason not to, because you’ve always done everything you’ve said you are going to do, and because you really hear me, because you see me and still accept me But I think the little girl is afraid of the new expectations (possibly perceived, but still very real to her), and afraid to fail and have you go away because of that. She’s afraid if she does reach out, you might not be there now. I actually went back and forth about emailing you again, that weekend, to ask if you had gotten my email, or if you thought I was crazy, or if you were mad that I had said I just couldn’t talk about the eating stuff. I even wrote an email asking those things, talking about you not emailing back, and hurt feelings. I just didn’t send it. Actually, I think, it feels like the little girl decided not to send it; she needed you to email without her asking you to. A test, I guess, maybe. Stupid. Childish. I hate that. So. I guess this is important to talk about. But I don’t like it. It scares me to talk about all this. And that’s another thing; I don’t understand why this is all so scary and hard to talk about. And it’s not just with you. It’s with hubby, Kay, Rebecca, Jamie. (obviously my parents, but that is them as much as me, I think) It’s anyone I am close to. I don’t know. I think I haven’t really talked to Kay for months because I don’t want to discuss the uncomfortable stuff, and she will. She is fine with it. And Jaime? She hurt my feelings, not on purpose, and we talked it out through text and it’s fine, we are okay, except we aren’t because I still feel like there is this weirdness there and she is mad at me or doesn’t like me anymore or whatever. I don’t know. Ugh. And before I would have just ignored it all and pretended everything was fine, and maybe have been so stuck in my head that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because I wouldn’t have felt any of this. But now. Well, I can’t pretend it’s all okay. But I don’t know how to talk through it either. Ugh. This is so frustrating to me, I’m angry with myself for not being able to act like a grown up and have a simple conversation. 
I thought a lot about the whole ABA tech triggering me thing because she doesn’t do any repair with Kat, and pretends everything is perfect and fine. And I thought a lot about being punished for my emotions; whether it was concrete punishment or just my parents not being there emotionally. And I just, well, I don’t know exactly what, but this all feels really very significant. These triggers, like this, over well, I don’t know how to put it, just normal daily stuff, not trauma stuff, it’s just…ridiculous. I feel like I’m being…I don’t know what. Silly, maybe. But, either way, I can see it so clearly now. Friday, watching Kat and the tech and listening to them, I could just see it, and see exactly how it could remind me of my parents and pretending everything is okay. I kept thinking how I was punished for bad emotions. Anger. Sad. Anxiety. Anything really that isn’t upbeat, happy. I don’t know. And I wonder if that is why it’s so hard for me to cry around people. I mean, I cry in front of you now, but even hubby, I run to the bedroom, and hide if I’m going to cry. I feel almost….guilty, or something, for subjecting others to my bad emotions. Maybe shame. I don’t know, exactly. It’s like I’ve done some thing wrong. And seeing, naming the fact I got punished for feelings, it makes sense why I always feel like I am being bad for feeling certain things– sadness, anxiety, fear, frustration. And anger. Ugh, anger. I don’t know what to do with anger. And I wonder if it’s because I just never was allowed to be angry. And now….I don’t know. How does a person let out the mad feelings without turning into a monster? I mean, emotions like sadness are easier, in a way, because you cry, and you feel the feelings and maybe talk about where they are coming from, but you cry and get the sad out. But what in the world does a person do to get out anger? 
I was so angry with hubby for so much of this weekend. I snapped a few times. Mostly I just made those awful passive aggressive comments– the way he usually does. And I hate that. I don’t like that Alice. I don’t want to be that angry passive aggressive person. But I just….I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. And I can’t even explain the anger I have toward him, except it’s just this general feeling of him not being there and not seeing me and not hearing me, not paying attention. It’s that trigger of “he doesn’t care enough to see me or hear me”. And no matter how many times I try to explain, he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t care to. I don’t know. 
And thinking about how much they pretended everything was okay, leads me to thinking about how they are no longer pretending. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. It scares me. Because that means the story I have told all along is real. I can’t fall back on the fact I the only one telling it, I must be crazy, I must be a liar, making stuff up, ext, ext. If means that everything was that crazy making, that ugly, that…I don’t know what. And I still….well, I think, like you said on Thursday, even though we have talked about it, it is still so taboo and it feels far away and very separate and is hard to bring up…..I think it’s because I keep it separate, in a way, like, I keep it in that realm of “this MIGHT not be real, so it’s not REALLY part of my story, not really”….I don’t know if that even makes sense. I just know I am afraid of my parents being more real. It terrifies me. Like makes my insides feel frozen, and my chest tight, and I can’t breathe and my body feels frozen, too, and I feel like I need to run away and hide. It doesn’t feel safe. It’s like my safety net is being taken away, and my story is real. Which really, really scares me. 
My nightmare is back. The boyfriend nightmare. Where he is listing everything out. Sometimes it’s different….times…but always, his voice, listing things out. I don’t know. Maybe I need to talk about this, about him. But how am I supposed to talk about this, when I can’t even write it down, because of the words? Ugh. I hate how afraid I am of certain words. It’s ridiculous. And I head his voice in my head, telling me that no one is going to want me now, I’m ruined, a slut. And then I wonder if hubby had known me, instead of fake perfect me, if he would have wanted me still? Because I sometimes think he is refusing to see me, because he is waiting for the me he married to come back. 

Raw, honest, unedited journal writing

This is the writing, the honest and raw and unedited random thoughts I gave to Bea to read in Thursday’s session. I had written it like I was talking to her. It could be triggering, so please be careful

So….this is a collection of thoughts that have gone through my head since the bubble was popped. It’s random and messy, scattered and really long. In a way, I guess it is a list of things to talk about. I don’t know. But here it is.

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You asked me what it would mean if it wasn’t my fault, if I accepted that I wasn’t in control and wasn’t to blame. I said I didn’t know. And I didn’t. But I’ve wondered, since then, what would it mean? The question has stuck in my mind.

It would mean something big. I don’t know what, but I have a vague feeling it would be big, and I have a feeling it would mean bad things. I don’t know why, it just feels like a big, bad, scary thing. If I think to myself “it wasn’t my fault” I feel like a liar, and right away, the list of all the reasons I am equally involved comes up.

It would mean, in some ways, that things were worse than they are right now in my mind. More scary, more awful, more sickening. I don’t know how to explain this. And it feels– bad isn’t the right word, embarrassing, silly, stupid, terrifying to let someone else know…maybe shameful? I don’t know– to say this, to even feel like this or think it. It’s like a part of me believes or feels if it isn’t my fault, then I have to give up the idea of “nice kenny.” Which is silly and stupid. I don’t want to see him ever again, and sometimes I’m afraid if I do see him, he will know I told and bad things will happen, and yet, I want to remember him as nice….as someone who was nice to me, and cared about me and liked me. Like part of me still idolizes him. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. How I can feel like that? I’m disgusting. And I feel insane, feeling like this is crazy making, admitting it, trying to explain it is even worse. It’s like I’m still trying to make it okay, make it a game, or make it nothing, no big deal, or make it because he really, really liked me, or something. I don’t know. See? Disgusting and crazy.

I think it would mean I would be heart broken and angry at the same time. I don’t know. It’s a guess, what I can imagine. I don’t know. This is hard to think about. I think that is as much as I can handle thinking of it today.

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I wanted to write about this memory I have. It’s not much of anything. And it’s confusing. And trying to think about it, or put it together, or make any sense of it usually gives me a migraine. I don’t know. Jackie is there. Kenny is there. I’m there. I’m not sure where we are. Up north maybe. In a bedroom– not mine at home, not Jackie’s, either. Jackie and I are kids. She’s got a pajama top on, no bottoms. I’m wearing my pink and green stripe nightgown, my underwear are on the floor. It’s pictures and feelings, but it seems to be NOW, it all feels too real. I can’t describe what is in my head without describing something sexual. And I can’t write it or say it. And I have no context for this, the before or after or what in the world was happening. But where and why this came up? After my mom brought out all those pictures. And it’s been in my head, and I can not get it out, but I was okay, I was being able to push it down, shove it away until the week when my perfect okay bubble popped. And now. Yeah. Everything is spilling out.

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I still don’t understand why you had to try to break through the thick crust of okayness. I mean, I do, I guess. But..why did you have to make me feel bad again? I’m having such a hard time holding it together now, this week has been terrible. I didn’t want to have the bubble popped. I needed it. It’s been a long time since I actually has to feel this bad. And it’s not fair. I function so much better when I can be in my little bubble.

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And now Hubby has made Kat hug his grandpa, and punished her by taking away a toy when she didn’t comply, and so she did hug him to get her toy back. I don’t know, I wasn’t there. And Kat is upset, and I am just ticked. So mad. NO. Just NO. My child will not be forced to hug someone she doesn’t want to. It’s her body. If she doesn’t want to hug or touch someone, then she should be allowed to say no. Ugh! How could he do this? And Kat told me that she was sad because daddy was mean, and she hates pop (Hubby’s grandpa) and she wanted to cry but couldn’t because she can’t cry with daddy or Oma. Ugh. Im so mad, I can’t even speak or yell or think. What was he thinking? Oh my God, this is not okay. Not okay. I told him, not okay. He made excuses. NO. No excuses, no nothing.

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I’ve been trying to think about how to describe the “not real” “automatic” feeling I have during what you called me being present me, real me. I think, “auto pilot”, being in the “room in my head” are other ways to explain it. I just feel slightly removed. Like maybe some of those conversation skills were what I used to fake okay all the way through my life growing up, so they just seem very “auto piloty” and easy, I don’t have to think to have a social conversation. I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t care, or that I’m not interested, I think that being able to have regular conversations about anything just became almost a defense for me. And, it was something that made me very good at my job, too. Again, another situation where I was almost on auto pilot, having conversation after conversation. And it’s not that I didn’t enjoy talking to all those different people– I love talking, and listening, and I loved the variety of conversations I would have on any given day at work–but I wasn’t exactly present, either. I don’t know. I feel like I’m digging a deeper and deeper hole trying to explain this, and making this more confusing. I think, being able to have a conversation and appear present and real is just something I can do….like a skill, like some people are good at public speaking and some are not…I’m good at surface conversations. So even if I’m not really there, no one knows. Maybe I just don’t know how to be fully present. Maybe being in my head, and paying attention enough to remember a conversation is as present and as real as I can be. I don’t know.

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I talked to Hubby about Kat and his butting in when he shouldn’t. I tried to explain that he says one thing, and behaves another way. He only had excuses and reasons I was wrong, and put it back on me. I tried to explain that it’s so hard to trust him, when it seems there are two Hubby’s — one who believes in me and supports me, and one who thinks Kat would be better off with his mother and constantly undermines me– even in front of people. He had more excuses, and said its not true, there is only one Hubby and that’s the one who believes me in me. He didn’t understand I was trying to explain how I feel about something, that it doesn’t matter if he feels there are two hims, I feel that way and don’t know which one is the one telling the truth. In the end, I just told him to stay on his box. That his jumping in with threats was only making everything more stressful, and hard and that I couldn’t do it, and I was making things hard for Kat because of the anxiety Hubby is giving me. He agreed to stay in his box, so there’s that, at least.

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Hubby and I got in a fight about his mom. He wants us to have dinner with her, and his dad next week for a belated Easter dinner. I haven’t seen his mom since that day of the pictures where she treated me like I was pile of dirt. I told Hubby I would go, but I would only treat his mom as she treats me, and only give her the same respect she gave me. I was picking a fight, trying to make him mad. I don’t know exactly why. Maybe because I feel distant from him, but I don’t want to actually do anything to feel closer. Maybe because I know he never talked to his mom about the way she treated me, like he said he would, like he said needed to happen. He did finally admit he never talked to her. And I just shut down after that. I knew it. I knew he would not actually talk to her. When it comes down to it, he will always choose everyone else over me. Every time. He does thing for others he would never do for me. He always gives everyone else the benefit of doubt, but I’m tried and judged right away. He says I matter, that he loves me no matter what. It’s a load of crap. He does not. He loves his perfect wife. He loves the idea of me, not me. He can’t, won’t even stand up for me. I don’t know why this upsets me. It’s nothing that I didn’t expect. But it hurts because it’s like he is saying I don’t matter, his mom matters more, and it’s okay for someone to treat me like that. And while sometimes I think I do deserve to be rated badly, I don’t want my husband to think that or behave like that. So, once again, his words say he loves me, but his actions say I don’t matter, I’m less than, I’m not good enough.

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I think I have an idea what happened. When I was 12. When parents were there. But it seems too awful to be true. But who makes up crap like that? I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m trying to understand, to make sense of this one thought, this one idea. I need the rest of the story, the rest of what happened. But it’s not there. It’s just blank, and gone. There’s a vague idea. Like those wispy thoughts that are hard to grab onto. Thoughts I’m not sure I want to grab onto. I feel sick. Nauseas. I’m scared. If this piece of memory means what I think it does, I’m sick and shocked and everything changes and I don’t know what to do with that, or how to handle it, and I can’t. I just can’t. I have to be wrong. Really wrong. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I hate this feeling. It’s the feeling of scared and mad and sad and I don’t know what else. Out of control and vulnerable and needing to not be alone but too afraid to need anyone or admit to it. So I cry and tell myself how stupid I am, how I can not need anyone else but me. How this isn’t okay. How I can’t need anyone else because as soon as they see me, they will run as far and fast as they can. I tell myself that no one can really know it all and still think I’m okay as a person. That no one can know it all and still like me. I end up feeling alone and scared, out of control, angry, sad. I can’t handle that feeling, it’s too big. So I don’t eat, or I stuff my face until I’m numb and throw up until it’s all gone, or I cut myself, and then some control is back, and I can put away all those bad feelings, I can hide from them. Until they pop up again and again.

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One of the very worst things about all this, one of the hardest things, is that I have spent my life pretending to be perfect, putting on the happy face, avoiding how I really feel, living in my head detached from my body, never letting anyone close– even the people who are close, are close in a just barely below the surface, but make them believe it’s more kind of way– never being exposed, vulnerable, or out of control. I’ve spent my life believing I can never let others know I’m not okay, because bad things will happen. I’ve spent my life believing it’s my job to make everything okay and easy for the people I care about. But a year ago (more, actually, almost two years ago….that summer, after Kat’s diagnosis, it was August, I think), all the yucky stuff started to spill out. Flashbacks, nightmares, triggers out of no where. And now I’m in therapy, and I’m supposed to do everything I’ve spent my whole life trying to avoid. I am supposed to be vulnerable, and let go of control and really trust another person, and be okay with needing them, because I can’t do this healing thing on my own. I’m supposed to tell you when I’m not okay, and that’s supposed to be okay to do. I’m not supposed to try to be perfect in therapy, to present this okay facade, I’m not supposed to say or do what I think you want me to if its not how I’m feeling. I don’t know what my point was when I started writing this. Maybe just that I’m super extra afraid now that I’ve been needy and vulnerable and more open and honest than before. Maybe it’s just that because of those things, I feel like running in the other direction and acting like everything is okay and perfect and fine. And I wish and wish that my husband could handle me being open and vulnerable and broken. But he can’t. I think how much easier this all would be if I had him here, if he really could be there, if I really could be brave enough to show him the hurt parts of me, and if he could still accept me anyway. I don’t want to dig through memories with him, or the feelings or the mess– you are there for that– but I wish sometimes that I could tell him how I’m really feeling, what I’m really thinking, and it would be okay to do that. But it doesn’t feel safe.

Like today, when he got up, I’d already been up for hours. A nightmare, maybe a memory, woke me up. He asked why I was up. I never wanted this before, but today, I wanted so badly to be able to tell him that I had a nightmare about being sexually abused and that I feel so out of control from the bad dream and scared, and so I’m up because it’s still running through my head, and I am too sick and scared and there are too many feelings I can’t name, and I just feel really alone right now and exposed and like the whole world is a scary place. But instead I just said that I fell asleep for a while, and then I woke up and can’t fall back asleep. And he shrugged and said “okay.” It’s like he feels obligated to ask, but doesn’t really want to know. I don’t trust that he wants to know, so I need him to….I don’t know what….ask again, tell me he really does want to know….I need him to show me he wants more than perfect me. He said he doesn’t need perfect me, back in October, but I need more than words, I need him to show it. I don’t know. I need too much. That’s the problem. I need more than he can give. So I try to cut my needs down, make them not exist. I do a pretty good job of it, too.

I blame therapy for this. I didn’t know there was more, I didn’t know how to be here, more present, I didn’t know how to really connect with people, or how to be authentic, or that there was the option of being not okay and admitting that. Now I know all these things….I suck at being needy, because I’m so afraid needing will make people run the other direction, so afraid if I let myself need another person, I’ll be too much and they will leave. And now I want to reach out to my husband, and not fight, and not push him away, but to say I’m hurting and broken and needy. But I can’t do it, because I’m too scared that he can’t handle it. Crap. I’m not even sure you will not leave, even though you say you won’t. I’m not sure about being vulnerable and hurt and showing all of that in therapy– I’m not sure that was okay, and that you can deal with my craziness and neediness and brokenness. And I know that’s your job. You’re supposed to contain it all, but I worry that I will be the one person who is too much after all. I don’t know.

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I feel…scared of Kenny. But also like…I don’t know. It’s awful to admit, but I’ll tell you. When I was littler, before that year, 4th grade, maybe 3rd grade because I have a hard time remembering anything about that year, it’s a blank in my mind…but before that, he was my friend. I liked him, I loved him and his family. I think I thought they were family in some ways. I wanted to be with him all the time, and if he was babysitting the three of us– me, my brother, and his sister Jackie, and I was to play with Jackie, I would be jealous that I was not getting his attention. I remember him going to some dance or something, with a girl, he stopped by my parents because they wanted to see him all dressed up and I was hurt. I cried and cried that night, I cried myself to sleep. I was in second grade, I think. That’s sick, gross….what was wrong with me? You see….it is so confusing, twisted, it makes no sense. We went to disney world with his family, he rode the tea cups with me over and over because everyone else was sick of that ride and he was willing to do that for me. I felt so special that he cared enough to do that. Camping, a hike….I was terrified of snakes, (and now I have a horrible memory as to why that it maybe, but anyways…) and he put me on his shoulders so I didn’t have to walk through the leaves on the trail where I was convinced snakes were hiding. I don’t know. I could go on and on.

And then his “secret game” he played with me. I didn’t know, didn’t understand. But I liked it. It felt nice. I would ASK to play the game. ASK. I asked to play it. Ugh. It makes me sick. Sick to think about that. Whatever excuse, “I didn’t know, I was little, I was too young to understand”….it doesn’t change anything. I was BAD. I encouraged it, I wanted it, I asked for it. My fault. So what right do I have to be upset, scared and hurting now? NONE. No right. No right at all.

So many, many bad and confusing things in my head, and this might be the most confusing. I know we have kind of been here, gone here before; you’ve asked and talked about it, though I’m not sure I ever really answered. But, really. This is the basic truth. I liked him, LOVED him. It changed, kind of. But even when he was scary to me, and I didn’t want him touching me, I DID. I still loved him, still wanted to be special to him. I don’t know. Somehow, it’s all twisted, even if it was not this romantic thing, it got twisted and I thought I was special to him. And I was jealous and hurt. Ugh. Ick. I’m so numb to this all now, I can’t think…can’t go here. What was wrong with me? Was I just this whore-like little child? I mean…ugh. I don’t know. I HATE this. I hate the confusion. I want it to go away. I hate that part of me doesn’t understand even now, what I did to make Kenny stop liking me. I’m that disturbed. He got married. I hated his wife, from the get-go, simply because she ruined it. I thought…if I married him, it wouldn’t be so bad, so dirty, I wouldn’t be so bad, so wrong. If I married him, it would fix things, in my mind…that was the answer. What the heck? I’m just sick. Twisted up,and sick. And so full of shame. And this doesn’t even begin to cover college relationship…which is the same twisted up confusion. I don’t understand myself. Saying it’s normal doesn’t help. I don’t believe you. I can’t understand. I LIKED him. Sometimes I feel like I’m being mean to him, by telling, by talking. I’m betraying him. I spend half my time feeling like I’m not really feeling “my age”, not feeling like a grown up me. Ugh. I don’t know. I think this is a big mess, crazy confusing, I don’t know how to explain.

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I figured out part of what the “shrink thing” is, or at least what it feels like. You asked before, and I couldn’t say, I just know that I know when things get turned into a “shrinky thing”…..but now, I think I have some of the words, and I can begin to explain it. It just feels like all of those shrinky terms are ways to invalidate my feelings, even if that is not the intent. It feels like using shrinky labels is a way to draw a line in the sand between us, to remove yourself from the equation emotionally. I don’t know. Its just…it feels bad to me to have you turn shrinky, its scary because then you don’t seem like you, you seem like this shrink person who isn’t real, and who doesn’t actually care or want to really be there and understand what is going on in my head. I don’t know. And, to top it all off, anytime shrinky labels get thrown around, it’s always about things I don’t want to talk about, scary things, like relationships. So it’s twice as hard because it’s a scary thing to talk about, and I feel like you have separated yourself from it all with the “shrink thing” so I’m super alone. Because normally, even when I feel alone and I’m crying in your office, I can feel that you are there, and that I’m not truly alone anymore. But the second something is turned into a shrink thing, then I’m alone. And that, well, that is the most I have been able to put it into words.