Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Expressive Arts Carnival #3

Time is so screwy for us right now. Like I'm sure weeks have passed and I'm late paying all the bills, but then thankfully it turns out it's only been days. Or alternatively, that I was certain it had been only a couple of days since I said I'd get back to a client and then I discover I said that over a month ago. Yikes.

So it was a relief when I suddenly remembered that we wanted to participate in this month's Expressive Arts Carnival hosted at Mind Parts, and after checking the blog, discovered that I hadn't missed the deadline after all.

The assignment was: "On a white or black background, choose two (and only two) colors and make a painting (digital or analog) that represents where you have been mentally for the past week or so."

Here is our submission:

Notes on this image: there's been more focus lately on the system working as a united whole, even if we never fully integrate. We are our own light, a ball of light, though we have raw wounds, angry red welts of pain and memory. The beliefs we still struggle with, beliefs about our self-worth and the world around us, are a prison. Still, we continue to heal, to let our light shine through.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Distraction Day

So anxious and depressed today. A lot of commotion inside. Everything from "How could he?!" to "I have so much work to do!" The best we could do was distract ourselves, and reading seems to be the only way to do that. Even watching TV or a movie doesn't work anymore. Too easily distracted away from the distraction.

It's true, there is a lot of work to do, but there's a lot of work to do every day. We run a one-woman shop and have a lot of different jobs to do in this business. Having constant work is a good thing. Someday we might even make a living from it. But today was a read-a-book-in-bed day. Tomorrow, we have a work meeting and have to be competent. I hope!

We've done this depression/anxiety thing before, dealing with new memories or new-to-us alters. Everything is unsettled and emotions are just beneath the surface. Today this sort of conversation was taking place:

It's all in the past. It's done. Over. No one is hurting us now. Just get over it.

I'm trying but I can't help how I feel.

Do something physical. Can we at least get up and get dressed? Make lunch? I'm hungry.

If I push through this, I will pay for it later. God, it hurts. Why does it have to hurt? Why can't I just hate them?

Nononononononononoooo... Don't think don't think don't feel... he's coming back he always comes back I can never get away he'll find me and then she'll blame me and it will be all my fault it's always my fault...

I'm going to check email again. Oh no, what if someone's mad at me? What if I'm still screwing up? I can't check email now. Where's my book?

I have a lot of work to do. I'm not getting anything done! What if this goes on forever? I'm going to go broke because I can't work and then that will be all my fault.

We should end it now. If we're not here anymore, no one can hurt us. No one can be mad at us. No one will even remember us. It's safe that way.

No! That would be worse. Then people really would be angry with us. Think of the kids. We have to be here for them!

Have to focus. Have to breathe. This will pass. Where's my book?

A new part comes foward

I had the strangest dissociative experience last week. I was sitting and talking with my IRL friend J when I suddenly felt like I'd just opened my eyes, even though they were already open. Or like I had a second set of eyes and those had just opened. And then for about five seconds, I had absolutely no clue who this other woman (my friend J) was.

Didn't recognize her. Didn't know anything about her. Nothing. Total stranger. It took just those few seconds for this other part to determine she was safe and then {}poof{} she was gone.

I don't know her name, but she's shared a few things with us since then:
  • she was "out" when we were in Girl Scout Brownies
  • she was out in a ballet class we were in circa early elementary school
  • she remembers an experience going to Dad's workplace after hours (more shortly)
  • she is hyper-sensitive about "down there"
  • she believes everyone wants to look at a girl "down there"
She first came forward with memories about arguing with Mom about wearing the Brownie Scout uniform, which was a very short dress. She didn't want to wear it, or wanted to wear pants under it. But apparently that was against Girl Scout regulations at the time and Mom wouldn't let her. At every Brownie Scouts meeting, her focus was completely on how to keep anyone from looking between her legs.

Just recently, she shared parts of a memory that finally makes sense of a trigger we've never understood before. She remembers going with Dad to his workplace after hours one night. It was a secure facility, requiring a numerical key lock to get in the front door after hours, then signing in with a guard just inside the entrance, showing the company ID badge, signing a log... the whole bit.

Dad told Mom he'd forgotten something at work and it couldn't wait. He offered to take me, saying he'd show me where he worked, and maybe even get me a hot chocolate from the vending machine in the cafeteria (my absolute favorite part when we watched Fourth of July fireworks on the facility's campus each year). After signing in, there's a blur, then lying down on something (couch? table?) and seeing exposed ductwork in the ceiling. Maybe ceiling panels from a drop ceiling that had been removed? Maybe a ceiling that was never finished? At any rate, the ductwork was then associated with terror.

Dad met at least two other men there that night. She heard them talking and laughing. And the talking and the laughing and the ductwork and the lying down and the ductwork and the paralyzing fear and the sicksicksick feeling and the fear...

I never understood before now why seeing ductwork was so triggering. I still don't know what happened. It seems to involve a lot more fear and sense of "wrongness" than it does pain. Or physical pain, anyway. My suspicion is that photographs were taken. Maybe more, but at least that much.

After all this time, after years of therapy, I had no idea that there were still unshared memories. Dad's been dead now for six years; Mom passed away a little over a year ago. Maybe that finally makes it safe.

Safe, maybe, but it makes me sick.

-Chris