Who Art Thou, Imposter?

My new T and I have been working through some things that my old T had really upset me about in the past. I have been sending my new T some of my old emails to her - (conversations between me and my old T). I came across one particular email that really hit me hard...at first I tried to put it aside and forget it but it kept nagging me in the back of my mind.

At the time, I had been pretty much on bed rest because of my severely high pain levels. I was about 19 years old, on morphine, and basically stuck in bed all day except for when I had my college classes. My old T was convinced that my alters were sabotaging my life and I kept defending them, telling my old T that they weren't making me sick. This is what I wrote to my old T late one night...

“You don’t know what it’s like. There are theories from people who know nothing about having voices in their head. There are things I just know. I can’t prove them, but I know them. I know they are true. I know I have alters who lie and do things I hate, but this is me talking. I live with this disorder every moment of every day. I know things about it that nobody else would know - unless they have alters. There are things I can never tell. Never explain. Never be able to prove. But I know. I know...
 

I know it sounds weird when I say that I know when I can eat or drink certain things, or when certain things make me feel better or worse. It probably sounds like I’m crazy or that I’m making it up, but I swear I’m not. There is something going on and I can’t figure out what it is. It is frustrating and tiresome and ridiculous but I’m willing to fight for it. 

You don’t know what it’s like to live like this. To be afraid of things most people cannot see. To talk to people who are only talking to you. To never sleep; instead, you see things and call them dreams because you don’t know what else to call them. Supposed memories that come to you, and people telling you it’s from your life but you don’t ever remember living it. You go weeks without eating anything and yet you look the exact same – as if no matter how much pain you have to suffer through from starving to death it never shows the effects on the outside. 

I can’t explain to someone what it is like to look in a mirror and not recognize the face inside it. How there are some days I wake up and it takes everything inside me to put on a mask and walk through my life like someone else. I am the person that you pretend does not exist, except that is all I am, all of the time. 

I feel like I’m always trying to give people what they want or expect, but I’m always falling short. Somehow I end up being the disappointment. 

People I thought I knew, I really don’t know at all. Just like they don’t really know me, either."

I know I have come a long way from that point in my life, but there are still times when I feel like that person. I often wonder if I will ever stop feeling like an imposter in my own body?

Big Changes

So many changes have taken place since I have last had a chance to sit down and blog. Big changes - both good and bad.

Being a teacher is very hard. Oftentimes I work 10 to 12 hour days (or more) because there are just simply not enough school hours to get everything done - and I'm not the only teacher who is staying this long. At least half of the other teachers are pulling crazy hours like this too, sometimes even more. Unexpected things pop up, meetings run long, prep hours disappear, emergencies, etc. Pretty soon you find yourself chained to your desk hidden behind a mountain of papers, wondering how far away the weekend is. I don't want my job to be like that. I want to love my job. I want to look forward to going to work. I love my students and I want to have a positive attitude so when I am working with them I can have a positive influence in their lives.

I moved. I got myself some roommates and moved out of my parents house (yay!) and it is awesome! I forgot how much better I do when I live on my own away from family. It has been a nice change.

I have been struggling. This time of year is always really rough for me and stays rough until after Thanksgiving/Christmas. I'm hoping this year things will be better because I will have a healthy escape (my house) to go to when my family and extended family become too overwhelming or triggering. I also have a new T that is amazing and has already done so much for me and my alters.


*Bee

Wow. That Session Was Amazing!

For those of you who have been following my blog, you know that I've been having some major issues with my T. I ended up finding a therapist that I first met with about a week and a half ago - it was that initial "interview" session. Right away I felt this connection to her. Things just felt so right and there was a very powerful energy in the room.

Today I had my first official session with her - wow. That session was AMAZING!

On my way home from my session, I called my T (who I have been seeing for over 5 years) and told her that I wasn't going to be seeing her anymore. I feel like a giant weight has been lifted off of my shoulders!

Anyway, back to my new T!!

I have an alter who is under the age of 10, and who is always so so angry. She comes out and breaks things, tears things apart, sets fires, bangs her head, yells and screams, ruins anything she can get her hands on. Lately she has been having memories surface and it has been a real struggle for everyone in the system. My old T was afraid to work with her so that alter never came out during our sessions.

Well, today she came out during our first session with new T and WOW! Words cannot describe how amazing this T is. Not only did she meet this alter - new T talked with her the entire 60 minutes, and was so great with her that this alter didn't want to leave. For those of you who have an alter like this, you know how rare this is. This alter, who has hated everything and everyone for as long as I can remember, left today's session with a smile on her face. A SMILE!

Today's session had that same powerful energy - warm, encompassing, friendly, calming. My alters and I pick up on that so fast. I can't believe I've never been able to find her before.

Wow...I'm still just totally baffled and it has been several hours now since the session. I wish everyone could have a therapist who is this amazing.

I'm still "WOW"-ing in my head, over and over again!


*Bee

The Waves Keep Coming...

I apologize for the choppy-ness of this post and any triggers it may cause. I've been severely dissociated lately and it's hard to be grounded enough to type clearly.

It all started with the first days back to work with the other fellow teachers - no students. Only a couple of the teachers were here last year with me, all the rest are new. The chemistry is beyond fantastic. It's going to be an amazing year.

One teacher in particular, a male, has taken interest in me. Not in a bad way; he is a really great guy! We're able to joke around with each other at any given moment and it's nice to have someone like that. We've hung out quite a bit over the past few weeks. I'll call him L.N.

The end of the first week of school, with students, some of the teachers went to a restaurant after school to unwind, drink, talk, whatever. I don't drink - I'm very allergic to alcohol - but I went for the social part of it. My boss over my particular department got very drunk. More drunk than I've ever seen at a place like this.

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

He ended up hitting on me at first, then talking about his dick - how big it was, how "pleasing" it was. I immediately started freaking out, internally, because externally I had to appear normal. I wanted to get out of there and just go home. L.N. volunteered to take this guy home but I could tell he really didn't want to. L.N. turned to me and asked if I could go with him to take this other guy home. I agreed because I trust L.N. (wow, did I just say that out loud??) but as soon as we got in the car, I regretted it.

The entire 30 minute car ride was my boss talking about how attractive and sexy I was. How big his dick was and how it didn't matter in the end. How I needed to find a good and honest guy to marry and have a family. How much he liked my body and my mind. I was frozen in the backseat, not able to say anything or even move. Absolutely terrifying.

***End Triggers***

We finally got him home and the car ride back was a little better. L.N. kept apologizing over and over again. He could tell I wasn't doing so good.

Ever since that night, I've been extremely dissociated. This whole week has been hell.

I've had several different parents attack me personally. One set of parents yelled at me for 5 minutes until the principal told them that I wasn't their student's teacher last year.

I woke up with a black eye one morning because my alters had been fighting with each other all night long. I've had yelling, screaming, fighting, etc going on in my head while teaching. I honestly don't understand how hell can be going on in your mind but on the outside look so "normal". It's a freaking miracle I haven't had an emotional breakdown yet.

Dissociation is my worst enemy and my best friend.

I got into a huge fight with my best friend - we've been friends for over 13 years now, more than half of my life. It was big and loud and ugly.
Then my sister Bri was yelling at me all week for who knows why!
My sister R called me a jerk and blamed me for not doing something SHE was responsible for.
My sister Ruthie is being taken from our family and will be living somewhere else - no one will tell us how long she'll be gone.
I'm so anxious and stressed out that I can't breathe. I've hardly ate anything. I haven't been sleeping.

I keep all my secrets deep inside of me. When I finally get to a point where I'm ready to talk about one of them, but there is no one to tell, that secret buries itself even deeper and the chances of it coming back up is slim to none.

I'm too exhausted to type anymore...


*Bee

Busy & Crazy But Good

My life has been one big bunch of craziness! I finally got the keys to my new classroom, so the past two weeks I have been at my school trying to put my classroom together. I do, however, LOVE that I'm busy again! I forgot how much I love being busy all the time...
For those of you who have been following me, you've heard a lot about my T. The new update - I have decided to keep my T until I have found a new therapist that is a good match for me and my system. At this point in time, I want to have support from a T who knows me but I don't want to see her unless I really need to. This gives me a chance to search for a new T while not stressing myself out.

My T, however, gained some points this past week. I'm sure those of you with DID can relate...

I have been having a really hard time with one of my alters. She is considered a "main alter" in my system, meaning she is out a lot and is a very positive influence. Lately she has been remembering some very awful memories and she is really struggling. My other main alters and I have been constantly searching for new ways and techniques to help her through this hard time but nothing has worked. I felt so helpless watching her suffer so much...

We decided, as a system, to have a short session with our T to explain to her the situation and see if she had any suggestions that might help us to figure this out. Our T ended up suggesting something we thought was totally all wrong for this alter and that it would only complicate things even more.We left her office feeling even more frustrated.

A few days later, one of my alters came to me and said that we should just try our T's suggestion. We all knew it was a long shot but after a cumulative vote, we agreed to try.

Not even 10 minutes had gone by and this alter was improving exponentially! I was so surprised by this that I couldn't even think straight. It has now been 4 days since we tried our T's suggestion and this alter is already back into the swing of things and doing so great!

So for now, our T has earned some major points and has been bumped back up to a person we can learn to trust again. This doesn't mean we're going to stick with her - I still want to find a new T. But this positive experience will help me to move on without feeling guilty and emotionally attached. I will be able to move on without negative feelings regarding her.

I hope you all have a fantastic week! I finally get my students on Monday!! SO excited!!!


*Bee

Reflection

Yesterday I was talking to my best friend about school starting back up again. I am so excited for the new school year and the new challenges it will bring. As we were talking, she started naming off all of the things I was able to help my students with this last school year.

One of my students, we'll call her Lexi, has a learning disability in both math and language arts (basically an English class). She came to me for both class periods and I taught her at her level of understanding. Lexi was extremely shy and withdrawn when I first met her during my student teaching and I immediately took her under my wing. She reminded me of myself when I was her age.

Although Lexi was an 8th grader, her level of understanding was about 3rd/4th grade. Her main struggle was her inability to retain information unless it was repeatedly taught to her over a long period of time. There were times that I spent the entire 60 minutes teaching her a simple math concept, and then the next day she would have no idea how to do the math problems based on what we had learned the day before. After several weeks of this, I became frustrated with myself because I wasn't able to get through to her.

What I did start noticing, however, was that she was starting to open up to me. Instead of me trying to get her to talk to me, Lexi would start the conversation! She started asking more questions and was able to voice what she wasn't understanding. As time went on she became more outgoing and self-confident. I became less frustrated with myself and did the best I could.

The last week of school, I was working with Lexi on her last math assignment. It was long division - we had been working on long division for 5 months with no real breakthrough. As she was working out the first problem, she looked up at me and said "I never knew how to do long division before because no one would teach it to me. Thank you for teaching me." She smiled and then went back to her assignment. It took all my strength to hold back the tears. I was so happy for her, but at the same time it made me so sad to think that all of her other math teachers hadn't bothered to spend some extra time with Lexi to teach her long division.

There are times when I feel like I need to be a better teacher because I'm not teaching my students "good enough"...but then I think back and remember Lexi. Something so simple that I had done for her meant the world to her.

I want to be able to do that for each and every one of my students.


*Bee

Barely Hanging On

I have been struggling a lot lately... I know it is because I'm way over thinking and over analyzing everything. I do this when I have long break periods between things, like my long summer break until school starts back up again in the fall. I have fallen into my old pattern of over thinking and over analyzing...and I'm making myself sick because of it.

I'm afraid that I will fail as a teacher when school starts up again.
I'm afraid that I will have such a major breakdown that I will need to be hospitalized.
I'm afraid that I will go inside and never be able to come out again.
I'm afraid that I won't be able to trust my new T and that my alters will get worse, like before.
I'm afraid that I will fail.

No matter how hard I try to distract myself, these thoughts keep creeping back up into my mind and I am paralyzed with this overwhelming fear that I'm going to be a failure.

I don't know why so many people have told me that I'm amazing. That I'm smart. That I'm extremely talented. That I'm a hard worker. That I'm one-of-a-kind. I don't feel like I'm any of these. I feel like I'm a fake. I feel like I'm pretending to be all these things so people will think highly of me. I feel like I'm going to mess up big time and then all of those people will be so disappointed in me.

Why am I always thinking that I'm going to fail?


*Bee

Response

(This post is a continuation of my last post - here)

I would have written this post sooner but I have been really sick these last few days and I've had no extra energy for anything but sleeping.

After sending my letter/email to my T on Saturday, I spent the weekend feeling very anxious and panicky. I didn't know how my T would respond and I just wanted some indication that she had at least read it. By Monday I had still not heard anything and so I took my emotions and pushed them to some place deep inside me.

Tuesday morning I received a call from my T and she asked if I could come in to see her. She said she wanted to talk to me and clear things up. I was hesitant, very hesitant, to meet with her since I had decided that our previous session would be the last one for a while, but, she said her colleague Dr S would be with us as well. I like Dr S a lot and I knew that having him there would be best in this situation.

During the session my T told me why she has been unavailable, even after she had promised me that she would be there for me. Once she had told me everything that has been going on (soooo much going on!), I asked her why she would share all of this with me. She looked at me for a second and then said, "Bee, I'm not going anywhere. I am here for you one hundred percent. I made a promise to you when I first started seeing you that I would stick with you for the whole ride, the whole journey. No matter what is going on in my personal life, I will make time for you."

While she was telling me this, I felt so special and loved and my anxiety slowly calmed down...

...but...

...I still had that nagging feeling in my gut that this was just another promise she was making that she wouldn't be able to keep...

Is that fair? Should I give her another chance? Should I keep crawling back to her?

As I look at this situation from an outside perspective, pretending that I am not this girl, pretending that I don't know this girl or this T -- I find myself disgusted. I find myself wondering why does this girl keep going back to her T? Why does this girl keep putting herself in the same situation over and over and over again?

I don't know why I keep going back. However, I did tell her that I want to take a break from her. I need to clear my head and figure out what I'm going to do. She set up an appointment with me for a month from that day, but I honestly don't think I'll be seeing her again.

I hope and pray that I am doing the right thing...because it is so, so hard.


*Bee

Dear T

For those of you who have been following my blog know that I've had a rough couple of months with my T. She has been unavailable, cancelling appointments, repeatedly rescheduling appointments, saying and doing things that have hurt me and my alters. Yesterday I had a session with her and I was so angry and upset with her that I could hardly talk to her. I left with hateful thoughts and feelings, which is not like me at all.

Today I wrote her a letter because I can express myself so much better with written words, and I want to share that letter with you guys...

"Dear T,

I’m sorry about yesterday. I know you are there to help me, it’s just really hard for me to vocalize what is going on in my head. Most of the time it is really scary and unpredictable and I just want to be able to talk about it, but it’s hard.

I want so badly to be liked by everybody but I feel like I always fall short. I want at least some consistency to my crazy life so I expect certain things to always be there and when they’re not, I lose it. I break down. I fall apart. I expect you to be there for me for that small block of time every week, and when you’re not it really really hurts me. When you promise you’ll do something and you don’t follow through with it, it really really hurts me. And this week I needed something consistent and nothing was and I couldn’t handle it anymore.

I know that things come up. I know life can throw some pretty wicked curve-balls that no one predicts. I know that even if you want something badly enough that you would kill for it, you still might not get it. I know that you can’t always be there because that wouldn’t be healthy for either one of us but I need to know that you won’t abandon me because so many people have. I really want to be able to work through these awful things and heal. I don’t want to be scared anymore.

I don’t think there is any way for me to help you understand why it is so scary for me but I’ll try… I feel…lost, unimportant, not trusted, frustrated, angry, upset, confused, heartbroken, abandoned. So now what? It doesn’t matter if I lose months at a time and never remember anything? It doesn’t matter if I don’t come out for days at a time? It doesn’t matter that because I’ve been the main person for so long that now it’s someone else’s turn? Yeah, I know I’m still “me” but my whole concept of “me” is so distorted anyway and now I find out that I’m not who I thought “me” was?

Right now I am terrified and scared half out of my mind because I don’t know who I am, but I know I won’t feel like this forever. I just need you to know that that is where I am at right now because I’m freaking out and I can’t talk to anybody else about it. Not H, not K, not R, not B, not anybody. I need you to be there, even if it is through emails, because I am really scared and I have no idea what to do.

You were the person who got me to open up and share what has happened to me and what I’m going through. What I need is for you to listen and to just let me share what I’m feeling or going through at that moment so I can process it, and then let it go. I need that or else I end up holding on to a piece of it and it just comes back up again ten times worse. I have so many secrets bolted up inside of me that I can’t share because I don’t feel safe enough to, but I want to feel safe enough to share them. I’m so tired from carrying them around all the time."

*Bee

Goodbye T, I Am SO Done...

I am so sick of this...so so so so so so sick of this.

My T had turned a full 180 degrees - she was returning my calls and emails, she went out of her way to check on me, our sessions were going great, my alters were happy, hell, I was happy! I stuck with my T because I thought she had finally realized what she was doing to me.

I was so wrong.

Why can't my T keep an appointment? Is it really that hard?!?! I mean, come on, seriously?!

I'm literally hanging by a thread, barely keeping it together. I've been going running every day just to feel something and I'm under strict doctors orders not to exercise.

Damn it, I can't keep doing this.

And my T wonders why I have trust issues. Gee, I wonder why?! Maybe if you kept our Goddamn appointments I could actually start making some progress!

We were supposed to meet earlier this week, she called to reschedule an hour before I was supposed to see her. We were supposed to meet tomorrow (Thursday) and she just called me to reschedule AGAIN. How much do you wanna bet that she's going to call again tomorrow to "reschedule"???

Goodbye T, I am SO done.


*Bee