Battling instability

So, back before I created this blog, back before I met kitten, back before florida happened... I was a mask. Or several, really. Marina didn't exist back then. What existed was a person who could not feel emotions because the trauma from being raped multiple times when she was ten made her cut them out of her. Total apathy. Laughter? False. Crying? Only physical pain, and incredibly horrible pain at that. Excitement? A facade. Sadness? What sadness? What fear?

The only thing I genuinely felt for at least three years of my life, was loneliness. Not your normal loneliness. It was like this all-encompassing hole of nothing swallowing me and making me see, every single day of my life, that I was completely, totally alone. That no one I knew understood me or would ever understand me because it was literally impossible for them to do so. So I made masks. I faked emotion. I was never happy, never sad, never angry, never upset, never scared.

Until I hit sixteen. See, I got a real bad case of walking pneumonia when I was fifteen, and was on a regimen of a narcotic cough suppressant to help keep me out of the hospital. Unfortunately it started bringing back memories of things, some good, some bad, that had happened to me as young as 3. I woke up from the dreams confused and befuddled, and convinced that they couldn't have happened to me.

Until I started asking my mom about them. And sure enough, every single dream I brought to her attention was something that was a memory. Of course, some things, like being raped, I didn't mention and didn't want to accept that had happened to me. Unfortunately all this culinated in an explosion. Very shortly before I hit sixteen years old, my masks broke, failed me, and I started feeling things again.

Can you imagine the agony emotions were to me after so long without them? Especially when, the moment I started experiencing emotions, I was experiencing severe bipolarity? I swung wildly back and forth between suicidal depression and dangerous mania. I felt anger so bad that I almost broke my sister's arm in a fit of rage. I was completely unequipped to deal with even normal emotions at this point of my life, and instead of even getting the opportunity to get used to it I was thrust into completely unpredictable instability.

Of course, eventually I learned to deal. Yeah, "dealing" included cutting and other forms of self-injury, "dealing" included becoming a kleptomaniac and thrill-seeker. But at least I wasn't succumbing to the suicidal thoughts any more (I have actively attempted suicide at least three times in my life, and listlessly attempted to waste away more times than I can count), and at least I had an outlet for the extra energy my mania gave me rather than allowing my anger to take control of me and hurt people.

No, it wasn't right, but it was better than what could have happened. It was better than what happened in florida, where I was abused, molested at knifepoint, raped, homeless on multiple occasions, had to steal just to survive. Just to eat. I've gone three weeks eating only one very small meal each week. I've never had to sleep on the street but I couchsurfed on the couches of total strangers for a month and a half. I let my boyfriend use me and his best friends abuse me, and repeatedly left somewhat stable situations in order to be with him, only to be kicked out weeks later.

I've been completely disconnected from any means of possible help and only by the grace of the divine managed to escape that hellhole with my life intact.

And that hole never went away. No matter how many friends I had, no matter who I loved, who I got into relationships with. Until suddenly it was gone one day and I realised that somehow it was kitten, the one person I actively pushed away and tried to avoid getting into a relationship with, that filled it.

The problem is, I'm not used to it being filled up. All those bad habits of pushing people away when I get into unpleasant moods, for their sake and mine both, they still exist.

What do you do when habit tells you to push someone away even though you know that it wont fix the problem? What do you do when even though you want to tell someone to stay, you order them to leave, and they have no choice but to obey you because you don't give them any other choice?

More importantly, how do you break these habits and form healthier ones?

I feel very lost and torn right now. I don't know what to do. I've been through so much shit in my life, more in my 27 years than most people experience in 90, and all my friends come to me for advice and I can help them just fine. I always have the right answers.. so why can't I find the right answers for myself?

I don't know what to do, and that's a really hard thing for me to admit.

Because a post from me is slightly overdue.

I have no idea what to say but this blog is becoming slightly unbalanced in terms of mine and Mistress' posts and that isn't fair so here we go.

If my life were to have one running theme it would be that there's always something wrong but it's never quite enough to deserve any help. I could be a little autistic, I could have mild cerebral palsy, I could be slightly dyslexic, I have some leg problems, I might be depressed, I have a possible phobia. etc. etc.

Looking at each thing one at a time they wouldn't cause me much of a problem, which is of course what the doctors do. But they all add up and they're making things very difficult for me. Right now my main focus is the phobia I mentioned. One of the biggest problems with it is that it's a needle phobia, very very very common and very often blown out of proportion by countless people. I can't tell you how many times I've had to hear people talk about their "phobia" how they "can't look" and sometimes they have to "hold someone's hand". The last time I had to have an injection? I was in school and waited until the nurses were distracted, ran off and hid in a mostly abandoned toilet block crying for a few hours until I was found, taken to a special room, left to cry in there for a while until everyone else was done and they then spent an hour trying to convince me to even sit down in a chair next to a nurse.

You might think a reaction like that would suggest I deserved some help. I certainly do.

Now, I'm trying very hard not to be negative about this, but after almost a year of pushing, this is all I've managed to get. I was offered access to an online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) course in order to try to make some progress. Keeping in mind I sought help because I was offered a trip to NEPAL and was being held back by my phobia, I'm sure you can understand my disappointment. That trip to Nepal was about three months ago, it was apparently fun.

I am only at my second session and it is still in the basics which, having studied phobias and anxiety disorders for 2 years, is very boring and demotivating. I'm finding it difficult to see how it will help and then there's a part of me saying that I'm not finding it helpful because once again, my problems aren't bad enough to need help.

I'm not going to give up on this program because even if it turned out to be useless all the way through to the end, at least I can tell the doctors I tried. Sooner or later they'll have to do something because both me and Mistress can see my health being at risk due to this. It's looking increasingly likely that I have a thyroid disorder, take a guess how they test for those.

So right now I'm feeling skeptical and a little let down. I'll keep on with this course and put as much effort into it as I would any other therapy I had been offered in the hope that it helps. I will probably write a few posts about it to try and keep myself thinking rationally and hopefully more positive.

//EDIT

I forgot there was more. This online program came with a bunch of questionnaires at the start to get an idea of my problems. I ranked high for depression, social anxiety, generalised anxiety and specific anxiety, all of which are having a noticeable effect on my social, work and home life. And yet, if I said any of that to a doctor, I bet all of my savings that I'd leave their office with nothing but a few leaflets. The NHS ladies and gentlemen, you get what you pay for.

/Lesigh

It's that time of the month. No posts lately and likely none til I am over this.

Although, do have pdoc appointment on friday, which will be.. interesting. I have some shit to bring up. Am very worried they will put me on a daily preventative anxiety suppressant as well as my PRN, and as well as my Saphris. Despite my ocd with threes, my hard limit for pills is actually 4. I will not let myself take/be put on more than 4 types of medication simultaneously (excluding allergy meds) and if they want to fight me on that they fucking can but my aim is to get to a point where I can function on a daily basis, not take a fucking cocktail of pills and be drugged up.

I might be changing my name soon - legally - to include my "real" name in it. We ("we" being my mother and I) are going to look into it on friday before or after my appointment. Probably before. It's best to find out whether it's even feasible, money-wise before bringing it up with the food stamps and pdoc office to see about getting it changed for official stuff. Thank fuck I have no bank accounts or car/insurance or any shit like that. Just my I.D. (cannot drive, tourettes makes for deadly game of chance) and food stamps and being on safetynet for healthcare.

Those shouldn't be too difficult to change, especially since I am just adding Marina in, not taking anything else out. But in any case we have to find out how to do it and what paperwork and fees and all sorts of things have to be calculated. I am glad I brought this up to my mother, because she is being shockingly accepting of it. I think me not wanting to get rid of my first or middle names is a factor. I just wanna slip Marina between the two so I can walk up to someone and say with the full force of legality behind it "Hi, my name is (insert first name here) Marina, I prefer to be called Mari." I'm excited, to say the least.

Anyhow that's about it, I may or may not have a post on friday, or any other day for a week to a week and a half depending how long this lasts. Or maybe sooner as well. Whoooo fucking knows. Not me that's for sure.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it...right?

But what if it IS broken. Or breaking? Or changing in inconceivably enormous ways that are scary and unprecedented and worrisome, but completely, wholly, and totally needed?

Kitten and I, as I have stated earlier I am sure, are going through a change in our relationship. This naturally leads to a lot of confusion and fear because both of us are afraid of change. Both of us fear change so much that we might either give up, or try to stay with something broken. This is the first time I have EVER stayed with a relationship when this much change was needed. I usually give up.

We have been "together" in some way, shape, or form, for over a year and a half and known each other for about two and a half years. It feels and seems like much longer, thinking about it, wow. Only two and a half years. With all that has changed, all we have gone through? Wow.

Anyways, she started off as my "casual" pet. Just playing. Just occasionally, and only during sex. Over time, however, our relationship has evolved into something much more complex, much more intense, more intimate. It has become, pardon the hypno-pun, a much deeper relationship.

There is more involved, we are moving towards a 24/7 dynamic, as much as is possible with an LDR anyhow, and are working on intensifying the D/s aspect of our relationship. Hypnosis is becoming a regular part of our relationship. We are also more of a vanilla relationship too. She is not "just" my pet. Just like she is not "just" my girlfriend. She is my lover, my mate, my kitten. My pet, my girlfriend, my comfort. The most important person in my life.

This means a lot of change. And that change is confusing, frightening, and hard to accept.

So far it has come a lot easier than probably either of us expected but one hurdle we still have to get over is communicating about it. There is a draft in our blog right now defining what we are, what things are necessary to our relationship, what makes us "us". It might stay a draft, it might not. But that talk we had was a huge leap for me to take and a huge fright for my kitten because both of us really, really, really fear change.

But I feel and probably rightly so that if we cannot and do not talk about these changes, our relationship might break. Surely I would normally have left by now were it anyone else.  This is also what makes me feel we are well and truly right for each other. Neither of us have run away. Or backed down. Or said "things were better before, lets go back then".

Sometimes things that don't look broken might be breaking, and sometimes they need fixed, or repaired, or changed, in order to keep them from becoming completely broken. And that is what we are doing. Preventative repairs. Change on purpose to combat the change on accident that might pull us apart.

It is only making us closer. And I think that if more people regularly took a look at their relationships, their dynamics, themselves, and did check-ups, took control of their relationships instead of letting the relationships taking control of them... a lot more relationships that fall apart might be able to stay together because they fixed the break before it broke too much.

Just my two penneth, as kitten would say. <3<3<3