hsphaven

It’s the first time I’ve opened my laptop all week. Right now has got to be one of the lowest most distressing points in my life, and I can’t imagine it getting any worse than this, although life always surprises me.

The city suffocates me. I have been living with my dad where I don’t have my own space. I want to throttle him just for sharing the same house. The neighbours are too close. I cannot function in society, I can never find anything as I’m a hoarder and the house is a total dump. I never have it in me to clean up. Everything is just so damn hard.

I got my period exactly a week ago, which always makes me very unwell. I still managed to drag myself out to my mum’s birthday doo at a café on Saturday. It was just my dad, my mum and me. I was so spaced out. She seemed happy, liked the presents I’d got her, and chatted a lot. I was glad she was happy but it all just washed over me. I remember sitting on a bench outside in the sun itching to be alone. I had reached saturation point. I sat there in silence as my parents chatted. I went back to bed as soon as I got home as I hadn’t slept.

That was the start of this nightmare crescendo (though I think it has been building for a while, especially with all the identity switches I’ve been getting), which continued to get more and more intense the next few days. I did something else to my nails trying to open another bloody bottle of supplements and was in a lot of pain. I don’t think people realise how sensitive our nails are until they do something to them like rip a nail off. Then when you are already so sensitive, these things are even worse. My friend who was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and all these chemical sensitivities has really sensitive nails as well. He can’t even trim them without using strong numbing cream. Saturday night I fantasised about overdosing in a lake and drowning. It seemed like a poetic way to go. I did finally get some sleep but the next day the first thing I heard when I woke up was my fucking stomach groaning, bubbling and creaking, as it has been doing for MONTHS now. I was depressed as fuck all day, as usual, and so angry. In the room my dad has dumped a lot of my stuff in is a plastic container full of clothes with a sharp, jagged edge which always rips what I am wearing. When it ripped a thread out of my nice pink brushed back satin pyjamas, I was so angry I picked it up and hurled it across the room and into the wall. Then my car wouldn’t start as I’d left the bloody light on and the battery had died. Sunday night was the final crashing chord of this nightmare crescendo, or so I thought. I was in bed, touching myself, and then my dad came past, just as I was about to do the deed. There is only a flimsy sliding door to the room which doesn’t make me feel like have enough privacy. I was absolutely furious. GET OUT OF MY SPACE!!!! I wasn’t relaxed, he shut down all arousal in me, I was rough trying to finish what I’d started, and I ended up hurting myself. An onslaught of all this stuff hit me so quickly I couldn’t make sense of it all. The combined sexual feelings plus feelings of violated space brought up all this stuff about childhood sexual abuse. Suddenly I was going to act of my suicide fantasises/plans. I managed to reach out to Lifeline. I waited in the que for the online chat service thinking I should just close the browser as their care is plastic and scripted and no one would really understand. But the lady I spoke with was actually really good. She understood my feelings of confusion and wanting to defend the person I thought may have done this to me. She understood stress biology and referred me to some sexual abuse services. But I think I’ll just see the psychologist my physio found me. I swore I’d never see another psychologist again after such an awful run with them. I find I get more kindness and understanding from people who don’t claim to be mental health experts. I have seen psychologists who were meant to be trauma specialists but they just end up retraumatising me. I have become extremely untrusting of all mental health “professionals”. But I think I might be able to work with this woman. I’m impressed by how much she knows, and it’s not just from text books. She has been through some similar things herself.

I slept in a different room that night, further away from my dad’s bedroom. I thought that might help. I took some sleeping pills given the kind of night I’d had. I was back in my radiation blocking swag, which I thought would help me sleep but actually makes my sleep even worse because it is hot and claustrophobic. I was awake again around sunrise so got up and removed the swag from the room, dumping it in the living room wherever I could find space. I went back to sleep but then had another terrifying episode of sleep paralysis. I could hear all these voices (I can’t remember what they were saying now), I could hear music, I tried to get out of bed and go outside to alert people I needed help but I couldn’t physically move, it was just my astral body leaving. I saw my dad everywhere lying on the floor dead! I then would find myself back in my bedroom, watching myself lying in bed but not able to wake up. I was stuck in this other overlapping realm and I thought I had died. I did end up snapping out of it. I woke up breathless and nauseous and for a while I questioned whether I really was back and whether any of this was real. My dad was still home and unfortunately this room is at the front of the house and there was this annoying vehicle that wouldn’t fuck off. It was irritating as fuck. But still, I stayed in my room all day, sneaking out when my dad was out of the house to get some food from the kitchen, and then returning to my room. I never wanted to leave my room again. Several years ago I was diagnosed as a “hikikomori”, which is phenomenon in Japan where people, usually young adults, withdraw from society and remain isolated in their rooms for extended periods. I feel like my withdrawal has reached an all new level the past six months where I have even stopped speaking completely.

Monday night I decided to push myself to go to badminton. I thought it might help take my mind off things. Usually I can waltz in there and pretend like my life doesn’t exist, but this time I just sat in the car dissociating (feeling detached from the world like it was all a dream), freaking out and dreading going in. I should have listened to that and gone home but I still pushed myself to go. I then ended up pissing my pants on the court. It was so fucking humiliating! I don’t think I can ever show my face at badminton again now. Of course it sent me into a total tailspin. These were the texts I wrote to my psychotherapist that night:

I just wanted to leave this city that night and start a new life somewhere else, but I had no where to go. I just sat in my car screaming and blasting music. Eventually I returned home. Of course it was hard to sleep after all this. I finally got to sleep with some diazepam, an anti-anxiety medication, but then was woken by a neighbour during the morning who was using loud machinery. The city was beating me to the ground. I was completely exhausted but I got up, threw some things in bags and left this shithole at midday. I was lucky Sofie, a disability support worker who I know has a good heart, said she would help me last minute. I don’t really drive, only to places I am familiar, so rely on others for a lift. I left while my dad was out. She took me to a friend’s place who lives in the middle of the bush in the middle of no where hours way from the city. I had been planning on going there for a while now. I should have left before it got this bad. I’m still paying the price for that, with a lot of discomfort “down there” still. I’m scared I may have to live with this forever. I’m realising I will never be able to have sex, and I will never be able to have a baby. People do a lot worse, like shoving fists and dildos in there, and giving birth to babies. I didn’t do anything like that, but am still having a lot of problems. My whole body is super sensitive and I have vaganismus which means I cannot fit anything in there, not even a tampon.   

On the way I texted my new psychologist, who I was meant to have an appointment with today, even though she is in Peru. I thought I’d share some of the things she said, which I found incredibly insightful:

I am staying in a caravan/annex thing on my friend’s property, which is a huge expanse of bushland. I have my own space and am falling into some healthier rhythms, such as not sitting on social media all day and getting up earlier and falling asleep earlier. It is perfect, except for all the planes which fly over the place. I forgot about the planes. They go all day. They make the most annoying sound, like they are doing nose dives or something. There’s no words for how disappointed I am. I’ve been having a break down here as well and am worried I might have to come back. It seems I can’t get away from the world wherever I go.

“I hate this world,” I emailed my physio. “I don’t belong here. There’s no escape. I’m still suffering physically. I’m in pain and it’s in the worst area. The vibration sensation on my head has got worse from the sheer hell the last few days. I just want to kill myself and put an end to all this shit, but somehow I don’t even think that will bring me relief. I’m stuck in eternal hell.” 

I started emailing him a lot again. I then jammed my figure in the door.

“Just jammed my finger in the door,” I wrote to him. “This is like the zillionth time I’ve injured my fingers and nails the past few weeks. I’m not too worried about temporary pain, but the problem is my body doesn’t seem to recover anymore. Can barely move my finger and can only type with one hand now.

Good for you, you’re probably getting sick of all these emails”

“No worries at all, Zoe,” he wrote back. “Never sick of your emails, just want to make sure you’re feeling supported.”

“You are very kind and patient, thank you,” I told him. I am touched by how much support I have around me now.

I’m still not sleeping well. The other night I woke up with 10/10 pain. Thankfully I don’t get this level of pain very often and it goes away. There are also animals that make an awful racket scratching and banging on the walls at night and sunrise. I am still having to take some medication to get some rest.

I have been having a bit of an existential crisis/ego death, as I wrote in the following email to my physio:

“Weirdest thing ever. There’s a bike here and I decided to jump on it and just ride down the driveway which is several KMs long and into the noise. The planes then stopped! I lay on the ground and didn’t hear a single one. But now I’m back in the caravan they’re bad again. Maybe the walls are like closing in on me or something.

A lot of spiritual teachers say that the mind and perception is everything. If we can change our inside then we can change our outside (and vice versa I would argue). I’m having this like existential crisis, wondering if I’m like creating everything around me, which essentially makes me God really. Am I like creating this warped reality or something? 

I don’t know what’s real. Everything feels so surreal. How do I know I’m not dreaming or hallucinating all this? How do I know you’re real? How do you know I’m real? How do you know you’re not hallucinating ME??? You don’t. None of us have direct contact with whatever’s “out there”. It’s filtered through our senses and coloured by our perception.

It’s the kinda stuff this girl questions 

And you can really go down a rabbit hole with these questions and it can get pretty scary, especially when you throw drugs into the mix.

My friend Heidi Everett is a musician and one of my fav songs of her’s is called “The Stars”. It’s on YouTube if you’re curious.. just search “skybeanz” and the song name.

I’ve stayed down here for a lifetime it feels and no body shares a secret and that none of this is real

That line really hits hard.

Anyways, philosophical musings over. 

Feel like I’m sitting here talking to myself because everyone is me”

“Perhaps heading to that particular location may have been not the best thing for you,” he wrote. “Definitely try to get out, walk and exercise more, that’s for sure. 

Hallucinating reality . . . . Plenty of people have spoken about this before, here’s one you might like (who really knows what he’s talking about) 

Ok, I’m out – taking the family away for the next week so I won’t be responding for a bit. Reach out to my team if you want to see Alysia and catch up with Lani as soon as you can.”

“Thanks for the video.. I will watch it when I get the chance,” I wrote. “What do you mean you’re “out”? Was it something I said? Are you going to get notifications when someone emails you while you’re away? I don’t want to bother you. But I’m scared. My pain is getting really bad and I’m out here in the middle of no where and it sucks cos there’s still noise here. There could be something really wrong with me medically, I don’t know.

When do you get back?”

“Just a turn of phrase, like “over and out” signing off effectively,” he said. “Feel free to email me, but I’ll not be checking it every day. Remember you can journal some of the stuff as well and we can discuss next time, that can be really helpful too.

Back working probably Thursday lunchtime next week. 

I don’t think there’s anything medically wrong, other than you’re pretty wound up and stressed right now. The idea of getting away was to try to relax, see if you can find that head space.”

My physio seems pretty dedicated to me. He had to change our last appointment, but made it earlier because he said he didn’t want to lose the “momentum we’re building”. I’ve been freaking out a bit about not having him on the other end of the emails for the next week.