see, I am okay

for all those worried that my cheese has slipped off my crackers. (it has but hey, we have already covered what a complete nut I am.)

Mentally things are improving FAST. I am 10 days job free and the crazy stress level is gone down to zero and I feel amazing.

Physically...eh, not so good there. I starting tweeking  my medication regime yesterday to see if we can't get the physical aspect back in control.

Can you see that edema in my shoulder? Its in my face,neck also, and just started going down my right arm. Not much fun.

I am working on the yard care for the summer right now and once that is done my aggravated chronic orthopedic issues should stop flaring and ease off  the MUSTKILLYOUNOW level of pain they are currently at.

All in all, enjoying having the luxury of time to relax and be with my family.

I can't thank my husband enough for helping me to make this happen. I couldn't do it without his love and support.

Support team (trigger for self injury)

When I was little my support team consisted of .....my stuffed animals.

When I was a teenager my support team was a box of matches I used to burn myself with and a broken bone handled hunting knife.

When I was in my twenties I had no support team.

I ended up in therapy in 1987....(You know I just need to post that whole story. Might be helpful to someone)

When I started therapy Richard insisted he was my support team.

I wasn't so sure about that at first. It took a HECK of a lot of work on his part to convince me that I could trust him.

Early in our sessions he gave me his home number.

"I want you to be able to reach me directly, without having to go through the answering service." He said passing me over a card.

I eyed him then the card.

His brown eyes didn't waver. "I want you to call me if you are going to hurt yourself."

I felt  my eyes narrow as my system mulled that over. "We wont call you." the broken part of me finally spat out. "You will not be able to stop me."

"Probably not, but a friendly voice couldn't hurt."

I flipped the card over and over in my fingers mulling this information over. With a snort I finally tucked the card in my therapy book.

I called him a grand total of three times at home.

About a year into therapy I called him twice one night. I had already hurt my self, but the desperate wanting to heal and stop the self inflicted violence behavior finally gave me the guts to reach out.

Now, important to know is, I DO NOT LIKE MAKING COLD CALLS. NOPE, NADA, UHUH. I just don't go there.

For me to reach out for help .....a huge thing.

I dialed the number with my hand shaking so badly I had to set the card down so I could read the numbers.

Before he could even get the H in hello out I hung up on him.

I walked around the room in anguish. A huge fight in my head. CALL HIM BACK!!

Returned to the phone and dialed again...this time I walked away from the base to stop me from hanging it up.

Dissociation is a wonderful tool for not dealing with life....I step back in my head and numb out to the gills.

"Hello?" I hear his accent and I can resume breathing.

"Richard, its P...." is all I can get out before my voice cracks.

""Are you okay?" He asks.

Looking right at the bleeding injury on my arm I respond, "I feel like hurting my self."

Keep in mind he had never worked with a client who self injured before. This was new territory for both of us. I have never reach out to any one before/during/after injuring, I have no idea what will help me in this head space, and neither does he. At this point in therapy he had not seen any injuries, or scars. I am not really sure he believed me that I actually was a self injurer at that point.

We muddle through it together.

Near the end of the call he asks. "are you going to hurt yourself?"

I am at that moment digging at the wound on my arm ripping it bigger. "No." I lie to him and we say goodnight and hang up.

That call set the ground work for me to be able to actually voice my needs.

Soon my support team consisted of Richard, N and I my hypnotherapist, and my pig.

Slowly over the years more and more people were added.

In my 30's my husband joined.

My three therapist are still on that list.

Any guesses as to who the number one person to reach out to is?

They are the only one who can reach me when I am going to hurt my self. The only one who knows what to say and do to help me 100% of the time. The only one who will drop everything and come running 24/7.

Me.

But I don't always feel like helping my self so I have learned to rely on others to offer help.

Can you talk me out of an injury? No.  So, what really helps me? Exactly what Richard said. "... a friendly voice couldn't hurt."

Simply talking with me will get me refocused. I don't need a therapist to talk me down, I don't need a lecture, I don't need threats of hospitalization, I just need to hear your voice.

human connection.

I can't tell you how many times I have called my house and talk with my husband for a minute or two. "hi , how your night going? Kids good for you?"

That is what he hears.

If I was able to put it into words it would really say:

"HELP! I AM IN DANGER OF HURTING MY SELF! I CAN'T COPE ANYMORE!"

He answers with a hello, quick update of what ever game he is playing that night, and a report on the kids.

Which I hear as this:

I love you, your family loves you, we need you, we are here for you, no matter how it may feel at this moment you belong with us..

and that is all I need from my support team.

Its that simple.

Everything else is up to me.

Ticket to ride (TRIGGER)

***** Trigger: I am going to graphically cover a self injury attempt with an overdose . ******

Your about to step into my head and whoa nelly....that's a dungeon with more trap doors then your party's thief can de-trap.

my main goal this summer is to de-stress and get my health/ head back in alignment. This is a peek at why this became my goal recently.

I remember 12 years ago when the nurse came flying into my room and shouted at me "put that baby to breast, his blood sugar is incompatible with life!" It was a clear warning of approaching death/danger.

You don't usually get told that clearly when death/danger is threating you or your loved ones, and if you aren't paying attention you can miss those subtle messages that life gives you.

I had that same experience happen to me the night I turned in my two week notice. Except it came to me in a different format. I had arrived at work and before I got out of the truck, I opened my purse to get my name badge and keys. The first thing my hand found was my bottle of Ativan I carry with me for emergencies.

It took me a nano second to realize that I had opened it and chugged the contents, without even realizing I had done so.

To be so far dissociated from my self to have no memory of even doing a potentially fatal action, is something that has not happened to my system since I was pre-therapy in my 20's.

I glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure it was me in there. The eyes that meant mine were haunted and wounded, and worse then that, they had let go of the rope...let go of the ledge... "put that baby to breast, his blood sugar is incompatible with life!"

Then my eyes dragged themselves to the symbol burned into my wrist along time ago when I was in therapy.

< o ( 0

a code, a life saving code. A message left there by me years and years ago, just in case of emergency.
 
A rip cord to yank and deploy a parachute. A 911 call that my soul would hear.

Finger in throat, puke.

what the hell P? what the  *!^&%$ hell just happened?

I faded into my head and quietly watched as my body went in to work, clocked in and began working. Within a few minutes I found something on the desk that slammed me to the front of my head again.

Tsunami scale waves of urges to hurt my selves crashed over me. No the kind that will be appeased with a 3rd degree burn, the kind of urges that want a limb or my life as payment.

Again I find my self looking at the code branded into my wrist. call a support person now!

I reach out to my husband without telling him anything more then, "I'm done. I think I want to turn in my two week notice."

He agrees and offers reassurances that he's backing me.

I hang up and immediately email my two week notice.

what the hell P? what the  *!^&%$ hell just happened?

Wait, did that just happen? I check the sent folder, and there is the email.

The self injury tsunami waves roll over into waves of nausea and I taste the puke in my mouth again.

I struggle to catch my breath.

A movement in the doorway catches my eye. A resident is slowly coming in to see me. Its a gentleman who visits me each night. "Oh, it's you!" he toothlessly grins. "Honey I am here to save you!"

The sob clamps my throat shut and all I can do is smile back at him.

"lets go dancing!" He says continuing his usual nightly repertoire.

I catch my breath as the parachute finally deploys and catches me in mid free fall and yanks me upwards.

The heavy waves of calmness of the Ativan that my body had been able to grab before I puked it out finally hits me.

For a second I close my eyes.

Breath....hang on. Someone in your internal system jerked the rusty track switch and headed you down an unknown direction. Your life is switching tracks and your going to be okay.

"No dancing tonight, " I finally say to him, pointing to the stack of papers on my desk. "Work is filling up my dance card tonight." I reach into my bag and get us both a Pepsi and as he tells me stories, I sort though my stacks of paperwork.

Your life is switching tracks and your going to be okay. Just hang on.

Self injury - TRIGGER WARNING

 *******************TRIGGER WARNING****************

A few of you wanted an update on my head space.

hmmm.

Tonight I want to hurt my selves. So in other words....I'm pretty much normal for me. I am feeling a wee tad off too. The combination of the physical pain I am in with the unpleasant jab to the gut of a 500$ repair to my truck, has me a bit....um, hmmm cranky. Yeah cranky.

So much so that I don't think I should be blogging, or else you will get treated to a bloody manifesto of pain splattered on here like a serial killer ripped through my head with a chainsaw. So in the interest of not fueling the darkness....how about some old positive cheese? I will leave it worded as it originally was and you can all assume that I am talking to my self....cause I sure could use a cheering squad in my corner tonight.

* morning update - not quite so cranky this morning. Feeling sane and rational. I think the chronic pain is pushing me over the edge, I need to get that under control again. Right now the only thing not hurting on/in me is my toenails.
********************************************************



Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2004
LETS GET BACK TO HEALING GUYS. *PULLS UP EVERYONE BY THERE BOOT STRAPS* (triggery?)

12/11/2004


Looks like a train wreck in here.

we have been hit hard lately. This is not a good time of the year for us to be lapsing into silence/hibernating etc.

Everyone get up and get dressed and lets get focused and moving again. We are all laying in our own pools of winter depression and self inflicted madness and violence.

Lets get healing again.

Lets have a look at the beast shall we?

Object of dissection: "SIV" aka self inflicted violence.

What do we know about it?

What do we WANT to know about it?

Friend? Foe?

lets get asking questions...HARD questions. We need what works and what doesn't work. We need to KNOW what we are fighting here so we can heal from it and release it so we can be free and have peace within our systems.

Let us look at the injury we produce.

Do you know why we get addicted to the actual injury (over and above the act of inflicting it?)

We tend to live in this life NUMBED to the gills 98% of the day. We have grown accustom to not feeling emotions/physical sensations. We internalize everything. We experience emotions fleetingly and they are foreign to us. a wound is a way for us to actually FEEL something. It breaks through the numbness and dissociation. If we are skin starved and not getting the proper nurturing touch a wound gives us a source of physical sensation.

How many of us pick, rub, press objects into our wounds, or otherwise mess with them?

Feeling pain in absence of good nurturing touch is better than no contact at all. Our brain is starved for feelings. The pain receptors are like hungry little puppies woofing down there food. The brain eats up the pain and is producing chemicals. WE GET ADDICTED TO THIS. THIS IS WHERE THE CRAVINGS COME IN. THIS IS WHAT IS SO HARD TO STOP.

It doesn't take long for you to start rationalizing that a wound would "feel" nice, or that it "feels good" to have that sweet pain.

This is a lie of your mind. This is your mind trying to make sense of the madness. Abused children who grow up thinking what happens to them is normal and that it happens to all kids. The brain can't escape the horror so it rationalizes and tries to make it make sense.

SIV DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

but, darn it IT WORKS. IT WORKS REALLY REALLY GOOD!

which is why it is so addicting and easy to "fall in love" with.

It is painful to experience emotions. To put yourself out there to be vulnerable and exposed. We all have been wounded by careless people who trampled our hearts.

So why not start with something simpler than living in the moment and being constantly "feeling" feelings.

Start by getting reconnected to your skin. Get back into your body. Go find a new fuzzy nightie to touch your skin in a nice gentle way.

hold some ones hand and be aware of what another hand feels like, what does it feel like on your skin?

get a massage.

soak in a oil scented bath. feel your skin.

Touch yourself in a kind gently way. (rub your hand down our arm gently).

Stand before the mirror and cup your face and feel YOU. Look into your eyes and just see you.

You may feel alone and lonely and like the last person on the planet, but darn it. you always have you. That person in the mirror is the one who will always be there for you. That is the one who will be the best healer you will ever meet. S/he is one person you want on your side as you advance in the healing process. Making peace with you is a high priority in healing from SIV.

It might take a while, especially if you have been at war with yourself for a long time. But you will do it. You have to save you. No one else can do it for you.

Adrift

I knew then as I know now,

seaweed washed ashore can't ever go back.

An uprooted entity set adrift in the vast ocean...

I feel like seaweed. 

I too uprooted from the comfort of my personal madness,

and unceremoniously set adrift in the unknown realm of sanity.

With, as it is with seaweed,

no chance, no possibility,

no hope, no prayer,

of ever going back to where I came from.

We are both going to wash ashore on some beach and become something new.

After living and growing submerged in the aquatic world of liquid and salt,

the surface must be a frightening place,

as is sanity a scary thought after centuries of existing between the cracks of madness.

May 23, 1990 (c) PR

Baby bird

The baby bird tumbled from the nest and landed at her feet. In such a hurry she was, she almost kicked it.

 

She stepped around it and kept walking.

 

It tweeted loud, distressed tweets.

 

Finally she turned back and returned, plucked it up and set it quickly back in the nest.

 

A short while later her path once again passed by the nest. The baby was again on the ground again, this time hunched and puffed up with eyes half closed.

 

“what are you doing little one?” she asked concernedly, as she slid it back into the nest.

 

aaaand I'm out of time to write today. Okay, you will have to wait to see what happens in the story. Well...I have to wait too to find out, this little blurp just surfaced the writers pain and it comes with a promise of being a good story, I just have to buck it out and polish it.

 

We are off to the coast for a chess tournament and to just breath.

I am mentally....doing okay considering the roller coaster I rode the last two weeks. Physically...eeh....not so good. Maybe the sea air will rejuvenate me.
 

Peace be the journey

 

P

A quick recap of 31 years in long term care

It was 1983 and I was 17 when I started. I was a young, skinny, damn fool that knew less than Jon Snow.

I worked the floor as a certified nurses aide (CNA) I was trained as a Senior aide, and an Alzheimer's specialist, and as a Medication aide (CMA).

After nine years and the devastating OJI my career as a CNA was ended. Work had to do something with me so the stuffed in medical records.

I was still able to function as a CMA, and did so until I could no longer. So for quite a few years I did both at the same time. Work got quite a deal their....two employees for the price of one.

Loved my residents I did. A life time of richness that I will never ever be able to put to paper. So many beautiful people that have blessed my life. On an equal scale are the wonderful bunch of people who were my co-workers for all these years also.

Tried to leave when I had my children...was told, bring them with you to work. A blessing like no other. Used to have to page my infant son to be returned to my office as everyone would run off with him. Let my CMA license lapse around this time as my back could no longer keep up with the physical demands.

so we round out 31 years in long term care with this picture...

It is 2014 and I am 48 when I left. I am now a old, fat, damn fool, but I know a thing or two now.