strength

Sigh.

I think I can write about it now.  I’m stronger than I thought.  There was a point two weeks ago when I honestly thought that I wasn’t going to make it.  I really thought that I was going to die.

I’ve been going to my DBT group for 1 1/2 years now.  I loved my group.  One of my struggles is that I tend towards agoraphobia.  This group has been my source of social support.  I’ve learned so much, and not just the skills.  I’ve learned that I’m not the hideous monster that I’ve made myself out to be.  I can fit in with a group.

Therapy has been a struggle.  When I read back I see that I’ve had doubts about it for a long time.  T can be very validating at times and therapy can feel like a battle.  I think that’s par for the course.

Therapy has gone wrong.  I don’t want to get in to the particulars, but I’ve lost all trust with him.  He happens to be co-leader of DBT group.  I’ve decided to stop both.  This was a heart wrenching decision that brings me to tears, even now and it’s been 2 weeks.

T has called me twice in that time.  Both times, when I saw his name on caller ID, I started shaking, my legs got weak, I started to cry and my heart began to race.  What in the world is going on with me? I don’t understand the fear response at all.  Nothing happened in therapy to warrant this response, yet it’s happening and it is very real.  I am not usually like this.

We had been opening up old wounds in therapy.  Painful ones, obviously, deep ones.  They’ve gone unresolved.  At our last session, I brought in a journal entry, like I had been doing in previous sessions.  This one wasn’t pretty.  It had been a very difficult week.  I wanted him to see exactly where I was at so I didn’t censor as much as I usually do.  He couldn’t have been more invalidating in his response to what I wrote.

One of the things that got to me the most was I journaled about an incident with a person who had sexually abused me when I was 13.  My t then discussed what I had written, spoke the names out loud, actually got the name of my abuser wrong, and then I don’t remember anything, I don’t remember what he said except that I found it to be so hurtful, so cruel even.   Then he said that I was creating my own emotional pain by staying in emotion mind.  Said journaling is fine if I want to relate facts but not if I want to relate emotions.

I journaled about another very painful memory.  I felt like it all blew up in my face.  I shared some really painful stuff and he shit all over it.  And this isn’t the worst of it, but I’m not going to get into the rest right now.

I don’t understand my response to his mere phone calls.  It doesn’t make any sense.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

I felt so alone, so hurt.  I stayed sober.  I called my old therapist.  I made good decisions, healthy decisions in the midst of the storm.  I didn’t know that I could do this.

Endings

I don’t even know where to start.  I have never felt more alone than I do right now.  My world has shrunk yet again.  God it hurts.

Therapy has gone so wrong, trust has been destroyed, I wont go back.  And because of that I’m going to have to quit my DBT group that I loved so much, which was my only source of support, because my therapist was also a group facilitator.

I don’t think there is any other way to make it right.

There is so much stress in my life right now.  Work is slow for my carpenter husband, so money is tight.  Not enough for bills.  Our 17 year old dog is at the end of her life and that is not easy to see.  She will be euthanized very soon if nature doesn’t take its course.  Therapy has been a trial, I may blog about that another time.  Marriage is rocky.

Worries, mind spinning, wanting to escape, the ultimate escape.

Providence, too.  I came here for the first time in months and find comments that give me strength.

whoa

DH’s hand looks almost normal now.  He really dodged a bullet.  His hand was so infected and he had a fever along with the grotesque swelling.  The area of redness had spread half way up his arm before the medication finally kicked in. He should have had surgery but I believe that he refused.

I continue to be very disturbed by my reaction.  I can understand some of it.  I was very worried and I believe this is understandable.  I was also very angry with him for letting it go.  Also understandable.  But not the out of control behavior.

I’m wondering if I am possibly still experiencing withdrawal from the Effexor, is my addled brain still reeling from discontinuing the med? Or is this proof that I really do need to be medicated?

This has brought to light issues that I really need to take care of, such as my unhealthy dependence on DH, the need for me to become independent, the thin line that I’m walking between sanity and insanity.  I thought I was stronger.

I’m afraid for the next real crisis, what the hell am I going to do to take care of my boys, DH and myself?  This has to change.

Quitting therapy right now is a bad idea.  I am going to have to put my discomfort aside and be brutally honest with t about lots of things, I’m going to have to push the tears aside and just grit my teeth and spit it out.  I feel that I have not time to pussy foot around, I need to work on this NOW.  I haven’t been dishonest with t about anything.  But there are issues such as our talk of religion, my feelings of being blown off, that will need to be resolved.

My inclination is to run when I feel rejected, but I know that DBT works if the tools are used.  My t has had insights into my issues that no other t has had before.  He has a way of validating me that I’ve felt from no other.  But he ain’t perfect.  I think I piss him off and that he’s giving up on me.  I need to voice this.

I put on 600 miles on the car this weekend.  I chose to just drive when my emotions ran too high.  I ran away.  I’m so conflicted, so many emotions.  I think I’m falling apart.

and I lose it.

(4-2-09)

Looks like I wont be alone after all.

How to put the story together so it will makes sense….here goes:

DH cut his hand a couple of weeks ago.  When I first saw it, it looked red, inflamed and dirty.  I told him to wash it, put some antibiotic ointment on it and bandage it.  He refused to do so. I felt very frustrated, but decided that I couldn’t make him take care of it so I let it go.

Fast-forward to yesterday afternoon. DS1 (my son) had a med check with his pdoc.  DH took him.  Pdoc sees DH’s very swollen, red hand and says, let me look at that.  You need to see the doc, it’s infected.  You need to see the doc NOW.

DS1 runs into the house when they get home and tells me what his doc said to DH.  I demand to see DH’s hand, demand that DH tell me what DS1’s doc said, and proceed to call the clinic to get him in.

After a frustrating conversation with our local clinic, I contact urgent care and get him in to be seen within the hour.

I lose it.

Here is my secret. I feel that this is my fault.  I feel guilty that I didn’t realize, or even notice how bad his hand was.  I didn’t tell him to go to the doctor. I didn’t insist that he take care of the wound.   I was too self centered, too occupied with my own damn self to even consider that other people have problems, too.  But I did this to him. It doesn’t make any sense, but I really feel responsible for this.

I feel tremendous guilt.  I feel extreme worry, I think he’ll be put in the hospital, and he may be put in tomorrow by the hand specialist, but that’s getting ahead of the story. I feel tremendous anger at DH for allowing it to get this bad.  He’s not stupid.  He knew it was getting really bad last week he admitted to me tonight.    So I yell at him.  I yell at him and I yell at him and I yell some more.  I feel frantic. I want to yell and scream and hit him.  I need to chill.  I refuse to go to the clinic with him get my hair cut instead.  I’m a jumble of conflicting emotions.

I get my hair cut, call home and lose it again.  I call my T for coaching.  He understands that I’m upset, he understands that there is something else driving this reaction but I can’t tell him that this is all my fault.  I can see him using rational mind, asking questions like, did you smear crap in it to infect it, did you keep him from going to the doctor or cleaning and dressing the wound…and of course I did not.

But he wont understand that I feel that this really is my fault anyway, he wont understand the guilt and I cannot explain it.

This is what my mind is telling me….You are such a self centered bitch that you couldn’t see that your husband’s hand is cooking an infection that could kill him?? And that’s all you can do is piss and moan and whine about your own damn self?  You piece of shit. You selfish, whining, cunt.  You deserve to die. I try to push these thoughts away but can’t.  They are no longer words, they’ve become imprinted on my soul.

I freak out every time I see DH and his grotesquely swollen, reddened hand. When I spoke with T, I told him that I wouldn’t go for a long drive, but I did.  After I get home, after talking to T, I freak out.  If I stay I’m gonna take pills.  I lose control, am on the brink of yelling and yelling and yelling some more so I leave.

I lose the fucking cell phone somewhere in my car.  It’s turned on, I can’t figure out how to turn the fucking ringer on, I can’t talk and drive at the same time so I throw it and now I can’t find it.

I want to drive hard and fast.  The music is cranked so loud I can’t think.   I blow the speakers.  I set the cruise because I keep finding myself really going fast. I realize that I have no cell, no money and it’s late. This scares me, but not enough to make me go home.

The radio blares the song “Spirit In The Sky.”  I start to sing along.  Then I start to actually listen to what I’m singing:

When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that’s the best
When I lay me down to die
Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky
Goin’ up to the spirit in the sky
That’s where I’m gonna go when I die
When I die and they lay me to rest
Gonna go to the place that’s the best…

Is the “Spirit in the Sky” telling me to get my ass home, that DH  is dying of this raging infection and worthless piece of shit that I am, I’m driving because I’m too selfish to put aside my own shit to help DH??  I drive until the urge to drive is gone. I drive until I am burnt out.  I turn the car around and go home.

It’s after midnight.  I wake DH and take his temperature.  Only 98.3.  This is good news, I hope.  I look at the boundary of infection marked in ink by the doctor to assess if the infection has spread.  Who the hell am I trying to kid, I’m no doctor.  He doesn’t feel worse.  Still angry, I tell him that if he ever does this again I will kill him he wont have to worry about any infection rotting his arm away. Of course I don’t mean this literally.

I turn on the TV.  John Edward is talking to the dead.  I’m not kidding.  If this “Spirit in the Sky” is trying to tell me something, it really has a twisted sense of humor.  John Edwards has not graced our TV screen for quite a few years.

I feel like I have to clean.  I do the dishes, clean the counters, mop the floor.  Aside from 2 antibiotic shots in the ass and a tetanus shot in the arm, DH has to take Keflex around the clock.  Next dose is at 4 am.  I wait until 4:00, wake him and give him his medicine and go to my room.

I haven’t eaten today.  I don’t deserve to eat. Fuck eating. Fuck hunger.

It’s 5:00 am and I’m too wound up to sleep.  Do I take extra seroquel or not?  He has to see a hand specialist in the morning, who will most likely admit him to the hospital from what DH tells me.  I need to be awake and strong and advocate for him.  I have to make up for giving him this infection.  For being a selfish bitch.  For being worthless and thankless.  I have to atone.

I’m shaking deep within my belly my whole being is shaking and I cannot relax.  I’m hanging on to sanity by my fingernails.  I’m assaulted by guilt, by crazy thoughts but I have to hold on and be strong and I can’t let anyone know what is going on because I know that it’s crazy but I can’t get myself to believe that it is not true. So I try to shove it down but it keeps coming back so I push it away again and again and again.

I can’t stop shaking.  My arms are shaking, my legs are shaking, my gut is shaking, my chest is tight.  Why the fuck can’t I just die? Why the fuck couldn’t this horrid infection have happened to me instead?  So I sit in my bed and rock and rock and rock some more.

DBT/therapy and The Shack

DBT yesterday.  We’re in the mindfulness module,”What” skills…getting into Wise Mind.  The What skills are observe, describe and participate.

Observe is particularly difficult for me. It is a nonjudgmental noticing without words.  My mind is constantly labeling everything I see and experience and it’s hard for me to turn it off. We are to keep bringing our thoughts back to just observing, keeping our mind under control as best as we can.

Describe is much easier for me because now I can put a label on what I’m experiencing, but it is a nonjudgmental describe.  I have a tendency to use  words that are judgments so I have to be careful.

Participate is like being in the “flow.”  It’s just being completely in the experience, without judgments, completely forgetting yourself.  This one is also difficult for me, but it’ll come with practice.

These skills help recondition ourselves and responses to situations so we can become more skillful and choose our reactions wisely, rather than reacting in a knee jerk fashion.

I could tell my T was tired in session.  I have therapy right after our 2 hour DBT class.  He didn’t fall asleep but he suppressed a few yawns.  I was uncomfortable with that, but it happens.  I talked about our trip to bring Gramma to see my Aunt, her daughter.

At the end of the session, my T blurted out, (after telling me earlier that he can’t tell me what to do) “I lied to you.  I am a Christian and I believe that there is a way to live.  There is a book called “The Shack” that describes what living in shame is like.  You can read it or not, it’s up to you.”

I was a bit puzzled by this.  I picked up a copy of The Shack.  I am still waiting for the shame part to come up.  I’ve wanted to throw that damn book across the room more than a few times already.  So far, it seems to be an apologetic of sorts, not quite mainstream beliefs, but an apologetic of the authors beliefs to be sure.  I feel toyed with and insulted.

Mack, the main character, loses his youngest child to an implied pervert and child murderer. They never find his daughter’s body, only her bloody dress in a shack in the woods. This, of course changes his life and leaves him with what they call “The Great Sadness.”  He receives a note in the mail inviting him to the Shack, from Papa.

And there he meets the trinity. God is called Papa and is a large, black woman.  Jesus is an ugly man who looks middle eastern or arab and the Holy Spirit is ghost like, almost like a transparent fairie or sprite type of creature.  The trinity are very down home, folksie characters. The book is very predictable, nothing that I really haven’t seen before.

Mack finds healing and comes away with a better understanding of who God and the rest are.

If I had reconciled my experience with the church and religion, I probably would be able to receive the message my T wanted me to receive, but I am getting so disgusted with the simplicity of the story, the bad story telling and the message that I have to stop myself from hurling the book at a wall.

I am now open to spirituality.  I believe that there is something Greater than me out there.  I don’t know what that is.  I am not ready to swallow Christianity just yet.  I have things to work through in that arena.   I don’t know what to do, if I should lie to him and not mention the book, or if I should be honest and tell him how I’m reacting to it.  I don’t want to get into an argument about religion with him.  Grrr.