Can’t do IP. We were all set to go and get into the place, and the response was akin to “you’re not an active threat to yourself or anyone else, and you’re not actively having a problem with addiction.” So being preoccupied with the the thoughts isn’t qualifier enough…not that I’m aiming for the grand prize of a not-so-free week vacation to the BHU but it sure kinda feels like I need it.
But we had a very long conversation with a crisis counselor (face to face), and she explained a couple of things that actually made sense and made me feel a little more hopeful.
First, the meds I am on are most likely what’s causing those thoughts. Apparently there is an increased risk of ideations while on it. Which sucks because I thought it was working well as a stabilizer (stable in the “it’d be nice to run in front of a parked car today” sort of way), but as the parenthetical suggests, I wasn’t really considering that to be a part of my manic/depressed swings. So I have to taper off of it and then switch to Zyprexa and Prozac. Zyprexa apparently doesn’t have the drug creep that Ativan has (I loved Ativan…but over time it got to where I was anticipating it and slowly needed higher doses to satisfy that anticipatory anxiety), and of course fluoxetine is just a happy pill. So hopefully that will work? Maybe?
Then she said that there’s an unspoken factor in all of this, that I’m most likely so tired from trying to fight all of the complex stuff on my own: living alone, not feeling safe enough to reach out about it despite having people around me in places to help out, old lies creeping back in to support the lack of safety (like how I feel like I deserve to be alone, or things unrelated to me are my fault, how friends don’t want to be bothered with it, etc), and the old habits and the negative self-talk were primed to take over like nothing ever happened.
She reminded me that these are the kinds of things that you absolutely have to stay on top of when dealing with trauma of any kind, but complex trauma comes at you on multiple fronts, since that is how it arrived into your life. You’re creating the baseline that you never had as child, so while you are actively creating the blank slate from which to design your new life, there will be moments that you have to stop everything you’re doing to mitigate the old inks that want to stain the new canvas. And when you’re tired and aren’t having faith in your support systems, the inks take the liberty of staining everything.
She also kinda scolded me a bit about how I minimize retraumatization or treat it with shame. It is embarrassing to deal with, and I do feel like I am suddenly a five year old who needs an adult, and there is a reason for that. Blackouts almost always seem to start with me feeling like the injured kid who cannot find a safe adult OR they start with the feeling of being injured and then everything starts piling up. Then the negative self talk turns into berating, then I come to and can’t remember anything that happened of the last few hours. And a lot of the blacking out might just be from caving in due to the exhaustion from the self-blaming, shaming, and guilt (five minute penalty for redundancy, I know). I really don’t need to be isolating when I start to get this way — this is when I absolutely must use my call list and ignore everything in my mind treating me like I don’t deserve my support systems, because that phone list is essentially my defibrulator.
So while I might do well resetting in an IP environment, it wouldn’t be fruitful on the whole, as I’d just be coming home to where this stuff happens already. It’d be best to simply stick with the PHP and let them teach the skills I need in order to live a fulfilling life, and transform my home space into the safe space that I deserve to enjoy. She also reminded me (this is the third fourth time someone has reminded me of this) that I’m only two weeks into it, and not to give up before headway is made. I already have shown marked progress on sleep hygiene alone, and it would be phenomenal if I’d just accept the fact that I’ve achieved something wonderful out of something so simple instead of finding eight reasons why it isn’t enough and beating myself up over it and giving up. Again: old inks.
I already knew and have been trying to say — just can’t get the words out. That I’m isolating and I really need to be around people. Which I know I can write these things down, but translating that into actual conversation isn’t my forte. I can talk about emotions all day long. Anyway, as I’ve noted, I started isolating because people are scary, and being insanely depressed because I can’t magically fart out friends that I don’t have to build trust with first. So maybe the meds weren’t really working at all.
Which got me to remember back when I first started this whole thing almost two years ago. I took myself to NA when I was desperate enough to get help, and eventually AA. “Find your people” was enough to start researching, but necessity is what got me into the door.
So our new goal is to keep doing PHP, and now she wants me to go back to a 12 step program of my choice, and start networking again. Because alcoholism and addiction both have a high chance of meeting folks with the same comorbidities that I have. I already have a coach, a psych, and support at the BHU where most of the PHP is being done, but I need the networking in a real-world situation like 12 step programs would do. If I ever have enough energy to get back to the gym, I have friends that work there who I just haven’t talked to in awhile, but I know we can jump back into the work just as quickly.
I’m not entirely hopeless, but trauma has certainly made it feel that way. I just have to believe in myself and have faith in the process of recovering. That, and accept that not all setbacks are abject failures, just guidelines for making adjustments along the way.
As for right now, I took a Trazodone at 6pm last night, and woke up at 2am (eight hours! great!), but I’m still tired. It’s a little after 3:30, So I’m going back to bed because I can.
