Mixed experiences of psychiatry

I know there are many strong opinions out there on the field of psychiatry, so I wanted to write down my own experience of being treated by a psychiatrist. For me there have been some crucial benefits (so far at least, 18 months in) as well as some downsides, and I want to give an accurate, balanced picture. Of course my experience is just that - my experience. It is not proof of anything either way and it's as valid (or insignificant) as any other individual's experience.

I came by my psychiatrist, a  woman in her early 60s, by way of a counsellor who thought I should have a full psychiatric assessment. I was highly functioning but really, really unwell at the time. I was working full-time, caring for my toddler on my own, running around 60 km a week, running our little household. But my mood swings were wild, my anxiety was through the roof, my urge to self-harm and suicidal thoughts growing stronger by the day and I felt I was going to explode. I was frightened of my threatening ex, frightened of men in the street, freaked out by loud noises or people shouting (especially at their kids), barely able to be around my mother but also desperately in need of her help, and I was in a mostly imagined, long-distance addictive relationship. Nightmares, night sweats, intrusive thoughts and memories that I found incredibly distressing. It was not a fun time.

When I went to the psychiatrist  for the first time, she immediately suggested I be hospitalised. But I resisted - it seemed to me that I was not only functioning but excelling at it. Working, cooking, cleaning, playing...I was doing it all, and clinging to it like a life raft. It took her about three months to convince me that I did need to be hospitalised. When I finally relented,  this step turned out to be a game changer for me.

Her reasoning for hospitalisation was that she felt I needed intensive therapy and to be in a safe environment because I was suicidal and self-harming. In addition, as an inpatient, I would be able to ramp up the medication much more quickly than if I was on the outside and not constantly monitored. This turned out to be true. We eventually settled on a combination of lithium and Venlaxine. I am aware of the withdrawal issues with these drugs, I have had a taste of them when I have run out, especially the Venlafaxine. But when I began taking them these drugs coincided with a major turning point for me. I don't think the medication brought this about by itself, although I do think the pills zapped most of the intrusive memories as well as the urge to self-harm.  I came out of my worst distress and began to work on my recovery.

Her decision to put me into hospital also exposed me to different types of help I could get, including SLAA. Along with my therapist, my psychiatrist actively encouraged me to go to SLAA and she still does. She was also supportive when I wanted to change therapists (twice in a row), until I settled on my current one. My treatment became and continues to be a multi-pronged approach: medication, therapy, SLAA, self-help. It has worked very well so far.

On the negative side, I had a few run-ins with her which made me extremely upset on a few occasions. This mainly revolved around the abuse my ex - I felt she wasn't taking me seriously enough and this made me feel unsafe. If she didn't understand, what chance did I have with the rest of the world? In retrospect I think she was trying things out, testing me a bit to see if I was ready to let go of my fear, but I just saw a repetition of what happened to me with my mother, who was ambivalent about the issue and who held strong sympathies for my husband in spite of what he had done to me. This along with other experiences had made me extremely sensitive. One therapist (whom I promptly ditched)  even suggested the abuse was my husband and my "way of having sex". That pushed me over the edge for a few days.

Anyway, I found my psychiatrist's attempts to talk more deeply to me about my emotions and problems pretty hopeless. I felt she was old-fashioned and while I could just ignore her advice on good days, on my bad days it made me really angry. I wanted her to just do what she seemed to do best: explore my symptoms and how they were developing, keep track of my overall treatment and tweak and manage my medication. This is pretty much what we have settled on, and I have gone from seeing her once a week to once a month. I know her much better now than I did at the beginning and I trust her a lot now as a person and as a doctor (with a very specific brief, as I see it). She got my whole recovery on the road and made sure it consisted of several elements.

Perhaps I am lucky with her but I also think it helped that I did not have to rely on her at all for emotional support - this would have been a disaster.

I would be interested to hear other people's experiences! Have a good weekend.
Rosamunde

Weak boundaries from childhood and parenting today

This morning, when I took my small son to nursery, I had a sudden insight about my upbringing and what I need to do differently with my own child. 

The incident was - thankfully! - just an everyday, harmless occurrence, but for me my reaction and the implications carry a wider significance.

This is what happened: For the past year my son has been very good friends with another boy in his class, who we will call Tim for the purposes of this blog. Both Tim's parents, me and the nursery staff have encouraged this relationship. We were excited that they were socialising so beautifully, their play and communication totally in sync. It was lovely to see. 

But recently, their relationship has hit a bit of a rough patch. There has been some mutual winding up and recently they fell out after Tim pushed my son, resulting in both of them bursting into heart-rending sobs and tears.  But they are still great friends. The nursery staff have had to sit them apart at activities, only to see them back to being as thick as thieves with each other moments later. It seems their issues stem from the intensity of their relationship - they have they grown a little weary of each other, which is understandable.   

When we arrived in his classroom this morning, Tim rushed up to my son, ready to start playing, trying to grab him. But my son ignored him, in fact he tried to get away from him as Tim attempted to hug him and get his attention. Eventually Tim gave up and, looking sad and dejected. I felt sorry for him, so I asked my son: "Why don't you play nicely with him?" To which my son replied, with Tim out of earshot: "Tim is not my best friend."

Now my immediate, involuntary response to this was to pull a face and to say: "Oh, don't say that! It's not very nice!"

But then I caught myself: Why on earth was I chastising him for just expressing what to him is a fact, a fact which reflects his feelings? Why am I denying him the right to feel whatever he wants? And I immediately knew the answer:  Because this is exactly what my mother would have done.  

It's not as if this is the first time I discover this aspect to my mother, but it has been a while since it has reared its head in my own actions towards my son. I am not sure if this was due to her strict Catholic upbringing, but as far as she was concerned, if we had an issue with someone, be it an adult or a child, teacher or friend, it was always because we were flawed, not them. If we got into trouble at school, it was undoubtedly because we deserved it. The general assumption was that we were bad and that we had to sacrifice ourselves, our needs and wishes, accommodate others, whose needs were more important. 

If someone had wronged us, she would defend them, never fighting our corner, never consoling us. It was as if she was ashamed of me, and I often felt dirty, flawed, wrong. This meant I never went to her with any emotional or relationship difficulties, not past a certain age anyway, I think at around 9 years old. This is also when her physical affection towards me stopped.  

Looking back, my mother threw me to the lions repeatedly, not least with my ex-husband towards whom she still has a degree of loyalty that makes me deeply uncomfortable. I have learnt just to live with it, but that is the subject of another post.

I guess it just did not occur to my mother that sometimes I, as a child and as a teenager, needed her protection, that  I needed my feelings and instincts validated by her so that I could learn to value and protect myself, to set my own boundaries. The message her neglect on this front gave me was: You are worthless. Other people are more important than you. 

This was difficult for me growing up but it became downright dangerous later on in my life, when I started getting into relationships and being sexually active. I had been taught to ignore and override my instincts at all times and I felt deep guilt if I wanted to be assertive or set limits with people. I felt I literally had no right to do so. Who was I to tell someone how to treat me or not treat me? Often it didn't even occur to me that setting boundaries was an option for me. 

I was quite bolshy in general, but I reacted to abusive and manipulative boyfriends by being submissive and accepting. Even with some friends I struggled to set boundaries, cutting them off altogether rather than going through the discomfort of being assertive when I didn't even feel I was entitled to ask for or insist on anything.

Anyway, to get back to the little conversation in the nursery classroom, I decided there and then that this was not a legacy I wanted to bequeath to my son, So I briefly took him aside and said: "Listen, you can be friends with anyone you like, that is okay. Just don't say this stuff to Tim's face because he might get upset."  

To me this is still not ideal -- I would have wanted to elaborate more on how to choose your friends and to speak out if you don't like the way you are being treated. But I was caught off guard and it was the best I could come up with there and then. I will definitely have another conversation with him about it layer today, a conversation in which I will not chastise him or deny his feelings, whatever they may be. 

How SLAA helped me to see that I was manipulative

I am enormously grateful to be able to say that working the SLAA programme along with therapy and all my other reading and recovery work has resulted in a drastic improvement in my self-knowledge and self-awareness.

One of the areas that I have seen the biggest change in is my behaviour in romantic relationships, in particular how I used to manipulate the other person. Manipulation was such a bad word for me that the mere suggestion that I was manipulative would previously have unleashed waves of terror, shame, self-loathing and ultimately denial in me. Surely I was a "good" person and would not do something as evil and selfish as manipulate anyone, let alone my lover? 

That belief about myself alone shows me what a warped self-image I had, how proficient I was at lying to myself, how blind and deluded I was. Because I manipulated all the time, sometimes expertly, sometimes clumsily. Sometimes the other person would become aware and try to call me out on it, but I would deny everything. Other times they would dance to my tune. But all the while, I was completely unaware of what I was doing, which was to twist and contort myself into a being that would make the other person a) pity me, b) admire me for my supposed courage and stoicism, c) make them want to rescue/protect/care for me, d) give me affection/love/any emotion at all goddammit. These objectives informed much of my communication in my relationships. I say I was unaware, but I think subconsciously there was some knowledge of what I was doing, and this would trickle into my thoughts. For example, I could not figure out why I had such radically different personas. Around lovers I would become needy, weak, and turn into a little girl, often with my voice too. In the rest of my life I can be quite ballsy and opinionated, and how I was inadvertently shifting in and out of those roles did trouble me somewhat. 

It was only through SLAA, which makes you look at your own actions and motives with complete honesty, without shame or blame, that allowed me to say: yes, this is what I have been doing. And I also had the explanation for why I had been doing it straight to hand - my childhood and loveless upbringing. This allowed me to be compassionate towards myself, rather than condemning and berating my person. It is a way of looking at yourself, your past and present, in a non-judgemental way, without any of the vitriol that would have distorted our perception of things previously. 

I think this is what allows for true healing. It's not that I thereby absolve myself of these past actions of mine. I am responsible for them and the harm I caused people. But I am no longer in denial, which allows me to break the cycle, to stop behaving that way. 

It is a process, and I still have some way to go. My hunger for the affection, overt love and affirmation I missed out on as a child, my desire to be validated and have my ego to be propped up and cared for from the outside, will probably always be there. So I have to keep an eye on myself, and check my motives before communicating. Often I find that as my mood dips, I reach for my phone for a quick boost of comfort or validation, or my mind starts thinking of ways to elicit an emotional response from someone. I have enough awareness now to stop myself, and often, if I just do something else, the urge or need passes. Previously I would flatter a lover, profess my supposed affection of love for them in order to get something in return, or even bring up a negative subject evoking jealousy or resentment. 

How do I know when I am about to fall back into old habits of manipulating for an emotional fix? It's not that hard to identify most of the time. My mood drops like mercury in an thermometer, so that is already a first warning sign. Sometimes I provoke myself into a negative state, thinking or seeking out information about previous relationships (my own included) on the Internet. That really is a trigger for most people I think and I try to avoid it. I become irrationally resentful or angry towards my partner, about his past, about his autonomy. 

How to let go of this kind of behaviour? Well awareness of it is the first step. Examine yourself honestly and without blaming or shaming yourself. Being compassionate, not critical, is the vital next step. You are not a "bad" person, you acted this way because of your past. It is not your fault. Luckily you can now take responsibility and manage this behaviour because it is damaging both to you and other people. I talk to myself kindly and ask: what is it that you need right now? Will reaching out in this way help you achieve that? Learning to self-soothe, to practise coping on my own has also helped me see that it is possible and not as dangerous or painful as it may seem.

I hope this is helpful. Please ask questions, express your agreement or doubts in the comments below. 

Poem: Weekend in Berlin

Pavement love 

Walking in step 

Flowers in a vase 

Open in my heart 

Chirp, chirp, buzz, 

Butter-yellow clicks, 

Drip, drop, tick, tick

Deep, furry hum. 

Not slick, not slim

Not the size of a brick,

Bigger than a car,

Bigger than a house,

We'll keep it in a hangar,

In rows and numbered blocks.

Grey boxes, blinking lights

Red green green orange 

Red green green orange

Red green green orange...

Relationship drama, relationship peace

Since leaving my husband after nearly 10 years together and going into recovery in SLAA, I have naturally given a lot of thought to what kind of relationship I want for myself going forward. 

I could see what had gone wrong before. There was a profound disconnect between my actions and my values and aspirations, one that I wasn't even aware of. I pursued, slept and went out with people I wasn't attracted to, who were too old, too different, unsuitable, unavailable, who treated me badly. 

All I wanted was someone to save me, to protect me, to make it all stop, and that is exactly what my then husband-to-be did for me. He was insanely jealous and controlling, but also there for me through every mood swing, every bad dream, every panic attack. He soothed me like a baby, nursed me back to health like a sick bird. As long as he was around, I was ok. He could protect me from my own mind, which appeared to be attacking itself. We fought a lot during this time, over my exes, my feelings, the boundaries of our relationship. My emotions felt dangerous to me, like a threat. I had moved from man to man without ever really getting over the previous relationship. I had much unfinished business, many regrets, many unresolved feelings.

He could not take this, and I tried to defend my right to feel what I wanted. Plates were smashed, laptops broken, tables overturned - mostly by him, but I began expressing myself like this too. Often I was desperate. I felt I could not survive if he left, and I think at the time this was not so irrational a thought.

Of course I would not have died but I was very young and very alone, and life would have been incredibly tough. I thought without him I would end up on the street. 

 I kept our difficulties and his controlling side secret from my friends because I knew I wouldn't be able to handle their disapproval. It would only destabilise me, I felt. Also I developed an extremely rigid sense of loyalty to him. It was us against the world and I could not say a "bad" word about him to anyone as this would be a betrayal. If I did utter a criticism or discussed our problems with someone else (which was extremely rare), I would not be able to face him again without confessing. Where did all this pressure on me come from? It's not like he ever explicitly told me to do any of those things. But I think he set the ball rolling, and then I ran with it. I knew if I didn't conform to his expectations - if I found someone else attractive, if I had unresolved feelings towards an ex, if I flirted with someone etc - he would leave me. Or so he always said. What would usually happen is that he would interrogate me for a couple of days, squeezing every last detail over my "transgression" out of me, asking me the same thing again and again and blaming me, berating me,  sometimes even depriving me of sleep. Now I see that he subconsciously (?) wanted me to break down, which after a while I inevitably did. I would cry helplessly, scratch my face and arms, and wish I was dead. Then he would scoop me up and "forgive" me, absolve me, tell me I was good and pure after all. Pretty sick. 

Anyway, needless to say, I don't want that kind of relationship again. And the person I am seeing now is nothing like this, thankfully. He does not hunt me, test me or interrogate me. He respects my right to privacy and an inner life more than I do his (I am trying to learn). Sometimes he felt too distant to me, but I am starting to see that this is someone whose self esteem is not entirely wrapped up in his relationship. He has other stuff going for him, other interests that sustain him and fulfil him. This helps me to do the same. 

I am not saying our relationship does not have its problems, but I am fairly certain there is no abuse towards me. Other dysfunctional aspects may arise or come to the fore at some point, and we will have to deal with them. Both of us had difficult childhoods and our fair share of trauma later on. 

But one thing that keeps me on my toes is the fear that, as a love addict, I am just with him for safety, for stability, so as not to be alone. That if I was stronger I would not be with him, that he is just "some guy". I don't entirely trust myself because of my past, when I was so unwell that I had virtually no choice who I ended up with. 

This insecurity in me is understandable but I don't want to let it sabotage my happiness. I want to take this relationship one day at a time. My dreams of another baby, of living together, they are for now just fantasy. That is okay, I am a woman in her early 30s and such wishes are only natural. And we make a good team, so I can see myself with him long-term. 

I just don't want to fall into that drugged sleep of someone in a relationship that doesn't suit them, for whatever reason. I don't want to be alive but dead on the inside, as I was in my marriage, denying my own life force, suppressing my spirit. 

For this not to happen, I have to keep going to meetings, keep working on my spiritual growth. I want to treat the relationship as a live thing with a soul, that must be nurtured and not taken for granted. And to live lightly, one day at a time, grateful for the chance to have a good time with someone so great. 

Enough therapy?

Today my therapist and I discussed whether I should stop having therapy, after more than a year of working together. I have been thinking about this recently because whereas I used to count the days between our sessions, but now as the appointment approaches I find myself thinking that I don't really need to go.

What has changed? I think the main development is that I feel I can cope much better with difficult situations and people than before. My moods are more even, my anxiety is almost gone, and my intrusive thoughts and memories are greatly reduced and not nearly as distressing.

It's not that I have "finished" anything - I am still healing from everything that happened and still have much work to do. But at least for now I can live in the present, and understand and take things as they are. I am more grounded, more realistic. Life as a whole feels much lighter, not so oppressive and dangerous, threatening.  I am no longer hostage to every passing thought or sight or experience. I have learnt that I canexercise choice over when to engage emotionally and when not to. 

Of course I am nervous that without therapy things could go awry. This could happen at any moment. What if my emotions start becoming volatile again, what if I have relationship problems and I am triggered into all the old places again, what if my ex starts acting up again and I become afraid....I could go on. But then my therapist cannot save me from life's knocks, from life itself. And I think now I am now more able to help and support myself - or I know where and how to access it. 

I have my friends, to whom I am closer than before recovery, largely because I am able to be more honest about myself and because I can listen and empathise better with them. I have a lot of resources - books and websites, blogs and so on, that I can read and get help from. 

Crucially I have SLAA. There is always a meeting I can go to, full of people looking honestly at themselves, bravely dealing with their difficulties, still alive and full of hope. I will keep going to meetings and doing the step work, because I need to for my recovery, but also because it allows me to stay in touch with my inner self. When I feel disconnected from myself, a meeting is the perfect remedy, better than therapy. It keeps me honest and non-judgemental of myself and others.  I am frankly in awe of many people in SLAA, I admire their strength and honesty, their willingness to share and to listen. It's like the very act of attending is an affirmation of humanity - yes, I am worth looking after, I deserve help, I deserve to get better, to heal and then to grow and thrive, and so do all these other people. 

I was fascinated at a recent meeting to hear people share about their relationship with their higher power. To an outsider it would have sounded odd, because the flexibility of the programme has when it comes to the definition of God/higher power is not immediately apparent.  You have to delve a bit deeper into the literature and talk to other members to find out how varied people's interpretation of this concept is. Everyone applies it in a slightly different way. I will write about this at a later date.

Getting back to my therapy, this last year has been eventful and much has changed. It's interesting to me that I feel strangely shy in front of my therapist, even though he must know me rather well by now. The sessions never felt like "home", they were always a temporary support, and I think I prefer this. It makes it easier - and in fact am exciting prospect - to let them go. 

My relationship with him has changed a lot. At the beginning I wanted him to protect me like a father figure, I wanted his approval and even some affection. But we spoke about this openly right at the start and after that it didn't bother me again. 

It's strange that I can't remember much of our sessions. It's like all the healing has been absorbed and assimilated in my brain resulting in an overall feeling of being better. A lot of tapping went on, and some EMDR, although not much, as far as I know.

Anyway, so it seems likely that I will stop therapy soon. This is exciting news and it feels like a big milestone. It means I am better, that I can look after myself - in theory. 

I still have a couple of sessions scheduled and hope to use those to help me with some of the memories and issues surrounding the abuse by my ex. The way it seizes me so completely when I have relationship problems now with my boyfriend is really quite disturbing.

Anyway, would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts or experiences to share. 

 

Nothing to lose

At the moment I am fortunate enough not to be in a crisis.  The situation with my ex has stabilised and I feel safe and supported. He has calmed down considerably and we have established a good routine to co-parent our child. His anger towards me is still there and bubbles to the surface often - but rather than fear for our safety I can mostly brush it off. His frequent attempts to control me are harder to handle because it feels like such an attack on my person, on my humanity. 

But again, I have learnt to handle my emotions around him better and not to let my mind spiral out of control with anxiety. 

My mental health has also improved. The wild mood swings are much, much reduced, and my anxiety - which came with a sort of parallel world of spooky shadows and terrifying creatures - has all but gone. 

There was a time I could barely tolerate being around my mother, even though I needed her desperately to help with my son and with my affairs, which I had abandoned when I became ill. She had not been supportive around the abuse, and appeared to side with my ex. This felt like an immense betrayal, and the rage and fear I felt towards her was overwhelming. I could not understand why she was throwing me to the lions, and coupled with my discoveries about my childhood in therapy, I felt I was living a nightmare. 

It's better now. I have not yet forgiven her for those times but she has sacrificed a lot for me and my son this past year, and I am able now to appreciate this more than before. 

Before, a few words from her could have me tumbling into an abyss of depression and distress that would take me days, weeks to recover from. A whole host of stuff would be triggered - memories from my childhood, teenage years, memories from the more recent past and the implications. 

Now her words no longer penetrate me so deeply. All that stuff is still there, but I can choose not to engage with it, not to stir it all up. I can say "not now, thanks" and walk away to get on with my day. I can also look at myself from the outside - where am

I right now? Can I hear my breathing? And I focus on the moment and how, right now, I am actually okay. 

I think these new abilities  have largely come from therapy, rather than SLAA. I have learnt that I am not at the mercy of my mind, my imagination. I can (mostly) turn it off and on. It is like a muscle I have to train, and I am still only at the beginning. 

Strangely I had to overcome some pride, some kind of 'sick person identity', to be able to slowly implement the new muscle, the handbrake, to stop the anxiety and wild thoughts. I had become used to being unwell, to being out of control and not taking responsibility for myself, and in a way this had become comfortable and familiar. Being well meant getting back to the real world and I wasn't sure I would be able to cope. Also my mind just didn't feel ready for this, it was like having to change gears and felt scary.  But once I jumped the first time, and then again and again, I saw that it was not difficult. I was lucky because I had excellent guidance, much support and I was educatin myself by reading voraciously, but most of all I had come to the realisation that I had nothing to lose by trying. 

Also, as I have mentioned before, I was and continue to be on a lot of medication, so that will also have helped.

I think SLAA provided me with the hope I needed that things would be alright. Contrary to group therapy at the hospital, there was at least as much sharing of success, gratitude and newfound happiness as there was of people's chaos, fear and distress. The members of the fellowship lead all sorts of lives. They are artists, businessmen and -women, medics, lawyers, journalists, students. Some are single or in relationships, many have children, and ages vary massively too. 

It showed me that someone with my kind of issues could carry on, and be happy and fulfilled again. 

Anyway, today I am incredibly grateful that I am not in a crisis. I am going to meet my friend from recovery Marilyn for lunch and we will no doubt talk about how drastically our lives have changed in just one year. 

Recognising my part - a lesson from SLAA

The SLAA programme has taught me how to recognise my own part in my relationships and interactions with other people when things are difficult. How to define "my part"? Put simply by this I mean looking at my own actions and behaviour without any blame, and recognising their impact on myself and others.

The purpose is not to see who is at fault in any given situation, but where I am responsible. I check if I am being led by expectation, fantasy or wishful thinking. Am I being manipulative, trying to get something (usually it is emotional security or affection), am I being true to myself and what I want? 

I will give you an example. Recently I did something nice for my boyfriend, or so I thought.  Instead of being enthusiastic and happy as I expected (and wanted) him to be, he responded curtly, with little enthusiasm. Immediately I was upset - I blamed him for what I considered an inadequate reaction, berated him in my head for being so unemotional and disengaged. I didn't say this to him at the time. 

But then I decided to examine my part in this situation I now found myself in, of anger and resentment, and I realised it was mostly down to the fact that I had been disappointed in my expectation of him and how he should react. And those expectations were MY responsibility, not his, as was their lack of fulfilment. It was my job to deal with my emotions around this, the disappointment and so on, and not dump it onto him to make it okay again.  I calmed down considerably after realising this. 

Of course it is not always that simple. This little episode was trivial really, but the same pattern occurs around really important things in relationships, deal breakers I guess. I think we have to distinguish between values and expectations. I have an expectation that he shows some gratitude and recognition when I do something kind for him, but this is not really a fundamental value of mine. A value would be that we always treat each other kindly, and when we fail to do so we make proper amends. 

Seeing my part in what has happened to me in the past has been very liberating and helpful. It goes such a long way in removing the perception that one is powerless, a helpless victim. I married that man because I wanted to. I put up with his abuse because I knew no better, because I was in denial, and this was because of how I was raised. I was emotionally and neglected as a child and adolescent, and was willing to accept almost anything in exchange for security and love. I closed my eyes to stuff that according to my culture, my principles, my beliefs,  I would have condemned. I am not saying I was not a victim. I was. I was extremely vulnerable, suffering from major depression and trauma and receiving almost no medical help,  and this man was able to exert his control and subject me to his cruelty. To me he seemed better than nothing, in fact, he seemed perfect. I loved him, adored him, or so I believed. It is a very tricky thing. I have thought so many times in my life that I am in love with someone - after a day, or two, even! Such is the desire, the wish for it to be true. 

Anyway, I made a lot of wrong choices, choices that also contributed to my vulnerability at the time. I smoked cannabis to excess, I drank, I worked in a nightclub and partied until dawn way too often, and I was promiscuous. I had unprotected sex, which led to a second abortion...it was a bad time. But I did all of those things, I chose them, nobody else. It is true I was driven unconsciously by grief and pain, and I wasn't aware at all of why I was behaving that way. I was like a passenger in my own body, watching me walk into one disaster after the next. But I can't blame anyone else. I can point the finger at my parents about the shortcomings in my upbringing and their care for me,  and I do, all the time! But I can see now where the entity that was acting and interacting was nobody but me. And that feels good. I created some of this shit - it's better than having it all thrust upon me by others. It gives me some feeling of control and autonomy. Have a good weekend!

 If you do read, please leave comments. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. 

Recovery and the sexes

Listening to people share in meetings never gets old for me. Experiencing the power and beauty of people sharing their truth - or sharing about being in touch with their truth - has been one of the biggest gifts of recovery for me, and continues to be so. It is humbling to listen to someone of a different age, gender, profession and so on, and to identify and empathise with them on the deepest of levels. It has also been interesting and often revelatory to listen to the men. It has made me realise that I have deep prejudice towards men, as unfeeling, cruel and exploitative.

It is true that this is largely because of what I have experienced, but that is not really an excuse. I have to look deep inside me and figure out what it is exactly I "hate"  in men, and which past experiences and fears are behind it. It feels like something I need to clear, like a big sack of potatoes I am carrying around.

I was very frightened at first about going into SLAA - I thought it would be full of sleazy, threatening men who are not in control of their sexuality. But actually, most of the time the meetings are well and truly mixed and I have never, ever felt threatened. Yesterday was the first time that I saw the meeting I was attending was predominantly male and I panicked slightly. But this was because I was already feeling fragile due to a clash between me and my boyfriend. I knew there was zero threat to my safety at the meeting, but the atmosphere felt so masculine and stifling to me, I just wanted to run away.

But then I reached out to someone I know a little and respect in the fellowship, and he told me to wait a few minutes as surely some of the latecomers would be more women. He was right. I was fine for the rest of the meeting and participated. The fact that it was mostly made up of men barely mattered.

What is extraordinary is that the meetings shines a light on our common humanity. In front of our struggles, and the root deep in ourselves where we are still the innocent children of long ago, we are all the same.  SLAA has taught me that I am a spiritual being, that I need to keep building my connection with myself, with others and with life, and that through this healing and serenity can come.

The reason I began to think about my feelings towards men as a whole was because I listened to a fantastic chair by a man who said he had discovered a deep-seated misogyny in himself, partly inculcated in him because of his culture but also his mother. This is the first time I have ever heard a man admit this, and I was so moved. It allowed me to see the similar feelings towards men in me, going right back to my earliest memories.

My parents had a decent marriage I think, but my father definitely had more clout in the relationship. She could have her way much of the time but he ultimately called the shots. I remember him criticising her often for being "irrational", or "too emotional", for overreacting, for being too easily panicked, for being upset, angry, "poisonous". He would say to her "don't pull that face", "don't pull at your hair like that".

The result was that us kids saw her as weak, childish, backward, but also as someone we had to protect, not burden with anything. And I think that while I adored my father, i also saw him in some ways a merciless and iron-fisted, prohibiting her (and my) emotions.

I find something similar has happened to me in my life many times - my emotions being considered as too big, a burden, a disturbance, by the man I am with.  It is true I am intense and expressive and I never learnt (I was not taught) how to express and regulate my emotions, and that in addition to crazy, roller coaster-like fluctuations it makes for a pretty intolerable picture sometimes, primarily for myself. It is better now that I am on a full whack of mood stabilisers and anti-depressants, but my way of expressing myself has not changed, nor the essence of how I live I suppose.

Seeing my father reject that part of my mother but embrace her as a kind of defective has made me see this everywhere. I feel (I have no idea if this is justified) that in relationships I have always made myself  smaller, partly at my own behest and partly at the urging of the man. Do I ask similar things if them? To be less of themselves?

SLAA and my recovery: Part 2

As promised, in this post I will continue to tell the story of how SLAA helped me deal with an addictive relationship. All in all, I grappled with my attachment to this man for almost two years. One year in, I began attending SLAA meetings.  After an initial first six months of seeing each other sporadically in the capital we both lived in, we moved to separate countries and I haven't seen him in person since. But my obsessive thinking of him continued, and contact with him was volatile, intense. Sometimes it was exhilarating, sometimes infuriating and sometimes - as I described in the last post - I was so exasperated at my inability to just cut him of that it made me suicidal. I was afraid of being labelled mad, or that he would suddenly turn on me...he never did. In fact his occasional acts of kindness, or when he showed me interest and understanding, made it even more complicated.

I could not simply write him off - as I had done at the beginning -  as a crazy narcissist/sociopath who had callously used me for his own entertainment. My experience certainly felt like I had been targeted by a predator and made a victim  - all the hallmarks were there when I read up about NPL and the like. But when I began my recovery in SLAA, I started to see that this was my perception of what had happened and that I was denying my own part. I was so unaware of how I put myself in a position where I would automatically be a victim, that the only possible explanation for the pain I was in was that it was his fault.

As this transformation in me began and I understood more and more my responsibility, the pressure on me eased. I was more compassionate with myself. I worked on my past, and with the help of the 30 questions (which you do as part of your Step 1-3) I looked at past relationships and experiences in a whole new way. I saw I had been after something very specific each time, and that I had put myself repeatedly at risk and compromised my happiness and self-realisation in trying to obtain it. I thought: yes, you were emotionally neglected as a child (a huge discovery in itself, made in therapy) and so it is only natural you would cling to someone like this. I deserve kindness and understanding, hugs - not chastisement and ridicule. The self-loathing around this issue had to stop.

Getting to know myself better has also really helped and given me strength. I think the idea is to graduate from a position where the will is still working to make sure you stick to your bottom lines, to a point where you are sober because you want to be, you feel it inside you, as a whole person. One example of this for me came about three months after I started SLAA when the man in question offered to visit me.  This was exactly what I had yearned for, even though I knew seeing him would likely mean getting even deeper into what seemed an inextricable web of addiction, attachment, pain and need already. But I felt - in my bones almost - that I didn't want to see him, and so I declined.

I saved myself, whereas before I would have thrown myself under the bus just to get that feeling of love and affection.

Today I am not in touch with him at all. I miss him sometimes but I have no real desire to be in contact with him again. The last time we spoke he was angry with me over something - I am not sure what. Perhaps because I was in a relationship. But he was always adamant he didn't love me - and why would he? He knew my insanity - a crazy little girl howling in the dark -  but little else about me.

I have so much that I want to write about and everything is interlinked, so I will be jumping between topics. I am on my way to a meeting now. I am dealing with a whole set of different relationship issues these days but I marvel at how much stronger I have become. Before, under such pressures - where the end of a relationship felt like a real possibility - I would have floundered, fallen apart. But know I feel pretty centred. I know I can not only survive on my own, but that I can thrive.

SLAA and my recovery

SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous) has been vital in my recovery. To describe how it has helped me and transformed much of my life would take too long for just one post, but it is one of my aims for this blog to cover to the topic bit by bit.

The first person to mention SLAA to me was a therapist in hospital. He was leading a group therapy session in the rehab unit, which my own therapist had encouraged me to join temporarily, mainly because I was displaying addictive or compulsive behaviour around a man. My therapist also thought I had a possible alcohol problem. I had abused alcohol in the past,  in my 20s, and he wanted me to get more education on alcoholism and be exposed to alcoholics. I am glad I did: it not only taught me a lot about the nature of addiction and addicts, but I saw how easily my drinking to cope with stress or difficult feelings could tip into alcoholism. However, although I tend to give up alcohol when the going gets tough, I do drink now, just very little as I am on a lot of medication anyway. Doing that stint in the rehab section was good. It is in my nature to overdo stuff, whether good or bad for me, so I get addicted to substances or exercise or food. Learning about addiction, how it begins and progresses, and how to get out of one, was very useful. 

Anyway, in this group session I was describing what had been happening to me. At that point, I simply could not control the impulse to write to a former lover of mine. This man had had an incredibly destructive impact on me and I felt haunted by him.  He had humiliated and used me, and my psychiatrist urged me to sever contact. A big part of me agreed: I didn't want him in my life at all.  And yet I couldn't stop messaging him. Often he ignored me but sometimes he would answer. In some instances, he lavished me with attention, was  affectionate and helpful. When he was responsive, I was happy but felt deeply conflicted. When he ignored me I was miserable, frightened by my behaviour, desperate to stop.  I was obsessed with him so that my mind automatically turned to him and I would find myself saying his name out loud without even wanting to. It was frightening, I thought I was going mad. I was ashamed and so angry. I berated and insulted myself and I tried to everything I could think of to make it stop. Looking back I think it was mainly the medication helped with the obsessive thoughts. It was a huge relief to be rid of them, although this still didn't enable me to cut off contact with him. 

On the numerous (!) occasions that I announced to him that I was cutting off contact for good, I felt like I was cutting off a limb, that I would fall over and not be able to get up. It seemed inexplicable to me at the time. I couldn't figure out what he was providing me with - his sporadic affection and kindess gave me a huge high temporarily but it was not a balanced, mutual exchange between two adults who like each other  - I knew it was not healthy. I was basically begging for crumbs from him, for anything - just one word, a little bit of kindness, just a sign I was special to him. It was like I was freezing cold and only he had the power to warm me up. 

But how I felt towards him was utterly tainted by what had happened between us in the past, and I was still in a lot of pain over it. It had been such a nightmare.  I felt he had manipulated and violated me, and had shown no respect for me or my life. Initially I blamed him for everything, the whole miserable mess, but I see now that I had a big role to play in creating this terrible situation for myself (more on this another time) and I was beginning to see this by the time I was in hospital. Still, I didn't trust him at all and yet I felt totally entangled. I hated him but I couldn't let him go. 

I will continue this in the next post. Thank you for reading. 

Drama therapy - an account

While in hospital, we were offered drama and art therapy several times a week. I was in a few plays as a small child but never did any acting again. I played a string instrument and was heavily involved in music in and out of school, but I never did anything using my body to express myself, or indeed being playful with my appearance and personality. I lacked the self confidence to be flexible like that, and became very rigid and ashamed, even though many of my friends were the exact opposite, artists and dancers by profession. They used to tease me a little for being so stiff, which would make me deeply uncomfortable. I was yearning to break out and express myself somehow, but I felt entombed.

Now I realise I didn't know myself very well, and the shame and self-loathing I had was overwhelming.  And yet to a large extent I didn't even know it was there, I was blind to how constricted I was by hang-ups, and punitive self-talk. It was just how I had been brought up, I didn't know any different.

But by the time I was in hospital at 30 years old, I was undergoing something of a revolution. I had dynamited my marriage - which for many years had been my security blanket, my lifeline - and I was in the process of understanding fundamental truths about my childhood and upbringing that explained much of what had happened and the choices I made.

So when it came to drama therapy, I let loose. Some of it I actually found tedious, like the warm-up exercises. We would stand or sit in a circle, passing around an everyday object and briefly pretend it was something other than what it was.  So a box of tissues would turn into a massive mobile phone with one person,  or an outsized comb with the next. I gathered these were standard exercises to get us into a creative or expressive mindset and I guess it did the job.

We would then usually continue with constructing a scene. Sometimes one person would begin with a movement, repeating it silently. Anyone who thought of a movement to add to this could jump in, until the whole group was silently acting out a repeated pattern, with each person making the same movement over and over again. One scene I remember started off with people standing at a bus stop in the rain (I was the rain, and very convincing too) . The bus came splashing the waiting passengers but then the sun came out and everyone was happy again. Simple but sweet.

It felt lame, a little bit embarrassing, but I chose not to care. Another time we did a similar exercise, except we stayed still, as if putting together a painting. What emerged was a mountain, river, temple at which someone prayed. Somehow all the patients had grasped the same idea, even though it was all  done silently. We were all moved because it showed how much we were all yearning for peace of mind and tranquility. It also really formed a bond between us. It sounds odd but it did. I played a pilgrim, hiking up the mountain. When I came across the river (played by a male patient who had tried to kill himself and was self-harming) , I stopped to rest and wash my hands and face.

Afterwards he said he felt it had been a really powerful experience for him, to imagine being a river and being able to provide something for a traveller, a moment's respite. It was a good moment and we warmed to each other a lot during that session, a rapport that lasted beyond our time as co-patients.

I also saw that other exercises that left me unmoved really did something for other patients, bringing out unspoken feelings or loosening up some even stiffer than me. We also did some drawing and writing, which would often see me go a little bit off the rails. I found it hard to contain my writing and produced non-sensical letters or speeches, angry in tone. It was not badly received by the therapist but because we were in a group we couldn't explore it much. Perhaps that is just what I had to express at that moment, incoherent anger.

I stopped going after a while when I ran out of energy because of the medication I was taking. I could barely stay awake, and jumping around a room with a bunch of other patients didn't seem very appealing. But the times that I went I think were beneficial.

I lost the fear of acting, and I feel am a lot more flexible in how I conceive of myself today. Also to have been in an environment where I was able to just let go, where it didn't matter what came out of me, was liberating. But I did have to make some effort to take advantage of that. A little inner push, a little courage, and soon you realise you have nothing to lose. 

Coming to terms with an abusive marriage, thoughts on abuse

I have spent a lot of my time in recovery trying to come to terms with the abuse that occurred in my marriage. From the start, my ex was incredibly jealous. We had terrible arguments but I always gave in to his demands, however crazy they were. I became used to keeping my eyes on the ground so as not to attract attention to myself and I suppressed my sexuality and womanhood.

After a while jealousy and the negotiations around what was permissible no longer dominated our relationship. I had adapted, but inside I was terrified. What if I was attracted to someone? Did that mean I didn't love my ex anymore? He didn't even have to interrogate me  - I had the equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition going on in my head, and I would confess even the slightest pull I felt towards someone. Keeping secrets from him felt unbearable. I would bear all with the feeling of taking myself up to the gallows. Over the years, there were big crises and little ones, including me having to plead with him to forgive me for inadvertently saying something flirtatious to someone to conducting a full-on "emotional affair".

It seems ridiculous now, utterly laughable. How can I explain that I took on this absurd way of thinking, accepted this insanity? First of all I was young, 21 years old, and I was in a deep depression for which I was not receiving adequate treatment. I had just had a second abortion after getting pregnant from an unsuitable and painful liaison with a man. The abortion left me numb but full of self-loathing. My anxiety was so bad that for several months I barely left the house, finding it impossible to get on public transport. During this time, my ex was always there with me in my apartment. He talked to me and soothed me when I felt bad, giving me physical (not sexual) affection that I had been deprived of most of my life. I was deceiving myself and my friends about the relationship because the truth would have meant I would have to leave him - and that as the worst thing I could imagine happening. I had financial help from my parents but no emotional support. I thought I would sink so low that they would shun me and then I would end up drug-, alcohol-addicted, homeless.

For a long time I felt - and he still says this - that he rescued me from some terrible fate. I still struggle to disagree with this, even though plenty of people, including therapists, friends, even my current boyfriend, say he was only taking advantage of me.

It is complicated. Looking back I think he was very unwell himself, and the relationship was hopelessly codependent. He needed me as much as I needed him, but I didn't see this at the time. And yes - he did take advantage of my weakness to impose his insane rules about loyalty on the relationship, to make me behave in a way that suited his notion of honour and his insecurities. I should have walked away, but I simply did not have the strength to. The thought never even crossed my mind.

The abuse that happened towards the end of our marriage was for me much worse, but I will get into that another time.

What I wanted to say in this post is that reflecting on my own experiences has led to me think a lot about abuse in relationships in general, and I realised that I - like most of society - had a fairly limited understanding of what is a really complex phenomenon. Abuse can take so many different forms. In the public domain we are told of physical, financial and emotional abuse, but often what we are taught about domestic violence and abuse does not capture the whole picture and must leave many victims - and probably perpetrators - confused.

I certainly was confused if what was happening to me later (threatening me with taking my child away, prohibiting me from going out, repeated interrogations) was abuse because he said so often, and part of me believed him, that it was my fault, that I had brought this on myself with my behaviour. It was not until a meeting with a case worker at a domestic abuse charity that it dawned on me that this was "officially" abuse. Shaking with fear, I told her my story. She said: "I am sorry, Rosamunde, but that sounds like absolutely classic domestic abuse to me." She showed me a diagram, the "wheel of power and control" that described much of what had been happening to me.

Domestic abuse to me meant a man who batters his wife. That was it. And it seems many people still think like that. But there is overt and covert abuse, and they can be as terrible. Just because someone is mistreated in subtle ways does not mean it is not tantamount to severe abuse. Of course the severity of abuse varies but this should not solely be judged by the nature of the act (for example, hitting equals really bad, verbal insults not so bad). We need to take into account the impact on the victim. After all, what may terrify one person could theoretically leave another person cold.

But that is not where the misunderstanding of domestic abuse ends. There are so many misconceptions and prejudices. One thing I have encountered a number of times is a certain blame culture.  The other day, someone close to me said: "if you had not tolerated the abuse, had you not let it happen, then the relationship would have been over a long time ago." I also had a therapist I barely knew suggest that I must have been complicit in the abuse, and perhaps this was a bit like sex for us.

I ditched the therapist immediately but as for my friend,  I took a softer approach. I know why people in our society  think this way - it is ignorance, perhaps mixed with some misogyny, contempt for the "weak woman" and male resentment at always being portrayed as the brute.  But ultimately this is not helpful. Yes, had my mental health been better, had I not been afraid of losing my child, had I not been so isolated from my friends and so on, then I would have left sooner and avoided the whole sorry mess. But in my opinion, that is like saying to a man who was crushed by the train that if his leg had not been lame he would have escaped without injury. The logic of that is indisputable except that it implies that there was a choice in being hit by the train and staying in an abusive relationship . Even if people are objectively perfectly able, legally and socially empowered to leave a relationship, the key point is that they FEEL powerless and helpless. And that feeling is their reality. They must be helped to feel safe, offered protection and shown that there is an alternative to the hell that they are living. Staying alive and functioning in that kind of environment took so much strength that I began to accept it as my inevitable fate. This changed in my meeting with the case worker. Of course there are many other variables and circumstances too, including strong attachment to the perpetrator, in itself an extreme form of codependency and a mental health issue. Domestic abuse is not a lifestyle choice, it's not a choice at all.

I am not saying we should perpetuate victimhood. I found out myself that this can be extremely destructive and distorting, creating a cycle of yet more agony. But if abuse occurred, then there was a victim. It is for that victim to start on his or her personal journey out of the state of victimhood, to understand for themselves their part in what happened in their relationship. This is their recovery and concerns nobody but them. If they do not manage this, it is for a reason. Perhaps they are too traumatised and have not received the right kind of help. Perhaps their environment continues to be unsupportive. There will be as many paths as there are victims, and with the right kind of help most should be able to live better lives.

Obsession

A fly crawled into my head and nested. 

Its eggs spread out until the shimmering blue

Thing sat in every corner of my being,

rubbing its legs a billion times over. 

I lay down in the witch's frying pan.

She could only just make me out

With her cloudy eyes but she cooed

That I was precious, beautiful.  

I am breakfast, riddled with flies. 

I slipped into the minus, the mud and the saliva.

The sucking is so loud, I can no longer hear. 

My only hope is my blue shimmering lover. 

The Beginning

This time last year, I had just emerged from a two-month stay in a psychiatric hospital for severe depression and anxiety. I was glad to get out of there, to finally get back to my small son who had been staying with my mother. I didn't share the other patients' apprehension over leaving the safety of the hospital and returning to the real world, because my heart ached for him so much. I was also heavily medicated with mood stabilisers, anti-depressants, sedatives and anti-psychotics, all of which left me feeling dazed and yet strangely lucid. Somehow I took going home in my stride. I felt ready.

From the hospital I went straight back to my mother's house. I never returned to the lovely flat I had been renting for my son and me nearby in the months before I was hospitalised. Luckily, my mother took on the entire process of moving us out of there and handling everything with the estate agents and the landlady. I was and still am hugely grateful to her for this, as I would not have been able to cope with the logistics. All I did for the next two months was to sleep, go to SLAA meetings (more on that will follow) with my hospital friend Marilyn, and to spend time with my son.

I certainly have gaps in my memory of that time, undoubtedly because of the high doses of medication I was on. When at home without my son, I would always go to bed, tired or not. I would lie there with my eyes closed and think, half-dreaming, or I would just sleep.

I realised at the time that I was somehow reconfiguring on the inside, and just allowed it to happen. It was in some ways a very dynamic time too. Every SLAA meeting would throw up a whole host of realisations about my past behaviour and events in my life. I was reading books on issues including co-dependency, abuse, problems with intimacy and psychological disorders, which also gave me an incredible rollercoaster ride of insights and education about myself and others. I will set up a reading list for those who are interested.

I was also doing individual therapy, which I still continue with today. I barely remember anything from the sessions around that time, but I know they were a lifeline. I do recall time and space stretching oddly before my eyes as we talked, it was as if someone was pulling the scene apart like chewing gum, distorting my therapist's face and the wall behind him. It felt a little like being in a trance, trapped between the past, the present and some other layer of unreality.

When I told my therapist this, he did not seem surprised. In fact he is rarely surprised, not even at my most outlandish imaginings and feelings.

Those weeks after leaving the hospital I also frequently met up with my closest friends. We had always been big talkers in each others' company, but now I felt freed and able to talk to them at a new level of honesty - simply because I understood myself better. It was so good to feel their love for me and to express my love for them. I also forged a strong bond with Marilyn during this time. I will write more about her later too.

I have many hopes for this blog, mainly that those reading it can find parts of themselves in my experiences and be comforted or on some level informed by them. I don't know how systematic I will be - I may hop between the past and the present, or deal with certain topics related to recovery. There is much to talk about. I will also burden you with some of my poetry once in a while, because it's something that I do and want to share.

Thank your for reading.
Rosamunde (not my real name)