Sharing

OK. Continuing on from before.... (click here if you don't know what I'm talking about)

Even though my high school friend's article was really triggering for me, it was also very empowering. She was so brave to talk about her sexual assault like that. She wrote about it under her own name and shared it with the social networking world. Reading about her strength in going through what she did and then her seeing her strength in sharing it was inspiring. When she came up with the idea to start a blog for survivors to share their stories, I decided to write part of my own story and I submitted it to be posted on that blog.

I started thinking about what I wanted to write and then I couldn't sleep until I had written it all down. I'm kind of proud of how the piece turned out. I didn't make it overly graphic and I shared enough of my story to make some important points about the effects of abuse, and at the same time I felt some catharsis from writing it down. I shared it with my therapists and with a couple friends and they were all very supportive and said that it was well written. After I shared it with them, I felt a little bit less vulnerable so I decided to share it with my brother. Clearly I knew it would be hard for him to read, but I wasn't expecting him to be unable to read it. 

I'm not angry with him for not being able to read it - he tried, he got through half of it - but it was disappointing and I'm angry with the circumstances. It's awesome to be able to share my story with my friends and my therapists. The disappointment comes from wishing that I could share some of my burden with my family, but those are the people who find it the hardest to do that because they care the most and don't want to see me hurting. So I know that he's not being unsupportive by not reading it because he's supportive in other ways, but I was sad that people did things to me that were so awful that I can't talk about them with my brother... I hate that they even managed to take that away from me. And then there's more anger that comes from seeing that other people have the choice to not look at my story, whereas I have no choice - I had no say when I was going through it and the memories are part of who I am - I have to look at my story. Despite my anger at life, I'm glad that my brother has that choice because I know how much it sucks when you aren't allowed to decide for yourself what to do.

This was a really hard post to write so I'm going to go do fun and relaxing things now. But I'll end with a little shout out to my brother - love ya bro! 

Boston Strong

I am so glad and relieved that law enforcement have managed to capture the remaining suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. I'm feeling grateful for all of the amazing efforts and hard work by the law enforcement officers involved in the successful capture. I'm also thinking of the victims of the past four days: the three killed at the bombings and the dozens wounded, the MIT officer who was killed, and the MBTA officer who was seriously wounded in the firefight. I'm proud of Boston for coming together after the horrific events of the last week to demonstrate that we cannot be beaten down.

Reality

It has been a while since my last post... about a month! Which means that I actually have a lot to say, but I'll probably split it into at least two posts so that I don't go way too long in this one. Long posts are boring and they hurt my brain! My excuse for not posting is that I got pretty distracted because I went on vacation. I'm so glad that I was able to relax and have fun during it too. I got to see one of my best friends, I got to be in Mexico where it was nice and warm, and I got to get a break from the stresses of life. 

Unfortunately I had a backlash of PTSD stuff when I got home. It was like I was able to hide it all away for the week that I was away and then it had to catch up on everything once I stopped forcing it away. So I ended up having this weird kind of reality check because when it all flooded in it felt like, "oh my god this stuff is really part of my life and it actually happened to me; not someone else." Because of that, I was already at a high anxiety level when I found out that someone I was good friends with in high school had experienced a sexual assault. I was so impressed with her strength because she came out publicly about her experience in an article that she wrote. Even though I hadn't talked to her in years, I was still really upset for her when I read it and it also triggered my own stuff. Embarrassingly, I ended up bursting into tears at work because I got so worked up and anxious about it. At first I didn't really know why I had been triggered so badly, but after thinking about it, I figured some of it out.

The obvious part is that I was feeling upset for her because I would never want anyone, let alone someone that I cared about, to go through anything like that. It made more sense to me that around the time that it happened she changed a lot and we pretty much stopped talking and that's such a sad reason for that to have happened. It may not have been the main reason we stopped talking, I don't know, but I'm guessing that it contributed to it.

It was also hard to read a description of a sexual assault. The basic facts of what happened to her made me think about some of the things that have happened to me and the aftereffects of those things.

Those two things by themselves are hard, but I think that the thing that made it REALLY triggering for me was that knowing the person I was reading about made it very real and therefore made what happened to me very real. When I accept what happened to her (because it's impossible not to), I have to accept what happened to me. Most of my defense mechanisms revolve around trying to make what happened go away. I avoid, pretend, repress, deny, I do whatever it takes to make it less real. Having a large dose of reality really sucked.

Despite being triggered, I am proud of how I handled it. Instead of retreating into myself, I talked about it with people. I ended up talking to the coworker who was sitting next to me when I burst into tears and who I trust enough to confide a little bit in. And then when I was still shaking like a leaf by the time I got home, I called the 'on call' at the clinic in order to get some help to calm down. Yay me!

And to end on an extra good note, here's a pretty picture of Tulum, Mexico: 

Tulum, Mexico

 

No Longer Solely an Art Blog

I think that it's time to change my blog description. This has become a place to not only share my art, but to also share my thoughts and experiences with PTSD. I think I would feel a lot less guilty about not having new artwork every time I post something if I changed the description.

So now I can share my thoughts without feeling bad that I don't have any art: I hate St. Patrick's Day. I feel like hibernating during it. A combination of this time of year and having that small contact from an abuser is making it really really hard to want to do anything other than work, eat and sleep. I am having a LOT of intrusive symptoms and it sucks. 

Here's the funny thing about the Facebook friend request from one of the abusers. When I was little, he would write me little notes that asked me if I loved him and then it would have two little check boxes for 'Yes' or 'No'. I always felt like there wasn't really a choice and I had to check 'Yes'. A Facebook friend request is essentially 'Do you want to be friend's?' Check 'Yes' or 'No'. It's kind of hard not to be thrown straight into the past with that. I know in every way that I should not - do not want to - do not have to check the 'Yes' box... but the kicked down, helpless child in me feels like I have no choice. I haven't checked either one yet because I just can't do it by myself. I think I need to press the 'No' button while I'm in therapy tomorrow because I think it's going to be hard to fight the child's voice without someone to support me.

Really?!

I was working on a drawing. And then I accidentally tore it right up the middle. Ugh. I liked the idea behind it but I was actually a little bit unhappy with how it was coming out so maybe it will be a good thing to start over. And that's my excuse for still not having any art to post.

I've noticed that there has been a very obvious and direct link between allowing myself to experience feelings and the emotions associated with the trauma and not feeling like I want to give in to urges to hurt myself. Now, when I get those urges, instead of immediately trying to figure out how to get rid of the uncomfortableness, I try to relax and take down my wall and feel angry or sad or whatever it is that I need to be feeling. It really really sucks. But it's really really really worth it. I spent about 20 minutes crying for 8-year-old-me because I got triggered by something. It felt so horrible... but then it felt so much better. The feeling eventually lessened in intensity and I still felt OK about myself because I didn't do anything to hurt myself and I felt a little bit of catharsis after letting all those tears out. Yay me!

Of course, while I've been experiencing all of this sadness and anger and EMOTION-craziness for the past few weeks or so, NOW is the time that a past abuser chooses to try to add me as a friend on Facebook. Really? My first reaction was just a horrible feeling in my stomach, which was all of the anxiety. Then I started having a lot of sensory memories, which are still going on... I swear I can smell him and I want to vomit. But now I'm thinking that maybe it wasn't such bad timing for this to happen - I'm feeling really angry and upset at him. Before, I would have pushed everything down and turned all of the feelings into a self-hate thing instead of turning them toward the deserving party. It's confusing though, because my brain is still trying to do that because that's the way it has always done things. However, I'm aware of it now and I'm not letting it take over so I almost have two different reactions going on at once. The part of me that is learning to be more assertive is just like, "What the fuck? How dare he try to intrude into any part of my life! He needs to go rot in hell." I guess now I just have to decide whether to ignore, decline or block that shitbag.

Om Nom Nom

I am working on some artwork right now... but I have nothing to post at the moment, so I thought that in the meantime I would post some pictures of the food that I've been making because I feel like cooking is similar to art! Last weekend I went on a food-making binge: I made a huge pot of soup so that I could put portions in the freezer to take out whenever. And then I made stuffed peppers and empanada filling (which I also froze). For some reason it was incredibly satisfying to do all of that cooking in one day and I ended up being in a really good mood.

Here are some pictures from the past month or so of cooking:

Stuffed Peppers

Potato & Leek Soup

A Yummy Omelet

Fettuccine Shrimp Alfredo

 

Letting Myself Feel

I've been trying to get myself to draw but I haven't been able to yet. My therapist and I have been talking about anger and loss, so it seems like it would be a really good time to express some of that. Maybe this weekend I'll do something.

I feel like I have TONS going on in my head right now - I've been trying to let myself feel some of the scary emotions that I usually try to push away or "do something" with. I think that I've been coping with it all pretty well though. I haven't been feeling as depressed and I have a feeling of catharsis from letting myself experience emotions. I also feel like I've been able to understand myself a little more. I never truly realized how well my mind manages to hide things from me and I probably don't even fully recognize the extent of it yet. I've become more aware of my brain fighting with itself to change from what I'm used to and what's easy, to what's more healthy.

All of that awareness made me start thinking about what I was like in high school and how I reacted to feelings of anger, sadness and anxiety by immediately pushing them away, often by using unhealthy coping skills like hurting myself. I was so good at it that I didn't even know why I was doing it, other than that it made some sort of discomfort go away. I've been able to deal with some of those things now by using positive coping. I have a new mantra that I've been saying to myself: "I know I'm a good person and I am in control." I've also been doing things that make me feel good about myself, like cooking dinner for myself, and doing things that are distracting when I know I need to not think about things.

I don't know if any of what I wrote made sense or if it was just really repetitive... but the sum up is that I'm feeling pretty good and I'm making some good progress in therapy. Yay!