I knew I Shoulda Kept My Mouth Shut

i should never have said i was feeling the teensiest tinsiest bit better, a tad bit happy even.  because after i spent a great session i went home and found out that the agency that will be providing behavioural health services to the state Medicaid beneficiaries has been changed effective April 1.  OK, no so bad by itself.  but the then the letter says since MI is going to now be providing all Medicaid people with mental healthcare, they decided it would also be more efficient (and allow them to more closely monitor their conditions) that they will force any people who are ‘SMI”, or Seriously Mentally Ill (basically if you are unable to really work a real job full time due to mental illness—and that is me—)  all Medicaid mental health beneficiaries who are SMI will be forced to change their Medicaid insurance plan to the MI plan as well (the one that will be providing general mental health and SMI—if you are SMI, you will also be forced to use MI plan for all you PHYSICAL healthcare as well.  If i am forced to change to their Medicaid physical health plan, then i will automatically be dumped from my Medicare plan since, it is a dual plan, meaning my current plan gives me all my Medicare and Mediciad physical health coverage.  If i am forced to drop my physical Medicaid plan because I am SMI, then I will also be forced to drop my Medicare plan, and the only plan I will be able to get for my Medicare services would just happen to be, yes, you guessed it, the new MI plan.  So, because my mental health care is categorized as SMI, and MI is now going to provide all SMI and regular mental health Medicaid services, I will be forced to change my Medicaid physical health plan as well.  And, if I am forced to do that, then I will also be forced to drop my Medicare plan and again go to the MI plan.

I have seldom felt more raped, abused, beaten and whipped than I do right now.  I no longer have choice of Medicaid physical health plans, I no longer have choice of Medicare physical plans, and it is all because I am listed as SMI instead of ‘regular mental health’.  So, this insurance plan gets to force anyone listed as SMI to take all of their insurances, but those listed as general mental health get to choose their Medicaid plans and if they are on Medicare, they also get to choose that plan.  But not us SMI–apparently since we are such a ‘sick’ population, we dont’ get the right of choice in healthcare, on insurance, rx, or on doctors.  I will have to stop seeing all my doctors.  All.  And get all new ones covered by MI instead.  Why should I be persecuted just because I have a more Serious Mental Illness than some?  Why should my choice of insurance and doctors be taken from me?  What will I do without my therapist?  I have been working with her almost 3 yrs and I am just going to be forced to change within the next 6 mo.  And i will lose my psychiatrist, my case manager, my nurse, not too mention all of my non mental health related providers.

Well, I shouldnt have talked about starting to feel better.  I should have known something like this would come along.  It always does.  And now it has.  And now i wish i never started to heal, to feel better, i wont win anyway.  i wont accept what they say. and since i cant keep seeing my therapist, or any other providers, there is nothing for me to gain–only lose, i wont let them win by forcing me to take something i dont want instead, i wont roll over and play dead, i wont let them control me.  so maybe i die,but they lose to. they wont make me say ‘thank you may i have some more’ either.  they’ll see what happens when they try to take away control from the people they are supposedly trying to help.  even one person refusing to be abused by them and dying will be enough to make the state take a look at what they are allowing MI to do underneath their very noses to the ‘vulnerable’ population they claim to be serving.

Confused

Ok, so a week ago, my therapist made a comment.  A little one, that was just slipped in.  I didn’t actually register it at the time.  It was later, after I’d got home, bits of the session were floating about in my brain and i was resorting them again.  And this one kept drifting back over and over.

It was that she had casually slipped in that we no longer qualify as DID.  I sat with this for a whole week, until this week’s session.  And I said it our right at the beginning–had I misunderstood?  Am I really not DID anymore?  How does that work?  How do you go from being DID, and then one moment you’re just not DID anymore?

Her answer was that from what she observed, I no longer act as separate personalities, but rather as one ‘blended’ personality.  She said she does see parts of all of them, but they are now blended together with me, the one who fronted.  So, I guess that means we are ‘integrated’, and I guess it also means there is no ‘we’ anymore, just ‘I’.  It is strange, because I don’t really feel any differently. This is going to take a little getting used to.

I Am Still Nothing But a Child

I have this thirst to see myself make  more progress in therapy, to not be haunted by my memories, memories of the past that shouldn’t continue to hurt.  I want to see myself not reacting to my accustomed triggers, not suddenly screaming or crying at some random employee who doesn’t give me the right answers.  I want to see myself not freaking out, not having a heart attack everytime someone speaks out of a bit of a silence, or when they enter a room I’m already in.  I want to make progress, I want to be healed (well, at least functional, well, better, any improvement to where I am now!)

But I have this deep-seated fear, a fear that began while waiting for my SSDI award.  I have this fear that absolutely terrifies me of what happens once I’m ‘healed’ or ‘all better’?  Will I really be able to just start work again where I left off?  Will I have enough to live on when my kids leave?  If not, will I end up in a group home, or nursing home, or will I just become homeless?  So, I have this intense desire to survive and be ‘better’, and yet I have this absolute terror of failing if I do become ‘better’.

But let’s look at this ‘failure’ and see what I am really afraid of by that.  I am actually afraid that once you take away all my reasons, eg illnesses, excuses, etc., I am empty.  There  is nothing left.  But wait, that’s not quite right, actually all the things that a pinned on my outside for the world to see, all those things that people call K, will be gone.  What will really be left is nothing but a small, quiet, terrified, child.  A child who has watched her whole life pass her by.  A child who although its body aged, and although it watched it become a teen, then an adult, and watched it make and lose friends and boyfriends, be in a marriage, be ravaged by bipolar and ptsd,  (and unknown to this child then, DID also), never actually did these things, never actually grew, just pretended really well.

So, who I am at the end of the day, is a small child who knows all about growing and living and pretending, but never has.  I am terrified of being found out that I am not grown up, and that I can not take the reins and function as an adult to handle my life in the real world.

What I Never Thought

I never thought I would have my entire life leveled by a mental illness.  I never thought I would lose the ability to hold a job, especially a job caring for the elderly.  I never thought I would become disabled.  Or be told I’m no longer a candidate to care for foster kids.  Or be labeled a ‘child abuser’ of my own kids.  I never thought that when contemplating my life at 40, that I would be thinking about part time jobs in food service or retail.  Wondering whether or not I can afford a 1bdrm or only an efficiency.  Wondering where my friends have gone, family too.  I never thought I’d be alone, without a career, in the cheapest place I can find, when my kids are getting ready to go to college, disabled and chronically broke.

When I left home, or rather, was booted out the nest, I saw only blue skies and the ways to make my goals happen.  Sure I knew sometimes things would be hard, sometimes things would take work and time.  But I knew there was a way to have the things I wanted, to have the life I wanted.  I knew I could make it happen if I just tried hard enough.  But I have tried so hard, for so long.  And nothing has gone right.  And now here I am, my kids soon leaving home, and I have nothing.  Not even what I started out with at 17.  Now, my hope is gone, now I no longer see a path to the life I want.  I barely see a path to just keep hanging on to what I have now.

When I was 17, I saw the whole world in front of me.  A world where I would no longer be abused every day at the whim of my borderline mother.  A world where I would do a job that mattered, that made me feel useful, that helped people.  I saw a modest home, not even a house.  Just a comfortable apartment.  I saw a husband who loved me, and didn’t abuse me.  I saw children, filling my house with joy.  I saw stability and security in my life.  No worries if I spent an extra $5.  I saw happiness, fullness with love, pride in helping others and giving back.  I saw myself grow old with my spouse, still in love.  Working until it was time to retire.  A comfortable life, before and after retirement, with no worries about the rent getting paid.

But that is not what I got.  The life I have is one I never envisioned.  I lost my dream job, I lost my marriage, I lost my security, and I almost lost my kids.  I am disabled, I can’t work, not even at Target.  I lost my friends, I lost my family.  And I am just barely hanging on.  I’m not allowed to work with helping people now.  I’m tired out by going to 1 place in a day, whether it is grocery shopping, a doctor appointment or what else.  I sleep most of the day away, and am still tired when I finally make myself rise.  My meds have made me fat (I only eat once a day, and still I gain).  My hair has gone gray.  And I have I lost who I am.  Clearly, I am not who I was before mental illness claimed my life.  Clearly, I am not productive, useful, helpful in my life.  I don’t even recognize the physical part of who I am anymore, and I don’t know what might happen in my life from here on out.  I don’t have any goals, I don’t see any paths to the life I used to want, used to have.

That is the effect that mental illness has on the patient’s life.  That is the effect it has on the patient’s friends and family, and is why they have to get away, why they leave.  This is why not only do those of us debilitated by mental illness lose our lives, we lose everyone else in our life as well.  We lose our hope, our dreams, and can’t find our path.  We fall down, down, down, and don’t know if we can ever get back up.

WE Are Feeling Good

WE don’t know how, who or why.  And WE don’t care.  We feel GOOD for the first time in many years.  Things are pleasant, easy to do, not tiring to the point of exhaustion.  Plus, WE even have some motivation as well.  WE don’t mind doing the cleaning–we even just get up and do it without a struggle!  WE are even going to go to groups at the clinic!  They have been pushing us to go for a long, long time.  WE tried a coupla of times, but it was just so tortuous, so difficult to even get up and go there, and then the groups.  Well, it felt like we were stuck in some class WE weren’t interested in and already knew all the information, and just couldn’t wait to get out of.  WE did not go back.  It was a ‘fail’.  So, WE looked at the groups schedule, and found they have educational groups about recovering, social groups like bingo or arts and crafts, and health groups like Wii fit.  WE are SO excited to be able to start going tomorrow;  WE have been completely broke for 2 weeks and had to not drive anywhere to save gas for our son to get to school.  WE are actually looking forward to going to groups and to doing errands and cleaning.  Things seem so easy to start, and so pleasant to do.  WE have not felt this way since around 2005.  WE are trying not to think about the future, but to just enjoy the moment (which is ok, cuz the moment feels pretty good).  But sometimes, WE do think about when this good feeling will leave, how long WE have til then.  And WE do question where this good feeling is coming from and why.  But again, WE are trying not to think on that too hard, to just try to enjoy the moments that are feeling good right now.  Anyway, WE just had to share.  (Even though WE are slightly afraid that if WE acknowledge this positivity, WE will jinx it somehow and make it go away again).  Finally, things seem possible again.  WE have HOPE again.  And living from day to day feels light and airy rather than heavy, shackled, stuck in quicksand.  WE hope, WE just hope, that this is not some symptom of OUR bipolar, breaking through the meds influence, that this is not a sign of mania, but maybe actually some healing or recovery instead.

Who are We?

Many of you may ask yoursel(ves) the very same question.  Or maybe not.  I don’t really know, I’m really pretty new to this entire reality.  I know who I am, Anti-Kitty knows who she is, Trina knows and Little Trina knows who they are.  And we all know who each other is, and are aware of each other.  Pretty much, I’m the one that drives this person, and none of us even know who this “K” person is.  But while we work more or less cooperatively to keep this machine going, none of us knows who this person is even supposed to be.  We don’t think we have ever even met her.  How can a ‘person’ exist without the person being there at all?  This body, if it is not “K”, then is it us?  Do we get to claim ownership, whole or in part, of this body/brain we all share?  Do we even have to find “K”?  I mean, we operate pretty well nowadays as we are, in cooperation, with me mostly fronting.

Silly as it sounds, me, Kat, only just know realized I’m not actually ‘K’, that whoever that is (the original person), is not me after all.  It’s someone else, who maybe is gone.  So, I know who I am, and the others know who they are, but who are WE?  If we find ‘K’, will WE change/cease/stay the same?  It is a puzzle, which WE cannot know the answer to unless it happens, unless we find ‘K’.  Problem is, WE don’t know if WE want to find her.  Maybe its better to not know, to stay as WE are?

It makes one wonder, what is this concept of identity anyway, and if there is a single definition, should there be more interpretations?  So, who are WE?

 

Trust

I just realized that I don’t ‘trust’ very well.  Well, not the meaningful kind, anyway.  There are two basic kinds of trust in our society.  The generic kind that we basically trust in our fellow man, our shared routines, etc.  These are manifested by our laws, morals, and values.  So, we all trust that others will follow traffic rules.  We all trust that when we call a business, we will reach someone who (most of the time) will try to answer our questions.  We trust that basically, all others have the same trusts and wants and needs.  For the most part, this is true.  Most of the time, things move mostly smoothly because of this basic social contract.

But I am talking about the much more deep, more scary and anxiety provoking kind of trust.  The personal trust that we give to others, in varying degrees.  Others such as co-workers, acquaintances, friends, and family.  I have fooled myself into believing I am an average ‘truster’, but the truth is, I trust no one with my personal trust.  I only trust in the social sense.   The only people whom I trust enough to give my personal trust to is my kids.  I don’t trust my R, my ex.  I really want to trust him, but everytime I begin to open up, he abuses it and reminds me why we are exes.  I don’t even have my mother in my life.  I have 2 elderly cousins as my only other family, but I can only trust them so much because they often misunderstand, which upsets us all.  I used to trust my Dad implicitly about everything, and I know he always had my back.  But he was the only one I ever truly trusted with all of myself, and he’s not here anymore.   So, basically, I trust no one with my personal trust completely.  And I trust only 3 family members to a limited degree.  I trust you all in the blogosphere more completely than those in my real life that I trust at all.

I spent a long time in my early life telling myself that it didn’t matter that I had no one to trust, no one that would have my back.  I told myself it just meant I had to be stronger, more self reliant, more of a fighter for what I needed and wanted.  That I couldn’t let ‘them’ hold me back, keep me down.   And so, by being angrily determined, I succeeded in getting a BA on my own, with no help.  I got every job I tried for.  I took care of  myself.  Then, for many years, I trusted R, the ex.  But all of that trust was found to be misplaced many years later, as it was used to manipulate me.  And still, R is the only one in the whole world who truly knows the real me, and it is so so hard not to trust him with that information.  Sometimes I forget, I feel nostalgic, I don’t know…and I share something with him, hoping because he truly knows the real me and because we are mostly friendly with each other now, that he won’t use it to hurt me.  But he does, and it reminds me how I can’t trust anyone other than my kids and my 2 cousins.  And I can’t even trust them 100%.

As a matter of fact, the thing that opened my eyes to the fact that I don’t allow myself to trust anybody is because I did just that–I almost trusted him with my inner self, perceptions and thoughts.  But this time, before I did trust, I stopped myself.  It is so lonely to have no one to trust with your inner self, your inner secrets.  To have no one with whom you can share your thoughts, dreams, anxieties, fears and occasional irrationalities.  It is somewhat sad as well to realize you really are truly all on your own, with no one at all to rely on,  in this long, strange, and sometimes miserable journey through life.

What this realization has meant for me is 1) finding out that I trust no one completely, and then only a few, 2) that even when we don’t know how to trust or who or when, even if we have never learned or just learned to be too wary of giving trust, we still want to, desperately, 3) and finally even though we continue through life mostly alone, we can be fine, good, happy, okay.  But it is a loss that most of us who have lived through trauma will still occasionally feel sad and a bit lonely about, even if we do make it just on our own most of the time.   So, I see now how because I can’t trust, how lonely the road is that I am travelling is and has been most of the time.  I see now it is not my fault that I don’t know how to trust well, or that I don’t feel safe in trusting.  It is something that my mom took away from me a long time ago, and made me afraid to get back.  This is just one more thing she did to hurt me, that has hounded me my whole life, that is not my fault and never was.  Maybe I can learn to trust again one day?

Some days, it just doesn’t pay to gnaw through the leather straps.

I really felt that I have been doing really well lately.  And that I have gotten a lot of positive steps taken on different goals.  For instance, I finally got (after a year of begging) my mental health clinic to send the documents needed by Voc Rehab so that they could help me get the education I need to get the job I want.  So, first, I’m actually thinking of going to school all day, every day, in the near future, and am not running and hiding under my bed when contemplating it.  And second, I finally got my case manager at my clinic to speak to the local Housing Authority, who after a 5 year wait, told me I was over the income limit by $400 annually–when over $2k of that was a one time payment my ex had to make toward child support just so he could be allowed to get his passport, which he wanted to use to visit his fiancee in China.  That payment will not be repeated, so why was Housing Authority including it?  They refused to tell me how to appeal their decision, buy my case manager finally got ahold of them, and now they say they will reconsider if I make my case in a letter.  So, I really feel that I have been able to be ‘healthy’ and ‘normal’ in dealing with this stuff, in getting the wheels rolling on these different tasks.

And then a month ago, my car was hit on the driver rear fender.  Ironically, at a church parking lot where my daughter was attending a birthday, by the pastor!!  Who didn’t even want me to report the accident.  Said he had a friend….um, yah.  So, his insurance determined he was 100% at fault.  But now they are saying my car is totaled, because the repair is more than the value of the car.  Well, for some stupid reason, Arizona (where I now find myself) forces all cars that have been totaled out by insurance companies to be given a ‘salvage’ title.  This means, they can not for any reason, be driven on any public streets or parking lots, etc. The only way to get the car on the roads again is to ‘do repairs’ and then provide receipts of such repairs to testing facilities who inspect the car to see if  1) it is safe and roadworthy, and 2) if repairs done as per receipts provided were done properly. Then you can get a ‘restored/salvage’ title, and drive it again.

My problem now is, the other insurance company won’t tell me how much my check is going to be, or how much my car is valued at, so I can determine what funds I will have if I keep it and try to go thru the ‘restore/salvage’ process, and, since the damage is only bodily, and I cant repair it because it is the whole reason the car has been totaled….will the testing facility even DO the tests if I don’t have receipts?  And if I DONT keep it, I need to have an idea of how much I’ll be given so I know what kind of replacement cars to look at.  So, here, I thought I have been doing so well, acting so normally and healthily.  I thought I was handling and controlling myself and my emotions.  Until I got so worried about this car situation, and decided to call my own insurance, thinking they would be more free with information than the other party’s insurance has been so far.  But I was wrong.  I called, I waited on hold 20 minutes, I got transferred to customer service/sales…where they perky young lady refused to tell me absolutely anything, not even in general terms, not even the basics, and transferred me back to claims…..where I waited 20 more minutes on hold before finally being (ironically, magcially) transferred to the actual same person who had initially handled my claim….except he was out of the office for the day.  So, as I found myself leaving a message for him, I suddenly teared up and could barely leave my name and number.

So, so much for thinking I might actually be ‘healthy’ and ‘normal’.  I guess, I just get to have those almost healthy and normal days to make me feel good for a minute, before I fall back into those much more common and depressing days that I have all the time…y’know, where I cry at the least frustration or explode into anger instead.  Where I can barely get myself to leave my house, to do the basics.  Well, I guess I shouldn’t have expected those ‘healthy’ and ‘normal’ days to last.  After all, I have got my own cushy spot all worn in in more typical and symptomatic days.

What I Received Today

” Dear Kat,

Please don’t be estranged from me any longer.  Your Aunt C is dying after almost a year of a long battle.  V is taking her from the hospital back to C’s home, and V will stay with her until she passes.  C is not expected to live more than 3 weeks.

And your Grandma was struck by a car while walking in a parking lot near her home.  She is in very bad shape, and will probably not walk again or be able to live in her own home again.

She and I have prayed for you daily all these years and I know it would mean a lot to her (and me) if she would hear from you.

She and I both love you deeply, and your kids too.

Please, please stop this.

I beg of you to call her.

Mom

So for those of you who have been following along, my Mom finally found me after 5 years.  When I cut her out of my life because  I finally decided I just couldn’t take the abuse any more.  And a month or so ago, she wrote me, and her letter was all soppy and sweet (ugh).  When I didn’t respond, this is the follow up letter I get (above).  So, when being all soppy sweet doesn’t work, she pulls out the guilt.  Now I never wished bad on anyone, and if it’s really true, I am sorry for them.  But that does not mean I can ever allow myself to be in any kind of relationship with her again—even if what she says is true (and I am not putting money on it).  But the real point is, if she can’t get what she wants by being saccharine, then she tries using guilt.  I expect the next letter to be angry, yelling, name-calling, to beat me into submission.  Hopefully, after that, she’ll try the ‘silent treatment’.

I started this post a while back, but wasn’t able to actually post at that time.  I can now, so here it is.

The Monster Within

I think I finally see who I really am.  All these years of wondering who is the real me hiding under the surface, under the ‘me’ that I show the world, that I want to make myself and others believe is the real me.  I have seen this truth before, but never accepted it, kept pushing it back under, deeper each time.  But I think this time not only did I see the truth, the real me, but I think I started to accept that the real me is not the me I hoped it would be.  

For all these years, I created  ‘selves’ for every situation.  A ‘self” that I want so desperately to be the real self, the real me.  But even after all these years, I still knew it wasn’t real.  I wanted the selfs that I created to be who I really was.  But they only go skin deep, like a carnival mask  that is adapted for every need.  I wanted so badly to believe that the self I show was really me–kind, caring, understanding, gentle, generous and compassionate.

And yet, as I search to find the me under the mask, I always knew the real me was something much more undesirable hiding in the depths of my being.  The one thing I have wanted more than anything in the world was to be nothing like my mother.  I even despise looking at myself in the mirror now, because all I see is her.  I hate when my voice has her tones, her raspiness, her sounds.   I hate when I hear myself say things and then realize that’s what she would’ve said.  I despise her with every fiber of my being, and probably always will.  In me, all she ever saw was something to crush, to consume, to torture and punish,  something to destroy the life out of.  All my life, I wanted nothing more than to be as far away from her as possible; to never see, hear, feel, or be like her in any way.  To complete eradicate her from my existence, forever.

Now, for 5 years, I have been free from her, except for 2 recent letters which I have ignored.  I have been improving in seeing her less in me.  Until now.  Now, when I see who I really am surface from the depths of my inner oblivion.  I am what I always feared becoming.  I am cruel, visious, violently hateful.  I am wicked and evil.  It has always been there, under the depths, but I refused to see, to believe.  I am exactly like her.  This is the true me.  In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth kills Banquo, and tries to wash the blood off her hands, but it will not go.  Because the truth of who she is is not the person she shows to the world, who she wants to believe is the real her.  The true Lady Macbeth is shown as she washes, ‘out out damn spot‘.  She is evil.  She is cruel and sick and twisted.  This real self cannot be washed away, no matter how many kind and loving and caring constructions of self are made to show the to the world.

No matter what she or I do, how many faces we create, the real truth is always there.  No wonder I have always hated who I am.