After that last session that I wrote about I was beyond mad.  I wasn’t going to go back to therapy (at least not this therapist) but I did.  Something deep down told me to return.  And when I did, she told me that I wasn’t going to like what she had to say.  OK.  She said that the therapy session was conducted properly and that it was part of the process.

She was right, that I didn’t like it.  But what came out of it was surprising.  After the anger died down a little bit, I realized that something inside of me had changed.  I was stronger.  I could speak up for myself in a room where most people would feel safe but I didn’t.  So I told her that we would continue the treatment but on my terms.  That she should never again tell me “that if I wanted it bad enough, I would find a way to make it fit into my schedule”.  That I DID want it bad enough and that it should have been so terribly apparent to her given that I have done every single terrible thing she asked me to do.  That I was angry that she didn’t see that…

Her response?  She DID know this.  She’s been telling me how strong I am and how proud of me she is since day one.  But do I remember any of that?  No.  And that’s when a major realization hit me.  I was angry at her because I was transferring my feelings about my stepmom onto her.  And, just as I could never accept praise or any type of favorable acknowledgement in front of her, I couldn’t do it with my therapist either.  I’ve developed selective hearing: I only hear the bad stuff and completely shake off the good stuff.  Huh?

And then another realization hit me.  I suck at working on relationships.  I walk away at the first sign of trouble.  And the reason?  Because I had shitty parents who taught me that there is no room for error and that forgiveness is NEVER in the cards.  You screw up, someone with holds love or leaves entirely.  So as I grown older, my relationships have been so weak because I bailed at the first sign of trouble.  I didn’t actually know that relationships could be repaired.

That must sound crazy to any normal person, but I honestly didn’t know that.  Yet, in the past year I’ve addressed many concerns within my important personal relationships and not one of them ended in a dead-end.  As a matter of fact, I now feel even better about these people because we’ve worked through difficulties and come out the other end stronger and more solid.  Huh?

Yeah.  I’m growing, I guess. 

OK, I AM growing because the world seems to be falling apart for many of my very close friends.  Terrible, terrible things have happened that would have normally taken me down (even though they didn’t happen to me), but I’m still standing.  I have sympathy for my friends, but I’m not taking on their pain as my own.  This is so foreign to me that I feel like I’m in a healthier person’s body.

I’m continuing my therapy with my current therapist.  I will go through the entire process because what I’m doing has changed me at the core in ways that I didn’t think were possible.  The results are far more amazing than I even guessed they would be.  My DNA probably is different.

But I still hate my therapy.  Let’s just be clear on that one point.

So, without further ado…

20 Very Happy Moments In My Life

1.  The day I met my husband. He walked around a corner and we locked eyes.  We both knew instantly that we were connected.  That night I dreamed about him and a few months later we were married.  I still believe that our decision to wed so early on was the right decision.

2.  The first time my husband and I got married. He asked me to marry him and then left for Italy to study painting and was gone far too long.  We planned a large-ish wedding for when he returned, but halfway through his trip he came home so that we could elope to the courthouse.  We grabbed two crazy characters from our local coffee shop haunt and headed to see the judge.  Afterwards, we called our parents and broke the news.  EVERYONE saw it coming.

3.  The second time my husband and I got married. It was the day after Christmas and we had a beautiful outdoor wedding at a Spanish Villa.  We listened to Kula Shaker and Louis Prima and drank copious amounts of champagne.  Then we spent the evening at the Four Seasons Hotel and ate chocolate covered strawberries and drank even more champagne.  I wish that I could relive that day!

4.  The day I found out I was pregnant. We tried for nearly a year to get pregnant.  It was a very difficult time.  So difficult that we finally gave up and planned a 2 year “trip” to New Zealand.  We were going to travel and take odd jobs and live as bohemian artists.  It was the greatest plan ever until we realized that I had become pregnant.  Somewhere in between discussions about visas and hours spent pouring over travel websites, we made our son.  Way better than any trip!

5.  The day I had my son. Again, as with most things in my life, his birth did not come easy for either of us.  It was a struggle until the end, but when I finally polished off that cheeseburger and french fries I was ready to meet my son!  I swear that I was so doped up that I wanted to eat BEFORE seeing my son.  Some things never change. 

6.  My first day back in college. I decided in my early 30s that I really wanted to be a graphic designer and so, in spite of all my doubts, I put one foot in front of the other and returned to school.  The best thing that I learned in school?  That I really AM an artist.

7.  The day we moved to Portland. When I met my husband I told him that I would follow him to art school in Detroit, but that we HAD to end up in Portland or Seattle.  5 years later, we rented an apartment in Portland Metro.  Perfect.

I’ll have to finish the list later.   Motherhood calls…

So, when those doubts started to creep into my thoughts I didn’t want to entertain them.  I thought that it was just one more out that I was giving myself so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the present and the intensity of exposure therapy.  But as the week went on, my anger grew and I became filled with rage.  And finally this morning I voiced my concerns to my husband.

I feel like the first session was cruel.  Unnecessary.  More harmful than good.  I feel revictimized.  I was shown horrors that I had previously not imagined.  I was led through doors that never should have been opened.  This cannot possibly be healing in any way.

If my child had died in some horrific manner, would a treatment to move on from that consist of reliving my child’s final, tortured hours?  To look through his eyes and see what those last moments were?  To feel the pain that he felt?  To go into his mind and witness his very last thoughts?

I walked into my appointment today ready to explode.  I couldn’t look at my therapist.  I was afraid of the rage inside of me, so instead of speaking I cried.  I felt like I was melting into the floor.  Like the walls were slowly moving in on me and I was fading away.  I was completely disconnected from the moment, from the session and from my body.  I shut down.

I let her speak for a while and allowed her to fill in the silence.  When it became apparent that I needed to say something, I told her of my concerns… And I think she panicked.  I could tell from her response that she was very afraid that she had indeed made a grave mistake.  She made statements such as, “This is a new approach…”  …A new approach?  To whom?  You?

Yes, it turns out that I was her first patient who was in the unique position of having PTSD but not from a direct traumatic event.  I did not witness a horrific crime- I just was the daughter of someone who was killed in a terrible way.  So the treatment approach should probably be modified to account for this difference…  In standard PTSD exposures therapy the victim recounts their experience of witnessing or being the victim of violence.  There is a lot of material to work with because they have direct experiences to recount.  With me, I have only second hand knowledge of what happened, therefore the moments that needed to be relived are different.

Even I could see that.  And I do not have a psychology degree.

But instead of adjusting for the difference, I was walked through the event as if I had actually witnessed it; left to fill in the blanks to a horrific event that I could only imagine.

It was not therapeutic.  It was cruel.

And so now I wonder what to do next.  I’ve committed to this treatment.  I’ve done everything that was asked of me and accepted every challenge so that I could have a better life.  I’ve not backed down and have gone through such a painful and difficult year… and for what?  Do I start over with a new therapist?  Do I let her try to fix it?  Can I rebuild the trust that was cut down with this catastrophic failure?  And how do I begin to heal from this new trauma?

I’m very sad that my progress has been stunted.  I’m very sad that I’ve been hurt in this way.  It makes the trusting process very hard.

So, I called my therapist, made an appointment and kept it.  She probably sensed that I was considering dropping the whole thing because before I knew it she had her recorder out and was starting the exposure treatment.  I was shocked that it was happening so quickly.  That there wasn’t a whole lot of pomp and circumstance- just a record button being pressed on a microrecorder.  And then the therapist asking me to take her through me fears, my thoughts, my nightmares.  Oh yeah, and do it in great detail.  Put yourself there in the moment and recount as much as possible.

When it was done I thought that we were totally done.  I was cured.  We could move on!  I said to her, “That wasn’t so bad.”  Oh, but it was… because that wasn’t even the real thing.  That was just the session where we make a list of my fears and thoughts and then rank them so that we can drill down deeply into each of them individually.  What the fuck?

Amazingly, I went back to my next session.  It began with her handing me the list and asking me where I wanted to start.  I picked something very low on the list and began.  About 5 minutes into the treatment my therapist says to me, “Put yourself in your father’s shoes.  Walk through that last day.  How did it begin?  How did he feel?  What did he think about when he was driving to the desert?  What did he think about when he pulled his car into the parking lot?  When he gave his credit card to the motel clerk?  When he walked into the motel room?…”

I hate exposure therapy.  I hate my therapist right now, too.  I hate myself for willingly going into this treatment and I hate my father for doing something so horrific that I not only have to experience it once, at the time of his death, but then I have to relive it in excruciating detail again just so that I can move on from it.

When I got home after my session there was an email in my inbox with an audio file and a note saying, “You can do this.  You are strong.  It will hurt, but feel it.  You are strong.”  There were also instructions that I needed to listen to it at least 3-4 times before our next session and rate my anxiety level every 5 minutes each time.

I finished my third listening party a few minutes ago.  This time was easier than the last time, which was easier than the time before that.  But it’s still a nightmare.  My first time listening to it ended in a major panic attack.  I couldn’t breath.  I thought that I was going to die.  My body ached excruciatingly.  My husband tried to hold me but I felt like I was drowning and his arms were suffocating me.  And my body hurt so bad that even his gentle touch felt like a beating.

Did I mention that I fucking hate this?

I had a total breakdown.  I sobbed.  I realized that all of my problems connecting to people in a long-term way are because of her and what she did to me.  That, as I stand today, I am a broken human being.  I guess we all are in some way, but that I’ve been deeply broken for most of my life.  I feel like a monster.  I feel like the description of children who are raised by mother’s with borderline personality disorder is my label.  My clothing tag, sewn to my side with my care instructions on it.  Do not form long-term attachments with individual.  May flee at any moment.

I imagine myself in a room with four walls, each one covered with the pages from psychiatric journals telling details of borderline personality traits and disorganized attachment disorder.  That these words are so thick that they create a barrier between me and the outside world.  I am on the inside, alone, lonely and terribly sad, yet on the outside, normal people carry on normal lives with other normal people.  The sun shines outside, but my world has curtains closed tightly and fear woven into the carpet and pumping out of the vents in the ceiling.

Last night I tuned into celebrity rehab (don’t ask) and watched with avid interest as the villan of the show sat in therapy and talked about her rape and molestation, all with a smile on her face.  And slowly, the exterior began to crack and the smile faded slightly and her real pain began to come through.  You could see her break down and quickly regain her composure over and over again.  At one point, the therapist asked her, “Why are you smiling?” and her response was this: “Because I don’t know how not to.”  I broke down in tears when she said this.

I don’t know how to feel pain.  I don’t know how to survive pain.  I know how to smile and pretend that the things that have happened to me were nothing- no big deal.  Don’t feel sorry for me.  I’m a survivor.  Yet, I’ve survived nothing.  I’ve dealt with nothing.  I’ve shoved pain away.  I’ve dug holes and buried my feelings down deep.  I’ve smoked pot and drank martinis and ate cookies and designed logos and written articles and sewn scarves and made soap and read books and watched movies and done anything else that I can think of to avoid actually living and feeling.  At the end of the day, I slip my beauty queen crown on, smile kindly to my family and pretend that everything is ok.  And hope that by pretending, being ok might actually stick.

I’ve got news for you.  It doesn’t.

I have so much to do and I’m collapsing under the enormity of my task list.  I planned my trip for 8 days, which is far too long to be away from my husband and son.  I struggled with booking as much time as I truly needed because the thought of spending even one “extra” day away from my guys was killing me.  Right now I just want to cling to them, not climb on a plane and fly away from them.

I am happy that I’m not bringing my son into the house though, and for that I feel like I successfully shielded him from my step mom’s abuse.  I feel like this is my biggest achievement so far as a parent- making certain that she was never able to put her hands on him, turn on her wolf-in-sheep’s-clothes charm and lure him into her world of insanity.  I was seduced by her promises of a stable family, a home with a mother and a father, endless love and nurturing…  But it was all lies and I realized this too late.  By the time the dust settled and I realized that I had unpacked my belongings in the wolf’s den, it was too late.  I couldn’t leave.  I just had to learn how to protect myself.  My son will never have to know this kind of need for adaptive survival.  God, I hope not, at least.

I’ve also been working very hard at my therapy. As my last post intoned (rather “screamed”), I’m chin deep in childhood issues. Ironically, I was set to begin my first round of intensive exposure therapy next week and the topic du jour was going to be my step mom. Being the ever-suffering woman that she was she must have intuited my emotional progress and decided that it was time to step up my therapy game. So she died.

If I sound a little narcissistic right now, it might be because I’ve been rapidly studying Borderline Personality Disorders to better understand my step mom.

This revelation, that she was probably BP, came from my therapist and I am in shock of how accurate the diagnosis is. IN SHOCK. I read this scientific article, which was like a detailed description of my childhood, replete with constant verbal abuse; emotional blackmail and manipulation; happy one second, screaming the next, craziness… I can recall this woman, towering six feet tall to my cowering 5 feet, berating me, telling me that I was crazy, useless, unlovable, a bitch. I remember, in vivid detail, the silent treatment for weeks on end with no explanation. Her kicking down my bedroom door because I missed a spot when cleaning the bathroom. Her smacking me in the face for something that I wrote in my diary about her. Her tearing up the only wedding picture that I had of my parents and then denying that it ever happened. Telling me that I was delusional for thinking that she had done that. That I’m literally crazy for making up such a story. That I must have something to hide with such crazy stories. That I had a guilty conscious because I did something wrong.

She built walls between me and everyone else. I was not able to speak to my father, even though we lived in the same house. I was punished for enjoying time with my brother. I was given the silent treatment when I returned home from visitations with my mother. I was cut off from my father’s side of the family. Humiliated in front of them at family functions, but denied access to them outside of such functions. Our phone was on lockdown and I could use it for 10-minute increments and no calls after 8 pm. I was not allowed to have friends over or to visit at friend’s homes. I was not able to participate in after school activities. I was to be home immediately after school and in my bedroom as soon as got home. I was in prison. Until I was kicked out on my 18th birthday.

Where was my father during all of this? Another revelation. I think that my father had Asperger’s syndrome. He shut down completely. He couldn’t fight her. He couldn’t stand up to her. He simply retreated within himself. She broke him and he gave up. Then, in 2001, he killed himself.

Next week I am going to relive some of the highlights of this time under her “care”. How apropos, since I’ll be getting on a plane just a few days later, headed towards the home where so many people were destroyed. I’ll pack it up, tag it for sale, and open the doors for strangers to come in and take the remnants away. I will be the one who removes the last vestiges of the lives that buckled under the weight of mental illness. Where once I had no power, I will ultimately decide the fate of what was left behind. Small consolation. I wish that we could go back to the beginning and start all over again.

My first question was, “How did she die?”  As if it was possible that she could have killed herself.  But I think that it was.  She died of “natural” causes- bleeding ulcers?  She let the house go into foreclosure, and just as I had suspected, she knew that she was going to die.  I thought, when I heard about the foreclosure, that she was doing this intentionally to us- that she was going to die and never let us see a penny of my dad’s money.  I was right.  She was a vindictive bitch until the moment that she died.

I wonder where she is now.  I’m a Buddhist and supposedly don’t believe in heaven or hell, yet I’m plagued by these thoughts of her burning in hell or of her tormenting my dad in heaven (if that’s where he ended up).  I hope that, if there is an after life, that those two are nowhere near each other.  It seems terrible for my father to be stuck with her for eternity.

These are ridiculous thoughts.  Of all of the things that I can obsess over, this is what I worry about?  Ridiculous.

I don’t know what else I think about her death.  I find the timing ironic- mere weeks before I literally dive into my life with her and break it apart in therapy.  She damaged me so severely and I hate her so much and now she isn’t here for me to hate anymore.  You can’t hate a dead person, can you?  It seems trite, pointless, pedantic.  I don’t want to hate her.  I hate her so much though.

Will I be able to move on now that she’s dead?  Is this really a chapter closing in my life?  I think that to believe that her death would signal the closing of a door would be naïve.  She’s been gone from my life for a long time.  However, she was always a threat- a threat that one day I would answer my phone and it would be her.  That I would have to face her in court.  That she could continue to reach my family members and poison their opinions of us children.  Now she can’t do any of that.  Her words will never again be whispered conspiratorially in some estranged aunt’s ear.  The list of lies and half-truths that she was drawing from has ended.  She can’t say anything hurtful ever again.  Her reign of hatred and evil and punishment is over.  I just have to find out a way to let her die in my mind also.  Because her words are so powerful that they live on far after her body leaves this world.

I wonder if she’s already been buried.  No one tried to contact me about the funeral.  What does the absence of me and my siblings say to her family about the way that she treated us?  Can they read volumes in that absence?  God, how I hope that it becomes clear to them that we were the innocents.

I wonder if I needed to be at her funeral.  Did I need to see her put in the ground?  Would that have done anything for me?  Would I have felt sadness?  Am I going to feel sadness?  Am I a terrible person if I don’t?

I usually have no shortage of things to say; yet for now, I have nothing.  I think that I might still be in shock.

And now, because I can’t verbalize my pain, it is coming out physically.  I’m a wreck.  I ache all over.  I can’t move my neck, again.  My wrists are so sore but for no apparent reason.  And I’m sleepy as hell.  It doesn’t help that I fell down the other day and twisted my ankle and severely bruised my knee.  At least it gave me some concrete pain to focus on and treat.  Maybe that’s why I fell.  I needed to sit down and pamper myself.  Who knows.

So, I’m off to therapy in an hour, armed with a timeline of my life that I created yesterday and the first chapter of my PTSD workbook completed.  And my trigger journal- this time filled out.  Somewhat.

Yippee.