Author: Sarah K Reece

Poem – Here, in the dark

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment
Here, in the dark, a deep contentment wells
I’m happiest here, alone with the books and poems
There’s such richness in them, such joy
I’m glad to be a writer, to count myself among them
They set my dreams free, ward off the creeping death
The chill, the grey, the numbness that overtakes me
The malaise I am too weak to fight alone
This strange religion so widely believed
That this is all there is and all that matters
These people whisper in my ear that I am mortal
That life is wondrous strange, that imagination is as real as shadow, love, hope, and the trembling sense
Of sublime meaning, that there’s some sense to the world, some pattern to our path, a meaning in our doings and our withholding
That such is a gift, as the trembling doubt is a gift, that they stretch our spirit and give us humble connection to each other, all bowed and small before the great tides, all with the knowledge of joy and loss, this thing that can unite us.

Little unborn child, I’m glad you did not rush your coming past me and my night, did not slip past the shadows and into daylight without my chance to wait with you, darkened world and dark womb, to wait with you and think on you and speak to you and write of you. Little unborn, so loved and so unknown. I wonder if you’ll have any night in your soul? Any darkness in your eye, any poetry in your heart?

If it’s the unlived lives of parents that marks children’s paths you’ve quite a labyrinth to walk, my love. My life may be only a small portion of the Life, but it’s dear to me, deeply lived, dearly loved.

Rudderless we lose our way. But I know what I believe. Whatever stories we tell, they stay the same. I believe in kindness, evil, love. They are real, and powerful, and come wrapped in strange disguises. I do not know why, if it has always been so and if it is the same everywhere, but the real world thins and fades fast, like candles wearing down, and must be renewed often. The key is in the seeing clearly, the right naming of things. If I understood this I would understand the language of owls and the dance of planets. Such is our life. We sing and falter and fall and rise to sing again. We are both darkeness and light, faith and doubt, sea and shore. Each of the seasons have their turn, we understand great wisdom, and lose it, only to gain it again. Somehow it’s not meaningless but beautiful. We are reborn.

There’s a quiet ecstacy in my bones, they chime softly to themselves and speak the language of planets, spinning in space. I’m inviting a family into my home, into my peace and solitude, and I feel ecstatic joy at the breaking of our time of quiet. I welcome the tearing down and the giving away. Wine is pressed from my trampled heart, flowing dark and sweet. I’m happy beyond speaking that my life has come to this. It’s worth the risks. Should all end in fire, I acted with courage, I dreamed a new dream and birthed it here, on my own, in the dark.

(don’t pity me, what’s to pity? I’ve lived richly, seen things you wouldn’t believe)

This is not the last night, there’ll be more nights, more writing, more poetry, pacing with babe in arms, walking in rain with dog, sitting up late by the ocean, listening to my heartbeat. I know this as surely as I know this is my hand and this my hip. I know this like I know the breath in my chest and pulse in my throat. I know it and I’m fiercely glad of it. It is a good thing to be alive, so deeply alive, so full of stars and night.

Endo & adeno 2: a hidden cost

/ Sarah K Reece / 3 Comments

I’m not pregnant again. And I’m crook, endo and adeno are knocking me around. We’re still moving house, and Rose has hit major unexpected issues with her job, so we’ve spent the afternoon at Centrelink starting the process for unemployment support in case it doesn’t get sorted out. It’s been a really tough couple of days. If you don’t know what endo and adeno are, see Endometriosis & adenomyosis 1. Trying to get pregnant with these is rough, it’s an extra kick in the teeth each month on top of the sad news we’re not pregnant. Right now I’m pretty fed up.

My experience with these conditions has always been pretty horrific. My first period was at 13 and pretty normal. My second happened to fall in a week that I was away with my school for a major convention. I packed a collection of sanitary items and my two school uniforms, completely unprepared for the pain and haemorrhaging I was about to experience. All my pocket money was spent on buying extra pads from the toilet vending machine. I was drenching to capacity a super heavy size pad every hour. I have a vivid memory of sitting by my window on the fourth floor in the small hours of the night, sobbing, my mattress stacked against one wall to dry after I’d tried to sponge it clean, and the floor between the shower and my bedroom wiped down with wads of toilet paper. I felt in that moment that I was the loneliest person in the world.

My periods were always extremely heavy, particularly in the first few days. I struggled to cope. Embarrassing leaks, constantly going to the toilet, and stains on clothes, bedding, and mattresses were suddenly a constant part of my world. Teachers were often suspicious that I was merely trying to get out class and it wasn’t uncommon to have desperate requests to go to the toilet denied. I carried 15 or more pads with me at all times, just in case. Bullies thought it was amusing to steal these or scatter them around the classroom. In later years, homeless or living alone, they were needed in case I was too sick or broke to buy more in that first miserable week.

The pain was severe and nothing provided much relief. My journals from this time are full of distraught descriptions of feeling that my pelvic bones had been turned to hot lead that was burning in my flesh and running down into my thigh bones, that something was raking a sharp stick across the inside of my rib cage, of intense cramps and contractions that exhausted me. I would spend days huddled around hot water bottles, alone in bed, sobbing, or curled around my gut in the bath, or weeping in the toilets at school or work, learning to dissociate to carry on.

My periods also lasted for much longer than usual, around 14 days a month. Literally half my life was now spent bleeding. I experienced a level of body dysphoria usually described by trans teens enduring puberty as the gender they do not identify with. I felt deeply ashamed of my inability to handle menstruation, unable to connect with, care for, or enjoy my developing body.

The worst of all this was that it was happening in a context that normalised it all. I was seen as a bit of a drama queen. Doctors offered neither information nor sympathy. The chronic pain was made a joke of as a rite of passage I had to learn to cope with better. I was an embarrassment to others when I failed to manage discretely. A conservative school and home environment exposed me to constant shaming with inadequate provisions in the way of bins, extra sanitary supplies, or discrete options to clean accidents or hide stains. Menstruation was not to be mentioned as I had a younger brother who was being kept ‘innocent’. Basic supplies such as bins or pads were not kept in the toilet or bathroom at home, despite actually begging for them. As soon as I had a home of my own, I was proud to put both in the bathroom – a woman lives in this house and her needs are not something to be ashamed of!

Unlike other experiences of illness such as the flu, I was not offered much nursing care or emotional support when my pain was related to ‘private matters’. I have the distinct memory of weeping in the toilets at my part time job in child care at 17, dizzy, weak, and in awful pain, but gathering myself to limp back into work, bitterly confused that other girls didn’t seem to find this so hard. Constant invalidation and cultural embarrassment about gynaecological issues meant that endo and adeno isolated me. Deep loneliness, shame, and pain intertwined and each made the whole experience far worse, contributing to self hate, food & body issues, and chronic suicidal feelings.

Painful periods just don’t sound that bad, and that was a huge part of the problem. It wasn’t seen as serious, but this issue alone was enough to cause serious harm to me. At times when pain interrupted sleep and guilt and confusion about puberty and sexual development added to my distress, the beginnings of psychosis can be seen. Nightmares intruded into my blood drenched reality in profoundly disturbing ways. I dreamed of rape, miscarriage, and abortion, of having demons inside me, of clawing babies from my own womb. Waking soaked in blood and knotted with pain blurred nightmare and reality. My usual teariness began to deepen each month into suicidal blackness. I still struggle with profound lows which are partly hormonal and partly basically emotional flashbacks to these awful experiences. I began to believe awful reasons I was suffering, such as punishment for sins, my body hating me, me being evil. People around me treated me as if I was bipolar.

These are the kind of experiences that come to mind when people talk about how mental illnesses would be better treated of they were more visible.

Really?? Ever had facial scars and had to handle the stares before, or needed to use a wheelchair and watched people pull kids away from you as if you’re going to run them over, or, you know, discovered you have blood on the back of your pants and had to walk through the whole shopping centre to get back your your car? Oh, I see, you mean visible, but in a nice, non threatening way that didn’t make people stare, laugh, or treat you weirdly. Good luck with that.

These are horrible, miserable conditions, for many people they cost us deeply. We battle with chronic pain and anaemia, doctors who don’t get it, difficulty accessing treatments, troubles getting support from family and employers, difficulties with our sex life, and fertility challenges. It should be okay to talk about it, easier to get help, and less embarrassing to have to explain regular illness. I shouldn’t have to push back against everyone telling me I’m clearly doing too much when these things knock me out for a week – they’ve little to do with how hard I work or whether I’m taking good care of myself. They definitely shouldn’t be a secret shame that messes up our relationships, mental health, and our lives.

Apology to the universe

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

We wrote this one a little while ago and let it wait in drafts a bit. Today it’s not where we are, but it was asking to be published.

I’m sad, sad, sad beyond bearing. I wake from honesty and find myself wordless and lost. I must dismantle it all again, over and over. (living is about betraying your own identity) The constant search for the point of balance between light and dark, day and night, responsibility and freedom, the place where my name has meaning and nakedness is possible.

I’m sorry!

I’m so sorry for a million things I can’t begin to put into words. I’m sorry that I don’t understand you better, that I can’t follow you, can’t hear your heart beating in this night. I’m sorry for all the ways I let you down, that I’m not who or what you need, that I leave you hurting, mouth full of black night, lips closed on black blood. I’m sorry it’s imperfect, so hard to speak truths at noon, so hard to bear touch without turning off your skin so you can hug without flinching, without the smell of another person getting into your nose and staying there like a cologne you can’t bear. I’m sorry that I’m broken too, that I don’t have answers and don’t even always understand the questions, that the night baffles me and the day dazes me, that I know so little and can’t draw you a better map. I’m sorry that it’s so hard. I can’t bear it either, some days. It just fucking hurts. It just bleeds from you.

I’m sorry that sometimes you still feel so alone, even when I’m right here, that there’s parts of you I can’t reach, that holding your hand or speaking your language isn’t enough to make you feel heard, safe, loved, connected. I’m sorry for the days we just feel like planets spinning in space, untouched and light years from touch. I’m sorry that words stick in my throat, that I find it so hard to play at being a good host, even when you’re so kind and respectful, that it takes days or sometimes months before I unfreeze and reply. I wish it didn’t, I wish I did better, but I get scared and I’m not even certain what I’m scared of.

And at the same time I say I’m so sorry I can’t make it better I want to tell you – beware those who tell you they can! Beware the gurus, the cost of their salvation is much higher than first apparent. Beware those who are healed and whole, who never suffer and are not lost, not bewildered by the world, not sickened by the violence, the rhetoric, the vile squabbling of those with full stomachs and empty hearts. These leaders who are fit to lead, confident, with their easy grace and their warm smiles, I know the lack of doubt is like sun after a long winter, like rain after drought, but be careful. Sometimes there’s a kind of healed that isn’t so much whole as it is wilfully not knowing about the cracks about the outliers about the contradictions. It’s fitting the dress because the surgeon cut out every part of you that didn’t, and don’t you wear it well? And aren’t we all so envious?

The world’s on fire some days, so full of pain I don’t know how to bear it. A thousand stars reflected in the ocean. The vast and distant echo of your pain sounds in my skin like a gong that is struck and reverberates on. I cannot bear it and I cannot bear for it to be silenced.

Be a little kind, a little brave. I’m tired of the boxes that we live in. There’s so much here, beneath the surface, that connects us. So much human feeling. None of us owns pain, any more than we own the cure. We’re all broken, and the ones who know it least are broken most.

The Big Move Begins

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Simultaneously emptying my unit of excess paraphernalia, packing up all Rose’s belongings, and moving her in.

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We’re using this room at my place to hold each days collection of stuff for sale, collection by a new owner, or donation to the local op shop.

It’s a big job, but we’ve made a start! Personally, I’m really excited. 🙂 Although I must say, it’s easy less fun than planning a wedding and the fanfare of that kind of relationship change. Once we’re sorted, I’m looking forward to planning a big, fun, engagement party.

(and probably building a cat run so we don’t find ourselves living in a cat war as Rose’s cat Bebe will be joining us very soon!)

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Don’t talk to me about my To Do list.

Walking

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Say hello to laser possum… I’ve been walking the dog every night round the block at least, come rain or heat. Tonight this chap was on our beat.

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Today was strange. I’m good and fine and also sort of heartsick and world weary. My to do list runs onto several pages, none of which I feel like dealing with. Facebook feels icky instead of connecting. I’ve been cooking from scratch lately and enjoying that – pikelets, pancakes, waffles (savoury and sweet), and gluten and dairy free cake for a birthday today (surprisingly tasty!). It’s satisfying, especially cleaning the trashed kitchen into the dishwasher afterwards.

This week begins the big move – Rose’s lease is at an end. Next week work starts again. In between I expect lots of tears and stress. We started a day early on that today. After homelessness, I don’t think either of us are ever going to be able to do house moves without major stress. 😦 Patience and love in large dollops.

Strange dreams. Reading a lot. Writing a little when I can, impatient to start on my book again soon. Happy and not happy. Excited and dissatisfied. Moving toward good things, and away from good things. On the right path and yet missing something important. Such is life. One foot, then the other.

Tribe Night

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At least once a month Rose and I set aside some time to spend just the two of us. No friends or kids or work or stress, just us, celebrating us. Often we don’t call this a date night as not everyone in my system is ‘dating’ her, but instead she’s coined the rather lovely phrase Tribe Night. What we do depends on who feels like they need some time together, and how much money we have. As Rose is still waiting unpaid for her new job to start, tonight is a budget one. We’ve got movies from the local hire store, popcorn, and the half eaten gorgeous gingerbread house that was a Christmas gift from a generous, creative friend who cooked it in her tiny toaster oven in her apartment and probably lost a few more sanity points in the process.

Other favourite tribe night things to do are nights at the beach, hanging out in the trees at our local park, going to the movies, our favourite local Asian fusion restaurant, going out to fun art or cultural events, especially the free kind where dressing up can happen, hanging out in the nude with all the curtains drawn and good music, (some of us are lovers), camping nights away, and for the really introverted, reading together in bed.

Sometimes we have to work around health issues too, I read this gorgeous blog post the other day and thought it had great ideas for not-well hang out times: 10 Crip Date Ideas for the Disabled/Chronically Ill/Mad Person in Your Life

Have a good one folks. Don’t forget romance is not the sole domain of lovers.

Inner children – shame and threat

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

For many of us with multiplicity, figuring out how to live with inner children can be a huge challenge. I’m certainly no expert on this and don’t have this all figured out with my own, but some guiding principles have worked well for us that might be of help or interest to you.

The first massive challenge for us was to learn to cope with the deep shame we felt about them. For example, we have one who is 5. She’s very sweet, curious, and playful. We first noticed her when we attended uni one day, and she turned up thinking it was her first day of school. She was fascinated by the shiny wrapped chocolates in vending machines and terribly anxious that maybe she’d forgotten to put her underwear on that morning. We were co-conscious and felt blind terror that someone might notice her ‘weird’ behaviour. Our ‘intellectual adults’ in particular were dismayed at being mistaken for this impulsive, cheerful creature who balanced on the edges of the garden beds and skipped down stairs. It felt like a profoundly visible difference, a severe disability that would stop people seeing us as smart or dignified or other things that are really important to some of us. So our first reaction was mainly horror.

Shame went deeper too. Having kids tell the white lies all kids tell, exaggerate an event, make it sound more exciting or themselves more brave, skip something they’re worried they’ll get into trouble over… We didn’t cope. We first hated ourselves with a deep passion. When we realised we were multiple, we hated them instead. For a long time we did our best to completely suppress them.

Reducing this shame was partly about understanding them in context. It helped us to read about attachment disorders and realise that the issues we struggled with were very common. It also helped to spend time with other kids that age and realise that our expectations were crazy high for our own. It helped to look at photos of ourselves at those ages and realise that although we had felt mature and responsible and old at the time, we were just very little. We had some mad ideas about ourselves as children that we had to confront, and some internalised ideas from other people we had to start to question.

Fortunately, system members who felt less threatened by the kids had very different reactions to them. One in particular was very co-conscious and curious about the way that people didn’t pick up even when the 5 year old was out. People just don’t think of multiplicity. Even pretty overt behaviour wasn’t noticed, particularly by strangers who didn’t have any idea of who we were usually, or what to expect from us. It was a startling kind of freedom.

We also started to notice some of the pain of being a child in an adult world. How difficult life could be for them, how lonely they were, how bewildered they were by adult concerns and choices. Once this sweet little girl came out, curled up on the couch, and waited for someone to bring her something to eat. She ‘wasn’t allowed’ to open the fridge or the freezer or make a snack, and she didn’t know that no one was coming. Life can be strange and lonely when you miss great chunks of it and the rules change without anyone telling you.

Being able to take a step back from feeling overwhelmingly threatened and just observe and learn was important. This was a slow process for us, years rather than weeks. A system in survival mode is a system geared to feel suspicious and threatened by everything! Initially there was no trust between us and a lot of scrambling to stay in charge and in control by the ones who so deeply feared losing it. All our models of losing control were about disability and loss of functioning, people who wound up in hospital needing constant care. For a long time it felt like we were fighting for our life, and fighting a doomed battle at that, that life long severe mental illness was our destiny while these parts existed. Discovering that sometimes kids brought joy and hope too was a massive surprise and helped us begin to question our assumptions about what it was to have inner kids.

Humour and compassion are powerful alternatives to shame. Over time I found I could re-tell the story of having a five year old switch out at uni and glue herself optimistically to vending machines for significant periods of time hoping chocolate might come out of it… and laugh, and make other people laugh. Life is bizarre and absurd! Taking it, and ourselves, utterly seriously is a quick way to find ourselves forever disappointed, threatened, and miserable. Embracing the humour and pathos in equal measure has served us well. It’s not about laughing instead of crying, but as well as crying.

These processes of learning and listening and questioning built some empathy and we began to relate to the kids as real people instead of just a burden or nuisance. They weren’t just symptoms of a disorder, or here to make my life difficult, they are just as real as I am. Their joy and pain just as real. It became less stressful to let them have some time out. These days if the 5 year old is out when we’re buying groceries (or more likely, candy) then people such as check out operators generally talk to us as if we are intellectually slow. We’ve stopped being so threatened by that and take it in our stride. There are some awesome people out there with intellectual disabilities. Being mistaken for one of them at times isn’t the end of the world. This is part of what it really means to be inclusive and to believe that people with disabilities are still people. If you think you’re comfortable with and inclusive of a group but are mortified if someone mistakes you for one them, then you’re a long way from walking your talk.

(I’ve seen this a lot, where the act of reaching out and connecting with a marginalised group is supposed to reflect well on the generous supporter, and it’s really all about their needs. They love to be seen as inclusive and brave but it’s nothing to do with equality. Try mistaking a mental health worker for one of the clients and see how thin the veneer of their ‘community’ is as they jump to assert their true status. This is doubly offensive if you’re there as one of the clients!)

Of course, threat doesn’t just go one way. An inner 14 year old who has figured out that their body is adult and flirts with scary drunk men has learned a powerful way to scare and punish the rest of a system who are constantly trying to suppress her. (ask me how I know this!) Kids get scared by their inner adults who are angry, powerful (but not all powerful) figures who feel they are more real, more important, their needs paramount, and their ideas about life decisions the ones that should happen. Kids don’t just get out voted, they often don’t get a vote at all in these systems. Imagine the sense of threat that comes from having other people who don’t like you, don’t care about your pain or needs, and don’t even see you as ‘real’ making choices about your life, your home, your family, and your body. Sound familiar? For some of us, we build our systems on the same dynamics of family or school, the world we grew up in, and sometimes that’s a terrible thing.

Systems that are structured on abusive dynamics, as mine was, deal with the fall out of that. The most powerful might win all the time out and decision making, but the alienated rebel, undermine, sabotage, manipulate, seethe with resentment, or submit and hate themselves. Those who have no choice or overt power protest in passive aggressive ways and behave without dignity. The traumatised stay locked in severe trauma, the isolated express pain and loneliness through symptoms such as phobias, nightmares, flashbacks, tics, and sickness. This is often what we call DID or multiplicity, when in fact it’s a normal response to a really abusive system. Multiplicity with a healthy use of power internally looks very different. It often doesn’t even fit the diagnostic criteria for DID, and we have no alternative framework or language to describe it.

With time and gradual connection, there’s more empathy and less dehumanisation. With this has also come a sense of protection and responsibility. As we’ve learned to unpick our sense of shame about our inner kids we’ve found it easier to understand and interact with them. Long ago, pre diagnosis for myself, I was reading about multiplicity because someone close to me had been diagnosed. I read about a woman with multiplicity who registered that the other patient she saw in her therapists waiting room was also multiple. She gave the shrink a gift of crayons to pass along. When I read that, something deep inside me burned with fierce desire. I wanted my own box of crayons, my own signal that this was okay. At the same time, the iron fist of suppression, refusal, denial locked me down. I absolutely could not do something as simple as buy myself crayons, because that was opening a forbidden door. It was years before I bought a packet of crayons and a colouring book for us, and it was for us, like each step on this road, an act of courage and faith. So very simple, looking back, but so profound and needing such bravery to be willing to face what came up, to trust that there would still be life and hope. When we started Bridges, the face to face group for people with dissociation and multiplicity that we ran weekly for 2 years, we brought crayons and paper to every meeting, trying to pass on this gift.

How simple it has turned out to be, to understand that we’re all sailing in the same ship together. To find joy in the differences between us. Everything we read was about coming together, becoming more like each other, finding a common ground and merging into it. Everything we’d tried was about drawing a line that defined who ‘Sarah’ was and only allowing out those of us who fit within it. Peace has been the opposite process for us. Letting go of that attempt to control who we are and accepting who is here. It’s okay if people get very different ideas about who Sarah is depending on who they meet first. We lead the way by being okay with it ourselves, and most people simply follow suit. We had a house-guest here for a few days this week, who quietly observed to Rose – “Wow, it’s like Sarah’s a different person. I didn’t think she’d be the kind of person who games (first person shooters, by preference, particularly L4D2). There’s a photo of a pretty butterfly on one of her computer screens, and she’s killing zombies on the other!” To which Rose responds “yeah, I see what you mean. Some people are like that!”

For more information see articles listed on Multiplicity Links, scroll through posts in the category of Multiplicity, or explore my Network The Dissociative Initiative.

Heartbroken

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

Today I’m heartbroken. Family friends have been in crisis so we’ve had a lovely guest here who needed someplace safe to stay. We’ve also had to collect and arrange to be surrendered to the RSPCA two families of cats that had been left without care. Rose, myself, and four other kind cat lovers spent a couple of hours in the rain catching half wild kittens and cats, and with a police escort rescuing two tiny, malnourished, sickly kittens from a house. We’ve just taken them all to the vet. We’d love to give them homes but our cat quota is full. (please don’t offer, they’ve been surrendered now and it’s all out of my hands) So we hope like hell that once they’ve been properly feed and cared for maybe they will be among the few lucky ones who find new homes, but we’re heartbreakingly aware this is unlikely. It was the right thing to do but so hard and so sad.

We got home at about 11pm, kissed our cats, and I took off my shoes and walked Zoe out on the grass of a nearby park, through rain and sprinklers and lightening. It’s raining here in South Australia. The bush fires are going out, at last. The night is beautiful, it smells of rain and grass and eucalyptus. Two families of cats who might be dead tomorrow are in my heart. Two families of cats who will no longer be hungry or sick, no longer have two or three litters of kittens a year, some of whom always die. No more fear, no more snatching food from neighbours bins, no more pain. They deserved so much more but it’s all I have to offer. I’m sorry.

One of the weird days

/ Sarah K Reece / 6 Comments

Yesterday was one of those blah days where nothing feels like a good fit. I tried lots of approaches, none of which helped, and shrugged, headed to bed and figured I’d feel differently after a sleep. Well, I was right. I had intense nightmares, of the kind where you wake up and feel so distressed you want to throw up. The content lingers like you’ve watched a vivid, personal horror movie that’s burned images into your mind. It’s been awhile since they were an issue! This morning was meltdown territory as a result, panic and intense dread. I took a bath, read some book, wrote in my journal, and scraped myself together enough for my appointments. Today was admin appointments, getting stranded with a vehicle that needed engine oil, and having a blood test – STILL no bad reactions, even on a horrible day like this one! Did, however, re count my days when I got home and discover I’d done this one a couple of days early by accident and will have to repeat it. Sigh.

I saw a disability employment person and cried about how stressed I feel about my business at the moment, wondering if I should be pursuing employment instead. She ‘reassured’ me that I wasn’t passing up some wonderful opportunity – most people like me with an episodic illness are unable to find good work. We get casual, short term, poorly paid work, issues with workplace bullying, and more often than not – contracted volunteering. So if I’m going to not get paid (or paid well enough to survive) and lose my job every time my health wipes me out for a month – I might as well be running my networks and continuing to build my business. Right? The anxiety levels have been tremendously high about it lately, I think trying to get pregnant is sending me into panic mode a bit. It a hard road to walk sometimes. And a brutal reality to face what my openness about multiplicity and psychosis are costing me – and what they cost millions of other people. I hate this.

On the plus side, I’m continuing to clean the house up (it got a bit swamped over Christmas, plus I need to make room for a guest and also Rose moving in soon), keep the garden alive through the heat, and sort out food and meals.

I feel way better than I did this morning, but still ‘off’. unsettled and not myself. Haven’t settled into the new year yet. I don’t have a sense of being on firm footing. I’m picking up on other people’s feelings, seeing the world through many different eyes (but not ours) – perspectives of friends, authors of books or articles I’ve read, proponents of particular ideologies. I move between them feeling the clashes and contradictions like burning places in my mind. Hot and sparky. Then I feel myself move back from all of them and suddenly nothing seems real. I find myself walking outside of my home and looking at a tree thinking – ah, there it is. Reality. The thing beneath all the theories. I feel slightly swamped and detached at the same time. And oddly lonely. Part of me is waiting to find out if I’m pregnant and it’s impossible to feel much about that so I’m not feeling anything. Not even numb, just like I’m holding my breath. I can’t breathe or feel again until the cycle ends. Last month I actually felt pregnant some of the time. This time I don’t at all. I don’t even feel like I’m completely here. Man, these reactions are unpredictable!

Ticking away in the back of my head, as always is the book. There’s always more reasons not to write it than there are to write it. I feel like I’m slogging through a thicket of brambles each and every time I just sit down at a keyboard or notepad and work on it for an hour. I don’t want to put myself out there as some kind of leader. I don’t want to present myself as an expert or have people follow my advice. I am aware – like most people who deeply investigate a topic – of the truly mammoth amount of material I haven’t yet read, ideas I haven’t digested, communities I can’t possibly represent. I hate it. I can’t do justice to the field. The only thing that keeps me going is reading what’s already out there and realising how huge the gaps are and that even my pitiful efforts are an improvement on some of the rank dogma that is messing with people’s lives. But hells, it’s hard to remember that.

So, here’s to the weird days. The not recovered, not perfect, not trying to lead anyone anywhere days where despite feeling like my brain is not entirely in this dimension I’m still a decent and useful human being. The biggest crisis today wasn’t even mine, I’m a support person in the backdrop of someone else’s rough time. (we have an extra house guest on our couch for a bit) I’m still needed and still loved and we all half limp half dance along together I guess. Missing my friend Leanne like hell. Signing off from the Colony. (she would get that, we used to write. My place was the Colony and her’s was the Outpost. All the shorthand and in jokes that die with a friendship.) Just breathing.

Poem – Witness to fire

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

Fires are still burning here in SA. It’s strange, sad, numb, and uncomfortable watching it from the sidelines and knowing that for some this is the most devastating time. There’s been massive community support, people have flooded MP offices and rec centres with food and supplies. Organisations are being run off their feet trying to coordinate volunteers and donations. Most of us are horrified at what we are witnessing. We want to help. Sometimes we can, and often we have to wait until the first few days pass and less obvious needs become apparent. Anger, fear, and helplessness sit beneath numbness. It’s difficult to put words to. And that’s when I write.

Fire eats the world here
And people are running like ash blown on the wind.
Paddocks empty of living horses
The net a hive of chattering fear
I lose nothing but a little sleep.

If you look into my eyes, I’m not there
My tides are far out, and my shores are empty
Driving home, I’m trapped in silence
I want to find a quiet place to park and cry
But don’t. There’s no tears in me.
I haven’t earned them.

I stop to buy milk and walk the aisles
Looking for I don’t know what
There’s nothing that can fill this emptiness
I leave with only milk.

Somewhere there are people weeping
People bringing rations to the dispossed
A pain that screams when your whole world becomes
A crematorium for all the things you
Didn’t know that you could live without.

Here there’s just the fan, that clicks as it turns
The way laughter seems falsely bright
The sense of guilt
As your horror spews from the tv
Flickering light without sound
The radio intones the towns evacuated
Like a list of the dead.

I think of the homeless and how strange it must seem to them
To see so many so moved by the plight of so few.
How blessed we were who had something to lose
Say we who have lost nothing but our sleep.

I have an appointment tomorrow –
I’ve no words for it.
Calendars and diaries seem obscene
There’s just the night and my bewilderment
One hand raised to stop the noise.

My cat’s a shadow by my side
The ghosts of a thousand animals fly
Across the land tonight
Utterly silent
I lie here beneath my fan, ears straining for their cries –
I cannot hear anything at all.

We are safe from the SA Bushfires

/ Sarah K Reece / 4 Comments

There are catastrophic fire conditions here in SA at the moment. I just want to let you know that my home is nowhere near the danger zone. I’ve been up late watching things unfolding and reading to swing into action if I’m needed. A few of my friends and family are near danger and our home is open to them or their pets if needed. Huge grassroots community efforts are complementing the country fire service and emergency services work to keep people and animals safe. We’re lucky to have the net and communications networks we now have. I’ve been reading about awful situations where animals have died, and other amazing ones where whole boarding kennels have been evacuated safely. Over 100 fires have started in the past 24 hours, almost all have been contained but one massive one remains. So far houses have been lost, animals have died, and properties have burned but no human lives lost. Today brings severe storm winds and dry lightning so conditions are terrible. Smoke is blowing across the suburbs and city, causing troubles for those with respiratory issues.

We are safe, home, cool, waiting and watching to see where we might be needed.

Happy Bookworm

/ Sarah K Reece / 4 Comments

imageI got a number of new books for Christmas, and bought a few for myself too, with donations that came in through this blog. Squee! I love books. I love reading. This is my current collection by my bed. I’m usually reading between 5 and 15 books at the same time. Rose and I are currently reading Lirael by Garth Nix, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to each other. It’s soooo wonderful reading aloud or having read aloud to you a favourite book. 🙂 Since we met, we’ve read the other earlier Harry Potter books, Sabriel, and a Tanith Lee one called Companions on the Road, which Rose kept falling asleep to because it’s very lyrical and rhythmic in style. Reading to each other is our secret weapon against insomnia and nightmares. 🙂

I used to go to my local library with a shopping trolley and just browse the shelves, pulling a few books from each to read until I’d reached the 50 book loan limit. These libraries that make you browse electronically and only take out 10 or less books at a time! Wow, not my style. 😦

So, at the moment I am reading Focusing by Eugene Gendlin, about a self awareness/self care technique for learning how to listen and understand where you’re stuck and how to move forwards. So far I love it.

Emerald magic – a collection of short stories set in Ireland, fantasy. One is by Tanith Lee, a favourite author, another by Ray Bradbury, THE favourite author.

Double Exposure by Brian Caswell, excellent author

Up the Duff by Kaz Cooke, about pregnancy, great black sense of humour, a welcome change from all the ‘pastel’ books out there. I also got given Kid Wrangling by the same author which I’m looking forward to.

Somebodies and Nobodies about rank and abuse of power, which I’m loving. It’s what I’ve been screaming about in mental health for years and SOMEBODY gets it! More, they have practical wisdom about maintaining what is useful about rank while getting rid of rankism. I am so enjoying this book.

Parenting for a peaceful world by Robin Grille, about child raising over the centuries. This one is very intense, but extremely important. It’s been incredibly difficult to read about child raising approaches in cultures that routinely abuse, kill, or sacrifice their children, and to see the development of ideas over time – children as property to children as people. I’m looking forward to reading other books that take such a broad sociological approach to this topic because a lot of the parenting books are alarmingly narrow in perspective and we often assume that normal ideas for us today (parents bond with a protect their children, for example) were always normal ideas. It’s also of interest to me considering that for many of my friends and people I work with, their families were definitely not the current norm, and actually operated on principles of abuse or property that I can read about from other cultures or earlier times. It’s also interesting to me how much of things like infant mortality we put at the feet of improved sanitation (very important) and don’t talk about the changes in child raising practices which were probably as or even more important.

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, another one full of great ideas about leadership and vulnerability that I’m reading in small portions to allow me to digest it

Lost and Found, fiction, Rose bought it for me when I was sick, unusual but enjoyable style.

And re reading the Earthsea set again – one of my canon I re read yearly. Absolutely beautiful series.

Plus some I haven’t started yet, Bapo, Embracing Our Selves, and Shadow Dance. How wonderful. 🙂

Rose tells me she can always tell how many nights it’s been since she slept over last as her side of my bed progressively fills up with books and journals. Reading and writing are key parts of my life, they get me out of my head, share creativity and wisdom with me, help me learn new ideas, and upskill. It’s a joy for me that very little can ruin, even grief, pain, illness. I delight in it.

What are you reading?

Giveaway – computer monitor taken

/ Sarah K Reece / 4 Comments

Update, it’s found a home 🙂

First in best dressed – I’ve upgraded my computer monitor and have one to give away, ideally to someone who’s in a squeezy income and can’t afford one. It’s nothing special, but if you need one, it’s awesome. 🙂

It’s a 19th inch Acer LCD monitor, manufactured in 2008. I think I have the cables for it too, but need to double check. Pickup close to Adelaide – can possibly deliver if you don’t have transport. Works fine.

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Ink Painting – Waiting for you

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

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A new ink painting! We’ve started our second cycle of trying to get pregnant today. The mood is optimistic about our house. We’ve been cautioned and chastised a few times since we started on this path about how openly we’ve chosen to share our experiences. Each to their own of course!

I was talking with Rose about this again recently and asked her if it was harder or easier to experience loss or disappointment in secret? She said, for her, it was harder. Secrecy bred shame, layered confusion into relationships where people didn’t know why she was reacting the way she was, it left her alone in grief. Personally, that’s certainly been my experience also. When it’s chosen as a preference, it’s privacy. When it’s imposed by others, by culture, by friends or family who don’t want to talk about it, then it’s something else much more lonely and painful. As with so much of life, it’s about having the freedom to choose. I’m glad to not be alone in this.

Awesome quote: mental health and dungeons

/ Sarah K Reece / 5 Comments

I’ve written before that I learn as much from fiction about madness and sanity as I do from my library of books on mental health. For the Pratchett fans among us, I’ve always loved the mottos Vetinari (the leader of a large city) lives by, such as :

Never build a dungeon you wouldn’t want to spend the night in yourself. Never build a dungeon you can’t get out of.

I feel this is highly applicable above for those of us working in mental health, that is :

Never create a resource it would be beneath your dignity to seek support through.

Would not the world then be a much happier place? I rather think so.

Tonks went walkabout

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It’s been a crazy kind of day. Tonks went missing all night and most of today, coming home dishevelled and hungry after we door knocked the area, so we think she was shut in somewhere. I got turned down for a job I really wanted, but Rose was offered a job starting in late January! The relief is massive!

In between tears and anxiety, we’ve made gifts, shopped, and wrapped presents and visited friends. It’s nearly 2am and we’re finally in bed, ready for a huge day of baking tomorrow. We’re desperately relieved to have Tonks back, she’s getting a triple helping of cuddles tonight.

Home Again

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Home again safe. My sister drove to Melbourne with me (interstate, about a nine hour drive) as for Christmas she gave me a ticket to see Nick Cave. It was a great concert and trip. We drove home through the Grampians, got bogged once in soft sand and spent the night there, but dug out this morning and headed on. I missed Rose like crazy, and it was strange and painful to be dealing with our first finished cycle apart. But it also kind of worked. We both did our thing and came back together at the end. Cave was perfectly timed, reminding me that I’ve never sought a life that’s less painful, I’ve always wanted a passionate life. To be deeply alive.

I hurt like crazy and went down into that and came up again to find myself feeling deeply contented.  We drove through bush, slept under stars,  did a lot of thinking about and writing for the book, and a lot of gentle sitting with my own headspace. Something in me runs free when I’m out in the bush. I’m very lucky to live in this country.

And home again, to beautiful Rose, and a long shower, and my own bed, and the animals. Glad to be here, glad to be alive.

I’m not pregnant

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

So, first cycle over.

I’ve learned a few things.

Like it’s impossible not to hope even when I try.
That wondering if I’m pregnant makes me feel like death is following behind me. It’s a shadow behind every footstep and a chill under all my thoughts. Life in my left hand and death in my right.
That trying not to be affected by it, not to give it meaning, not to feel anything, is the loneliest place. It hurts more when I try to pretend I’m not hurting.
The road other people walk, or pretend to walk, or tell me to walk, is not my road.
Trying to bring a child into the world makes me miss everyone I have ever loved, who they will never get to meet.
That it’s possible to step far enough back from the world that all the ideas that have trapped me, the standards of beauty I’ve hated my body for, the approval I’ve worked for, the trying to find a place to belong are just ideas. I can smile like I’ve seen the joke and it’s a little sad. I can see how I’m consumed by things of no importance. I can see how it’s all just moments, strung together, heartbeats, the song of a bird in flight. (Bright the hawk’s flight on the empty sky) This is my life (ending one minute at a time) and it’s brief. (Sometimes I wonder was she ever really here at all?) Joy washes in with one wave and sorrow with the next. This is what it is to be alive, and I’m grateful.

Life is brief.

Feeling things

/ Sarah K Reece / 5 Comments

I’ve just wept through Nick Cave’s spectacular concert.

Nights like tonight, it makes no sense to me
That when we need to feel something, or feel something different
We go to a doctor. Why? They’re terrible at it!

Making you feel things is what artists, musicians, actors, and writers are for. And they’re much better at it.

Buck Angel – trans and diversity

/ Sarah K Reece / 4 Comments

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This awesome dude is Buck Angel. He was in Adelaide recently doing a number of shows at part of our Feast Festival, which is our annual queer pride event. I was fortunate enough to get along to several of them. I first met Buck as an amazing life size golden statue of him by artist Marc Quinn, that’s in our Art Gallery of South Australia.
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Photo from this blog.

I was blown away when I first saw it, that confidence, the way his tattoos have been carved deeply into the statue… So beautiful. To display his unusual body (Buck went through ‘top’ but not ‘bottom’ surgery) with such a sense of contentment and certainty about who he is just blew me away. Apparently it’s not unusual for people to be deeply moved, particularly trans folk.  Then I heard the subject was coming here and I got to hear some of his life story, his transitioning, to hear about how this statue was made and brought all the way to SA. It’s been amazing.

I talked with him a little about the overlap between the trans and multiple communities, the need for more understanding and acceptance. I’ve been building more links between these communities in my work on the Dissociative Initiative. My experience has been that there’s a lot of trans people who experience multiplicity, and a lot of people with multiplicity who have trans parts/personalities. The mental health and the trans supports however, don’t always get along.

Buck got it. His messages of loving your body, and embracing your identity, and not letting the world tell you you have look a certain way or have certain body parts to be who you know you are is a powerful one, especially for trans members of multiple systems. Some of us transition and some, like me, never will. (More about my experiences in What is a man?) I live as a male in a system full of female personalities and a body identified as female. Learning to be comfortable with this is so much easier when you have a hyper masculine, “I love my vagina”, pro diversity role model like Buck.

We talked a little about the massive changes legally and socially that have happened, just in the time since he’s transitioned. It makes me hopeful that things are going to change for those us with multiplicity, who currently are seen as mentally ill, treated as dangerous, or the punch line of a joke. There’s a whole community of trans people who can relate to our experiences around those issues! These are people who understand fears of being outed, how our relationships, housing, and jobs can be at risk, the pressure of trying to pass so no one will know we are different. That’s the reason I’m public about being multiple, to start that change happening. We shouldn’t have to hide! We can find ally’s in communities like this and support each other.

Buck told me – it doesn’t take many of us speaking up to change things. Just a few voices make a difference. I believe that.

Gifts

/ Sarah K Reece / 3 Comments

People are sending me money through the donate button on this blog, and it’s blowing me away! People I’ve never met, people who have found this a useful resource, who know how many unpaid hours I work and want to say thanks. One came in last night while I was hanging out with friends and I cried. Several times. It’s just incredible to me that people would offer to pay me for something I’m already giving for free. There’s a lot of love out there! This was the message that came with one:

Cheers to hope and the spirit of multiplicity

Hells yes. I’ll drink to that! And write to that! It’s deeply inspiring and a lot of work is happening to figure out my approach to hope and multiplicity and weave it together to form the book I’m working on.

So, I’m rewriting parts of my business. I’ve been trying to turn myself into someone who is comfortable with money and goes and writes grant applications and asks for good money for some resources so I can fund others to be free… but wow it’s so not me, or at least, not yet. I’ve learned to stand my ground and ask for pay in face painting otherwise all my weekends would be free charity work, but in mental health it just feels different. I’ve always wanted to be paid a salary so I can offer resources for free… This model of inviting those who can to pay and support free work for those who can’t seems to be working… and right now I can cope with it. So I’ve started to trial it in other areas.

I’m now offering henna or skin inks for people who are grieving with a ‘pay what you can’ approach. I’m also opening the door to more direct contact. I’ve always been happy for people to email me looking for help (sarah @ di.org.au) and I get back to them as soon as possible. Now I’m arranging phone calls with people who want to talk to someone – not a therapist, counsellor or doctor, just a peer. I’m also arranging catch ups with people looking for contact, for private art tutoring, whatever skills I can share. I’ve been carefully opening these doors these past few weeks, inviting people to pay what they can, if they can, and only if they find it helpful.

I’m anxious about being overwhelmed by how many people are looking for support, or finding myself offering so many free services I don’t have time for paid work, which I just can’t afford to do with a family to think of, but so far… well so far it’s good. And I’m getting to do what I love doing – build my networks, reach out, connect, offer hope.

I shouldn’t be surprised that people can be so generous. I’ve devoted a lot of time to writing and running groups and so on, why would I think other people don’t reach out to support things they believe in? I think my time working in mental health has closed my eyes to the real kindness that can exist between people. I’m glad to have them opened again. You guys are amazing. You are changing my world.

Book is happening

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

2014-12-13 20.59.20-1It’s consuming. But it’s happening. A book about multiplicity. It comes in spurts, days where it’s writing itself in my head constantly and flowing, then depressing blocks where nothing makes sense or connected with anything else. I think I may have finally found a structure that works more closely with the way I write this blog – which I should find a lot easier to work with. I’ll keep you posted!