Thanks to everyone who has left such sweet messages for Kerry on the previous post. She got her story today in the session with Cat: Peter Rabbit. After the rough night we had, a gentle story was what all the system needed I think.
Last night I was trapped in the state I call dissociative sleeping. Old readers will have heard me talk about this before but as all my old posts are privatised I shall summarise it again.
You are neither awake, nor asleep, not conscious but not unconscious either. You are literally stuck in limbo with flashbacks/delusions happening every minute. It happens a lot when Kerry is in the body but rather than just tell her to go back to her dark place in the inner world I got out of bed, lay down next to Raggy, and spoke to her about what was wrong. From what I gather she was freaked out by my housemate who is very bunged up with a cold right now and so was snoring. It reminded Kerry of the father. At least when she told me that I was able to keep reminding her that my housemate is safe and isn’t going to hurt us whilst acknowledging that her fear is justified and I am listening to it.
I think I was sharing Raggy’s basket for about an hour before I felt grounded enough to get us back to bed. A very long time for us to be in such a traumatised state and at one point I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get us out of it at all. It does leave you feeling like you are bordering on psychosis and literally all you can do is sit with it.
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**Trigger Warning: talk of witchcraft**
In session today Cat and I touched on my very real fear of Cat brainwashing me, bringing these alters out of me, creating them, like some form of witchcraft. Although she isn’t saying this is true, Cat is very aware of the possibility that my mothers ‘interest’ in witchcraft may have been more sinister than just curses and blood-letting. My fear of Cat putting these alters in me MAY be a projection of the possibility the mother may have purposefully messed with my mind and created some alters.
I very much doubt that my mother had the insight/intelligence or desire to purposefully create alters in me. I remember, ironically, letting my mother borrow ‘sybil’ the book from me when I was a teenager and as far as I was aware that was the first time my mother had ever even heard of multiple personality disorder. But there may have been more subtle ways my mother behaved/manipulated her belief in being a witch that encouraged us to become multiple, perhaps.
And of course also the fact that I am quite certain she has multiplicity running through her too. She had dramatic switches behind closed doors and it isn’t hard to appreciate that I was following her lead and also developing these new modes of being to match hers that developed over time into full alters. For example, at times she would literally switch into a very young being and become very ‘playful’. Unfortunately her idea of playful was a bit off the wall and would involve causing me physical pain, one way or another. I was the type of kid who would mould into whoever the mother wanted me to be at that moment in time. If she wanted me to be playful back then I would create the part to do that. If she needed me to act the victim role then I would create the part to do that. Whatever it took to keep the mother happy with me so the more frightening abuses didn’t take place. Just a theory.
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I am finding it unbelievable to think that it has been 8 months since I changed my number and made myself a voluntary orphan. I said to Cat today that I can’t quite believe how easy and beneficial it has been to do that.
Bourbon: “I mean it’s not like they were actively abusing me at the time. We had all silently moved on from that now I am an adult and living away from them.”
Cat: “They may not have been actively abusing you but there would have been looks, or words, or patterns of behaviour that were keeping you in that abused place. The mother may have only had to look at you a certain way and it would have reactivated all of what happened in the past and kept it very much alive in the present.”
When you have spent 18 years of your life being brainwashed and systematically abused by your upbringers I don’t think it ever goes away from the family dynamics. That type of abuse never goes away. It is enveloped in the whole family system and whilst they were happy to bury it under the carpet and carry on pretending, there was just too much that I could see and feel under my feet.
Of course I still feel awful about “ruining their lives” and I am still sometimes hit with the thought of ‘what have I done, I am wrong, they were never abusers’. But as Cat pointed out today I have a whole sub-system of backward facing alters who are very very loyal to the upbringers. It is not surprising that in some moments they completely overpower any rational thoughts I have as the programming of ‘parents are always right, you are always wrong’ kicks in. It is a fight but I hope we can all be on the same side eventually.
For some reason LJ has gone a bit blog shy. But if LJ wasn’t blog shy she’d tell you that we saw Cat for the final session today. She’d also tell you that we all basically sat on the floor holding hands for 50 minutes. She’d also tell you that she has become the foster parent for the big grey soft elephant you can see on your left. She’d also tell you that Raggy was meant to stay away from Ellie the elephant but as you can see it hasn’t really worked. LJ would also tell you that we have now got a room inside where Cat resides. It is a very big room full of lots of therapeutic stuff where we can go, at any time, to be ‘held’ by Cat. In the room are big plants that stretch over the ceiling, big patio doors, mood changing lights, a punching bag, toys, cushions/blankets/bean bags, a cat, a basket for Raggy, a TV with endless DVD’s, books, a fish tank, art equipment, and a bubble-producing warm paddling pool. Oh, and a fan. For some reason LJ wanted a fan.
