In the interest of painting a complete picture.

 October came and went and mostly, I've been thinking about leaves and pumpkins and what do I want to do about Christmas gifts BUT ...

I've also been fighting seemingly rootless, untriggered panic.  Ten years ago this would have been debilitating - this year it made me curious, and a little tired.

Just a good reminder that progress is neither linear nor All-or-Nothing.

"let me always sing Hallelujah" (hat tip "Broken Hallelujah", The Afters.)

A Few Paraphrases

Some of the things I have said about October, mostly on the Blog I Accidentally Deleted. include:

 - October is hard, so very hard.

- the sight of the full moon peeking through bare branches was, for several years, enough to send me into a full-blown panic attack.  Or to make me dissociate so badly I didn't know my own name.

- I can't tell you what happened to me in October - it's not that I don't know, it's that I have some responsibility to think before I speak about what sorts of images I am putting in other people's heads.  I was hurt, very badly, by people who wanted to go on hurting me, and so took steps to terrify me into silence.

(it worked.  I was terrified into forgetting it completely until I was in my 50's)

A Memory:

October of 2019, I clearly remember having a panic attack after class, stuttering a short, edited version of the story to a perceptive classmate, who asked me if I needed anything.

"I need to ride this out", I told her, "but I've got the skills." 

She smiled.  "Would you like some company while you ride it out?"

(We are all just walking each other home.) (Ram Dass)

October 2021.  The Great Integration.  The insiders, the holders of the secrets, the Memory Keepers, were able to let go, to walk away from decades of being silenced, to their places of peace.

October 2024.  Today.  Yesterday.  Last week, the last few weeks.  A few stories.

I can look at Halloween decorations without needing to rant or cry to a therapist.  I can drive through the neighbourhood I live in and actually look at something other than the five feet of road directly in front of me.

Last week a dear friend texted me to ask how I was doing in "this hellish season".  (walking me home).  Told me she was thinking of me,  I was perplexed for several minutes and then realized - oh!  it's October!    I texted her back, telling her about the confusion and said "Maybe healing is A Thing." 

Thursday, exactly a week before Halloween, I had an ultrasound (routine.  Panic thou not) that involved a man I did not know, who was not having a good day, and had no interest in answering my questions, leaning over me and leaning on my body, with prolonged contact with my chest - ok, my *breasts* - and I ...didn't care.  I was astonished enough that I asked the resounding silence in my head "Where are you all ??" (unconcerned, is where they were.  There's a longer explanation, about what integration looks like inside my head, but that's not today's post.)

Church on Sunday.  I am a person who knits in church.  Before I Remembered, I only knew that it stopped me from falling asleep in church.  It's still the easiest explanation - my under brain needs something to do so my upper brain can pay attention.  (Also I like to knit.) And then I started to remember, and church became very problematic, as my primary abuser was a dedicated church goer.  I did not feel safe in church, and I realized, eventually, that when I did not feel safe but couldn't physically remove myself, I would dissociate by falling asleep.  Now that I am healing I bring the knitting and take it out if I start to get sleepy (or, let's be honest, I'm knitting something I want to finish!)  Sometimes I try to tough it out.  

Sunday I was astonished to realize that I hadn't once gotten sleepy OR even thought about the knitting during the service. I was present, fully engaged in worship, in learning, in Being There.  No insiders, no triggers, no shying away from a possible trigger.  Just me and the God I love, worshipping in community.

It is astonishing enough that this could happen, ever, at all, for me.  That it happened on the last Sunday before Hallowe'en is nothing short of a wild extravagance of treasured grace.

If I post every few years, is that considered active?

I just happened across this poem I wrote and liked and so I thought I'd hurl it into the ether.

How I Remember It
 
I’m fifteen, on a class trip to the city
waiting for a group of friends
to hide in.  They bring you with them,
long lean laughing boy -
so beautiful I can barely look at you.
 
The afternoon blurs.  Ice cream somewhere,
hide and seek in the cool marble halls
of the Mantioba Legislative Buildings,
the spring air drenched in lilacs.
 
Open air concert the next time.
You’re late, but a quick nudge in my ribs
lets me know it’s my bit of shade
you’ve chosen to shelter in.
 
They all wanted you,
all the slim pretty girls
with the long straight hair -
 
and you wanted me.

 - Susan Plett

And then there was one ...

One year ago yesterday, Brad and I went to church for the first time in forever because Covid restrictions had been lifted for a while and we felt like it was time.

Little did I know, God had Plans (yes, with a capital P) for me, for us, that day.  For today, let me preface this with:  In case you're new here, or you hadn't heard (I haven't kept it a secret), I have been dealing with Dissociative Identity Disorder most of my life, but not consciously until early 2013.  You used to be able to read about some of it on my old blog, but I accidentally deleted that, so until or unless I decide to write a book about it, you'll just have to take my word for it. Very early in the healing journey, I adopted the term "insiders" as my chosen name for my inner parts.

However.  Here's how I wrote about the last Sunday in October, 2021.  It's been a year since this happened, and sometime in the next few days I'll come back and write more about what's different, but for now - here's the email I sent trickling out to family and friends, as slowly, slowly, slowly, I allowed myself to believe that what I experienced that Sunday was real.

***

And Then There Was ...One

So a few things to start with:

• Brad and I haven’t been to church since they shut it down for Covid, even though it’s opened up again here.  We have a lovely Sunday morning routine of parking by the river listening to the sermon but we’ve both been feeling like we will need to start going to the physical building again soonish.
• I have had a particularly “interesting” relationship with one of my insiders – she initially wouldn’t talk to me at all even though she made strong attempts to control my behaviour/attitudes. She’s been a lot of work and very antagonistic.  She’s one of the few later insiders to show up with a name – her name is Sharon. 
•  

Okay.  Sunday morning I’m lying in bed trying to decide if today is the day because our reluctance to go to church is often fueled by what I think my internal system can handle.  So I prayed “Church?  No church?” and I felt like the answer was church.  And then Brad woke up and said he didn’t think we’d be on time, let’s try next week and I was HA! I don’t have to go to church! And then I remembered that Brad actually isn’t my final authority and I said “I think I’m being called to church today” so we went. 

Partway into the singing I realized that, inside my head, Sharon was sitting next to me with her head on my shoulder.  This was astonishing enough but then she just …the only way I know to explain what integration feels like for me is to say it felt like she moved into my body, not to take it over (as they sometimes did) but a sort of merging.  She was beside me and then she wasn’t but she wasn’t exactly gone either.  I asked her “Are you sure?  Two weeks ago you hated me.” And she said “I don’t have anything left that I need to do.”

As I was trying to process this, I heard the words “It’s time” in the gentlest most compassionate voice you can imagine and a steady stream of parts followed her.  Integrating.  Integration is a word and even a concept that I have resisted for a very long time, not because I didn’t want it, but because I thought if that was the goal I might actually get in the way of my own healing and slow it down by focussing on the endgame, not the process. I watched it happen, I felt it happening, and I also noticed a great deal of fear and resistance and as I sat there battling I remembered our church has a prayer room that is staffed during the service.  I felt like God was encouraging me to go for prayer and to go right then, so I did. 

 There was an older couple there (much older than Brad and I, which is actually still possible) and I couldn’t figure out how to broach it so I just said “I’m going to say the thing and let’s see where that goes.  I have been living with DID for approximately ten years and I feel like God is calling me to integration but there’s a lot of fear and resistance so I’m here for help with that.”  Turns out the woman I was talking to was a retired psychiatric nurse who also spent several years facilitating a group for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. She didn’t bat an eye, and she knew exactly how to bring my request to God.  There are so few times in our lives that we feel certain that we are part of a divine appointment, but Sunday was one of them

.Brad and I went for a drive for the rest of the day because I needed to process.  All day I watched parts fall asleep, getting sleepier and sleepier and they’re all there, still, I can visualize them, but they radiate relief that their job is done, that they can finally lay it all down.  It’s weirdly quiet inside my head.  I’m so used to checking in, to make sure everyone is okay, to handling triggers and nurturing them – it feels a bit lonely but also oh my goodness, so so freeing.

 

I am so deeply grateful.

***

I'm still grateful.

Music at Midnight

 Well.  Here's the thing.  I am struggling with depression.  It's taken a bit for me to get to the point where I have enough oomph to work against it, but today I remembered "read the boys" (there should be a link here to The Blog I Accidentally Deleted, but there isn't, because I accidentally deleted it, but in that post I talk about 3 poets whose work often sustains me - Malcolm Guite, Stephen Berg, and John Blase) and so one thing led to another and then I found an email in which Malcolm recommended I read John Drury's book Music at Midnight if I wanted more insight into the work of George Herbert and so I went to Kindle and look, look what I found in the introduction to the book!

In another walk to Salisbury he saw a poor man with a poorer horse that was fallen under his load; they were both in distress, and needed present help, which Mr. Herbert perceiving, put off his canonical coat, and helped the poor man to unload, and after to load his horse. The poor man blessed him for it, and he blessed the poor man; and so was like the good Samaritan, that he gave him money to refresh both himself and his horse, and told him, that if he loved himself, he would be merciful to his beast. Thus he left the poor man, and at his coming to his musical friends at Salisbury, they began to wonder that Mr. George Herbert, who used to be so trim and clean, came into that company so soiled and discomposed; but he told them the occasion; and when one of the company told him he had disparaged himself by so dirty an employment, his answer was, that the thought of what he had done would provide to him music at midnight, and that the omission of it would have upbraided and made discourse in his conscience, whensover he would pass by that place. 'For if I be bound to pray for all that be in distress, I am sure that I am bound, so far as it is in my power, to practice what I pray for. And though I do not wish for the like occasion every day, yet let me tell you, I would not willingly pass one day of my life without comforting a sad soul, or showing mercy; and I praise God for the occasion. And now let's tune our instruments.'

- From The Life of Mr George Herbert.by Izaak Walton, 1670.

Music at midnight. Let's all do that. Let's all make the choices that provide for us music at midnight.

"And the light that's lost within us reaches the sky" (Jackson Browne)

 I've been listening to Jackson Browne's Before The Deluge over and over and over again and while there are many lovely lovely phrases, I've been at a bit of a loss as to exactly why the song resonates with me as much as it does.  It's by no means a new song but it's new to me.

Today, some clarity. The mental health journey is arduous and has been particularly difficult the past few months.  October is usually fairly awful, and it was worse than usual this year. The struggle started earlier and was much more intense, and then the reprieve of November came but pretty early in November, the struggle changed and became more difficult, in ways it hasn't been difficult for a really long time.

So it's been ...dark. Dark and wearying and kind of lonely and horrifying and today I found myself singing along with "the light's that lost within us" and instead I sang "...and the light that's locked within us reaches the sky" and that, THAT, that right there is what I will strive for until my dying breath ...

By the Light, by the power of that Light, the light that's locked within me will break forth and blaze and not just reach the sky, but transcend it.

Your past is not a template for your future.

 So many times, I hear myself telling people these things:

    Your history is not a template for your future.

    Your parents are not a template for who you are.

    You have choices.  You have the power to choose.  Awareness is a gift.

I believe these things, truly, strongly, deeply. I believe that we have the power to make different choices than our parents made, even the power to make choices that are different from the ones we ourselves have made in the past.

This week I came face to face with my own template and it was oh, so tempting, to surrender to it.  There's safety in patterns, even in the ones that make us hate ourselves.

School has been tough this semester. I'm tired of isolation, of uncertainty, of not having quite enough money, of being lonely and overweight and schoolwork has been very difficult to force myself to do. One of the professors I took several courses from in my undergrad degree said "Every time you choose not to quit is an act of healing."  

Because that was my pattern.  Big plans, big ideas, big dreams, or even small dreams, dreams as small as "I will do my homework early and thoroughly" ...I started out well and finished poorly.  I remember being highly insulted in high school when one of my teachers berated me (and a few others) in front of the entire class for not working to my potential.  (Now that's an interesting thing to find insulting - how dare he call me smart??)  

I took a year of university shortly after high school.  I failed one course, dropped another, passed English and Psych.  This became my template:  I don't finish what I start.  I have no ability to follow through, to finish well.  (Never mind that in my late 20's I successfully completed a diploma in Business Related Computer Programming at NAIT while working full time...that's the thing about templates, sometimes - we form them early, and then we ignore all evidence to the contrary.)

For years, actually decades, I did not go back to university even though I dearly longed for a degree in English because "I don't finish what I start."  I did not go back to school six or seven years ago (time is flying, y'all.  I don't remember exactly how long ago now!) planning to get a degree.  I went back thinking "well I'll take a course and see what happens." I was pretty sure I knew what would happen but -  somehow, by doing the next thing, and finishing what I started on however small a scale (a reading, an assignment, and lo and behold, a course and then another course) - I got a Bachelor's degree.  And nobody was more shocked than I was to find myself pursuing a Master's degree.

Fast forward to this semester when I am farther behind than I have ever been, in more than one course ...for one brief half hour yesterday, I came face to face with the template. Everything made so much sense.  I'd been looking at too small a picture, but looking at the big picture?  The journey that started  six or seven years ago that led me to this moment?  This was going to be the moment that matched the template. I may as well stop fighting it. I don't finish what I start. This will never not be true.

Thankfully I also believe you don't have to believe everything you think, and I'm sitting writing this instead of an essay (which I will go back in a few minutes) because I want to blog this, and then post a link on Facebook, and then at least once a year, I can remind myself:

YOUR PAST IS NOT A TEMPLATE.

And if my past isn't a template?  Neither is yours.