Recent news

Trigger warning: suicide

***********************************************

I found out tonight that a woman I used to sponsor in AA died. I’ll refer to her as L.

It’s not confirmed but I believe it was likely suicide. Another woman I used to sponsor sent me a screenshot of a post from a closed AA group. A man had written, “another one lost to the disease”. This suggests she either was drinking and died or committed suicide. The thing that irks me is that L grew up in the notorious “family cult”, which was located in the Dandenong ranges in Melbourne, Australia. She didn’t just die because of the disease of alcoholism. She shared with me the things she endured as a child – from rape to being drugged to torture and more. She was also involved in some serious accidents and suffered brain trauma. Yes she became an alcoholic, she couldn’t work, she was on a disability pension. She was very poor and never got the help she needed. Her multiplicity and her dissociation and cult abuse were never addressed in a therapeutic setting. Her refuge was AA but it never really healed her because she wasn’t addressing the root cause of her trauma. From my conversations with her, I also think she was still being accessed by the cult.

It was really hard to sponsor L. Really hard. Things didn’t end great. Her parts started attacking me and were highly paranoid. I ended up blocking her and we hadn’t spoken for years. I wanted to help her but I couldn’t. It doesn’t surprise me she is dead, but I feel a bit triggered by it. She was so deeply unhappy that she is probably better off dead. I hope God takes sympathy on abused souls and even if they do commit suicide that he heals them in the afterlife so they don’t go to hell or are left wandering in the darkness. It would seem so unjust if God didn’t heal her. I get why people commit suicide. The psychological effects of trauma can be so hard to push through. I’m not sure if suicide is giving up or just surrendering to the existential pain of existence.

Multiple perspectives

It is hard for me to say how I feel so I will let the parts speak for me.

1. She’s been depressed. Maybe a week now, or more. High trauma state, can’t sleep but does eventually. The depression makes her feel suicidal and full of shame. Looking at herself on zoom all day is not helping. She’s increasingly self conscious and needs validation, although wouldn’t dare to ask for it. Only sometimes. Being in a relationship is so good but hard because she’s embarrassed. Mainly because she thinks she is going to go insane. Like this is it, breakdown is going to happen. Now. She’s never been to a mental hospital, nor really wants too, but lately she’s been feeling like it might happen. Then tonight, on the D.I.D. Support group, she realises she is resilient and has been in these panic states before and always come out of it. So she started to relax more, but then the anger came up.

2. The anger is there because I’m pissed off at the trauma fear porn “they” pump out every second of the day. I’m tired of their evil, their cruelty, meanness. I’m tired of beating myself up and hating on myself when I should be beating up on them. I’m tired of not being allowed to be angry and for turning it on me. I’m tired of not placing my anger where it should be. I’m angry at injustice and there’s far too many for me to pick one. I’m angry at God for making such simple poetic statements: Proverbs. 10:12 “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.” Why? Because Lord my heart feels cold and i am sad that evil is so pervasive and makes it so hard for people, including me, to love fully. You say to love you, first and foremost. And I’m not doing that. I’m not. I’m scared. I’m blocked by the darkness. I need your help. I genuinely need your help to get through and make sense of all this noise and hurt and fear and entrapment and conspiracy. Anyone who challenges the mainstream paradigm is called a conspiracy theorist. That’s scary. Anyone who believes you is called weak or you are seen as a crutch. I know I’m making blanket statements, I’m just confused Lord. Should I be blissfully ignorant or painfully aware and which reality am I aware of? Whose reality? Whose agenda? As I daily unpack my bias’ and wrestle with my tormented past, I wake up and then fall asleep again. Such is the merry go round of life. S worries I think the government is out to get me. Of course I do and I don’t. How does one know what’s a Kafkian fantasy or true metamorphosis of self? Agh, she likes to fix things (S that is). So she wants to make sure my mind remains in tact. Self preservation, peppered with love. It’s nice. I should be more forgiving.

3. I’m irritable. Maybe being locked up. Always things to do, endless tasks, that I would be nothing without. Sending me mad. Pretending to be normal and present and deep down, thinking, I’m going to snap. At any given time, I am going to go crazy. And then it passes. A complete inability to stay present with self once morning light hits. And how do I take a break? Watch tv? Do Pilates? No. I box. That’s cool I guess, that’s not the point. What does it mean to be purposeful and engaged and present and put things aside and not check emails and not fiddle with learning management systems. Refining the same thing in the hope that one day the knowledge will. Freaking. Land. It. Will. Go. POP. Because knowledge is like that. It’s funny. It lights up the brain cells and then goes dark again as new thinking rises to the surface. New mass consciousness vibrates.

4. I’m not sure I could ever position myself as an expert in anything. There are just too many opposing people, places and things. I don’t know how you can be so sure of anything. Except for God. I’m sure about God, but I wouldn’t know how to argue with an atheist or lapsed Christian or an agnostic. Not that it’s about arguing. I just don’t think I have enough knowledge or evidence and feel manipulative if I try and convince someone of something that I think is experiential and personal. That’s where I get confused though. Why isn’t it experiential for all and why is it so personal and not collective and when it is collective we ruin it?

Enough rambling. I’m tired. Finally.

Sinking in

Depression is the worst. I just feel it sinking in, sucking me down. The voices go off in my head. I feel ugly and disgusting and worthless. I take an anti depressant but when these waves hit they seem sudden and perhaps the severity is warded off by the anti depressant. I don’t know. I know it sounds morbid, but I do wish I was dead. I truly wish God would take my life. It is hard to find purpose, dream purpose or develop any imaginings to create a new picture of self. I know it passes. I know. Just not soon enough. I will try to accept my depression. Rather than fight it. I will try and embrace it, rather than reject it. It feels so f**king painful to experience it. Which is probably memory.

I exercise you know. I ran for an hour today. Every day I exercise. I feel the need to justify this. I don’t just sit on my ass. I worked today. I’m not sure if I am going to make this life. I dreamt of finding my way to prison. Finding sanctuary in there. In dark cells and confined spaces. With other tortured souls. At least life would be more simple. I could stop pretending. I know, what a funny thing to dream of. I deserve to be locked up (messages from the cult). The programming is hard to beat.

Not even art inspires me. It saddens me that I have no ability, that I am wasted, that I wasted, I waste. My brain is a foot squashing ants on drive ways.

21 things I hate about being a girl (from a part).

Having breasts and just body fat in general.

Hair.

Getting your period.

Being judged on your looks or your worth being about your looks and what you wear.

Not being able to run as fast as the boys.

Having to buy so many clothes and shoes.

Wearing uncomfortable shoes.

Dresses.

Not being able to eat as much as boys or people looking at you funny when you do.

Not being taught how to play rough sports.

Being raped.

Being considered stupid or not as smart.

Boys liking you or worse not liking you so you feel ugly.

Being treated like meat.

Hoping you don’t get hurt or attacked on your way home.

Teen magazines or Instagram or whatever the latest thing is.

Barbie.

Pink. Although other parts like it now so I guess it’s okay.

Always having to do the dishes or house work.

Being seen as emotional or over reactive.

Being scared of things and not knowing how to fix things.

Memory

I am in parts tonight because at therapy today I had a memory and it wasn’t good. I’ve been triggered by the news footage of George Floyd’s death. It is an awful vicarious trauma for so many and seeking the news footage replayed over and over again caused me to dissociate and switch. I’ve been gone for a few days now and on the weekend I had very bad neck pain for two days. It was hard for me to move and I knew a memory was there. They told me they would break my neck if I told anyone and they stood on my neck so I couldn’t breathe and seeing the footage brought the memory to the surface and I feel terribly bad and ashamed and selfish for having this memory in the light of all that’s going on in the world. But my therapist said that we can help others by being good and in our own way. She just grounded me and tried to get me to relax my body but it was so hard and then I just cried and cried and it was hard to just calm down because the pain in my body was so strong. The part felt the world was so horrible and mean and cruel and it was difficult to understand why evil was so strong. I had to go back to work on zoom after the memory and then a student shared what she’s been going through personally and it is all horribly traumatic in its own way and I burst into tears as I felt so sad for her that she was going through all this pain. Of course the tears were layered because I was already in a fragile state but she didn’t know that. She was touched by my tears and empathy for her situation. I changed clothes about six times today as I just felt so out of place and now I am glad I am in bed but my voices are going off. The little ones are out but then a kind of teen protector part came out and she is pissed off because I am now trying to communicate with the little ones and comfort them and she is annoyed because I have been absent for so long and she is the one who looks after them. But she’s like that older sister who likes kids but isn’t that nice, because she’s been hurt too. She won’t really talk to me, I am trying but then the robot came out and told me there was to much internal communication going on so I started to get confused and forget the conversations and separation occurred again. It’s like a crank wheel system in my head that turns and things go blank. Anyway I’m rambling and I know I sound crazy but I feel better writing it out because I am not so stuck in my head.

Conversations with my parts.

I am struggling. I feel like one big fraud, I spout the stuff that makes me look good, yet I dissociate and I can’t be all kind and loving to my partner or my parts because I still can’t sit with my feelings and I ain’t doing nothing about it. I should be praying each morning, down on my knees and grounding myself but I can’t sit with myself no more.

I am tired of this world. Who isn’t? It’s hard to find hope right now. I feel suffocated by the darkness. I feel attacked. Who doesn’t? The repeated trauma on television is draining me. I’ve been nursing memories and can’t process them because I feel guilty for making it all about me in a time of such grief and difficulty for so many. I want to stay in a ball a cocoon. I am beating me up, not practicing compassion, I should be practicing compassion.

Keep going. You can do it. I keep thinking I’m making all my abuse up because I don’t have a strong narrative. (We were silenced). But people who have been traumatised have stories to tell, wounds to show. (You’re wounded heart is a myth). I believe I was electro shocked to forget. (What evidence do you have? You are making this all up). I know nothing. I am self obsessed. Not who you think I am. Better to be left alone, head down, spout the sayings, keep going to the bitter end, maybe eat icecream and run down a wooded pathway and praise God and forget about chaos and dark imaginings and the world will be a sweet place again.

The contempt for myself is high. (Move into compassion). I have none. (Breathe into diaphragm). They’ll kill me. (You are safe now). Safety is a construct. Even safe houses aren’t safe. (Light is greater than darkness). You keep saying that, where is it? (Focus within). You sound like a new age hippie. (Focus within). I feel sick. I feel crazy. I feel like a time waster. I feel angry. I feel scared. I’m tired of being scared. (I can take your fear). When I feel I cut off and go dead. (They made you do that). I can’t feel because I’m dead. (I talk to you alive). No I’m dead. I am nothing. (Breathe again). Air has no life in me. I am literally just visiting. (Keep breathing). You’re hurting me. Still hurting me. (You’re safe. I wouldn’t hurt you). I can’t fucking move now. (You’re paralysed). (Try moving your toes. That’s good. They lied to you). I did it. (You did it). Now what? (Now rest. Share what you want to. What you can). I just feel like I’m making this all up. It’s just depression. It’s just self obsession. I feel irritated. I just want to be alone. I have no words for anything. I am blank and mute and silent. God – all encompassing loving God- where are you?

in search of being human.

In a deeply disturbed world where darkness prevails, how can I create cultural and personal safety? How can I create a safe environment for me, my dissociated traumatized parts and therefore others?

What is my level of responsibility for treating others from a human level – particularly as I came from an environment where I was separated from self – therefore not intuitively having a connection to self and my environment?

How can I foster personal interconnectedness based on empathy and compassion when these values were stripped from my formative identity?

How do you move narratives of trauma into narratives of resistence, resilience and agency? – humanizing what’s been dehumanized. (Richard Frankland).

Questions and Considerations.

1. Identifying social, cultural, political loads (the settings) of the time.
2. From what perspective did one view the world?
3. Understanding that the Indigenous person (and the survivor of ritual organized abuse and trauma) was not and is not considered human. They have been and still are utterly defiled by white people and satanists (which can and does include the Church). The resilience and will to live is remarkable in consideration of this.
4. The oppressed can become the oppressor, they can also develop incredible empathy and cross the cultural (social) abyss.
5. Developing a language of inclusivity – representation – in how we speak, the signage around us… to see the undifferentiated other (Frankland).

Note to selves. In search of being human. An indigenous perspective on healing from organized ritual abuse.