Month: May 2017

Rape Culture.

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Rape culture is so pervasive and it starts impacting children in primary school.  I felt extremely triggered by something my younger daughter shared with me last week after school.  It’s been bothering me all weekend for a number of reasons.  I find rape culture upsetting.  Sometimes I just want to scream, cry and shout about gender based violence and fight against it.  Other times I’m exhausted, burnt out, spent from trauma and secondary trauma and I want to curl up in bed and hide from the world.  Just take it.  Just let it all happen.  Just zone out and give up.  Because I can’t fight rape culture alone.  It’s too big and I’m just one individual person.

My daughter is in primary school.  She told me that the boys in her class were pinning girls up against the wall and humping them.  She told me that the girls were squirming and trying to get away and that they did not like it. The teachers did nothing.  I asked my daughter if the boys did this to her.  She told me they didn’t because they don’t fully see her as a girl yet (she’s transgender).   I asked her if she told the teacher and she told me “No, because the teachers tell me to stay out of other people’s business”

My daughter knows that this behaviour is wrong.  She was upset about it which is why she told me.  We talked about consent.  We talked about bystander intervention and the difference between tattling and telling to get help.  She told me she might talk to a teacher she trusts on Monday.

I’m triggered for a number of reasons.

This type of behaviour shows just how young the messages of “boys will be boys” and “boys chase girls because they like them” etc.  are ingrained, in students, and teachers don’t question them.  My daughter consistently tells me that teachers don’t intervene in situations like this, instead telling the kids to sort it out themselves.  This tells me that the school isn’t teaching consent culture, nor are they valuing bystander intervention, nor are they clearly teaching and demonstrating the difference between tattling and telling.  These are important skills in combating rape culture, preventing sexual violence and helping stop sexual assault in situations where risks occur (i.e bystander intervention).

Though I was very glad my daughter hadn’t experienced this unwanted behaviour, it also drove home a very clear message that women and feminine presenting folks are the main targets of rape culture.  Because my daughter socially transitioned this year, her friends still perceive her as a boy, thus they do not target her for this type of sexualized bullying.  She exists in an in between space, not perpetrating the violence and not yet suffering it either.  Though she does experience some bullying related to being trans or being different, because the kids don’t yet perceive her as a “real girl,”  she is not yet a target for the unwanted sexual bullying.

All of this is extremely upsetting for me.  I’m angry that the school isn’t being more proactive in protecting these female students.  I’m angry that the school isn’t being more proactive in teaching the male students that sexual bullying is not acceptable.  Rape culture takes root during these early years.  It’s far too late to begin education in consent culture in high school.  It’s important to teach school age children that “no means no,”  that games should stop if both people aren’t having fun, that chasing girls isn’t cool unless everyone has agreed on the game, and that humping people against a wall is assault, not a joke.

As adults, role models, mentors, parents and teachers, we can root out rape culture.  We can fight it at the roots by doing primary prevention.  Teaching consent culture to young boys and masculine folks.  Teaching bystander intervention to all kids.  Teaching young girls and women to build each other up, support each other and look out for each other.

I can be a radical feminist.  I can be a social justice advocate.  I can fight to end gender based violence until my last breath.   But very little will change, if young boys are being implicitly taught that humping young girls against a school yard wall is acceptable behaviour and young girls are being taught that nobody will stop it from happening.

Gaslighting. Part 2. The lasting impact.

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This might be a disjointed post, but that mirrors the state of mind I’m in when I’m experiencing the impacts of gaslighting.  Gaslighting is a term for prolonged emotional and psychological abuse which is designed to make the victim doubt their own perceptions of reality.  It’s a particularly harmful type of abuse and the impacts of it can last for years after the abusive relationship ends.  The lasting impacts of gaslighting can be invisible or vague to the outside eye, but are extremely powerful and terrifying to the survivor.

Much gaslighting and emotional abuse is perpetrated by sociopaths and various types of narcissists.  These folks lack empathy.  They lack the ability to understand the feelings of others.  They can exhibit levels of cruelty that are difficult to fathom, but they often “pass” as normal, functional human beings.  They often have good jobs, and often live ordinary lives.  They can often appear to be quite charming, especially in short controlled (always by them) interactions.  The cracks in their normalcy only begin to become evident when you get to know them over longer periods of time, then the signs of missing empathy and humanity begin to peek through.  But by that time you are quite likely hooked, trapped and unable to escape.  For those that have only short interactions with the sociopath/abuser, they may continue to think that he is a basically “good person,”  model employee, good father etc.   This can add levels to the gaslighting, because the victim/survivor has difficulty being believed, when her abuser has so much “street cred” as a decent person.

My abuser regularly spreads lies about me.  He tells anyone who will listen how crazy I am.  He also tells people in the community, including people who interact with my children, how crazy I am.  He tells them how I never took care of my children, how I never bonded or attached to them (they were both raised with me as a stay home mom, exclusively breastfed etc), he even lies and says they were in daycare from birth!   He tells people what a good caring person he is, how sad it is that despite his love, he just wasn’t able to cure my severe mental illness and the marriage ended.  These are the type of lies he tells to others.

While we were together, he used my PTSD against me.  Basically saying that it was because I was crazy (from being abused as a teenager) that I didn’t like what he was doing (abusing me) and that any “normal woman” would be okay with it.  He used me being “crazy” as a trick to keep me trapped for years in the relationship.  When I tried to get away he threatened me saying that the police wouldn’t believe me because I was “crazy.”

All this is emotional abuse.  It’s all gaslighting.  It all made me and makes me doubt my own reality.

Being abused over a long period of time is complex.  Because the abuser is also someone you are in a relationship with.  You never really know when the abuse will happen and when things will be “fine.”  You never know when you’ll sleep through the night and when you’ll wake to be assaulted.  You never really know…

Thus for many survivors (myself included) waiting can be a huge trigger.

One way that I try to cope with ongoing fears of abuse is by never upsetting anyone.  This means that I worry a great deal that anything I say or do, or don’t say or don’t do, or might say or might do, or might not say or might not do…might have terrible consequences for me or someone I care about.

Gaslighting has conditioned me to believe that everything is my fault. That I’m potentially to blame for everything around me.  And it has made me unable to adequately determine what is and is not my fault.  It has left me with very poor conflict management skills.  In a conflict situation, I freeze.  I say or do whatever I think will get me out of the situation quickly.  I say or do whatever I think will be safest in that moment, which isn’t necessarily the best option long term.  My PTSD brain kicks in and I don’t behave in a rational thought through manner.  I don’t have control over this.  I’m not being passive aggressive.  I’m not being manipulative. I freeze.  Or I’m trying to stay safe.  Even if there is no ACTUAL danger, in my  mind there is.

Gaslighting and triggers related to gaslighting leave me doubting myself in every possible way.

I can go to work, give a presentation, feel good about myself, feel I did an adequate job and then go home.  An hour after arriving home I can be completely convinced that I made a horrible mistake, said something offensive, said something my coworkers would not have said, said something that could cause irreversible harm to someone, embarrassed myself, brought shame on my organization, made all my coworkers hate me etc…

It’s an extreme reaction!

I’ve spent entire weekends ready to quit my job, convinced that a single email I sent has ruined everything I’ve worked for in 4 years.  That everyone will hate me and want me fired.

These are trivial examples, but they illustrate the impacts of gaslighting that still remain in my brain.  I literally doubt reality ALL the time.  I somehow think I’ve done something wrong, even when I have done nothing at all.

I need a lot of reassurance.  This isn’t entirely because I lack confidence or skills.  It’s because I can, at a moments notice, begin to doubt everything I knew to be true a few minutes early.   I can get to a place where I even doubt I was abused.  I can believe that maybe I’m exaggerating.  Maybe I made things up.   I need reassurance about things most people consider self evident.  I know it’s frustrating for those around me.  I know it doesn’t always make sense.  I know you wish I could just love myself.  But I can’t.  I need your patience and reassurance.  I need to hear that you believe me.  I need to hear that it’s not my fault.  And I’ll need to hear it again tomorrow.

These are the lasting impacts of emotional abuse perpetrated by a narcissistic abuser.

How to cope with chronic suicidal thoughts…

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People who don’t struggle with chronic suicidal thoughts sometimes imagine suicide as the type of crisis that happens in the movies.  And it can happen this way, but not for everyone.  You know the cliched scene (we’ve all seen it) someone loses their job, breaks up with their partner, makes a terrible mistake, suffers the loss of a loved one etc. and they spend a dark night contemplating ending it all.   Maybe they reach out, a friend comes over, makes them tea, stays up all night and talks them through it.  Or maybe they are taken to a hospital emergency room, where staff admits, them and they are released a few days later, on medication and thankful that they are still alive.

Yes, single episode suicidal crises happen.  They are terrifying and frightening and can be medical emergencies.  If you are struggling with this type of crisis, you are not alone.  Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.   There is help available, even though reaching out can be scary.

But what if this isn’t your experience.  What if, like me, you struggle with chronic suicidal thoughts, on and off, for decades?   What if suicidal thoughts and suicidal impulses became, during times of trauma, part of your coping mechanisms?  What if suicidal thoughts, ironically and paradoxically both threaten your life and help keep you alive?  What if it isn’t just “one long dark night”?  What if it isn’t something that a trip to the local emergency room and a short psychiatric admission can even touch?  What do people like me do when they hit a rough patch?

It’s complicated.  It’s complicated for a number of reasons.

  1. It’s very hard to even talk about suicide.  It’s not an easy subject to bring up.  I’m always afraid that people will either overreact (ie. treat it like the suicidal crisis described above and call emergency services) or under react (and ignore my disclosure or not offer support).  Let’s face it, most people aren’t comfortable talking about suicide.  If someone asks me: “How are you doing today?”  they don’t want to hear “Actually I’m dealing with suicidal thoughts at the moment, thanks for asking.”  It’s just not something I can say.
  2. If I do disclose that I’m having suicidal thoughts, most times people just sit there awkwardly.  Try to figure out if I’m joking or serious.  And then change the subject.  Meanwhile, I’m sitting there, just as awkwardly, feeling guilty for making the situation awkward and not just saying “I’m fine.”
  3. See point #1.  Talking about suicide is a societal taboo.  I’ve had these thoughts for 20+ years.  I’m still alive and I’m still finding it difficult to talk about them.  There is something about this that doesn’t quite make sense.
  4. There is an incredible amount of shame related to this societal taboo.  This means that not only do I feel suicidal, I also feel ashamed about it.  I also feel afraid about the consequences that could occur if people find out and misunderstand what chronic suicidal thinking means (aka…911 calls, police, hospitals).
  5.  Suicidal thoughts are not a “cry for help” or a “way to get attention.”  Most of the time I deal with suicidal thoughts alone and people aren’t even aware that I’m having them.  Even when I do disclose, I generally minimize how bad they are.  I try to cope by myself as much as possible.  Self harm has also been a very private thing in my life.  For something to be a “cry for help” generally other people need to actually know about it!  It would be more accurate for me to describe the suicidal thoughts as a way to gain control, the ultimate control, over an overwhelming or out of control situation in my life.  It’s also related to obsessive compulsive thinking, and in that way can be circular and very difficult to control.  Sometimes I have intrusive thoughts about suicide that are obsessive and not related to anything in particular in my life.  They are disturbing to me and they are  unwanted, arriving in my brain suddenly and then leaving.

So how do I cope with these chronic, obsessive suicidal thoughts?  I use some combination of the methods below, depending on what type of thoughts I’m having, how long they last and how severe they are.  It can be helpful to make your own “safety list” with various ideas that you can use when your suicidal thoughts make an appearance.  I suggest that you create a variety of coping ideas, because chronic thoughts of self harm are very persistent and won’t likely go away with the use of just one distraction or grounding technique.  If you are lucky enough to have a supportive partner/friend you can give them a copy of your safety list and they could help you use some of the skills in a crisis situation.  For some folks, taking medication or calling a support line can be items on their lists.

  1. Delay. Delay. Delay.
  2. Distract. Distract. Distract.
  3. Remind myself of reasons why I need to stay alive (aka my kids)
  4. Listen to nature sounds on Spotify.
  5. Get in a safe space (aka my bed, under lots of warm blankets, away from anything potentially dangerous.  This works best for the most severe thoughts when other techniques may not be safe)
  6. Take a walk outside, ideally in nature.  Breathe, move my body.
  7. Drink a hot beverage (tea, hot chocolate, coffee)
  8. Reach out to a trusted friend (I may or may not tell the person I’m struggling)
  9. Blogging (others may use journaling, art or other creative outlet)
  10. Helping others, volunteer work, helping a friend in need (this works very well for me, but caution as it can lead to burn out if this is your only coping tool)
  11. Disassociate or zone out (ensure that it is safe to do so)
  12. Pay attention to your environment.  Count things you can see, feel, touch, hear.  Ground yourself in the present moment.

If you are coping with chronic suicidal thoughts, I hope that reading this post helps you to feel a little bit less alone.  If you don’t struggle with them, I hope it helps you to understand them a little bit and maybe allows you to help others around you who might be living with them.  Many people live with suicidal thoughts for years, it’s exhausting.  So very exhausting and nothing at all like what is presented in the movies.  But it has to be better than the alternative.  So I keep trying and keep breathing!  Keep hoping that it will get easier for all of us!

How are you?

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How are you?  How are you doing?

Fuck.   They feel like SUCH  loaded questions right now.

99% of the time people want to hear the standard answer:

“I’m fine thanks, how are you?”

But I can’t lie.  I’m not fine.  That being said, I know that 99% of people don’t have the time or energy to listen to how I’m really feeling.  Maybe they don’t care, maybe they are busy, maybe they don’t have spoons, maybe they are at work, maybe they were just asking to be polite.

I’ve started answering this question with:

“The same.  It’s always the same.  I’m always the same.”

Until I get the verdict, I’m not going to be fine.  I’m probably not going to be feeling better, and I don’t have the energy to lie about it.

I’m feeling grumpy today.  I’m feeling grumpy because I just want to cry when people ask me how I am.  I want there to be space for me to not be okay.  I want there to be space to just not function for a while.

I came home after a long day.  It’s cold outside, unseasonably cold for May.  I was shivering.  It was time to eat.  I decided to make myself grilled cheese. Comfort food.  What could be simpler?

I burnt the shit out of that sandwich.  So burnt it wasn’t even possible to scrap the black bits off the edges.  Throw it in the garbage burnt.   I wanted to burst into tears.  “You can’t even make a simple sandwich!” screamed the self critical voice in my head.  Somehow this burnt sandwich became a symbol for everything I feel isn’t going right today.

It’s difficult feeling lonely.  It’s difficult feeling like the one who is never “fine.”  I feel like I’ve been losing friends or driving people away from me because my life is complicated and I’m not always easy to be around.  I feel like I’m whining, complaining, self-absorbed, wallowing, not being grateful…lots of self criticism.  I know I’m doing the best I can.  It just never seems like enough.

In all likelihood, there are only a few more weeks of waiting left.  Things are going to shift in my life soon.  Potentially in major ways.  I’m so close to the end of this chapter of the journey.  I’m so close I can almost see the finish line.  I can almost reach out and touch my new life.

But it’s just out of reach.  It’s blurry and uncertain.  After 3.5 years in court and almost 14 months of waiting…a 16 month long total (and counting) trial process…it’s actually no longer possible for me to clearly visualize or imagine it being over.  I used to fantasize about getting the verdict.  Where will I be when I get the call?  Who will I tell first?  How will I feel?  What will happen from there?  So many unknowns.  In a way, waiting has become normal for me.  In another way, it has never felt normal.  I’ve never adjusted to having so little control over my own life.

It’s a unique situation.  Very few people in my life can relate.  It’s gone on for so long, very few people still have time to listen to me talk about it as much as I feel I would like to or need to.  Everyone around me is tired and frustrated too.  Nobody knows quite what to say. I understand.  It’s been a long journey.

I’m so close to the end.  But I’m not fine.  I’m burn out and I’m afraid.

You need a lot of energy to be sick.

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Another stereotype or stigma that I’d like to debunk right now is that people living with disability or chronic illness are lazy.  That they have SO much free time and can “do whatever they want” because they are unemployed.  We’ve all heard versions of this abelist stereotype.

It’s just not true.  People living with chronic health issues are as varied and different as people who are well, healthy, neurotypical or able bodied.  They are not lazy.  Being disabled is not a lifestyle choice.  Some people with disabilities are able work/volunteer/attend school and some are not.  Some have varying abilities depending on symptoms on different days.  Some people (like me) are “high functioning” (I HATE this term) and work full time, parent, take care of a house all while living with a high level of chronic pain and various chronic symptoms of mental illness.

But whether you are working or not, raising kids or not, volunteering or not, on social assistance or disability payments or not…I can say with 100% certain that being chronically ill is a lot of work.  I’d even say that it’s a full time job.  So we aren’t lazy, we are warriors.   Our work just isn’t valued by society, and a lot of it is invisible labor just to survive.

Please don’t perpetuate this stigma.  And please trust that each individual person knows what they can and cannot do.  If someone with a chronic illness is not working/volunteering/attending school it’s probably because their symptoms are too severe and they are not currently able.  Or maybe their workplace/school is not accessible for someone with their particular health issue.

It’s NOT because they a) don’t want to, b) aren’t trying hard enough, or c) are lazy.

Tonight, I have almost no spoons.  I drifted through the day, feeling foggy and having trouble concentrating.  I crashed on the couch and struggled to get up again.  I feel mentally and physically exhausted.   I didn’t run a marathon today, I didn’t work out…but I DID expend a great deal of energy coping with my health.

Before work I had a doctors appointment.  It was a new doctor, so there was stress and anxiety last night and this morning.  I got test results that weren’t what I was hoping.  I got requisitions for blood work.  I booked two follow up appointments.

Then I went to work.  Tried to focus, tried to get things done.  Took a break, got the blood work completed.  Went back to work for another hour.  Left at 3:30pm for a counseling appointment.

I see my counselor every 2-3 weeks.  I’d like to see her more often but it’s difficult to fit in around my other appointments, my work schedule, my kids, kids activities and kids medical appointments.  Again, as I mentioned, people with chronic illnesses aren’t lazy.  We often have numerous medical appointments that need to be juggled and fit in around already busy schedules.

Counseling is work.

If you are a survivor of trauma, and your counselor is pushing you, even gently, in the direction of healing, counseling can be exhausting work.   At the end of the hour I feel incapable of more than curling up in the fetal position on her couch and crying.  But instead I drive home and carry on with my day.

My counselor has been fairly patient with me.  She’s realistic about the fact that I have a LOT of current external stress in my life and she’s let me talk about that.  But in the past 6 months she’s begun to push me to talk about my past, my childhood, my core beliefs, and my trauma.  She’s also started to call me out when I disassociate in the session as a way of coping with feelings, memories and flashbacks.

I like disassociating to cope with feelings, memories and flashbacks.

It’s kinda my thing.

Most people don’t even realize I’m doing it.  Even fewer people would point it out.  Nobody else would purposefully try to stop me from using it as a way of coping.  I’ve always thought of disassociating as a self preservation, self protection mechanism.  I always thought I was coping if I zoned out to make a flashback less intense or make it stop.  I was coping.  It helped me survive, but maybe now there are other options…

My counselor wants me to stay present.  She wants me to TALK ABOUT what’s happening for me.  She wants me to describe it.  Or at least she wants me to stay with her in the room while it’s happening.  It’s very uncomfortable.   “But I LIKE disassociating!”  I whine…  “But it works!” I attempt to convince her.

She reminds me that I’m not alone.  That she is there to help me out of the feelings, body  memories and sensations.  That I don’t need disassociation and that maybe by zoning out I’m not actually allowing myself the space I need to heal.  Maybe I’m just stuck in a constant space of just surviving.  Maybe disassociating is actually taking up an intense amount of spoons to maintain.  Maybe zoning out is zapping my energy.

Chronic complex PTSD is exhausting.  Chronic pain is exhausting.

But maybe, just maybe doing the work of counseling and trusting the process might help restore my energy in the long run.  It’s draining work at the moment just trying to convince myself to TRY to approach my healing without disassociation.

I might have many flaws, I know I am not lazy.   Neither are you.  Keep fighting that stigma and keep surviving and thriving.

 

 

Justice.

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I took this photograph today.   I lived in this city most of my life and I’ve never been drawn to look at this sculpture before.

Justice.

This statue embodies exactly how my life feels at this moment.

Grey. Solemn.  Frozen in time.  An unknown, robed figure holds a sword over me, about to make decisions that will alter the course of my life and the lives of my family members.

I feel like one wrong move and the sword will pierce my heart and all will be lost.  I’m walking on a tight rope, on egg shells, on the edge of where the ocean meets the land, on a wire at a circus…fill in the metaphor or analogy of your choosing.  I’m barely breathing.

Justice for who?  How is this justice?  Years of my life spent trying to prove things that seem self evident.  Years of him being believed and me seen as crazy, or potentially crazy.  Years of my privacy being breached and shattered to the point I’m hardly sure what privacy means anymore, except to trust no one.  Is this justice?

Interpersonal violence doesn’t end the moment she walks out the door.

Domestic violence doesn’t end when she leaves.

Family violence doesn’t stop when the relationship is over.

She might be physically safe now, but she still looks over her shoulder.  She still watches herself.  She still fears that anything she says or does might get her or her children into trouble.  She lives in fear of SOMETHING happening, even though she doesn’t always know what that vague threat might be.  She rarely sees him, but he impacts almost every aspect of her life.  He calls her crazy.  He tells her kids she is crazy.  He tells anyone who will listen that she is crazy.

But if she is crazy, than every survivor is crazy.

I don’t think we are crazy.  I think the entire system is broken and set up for us to fail.  We don’t have a justice system, we have a legal system.

Wake up.  Justice doesn’t exist for women like me.

I’m reclaiming “crazy.”

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I’m so tired of crazy being used as an abelist, stigmatizing slur against me by my ex-husband.  I’m fed up of being called crazy as an insult, as an excuse for his abusive behaviour.  I’m tired of gaslighting which blames my PTSD for the sexual violence he perpetrated.  I’m tired of being seen as less than, being labelled with things that don’t apply to me.  I’m tired of the implicit assumption that having a mental illness is a terrible thing, something I should be horribly ashamed of.  It’s problematic on so many levels.  He accuses me of having borderline personality disorder (which I don’t have) but even if I DID have it, so what?  Would I be “crazy?”   Would this warrant being mistreated and shunned and ignored?  Would it mean everything I say and do is suspect?

I reject all this.  I want to reclaim crazy.  I want to fight mental health stigma.  I don’t want to be ashamed that I’m not neuro-typical.

I’d like my ex-husband to stop spreading awful rumours about me in the community, but I don’t have control over that!

Things I would like to stop hearing as I reclaim crazy:

-Be more neutral

-You are too emotional

-You are too sensitive

-Tone down your feminism

-Your past is impacting your parenting

-That was a long time ago, why don’t you get over it

-Just relax

-Calm down

-Don’t worry so much

-You are over-reacting

-Why didn’t you just say no?

-Don’t you know how to defend yourself?

-Why didn’t you just fight back?

-She’s crazy (from anyone unless they are also reclaiming the word)

I celebrate being crazy in a positive way, because it means that I’m NOT neutral.  It means that I am an advocate, a social justice warrior, an ally and a support worker.  I’ve harnessed some of the energy of the bad things I’ve survived and I’m using it to help others, to fight injustice and to try to leave the world a better place than I found it.    I’m proud of my feminism.  I’m proud of my anti-oppression principles and the way I strive to unlearn and learn in my daily life.  I don’t want to calm down.  My feminism gives me energy and it keeps me alive.

And if that makes me crazy, then I embrace it.  But let me define crazy.

Nevertheless she persisted.

 

Medication Fog.

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For whatever reason, my migraines have been out of control the past few weeks.  It’s been incredibly frustrating and painful.  I started seeing a neurologist about 9 months ago and have been getting nerve block injections which had been significantly reducing my number of severe pain days per month.  I was really pleased.  The neurologist is a great doctor, he believes me, doesn’t treat me like a drug seeking addict, and the treatment he offered was helping.  A rare positive medical experience for me.

This month the pain came back with a vengeance.  Last Monday, I came home from work and cried for over an hour.  I took my emergency codeine pill to take the edge off the pain for a few hours and it made me feel a pleasant sort of relaxed high.  Taking any type of medication is always risky for me, because what will relax me one day could agitate me another day.  Anything that has the potential to be psychoactive can cause unwanted adverse effects.  I don’t like feeling high and I if I use substances it’s in an attempt to feel normal.

Tuesday by the end of the work day I wasn’t feeling well.  The pain was terrible, my heart was racing, I felt weak and dizzy and dehydrated.  I had pain at the base of my neck which was new for me.  Normally my migraines are around the supra orbital nerve and focused behind my right eye, blurring the vision there and causing visual distortions.  To be honest, I was a bit scared I might be having a stroke.  Often by the 3-5 day mark of a severe migraine I begin to worry that something is really wrong, it seems hard to believe that SO much pain and so many strange symptoms are caused by “just” a migraine.

I was afraid and a bit desperate for the pain to stop so I drove myself to the ER.  I have a lot of trauma around the medical system (see earlier posts in this blog) and I was pretty reluctant to seek care at the hospital.  At triage my file was marked as emergent (I think they were worried about stroke too!), and I didn’t wait too long before seeing a doctor.  Luckily, the doctor reassured me that there wasn’t likely anything more serious going on, “just” a bad migraine.  He offered some IV medication and IV fluids because my heart rate was really too high.  I was relieved.  He believed me.  He didn’t treat me badly.    The nurse came to start the IV and I figured things would be pretty much okay from there.

I was wrong.

About 5 minutes after the IV medication ran through, I got suddenly hot.  I had an intense sense of panic and agitation and I knew I had to leave.  I couldn’t really think clearly.  My IV was attached to the ceiling and I couldn’t walk around.  I knew intellectually I could ring the bell and a nurse would come and probably unhook the IV or move it onto an IV pole so I could walk around.  But in my panicked mind, I became triggered to times I had been held against my will in hospital.  I started thinking that maybe the nurse wouldn’t let me leave, or that she’d make me wait for the doctor and that I’d flip out.  Then she’d know I was completely panicky and wouldn’t allow me to leave.  I was afraid.  I pulled out the IV and I ran away.  I fled.  I just left the ER and didn’t look back.

That was a rough night.  I was scared they would send the police after me so I got a friend to call the ER to explain that I’d left due to a panic attack.  It took a full day for all the anxiety symptoms to resolve.

And the migraine was back within 3 hours!

Two days later I saw my neurologist for another nerve block.  He told me that severe anxiety and agitation is a side effect of one of the IV medications in about 2% of people.  He told me not to take that medication again.  No shit!  I was angry that the doctor at the hospital hadn’t informed me that there could be potential psychoactive side effects. I would not have consented to the treatment as I know that I’m extremely sensitive to this type of adverse effect.  I’ve experienced versions of the same from SSRIs and from anti-anxiety medications.

My neurologist wants me back on another medication that can control migraines.  It’s called topamax and it’s one I’ve taken before.  I reluctantly agreed because it can also help with some of the other chronic pain I have which might be fibromyalgia.  The only problem with this medication is that it causes a lot of side effects, especially at the beginning.

My body feels like a toxic soup of drugs.  I have a hard time processing it all.  And I still have a headache.

The side effects when starting medications that cross into the brain can be triggering for me.  Not only do I feel dizzy, nauseous, off balance, foggy and exhausted, it also brings me back to times in my life when I was taking high doses of psychiatric meds.  It brings me back to times I overdosed on them.  It brings me back to the nights where I was sexually assaulted.  When I woke up, drugged, half asleep to find him touching me.  Fighting to stay awake, but the drugs dragging me back into sleep.  The feelings of confusion between my nightmares and what was really happening to me.  I don’t like that feeling.

So the side effects and adverse effects aren’t just unpleasant.  They aren’t just an annoyance.  They don’t just impact my ability to function smoothly at work.   They are frightening and they remind me of being completely unable to control being abused.  Being helpless, frozen, confused and afraid. They remind me of not having control over my body and not having the capacity to consent.

So if I’m complaining about adjusting to this medication or if I seem not quite myself.  It’s more than just a bit of dizziness.  It’s a lot of vulnerability and processing not feeling in control of my own body, both the pain in the present and the abuse in the past.   It’s all interconnected.