Transforming Suffering

I am one of those people who smiles and jokes their way through a lot of pain in public, mopes and cries in private. PTSD is something that one suffers silently, for the most part, as silently as possible, because you wish people to see you as "normal," or at least functional. The more I learn about it, the stranger I feel, though. It's increasingly difficult to maintain that front, and recently things have reached the point where I can hardly pretend anymore.

 For example, I have always been known as a woman who gets lost when going to a new place. Religiously, you might say. In the past few months, it happens whenever I'm stressed out, but it also happens randomly, and in ways it never happened before. I get lost going to work. I've had the job for five months. I also get lost going home. I get lost on my way to the counseling center. I've been going there for four months. I get lost on the way back from dropping my children off at their dad's house. I've done that drive for five years. I don't even know I'm lost until I'm good and lost, when suddenly I become aware of my surroundings, unfamiliar buildings and landmarks rising up at me as I drive. Uneasily, I squint at Meijer's and Wallgreens, staples of civilization, and wonder if they're where they're supposed to be, or if I'm in an altogether different town than I intended. I don't remember going there. Shit. Should I be driving? The counselor seems to feel that everyone does this on occasion. The fact that I do it frequently is reason for concern, but not to the extent that I need to hand over my license. Disassociation at its finest. 

Another example would be the flashbacks, obviously PTSD. It's a terrible thing that something bad happens to a person and that they then have to re-experience it for the rest of their lives. Where's the point it that? Another example of suffering in my life would be my current situation, wherein I find that I have acquired Impetigo, a type of staph infection, on a scrape on my chin. It has spread to my lip and tongue to the point that it hurts to eat anything but Malt-O-Meal or drink anything but water. In short, I am pretty miserable, and glad of any advice whatsoever on how to transcend suffering.

 On Thursday I was talking to my counselor about my recent stay at a crisis center, and how differently I

think in crisis (as in uncharacteristically cynical and hopeless). Generally such a mood strikes me whenever I have a combination of financial concerns, relational issues, and excess guilt for not being there for my children. I become easily overwhelmed because I know how to survive but I'm still learning how to thrive.

The night my sister checked me into the Crisis Center (I won't candy-coat it: It's a place for people who experience mental crisis, particularly of a nature that they are a harm to themselves or others) we ended up in a little room where the psychiatrist rounded up all the usual suspects: physical, mental and emotional history. Your regular garden variety of abuse, or perhaps (their personal favorite) sexual abuse.

At that point my sister maintains I started talking like I was a little girl, and I started to tell them something she'd never heard from me before, but then I quite obviously and deliberately changed the subject. And then when the Psychiatrist pursued the subject, I clammed up altogether and stared at some spot in the corner.

I remember being asked if I'd been sexually abused as a child, and I remember answering the question. I'm sure I told him the neighbor boy molested me on Halloween when I was seven. I could feel the roughness of the brick wall as my back was pressed against it, fighting to breathe, and I could see shattered hexagon glass glittering across cracks in the cement.

I think if I had started to see something else, I'd remember talking about it, but it what do I know? PTSD makes you question everything you see and feel sometimes.      

After that, anyone at the crisis center who saw me professionally would ask if I was seeing things that weren't there. It was hard not to take umbrage. After all, if I were so far gone that I was seeing something that wasn't even there, how the hell was I supposed to know if it wasn't? How would I even know that THEY were there? I didn't think it was so bad as all that.

But things were pretty damn bad. I didn't want anyone to see me like that, but I did want someone who knew and loved me to go in there and tell people that I wasn't crazy, or at the very least have someone tell me that they would love me anyway. 

My pride was hurting me perhaps worse than my mental state, but also fear that maybe people wouldn't want to know me anymore, afraid they might somehow see right through me to the nothingness I keep feeling inside. They just might come to believe it, if I finally let my guard down so that it was visible..

And I couldn't handle that, the idea that even those I loved most should ever see me as nothing.

Hell is that place or time on this earth when you are alone and facing down your past, unsure of your future. Not knowing is what's really agonizing. Your past you carry into the present, and it colors so much of what you think and do.

That's the trouble with me, that I can see it. I can see it all, and grasp it quite well, what my life has been and what it potentially could be,  but for some reason I still don't realize that I can actually let go of the past and accomplish all the things that I would like to do. I feel like some sort of backward Cassandra, the goddess whose curse it was that she could foretell the future, but that no one would ever believe her. Or, in my case, that I can see the past but don't even believe myself. I like the Greeks because they were masters of irony.

Anyway, I was in the middle of telling the counselor about the psychiatrist checking me in at the crisis center and asking me about sexual abuse and I remembered answering the question, but I remember it differently than my sister does.  

It's taken me a few months to blow off that event, and then while I was describing it to my current counselor

on Thursday and trying really hard to admit to her that there were things I was aware of not telling her about that could probably help me. (I still have such a hard time feeling as if I deserve any help.)

But then I felt my eyes widen and my entire body seemed to expand outward, swelling like a balloon with the most indescribable level of fear, as if every single nerve and muscle were rising up, and my right arm started jerking independently like I was trying to ward something off. It hit like a burst of light swooshing in on me from some discarded room, the mildew smell of a room long unoccupied. The room. The bald light bulb. Bright light. My bed in the spare room of my friends' house. That room, and I'm in bed having a panic attack, frightened of who would come in. And then it was so much worse than that because I felt confused like in a bad dream when I don't quite know where I am, or that the place I'm in is actually pieces of other places in my memory. I'm on the floor. Grey carpet. An Other room. I'm pressed in the corner between the wall and the bed, panicking because this wasn't the room I thought I'd first found myself in.

The counselor asked me how I was feeling, and all I could tell her was that I was scared, "I'm scared, I'm so scared!"

I threw my glasses on the floor and doubled over, covering my eyes as if I could block out what I was seeing. It worked, though. It was dark inside my palms, but it didn't feel safe. I can't begin to tell you how ashamed I always feel when my brain turns on me like this. Thursday was the worst I've ever had, and I still don't comprehend anything more than that I was afraid of something in that room with me. I worry it's all bullshit sometimes, but something like this is hard to discount unless I decide I really am crazy instead of just having experienced something that my brain is still struggling to process.

The counselor was trying to tell me that I was all right, that I was safe, that there wasn't anything there to hurt me, but I started to feel really confused and disoriented. I could hear that she was in the room, I could hear her voice floating into the darkness, still over there, somewhere, behind her desk, and I could hear her asking "Heather, where are you?"

How many fingers am I holding up? Who is President of the United States?

I wondered if she meant where was I in my head or where my body actually was. All I could really focus on was the dark behind my palms. "I'm scared, I'm so..." Little Girl voice again.

“Heather, where are you sitting at right now, what are you sitting on?"

"The chair (duh!)."

"How does it feel?"

"The chair?!"

"Yes. How does the chair feel? (Its feelings are hurt?)"

"Look," I said wearily from behind my hands, "I know there's a chair holding me up, okay?"

"How does it feel?"

"Soft? Surprisingly comfortable for a mass-produced chair? I know the chair's real, all right? I just can't feel it right now. Just because I can't feel it doesn't mean..."

"Touch the arm of the chair. How does it feel?"

"Like plastic, not too dense, cool to the touch..." (Apparently even in crazy town I maintain my desire to overwork the adjectives.)

"All right, then. Now, how does the back of the chair feel?"

I pressed my palms tighter against my eye-sockets and rocked forward, trying to physically hold myself together. I started to lean back into the chair but for some reason the motion frightened me further. No. No. Not the back of the chair. No. I remained huddled down, too ashamed to make eye contact, feeling as disembodied and frayed as I had the first week at the crisis center, like someone had peeled my head open and removed brain matter in armloads and dumped all the contents out in front of everyone, only to find it lacking some vital part. How to shove it all in again in such a way that it’s more organized in there?

The counselor calmly asked me to sit up and take deep breaths, and after a couple of tries I managed to do so. I felt ridiculous, but after a couple of breaths my fear subsided to the point that I could lean down and put my glasses back on.

 The chair-touching "trick" is a thing PTSD therapists refer to as "Grounding," which is to touch solid objects and describe them without thinking about anything else until you realize that you're present in reality.

 I asked her if she was thinking of advising me to go back to to the crisis center. I'd been less afraid but completely disassociated by the time I broke down and went there before, sleepless for several nights in a row and weighing my sleeping pills in my mind, wondering if I would want to live with a botched suicide attempt. Brain damage. I must admit, I'm usually most fond of my brain, more so than not. That's one reason why I survived what I was calling "Death's Waiting Room." This time it's different, though, because I have no real desire to kill myself. What I do have that is very much real is difficulty believing any experience as extreme as that flashback could possibly be under my control, ever.

"Tell me: If I keep going to counseling, group therapy, and support group three times a week, I'm supposed to feel better?"

"With your permission, I'm actually thinking I should refer you to Case Management so you can also see the psychiatrist on a weekly basis and have all your meds transferred here as well. Something is holding you back from recovery, and in time you will see what that is and have the strength to overcome it."

This must be what everyone wants to hear. And this is my chance to consciously act on it and take matters into my own hands, which I must imagine myself being perfectly capable of doing with time and practice. Meantime, this stuff hurts really badly on the inside. It's scary, it's confusing, and it drains my energy. I'm mad, but there's no one specific to be mad at. Myself? Not a good idea.

Here the Dalai Lama says, "Our attitude towards suffering becomes very important because it can affect how we cope with suffering when it arises. Now, our usual attitude consists of an intense aversion and intolerance of our pain and suffering. However, if we can transform our attitude towards suffering, adapt an attitude that allows us greater tolerance of it, then this can do much to help counteract feelings of mental unhappiness, dissatisfaction, and discontent...how you perceive life as a whole plays a role in your attitude about suffering. For instance, if your basic outlook is that suffering is negative and must be avoided at all costs and in some sense is a sign of failure, this will add a distinct psychological component of anxiety and intolerance when you encounter difficult circumstances, a feeling of being overwhelmed. On the other hand, if your basic outlook accepts that suffering is a natural part of your existence, this will undoubtedly make you more tolerant toward the adversities of life (p 140-141)."

Oddly, I've only recently started telling myself that this or that catastrophe is actually just life happening, pulling up my bootstraps and dealing with it. I generally shut down or panic first instead, but I'm working on doing something better. I feel so long as I keep on working at it and never quit, I'll at least be able to say that I did the best I could with the hand I was dealt.

My father was a good one for casting his eyes to the sky and asking "Why me, Lord? What did I ever do?" with humor in his voice but firm conviction underneath it all that his life was bent by his own hands, slathered over with the heavy belief that God really was punishing him. He stumbles through his days feeling sorry for himself and wondering how his life got so far off track, a walking Greek Tragedy, and I'm scared to death that one day I'll find myself doing the same, if I’m not doing it to myself already.

"If we think of suffering as something unnatural, something that we shouldn't be experiencing, then

it's not much of a leap to begin to look for someone to blame for our suffering. If I'm unhappy, then I must be the "victim" of someone or something --- an idea that's all too common in the West. The victimizer may be the government, the educational system, abusive parents, a "dysfunctional family," the other gender, or our uncaring mate. Or we may turn the blame inward: there's something wrong with me, I'm the victim of disease, of defective genes perhaps. But the risk of continuing to focus on assigning blame and maintaining a victim stance is the perpetuation of our suffering --- with persistent feelings of anger, frustration, and resentment.

"Of course, the wish to get free of suffering is the legitimate goal of every human being. It is the corollary of our wish to be happy. Thus it is entirely appropriate that we seek out the causes of our unhappiness and do whatever we can to alleviate our problems, searching for solutions on all levels --- global, societal, familial, and individual. But as long as we view suffering as an unnatural state, an abnormal condition that we fear, avoid, and reject, we will never uproot the causes of suffering and begin to live a happier life (p 148)."

This statement really hits home. Don't want to be the victim, but spend too much time chastising myself  for not being able to "get it together" on my own. I've done the counseling groundwork. I know my father drank and was unpredictably violent, and no one but him was allowed to ever get angry in our home. My mother would mock me if I got upset; my father might hit me, depending on how much alcohol he'd consumed beforehand. I sat trapped in my room all night, listening to the fighting, thinking there was something I should be doing about it...or at the very least that if I paid close attention I could predict when my father might come roaring up the stairs and burst into my room to rage at me about how horrific I'd made his entire existence by forgetting to do the dishes.

Sometimes I got screamed at for something I didn't even know was wrong, like the time I didn't think to make dinner when I got home from school and mom and dad had left without leaving any kind of note. I was worried. I thought maybe my dad had been arrested at last for driving drunk, or that he'd hurt Mom and she was back in the hospital...maybe they just went out to pick up a pizza? My little sisters and I were getting hungry, but I was afraid that if they brought pizza home I'd get yelled at for using the ingredients for a different meal later in the week. See, I was worried about all the wrong things, but I didn't know I was. And there are those who wonder why I feel such constant shame and horror of simply being myself and being open about it. What if I say or do the wrong thing? I have to tell myself that I'm fine, I'm an adult now, nobody's going to hit me...and get away with it, at least.

I think remembering only the bad times in your life is counterproductive, but I'm on board with the therapist when she says I need to figure out what's holding me back from getting better...from getting anywhere, really.

"Jacques Lusseyran once made an insightful observation. Lusseyran, blind from the age of eight, was a founder of a resistance group in World War II. Eventually, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned in Buchenwald concentration camp. In later recounting his experiences in the camps, Lusseyran stated "...Unhappiness, I saw then, comes to each of us because we have the miserable conviction that we alone suffer to the point of unbearable intensity. Unhappiness is always to feel oneself imprisoned in one's own skin, in one's own brain ( p 153)."

I love this story about Lusseyran. I cannot believe I haven't heard this remarkable story before now. I've been taking it to heart the past few days, because I ground the stainless steel crown off the top of a back molar, exposing the empty hole leading down to my gums. Hurts like hell when I breathe in cold air or drink cold liquids.

Because I freaked out with the flashback at the counselor's office and my sister had to come and get me, it was decided that she should come along with me to make sure I got to the clinic on time. This is very good, as I am still struggling to follow where I'm going when I'm stressed out. Sometimes I'm afraid that at some point someone is going to take my license from me if I keep going any considerable distance out of my way and have no idea how I got there...

I went to a clinic  because they were the least expensive place I could get to take me, figuring that since the glands under my chin were all sore and swollen beneath where the tooth was, there was probably some kind of infection and the tooth might need to be pulled, after I got some antibiotics, anyway.

The dentist took one look at my very long record of recommendations that I get braces and caps on various teeth, glanced into my mouth with his mirror to contemplate the ruined cap, then pronounced: "It doesn't need pulled, it just needs a new cap, which is actually pointless because they'll all fall out if you don't start taking better care of your gums."

I brush my teeth two to three times a day, only skipping once in a while when it's after lunch, or I eat out, and I brush them the recommended way and in the recommended amount of time, with the recommended floss and toothpaste.

I asked about the swollen glands, which by that point were the size of the larger shooter marbles. The dentist and the hygienist both gave me a dismissive look and told me they had no idea, but it wasn't related to my teeth.

So my sister took me to Urgent Care instead, because I was having all sorts of physical problems, so many that I felt like a hypochondriac just mentioning them. The scrape on my chin got infected and developed a fine case of Impetigo, which happened to spread into the crack in my dry lower lip, puffing both areas up considerably and periodically exploding in yellow pus. I had a hole on the inside upper left of my mouth that make it difficult to eat, I'd bitten my tongue having a nightmare the night before, and now it  was swollen and bumpy, the muscles all sore from exaggerated efforts at chewing and swallowing food.

The doctor asked how I got the scrape.

I didn't say. I didn't feel I could. Normal has never been the word to describe me, thank god. My sister and the doctor both just looked at me for a moment without saying anything, and it was quite clear the doctor thought I was trying to protect some evil boyfriend. I didn't bother to correct him because I wanted to go home and crawl into bed. It hurts to move my face, the antibiotic isn't working, and the doctor said that I had to return for follow up in a week, but that he certainly hoped his prescriptions would work for me. In other words, he didn't exactly instill a sense of reassurance in me.

So last night I went to sleep with my chin slathered with topical cream and covered with gauze and multiple Band-Aids, and when I woke up in this morning -- and This is the point of the entire story about my maladies, rather than simply so you can pity how pathetic I'm feeling right now: I am working really hard at confronting negative thoughts with positive ones, and to see my suffering as but little compared to the diseases people have to worry about in third world countries, or those who cannot have even a mediocre doctor available for emergencies, "and so forth," (as the Dalai Lama seems fond of using by way of concluding a sentence). This is hard, but I'm going to get it right. If perception is everything, then I'm going to spend more time on it.

This evening found me practicing one-mindfulness and doing yoga, trying to clear my mind of pain and worry

even though (and perhaps because) I'm hyper-vigilant tonight  and every unexpected sound makes me jump -- like the stray piece of cereal I accidentally trod on with my foot. The tiny crunch set my heart hammering.  I'm trying to learn how to soothe myself instead of looking for someone else to do it for me, but it's really nice, and I am really grateful, to have a sister who reminds me to do the yoga when I get upset, and then afterward hands me a glass of warm milk spiked with amaretto and fortified with baby cereal (Hey - don't knock it till you try it) because I've been having to eat mushy food all day, and am unable to make myself eat much of it. It just hurts too much.

I've spent the day contemplating happiness, and how to get more of it, how to have peace despite my other sister's assertion that life has a way of continuously kicking me in the teeth when I'm down. (In this case almost literally, since it turns out my inflamed and swollen gums are not due to tooth decay or gingivitis, but simply a reaction to the infection running through my entire body right now) I could dwell on my poor face, vain woman that I am, or I can dwell on the beautiful faces around me. I could dwell on the fact that the weather caused my class to be cancelled this weekend and also prevented me from picking up my children, Stuart and Lucy. I could worry that I'll never be able to hold down a job if I spend all my time in therapy and catch just one more contagious disease. I can always worry about how I must seem to other people, how pathetic I often feel inside. But forget all that -- I choose to set aside what I can't fix, sip my meals and bide my time until things look up again.

I have to do that to get up every morning, I have to have that faith, that things will get better if I just keep working at it and don't give up. And it would be helpful, I must admit, if the glands under my chin hadn't swollen up in my sleep to feel suspiciously like ball sacs. No kidding. Terrible image, really, but there you have it. I only have to suffer so much as I allow myself to suffer, and why would I want that for myself? I work hard on the coping skills, while my sister reminds me that my physical discomfort is not my fault and I don't have to be brave or chipper about feeling like crap. I'm fine with that, but I learn to care enough about myself enough to focus on a happier outlook anyway.

If it's my choice, and all in my head, then I will choose happy, even if it has to be in all the tiny things, like my children telling me they love me, or my sister packing my lunch for work and adding a couple sticks of gum to freshen my mouth after meals away from home, the concern of my DBT Group members when I arrived seeming less talkative and bubbly than usual.

I like to think that bubbly girl is the real me. All I have to do is learn how to tread water when life attempts to overwhelm me.

And accept that things are as they are, that I have PTSD but that I can learn to live with it, to be happy in the moment and forget about trying to control myself or others out of anxiety for what will happen next.