journey not recovery

In my previous post on object permanence ( object permanence or lack thereof ),  I discussed how impossible it felt for me to "hold onto" others; to grasp their image in my mind, to continue to feel a relationship, connection, and even realize their and my own existence. Out of my sight I could barely seem to clutch anything solid to tell me the other person was still there. I could not internalize them. Quick Note Piaget put forth the theory that children obtain "object permanence" at around the age of 4-7 months. At this stage children are able to learn that objects continue to exist even when not in view. The psychoanalyst Lacan said that between 6-18 mo the infant becomes able to recognize themselves as a separate entity, to be able to see themselves and hold onto a self-image. I couldn't grip this myself, the mirror was not provided well enough. This means drifting in the void, darkness around you. Reaching out in all directions can you see me am I here?  A...

What if a hospital is the closest thing you've ever had to a home? Where do you end up? When I started getting admitted to McLean Hospital's PTSD and Dissociative Disorders Unit on a regular basis, it became this place I finally felt safe and loved for the first time in my life.  Why there ? You may ask. Seems like an odd place to find yourself to be at home, especially when hospitals have historically been a damaging experience for myself, stripped of rights, power, and sense of personhood. Proctor 2, however, was something special. Staff were kind, gentle, and uniquely trained to deal with individuals who had experienced major trauma, both men and women, though usually there were mostly women. When I was walked up to the unit for the first time, the first thing I noticed was the silence. Unusual for a psych ward at night. What is a home? A place one feels safe, like their physical and emotional needs are met. Family. Silent girls stalking hallways, whispers. a...

I haven't yet survived my life. What is survival if it hasn't been exactly voluntary? In mental health we speak sometimes about "resiliency." To me, that word means getting through something difficult and coming out on the other side. To me, it's not the same as strength. Instead, for me resiliency has not been a choice. I haven't made it this far because I have wanted to necessarily. I have endured pain, trauma, life-altering grief while being forced into hospitals against my will, hooked up to feeding tubes involuntarily when I wanted to starve myself to death, stitched back together when I cut an artery open, and had 911 called on me other times I've tried to end my life. Good luck? Rotten luck? Sometimes I can't be sure. But what I do know is that after all these years I don't feel like what people call a Survivor. I don't feel strong or really yet that I have chosen life. I feel I am living halfway, in a kind of Limbo. Alive but not ...

I remember all the times at Proctor 2 my nurses used to spend with me, trying to get me to eat something instead of waiting til my blood glucose dropped to coma levels and they had to administer glycogen. I didn't think that unless my body was blatantly in crisis that eating was even necessary. Alex would tell me the dangers; that if they ever needed to revive me they would end up crushing my body. He would urge me on with bites of an apple, with juice. Christina would make me hopeful English muffins with cereal pieces glued into a smiling face on top. Mini Gatorade bottles with "Drink Me" signs taped to it like I was Alice, forever trying to grow smaller when they wanted me taking up more space. The days my vitals would drop too low to be allowed off the hall I would gaze through the heavy locked screens, my face squashed against them. I knew I was missing out on friends and the world and whatever it was my life was supposed to be. Swallowed tubes slid down my throat, ...

In my disappearance I am more visible. Self-enclosed, not needing, I stare unblinking at my reflection as it fades and becomes more unrecognizable. I revisit traumas and wonder if they really existed at all. I bring myself back to the same scene over and over again. Overturned, struggling. Intrusive. Bleeding, I make pain visible in order that I may see a truth. My body translates for me where words lack. I watch my limbs shrink in, find myself in the spaces around them, become negative space. I know I am badly failing at survival but it feels like the only way to live. I wait to fall farther. All I'm left with is an emptiness, a powerful sense of loss.  I tear apart my life looking to find it and now my time seems almost up. I am still a five year-old child, just knowing she has to get away from the body, the scene of the crime. Hospital girl, in files and hallways, waiting always. Waiting for doctors, waiting to get out, my life is a series of waiting rooms. There is no end t...

One of the many challenges of having both a severe eating disorder and mental illness is that nowhere seems equipped to deal with all of me. When I'm in treatment at an eating disorder unit there is little to no support for my PTSD, depresssion, or BPD issues. I often get placed in strictly psychiatric wards to deal with my dangerous levels of self-harm and suicidalityehile my lakv of eating goes barely dealt with. When I was put in Tewksbury State Hospital it was for the above SI reasons but I was also dealing with the constant starvation and weight loss that comes from having anorexia. It was easy for me to keep it quiet and let my cutting and scars overshadow everything else. That's what using gets the most attention for imminent risk and it can be frustrating. My disorder is often complicit in allowing this to happen in order to avoid the refeeding and weight gain process that comes from eating disorder treatment. I have never received complete treatment that encomp...

Sometimes I wonder what progress I have made from the girl smashing soap dispensers and openly cutting on the unit, to the girl cutting quietly with glass mirror shards when left alone. 4 days a week of therapy and still I'm a crime scene body with screams that are silent. When will I not need to do this? How many people will have to listen to me before it's close to my parents hearing me and when will that just be enough? Because it never is. And I'm curious, when does the pain get to be enough? When does the suffering add up to something succinctly expressed?