General News

Happiness

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

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Rose and I are away again, house sitting in the hills with Zoe. It’s bliss. Yesterday friends visited for fire baked spuds and card games. I’ve spent today sleeping or reading in front of the fire. Rose is spoiling me. Last week was busy, I’m still embroiled in tax paperwork, my cert 4 in small business management started and there were some stressful emotional days. By Friday night I was teary with exhaustion and pain was making me short fused. The effort of getting out of the house, especially with the dog crate and so on for Zoe, was almost too much. But we did it, and it’s been wonderful.

I was thinking the other day how normal it’s become to be multiple. When Rose I go shopping, and I switch to a little kid in the lolly aisle, we are both so unconcerned. Mostly people don’t notice, and we don’t draw attention to ourselves. But we’re not afraid or ashamed either. Those who do see something different probably assume that I have some kind of intellectual disability or delay. I’ve long stopped being distressed by that or feeling ashamed of being seen that way. So what? In some ways, I am ‘delayed’ at that moment, by about 25 years. 😉 I’m not afraid of being thought of as disabled because I don’t think about disability the same way any more. Me switching is so normal for us, not a big deal, not a source of shame or anxiety. (I switch many times a day, and my system ages range from 5 up and cross various experiences and expressions of gender – most who don’t know me well would not be able to tell that I’ve switched – Rose usually can)

This is such a difference from the years I was terrified of someone else finding out, from my first disclosures where people reacted so badly. So different to being diagnosed with a “terrible disorder” that would prevent me ever getting work, that would ensure I spent years in and out of psychiatric facilities, that would wreak havoc on my relationships and require thousands of excruciatingly painful hours in therapy for any hope of peace or happiness. I feel like someone who was told they would never walk again who goes dancing on Saturday nights. They got it all so very wrong, and I’m so glad I didn’t listen.

So I’m different, in some ways that people can’t see, and in others that are at times visible. So what? Welcome to the world, it’s a very diverse place. I’m not a freak show, and I’m not scared of a conversation about dissociation with a checkout operator either. I am so blessed, so at peace. I don’t live like a spy in a foreign land any more, watching everything I say, always concealing some truth of my identity that would destroy everything. How much of what we put down to the ‘mental illness’ is the stress of this way of living? The loneliness of it, the chronic, grinding fear? I’ll never forget having new members to Bridges, the group for people who experienced dissociation and/or multiplicity that I ran for several years, weeping when they first attended, because it was the first time in their lives they’d met anyone else like them. I’ve been lucky to know and care for and love and learn from so many people, and so many fellow multiples over the years. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve lost a few along the way, but I’ve learned, I’ve been humbled, I’ve tried to take the lessons with me, the hard won wisdom whether through success or terrible disaster.

I feel set free from those old, dire prognosis, and I hope my work, my choices, the way I live my life, also helps to set others free. My life is not without pain, I live in chronic physical pain, I have experienced extreme emotional anguish. My story includes grief, darkness, suffering. I live with ghosts and old wounds that are very deep. I am not ‘recovered’. But I’m also not waiting to get better before I feel alive, or at peace, or hope. All lives touch pain, tragedy, disability, loss. Some more than others, yes. I don’t have a good life in spite of multiplicity or illness. I have a good life because I’m here, present in it, drinking it in, the sorrow and the joy, the pleasure of driving myself hard at work, and the bliss of a day reading by the fire. The warmth in the arms of my lover. I love and I am loved. It is my heart that is the source of my greatest pain, and my brightest happiness, and in matters of the heart I have been fortunate indeed.

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

Power, status, and corruption

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

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I came across this interesting article in Issue 136 of the Wellbeing magazine (more doctors appointments means catching up on magazines) and for someone who has always unquestioningly believed that power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, it was thought provoking. The fear of corruption has made it incredibly challenging for me to grasp and exercise my own power in many contexts. My confused take on these ideas has meant that situations look like a choice between hammer and nail, I’ve chosen to be the nail. But many of the people I admire are those who have grasped power and used it to do good things in the world. I’m hoping to be one of them. Perhaps it will not be as destructive to my self as I have feared. Love and dignity and self-respect might change the equations.

Mini holiday

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

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Rose and I are away on a mini holiday with Zoe. Whoop whoop! Friends are away and we’ve borrowed their place. This new work practice of taking time off properly to enjoy ourselves is paying off in spades. My fibro is rough but I couldn’t be happier! I’m not caught and trapped by the railway tracks anymore, we make plans and get out into life and soak it up! It’s not all about sacrifice or working towards a future. It’s also about living in the moment and taking it all in.

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Supper by the fire last night… We sat up late talking about our family and names and baby plans. How did I find this beautiful woman? By what magic are we, both so wounded, making something so beautiful? I feel so blessed.

Exercise for fibromyalgia

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

Brrr it’s cold in Adelaide at the moment! My fibro pain is pretty horrendous as a result. I’ve taken most of the school holidays off to finish all this overdue tax paperwork and it’s certainly lost whatever novelty value it may once have had. Being patient and having the occasional tantrum about the sheer tedium.

Still working on this mindfulness/anxiety awareness process, which is helpful instead of just drowning. I’m starting to gently get more exercise happening and noticing what it does for my mood and pain levels. I know that gentle movement does help with the pain, up to a point where it then creates new pain. Tuning in and noticing those points is what I’m currently concentrating on, so i can do the right amount to be helpful and not make it all worse. Movement gets your lymphatic system going which is pretty critical and can help a lot when pain is due to things like lactic acid build up in the muscles. But I don’t find that image motivating.

Instead I’m thinking of a cold engine trying to run with no oil yet heated and thin and lubricating the parts. It’s not biologically accurate but that’s how my knees feel and it seems to be working to encourage me to walk them around the block and get them lubed up again. I keep thinking about the importance of reconditioning a body like mine – lots of small bits of exercise, gently does it.

So today I’ve woken up, let Tonks back in the bedroom where she says hello like this:

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From a distance of about 2 inches. Which is why she doesn’t sleep in the bedroom, because a cat trying to sleep on your face is a challenge to a peaceful night. I’m going to have breakfast, clean the kitchen, and walk Zoe to the Post Office before sitting down to another few hours of tax. Tonight I’ve got a gig I’m hugely looking forward to at The Mill Adelaide and then I’m taking the rest of the evening off and hopefully having fun with some friends. That feels like a pretty well balanced day to me. Good luck with yours!

Facial steaming

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

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Meet my current best friend. My sinuses seem determined to emphasise the need for the planned surgery by being persistently horrific. If you also suffer with hostile sinuses, I suggest you get one of these. They are only supposed to be a facial steamer, but they work so well to relieve pain and pressure, considerably better than pain killers. I add tea tree and eucalyptus oil to mine, just a couple of drops, and sandwich myself between a soft dry towel and a tissue box. It’s a simple device, it just heats a very small basin of water to steaming point. I much prefer it to the old bowl of hot water and a towel over your head method, because I don’t like lugging kettles or bowls of hot water around the house when I’m feeling horribly unwell and more likely to trip or drop things. I think I paid $10 for this one second hand from eBay.

Baby dreams

/ Sarah K Reece / 3 Comments

2014-07-08 10.21.38-1It’s started… Rose and I are putting together a collection of baby things, despite not yet having a donor or everything else sorted out. I was having a cuppa and chatting to friends online this morning when a package arrived containing these gorgeous handmade clothes from Bongo Baby! Eeee! Tonks was also thrilled.

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Rose and I have both been doing so much work lately on managing our work lives and keeping a house running and looking after each other that a really lovely shift has taken place. We feel like a family right now. It’s waking up to find that Rose has rinsed the tea dishes before work, it’s baking banana bread for lunches, it’s whizzing off for a picnic dinner on the beach with Zoe… Little treats and the effort to pull together household/s that runs smoothly where everyone has clean socks and the cats get fed… It feels really beautiful. We make a great team. I’m so tremendously in love. 🙂

 

So much to tell you…

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

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Wowee what a week! I have so much to tell you about!

Rose and I have just come back from a couple of days away in the bush, celebrating a friends birthday. It was a bit hectic fitting it around work (still doing too much work on my weekends) and only possible at all because kind friends came to our rescue last minute and dog-sat Zoe for us. 🙂 But we had the most wonderful time connecting with a new bunch of people. It’s often still so novel when we’re in a room full of queer families, we’re used to being ‘representative’ but in a space like this we weren’t the queer couple, we were the young couple among many other families queer or queer friendly, with kids already. Awww it was nice! Having conversations about donors with other people who have been there, being part of a beautiful little community of people navigating the complications and joy of rainbow families. The location was spectacular, with clear starry skies and kangaroos outside the windows. Rose and I feel so at home out in the scrub, and sharing meals and bathing kids in a tin by the fire, it was a wonderful taste of things to come. We fell asleep on the couch by the fire, watching the stars out the window, and soaked up the beautiful countryside on all the driving. We’re now planning to do something similar for Rose’s next big birthday – rent a large space somewhere beautiful and have friends and family visit us. It’s a sign of how much things have been changing for us that we can even consider spending money like that – Rose’s job has been a blessing and my business plans are looking hopeful!

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Life continues to be whirlwind! I’ve written my first business proposal – for all my plans around freelance mental health work – and have just been accepted into the free Cert 4 in Business as part of the NEIS training – a government scheme to provide support to people receiving some form of welfare who wish to start a small business. I’m going to be doing my first online study, which is exciting because it will be a test run to see how well that format suits me… If well, then it opens the doors to finishing my psych degree or any other study that keeps my researcher part happy and not left to pick wallpaper off the walls. 😉

So this will take three months and overlap somewhat with the Cert 3 in Micro Business I already have. However I’m still keen because I’ve been finding that with all the work I’ve been doing lately on mindfulness and my anxiety levels, and having finally seen a tax accountant to get all my overdue paperwork sorted out, my mind is so much clearer and I am coping with and processing this kind of information so much better. I am gradually transforming into a business woman! It’s been a long, tiring, amazing, complicated process, but I am watching it happen. It takes a lot longer than people seem to think to regain mental space for skills like this after crisis and homelessness. I think the sexual health counselling also made a huge difference, in that I am feeling less out of my depth, less like these things are part of an adult world I don’t and can’t understand. I’m not corporate or comfortable with bureaucracy by nature, but I’m finally seeing past the bluster, the incomprehensible language, and really there is only a little man behind the curtain. For the first time in my life I am doing admin without panic attacks – in fact without even stress. I’ve had to rewrite my excel spreadsheets for expenses/income/profit and loss to accommodate changes recommended by the tax accountant, and although I could certainly think of more fun ways to spend my morning – and also appreciate friends who help trouble shoot for me!! – it wasn’t a big deal. Which is blowing my mind. I’ve also opened new bank accounts, started new systems for tracking receipts, and had possibly the most productive week in my life, lol.

I’ve overhauled my Glitter Tattoo kit and completely restructured how we store and display them at gigs – I had the change to test it a couple of times over the weekend and it WORKS so well! I’m enjoying the realisation that I am good at setting up systems that work and tweaking designs and procedures to make them easier and more efficient. I now have nearly 200 tattoo stencil designs that I use at gigs, which needed a very different set up from the 40 I started out with a year or two ago. It’s these little successes that make me feel so self-satisfied, ha haa. 🙂 And I’m thankful for that because it’s helped to buffer other moments this week where I’ve felt very vulnerable or disappointed, like my new little fish dying unexpectedly, or getting a stack of abuse from the member of an online support I volunteer admin. It’s amazing to shift from the glow of contentment to feeling so fragile and hurt, but I seem to be bending with the wind and bouncing back better.

I’ve also been doing a lot more to be aware of my system and cues that I haven’t been noticing. Such as picking up on when inner kids are close to the surface and my ability to be adult is fragmenting – before an actual switch. If I keep pushing and don’t pay attention to those needs – often around feeling vulnerable or bored – child parts naturally try to balance my adults who are all work and no play – then things get really hard. I keep working, I’m still adult and still able to reference an adult perspective but my needs and emotional responses become more and more child like and my capacity is reduced. It’s like revving the engine with the handbrake on, I do make progress but it’s ridiculously slow and frustrating and overall pretty damn hard on the car. Really, this whole mindfulness process is just taking my capacity for self awareness and extending it into all kinds of areas of my self and life I hadn’t thought to before… this is about moving out of that crisis functioning where you have to ignore limits and push right through them, and back into thriving in regular life, where the more sensitive and aware of your own cues, triggers, and needs you are, the more responsive you can be to them before you’ve pushed yourself into burnout, collapse, or internal war. It’s about listening to the small voices. Everything feels different with this sense of being tuned in. I don’t feel that horrible sense of being a machine anymore, with parts as cogs that turn, trapped and dehumanised. It feels like I remember it used to, back before diagnosis and self consciousness; a dance – spontaneous, responsive, beautiful. The system feels organic instead, something that lives and breathes and grows. It’s goddamn beautiful.

2014-06-26 07.52.33-1In other news, now have a dishwasher. I was super lucky and given one for free by friends of friends who found themselves with a spare. WOW. I have been in two big crunch spaces recently – handing up a semesters worth of assignments at art college, and doing tax, and my house is still reasonably clean and functioning – due entirely to this awesome machine. I can cook and trash the kitchen for dinner, then clean everything into the dishwasher and run it twice a week! No more back pain leaning over the sink, no more constant shame and frustration at the state of my house. I don’t actually have room for a dishwasher in my unit, so I’ve removed my washing machine and put it in the laundry. Going to the laundromat once a week is a nuisance, but far outweighed by the benefits! The energy I’m not using to stress about my dishes is being used to keep up with tidying, sweeping, cleaning the bathroom – or at the moment, mainly tax admin. I’m so happy about this!

Health wise it’s also been a busy week. I’ve seen a lot of specialists lately and that’s likely to continue for a little while yet. I’m coping okay with this! I have a sense of humour, I feel more in control of the process and less overwhelmed by memories of being vulnerable. Which is a massive turn around from the three week triggered spiral I went into after seeing the gastro-enterologist recently. The consensus has been that my sinus surgery IS needed and important and likely to help, and that I’m in good hands with that specialist. That’s a huge relief. Just to underline my awareness of the need, I have another sinus infection and feel like I’ve had a few good punches to the face again. Argh! I’ve had the astonishing rare experience of specialists including each other in their letters/advice, the TMJD dental specialist actually wrote not only to my referring dentist, but also to my GP, sinus specialist, and physiotherapist! I’ve been encouraged to go back to the physio, and use heat, massage, and stretches to manage the facial pain (when there isn’t active infection going on) which is great news for me as surgery or medication options will have large down sides with my liver. Basically I need to try to budget for physio type care in my business plans to keep me as well as possible and manage my pain levels better with all the work I’ve been doing. I also need a different car, preferably with power steering and a good heater/air conditioner. So there’s things to work on that don’t involve hospital/being a patient/being in pain/destroying my liver. Also continuing to look into more options for fun ways to exercise (Rose and I are starting trial classes in martial arts!) going on more walks with Zoe when I’m well enough, and cooking healthier foods.

My new book that teaches how to use In Design has arrived at last – I am going to set aside 1/2 a day a week to study it and learn how to lay out my own books for self publication. This morning I’m up blogging in my dressing gown while Rose catches up on sleep. The garden is beautiful, the animals are lively, I have friends visiting for afternoon tea, and I’m feeling on track and excited about life. It doesn’t get a lot better than this. 🙂 I may consider shifting my blogging schedule now that I’m working so actively on my books, I love and value sharing here but certainly can’t keep up with my daily posts. I may go to weekly, or do little photo-based updates instead of longer posts. I know that mostly it’s the mental health information that is so valuable to people, but it’s challenging to create that in book and blog form at the same time. Maybe I’ll just learn to be more concise. 😉 At any rate, chronic infections and tax notwithstanding, life is pretty awesome over here. I hope you are also feeling good to be alive and connected to yourself. 🙂

 

Booked for surgery

/ Sarah K Reece / 4 Comments

Yesterday had a bit of shock in it, I went off to see a sinus specialist and I’ve been booked in for surgery! Sometime in the next three months the hospital will call and arrange the date. That does make it quite difficult to plan for. I’ll be having septoplasty, ethmoidectomy, antrostomy, and tonsillectomy. The first three are surgery on the structures of my nose, hoping to improve the functioning of my sinuses. The last I’ve already had as a child due to severe and chronic tonsillitis, but enough tissue has regrown that I’m getting bouts of it again frequently.

I wake up most mornings feeling like someone has punched me in the face. I’ve never had troubles with my sinuses until 2 years ago, when severe facial pain was misdiagnosed as TMJD (pain due to tightness in the muscles of my jaw) – which I also suffer from chronically. Unfortunately, in that case, I actually had an infected tooth that had developed into an abscess. The infection went unchecked for long enough that it breached through my gums into my sinuses and caused a severe sinus infection. I was very, very sick and in terrible pain! Fortunately my doctor became concerned and ordered a cat scan which revealed the problem. I went onto steroids and antibiotics for the infections and had a root canal on the dead tooth.

One year later and I’m getting constant sinus infections. That winter my immune system crashes and I develop along with sinusitis, laryngitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis, and severe inner infections in both ears. I am profoundly ill for three months, and in recovery for longer.

Two years on and I’m suffering severe anaemia due to unmanaged endometriosis, chronic facial pain, and constant low grade sinus infections with the occasional flare into a full blown severe infection needing antibiotics. The structure of my sinuses has been altered so they no longer drain, despite treatment with steroid sprays we can’t make the chronically inflamed and swollen drainage do it’s old job. So sinus fluid stays trapped in my face, as stagnant ponds ready to host the next infection.

Fibromyalgia for me has brought with it not only a fragile liver that no longer processes many common medications I used to handle fine, it’s also shut down my mucous producing cells. This means things like – I don’t produce enough saliva, and without sufficient saliva to protect them, my teeth decay at many times the rate of most people. So there will be a lot more dental work and infections in my future. An average year for me has between 5 and 11 new caps and fillings applied to my teeth, under minimal anaesthetic. With this in mind and the potential for chronic tooth infections to be travelling into my sinuses, the specialist was unhappy about proceeding with any more conservative approach and booked the surgery on the spot. I’ve also been advised to avoid extraction of any top jaw teeth at all costs and continue to use root canals as the teeth die,as any extractions risk creating holes into my sinuses where infection can travel from my mouth.

I’m off tomorrow to a TMJD specialist dental surgeon to discuss the role that TMJD is playing in the chronic pain, and for a specialist opinion about shadows on my xrays that may be chronic infection at the roots of my teeth, or may be merely scar tissue from previous infections. Obviously you handle those situations quite differently, so it’s important to assess them correctly.

All very well and good, but the last times I’ve had minor surgeries, things have been pretty rough. One was the extraction of 5 teeth and a salivary biopsy. I wound up with no pain relief after 24 hours as I was psychotic as my liver began to break down. The pain was intense as stomach acids ate into the 6 wounds in my mouth, the vomiting caused by allergic reactions to the pain relief. I remember sobbing on the floor thinking that if childbirth was going to be worse than this, the vivid feeling of biting deeply into red hot coals, then I would never be able to be a Mum.

Another surgery was supposed to be day only but I wound up in hospital for a week with allergic reactions to the anaesthetics and everything else. It triggered a major fibro flare that saw me into a wheelchair for mobility for a long time.

So, I’m nervous! This could be great, I am very frustrated by being constantly sick and run down with chronic infections and pain. On the other hand, I am probably in for some pretty bad pain, allergic reactions, and possibly another med induced psychosis. The breezy 10 day recovery time suggested in the literature may extend considerably for me. And the whole hospital experience is one I find pretty traumatic.

The plan is to keep my inner kids away from the whole experience as much as possible as they’re scared. With the exception of the 12 year old who is the only one of us who handles hospitals. Rose will take a couple of days off work once we come home, and we’ll plan for the possibility of an extended hospital stay if it’s needed. Apart from that, mindfulness, being present, managing the anxiety around possibly getting very sick again, and spending time doing fun things with friends. Focusing on healthy eating and exercise with the idea that the better shape I’m in, the better I’ll bounce back from the surgery, and continuing with my business plans. I’m so lucky to have friends and family who care about me, it makes such a huge difference to handling scares. I won’t pretend I’m not spooked and in need of some extra love – cuddles from Rose, dinner with Mum, killed a lot of zombies with my sister last night (Left for Dead 2, best game ever!). But I’m also determined not to let anxiety cloud my days and steal my joy. Life is still good! Carpe diem. 🙂

Life is good

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

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Life is good. I’ve uncovered a whole new world of things to explore in the work I’ve been doing lately around anxiety and mindfulness. I finally had my paperwork in order enough to take to a tax accountant last week and I’m in track to fix up 5 years of backlog. There’s a lot more work to do but I’m not worried about it. I’m coping fine with days of tax and admin. I’m even enjoying myself. With this area more under control my mind is clearing. I can think straight. I don’t feel burdened by massive guilt and anxiety.

I feel like I’ve got my life back. I’m noticing how I spend time, I’m finding I feel like I have choices again. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that after a hard day, Rose was numbing herself, dreading a week of hiding whatever was going on inside her to manage her job, and I was using my work as displacement activity for my anxiety. We are both struggling with a key skill – how to come down out of a ‘work’ mindset. So last week we both put thought into it. I worked both days this weekend but it didn’t feel like a working weekend. Apart from an unpleasant bout of food poisoning, we had fun. We did other things. I didn’t obsess. We slept in. We watched movies. We treated each other.

I feel less trapped and bound by the adult world. I’m switching more. I sleep well (although often not enough) and wake early, snatching my traditional late night hours of writing and contemplation in the early morning. I feel excited when I wake up, free to  choose how I’m going to spend my time. The day is a gift. What a wonderful key this line of thinking has been, the dovetail between things I’m working on about anxiety with my shrink, about making my business work better with my mentor, and about art and identity in college. I feel incredibly blessed. 🙂

Anxiety & Mindfulness

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

I’m working on this a lot lately, as it has huge implications for my health and business. When I’m highly anxious my eating becomes disordered, and I tend to over work obsessively and only half productively, without giving myself real time off to recharge. This can spiral badly. I’m in a short intensive mentoring course for my business and we’re identifying the key areas that are causing stress and limiting my ability to be productive and efficient and energetic. I’m having a lot of trouble with anxiety as stress comes in from all angles. This morning I was overwhelmed by a to do list of terrifying things and time pressure to get them done in. I woke at 5 and couldn’t get back to sleep but was exhausted and wired and paralysed by anxiety.

After talking things through with a couple of friends and doing some journaling, I finally reached this place:

Right here and right now, everything is okay.
All the fears are just fears
They’ve no more substance than shadows
I don’t have to live my whole week this morning
I just have to be present in this moment,  to pay attention to it, to be aware of it, to enjoy what beauty there is in it.
I will eat and rest and do the tasks at before me, and stay in today.
That way, there will be more than just stress
There will also be noticing my lily is blooming, and enjoying my breakfast, and texting with my love, and all the other little unexpected treasures of the day.

Right here and right now, everything is okay.
Stay present.

It helped. I had a good day, I did a lot of work on my tax paperwork without much stress, enrolled in college, and did my business planning. I wrote in my journal:

Anxiety is a thief that steals each day from me, so distracting me with visions of a future on fire that I do not even notice the loss.

Today it took nothing. 🙂

No stars

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

There’s no stars visible in the sky, just a deep endless inky blue. I’m alone tonight, saving Tonks and Zoe, as alone as I get anyway. Rose is sleeping over with family. Funny how it transports me straight back to being single, so many nights like this, when I turn out the lights there’s only the sound of my breathing, the whoosh of blood in my ears like the echo of the ocean in a shell.

Today was a good day. I’ve finally come out of the trigger spiral I’ve been in since the Gastro-enterologist tried to put me on a diet. I can think clearly again and the voice of self hate has gone quiet. You can’t stay triggered forever, wait long enough and they pass.

There’s hard things going on, as usual, but I’ve found a calm centre for now. I’m working on the triggers and issues around food with a new shrink. We’re looking at ways of reducing the intense agitation I’ve been struggling with. There’s been a lot of anxiety for me this year, at the height of it I’ve been having about 3 panic attacks a week. We dug into mindfulness stuff last session, something I’m very good at but can’t access and get tasks done once I’m highly distressed. I’m spending a lot of time working on home and business things and study, in a state of intense self loathing and high anxiety. It’s exhausting and inefficient and my ability to manage food well suffers.

I know I have issues with success. There’s so much baggage. Ridiculously high expectations, the pressure of peer work where people are often telling you that you have to ‘make it’ so they know there’s hope for them, a sense of responsibility to those who haven’t survived, it feels like dragging a lot of rocks around with me all the time. It makes it so hard to think clearly, be brave and bold, use my creativity.

I’ve just noticed that there’s also issues around how I believe I will make it. I seem to have become indoctrinated with a lot of ideas about what it takes to be successful that are instead half killing me. Success is achieved through pain, sacrifice, hard work, drivenness, focus, pushing yourself past your limits and so far outside of your comfort zone you can’t remember what it looks like. I think I’m partly right but also very wrong. For me I need downtime, rest, playfulness, freedom, and space in my comfort zone to recharge. The drivenness becomes exhausting and destructive when it gets out of hand. The ridiculous thing is, at the moment I have actually been getting more done on my days off than my work days, and done easily and joyfully.

It parallels the journey and learning about physical health I’ve done. After years of tests and agonising or uncomfortable or stupidly restrictive treatments I finally stated to get better when I walked away from trauma and abuse, started spending money on things I enjoyed instead of supplements, and went back to eating a regular diet. The thing I’d been promised over and over – that if I suffered enough, drank enough nasty things, restricted and controlled enough, there would be healing – that never happened. I don’t think I can sacrifice my way to success either. Some sacrifices are necessary, yes, but my balance is far out of whack. In one sense, the best way to create an awesome future is to create an awesome today. Every day, over and over.

So I’m focusing on living more in the moment and my heart is singing and I feel whole again. I’m watching my work hours and refusing to let myself work into my evenings. It’s harder than it sounds. I’m asking myself what I want to do with my time off instead of filling it with more jobs. I feel freer. This is more sustainable. This is where I find my joy and my heart. Success can spring from those rather than pain and stoicism. Or not, one never knows. But I’d rather fail on these terms than succeed on the other. It’s a far better place to be in. Peace to you also. x

Morning in the garden

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

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It’s so beautiful here. My arum lily is about to open the first bloom of winter. I love the light in the mornings, it’s soft and golden, slanting in to gild the garden that’s still wet with dew. It’s been a good week. I’ve some peace in my heart, some clarity in my mind. I’ve finally settled again since the gastro-enterologist appointment last month, my mind isn’t full of self loathing, I can eat calmly again. The frenzy passes and the triggers lift like fog. I feel human again.

I have a dish washer! Friends of friends were giving an extra one away and I was lucky enough to snare it. I’ve just weighed it down with bricks and put it in my laundry where my washing machine used to be. I can wash my clothes at the laundromat, but dishes are my bane. I’ve been cooking again, baking banana cakes for lunches, proper meals for dinner, spontaneous desserts, and every night my kitchen is cleaned and packed away. I’m mopping and sweeping and cleaning, my house proud parts are singing. Rose is settling into her job and I’m providing back up support in the way of meals and motivation to get out of bed in the morning. I’ve synchronised my sleep patterns to hers and I’m rebuilding my business to fit to her new 9-5 work hours. We have proper containers and options for lunches every day now. Once we crack the exercise block too, we’re going to feel so much better, I know it.

I sat down to a hot bowl of porridge yesterday morning, and it tasted so bad I figured I was having taste hallucinations again. It turned out, you shouldn’t keep a stick of mettwurst that close to your paper bags of pre made porridge… This morning I’ve made my own from rolled oats on the cook top and finished it off with honey and chopped banana. It tastes like baked camp fire bananas.

Everything is not right. I haven’t been camping for months, I have hours of tax work to do, there’s frustrating blocks and shut downs inside. But I can breathe again, I can see a way through and feel hope and joy, rest a moment and know how blessed my life is, how lucky I am to have Rose and my friends and my home and to be making art.

Choices

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

I handed in all my work for the semester at Art College today. I feel drained and exhausted and euphoric. I have no idea what I’m doing next, or even if I’m re-enrolling in the next subjects. (My degree has been defunded by the government and won’t exist in 2016. I can’t finish it in that time even if I was doing it full time.) I was up late last night finishing everything. I’m happy with my work for Drawing class, and really happy with my work for Photography. I created my first zine, and spent time in a darkroom learning how to make photograms, photomontages, and use handmade negatives. That part was awesome. The topic was awful. We had to explore identity through self portrait. I felt so challenged and exposed by this that I found that I couldn’t write much here any more. I don’t know if that will change now that I’m done. I rather hope so.

It turns out that when sharing feels like I gift I choose to give, I get pleasure from it. I don’t need to write a blog. I have journals. I’ve written privately for many years. I choose to share to let people in, to connect, to be a voice for other people like me, to be visible as multiple, bi/pan, trans, a mad artist, a trauma survivor, who is defined solely by none of these things. But being told I must share, and must share personal things, feels painfully similar to being bullied. I hate it. I get very angry and my art gets angry. My sense of the audience changes. Usually when I write here, I think of you guys, the readers, as my friends. I try to be mindful of people who are themselves very vulnerable or in chronic emotional distress. I also try to consider people who have never experienced what I have and try to bridge the Gap between us. Having a deeply personal topic set for me has warped my sense of my audience. I don’t have a sense of people who are warm or curious or hurting. I suddenly have a sense of a disinterested, impersonal, critical audience, one who is judging me harshly from a superior distance… It doesn’t lead to a comfortable sense of sharing. I’ve done my best anyway, and I’m proud of the work I’ve submitted. I’ll share it here once I get it back.

I’m also in the middle of a short series of business mentoring arranged by the disability employment agency I volunteered to attend a few weeks ago. It’s intense and exciting and confusing as hell. I am so tired of floating about in a haze of uncertainty about what my future looks like… but I remind myself over and over that I’m so damn fortunate to have this future, to have choices and opportunities. People are talking to me, about me, agreeing that I have something kind of unique in my skill set and passions. I’m being encouraged to re-engage my mental health work, which is thrilling and scary. It’s hard to decide where to focus, what risks to take, what timetable to work towards. I’m pulled in so many different directions with no promise of success in any of them. I also got some amazing feedback from Tafe today, a sense that I could be at home there, find a sense of belonging – as I am, out and visible, not as the student who first went there several years ago who was anxious and afraid of sharing about her reality – chronic illness, multiplicity, queer. I’m not scared any more. I want to stay out. I want to be seen as a person, and I want to keep being a voice for others who are not as lucky as I have been, where I have so little to lose by being honest. I want to connect with other artists and keep learning – I have so much to learn. I also want to be independent and earning my own income. I want to feel that I’m making a difference in the world – the way I feel when someone sends me an email telling me this blog saved their life, or cries when I henna an angel baby onto their palm in memory of their pregnancy loss.

I don’t have answers but I do seem to be gathering support – other people who believe in me or see potential in my work. I can, on good days, see a glimmer of a future where this works without being too much for me. Where I get to feel that I’m changing some small corner of the world and earn money and take care of my family. And have the occasional psychotic episode, meltdown, spiritual epiphany… learning to live with a sense of enduring homelessness, of being different and far too disconnected from my own soul, the losses of adulthood. And the dark hours where everything makes sense, where the stars sing to me, my lover breathes patterns in the frost on my skin. So it goes.

Rose & Sophie

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

Day three of looking after Sophie and I’m on my own for the first time. Sophie loves autumn. It’s been a long time since my childcare work, I was nervous about being in my own with her. Rose spent the first couple of days showing me the ropes. We did a trek through the city trying out different kinds of baby wearing approaches. I really like the sling, but the ergo is far more comfortable for long walks. We did nappies, bottles, snacks, getting her to sleep, distraction, and games. Sophie is 20 months now and very independent. She likes to hold her own bottle for feeds and is off exploring the world with a surprising turn of speed at every opportunity! Leaves are the flavour of the month. We’ve also tried wearing adult shoes, making mud in a bucket, singing in the bath, feeding the dog, and hiding small bits of cheese in my jacket.
I’ve gone from very anxious to super chilled, thanks to awesome teaching and support from Rose. I’d hate to be holding a baby for the first time coming home with my own little one! It’s so nice to be able to use times like this to brush up on skills, have conversations about parenting, and remember what we’re working towards.

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Sophie’s Dad is gradually getting better and he’ll be home from hospital soon. I’m snatching nap times to work on the three projects I have due on Monday and get some clean washing happening! I was talking to Rose about how awesome it would be for her to be able to offer to other new mums the support she just gave me, practical hands on learning about baby wearing and so on. There’s so much information out there to try and make sense of, and having a kid can be like trying to learn to swim by being tossed in the deep end and then yelled at by everyone else in the pool! I’m so very lucky to have a Goddaughter, I’ve waited such a long time for this and I feel very blessed. 🙂

Good morning, godmum!

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

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I have the extraordinary good fortune to be caring for my lovely goddaughter Sophie over the next few days. She is a delight, Rose and I are thrilled. ‘Ta’ she says this morning, giving me her bunny to cuddle. Ta is also how she asks for it back after a moment so she can chew on the ribbon around Bunny’s neck. We play peekaboo through the bars of her cot. She pushes the blanket off the side and tries to pull it back through the bars. We have a two minute argument about whether she’s going to pour her bottle of milk onto my jumper. It’s a precious glimpse into a world Rose and I are longing for.

Cat piss perfume

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

I’m currently sitting in the waiting room of my local DES, these are the guys who  help people with disabilities access work. In the car on the way here, I discovered to my horror that the jeans I pulled on before running out the house have a large damp patch of cat piss on them. I couldn’t go back to change without running late. So I am going to brave this appointment, wearing car air freshener sprayed all over my lower half, and pretending I can’t feel a damp patch on my left leg, or smell anything amiss. I really hope the room isn’t too small. Being a disability service they may just assume I have continence issues!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is chutzpah.

Rolling with the waves

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

Today was awesome. Which is pretty surprising considering I was sobbing with exhaustion in the small hours of the night, dreading all the driving and running around. It was a crazy day, made worse by one of those terrible series of events by which little miscommunications become big, last minute stressful horrors for all involved. The upshot of which was that I was now giving a talk at TAFE at 10am instead of 1pm. So, with some early morning rescheduling, I was dropping Rose off at her work out North before flogging down South and just making it to the talk in time, then driving that same damn highway another three times always slightly late for the rest of my appointments today.

But, despite being up since 5am covered in hives, I’m in a great state of mind. I so enjoyed giving this talk today. It was a small group, which surprised me as I usually have a full class and so give more of a lecture. I adapted and aimed for something less formal and more conversation, not a workshop but hopefully a little more appropriate. It’s such a privilege to be invited to share my experiences, to talk about what worked and what didn’t, to get people thinking critically about the ideas we take for granted in mental health. These are the people who will be working in our services, and I feel humbled to talk about issues of dehumanising treatment and unbearable pain with them. I came away inspired.

I’ve been working on my business website lately, combining what have been two separate sites into one. Up until recently, I’ve kept my work as an artist and my work as a mental health consultant very separate, concerned about stigma. But this week I talked with a fellow art student about their struggles with self harm, and I showed a collection of my artwork about madness and life to mental health students. I’m happy in this place where two of my passions overlap, where I hope I’m of some use to the world. It occurred to me recently that I haven’t promoted my talks and workshops very often, unless people have already come to one, most don’t know it’s something I can do. So I’m updating my website to showcase my skills in this area. I’ve asked people who’ve attended a talk or training I’ve done to send in an endorsement for me to use, assuming they do endorse my work! I hope to pick up more work in this area, it is tremendously meaningful to me, and I often hear from attendees that the experience has been very meaningful for them too.

In more good news, I am finally back to normal iron levels! I’m so thrilled about this. I was suffering from extreme anaemia due to endometriosis, but I’m back on a med to control it and the anaemia has completely resolved. Unfortunately the med is also causing rapid weight gain, I’ve gained 7.5kgs in 7 weeks! The previous med I tried for it caused severe depression. So I’m off for more advice and hopefully I can find something else without such problematic side effects! Sigh.

Nevertheless. A great day. I’m exhausted but feeling hopeful. The wind of change are gusting and I’m bending with them. Something will work out and I’ll have direction again. In the meantime I’m gathering information about what do with work, studio, and studies, staying on top of said studies, and working on my book! Here’s to finally being home today, my lovely girlfriend making dinner, and if I’m lucky, a decent sleep tonight! 🙂

PTSD friendly bedroom

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

Rose and I rearranged the house over the weekend. PTSD trauma stuff often has the same settle and flare pattern as chronic illness, and there’s a flare lately which is killing sleep. So, it’s a good time to work on the sleeping space.

I had my art studio set up in the master bedroom of my unit, and a queen size bed stuffed into the small room. Unfortunately this meant the bed was pushed against a wall, so whoever slept that side had to clamber over the other one to get in and out. We swapped sleeping sides depending on who was feeling the most fragile about feeling trapped. Now we’ve got the reverse, the bed in the master room with space on three sides for leaping in and out, and my studio table in the small room. It’s a brilliant change and is making tough nights just a little easier.

We also get to open the widow in this room as it faces the front of the house – the other room faces the back and Zoe destroys those screens when there’s thunder and she panics in the yard. A cool breeze during trauma stuff is super welcome, as is being able to lie in bed and look out at the garden instead of into a shed.

There’s not enough room in the smaller room for all my art supplies, so our bedroom has shelves of brushes and turps, which is also helping. Sometimes if trauma has a link to a particular room it helps a lot to do things that make the space feel really different. So it’s not a straight bedroom, it’s a bedroom-art-studio with paints in the drawers and ink paintings on the walls.

There’s still nightmares and distress and broken sleep. But these gestures help a little, in between them there’s content mornings reading in bed with the cats. And the fresh realisation that the patterns and arrangement of your life exists for you, if it’s hurting instead of helping you don’t just have to grit your teeth and struggle. However unconventional it may be, you find something that works for you. There’s things you can’t change, and things you can.

Gary Numan in Adelaide

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I had a pretty incredible week. Since grasping that massive anxiety is making it very hard to work on my business re launch, I’ve been able to be very efficient and get a lot done. I’ve also had some great nights out with friends. Thursday evening, for my birthday I was given a ticket to the Gary Numan concert. I had a blast! What a fantastic night! It was such a pleasure to see people who felt so at home on the stage, utterly enjoying performing. It really reminded me how much I miss out, it’s been many years since I was involved with theatre and productions. I so enjoyed doing a body painting and poetry reading performance recently, I’m considering finding a place where I can do something like that regularly.

Local band Izera opened on the night and they were great.
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I was at the front of the stage and able to photograph Numan and bass guitarist Tim Slade through the smoke and lights. The song line up was excellent, although I did wish that one or two favourites might have been played. Watching Numan song The Unborn live – a song about the loss of his baby girl, made me weep. I find it amazing that he can open up those feelings and then let them go again for a concert. Beautiful.

Our new work routines are finally starting to settle in and I’m really enjoying not working through my evenings and weekends! It’s been wonderful to socialise and see art and hang out with great friends, and I’m feeling excited and rejuvenated. Happy happy.

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Neurotic Eagles

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

I’m up! Didn’t get a sleep in the way I was hoping to this morning, I’m very short of sleep lately. But I got a rest! Pain levels are bad, but my mood is great – and if I got a choice, that’s usually the way around I’d choose to have it. 😉 Life has been busy lately. I feel like I’m skating on ice, it’s all going a bit fast and too much, but I haven’t crashed into any trees or fallen through any holes so yay for me. I’m on track with my college work, good business plans are in place, I’m getting some housework done, I have cupboards full of food because Rose got paid finally and bought a car full of food to say thankyou for all the support through unemployment, and I had a great conversation last night that’s kicked off a really good mood.

Business stuff is undergoing big changes. I’ve done my last gig this weekend where I travel a long distance, for no hourly rate, for a fundraiser. Rose is working full time now, and I’ve dramatically noticed the loss of this caring and diligent person who encourages me, lets me soundboard ideas, drives me when I’m too tired to make it back from a gig, cleans brushes, and all the other thousand ways she’s supported my work. I’m now supporting her work, trying to help come up with good routines for meals and exercise and downtime. This week we prepared lunches on Sunday and took wonderful salad-in-a-jar, fruit, and homemade brownies to work. 🙂 Mmmm! I’m also still healing up from a bad bout of tendinitis in my right wrist, which has meant having to turn down a lot of work over the past few weeks. I have learned how to make beautiful dreads but can’t do too many in a week without trashing my wrist. I can’t take art gigs that involve lots of hours plus long drives alone. I have some great plans and ideas about the beautiful studio, although we’ve all had to do a lot of creative thinking about the studio as there’s been a bunch of problems and plain bad luck that have made things very difficult.

The long and short of it all is that I’m basically needing to relaunch my business with new products and services and a new format. And I’m finding it hard! I’m so tired and not getting time off, I’m all worn down and lacking in the spark you need to start something new. I was talking to Rose about it all last night, how blocked and stuck I’ve been feeling. I haven’t had a spare moment to write in a week, which is really sad. Every single time I go along to college I realise afresh just how hard it is for me to work as an artist. I have such huge blocks in my head about what art is and what it means to be an artist. I’ve grown up with a lot of rubbish, unhelpful ideas that have limited me. Some of them – like it’s wrong or bad to be queer, I’ve been able to make a lot of progress on getting rid of. Some of them are just super stubborn and I feel like I’m constantly bashing my head against them! Art is one of these. Rose’s amazing support has made what I’ve done so far possible… with her extremely busy and navigating the stresses of transitioning from shift work over night to a a regular 9-5 job, there’s just me and my head. It feels like being tied up and thrown overboard and told to swim. I’m trying really hard, but it’s not working! Last night I talked about how insecure I feel, how inferior my art seems, how exhausting it is trying not to be overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy and self hate. It’s so hard to keep putting myself out there and finding that place of confidence where my self esteem isn’t tied to my work and where I can connect with the a customer and what they are feeling and need instead of being overwhelmed by the storm going on inside of me.

Oddly enough, just being able to name the block, to talk about how ashamed and afraid I feel, how small and insignificant, how presumptuous, grandiose, inelegant, and ignorant I feel, has made a huge difference. Oh, there’s days when I’m not like this, parts who don’t feel this way. But wow, there are a lot of days where neurosis and exhaustion dominate. I had this idea that with the great support I’ve had and some experience under my belt it wouldn’t be like this anymore. I’d have graduated from insecure fledgling to Flying Eagle, confident, secure, capable. Hah. That hasn’t happened. And trying to be Flying Eagle when I don’t feel that way at all, and hating myself because I’m not, is making things 4,000% worse. Ah well, it helps to name it! Apparently I am currently more destined for the role of Neurotic Eagle. Never mind, it’s not as if neurotic artists are a dying breed. It’s a pretty big club. So, I’ve regrouped. I’m going to talk about my fears and get the support I need to keep flying. I’m going to accept that I’m not, or at least, not everyday, Flying Eagle, and that that’s okay. Great art gets made by the Neurotic Eagles of this world too.

I’m reminded of that most wonderful pair of books, The Neurotic’s Notebook and sequal, by Mignon McLaughlin. “The neurotic feels as though trapped in a gas-filled room where at any moment someone, probably himself, will strike a match.”

Have a good one, everyone x

Demons

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

Today has pounded me into the floor. Damn, some days are just hard. Not enough sleep, off for a stupid fasting blood test this morning. I hate these things. I have a phobia around needles – actually just of giving blood or getting drips. Other forms of needles don’t bother me. These two I really struggle with. I’m not brilliantly well still, hot flushes, nausea, sore throat, sinus issues. This is not helping my general sense of vim. The bloods nurse couldn’t find a vein and wound up getting another nurse in, while I sweated and trembled and generally hated the universe. I ran errands, trekking from store to store in a futile attempt to buy the supplies I’ve told to buy for college on Monday. I also went to a bunch of printers trying to find somewhere to create arts prints, without success. I am at least now prepared for a workshop I’m running in a couple of weeks.

Some days are a real uphill climb. My head is on a loop of ‘I hate myself’ that occasionally alternates with ‘Did you know I hate myself?’. Which is somehow worse, and driving me a little insane, hour by hour. I get the notion of slicing off an ear in an attempt to get some peace. I trek off to see the psychologist I’ve been working with for our last appointment before she retires. I’m usually pretty good at last appointments, doing a summary of where things have come from, wrapping things up, making eye contact, saying thanks. Sad but good. I started this one by sobbing incoherently for 10 minutes. Actually I started it frantically on the road late, because today I found it impossible to keep track of the time.

After talking about the frustrating mess of all my plans and poor health, I cried about how hard this is some days. How the sense of failure dogs me, despite my awareness of how dangerous it is to let it take hold. How exhausted I feel by the disjoint between the beliefs I nurture and cherish, and those I’m still suffering under from my own childhood. Like heavy weights that have fused into my skin, the self hatred, the sense of futility, that it doesn’t matter how hard I work, how talented I am, or how many skills I develop, nothing will work out. These things are the demons that torment me. I choose to live according to other beliefs, and they are real to me too, things in my bones that give me strength and courage. Places where I find joy and peace. But some days are without much in the way of peace. Then we said goodbye and I left.

So to hell with that. I’ve found company and something to do for the evening. Change of clothes, switch, put my boots on, walk away.

What to do with a suicidal part

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

I am so damn tired. It’s been a rough week with a lot of stress in my head and the lives of a few of my close friends. On the upside, I have a lot more material for the part of my book that’s about managing overwhelming emotional pain… sigh. Silver linings!

One of my big stresses recently was a part becoming suicidal. This can be a huge issue for multiples! I get a lot of emails and contact from people who are struggling with one or more parts who are in absolute meltdown. Whole systems can fall apart under the stress, and processes which were fair or reasonable can become abusive and totalitarian.

Most people who have felt acutely suicidal have experienced that disjointed place of desperately wanting to die and being terrified of your own feelings and actions at the same time. It’s a profound conflict, an inner struggle that consumes all resources and leaves people utterly drained and deeply afraid of themselves. For multiples the struggle and the conflict can be more polarised and even more intense. Parts who don’t feel suicidal are often terrified of being killed – as far as they are concerned, not by suicide but murdered. Fear does not make us kind. We recoil, disconnect, and attack when we feel like our lives are being threatened. Systems can rapidly devolve into massive power struggles, and outright war with other parts trying to permanently suppress or annihilate suicidal parts. Child parts especially may become so terrorised that they dehumanise a suicidal part and see them as a witch, demon, monster, or other evil creature. Being trapped in a body/mind with a suicidal part can be very traumatic. Experiences of fear, horror, and helplessness may contribute to the development of severe trauma responses in other parts, including PTSD. As a suicidal part becomes increasingly attacked, dehumanised, and alienated from the rest of their system their despair usually intensifies, their behaviour becomes more dangerous, and the restraining factors of empathy, connection, and a sense of responsibility to the rest of their system are eroded. Sometimes this ends in catastrophe. The loss of anyone to suicide is utterly devastating. Having spoken with frightened, non suicidal children and other parts in the hours or days prior is almost unfathomable.

Versions of this dynamic tend to repeat themselves with parts who self-harm, have addictions, re-contact abusers, suffer eating disorders, or have other frightening and self destructive behaviours, with varying levels of intensity. There is no one magic fix for this situation, and different multiples manage it in many different ways. I can share some thoughts and ideas that I’ve found useful and you can possibly use them as a spring board to trial your own approaches.

My first observation is simple but important. When we are frightened, we will try to control. When we are frightened of someone, or some part, we will probably want to reject, dehumanise, and alienate them. It’s okay to have these impulses, they are human! It’s okay to feel everything this horribly stressful situation makes you feel – scared, frustrated, confused, angry, overwhelmed, defeated, hurt, exhausted, burdened… It’s a really hard place to be in. Some of your feelings are going to want to make you act in ways that will feel right but make the situation worse. You have every right to feel everything you’re feeling, but you need to be careful before acting on impulse.

Exactly the same goes for the suicidal part/s. You probably can’t make them stop feeling the way they do and rejecting their feelings and pain will probably intensify them. They have every right to be feeling the way they are, it’s their impulse to act on them that is the issue. I have one part who has a strong desire to self harm, and at least two who are very vulnerable to feeling suicidal. So how come I’m still here (touch wood)? My observation has been that parts who are at greatest risk of killing themselves are parts who:

  • misunderstand the nature of multiplicity and think they can kill the body without the rest of the system dying. This is pretty common and important to check with any suicidal part!
  • are disconnected from or rejected by their own systems and don’t feel empathy towards the other parts
  • are being abused by their own systems
  • are being abused by other people in their lives
  • are angry and resentful towards their own systems and deliberately seeking to frighten or punish
  • do not feel loved
  • do not feel hope, and feel responsible for finding a sense of hope for the whole system
  • have horrific roles within the system – for example, the part who remembers all the bad things, the part who feels all the shame, the part who acts out all the stress for the system, and so on
  • do not get their needs met
  • do not feel safe
  • feel overwhelmed by guilt or shame, believe they are evil, believe their death will protect someone or make the world a better or safer place

Obviously there are other risk factors too. Some of the protective factors I’ve found support suicidal parts are:

  • having a safe place or person to express their intense feelings without censoring or judgement by their systems – other parts often feel shame about these feelings and may refuse to allow a suicidal part to speak to a therapist, write honestly in a journal, and so on.
  • feel a sense of connection and love from their systems. They work together as a team to manage the feelings and impulses. Their system expresses empathy for their situation, and they can feel empathy for the situation their feeling puts other parts in
  • understand that suicide will kill everyone in their system
  • are able to allow other parts or people to find or create hope in their lives, accept support from others
  • are able to negotiate some role changes when needed
  • are given respite from demands of life. eg. when out, these parts are allowed to stay in bed, email the therapist, not leave the house etc, or they are willingly switched back inside if functioning is needed that day
  • are willing to compromise on ‘needs’ – so eg if the intense experience is a ‘need’ to cut, they work with their system to find alternatives that sate that need somewhat, such as Ink not Blood.
  • are treated with respect and gratitude for their role
  • are treated as though they are important, valuable, significant members of the system

As you can hear, a lot of this is about relationship. This kind of connection takes more than an afternoon to build, and for a system under such extreme stress it’s a hell of an ask. On the other hand, it could save your life. In my experience there’s usually one member at least who is able to connect and empathise better with a suicidal part, and it can become their role in the early stages to intervene on behalf of a suicidal part and the rest of the system (assuming a system of more than two parts). Part of the basis for this can be realising that there is a lot more common ground to your situation than it seems at first. Suicidal and non-suicidal parts are both often feeling trapped, stressed, scared, overwhelmed, and unhappy. If you keep seeing the problem as being the suicidal part, all your reactions and solutions will be about controlling or eliminating them. If you can see the problem as the experience of being suicidal, you can approach the part with more empathy and team up with them to help manage that experience. Here are a few approaches that people sometimes find helpful:

  • directly influencing a part’s feelings, memories, or autonomy. Some systems or parts can do this, some can’t. Sometimes you can directly engage to dial down intense emotions, shift who is ‘keeping’ bad memories – perhaps spread the load a little more evenly, or keep a part inside in lockdown while they are a danger.
  • engaging suicide on a symbolic level such as allowing a part to ‘exit’ from life, refuse to come out, disengage from relationships, change their name and so on
  • killing or supporting the part to die without affecting the body. Some systems can do this, some cannot. There are complex ethical concerns here that suggest this as an option of last resort.
  • containing the part except for safe locations – eg. hospital, in therapy, in a ‘safe’ place where they can express feelings (safe is dependant on their likely methods of suicide – it may be an empty beach if drowning does not appeal, or a craft room if scissors are not a concern, etc)
  • increasing the part’s dissociation so they are buffered from their intense feelings and less likely to act on them. eg. sometimes if a suicidal part is close to the surface whoever is out in my system will trigger dissociation by surfing the net, watching tv, sitting in the bath, anything that makes us ‘zone out’ until we feel safer
  • comforting the part internally by doing things such as hugging them, talking to them gently, singing to them, making a safe nurturing space for them internally (not all multiples have internal worlds, and not all multiples can communicate internally)
  • take on the parts’ unmet needs as problems the whole system needs to engage and manage. eg. if they need better social support the whole system works on building stronger supportive friendships or finding a good support group online, or if they need a musical outlet the system works together to save money for an instrument and lessons. Take the burden of solving problems, finding hope, and meeting needs away from the part who isn’t coping.
  • explain the part in non-frightening ways to scared system members such as children. Humanise them and help to develop empathy towards them. Sometimes kids will have the most profound and effective connections with deeply wounded parts.
  • make the most of the multiple experience of never really being alone. Support and be with each other.
  • stagger behaviour in order from least to most harm done. If an extremely bad night is going to be survived only with self harm then better that then death. I write more about this kind of approach in ‘Feeling Chronically Suicidal‘.
  • merge or fuse a suicidal part with a hopeful or naively optomistic part to create a more balanced single part from them both
  • try taking a caring, invested, parental approach to a suicidal part. Coax, coach, nurture, and set limits with them
  • understanding and affirming that no systems are invulnerable without also being psychopathic. Part of what it means to be human is our capacity to feel shame, suffering, and hopelessness. We also have the capacity to heal. Most people who survive a suicide attempt later feel far better and are relieved they did not die. I’ve no reason to think that parts are fundamentally different. Keep these things in mind if killing or otherwise removing a suicidal part is your intention, there may be unintended consequences assuming you are successful.

In some ways, what helps suicidal parts is pretty much what helps anyone. Other approaches are more specific to being multiple. Some of these ideas may seem increibly far away or even impossible for you, especially if your system is at war. Please be assured that even small steps make huge differences. Little gestures of compassion or connection can start turning everything around. Only you and your system can find what works best for you, and only you can decide your own take on the values and ethics with which you will engage these very challenging situations. Please be assured that you are certainly not alone in these struggles, and that it possible to live with suicidal part/s. Wishing you all the very best.

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

Sleepless

/ Sarah K Reece / 1 Comment

I cannot sleep. I had a quiet day, doing a little housework and resting much. The sublime experiences of the previous night settle, as I knew they would, but in peaceful domesticity there is a peace, moments of contemplation to ponder and connect with the memory of transcendence. I spent the evening with Rose, then read in a warm bath to try and ease pain, and came to bed. I’ve since read two books, written a considerable amount on my own book, and find myself exhausted but not sleepy. My mind will not let go and fall into sleep. It’s so peaceful here that I understand and cannot admonish it. After weeks of screaming pain, and no certainty about who will wake from slumber, it’s easier to claw back the small hours and breathe into the peace than surrender to oblivion. They are hours stolen from tomorrow though, which I will certainly regret if we wake early in pain.

So I’m back to bed again with a mug of warm milk, a piece of chocolate, and some more books. Poems by Judith Wright. Jekyll and Hyde, because I want to see if my version has an introduction that was mentioned in a another book I’ve just finished. And Death is a Lonely Business, by Ray Bradbury, because it perfectly matches my mood and it’s been a long time since I last ran on the beaches with Constance. I might not be sleeping, but I am certainly in good company.

Poisoned

/ Sarah K Reece / 2 Comments

I’m sick. Rose has been sick with her cold, the ear infections, and a fun tummy bug as a little gift at the end. She’s on the mend. Zoe has been sick with a terrible ear infection. It’s improving but only slowly. She’s on steroids which make her eat and drink more and need to pee during the night so she currently sleeps in the laundry overnight so she doesn’t wet her bedding. I’m a mess. I’m extremely depressed and spend several hours a day crying. My fibro is bad and my pain levels have been too high for too long. I’m good at managing chronic pain but when the base line climbs too much I find that it effects my mood and thinking. My brain gets noisy, my mood crashes, and I find myself getting angry at everything and hating myself. I’m lonely and miserable and awful company. I have a bad sinus infection again, I’m now prone to these since my first severe one a couple of years ago which was caused by a rotten tooth developing an abscess that travelled into my sinuses. I’m beyond frustrated by my inability to stay well, and into a place of despair. How can I work when random months of the year my immune system crashes and I develop such terrible illnesses? Last time the sinuses wiped me badly enough that I also developed tonsillitis, laryngitis, bronchitis, fluid in my ears and a kidney infection. I was beyond miserable and in a private hell.

I can’t bear cheerfulness, it hurts, and it makes me angry. I feel so frustrated and enraged, so hopelessly inadequate. I get windows when the pain relief is working when it all goes away like a cloud blowing past. I come back, and I feel whole, and I can smile. There’s a playfulness, a gentleness in me, a sense of quiet hope. When the clouds come back there’s rage, and a self loathing so intense and overwhelming that I feel poisoned by it, impaled upon it and all efforts to lift myself off only drive the blade deeper into my belly.

Tell me you don’t want me to hate myself I sob to Rose. I feel like I’m trying to give you this gift, that I know I’m useless and pathetic and not trying hard enough, but don’t worry, I’m punishing myself. You don’t have to hate me, I’m doing it. She brings me tulips and watches TV with me. Of course I don’t, she tells me. I love you. I’m like a badly wounded dog, biting at everything. I’m scared I’m going to bite someone else so I’m gnawing on my own limbs and there’s blood in my mouth and up my nose and it’s only making it worse but I can’t stop.

My skin is blistering and my eyes hurt. Admin is a pit of terror, my own failure and inadequacy. Every day I’m a step closer to finding out how badly I have stuffed this up and put a number to the amount I will owe. I try to be stoic.

I have a big assignment due on Monday. I’m starting to fall badly behind in my studies. I listened to the tutor talk about so many artists I’ve never heard of, with such envy. That world is slipping away from me. I try to get the basic process of experimentation through my head, that is okay to ‘waste’ paper trying something out. It’s the simplest idea, but my brain is molded to years of poverty and lack, I can’t replicate it at home. So many dreams that feel as fragile as glass. I need to get better.

I’m writing. I can do that. It’s messy and the threads are hard to follow, but that can be fixed. I lose myself in it, I focus and fall into it and my mind is clear in that place, no noise, no biting. It doesn’t hurt. My wrist is braced while the tendons heal but the writing doesn’t hurt. I write in bed, in the garden, at my computer, in the bath, by the fire at my local pub. It feels tenuous, like a last ditch effort to have a toe hold in the world. It feels liberating. For so long I’ve been diplomatic with services in mental health who have broken my heart by becoming everything we don’t need more of. There’s a kind of freedom, a sadness, a gladness, a despair in nailing my colours to the mast and saying No! You are not lighting the way. You are part of the problem. (how am I supposed to get work, ever? This is hopeless) I can hear the critics in my head. The mainstream saying I’m far too harsh and the things I’m criticising them for are old problems, they don’t happen anymore (they do). And I can hear the outsiders saying I’m far too soft and give too much ground and people are never helped by the mainstream (they are). That’s a familiar place to be, in the middle of the war with everyone upset that I’m not on their side. That’s probably about the right place to be. I know who I’m writing for, it’s people like me 6 years ago, frightened and unsupported and trying to navigate the world as a newly diagnosed ‘freak’. Maybe something will come of it.

Pain

/ Sarah K Reece / Leave a comment

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I’m home again from my weekend away at the Medieval Fair, curled up in bed, listening to the saddest music I can find, and dreading a full day of college tomorrow.

I’m glad I went, it was wonderful and I enjoyed myself. A bunch of people were very kind to me to make it possible, driving me around, petsitting and all sorts. I bought some lovely things, had great food, spent a lot of time sitting around fires and hanging out with good people. But my fibro was very bad, pain levels very high. At the end of the weekend my head is a mess, partly because I’ve been trying to keep it together until I get home. I’m okay but also on the edge of serious trouble. Parts range from placid acceptance and wanting to tidy the kitchen to extreme distress. There’s a lot of head noise and huge self loathing. We’re fragile about the fibro flare and the changes in business plans, a sense of desperation, failure, and hopelessness dog us. Fear that maybe it’s all over, that dream of income and business success, self sufficiency. Not enough sleep, too many triggers and reminders of my past, too much trying to be strong, too many emotional shocks and bad news.

Under the place where I’m fine, there’s a sense of building panic, someone screaming out for help. It’s been a hard week. A few more dreams curl up and die, and we can’t figure out who to hate. The more gracious we are to others, the more we drive the knives into ourselves.  We also bite easily, like a frightened dog, and hate ourselves for that too. Terror and rage. I have to keep reminding myself we have value, we don’t have to let anyone in we don’t want to, we’re allowed to reject, refuse, shut down, retreat. Tonight, in bed, with Radiohead weeping on my mp3 player, it’s good to be alone. Someone in me screams and someone cries and someone sharpens their claws, and the sense of being different, of being inadequate, of being misunderstood, eases just a little. I can be a savage shape here and no one gets hurt. I can despair and no one drowns but me. I can hate myself without new fuel for that feeling as self loathing warps my perceptions and behaviour with others in ways I also hate. Arrest the spiral. Just be, even if I’m resting in a place of profound distress. Just be what I am and nothing else.

I breathe in failure and exhale despair. My joints cry out in pain of wasted effort. Someone sobs and someone soothes and someone cries ‘I hate myself’ over and over again like it’s a spell to keep away the bogeyman.

Outside, the night is still and cool and speaks to me of freedom from suffering and grief. There’s a song in it that calls my spirit and the yearning is painful but it also calls me back into my body. So I lie here, without blood, without screaming. I just breathe, and hurt. I breathe in the shadows and breathe out the pain and my bones weep and my mind is a city crying out in a great darkness but even that is a song if you know how to listen for it.

Pain is good, black earth to grow new dreams in.