Penguins vs. Llamas

Ho, ho, ho. Merry Apocalypse that wasn't. It's almost a shame. My anxiety has been off the chart lately. Got some family drama, because no holiday would be complete without it. My birthday party, in 9 days, is only partially planned. Christmas is being divided into two parts this year, due to aforementioned drama.

Four panic attacks today. Good times, good times. My anxiety is like this little voice in my head telling me that no matter how hard I try, I am going to be a complete failure at every venture. It's like being haunted by my dead grandmother on my father's side.

I tried to quit smoking, and the timing was bad to begin with, but I couldn't handle it. I'll try again after the new year.

I am fighting with myself to do my therapy homework. I don't want to do it, because it sucks, but I need to do it. At least according to my therapist. My cats are fighting right now, and I am too tired to give a damn.

I haven't read a book in like two weeks because I'm too stressed out to sit still that long. It's almost bad enough that I feel like I should be inpatient for awhile. Almost. It sort of feels like the feeling you get when you drink a bunch of energy drinks. Heart's pounding, everything is almost painfully bright and clear, my brain can't quite get my body to do the right thing at the right times, and I feel disconnected from people around me. It's like being a penguin and everyone else around me is a Llama. Penguins and Llamas can't empathize with one another very well. The penguin is a land and sea creature, but llamas only understand the land. The penguin can't very well ask a llama for directions for routes via the sea. It just doesn't work.

I'm not making any sense anymore. That means its time to stop writing.

A fun time was had by all

So, I don't know if you've picked up on it or not, but therapy has been fun lately. I'm ready to give up on the VA, because I don't think they can help me. I'm tired of living this way. I'm tired of going to the VA every week and feeling more and more helpless every appointment.

They play roulette with my medications, and with my therapy. There is no consistency. For two years, this has been going on. Three therapists, three psychiatrists. It's like being violated all over again, every time I have to talk about it. Talking about it isn't really helping. Taking my meds isn't really helping.

I went to the mall yesterday to get a dress for my birthday party. Three separate times I thought I was being followed. I was convinced that someone was going to grab me and hurt me. What am I supposed to do, in order to feel better?

I am seriously tired of it all.

I can't go to the residential treatment program for PTSD, because my symptoms are incompatible with their program. I take medication prescribed by my doctor for panic attacks that they don't approve of. Also I disassociate. I space out. I can't pay attention.

More therapy homework

Power/control

The men who raped and assaulted me were demonstrating their power or control over me. They took away my power. I couldn't fight back. Now I feel like I have no control over my life. I feel helpless. Because I feel like I have no power, I am afraid of people in general. I feel vulnerable to the whole world. I have no control over my life. I am afraid to leave my home, so many decisions are taken away from me. I am afraid to be around people, so many decisions are taken away from me. I am afraid of loud noises, so many decisions are taken away from me. I feel weak, I feel I have to hide. So many of my decisions are taken away, and I have no choices. It makes me angry at myself for being so powerless.

Safety

I don't feel safe. I used to be able to feel safe around people, but not since the rapes. People are dangerous, or at least have the potential to be dangerous. I take steps to help myself feel safe, but nothing really helps. I feel afraid if I don't take those steps, even though they don't work. I sleep with a knife and a teddy bear to help me feel safe enough to fall asleep. I don't feel safe outside of my home. Even when Jon is with me I don't really feel safe. Jon is a comfort to me, because I feel safe when I am alone with him. He tries to look out for me and help me feel safe when we are out of the house. Jon doesn't see danger everywhere like I do, and doesn't believe me about some of the dangers. This makes me angry and frustrated. I know some of the dangers that I see are greatly exaggerated, but others feel like they are legitimate. The world is not a safe place. People are not safe.

Trust

I don't trust people. I particularly don't trust people in positions of authority, because my squad leader raped me and took advantage of me. I believe people in authority abuse their position and hurt others. It takes a long time for me to become comfortable around an individual, and even longer for me to stop waiting for them to do something to hurt me in one way or another. I also don't feel like I can trust myself, I can't trust my judgment because I am always afraid. I feel like it is safer to mistrust everyone to protect myself from being hurt. I feel paranoid about people. I'm always on my guard around people I don't know, and it is exhausting. I was surrounded by enemies in Iraq, even the other soldiers were my enemies, and I still feel like that sometimes.

Self-esteem

I don't feel good about myself. I can't trust my own judgment. I hide in my own home and don't eat well, or exercise. I don't like the way I look. I feel like people don't like me. I am ashamed that I had sex with people in Iraq for protection from the people who raped me. I feel weak, and I don't like myself for feeling weak. I get angry at myself. I have trouble concentrating and it makes me feel stupid. I know I don't behave appropriately around people all the time because of my fear, and that makes me feel ashamed. I forget to shower, and brush my teeth, and change clothes, and that makes me ashamed. I feel like there is no place in the world for me, so it is easier to hide at home.

Intimacy

I have a hard time getting close to other people. Jon and I, established a very emotionally intimate bond very quickly, because I was very open with him when we first met. I don't feel like I can make friends, because of my fear. I feel like if I let people get close to me, then they will hurt me. I worry people think badly of me. I don't understand people. I don't even feel like I am a real person most of the time. Watching people feels like I'm studying an alien race. I just don't understand. I don't like to let myself be vulnerable around people. I don't like to feel judged.  

Damn it all

Lord what a mess. My life seems to be a sequence of ever increasing crisis'. My anxiety is running a muck. Not the least of it is because of therapy. I am starting to feel like a punching bag again. Nightmares are back naturally. At least with the prolonged exposure therapy I started seeing progress right away. It gave me a certain limited freedom from my agoraphobia. I still have to have someone I trust with me in order to leave the house, but at least I CAN leave. I'm less terrified of the panic attacks now. I'm willing to try to make an effort, in a small way at least, to leave home.

This new therapy thing is going to be the worst sort of hell imaginable. Already my mind is consumed with these memories that are pure torture. Can't stop thinking about the rapes and the assault. I'm constantly on edge, anxious. Non-stop panic attacks. It's exhausting. You can imagine my resentment when my therapist told me I had to write a paper entitled "Why I was raped". How stupid can you be?

A paper I had to write for therapy

Why I was raped

I was raped because I was the only female assigned to an infantry unit. I was raped because everyone was angry and frustrated because soldiers in our unit kept dying. I was raped because I was on outsider and nobody cared what happened to me. I was raped because there was no one to protect me. I was assaulted once because the soldier wanted to humiliate me. I was assaulted other times, because they were stronger than me and didn't think I would fight back.

I was raped because I was not in control of the situation. I was raped because they wanted to use me. I was raped because people I thought I could trust took advantage of their position. I was raped because I was told that I had to get along with the infantry no matter what. I was raped because I was told that I couldn't cause trouble or I wouldn't be able to do my job because the infantry wouldn't trust me. I was raped because they made me to feel powerless, helpless. I was raped once because I was drugged. I was violated and humiliated and furious. I had no one I could trust. I felt alone. I believed I was going to die in Iraq and I stopped caring. I stopped wanting to survive, and hoped I would die to make it all stop.

I had sex with people I didn't want to in order to gain a “protector”, because the infantry doesn't poach other soldier's girlfriends. I don't like myself for that.

I learned that people cannot be trusted. I learned the depths of human depravity, and now I can't see people without remembering the evils that men are capable of. I learned that I am never really safe. I was afraid to sleep for a long time, because I was afraid I would wake up and someone would be touching me or raping me. Once I was out on mission and I woke up and a soldier had put his hands under my clothes and under my bra and was fondling me and apparently he fell asleep like that. I learned that there is no point in crying although sometimes you can't help it, because it always makes you feel worse, makes you feel weak. I learned to be afraid of people touching me. I don't believe someone will be there to help me if something like that happens again. I learned to be afraid to say no to sex. I had to keep going on my missions no matter what happened. I was good at my job, but I hated having to be around the infantry. No one cared about me. No one helped me, and even when they tried I was afraid to report the rapes and the assaults. I was afraid to be thought weak, so I was angry all the time to protect myself.

Shame and guilt. Fear and anger. Always feeling alone. They tried to punish me for not subjecting myself to sexual assault by an Iraqi man. I had a screaming match about it with one of my “bosses”. I hate that man so much. The “boss” not the Iraqi. I tried to get the “boss” to help me but he wouldn't. He told me to do whatever I had to in order to make that person help us. The commander on that mission told me if I couldn't handle doing my job to go wait in the truck. I went and waited in the truck and felt humiliated and ashamed for not getting the job done, but I wasn't going to let some Iraqi man touch me that way. I wanted to shoot that guy dead, but he had valuable information we needed.

Always I felt that rules were against me, made me unable to protect myself. No one helped me when I needed it the most, and so now I know that when things get that bad, I have only myself. I have Jon now, but I still don't trust people of authority. I really don't trust anyone very much. I don't like people. No one understands what I went through, and even my boyfriend doesn't really understand what I am going through now. How afraid I am all the time. How I can't stop thinking about these terrifying things. How I can't stop remembering it all. When I remember I'm filled with anger that is so intense I feel like I will die if I don't get it all out. And still, I feel so alone most of the time. I feel like I'm lost in the desert with no one around for hundreds of miles, and no one is coming to save me.  

The road to hell

Sweet Christ, will it never end? Therapy day yesterday turned into a shit storm of epic proportions. I had a nice conversation with my psychiatrist about how I'm fighting my depression the hard way. With fists and teeth and kicks and claws instead of with the drugs, which were causing my anxiety to get worse.

Three years of agoraphobia and I have gotten used to coddling myself. Anything to keep my head above water, one day at a time, one foot in front of the other etc. etc. I worked my ass off in Prolonged Exposure Therapy to get a grip on my panic attacks. I endured the worst torments of hell to gain some measure of control. I still HAVE panic attacks, but they don't have me if you follow me.

Since then I've been sort of, adrift. Letting shit slide, if you feel me. I nosh on comfort food, and read and read and read until reality is far enough away that it can't quite get me in its grip. I suppose I may have grown a bit complacent, leaving a way for the depression to sneak in and get its hooks in deep. I have a hard time focusing on what is real and right in front of me. I digress.

Enter the fucking social worker, my actual therapist. She jumped my shit about missing appointments (as if the meaning of "agoraphobia" had temporarily escaped her), and then insinuated that I didn't really want to get better. She suggested that I try a residential treatment program out of state, which instantly triggered a grand mal panic attack. Then she wouldn't let me leave her office, while I was busy freaking out. She made snide comments and was generally a pain in my ass. Her posture, tone of voice, and turn of phrase all suggested some hostility. At any rate when I was finally home and sedated, my boyfriend called, and the wretch said I must have misunderstood her. She ought to know better than to fuck with the crazy people.

At any rate, I called my dad freaking out, and he slammed my ass about going into the treatment program, and I just wasn't ready to hear it. He worries about me being stuck at home all the time alone. It isn't good for me, I know that, but what the hell else can I do? Then my dad called my fucking brother who wanted to talk to me about the program, so I had another panic attack, and thanks dad for making shit harder on me than it already is. I asked dad to back off and give me time to think about it, but now half the family knows the VA wants to lock me up out of state for three months and everybody is "concerned" and wants to talk to me about it. So I spent half of today sedated as well, and I'm stressed and have a headache from clenching my teeth all the time.

It pissed me off that the social worker so easily dismissed the efforts I have been making to get the depression under control. It pisses me off that she suggested that I didn't want to get better. It pisses me off that my dad thinks the VA will or ought to take away my disability if I don't go to the damn treatment program. In the words of the wordslinger Stephen King "Every hand is against me now."

God save me from good intentions. Everybody just wants to help, and I just want to throttle them all. The insidious whispers of depression beckon me to hide in bed and cuddle my teddy bear and let the world go to hell in its own way. I want to scream and scream and scream and never stop til I'm dead.

Keep marching along

I'm so damn tired. The finest depression has to offer. Fatigue. Someone foolish asked me if I saw myself getting better one day. What they meant to ask was, did I want to get better. A silly question. If I try to picture the future I draw a horrible blank. My brain just stops. It's hard enough trying to get through right this moment, without worrying about later. Of course I want to get better, but I don't know what "better" will mean for me. I'm stingy with my wishes lately, because it's best to save them for the next big crisis. "Jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never ever jam today."

One foot in front of the other. Today is horrible, and it takes everything I have to survive it. Tomorrow will take care of itself. It's insulting to me that someone suggests even indirectly that I can somehow "will" myself better. People say that I used to be so strong. Yes I remember that too. Young and convinced of my own immortality. I'm not even thirty yet and I feel old. It's hard for me to conceive of another thirty years or more on this planet. Strength is an elastic sort of term. I seem to have lost that core of steel that I used to have buried deep. What I have now is more stubbornness than anything else. I've been kicked in the face too many times by fate to be willing to give up now. I know I can take a damn hard kick and keep my feet. Maybe just barely, and not at all gracefully, but I'm still here. I don't worry too much about the next kick (and as long as I'm still standing there will be another one without question), because I know the depth and breadth of what can be survived, what must be endured. I'm just beating this metaphor to death aren't I? I'm tired. One foot in front of the other and don't worry too much about what comes next. If it kills me, well then I won't have anything left to worry about. If it doesn't kill me, it may not make me stronger, but there are benefits to mortality. Take two pills and call me tomorrow. And don't worry about me, when I can't walk anymore, I'll crawl. I've done it before.