3am and all’s not well

So, once again, I’m slipping back into my old patterns and in response “Ricky” has amped up and without the anxiety, disassociation or spasticity from my muscles being frozen I’m feeling more than ever.

I don’t know if I can sit till June 12th when I see Ontario shore. I wish someone would believe me and institutionalize me before “Ricky” hurts someone.

Actually, this is my cry for help, I’m not strong enough to go of my own volition. PLEASE HELP ME !!! But I need a padded cell and locked doors! Please don’t put me back in the Psych ER it’s too frightening and I’m afraid I’ll cease to exist.

Update: I’m being pulled in so many directions. I am about to lose my grip on my others and I’m afraid, that maybe I’m he other.

Update 2: And just like that whoever just typed that is gone and I can go back to the way it was, I’m almost convinced that I can just go back to work.

Update 3: typing is getting easier but something is trying to get me to delete this, there is no misunderstanding that I have others , or, that one of them is very dangerous.

Update 4: Mary if you read this when you have a break in the day can you drive me to the Ottawa Psych hospital, please. I no longer think I can control the monster inside of me and I’m a danger to myself and everyone else. I am typing this because I know that I will never be able to explain this before it’s too late.

Update 5: I’m trying to get my others to let us get some sleep but my stomach is so bad I feel like I’m going to vomit and my hands hurt from clenching them and I feel tingling all ever. I have to get some sleep my body is on fire because I keep reaching for the delete button.

Update 6: I don’t think I wait till everyone gets up, I might have to leave. Im just not sure that I will have the strength to go to the ER. so, I’ll do what I learned in DBT and use Opposite Action and force myself to get some sleep.

Update 7: I keep waking up and alternating between deleting this because I’m better and taking a taxi to the ER.

Fuck this is hell

Childhood trauma is the gift that keeps on giving

So I’m starting to piece together the transition from Ricky to Rick/Rich which happened in grade 8.

I was meditating and exploring an outline of memories of throwing myself off the monkey bars multiple times at school with the intent of my dad leaving work to take me to the hospital.

Again, no one noticed. But, I digress, anyway, why would I do that. What forces could make me do that and then it hit me. (pun intended)

My entire life has felt like an experiment and I was testing my environment to see if I was safe with my father and as he “saved” me multiple times, Rick was in charge and I asked everyone to start calling me Rick. You see we didn’t need those memories now that we were safe from Ricky’s mother. But as this was a natural thing for a 12-year-old, no one noticed.

It also explains why “I” have normal memories of living with my grandparents in the summers during the same time, but nothing but a handful of sound bites from time living at home.

I will keep exploiting and report back.

I think Wittgenstein was onto somthing

This is how talking about how I feel seems to me.

“Hey, I’ve been struggling can you grab me a Robertson number 2 screwdriver? The one with the red handle and is about 8 inches long.”

The persons response ” hey I was out today and found this 8 foot 2×4, will this help?”

And this how the world has always looked to me. I can never understand why no one believes or understands me.

So I’ll keep channeling my inner Wittgenstein

What am I to do when my survival tools are slowly killing me? Ask to be institutionalized, it is the best chance I have

So I’ve asked my therapist to be institutionalized because I know I will never be free of this any other way.

As I had my agency taken from me before I had words, it’s only natural I wouldn’t understand it as an adult as my brain was still forming. In my case, at two, I started pushing my emotions down as they were hindering my survival. What I was doing was fracturing my personality and over a dozen years of abuse I had no memory of it. No one in my family knew any of this, they just thought I was “a little shit” so my suffering continued but now I was trapped in my head.

I remember practicing controlling my emotions so I would not be too sad as they would give me something to cry about. Too happy was also an issue as my mother lost her battle with childhood trauma when I was two as my brother died. It seems that too much happiness hurt her and she would abuse me, so I had to hide that as well as my pain. The tragic thing for me was she felt safe pouring all her anger, sadness and angst on me. I was the problem, she would tell me “I wish you had died instead of your brother” or “you are the reason you father and I fight ” or just simply and more times then I could count “I wish you were dead” you see, I never had a chance and that’s just the emotional abuse. Because she didn’t care about me, explaining what I wanted never worked so the only thing I could do to get my most basic needs met was to manipulate her and that over time became as natural as breathing. I never speak unless I’ve escalated the issue to life-or-death status in my head as I’m conditioned to control my emotions at all costs.

As a teen I didn’t have any of these memories but was driven by something I didn’t understand and haunted by recurring nightmares.

It wasn’t till my breakdown in 2020 when I couldn’t hold the pieces together anymore that a few of the memories came back. Patricia and her family took me in and made me one of their own, that safety made me lose my grip on my others. As I knew I couldn’t control the “fear” anymore as it was too strong and I desperately knew something had to change. I had to put down these survival tools from long ago as they were killing me.

I have DID as I’ve suppressed my memories but the survival tool that is slowly killing me was my inability to talk which came from hiding my emotions as a child . This lead to my current inability to process my emotions as I’ve been blocking them for 50 years subconsciously.

There are so many layers of trauma and I am not capable to go any further on my own, I need help to unravel this safely. That is why I asked to be institutionalized as I don’t know how to proceed from here. HELP!!! It is impossible for me to talk as something stops me. Writing doesn’t seem to be a problem. Might be a good experiment to see if I can write when “Ricky’s” thoughts are bleeding into my consciousness. Hmmm….i will report back.

Progress Report: When trying to communicate by typing and “Ricky” is “pushing” my body is on fire and it becomes too much for me to handle as every nerve is on fire. Especially if I can see the other person is typing a response before I feel that they have “heard” me.

I have a completely irrational fear of being misunderstood which simultaneously paralyzes and make me need to escape. It’s HELL, to be honest.

This is obviously one of my “triggers” but I don’t remember why. Which is the worst as I have no idea why I feel this way.

MAID (Assisted Suicide) is essential to mental health and does reduce the urge to act on suicidal ideation.

All I can do is tell my story

I’ve been looking into MAID for a few years now, ever since it became a water cooler discussion.

I’m my darkest times MAID feels like a being wrapped in a blanket fresh from the dryer on a cold day.

I know, there must be something wrong with me, right? Unfortunately, this isn’t one of them, cognitive dissonance, emotional dysregulation, and mutism about my feelings are a few but not this.

Let me explain. On any given morning around 3 am when I can’t sleep because I’ve woken up again with my hands hurting from clenching them all night. I don’t see a way forward and I think of ending my suffering. The reasons I stop myself might surprise you, it’s always thoughts for others that stop me.

  • I don’t want my family to find my body
  • I don’t want them to be sad
  • What if this hurts them and they feel like me? That makes me want to endure more pain to “save” them

If you notice I’m only living to save others the pain of ending mine and that might be the saddest thing I’ve ever said.

So normalizing the MAID conversation gives me the “voice” to have a loving discussion with the people who matter to me which reduces my immediate urge to act. I still don’t want to keep waking up with my hands contorted into claws each day or have my skin on fire for no reason but at least I don’t have to die alone and that gives me relief.

All but one gave me an perfect response, while I’m not happy you are planning to utilize it, I respect your decision and will be at your side either way.

There might be a life lesson in their response, just saying. *shrug*

Autism, DID [psych term, not telecom ;-) ] and my evolving understanding

So, I’ve been spending the last 24 hours exploring what is actually happening when I get the ” overwhelming urge” to stab the dog, Run, fight, etc.

So I absolutely have to physically restrain myself but like I said I’m not angry but my body is on fire to react. It’s a very strange feeling to not be in control of your bodys physical movements. But the DID didn’t seem complete as I couldn’t understand why “ricky” would be mad.

Then I remembered a different track of experimentation from about 6 months ago, am I autistic?

Then it hit me, maybe my desire to move is what autism “feels” like and that’s what I’ve been controlling and why my physical sensations felt different from my environment.

So my current theory is that when I was a small child I exhibited the normal autism behaviors and was told I needed to stop them. Hitting myself, flapping my arms, etc as normal people don’t do that. But when my brother died and my mothers pain finally consumed her I was made to believe that changing my behavior was life or death. So I practiced smiling in the mirror and flexing my entire body to stop my involuntary arm movements. This coupled with my mother telling my 2 year old self that she wished I was never born and why didn’t I die instead of David or my personal favourite “you are the reason your dad and I fight “. You see, I never had a chance.

This theory fits the data but I’m still scared to open the box and see if I’m right

Maybe one day I’ll be able to remember but for now the current theory is giving me some relief as at least it fits more of the data.

Generational Trauma and Canadian Systems

It’s so obvious now that the Canadian Systems lets people down who suffer from generation trauma.

In my case, while I don’t have many memories of my mother but I have a clear image of her standing over my bed as a small child telling me that she remembers waking up to hands all over her. My child’s mind didn’t understand but now I can see she was abused. It’s understandable given her background that when my brother died at 28 hours old she would break and never recover.

Unfortunately for me, while everyone was trying the help her no one noticed that she projected her anger, frustration and dispare at how unfair life was onto her 2-year-old child.

I asked my aunt if she had any memories of me and my mother together she responded “when you were very little she and I were sitting in front of the house and you came home with uncle Tim. Your mom called you over to give her a kiss and as soon as you did, your mother said “now go fuck off” in a deadpan voice” it shook me to be honest.

This was what she was willing to show my aunt. At home it was much worse and if my physical sensations are to be believed she used to lock me in my toy box and say terrible things me at 2-years-old . Which hindered the development of a sense of self as that happens in the first 5 years of life. I tell you this in an effort to be seen but I am also terrified as the last time I tried to show all of me my mother took away my agency. So, “Ricky” is fucking scared and is trying to make me carpet bomb and salt the earth of every relationship I have, so that I don’t look in that box.

I don’t really understand what this means other than I “know” it to be true.

The health system failed me as there is nowhere for someone like me to get help unless I hurt myself or someone else. As someone in the system it seems that is where the Canadian Government has drawn the line for care “are you a danger to yourself or others” they need to add physical to the above statement to make it accurate.

The Canadian Legal system didn’t protect me from itself. As it seems that the legal system assumes, like game theory, that people will act in their self-interest. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for the last 11 years as I didn’t understand the rules. Each time I was “reasonable” the court took that as my starting position rather than my compromise. After 12 years of me not being able to defend myself because of my condition, escalated into the court system trying to impute an income of 200k a year on me and if I didn’t pay, I would be in and out of jail every 18 months or so for 90 days for the rest of my life.

So I struggle to go forward, unable to stay here, and back is a path to an early grave.

What does being mentally ill feel like?

So as everyone can tell I’m working of speaking when I’m uncomfortable.

But I’ve never actually told everyone what mental health issues feel like.

It’s similar to walking down a steep hill. You start slow and quickly realize that to stay upright you need to walk faster but you keep speeding up just to stay upright. Until you are running so fast that you wonder how long you can keep from falling and you have no idea how you got here.

The complete loss of control and abject fear is palpable

Then your loving partner asks you to take out the trash or empty the dishwasher and you think, HOW, every bit of my energy is taken up with focusing on running down this hill and not tripping on my feet. How can I empty the dishwasher as well?

That’s what living with mental illness feels like. You are working as hard as you can just to survive and your wondering how the fuck it got so out of control.

No one would admit they have a mental health issue unless there are no other choices.

So it seems I’m at a cross roads of my healing journey.

After my post yesterday about being scared of myself, I now know why. Ricky is so scared and hurt that he almost stabbed my dog yesterday. I was trying to make a sandwich and my loving dog wanted attention when she wouldn’t stop my blood boiled and I had to use all my strength to stop from grabbing the steak knife and stabbing her. It was instantaneous and was almost too much for me to hold in check, if Ricky was any stronger I wouldn’t have been able to stop. (added for clarity: I had to flex all my muscles like I was getting into a car accident to stop stabbing the dog. Once the compulsion to act stopped I went into my office and shut the door so the physical anxiety could stop, I was never mad at the dog, Ricky was.) Now I know why I held Ricky in check with anxiety (before I admitted he was there) he’s a danger to us and others. But, I can’t go to the ER Psych ward as that is hell, people screaming and walking the halls all night, no locks on the doors. 3 days were enough, I will do anything not to go back there but I need more help than I’m getting at the moment.

I have no idea how to go forwards, I can’t stay here and going backwards is a path to an early grave.

If anyone has thoughts I’m all ears…

Why am I scared of myself?

Why do the good times feel like they are dangerous to my mental health?

I’m starting to realize my good days are when my condition is at its most dangerous to me. During a good day, I start to question whether I’m even sick as Ricky is quiet and I don’t feel as much physical anxiety. Then something changes, positive or negative, it rarely matters, that breaks the illusion and Ricky starts the onslaught. It seems to hit me without warning and like a tsunami, I’m carried away at the moment. So it is when I feel good that I need to be at my most careful. Maybe that is why I’m so uncomfortable when it seems that I can let my guard down, I don’t trust myself? How can I trust good times when I can’t trust my own experiences? Somehow this seems to magnify the negative thoughts until I’m convinced they are true. So why would I trust good times when my physical sensations or my emotional dysregulation seems inconsistent with the events?

Things to ask my therapist tomorrow