Rip VanWinkle

One of the fairy tales I recall from my childhood is that of Rip VanWinkle.
Remember that one?
This young guy falls under a spell and sleeps away his entire life.
He wakes up years later only to find that he has become an old man;
complete with a long white beard. That’s what I recall most vividly.
Poor old Rip looking in a mirror with shock at the sight of that old face.
A boy inside an old man's body touching that long gnarly beard.

Call me Rip.
I’m in shock and I’m grieving.
I slept through most of my life too. I should be a teenager, but I’m not.
I look in the mirror and I feel shock and confusion too.
It’s not because of vanity that I can never remember my real age.
I have to consciously think of my husbands age, then subtract 4 years.
Even then I’m never really sure.
Dissociative identity disorder, (DID), saved my life and my sanity.
There is a price for survival. I missed almost everything.
What I have in my memory banks reads more like a scrapbook
or a youtube montage video. Highlights and snapshots, stories and fantasy.

I sat in my therapists office yesterday and it hit me. I’m about fourteen.
I don’t know too many fourteen year olds who want to be married
to a fifty-one year old man or who want the responsibility of parenting
teens and twenty-somethings. I’m overwhelmed and afraid.
I feel trapped and I’m angry. I feel ripped off.
I awoke to a face that isn’t mine and the body of a middle aged mother of three.
How did I get here?
Oh, sure, I can flip through the images in my memory banks
and I can see exactly how I got here, but I’m still confused.
I can see it, but it doesn’t feel real.

"Taking the Trigger Train to Crazy Town!"

I woke up this morning feeling good. Hubby has the day off,
the sun is finally shining.
The coffee was already made when I got up...
A great start to this Independence Day!

Last night, our 20 year old son was supposed to have loaded the dishwasher, (with mostly all his own dirty dishes), but instead he fell asleep on the couch. Before I went to bed, I woke him up to send him to bed and tell him to get up early in the morning and get them done.

Today, when I got up, my son was still asleep in his bed.
I came downstairs, got my coffee and came in to see my husband,
when I noticed that he had done the dishes himself.
I was so mad!
My husband is always so nice; he’s a very thoughtful man. Unfortunately,
he enables our son and we fight about that more than anything else.

I went to the landing of the stairs and hollered up to our son to get up.
I scolded him for not getting up early to do the dishes as he had said he would.
He made a wise remark and I reacted by hollering
at him to get out of bed and contribute something to the house.
He made a wise crack and then I really yelled! 


I came out to the sunporch and reamed out my husband.
I began to feel some familiar feelings from my childhood
that have repeated into my adult life.
I felt disregarded and unheard.
I could feel something escalating inside and I fought against it at first,
trying to communicate my feelings in a controlled, adult way.

The next thing I know I'm SCREAMING at my husband to "Do something!"
"Don’t just stand there, do something!" Of course, he just stood there...
I’m sure he was stunned!
It began with one good shove; then I hit him. Then, all hell broke loose.
I started wailing on him as hard as I could with both fists.
I hit him over and over again, screaming
at him. I kept telling him how much I hate him. 

Neither one of us is violent and hardly ever even yell or anything.
He was stunned, teary eyed standing there letting me pound and pummel him.
I don't remember some parts of it but suddenly, I came to the realization
that none of this had anything to do with my husband.
I don't hate him-I adore him.
Although I realized that the rage was misdirected, I still couldn't stop.
I continued the raging and punching and screaming.
I just kept screaming over and over, "Goddamn it! Goddamn it! Goddamn it!" 

Then I turned it on myself and pulled my hair and began to punch myself
in the head. I was like a crazy woman!
Then I just screamed but no words-just screaming and crying.
My husband stopped me, held me by my wrists and hugged me tight to keep me from hurting myself.
I fought until I was exhausted.
He tried to get me to sit down, but I resisted and then came ‘round two’ of the screaming and more crying. I backed away from him and cried some more. He just stood there until I calmed down. I kept saying, "I'm sorry" over and over. He held me for a long time.

By then I wanted to sit down because I was shaking and exhausted.
I sat and put my head on his belly while he stood beside me,
holding me for a long time.
To some, my husband standing there allowing me to unleash on him
might seem like weakness,
but let me tell you, he showed such strength and compassion in that moment.
Don is my rock and my safety.
Almost like he’s magic, Don has a calming affect on me.

Then he said, as if to lighten to mood,
"If I'm ever involved in a brawl, I want you on my team!" 
He always knows what to say to make me feel better.

Other than some tired, achey muscles, a really sore hand, a sore throat
and pulling out some hair, I'm OK now.
I keep sighing. I feel relieved and exhausted.
This feels as if it came out of nowhere
and although, I'm a bit embarrassed, I’m grateful.
I'm grateful for my husband and for getting rid of some of that rage
that I’ve carried around for over forty years.
My husband helped me explain triggers and flashbacks to our son,
so it turned out to be a good opportunity for bonding and healing
and I am also grateful for that!

Rage peeks out, then hides again.

    I’m supposed to reflect on what we talked about in therapy this week and then, stop thinking about it on Friday or I’ll mess up my whole week. On Wednesday when my therapist said that it sounded plausible enough.
    Here it is Friday and I feel as if I missed my opportunity to mull it over and get any mileage out of the EMDR we did 2 days ago. When I was supposed to be thinking about it, I barely got any alone time to do it. Now, here it is Friday and I’m alone. I can neither think of it nor not. I’m fog bound and stuck ... again!
    Goddamn it! I hate myself and I feel like I’ll never get it right. My therapist tells me that I can’t trust my compass right now and part of me understands that. My feelings are messed up and I’m confused. All I know is that I’m MAD!

***Warning Possible Triggers***
    I feel so MAD! I want to kill. I want to stab, rip, tear and destroy! Smash, stomp and scream. FUCK YOU!!! I want to bite, kick and spit. I want to rip flesh from bone with my teeth! Snarl and growl. Back off! Get OFF of me!
    I hate you. I hate your mouth. Your tongue. Your smell. You devil. You Satan. You pig! I’m disgusted by the very thought of you. You make me want to vomit. I want to tear at your face with my claws and laugh at you. I feel like I have a demon inside and I’m evil-just like you.
    I hate you! That smirk. That filthy lusty look on your face. The way you lick your lips. I want to slash your face to bits and stab your eyes out! I don’t want your DNA-your blood-your smell-your spit-your breath-your filth. You make me sick. I detest you. I want to kill you! I want to draw back my legs like a kangaroo and send you flying onto hell where you belong!
***End Possible Triggers***       

    I sat here silently for a while and then I reread what I had written. I feel confused and numb. I don’t know who I wrote this about. I think it should be about my father. I can’t even remember my father right now. I can easily get this mad at my husband but part of me knows it has absolutely nothing to do with him. I feel this mad at myself-a lot! Why do I see my mother’s face then? I’m so confused. I feel queasy. I feel tired and numb.

Triggers and Learning To Do Things Differently.

     Last night I was triggered and ended up feeling helpless and cornered which led me quickly to rage and the familiar feeling of wanting to run away. I felt like I hated everyone and wanted to throw things and scream.  I wanted to run away from home. I became short tempered and it felt like my nerves were raw. Noise bothered me even more than usual and I was seething inside. I snapped at my daughter for making too much noise while doing the dishes and was furious with my son for unplugging the wireless router by mistake. I pushed the dog away from me and wished I could disappear.
     However, I didn't run away from home or scream or throw things and I didn't allow myself to disappear.  I toughed it out and talked about it. The difference for me these days is that I can recognize triggers sooner and talk about it which helps it go away quicker and not to escalate. Last night was a good example of how choosing not to act instinctively on my feelings, but listening to my head is a much better choice.
     My feelings last night were not really rooted in the “here and now” anyway. These feelings had much more to do with the "back there and then." My usual emotional reaction has been to feel cornered, get mad and then to run away either physically or emotionally. If I had listened to that and reacted as I'd always done, I'd still feel badly today and be fighting with my "here and now" family.  In reality, it was really my "back there and then" family that I was mad at.
     Because I did what I knew to be right rather than what I felt like doing, I was able to talk to my husband and even to apologize to my daughter for biting her head off. I decided to post it on Facebook, (which I NEVER would have done before), and got some good support from people I wouldn't have expected it from. I told the truth about how I felt and I didn't die! That might sound silly, but that's really how I used to feel. I was so afraid of letting anyone see the ugliness I had inside that I actually thought it might kill me to do so. In the past, I always pretended I was alright, no matter how bad I felt.     
     Today I am learning to be real with myself and others, so, today is a whole new day and I'm OK just as I am!

Will the Real Me Please Stand Up...

I’m beginning to emerge from my recent hibernation and today, 

I can see that light at the end of the tunnel! 

     I had gone into hiding for a couple of months feeling pretty hopeless. I stopped returning phone calls, stayed home alone as often as I could and I found it difficult to find my words. I was feeling disconnected from my family, friends, my therapist, God and myself. My mind wandered back into thoughts of self loathing and despair. Again, I found myself in that familiar dark place. 

     When I go there it frightens me because crazy things begin to seem rational. In that place, death feels inevitable and welcome. I flirt with the macabre and fantasize about dying. When I’m there I am unable to reach out for help. I don’t even want help when things are that bad. I want only unhealthy things. I don’t sleep enough and I eat too much. I can’t stop worrying about how messy my house is, yet I feel powerless to clean it.

When I’m that bad, I can barely manage to shower or brush my teeth.

    Considering how badly I have been feeling, it seems especially freeing to crawl out from the isolation and sadness into the light of a new day. I have turned another corner and I have hope. So how did this happen exactly? What is different today than last week or last month?

I think there are a few things that may have contributed to this upturn. 

     The days are getting longer and there are signs that spring has indeed “sprung!” Warmer weather and brighter days have always helped to lighten my mood, but there is something more going on here.
    I’ve continued to move forward with the work of healing even when I didn’t feel like it was working because I still have faith that it will. I am blessed with a loving husband, dear friends and an awesome therapist, but mostly with the belief that God has not forgotten me.

These things sustain me even when I feel like I cannot take one more step.

    Even though I can’t always find my words, I still connect through on-line support groups and social media like facebook. Reading what others have written about their struggles, writing about my own; supporting them and being supported by them has helped more than I ever would have imagined.
    All these things have made a difference, but perhaps the biggest change I have made is that I have become more genuine with others, with myself and with God.

I am allowing myself to be real. 

     It’s not that I’ve been a phoney or have pretended, but it has been my practice to try to be what I think others want or expect me to be. I have a real fear of letting people down or disappointing them. I hide my pain, fear and shame. I worry about making others comfortable at my own expense. I stuff my anger and I hide my true self because I’m sure I’m no where near good enough.

I want to please and I want to be acceptable, although I rarely believe that I am.

    Today, however I am choosing to believe that I am God’s girl and that He loves me; therefore I’m lovable. I know that I will have hard times again and I pray that I can remember how I feel right now. I want to remember that today, I feel hopeful. I want to be helpful to my fellow survivors when they too have dark days. I want a better life for myself, my husband, my kids and for God who does indeed have a plan for my life.
     I will end on this positive note and I hope that you, the reader will help yourself to my strength today. God knows, I may need to borrow some of yours someday!

Wait, which one of us is in charge?

    My little ones live in the attic of my mind, under the eaves in the shadows in the back of my head. Each one is contained within a bubble, oblivious to one another and to me. Some of them have bodies but others only heads. Some have words while others only have feelings. It’s dark in there and the only light is what comes in through the windows of my eyes. They are small, lonely and afraid.

    The one I am most familiar with is Gaye. She’s about 14 and she is my fighter, my NJ girl, the boss. She has been in the driver’s seat much of my life-I just didn’t know it. With her, it’s like I’m the co-pilot. I see what she does and I hear what she says and I know how she feels, but I can’t always do anything about it. She’s a scrapper and she can be scary-even to me. I went by the name Gaye until I was about 12 when I took back my legal name. Just because we share the same name doesn’t mean that she is anything like I was when I was young. I think she’s more like what I WISH I was. She will go toe to toe with the best of them and believe me, she has!
    It was Gaye who 'threw down' years ago with that old drunk when we were at Wal-Mart. That big, nasty, scary man shoved my 6 year old son. I was scared, but Gaye stepped right out, getting in his face. She wasn’t backing down either. Unfortunately, I was pregnant with our youngest daughter and could have gotten hurt if security hadn’t come along when they did. Gaye didn’t seem to notice me or the fact that I was very pregnant but even if she had, I don’t think she’d have stopped. She is my constant protector and I love her.

    Having an adolescent in charge when you’re an adult can be problematic, especially when it comes to marriage. My little ‘go-to-girl’ loves my husband in the same way any little girl loves her father. She doesn’t recognize him as my husband, she relates to him like he’s her Daddy. The good kind of Daddy; not the kind of Daddy that has sex with his daughter. Not the kind of Daddy I had.
    You can imagine how this complicates my marriage. Gaye is very strong willed and she gets so mad at my husband for wanting to be intimate with us. From her perspective, that makes sense. Of course she gets mad! Fourteen year old girls want their daddy’s to love and cherish them. They want to be nurtured and cared for. They don’t want to be thought of “in that way” by the man who’s job it is to protect her. Gaye believes that my husband is her Daddy and as long as sex isn’t a factor, she likes him. She loves him, but she puts up one heck of a fight whenever we think about anything sexual-especially where he is concerned. Within a nanosecond, I can go from thinking about the possibility of being intimate with my husband and starting to believe I can do it, to a raging teenager smashing the windows in my mind!
    Shutting down is what I have learned to do best to avoid the her wrath. Shutting down is how I avoid the mixed up emotions; the guilt, shame and sadness. Unfortunately, shutting down has caused the man I love more than life itself, so much pain. I can hardly bear to think about it.

    A couple of weeks ago, my therapist made this simple, factual statement: He said, “ You know you’re not a virgin.” Any rational person with any intellect whatsoever, would seed that point without question. The indisputable fact is that I have been married for 23 years and have 3 kids. Of course I’m not a virgin!
Let me tell you though, Gaye was pissed! She glared at him, clenched her teeth and didn’t hear much of what he had to say after that. Those words replayed in my head all week and I felt her raging and then sulking about it. Gaye ranted  about his observation; “What kind of sick thing is that to say to a child?!” “I am SO a VIRGIN!” “P-I-I-I-I-G!” She hated my therapist for a few days.
I felt really confused by it all. I felt sad. I vacillated between sad, angry and confused. I’m not sure which one of us was feeling what feelings, but it all left me kind of queasy and embarrassed...and guilty...
...Always so ashamed and guilty.