indigos journal

it’s seems hard for people to grasp why i fear the state of utah. granted, i haven’t given out ALL the information. and, granted, my story is not one you hear every day. but i do want some people to understand.

so…without further ado, here is another exerpt of my life.

somewhere around january 1997 (we’re really bad with time…the woman i talk about here would remember more precisely.) i was living in housing indirectly connected with the utah state mental health system. it was independent living, but we all had to contribute to keeping the building clean and operational. it was a “secure” building, in that the outside doors locked and you had to be buzzed in. i was not in contact with my family, having requested time away…every time i talked with them i became extremely suicidal.

at this time, although i knew about being multiple we did not enjoy the cooperation and co-consciousness that we now do. so i did not understand much of what was happening. including the fact that my parents were, in fact, not respecting our request.

also around january 2007, we met a woman we were to be with for 6 years. although in the beginning the time was spent with the bigs (and some older teens), it wasn’t long before the kids showed up. she was good with them.

one day, the main child at the time, lizbeth, told this partner that on such and such a night, at midnight, “the bad people” were coming to get us. she warned that they would try to get in the apartment door (how would they get past the outside doors?) and they would try the windows. she also warned that someone would be triggered out whose whole job was to make sure that they succeeded in getting us. our partner went with us to our next therapy appointment, where lizbeth told the same story.

i didn’t believe it. our partner didn’t really believe it. but just to be on the safe side, she spent the night. she put a chair under the door and made sure all the entry points were locked.

sure enough, just as lizbeth said, they showed up. they tried the door. (how DID they get past the outside doors?) they tried the windows. they tried for a long time. and, sure enough, someone was out who, though naked, tried like hell to get out to the “bad people”.

from that point on, our partner stayed at our house or we stayed at hers. then we found an apartment together and moved in. we thought we were safe. we were already on disability, so we were usually home while our partner worked.

the days passed, as they do. soon someone, probably lizbeth again, told that they were accessing us when our partner was gone. we also got weird phone calls and pages.

our partner was (actually, she still is) very intimidating. we both believed that she could keep us safe. the problem was, she couldn’t be with us 24/7. nor should she have to. we do need time alone. but they thrived on the times when they could find us alone. and on triggering us through the phone and pager.

then one day, during the summer, (again, not so good at times and dates) we got a phone call from our therapist. (a wonderful woman, who shall remain nameless for her own protection) see, we were on our father’s insurance. his insurance covered children until they are 24 or married. we were 21 and unmarried. my father had called my therapist, saying that his insurance had changed, and I needed that information. she asked him if he would be willing to work through her. he agreed, and she called me. on those terms, i agreed to work it out.

so she called him back, ready to work this out. only now he was demanding to talk to me, saying that he would only work it out directly with me. he stated that “the insurance has changed. if you don’t talk to me, you will no longer be protected.” she called me back to relay that message.

we immediately went into panic mode…i didn’t understand it at the time, but the others insisted that if we didn’t leave utah we would be killed. they were so united and strong that i trusted it, even if i didn’t understand. within the week we were out of utah. our partner stayed a few more weeks to finish up at her job and pack all our stuff. we met up weeks later. eventually we ended up here in seattle.

they are still convinced that if we go into utah we are risking our lives. and they are convinced that no one can protect us. our partner is pretty strong and protective, and she wasn’t able to. again, someone cannot be with us every second.

i don’t know if our father was warning us, or trying to trigger us into coming back. either one is possible.

this is all the gatekeepers are allowing us to say right now…we will hopefully be able to tell more at another time.

(so…jason is a 16 year old insider. his job has always been to take to horribly overwhelming feelings of despair, desperation and suicidal longings. he’s done an amazing job of this. but, as he told a previous therapist, this means that he has two states of being: asleep and suicidal. we’re working on helping him not have to carry this stuff alone. he’s working on communicating instead of carrying on alone.  he’s also, apparently, our poet in residence.)
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despair seeps through my pores/i reek of depression/i cannot see beyond this moment/i want to die.

so…last night/this morning we had this nightmare. we were being held captive by our family. they believed that all our therapy work since leaving was the work of a cult (irony, anyone?) and they planned to “deprogram” us. but first they were just keeping us. all sorts of family were there…adults, kids…the house was totally full. we were not left alone for even a second…no chance to reach out to anyone for help.

so, naturally, at first, we were really angry and belligerent. the way they finally started to get us, was that one of the kids came up to us and asked us why we didn’t like them anymore. (cause we were so angry and kept ourselves away from everyone.) we explained that it had nothing to do with them…but after that we tried to be nicer to the kids…and we spent all our time with them.

i don’t know how it would have turned out, because we were wakened (into a panicked state) by the doorbell…our first assumption was that we must have missed our alarm, and it was our friend come to get us. but no…C had a package delivered here, and it was the fedex guy…we were still panicked, because we sleep in the nude and had to get dressed really fast!

i think there are so many layers to this dream…

1) taking it at face value: there is a lot of irony. people that abused us, including in a cult-like setting, accusing us of being in a cult. false-memory crap, anyone?

2) when we starting getting help, a lot of people inside protested…it was breaking rules…and it was the kids that broke through first…they always have been the bravest.

i forget where else we were going with this…just had an upsetting phone call with C…

ugh…sometimes i wonder why we keep her around…

in other news…we are trying to curb our swearing…we use it way too often, instead of looking for other ways to express ourself and get in touch with the real emotion(s) that are happening. but don’t worry…we are not going to become an anti-swearing nazi….this is just about us.

going to go try to relax for a bit…still wound up from that upsetting and infuriating phone call.

the longer we have fibro, the more we learn and connect things on a personal basis.

for instance…

it just hit us sunday night, as we once again crashed emotionally, that when we are really tired and in pain, we will crash emotionally.

our biggest challenge with this is to let go of “what is normal”, “what i should be like”, etc, etc, etc. we always think, when we crash physically, sometimes after what feels like so little exertion, that we are resting/sleeping too much.

but dammit…this is our body, our emotions…we need to do what is right for us. otherwise the struggle with this will continue at a crisis level indefinitely. we need to focus on taking care of ourself, and doing what feels right for us at any given moment.

and sleep really does help when we crash physically and emotionally. even just a couple of hours of sleep makes a huge difference.

so…as we mentioned a couple of entries ago, we’ve been more in touch with the before…with what it was like before we left Utah. this, of course, includes the time living with our parents.

was used to describe our mom as such: she is a travel agent for guilt trips. tis true. (both our saying it and her being it.) if we got close to someone else (especially an adult), made a new friend, showed a life outside of her, she would say things like: “you don’t need me anymore, so i might as well die now.”

it was, of course, our job to convince her that we did need her and that she shouldn’t commit suicide.

she would also try to befriend that person (the new friend) and tell them all sorts of horrible things about us, so that the person would no longer be our friend. some of them ended up being her friend instead. that was always a big achievement to her…to steal our friends from us. it’s hard to be mad at the folks she stole away…even we believed her about how bad we were.

she was not without her charm when she needed it. she needed it…her chief occupation was making sure she looked good…not physically…but as a mother, as a member of the church, as a wife, as a friend…etc, etc. this was also partly our responsibility. we were not allowed to say or do anything that shed a negative light on her. that was her cover for the abuse…she had to look good. our family had to look good.

when we became outwardly suicidal, two things happened in relationship to her: 1) our brother was arrested for molesting us; and 2) she faked a suicide attempt to grab back the attention we were getting. she really played up the “my son molested my daughter, woe is me” card.

although our brother had, indeed, been molesting us, physically abusing and verbally abusing us, my parents knew about it and did nothing. but when i start attracting attention towards the family…attention that said “something is wrong”…he became the scapegoat. then all my problems could be blamed on that.

it was ok, though. my brother was a minor, so the records are sealed. and because he was a ward of the court for the seven or so months before he turned eighteen, he had all his schooling paid for…all the way through the end. unlike us, he never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from and if he would have a place to live. such punishment.

i’m not at all bitter, though. lol…

i used to think that no one would believe us if we told…even this relatively mild stuff (she did so, so much more) now we wonder. did people really believe all the garbage? or did they know something was off, but couldn’t do anything about it without more info?

i don’t think i’ll ever really know, because i don’t plan on being in contact with my family or the people that surrounded my family. anytime i would so much as talk with them, i would walk away highly suicidal.

we were physically, verbally and emotionally abused by our mother, our father and our brother. there was also at least one uncle that did so.

even without that heavy-duty shit, things weren’t great. as we became a teenager, and after our brother was arrested just before our thirteenth birthday, we started fighting a lot more. especially when we didn’t play our role right…when, for instance, we quit pretending that everything was fine with us. and at 16 or so when we quit trying to convince her that she should live.

during our teenage years, we smoked, did drugs like pot and lsd, drank, cut school and cut our body. our parents knew about those things, and again, did nothing about them. we tried reaching out for help many times, but we were programmed too well to give enough details to receive that help.

not that some people didn’t try. our youth has many examples of adults who tried to make life easier for us in any way they could. i thank those people for being part of what kept us alive. because, from where we are now, we don’t want to die. we don’t always live in that dark place anymore.

mom still terrifies us, though. sigh.

i think that is all we are able to share right now.

this is after two pokes on Thursday, two pokes on Friday….we finally get this.

at least they got their blood.

it looks even more spectacular in person.  my camera phone doesn’t always play nicely.  for that matter, neither do i.  mwa-ha-ha…

the following is from an email we sent to a dear friend…one from the before.  we, of course, edited out all the personal parts.  but the rest i thought worthy of sharing.  we didn’t go into tons of details of the abuse, but hopefully people will get enough of the point.

“I’ve had so many emotions running around…it’s hard to find the words to explain.  So bear with me as I tell a story, some of which you already know.

From the time I was very, very young I experienced horrible things both at home and in situations engineered outside the family.  I won’t go into details because I don’t think that will help anything.  (But I am always open to questions.)  I learned early on that trying to tell was: a) a very dangerous thing to do that could get people killed; and b) that I wouldn’t be believed…my story was too “out there.”  Consequently, I felt very alone. I remember connecting the word “suicide” with some of how I felt while I was in the sixth grade.

I started getting help when I was 18…and I started trying to break away from my abusers.  They fought back just as hard.  At 21, I felt my life was seriously in danger if I didn’t either go back to them or leave the state.  With a supportive girlfriend to help me, I did just that.

From the time my bus pulled out of Salt Lake, I decided to put all the behind me.  But in order to do that, I had to label it all as bad.  At that time, it was too painful and confusing and overwhelming to try and understand it all.  So I pushed it all away and refused to think about anything from before leaving Utah.  (It’s easier for us dissociatives to do that…)  Even my name was (and still is, but to a lesser degree) a huge trigger for me.  Most of the time I still can’t say it.

<a paragraph about getting in touch with said friend several years after moving away from Utah.>

I didn’t understand it at the time, but the hard thing about repression is that you can’t pick and choose.  So, letting out one piece, albeit a good piece, of my life from then let loose the rest.  And I found myself scared and uncomfortable and overwhelmed.  I started feeling all the feelings from back then that I had shoved away.  And so the only thing I knew to do (at that time) was to shove it all back again.  By this point, though, none of this process was conscious.

<we lost contact with this friend as part of the shoving it all away thing…remember how we learned you can’t pick and choose?>

Fast forward several years again.  By now I’ve grown a lot more, in a whole lot of areas.  Letting things loose is still painful and scary and overwhelming at times.  But now I’m able to deal with it.  More importantly, I am aware of the whole process.  Awareness is so important…  And I decided that I didn’t want to throw away everything from my past.  I am who I am because of it, and most of the time I like who I’ve become and am becoming.  And not everything from the past is bad or ugly.  So once again I decided to look for you. ”

so basically…as the teenagers are out more, we expose ourselves to elements of our past…the feelings from then come flooding back.  a lot of the time the majority of this happens at night…the sad/alone/despair/hopeless…but sometimes it takes over the daytime as well.  it’s not constant.  and there are so many good things that come from both having the teenagers around and letting ourselves experience the past.

anyway…i hope that makes sense.

there is so much to say in my life right now…we seem to be working at turbo-speed… (*rolling my eyes*… i know, nothing new there…)  and there also is the sudden desire to get it all down.

and, not knowing where to start in getting it all down, i’ll just grab a piece of paper out of the metaphorical hat, and start there.

so…yesterday we had our monthly visitor with our phenomenal doctor.  point by point, here’s basically how it went. (after the great to see you, exchanging hugs, etc. etc.)

fibro — nothing new there.  stable on the medication.  still working on balancing our energy stores and pacing how much we do. it is also being effected by our still healing ankle.

back — as above, it is still being effected by our ankle.  we both decided to wait on physical therapy to see if it works itself out as the ankle heals.

ankle — the fracture is fine.  the sprain, like all sprains, is taking it’s own sweet time.  i’m still using the cane when i’m out and about, for added stability.  the task is to be careful how i move it…but progress is being made, as we drove on tuesday for the first time since the accident!

finger — it too is sprained.  (probably from the same fall, but not positive)  so it too is just a matter of time and being careful with it.

misc stuff — getting blood drawn to check multiple vitamin levels, as this hasn’t been done since january…hopefully the vit d and iron supplements are helping, and hopefully the b12 hasn’t fallen again.  also checking my glucose levels, as i am having to pee way to much and often… (hope that wasn’t tmi…)

and we finally (after years) got up the courage to ask her about the rash on our arms and legs.  she told us what it was, but it was a medical term and we forgot to have her write it down. sigh. carro-something.  it has to do with the hair follicles.  anyway, she gave us a scrip for a urea cream, which is supposed to help it a lot.  we’ll pick it up today.

i suddenly forget what else i wanted to talk about…so i’m going to end now and just write a new entry when i remember.

a good friend of ours, that we also follow on Twitter, said this: 

@lazyqueer thinks getting turned on is like laughing when you’re tickled; it’s meaningless as an act or indication of consent.

wow!  what a mind-blowing statement.  we’ve long heard therapists and others talk about how it’s just your body’s reaction, it doesn’t mean anything about you…blah, blah, blah.  i mean, yeah, we’ve long gotten it in our head.  but often, how do you move it from your head to your heart?  because, really, your heart is where it really counts.  where your beliefs *really* come from.

but, quite frankly, we’ve never heard it said in a way that shot straight to our heart the way this statement of lazyqueer’s did.

thank you, lazyqueer.  thank you for helping me make a much needed breakthrough.

wow.

this is what we sent our therapist…

“We must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”    ~Gandhi

this would apply to us too, right?  if a few drops are the bad things *we* did, that does not make the whole being dirty. right? are we on the right track?