Transcript: Episode 11
11. Chainsaws
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
This has not been my day. I know that we have to get up between 2:00 and 3:00 for work. And by 4:30 we have to start getting ready so that by 5:00 we can wake up the triplets. Their school bus comes at 6:00. By then the little ones are awake and we have to get them ready. Their school bus doesn't come until 7:30, but they are awake and need entertaining and parenting. The twins get on the bus first. And our youngest doesn't get on her bus until 30 minutes after that. So we sit and I read to her while we wait it's a three hour process just getting them off to school. And always a relief once they're on their way. It's a bit of chaos, all the different buses, but it's because of their schools and their IEPs and their different special needs. So even though they're all going to nearly the same place, or at least in groups, they have different buses because they have different disabilities. And that's how they divide it up here. It's a little bit baffling to me but at least it paces things some, instead of having to get all six ready at the same time. Those were hard years when that was happening. Tying 12 shoes, zipping coats, trying to get on mittens. I'm glad they're becoming more independent. It makes life easier in some ways and harder in others.
By the time they were all on their way to school, it was time for our meeting with the dietician. I was glad to meet with her because we were having a weird day yesterday with I don't know what was going on. It was bizarre. It was like my body was its own person. Like my body was an alter. I don't know how to explain it. Like my body was doing its own thing without permission and I couldn't stop it or fix it. We were opening cabinets and the fridge, and closing them again, and walking in circles around the kitchen, pacing like something was wrong, but nothing was wrong. The children were at school. We were safe at home. Now Time is safe. All the things that we know. I know that in my head but I could not make it stop. And the body felt weird. One of those weird food days that usually ends in disaster. I’m not sure how to explain it. But it was the first time that I was aware of what was happening and tried to write it down, both for the dietitian and for our therapist. I felt sick, like nauseous, but I wasn't actually sick. And I knew that, but I was super dissociated and walking in those circles. I had eaten an egg for breakfast, around 5:00 and a granola bar with the children around 8:00. So I knew I wasn't starving, and I had followed my rules for mechanical eating on schedule.
Normally, when I got like that and not feeling well, I would either just go to bed and not eat for several days until I felt better, or eat one of my safe foods to get it over with. Like stew or fajitas, something with protein and vegetables that feels good in my body, but also has a lot of liquid and doesn't cause me problems or any aversions or avoidance. But I didn't want to do that, because I didn't want to be too full because of the mechanical eating. I knew I would have to eat again, even if I didn't want to. I don't know what triggered it and it was all confusing, and I wanted to talk to the dietician about it and my therapist. I wasn't in danger, but it was the first time I was able to recognize what was happening while it was happening instead of reflecting on it leader. I tried to make notes in the app, which always asks about my emotions, and the only one I could mark was fear. I felt fear, like I was in danger, even though I wasn't. I felt panic and crying when I was going in circles around in the kitchen. I don't know what was going on. It was bizarre. So I had a lot to talk about with the dietician.
But when I signed on for our appointment, she asked if it was okay if an intern observed us, that there was someone in her office about to get certified or licensed or however that works for dieticians, and she just needed to watch the session. I don't know what was wrong, or why it mattered so much, but that just sent us over the edge. I didn't say no. I didn't use my words or set boundaries. I didn't find courage to be brave and just say yes. All I did was hang up on her and completely freak out. Like, crying on the floor. It was embarrassing and humiliating, and I'm so glad no one else was home to see. I don't even know what happened or why that was too much. Or, I, I don't even have words. I feel foolish, and I'm embarrassed even sharing it, but it completely freaked me out. No, I don't want someone else watching our sessions. She has been so trauma friendly; I'm really even shocked that she asked. And I'm frustrated with myself that I cannot be more flexible or generous or kind and help teach someone. it would have been the perfect opportunity to teach one more person about dissociation. But I don't have the spoons right now to educate people. Right now I just need help. It was a disaster and I'm ashamed of myself. It's just humiliating.
Before I could even recover from that the doorbell rang, which scared me to death. I forgot how often people come by when you live in town, after years of living in the country all alone without interference from anyone. No one ever came to visit us there. That's what the husband said. And here I feel like someone is at our house every day. And I'm not ready for that big of an adjustment. And I don't want people here. But I also don't want to be a mean person. And people are so kind to support our family and they're so generous in helping us. And we could not raise our family as we have without the help that we have received. But sometimes I just need space, or sometimes I can't get out of bed, or sometimes it scares me to open the door. I'm barely functioning, and really struggling right now. I am functioning in spurts and I'm trying really hard not to lose my job, not to lose my friends, not to ruin everything we've fought so hard for, to provide for our own healing and to provide for our family. But people coming to my house is a really big trigger and it's a really hard thing. And people don't understand how a simple thing can be such a trigger. But for me it is. I don't mean to be dramatic, and I don't mean to be uncooperative or not participatory. Well, I maybe mean to be not participatory.
But the only thing more scary than someone ringing the doorbell is someone thinking we're not home and coming in anyway. I don't know if it's the landlord or if something is wrong, or if someone needs something. So I have to go down to the door. And when I did, it was some man with a chainsaw. I cannot make this stuff up. He says our landlord hired him to cut down all the trees in the back. The trees that we love so much. The trees that make it okay for us to do all of this work of moving. I mean, the children need the schools too, but we love the woods in the back. He says that the landlord wants us to have a view of the city. Well, first of all, it's not a city; it's like one street in town. But also the only view that we have If he cuts down all those trees is the back of Lowe's, and I have no interest in staring at the back of Lowe's. I love the trees. I don't want him to cut them down. And I told him that. Because now I had enough energy to tell him “no” when I couldn't tell the dietitian “no”. How messed up is that? This guy is a stranger. And I don't know what came out of me. But there was like-. I was saying things and being forceful in a way that I don't even know how to do. I don't know who that was, or how that switching was, or why I could hear it even if it wasn't me, or what that even means. I don't know how to explain it. But we tried, like, there was something about laying our lives down for the pipeline. I don't even understand everything that just happened or what we said to him. But in the end, he said “no,” he has to do his job he was hired to do. We texted the landlord and told him we want to see the trees. That's why we liked this place. We don't want him to cut it down. He said he's just cutting off all the branches so that the trees go straight up so that we have the view if we want it.
I understand from living in the country how they have to clean out brush sometimes just for fire safety. And having helped in California, I understand how important that is. But I'm heartbroken about the trees. And it was just a really hard morning. And so for the rest of the day, I'm trying to process all of these things, and there's just a man in my backyard walking around with a chainsaw. And I don't even know what to do about that.
I couldn't get in the right headspace to try to finish our work. So instead, I tried to work on book orders. But everything is backed up because of the shipping drama. And people are starting to get frustrated because they don't have their books. But there's nothing I can do about it because of the pandemic and different country quarantines and the shipping crisis. It's really a mess. And I don't need more people yelling at me, even by email. It's so overwhelming and it's so frustrating. And I didn't have enough spoons to start with. And even just talking about all of this, now I just feel fussy and whiny, like a complaining child. But this is my life with all the children, and trying to run the family, and trying to do things around the house, and trying to get everything done and keep things caught up. It's so frustrating and I feel my anxiety going back up. This is not life in quarantine. This is real life, and it's fuzzy and time has passed, and then trying to figure out what is going on and catch up to things, and it's very confusing and overwhelming.
We are running out of time with our dream therapist. We interviewed a new therapist. Well, we tried. But in the first session she talked so much about how much she knows about DID that it really raised a lot of red flags. Because it didn't feel like she was an expert in DID. It felt like she had some boundary problems and was just getting a lot of attention for poor relationships with people who have DID. And we don't need any more of that. But when it came time to make a payment, she got all weird about how she wanted her payments done. And she wouldn't be flexible about it at all. It wasn't that we were trying to not pay our bill. I had my bank card ready to pay for our session. But I wanted to pay for the whole month upfront. Because that's just easier for us because of how and when we get paid. So always in therapy for the last 10 years, eight years, six years, I don't even know, we've always paid for a month at a time. Just given our card, paid for our sessions for that month ahead of time, so then we don't have to worry about it for the rest of the month, which helps a lot of other people who don't know how to do the bank card or don't track that stuff. And keeps it practical for our needs because of how and when we're paid. But she totally freaked out about this and got all weird about it, and saying how that's unethical for her to take money for services she hasn't provided, and that any therapist who does that should go to jail. Like it was a bizarre conversation. And so we paid for that session, but we told her not to schedule any more, that it wasn't going to work for us. That was really hard and frustrating because she had a reputation of seeing people with DID, and so I had high hopes that maybe she would be helpful. But now I may be thinking that she is not a safe person to be seeing DID people at all, and I really think that the hassle saved us a world of hurt, as they say. I don't need any more disasters in therapy.
The other person that we interviewed—who's really our last chance—was the first person that was really very warm that we've interviewed since we lost our previous therapist. Which now I saw in the journal we're supposed to call Kelly, which is very confusing to me. Why are we calling her Kelly? Her name isn't Kelly. It's not like we need a codename for her. I don't understand. But I know we're supposed to say Kelly. So that Kelly, our previous therapist, she was very warm and held presence really well. And this is the first time we found another therapist like that. So that gave me some hope. But it also makes it really scary because we don't want to repeat what we went through before with that Kelly. The other thing I liked about her is that she's more relational than cognitive. The one that we had tried last month was actually pretty good just, too cognitive for trauma. We need to work on the relational stuff, and all the focus on the cognitive was helping us avoid it. But she was not very warm either. And so that felt like an absence on top of neglecting the relational pieces. This new therapist, we've seen her twice now. And she seems warm enough, understands trauma and relational things. She also holds presents really well and she paces well. She's been respectful of our boundaries, and with her it's okay to say when we're not ready to talk about something yet. I know that doesn't work forever and we can't actually get better if we keep avoiding it. I know all of that. But at least we can pace ourselves a little bit. Intakes are always hard because in our life experience no question is an easy question. Everything gets so complicated very quickly. But we did get through it and everything went smoothly.
For our second session we ended up talking about the husband being away and his parents the whole time. So it brought up some things but at least we were engaging with her, and at least we were talking, which is really hard enough in therapy already. But it was somehow safer because we were talking about him and them instead of us. So maybe it was just practice. Or maybe all of this from the last year is impacting us more than we noticed and we really did need to talk about it a little bit. I'm really frustrated that he's gone and it's hard that he's gone, but I understand in my head cognitively that it is the good and right thing and that it's just a season and that we are not in crisis in our relationship at all. He's just away and doing what is good and right, which is why we moved, even if they are cutting down the trees.
The other thing that's happening, that's just one more thing on our plate, is that our insurance said “no” to our cochlear implants after we had already been approved. They changed their minds again. They can't do that, and so we've appealed it because that's not okay. We have in writing that it was approved and then we got medical authorization. But this is why it took us so long to even fight for them, because it is a fight. You can't just say, “hey, I need these,” and then get them. It takes so long to sort through them because they're so expensive. Nobody wants to pay for them, not even insurance. But we have half of it saved, or a third of it saved, or something, and we're almost there. So maybe we'll be ready by the time they approve them.
The other thing is this new podcast that they set up, we had a little practice feed at first just to see how it worked, and if we could do two podcasts on the host site that we use without losing any of the files from the first one, because new people are still finding it. And people who already listened to System Speak want to keep it. But then I read about and listen to the podcast of how we accidentally sent that to that therapist, the one that was doing cognitive stuff and EMDR too fast. And because she had it, and because other people had found it that was not safe, and because we wanted to make sure it had a safe and separate feed, we went ahead and took that one down and deleted it and put the new episodes up on a new feed. Which is the actual one people will listen to this one on. And that will eventually share when we're ready. That's so confusing and it makes sense. But the problem is when we deleted it Spotify and Apple did not delete it. So now it looks like we have three podcasts, but we don't, we only have two. It just takes forever for them to take it down, and there's not much we can do about it. So once again, it's that same scary thing of once you put something out there, it's really hard to take it back. So you have to be careful. I don't even understand all these details. It's just literally a list on the paper in our journal, because we can't even function enough to journal properly or to write things down. We're not getting to do any art. I know there's meetings with the Community this weekend, and I don't know if we even get to go.
Everything is chaos with the children. And tomorrow they have an extra day out of school as a practice virtual day, so that everyone remembers what to do if they have to close the schools again. And they might because of the new variant that's spreading, and because so many people here are not vaccinated at all anyway, our numbers are going up really high really fast. We're still being careful. But because so many people are getting sick, the risk level at the school is going up. And what that means is that now they're going to require masks. So even that is backwards, because now that it's actually more dangerous to go to school, they're making it safer to go to school than when it was okay. Because right now they're not requiring masks. So our family is one of the only families wearing masks. But starting next week everyone has to wear a mask. And I hope that goes smoothly. Because it's just about staying safe, it's not about politics. And here where we live and everyone carries guns, politics becomes dangerous really fast. And it's starting to make us nervous. It makes me nervous. When I read about everything that the children have been through, or that our family has been through or witnessed, in these last two years that I have gotten all in a blur and only know from the journal, I can't believe that it's real life and all happening. All of this violence is not okay, and it makes me anxious raising children in the middle of it.
I hope we've not done a foolish thing by leaving the country. But I also know that we're doing our best and that our family needs to be together, and that this is where the husband is and so being here is the right thing. But so much has changed.
And the friends that we had that we were making, who came to the birthday party, we don't even hear from the many more. I don't know if they got tired of us trying to sort it through or if they just don't want us anymore, but our therapist says it's time to stop waiting. So I'm trying to do what I'm supposed to do.
And here I am in life as I've always known it, where I’m just on my own with running children everywhere. Next week I have to have the two boys, the two older boys from the triplets, they have to be at a band concert and a choir concert at the same time. How am I supposed to do that? Taking one one place, one the other place. One of them is downtown and one of them is at the high school. How did these people not talk to each other, that it's at the same place on the same night?
I know that this isn’t even trauma. I'm supposed to be talking about DID. But I don't have time for DID right now. That's the whole point. If we're going back to real life, real life is slamming like a tsunami. And I just have to be a mom. So it's a balance for me because I'm a better mom if we’re in therapy. Even I have made enough progress to know that. But also we don't have therapy like we used to. And that previous Kelly that everyone's been so sad about never did like me, and I said from the beginning that it wasn't a good match. They should have listened to me. I told them not to believe her. I've had to do this for 100 kids almost that we've had foster kids in and out. I know how to look for a therapist, if they'll just let me find one. I can sort through all of it and find the right one and set up our appointments and our payments and take care of that. Then they can talk about DID all they want. But she lied to them, and it makes me angry. And if this DID thing is real, and all those littles are real, then it makes me really angry that she lied to them. And it makes me really angry that they've been hurt. That's not okay. But I don't talk about that even with the new therapist or the dream therapist or any therapist, because it sounds crazy. You can't defend littles that don't exist. I don't know how all of this works. And I don't want to think about it.
And I don't have time to think about it. Because there's a man in my backyard with a chainsaw. And my children will get home from school off the bus at any moment. What am I supposed to do about that? Even if he's not dangerous, our kids have special needs that I can't tell you what a challenge it is to contain them. They can't play outside while there's someone with a chainsaw because they won't stay away from him. Not because they are bad. They just don't have that understanding and capacity to regulate that much. They will be curious and get him or themselves in danger. Which means I have to keep them inside even though it's the end of their school week because of the virtual day tomorrow. So there'll be extra hyper and extra wild, and I want to send them outside to play so that they can get that energy out safely and naturally, but I can't because there's a man with a chainsaw.
This, I feel like, is the epitome of my life. It is the symbol of my life of: Am I inside my house? Yes, I am. Do I get stuck inside my house because there's danger out in the world? Yes, I do. Is the outside world actually dangerous? Probably not. But is it safe for me? No, clearly it's not. And this is also symbolic, if you want to talk about dream therapist, that we would have this safe haven hidden in the trees. And now all the limbs are being cut down so that we are exposed, and the view that we get isn't the view that we wanted. I feel like that's what therapy is all about: being more exposed than what you're comfortable being and not liking the things that you see. And if I play all the parts, like the dream therapist would say, then it means I'm the man with the chainsaw too. Which is horrifying. So what is it that I'm doing to myself of cutting things down too fast? So what am I doing cutting branches out? And is it actually helping or only exposing? And what about the shock for the things that I see once we look? I don't know. But that's how real things are. That's how raw things are about to be, this chainsaw that's me.
[Break]
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