hsphaven

I get extremely vivid dreams which allow me to experience things I haven’t experienced in my life. I see it as part of my gift of being an empath or highly sensitive person. Today, during my nap, I dreamt of dissociating so badly I lost my hearing. This is a documented thing, as this paper writes about, however I believe it is fairly rare. I sometimes lose my voice when dissociated but never my hearing. There were people around me; they were packing up and selling a house or shop I owned. No one understood what was going on with me. I kept trying to stop them from touching certain fragile belongings, such as my glasses. I didn’t know how loud I was speaking and shouting. I was extremely distressed, and wished someone would get me some help. Then I saw my friend who has a severe dissociative disorder where he also loses his hearing. I was so relieved as he was the only one who got it. He sat me on his lap and I calmed down. I knew the deafness was only transitory and this brought me some reassurance.

I’m not sure how to interpret this dream. Is there something the universe is trying to tell me but I refuse to listen to it? A theme of this dream was people doing things to me, not with me. I immediately think of my psychologist. It is Monday, the day I would usually see her. She told me once that houses in dreams represent the body. It is as though this trauma is not just emotional but also physical. My mind and body feels like it’s going through withdrawal. I am the house, and people are packing me up to sell to somebody else. That’s what it feels like my psychologist has been doing. Packing me up to get rid of me.

I was in hospital again recently. It was after the night I sat up all night writing. I wrote the post “Sad” that night (couldn’t think of a more creative title). My grief took a vicious turn that night. The anger went away and all I was left with was the most excruciating sadness. I’m not sure whether writing all night helped me or made me worse. I have a quote about this saved to my computer. I am not sure who wrote it, but it was from a Facebook page called “of all things peculiar”:

“but perhaps,

writing is just

another way of killing myself.

each poems—

an elegy

for everything in me

that has already died,

a graveyard

of my forgotten dreams,

a remnant

of what could’ve been called life

but isn’t,

and a memento

for the yesterday’s version of myself

i could no longer recognize.

i have written poems

with words sharp enough to cut me,

drain my blood,

and water the ground—

where poppies bloom in eternity.

in writing,

everyday is my funeral.”

I was still awake when my dad got up and went out. That is when I opened the tent I ordered. Slowly I have been accumulating stuff for the day life pushes me over the edge of the cliff I tip toe on. Stuff which I hoped would kill me. It has taken me a while as I am so depressed, but I finally had everything I needed. The last tent I bought didn’t have any poles with it, so I had to order another one. This one was complete. I planned to burn some briquettes in the tent and let the carbon monoxide kill me. I set up the tent outside. I sealed up the air holes, the best I could anyway; the masking tape didn’t stick well to the tent. My annoying neighbour started up his electric buggy. Another reason to kill myself, I thought. I wished he’d shut up soon as I wanted to slip away peacefully and in silence.

Once I had the tent up it was like having a zillion people in my head screaming at me.

“Why are you doing this?!” They screamed. “This is ridiculous. You don’t really want to do this!”

In the end I decided it was a bit drastic. I don’t think I had quite fallen completely off the cliff yet. I was still hanging on by a bare ledge. I ended up calling Lifeline. The man on the other end of the phone suggested I call 000 and stay in hospital for some respite. I called 000, and spoke with a lady who was extremely concerned by my behaviour. She sent an ambulance to my house. I took down the tent and shoved it in a cupboard in my house while I waited. The ambulance then arrived and I was taken to the closest hospital. My mum brought me some food but didn’t understand why I was in hospital. She has an amazing ability to get back on her bike after falling off, push the hurt aside and continue on with work and life. She expects me to walk in her shadow. But I am not like her. I used to be like that. I was a straight A student and studied hard no matter what was happening around me, putting my hurt in a box and shutting the lid. But one day that pain will make its way outside of that box, and our minds or bodies will pay for it. I no longer shove the pain in a box. I just bleed and bleed. “We choose our reactions”, my Mum told me. By this point I was just sick of all the ignorance I had been receiving. The previous night I poured my heart out to Facebook. I posted my poem, “Empty“, to Facebook. A friend wrote a very unhelpful reply blaming me for my problems and telling me the answer was to take accountability and not see myself as a victim. Honestly all I really needed was a hug. I have found there are some very toxic mentalities within the spiritual community such as toxic positivity (“positive vibes only”) and victim blaming. Many people in spiritual circles see it as a bad thing to identify as a victim. It makes me angry as it took me 19 years to come to realise I am a victim. I was manipulated into believing I was the abuser. Realising I did nothing wrong and have been a victim of emotional abuse has been a big turning point in my recovery, and I will not let ignorant people take that away from me. The reality is some very sick things happen to innocent people. Some say we choose everything that happens in our lives before we reincarnate here to grow. Some victim blame because it makes them feel safer and more in control, like they can prevent it from happening to them. But I am more inclined to say that sometimes awful things just happen to some people and I don’t know why. These responses to my trauma made me want to kill myself even more. When my mum left a lady came to collect my tray of food.

“I should just go home and kill myself”, I told her in a low voice.

She said nothing and walked away. I then spoke with another nurse. I was feeling horrible at this point. My mum had got me down, there was a man lying outside dying, the woman next to me was in a dire state, requiring bags of blood. I was surrounded by misery and it was all just getting me down. This nurse said that they want to keep me in hospital for my mental health, even though I was ok physically. I felt a little better that they took me seriously at least.

I was given a bed in PAPU again, the short stay unit for mental health crises. They reluctantly took me back. The last time I was there was the day my psychologist told me she didn’t want to keep seeing me. I was in so much distress that I screamed all the time, ripped some pamphlets off the wall and then lay on the floor crying. I similarly trashed my case management service’s waiting room when they took away my case worker a year or so ago. I think it’s got into my records now as the triage lady told me PAPU will not tolerate any property damage before I was transferred there.

“PAPU is meant to be a calm environment,” said the lady.

Again, as I felt with my psychologist, I felt punished for the very reason I was there for: because I was unwell and in distress.

“I was extremely distressed and should have been in the inpatient unit last time I was there,” I told her. The “inpatient” wards are the longer-stay wards where they put the worst cases, or those they consider worse anyway. In the “inpatient” units people shout and thump things, tip coffee on the artwork on the walls, and flush cups down the toilet. There are holes in the walls. People sleep on couches, drugged to their eyeballs with tranquilisers, while patients fight beside them. It is a complete shitshow. But that is the place I belong, and I don’t know why they never moved me there, especially when I spent half my time screaming. I put it down to the stigma of having a BPD label. The “inpatient” units are designed for people who are mentally ill. The problem with BPD, as a friend pointed out, is that people don’t think we have an illness. There is not really any medication that can treat it, and psychiatrists just see us as attention seeking, dependent, difficult bitches who shouldn’t be “rewarded” with care. I wish I had never, ever received this label as time and time again people with BPD receive substandard treatment.

I arrived at PAPU that evening. I was told they wanted me out at 10am on Saturday, so I was only given one full day there this time. I spent that time in bed trying to catch up on my sleep. I got little rest as I was just in a curtained area outside the nurse’s station where staff constantly came in and out. I was also woken early by someone’s phone alarm and also the blaring lights which came on at sunrise. As I was not in a proper room the light blasted onto my face as though I was on an operating table.

One of the nurses said I needed talk therapy and wanted me to find another psychologist. I said I was too sad. Even though my psychologist might be able to discard me and fill my spot with another client, that is not the way I treat relationships, even though a part of me needs that level of attachment to somebody. It is like when people lose a beloved pet. It can take a while to feel ready to get another pet. But I do not intend to ever find another psychologist. I have been hurt one too many times and am determined to put an end to this cycle.

I didn’t end up staying the second night. I thought I’d get more rest at home. I just felt sick and had a headache in PAPU. So I left early. I came to the realisation that no one will break my fall. So often the hospital makes me worse. My skin felt like it was being pricked by pins all over and no drugs could make my headache go away. I tried Nurofen, and then I tried Panadeine Forte. The codeine in the Panadeine Forte irritated my stomach and it made all kinds of noises in protest. I went to bed early and got up late afternoon on the Saturday, though I had woken up several times in between. One time when I woke up in the night my tinnitus was loud. I was reluctant to take benzos as I thought they were a phony substitute for what I really needed: love from another human being. But I have taken some this week and they calmed me.

On Saturday evening my dad and I went to the beach. It was actually the beach which finally cleared my headache. I enjoyed my swim after dusk, even though we could hear a party nearby at one of the mansions. I sat on the sand and watched the tide come in and out like the ocean was a living, breathing being.

On Sunday night I pushed myself to go to a poetry event, even though I was still feeling bad. I sat around a fire with a bunch of hippies and we shared stories, the communal currency of humanity. We talked about how writers and other artists are conduits for the collective’s feelings. The night was a bit like an inverted bell curve. The things people shared were initially very positive, but then I changed the atmosphere a bit with my poem “The White Rabbit”, followed by “An Open Love Letter to Your Inner Child” by Alison Nappi. I felt the two went together nicely. I wasn’t sure how “The White Rabbit” would be received. I said the poem was about a “Toxic person, or maybe you could say toxic relationship”. The lady next to me, with long chunky earrings made of kangaroo bone, was excited. I wasn’t expecting that as her poems were insanely positive. As I read my poem she was nodding along. The group welcomed the fiery nature of the poem. Some people can be scared or repelled by anger, but there is nothing I love more than women reclaiming their power, voice and truth through words. I’m glad the group felt the same. My poem took the night to a whole new level, and I think others then felt able to share the pieces they had written about heartbreak. One man spoke of how losing one lover made him want to die. Another lady reflected on the tragedy that an ambulance will only be sent when there is a threat to the body, yet nothing is sent to someone whose heart is breaking. I felt that poem so much. There have been times I’ve been in so much pain that I’ve thought surely someone must know I’m in a really bad way. During my darkest, loneliest hours I’ve heard vehicles outside and thought “yes, finally someone has come to rescue me”, but no one came to the door. I wish I had of got a copy of that women’s poem.

Things got a bit lighter again. People sung songs and played the hand drum. Everyone in the group were so talented and creative. We lost track of time, and when I checked my phone I realised my dad had been waiting to pick me up for half an hour. He was angry and threatening to drive home if I didn’t come in 10 minutes. So I packed up my stuff and abruptly left. I didn’t want to interrupt the song so I didn’t say goodbye to anyone.

Sitting by the campfire made me sleepy, but I decided to then see a friend of mine who was feeling “restless”. We went for a walk and then to Pancake Parlours. She is not too crash hot on living either, but told me that people who are autistic, who have BPD and all the other issues we have statistically have a shorter life span, so we may only have 25 years of life left to get through. She thought if we avoided people and found a solitary activity that we really got into, such as gaming, we may just be able to survive it without needing to kill ourselves! I am now thinking that I might channel all that passion I had for my psychologist into badminton instead. Tonight was my first night back after months and months of not playing. I missed a lot of shots at first, and one of the others suggested I go down a section while I build my confidence up again. I felt sad that my psychologist had robbed me of badminton, on top of everything else. But as the night progressed it all started coming back to me, and soon I was playing as good as I used to. I have been thinking of going to training and getting really serious about it.

I am glad I survived today. Mondays are going to be hard for a while given it’s usually the day I would see my psychologist. I have had my moments of sadness, such as when I drove home from badminton tonight. I remembered the way my psychologist would speak to me. Sometimes playful but mostly gentle, her words seemingly full of affection and caressing my whole being. I just cannot reconcile this with the brutality of what she did to me in the end. She told me I was “unstable” then nudged me off the cliff towards my death. She was yet another Jekyll and Hyde.