loss

No Need to Argue.

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“There’s no need to argue anymore. 
I gave all I could, but it left me so sore. 
And the thing that makes me mad, 
Is the one thing that I had, 

I knew, I knew, 
I’d lose you. 
You’ll always be special to me, 
Special to me, to me. 

And I remember all the things we once shared, 
Watching T.V. movies on the living room armchair. 
But they say it will work out fine. 
Was it all a waste of time. 

‘Cause I knew, I knew, 
I’d lose you. 
You’ll always be special to me, 
Special to me, to me. 

Will I forget in time, ah, 
You said I was on your mind? 
There’s no need to argue, 
No need to argue anymore. 
There’s no need to argue anymore. 

Special.”

-The Cranberries, No Need to Argue, 1994

My 15 year old self is crying inside me right now as I read the news of Dolores O’Riordan’s death.  The Cranberries WERE the soundtrack to my life for many years of my teenage life.  I still have their album No Need to Argue in my car, and their songs on my playlists.  I remember listening to their CDs with my friends, at parties, and on my Discman taking the bus to and from school.  It was THE music of that moment in time, for many teenagers I knew.

I saw them play live in Montreal,  August 30, 1996.  I was 15 and it was my first stadium concert experience.  I remember being taken a back by how absolutely tiny Dolores O’Riordan was.  Her voice was unique, powerful and occupied an immense space in my life.  But in front of me, she was dwarfed by her large guitar.

I attended the concert with X, my boyfriend at the time.  We used to listen to the cranberries together all the time that year.  That concert is one of the positive memories I have of our relationship which was largely abusive.

I remember being younger (maybe it was earlier in 1995) at a party at my friend’s place.  Those were THE parties.  Some of the best memories of my high school years.  Teenagers all throughout the house.  It was just before some people started drinking and doing drugs.  High school, the joy of a party, without the ending of the innocence of childhood, when peer pressure began leading to alcohol and complicating situations.

Everyone had dumped their coats at the bottom of the staircase.  I remember lying there with the person I was dating.  The cranberries CDs playing on repeat in the background.  It was warm and dark and I felt safe, happy and at ease.  I remember laughing and talking with him, content in the knowledge that we were in a safe place, surrounded by our friends.  Life felt simple in those moments.  I knew where I belonged.  I fit in and was a part of a larger shared experience of being a teenager at a particular point in time.

The cranberries were the soundtrack to those happy times with friends.  The cranberries were BELONGING.

And they were one of the soundtracks to the abuse that followed.  Their CDs on playing on his stereo, in the dark navy blue of his room, while he touched me and forced me to do things.  They on the beloved stereo system that I got for my 16th birthday, while he abused me on my bed and on the floor of my room.  We talked about the music, we listened to the new CD “To the Faithful Departed” together.   The sense of belonging was also departing from me, as I became increasingly tied to, and faithful, to him.  I no longer felt safe and happy.  I felt trapped, guilty, ashamed and alone.

In 1997, I had escaped from X.  But I was spiraling deeper and deeper into the isolation of anorexia.   I listened to the cranberries, on repeat, on my stereo.   I was alone in my own room at that point, listening and writing by candlelight.   Listening while I did my homework and long into the evening.  I was detached and slowly fading into invisibility.

The cranberries came with me throughout the rest of my life.  The iconic sounds of Zombie transport me back to 1995, every time I hear them.

The cranberries are simultaneously belonging and safety, along with abuse and isolation.  The cranberries represent what being a teenager meant to me.

Dolores O’Riordan, gone too soon, but her music never forgotten.

 

Complex feelings.

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I’m going to talk about something that people who have not experienced prolonged interpersonal abuse rarely understand, and people who have survived it immediately relate to.   The technical psychology term for it is “trauma bonding” but what it refers to, in simple terms, is the complex and multi-faceted feelings a victim has for their abuser.

It’s very hard for me to talk to people in my life about this.  Well meaning people who want to help and who actually care about me a lot, don’t understand this.  This is why it is so important to support survivors of violence by listening to them, validating them and meeting them where THEY are at.  Make sure you clearly understand where they are at, before you begin projecting what you think they should be feeling or where you think they should be at.   If you don’t listen closely, and validate the complexity of the situation, the survivor will shut down and stop sharing with you.  This is not about you.  It was never about you.  If you didn’t live through it, you don’t get a say in how the survivor “should” be feeling.

I’ve known my ex-partner for 17 years, 1 month and 25 days.  We’ve been in a type of relationship for more than half my life.  We were together for 13 years and have been separated/divorced for 4 years, 1.5 months.  Even though we separated we have been (in theory) sharing responsibility for our two children.  In that way, we were still bonded and in a relationship, even though it was at a distance, non-communicative and unproductive.  It was still a type of co-parenting situation, even if we didn’t actually make any real decisions together.

This represents a large portion of my life and a tangled web of complex emotions.

My ex-partner is moving to the other side of the country in 3 weeks.  He’s leaving.  The house we lived in has been sold.  An everything-must-go yard sale planned.  My kids have brought the majority of their possessions here.

And he hasn’t even communicated this with me directly.   Everything I know, I’ve learned through my children.  After over 17 years, he is leaving without even telling me, let alone consulting me or gathering input from me.  Without discussing how this might impact my children, or quite frankly me.

He’s never been one for consent.

Quite honestly, there have been many times over the past four years where I wished for this outcome.  I wished for him to move away, leave us be.  I wished to not be afraid every time I saw a car like his.  I wished to not worry about running into him at the grocery store.  I wished for him not to emotionally abuse the children and I wished not to have to pick up the pieces of that on a weekly basis.  I wished to never see him again.  I didn’t really wish harm on him, I just wished he would move away and let us heal.

I wished for it.  But I didn’t believe he would actually abandon his kids.  I didn’t actually believe he cared so very little about them, that after 4 years of fighting for custody, he would just walk away.

And because I wished for it, people expect me to be happy.  People are congratulating me.  People are thrilled and excited for me.   From the outside, this looks like a dream come true to them.

But honestly, it isn’t.  Not at all.  I’m going through a complex mix of grief, loss, abandonment, fear, anger, anxiety and confusion.  I’m having to face the fact that what I actually wanted is never, and was never, going to happen.

What I actually wanted, was for things to calm down.  I wanted to co-parent, cooperatively, but at a distance.  I wanted us to continue to raise these kids, in separate houses, but working together in their best interest.  I wanted a truce.  I wanted the abuse to end.  I wanted to leave, but I wanted to leave to stop the abuse, not to cut off all contact with him.  I wanted the right to stop the abuse, without sacrificing the entire relationship.  I thought the common bond of sharing children together would continue.  I thought I would be able to talk with him about issues directly related to the children.  I didn’t think we’d be friends, but I had hoped we could co-parent.  I wanted to have a choice.

I never signed up to be a solo parent.  This is not something I feel like celebrating.  I can’t celebrate because I’m grieving.

Truly this is not what I wanted.  I don’t hate him.  I don’t love him, I don’t think I ever did, but I don’t hate him.  I feel deeply sad and disappointed.  I am having trouble trusting and connecting with anyone.  I feel responsible.

And I understand completely that survivors have a complex relationship with their past abusers.  I understand it when people say that they still love the person who raped them.  I have so much compassion for people who have to parent with someone they don’t trust.  Abuse is not simple.  The feelings aren’t simple and survivors need the space to feel accepted for all their confused feelings.

It’s not their fault if they still care about their abuser.  It’s not their fault if they get confused and think it is their own fault.  It’s not their fault if they hope it will get better. It’s not their fault if they dream of reconciliation despite all evidence that the abuser can’t change.   Don’t be disappointed in them.  They can’t help it.  The psychology term for it is trauma bonding, but quite simply they are tormented by self-blame and confusion.

Gaslighting and the cycle of abuse means the survivor feels responsible.

In my case, the abuser has quite literally blamed every aspect of this process, including the abuse and his decision to move, on me.  He told the kids it is my fault he is leaving, because he has “nothing here.”

So, even though you can probably clearly see that it isn’t my fault, I feel responsible.

Even though I intellectually know that it isn’t my fault,  I still feel devastated.  Even though I know intellectually we are better off without his abuse, I’m still scared to be responsible for the kids on my own.

It’s okay to want someone gone, then mourn the overwhelming sense of abandonment.

It’s okay to have whatever feelings you have.  This isn’t a clear situation.  The abuse was designed to confuse you, and that confusion remains long after you leave.

But it’s pretty hard to open up, cry and receive comfort, when you don’t feel entitled to these feelings and when you feel you SHOULD be happy, because it’s what YOU wanted and what people expect.

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Slide credit: Soni McCarty, LMHC 

 

 

Inpatient bonds.

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20160727_214408[1]One of the bright sides of spending so much time in hospitals during my teens and early twenties is the people I met there.  Some of them became lasting friends and the bonds between us defied understanding by outsiders.

If you’ve never spent a significant amount of time as an inpatient in psychiatric wards and mental health treatment facilities you probably won’t understand.

I’ve had people close to me tell me that I “shouldn’t have so many friends with problems” or that I should “try to make healthier friends” or that I “shouldn’t talk to people who depress me.”

These comments miss the point for a number of reasons.

First of all, if my “friends with problems” aren’t worthy and I shouldn’t be friends with them, does that mean nobody should be friends with me either?  In case you hadn’t realized from reading this blog, the secret is out.  I identify as living with mental illness! I’m not exactly 100% well myself, otherwise I wouldn’t have been in the hospital in the first place!  Does this make me less of a good friend?  Does this make me a person who should be shunned and avoided?  I certainly hope not.  I would like to afford my other hospital friends the same courtesy.

Two, it’s hard for people who are mentally well, neurotypical, never struggled with severe mental illness to understand me.  Sure, I have well friends who empathize and who don’t judge me.  But the bonds and mutual understanding I’ve shared with other people who struggle with PTSD, eating disorders, depression and suicide are very strong.   It’s like I can breathe again, when I talk to a friend who I know “just gets it.”

Three, when you are living in a hospital ward, you naturally form friendships and alliances with the people you are living with.  Some of them become friends.  It happens and it helps us survive.

So please, don’t judge these special friendships.  Even when I’ve lost friends to suicide, even when I’ve been triggered by friends and had to set boundaries, even when it feels like listening to their struggles is too much to bear, I never regret them.

My dear friends who are gone.  I desperately miss that feeling of belonging I had when I talked to you, laughed with you.  MJ, there was never anything I shared about PTSD that you hadn’t breathed and experienced yourself.  I never had to explain myself, you just knew.  This blog entry’s photograph is a picture of all the cards you wrote to me during our friendship.

Who else could I share my strange experiences with?  When I told her one day, crying in the bathroom in my ex-husband’s house, that I was scared because I thought I was seeing X everywhere.  I literally thought I could see him all around the city.  Intellectually, I knew he wasn’t there, but it felt real and my heart skipped a beat each time.   She almost laughed and said, “It happens to me all the time.  I see everywhere too”  We breathed out together, suddenly this PTSD symptom was normal and okay.  We understood each other, we weren’t crazy.  I loved her for this and I know she loved me for it too.

When I was in treatment for anorexia when I was 17, I met another young woman named M.  She and I were stuck on the eating disorder for 5 weeks together, while other patients attended groups.  We were on “modified activity phase” until we gained a certain percentage of our goal weight and it took forever.  During this time we talked, bonded and sometimes sneaked around doing things we should not have.   She was painting rocks when I got there.  I asked her what I was doing and if I could help.  She told me she wanted to paint 1000 rocks so her wish would be granted.  Soon, we had an assembly line going.  We would fill our pockets with rocks on our 15 minute outside break, sometimes walking further than we should have away from the break area.   Once inside, I would paint the rocks a solid colour, then when they dried she would write “Expect a Miracle” in careful lettering on each one.  The final step was applying a clear glaze once all the paint was dry.   We painted so many rocks, I don’t remember how many we had finished when I discharged myself 3 months later.  I still have some of them in my bedroom almost 20 years later.  I’m still waiting for a miracle.   I often wonder what happened to M.  We lost contact and I still think of her often.  I wonder if her miracle came true and I wonder if she recovered.

I met my friend Lexi at a support group in my city.  It was the first place I really talked at any length about leaving my ex-husband and what was going on in the marriage.  Lexi loved to crochet and knit.  She loved her family.  I used to go to her apartment sometimes and we would chat about all sorts of things.  Sometimes we shared stories of our trauma and sometimes we joked and laughed about our future.  I was inspired to try online dating because of Lexi.   I lost her suddenly last summer, about  a year ago now.  I still miss her.

Darlene, whose story I recounted in another blog post, her anniversary was this week.  14 years ago I lost her.   I wish I’d had the chance to know her better, but I won’t ever forget her.

Some friends like my dear sister LJ, I have kept in contact with for over 12 years, through email, fb, text and phone.  She lives in a different country, but she calls me sister.  I miss her and I hope to see her again one day.  I have ever letter and card she has ever sent me. She has inspired me in many ways and her commitment to recovery and to survival is tremendous.

My friend John, he is also gone now.  But his music lives on and I have his CD which I listen to from time to time and remember his gentle courage.

I will never forget the stories of survival I heard and witnessed during my hospital stays.  I met so many survivors.  I met war veterans who were kind and brave enough to share small details of their own private hells with me.  I met residential school survivors who shared with me the abuse they endured.  I met childhood abuse survivors who overcame.  I met women who were admitted to the hospital in full psychosis, speaking in delusions and making little sense.  I saw those same women, mere days later, completely calm and rational again after taking their medication.  I met people who had lost family members in tragic circumstances.  I met people who had nearly died from multiple heart attacks due to anorexia and bulimia and some of those women have children and are well and healthy today.

These friends give me hope.  They remind me that I’m not alone.  They remind me that recovery is possible.  And the ones that have died, I will hold in a special place in my heart forever.

Inpatient bonds are something to be celebrated.

Dental Floss. When the truth is I miss you so…

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Wonder-Woman

I met my dear friend MJ during the summer months of 2002.  We were both patients in the Post-traumatic Stress Recovery Program at Homewood Health Centre in Guelph.  We became friends very quickly, even though we were both struggling.  In so many ways she was struggling, coping with the impact of years, a lifetime really, of abuse.  We were close in age, we were both looking for hope and for something to hold on to.

I won’t write too much about MJ’s story, because it is not my own.  I will say that she was also a survivor and spent a good portion of our friendship hospitalized in various places.

MJ and I would write letters to each other, cards mostly.  Words of encouragement.  We would speak by phone, sometimes almost daily and sometimes months would go in between.  The amount of contact varied along with our health statuses at any given moment.

MJ was the person who I felt completely understood my experience of living with PTSD.  She never judged me.  She was always so grateful for our friendship.  I could tell her my strangest thoughts and she knew exactly what I was going through.  She was one of the bravest people I’ve even known.

MJ and I had an inside joke.  I don’t remember anymore who started it, but I think it was her.  We both struggled with near constant thoughts of suicide and self harm.  But we would talk about holding on and about being there for each other.  She used to say “hold on to hope, even if what you are holding onto is as thin as dental floss.”  We often talked about holding onto the dental floss, each of us holding one end and clinging to life.

I supported MJ through many hospitalizations and numerous suicide attempts.  I always knew in my heart that MJ would not be with me forever.  I almost lost her too many times to count.  We had a special connection, one that I’ve only had with a few other people in my life. I would dream about her, nightmares about things happening to her. Waking with a terrible, panicked pit in my stomach, I would know the dream was true. We were so connected I often knew something was wrong or something had happened before she told me.  I would call and find that she was in hospital.

MJ died one year ago.  She died from complications from chronic, terminal PTSD.  I was not there, I did not get to say goodbye.  For some reason I was not invited to the funeral.  I found out over a week later when her Mom answered her cell phone.  I was sitting in my car and I instantly knew.  I cried as her Mom described what happened.

MJ did not die alone.  Her family was with her and she was peaceful.  I take great comfort in this.  I said thank you hundreds of times.

But my heart aches and aches.  I can’t believe she is gone.  I feel devastated that some people don’t survive violence. There are days when I think if I pick up the phone to call her she will answer.  If I get on a plane and fly to her city, she will be there waiting for me.  I dream about her still and wake up crying when I realize she is dead.  She will always be a true survivor to me, even though she didn’t make it out alive.

I still have all the cards she ever sent to me.  I have about 25.  I keep them, along with photos of us together, under my bed.  I’ve read and re-read them, my eyes filled with tears of gratitude that these small pieces of her, her words of encouragement to me, will always be with me.

If I could have one wish, to speak to anyone, living or dead, it would be her.  Just one more time.  I wonder if anyone else will ever understand me so well.  I know I won’t ever have a friend just like her.  The bonds that are formed through shared experiences of trauma are difficult to break.  And I don’t want to break them.  As much as this hurts, I don’t regret being her friend.

I miss you MJ.  I miss you so much.  I’m still here, I’m still holding my end of the dental floss.  I’m still trying to be the Wonder Woman I know you believed I was.  Thank you for being my friend.

“Cowboy take me away
Fly this girl as high as you can
Into the wild blue
Set me free oh I pray
Closer to heaven above and
Closer to you closer to you”   -Dixie Chicks

 

Terminal illness (psychiatric style) aka suicide

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One of the side effects of having a chronic psychiatric illness is that you spend a lot of time in hospital, treatment and therapy groups.  One of the great aspects of this is all the amazing people I’ve had a chance to meet along my journey.  Perhaps the most tragic aspect of this story is the number of friends I’ve lost, when their mental illnesses became terminal.

I think it is time to stop saying “she committed suicide” or even “she completed suicide.”  It is more accurate to say things like “she died from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder,” or “she lost her battle with anorexia and alcohol addiction,”  or bluntly “depression killed her.”

Kirsten, Irene, Pammy Jo, Darlene, Marian, Lexi, Erin, Andrea

I will say their names so they are not forgotten.  These women ultimately did not survive the psychiatric and health care systems.   They died as a result of complicated, layered physical and mental health problems and, in many cases, social barriers and challenges as well.  Sexual, physical and emotional abuse killed some of my friends, though they died ultimately long after the abuse ended.  Many mental illnesses do not just appear out of the blue (in fact they rarely do).  I struggle to even call many of these deaths suicide.  I’d like to call some of them murder by PTSD.  If these women had not survived gender based violence or abuse within the health care system they quite likely would be alive today.

Quite simply, if my friends had not been abused I would be talking to them today instead of writing this blog post.

This afternoon I attended a memorial gathering for Lexi.  She died about 9 months ago.  She was beautiful, talented, creative young woman.

I find myself flying back, years in the past to when I experienced my first loss as a result of mental illness….

I met Darlene on 8East at South Street hospital, it was within my first few months there.  Possibly the 3rd admission.  She just slightly younger than me, perhaps 19 years old at that time.  I remember her roommate was a young woman with bulimia who was being tube fed with limited success.  I can still remember their voices laughing across the hallway.  They were listening to Nelly Furtado, Turn off the Light over and over, singing along.  Their room was full of stuffed animals.

Like me, Darlene was also a frequent flyer at South Street hospital and later at the Regional Mental Health Care London (better known by us as the LPH).   London Psychiatric Hospital.

Also like me, I believe she had also been labelled with borderline personality disorder as a result of frequent overdosing and high utilization of psychiatric services.  She was also a patient of Dr. X while at South Street.

July 23, 2002 I received a call from Darlene.  She started saying goodbye to me and I was confused.  I asked her if she was going to visit her Mom and she said no.  I quickly realized she was speaking about suicide.  I talked to her for a while and asked her permission to call 911.  She agreed.  I ended the call and send the paramedics to her house.  She was taken to the ER.  I later learned that she ate a roast beef sandwich while waiting for the doctor.  I have often wondered if that was her last meal.  A dry, cold, prepackaged hospital sandwich.  The thought breaks my heart.

She called me from a pay phone the next morning and explained she had been admitted at the LPH.  She had been chemically restrained, with an injection in her thigh and put into an observation room overnight.  She was angry and was being discharged and wanted me to come to meet her.  I took the bus across town to the hospital and the two of us took a cab to her apartment.  It was the first time I’d been there.  I had to leave her because I had an appointment to attend.  Another friend of ours stopped by and kept her company for the afternoon.  She was a young woman, about 16 years old.  The two of them went to the park and swung on the swings together.

The next day I was not able to reach Darlene by phone.  Scared, I called 911 thinking I would send the police to check on her.  The operator asked her name and my own name and then I was put on hold.  I was confused and started to feel a deep sinking sick feeling in my stomach.  After a few seconds someone else came on the phone, I assume it was  a police officer but I can’t remember.

Darlene is dead.

Sometime over the course of that phone call, or when the police officers came to my house I found out that after E went home, Darlene had returned to the Emergency Room at South Street asking for help.  She was turned away rather than being admitted.  Having had similar experiences myself, I can only imagine the staff were frustrated that she was back again so quickly.

Darlene walked a few short blocks away from the hospital and in front of a train around 8pm July 24.  She died alone, less than an hour after walking out the ER doors.  Outside of hospital staff, my friend and I were the last two people to see her alive.

This is what terminal psychiatric illness looks like.

This is the result of labeling someone borderline and attention seeking.

She was only a few days away from turning 21.  The system failed her.

After speaking with the police I drove to E’s house.  We went for a walk in the park by her house.  I had to tell this young woman, my friend, that her friend Darlene was gone.  It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do.  We sat on a rock in the park, crying and hugging each other.  I remember that a balloon floated by in the shape of Bert from Sesame Street.  It was a sunny day.

At her funeral, still in shock, we cried for our friend.  It was a strange service, her grey velvet casket sitting at the front of the room. There was no eulogy, no family members spoke.  The priest that spoke was a stranger and gave what sounded like a stock, religious speech.  He kept saying her name and it didn’t make sense to me. It was impossible to believe it was our friend who had died.  At the end of the service they played Angel by Sarah McLaughlan.  That song still makes me cry

I hope all of these women have found some comfort.  I certainly miss them.

When mental illness ends in suicide, a light goes out.  Suicide takes some of our brightest lights.  Grieving loss related to mental illness is complex and often not acknowledged openly by society.  I will write more about my own struggles with suicidal ideation, gestures and attempts.  I will write more about my friends.  The secrecy and stigma surrounding suicide needs to be broken in order to save lives.

My dear friends…

“In the arms of the angel, may you find some comfort here”