Lothlórien

Therapy Session (re:Father Issues)

For the past week I have felt utterly depressed. I really couldn't make heads or tails out it. I felt very sleepy all the time. I wanted to stay home and do nothing. Just sleep and hide. I didn't even want to eat. I felt like I wanted to sleep more than I wanted to eat, and I lost 4 pounds in this week alone, which didn't help because calorie restriction makes one tired and depressed. Vicious cycle....

I had some ideas of what may be behind it. One idea was medication. I had recently been playing around with my medication in an effort to strike a balance between feeling good and actually enjoying some sort of sex life. I found that at half does of Lexapro the sex was satisfying, but depression was creeping in, so I had to reluctantly go back to the usual does. Anyway, so one thought I had was that quite possibly I have just been messing with my medication entirely too much and thrown my system out of whack. Thought number two, this weekend is the closing on my mother's house. I am traveling back to my hometown for this, and it opens up the woulnd of my mother's death all over again. Add to that that I will be seeing my father (ugh). Thought number three, my therapist is going on vacation next week and I won't see her for two weeks, and when she gets back we had planned to begin trauma processing via EMDR re: issues with my father. Of course this could be it as well. So many things, and I had no clue.

I went to therapy pitiful...dragged myself there actually, because really all I wanted to do was go home and go to sleep for like.....hmmm....forever? But I was really hoping she would help me sort this all out, and it was very helpful. It was quickly apparent this all has to do with issues regarding my father. In part the processing of it and in part the issue of seeing him this weekend. I have to go back to my hometown this weekend for the closing on my mother's house.

My therapist and I talked a lot about my father, the things that he's done, the mind games he played (ie saying what just happened didn't happen), and it's effect on me. Tough session, and I had to come home and let it all sink in for a bit. It was helpful though.

Afterwards, I sent this email to my therapist. Hopefully you guys can make some sense of it without me telling you the whole story. I think the only confusing part would be re: my father's mind games. He would literally look me dead in the face and tell me what  just happened didn't happen, and I would be so confused as a kid. It's like I would think to myself, "What?" and he would be saying,"This just did not happen." And I would think,"Yes it did.", "Huh?" I would be so confused, and add to that confusion the fact that I was dissociative and what just happened on some level didn't feel real and I was one totally confused little kid. It was a great mind f*ck my young little brain could not unwind. Also my therapist and I talked about how would it feel to be able to say I don't want to have contact with him. Ack!!!! Little ones inside abound!!! We also talked about setting limits with him, or hence my inability to do so, as I am like the baby elephant that grew up tied to a stake who now as an adult thinks she is still unable to break away from that stick even though I've grown and could easily do so. No way I could possibly share with you all I gained from the session, but I would like to share my follow-up email to my therapist with you that sort of sums it up.

"T",

I just got home, but I wanted to share some after thoughts if that's ok.

When I first got in the car, I was contemplating the idea of confrontation. Just sitting with that thought, I guess. And when I pulled out of the parking lot this young self sprang a loud thought across my mind,"But what if he really didn't do anything?" That was like, out of nowhere. So then I am "listening" to that, and all I could think of is he really screwed me up.

So then I'm driving along, and it occurs to me that possibly my not wanting to do anything/go anywhere (current feelings) is an expansion of my desire not to go "there" (my hometown) and "there" as in"back there" revisiting the memories in therapy. In essence this little one inside doesn't want to go see him, doesn't want to face the trauma, and hence doesn't want to do anything.

I also am aware (and have been for quite sometime), that I have a tendency to bypass fight/flight and go straight to shut down. Almost like playing possum. Like if I just freeze, numb out, sleep, go away, I will be ok.

I am guessing that is how I dealt with trauma eventually which makes sense to me, especially now having read some of the Pat Ogden book (Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy). I mean if social engagement and fight/flight proved fruitless over and over again, it makes sense I would skip it all and go to shutdown mode.

I guess those sorts of things are behind my tiredness, withdrawal, not wanting to go anywhere or do anything. I'm essentially curling into a ball like a roly poly.

That's sad......

Perhaps that little one inside needs to do that. But perhaps I can comfort her and allow her to stay safe inside while I stay protectively on the outside. I think over the last few days that "little one" has been front and center, and it's really my fault. I have been denying the existence of those little parts for a long time. I just felt so much better and so much more integrated after processing the hospital, I felt "cured". Then I ditched the whole idea that I was remotely DID anymore at all and shut down my willingness to listen. I so wanted to be done, and I wasn't open to my insiders, but it's not over til it's over, I guess.

I hope that what I wrote makes sense. Sometimes I feel like I'm making sense out of what to many people may sound like nonsense.

(((((hugs)))))

"Me"

Copyright© 2011 by Lothlorien– All Rights Reserved

My Father

My therapist and I are soon to begin another journey via EMDR. We have tackled a lot of issues lately, but one issue still left unresolved is that of the relationship between my father and me. It is a very confusing relationship at best. My father is an alcoholic, though he drinks much less now in his old age. When he was sober, he was an excellent father. He told my sister and me that he loved us on a regular basis, and he was appropriately affectionate. He genuinely enjoyed spending time with us, as he is almost like a huge child himself. My sister and I have always said that he is perpetually 11 years old at heart and much like Peter Pan. He would play games with us, watch cartoons with us, take us with him to work, take us to McDonalds. We spent days at the lake with him, buried him in the samd on the beach, and road rides with him at amusement parks. The sober Daddy was a lot like Robin William's character on Mrs. Doubtfire.

On the flip side, my father was also a partier, and when he drank, he drank to excess---always. He was the "life of the party" among his equally wild, drunken friends. He partied until his body literally gave out. By my mother's account, early in their marriage, this happened occassionally, but as the years went on, it happened more and more. He began to leave her some evenings for parties and come back nearly passed out. He would throw up everywhere. My mother took care of him while my sister and I slept. Eventually he began to drink at other times (no party necessary now), and I am also aware that he smoked pot in the house, though I have no idea exactly when he did that. I just know that at about age 11 Iwalked in on him in his office rolling a joint. It was a perplexing scene for me. My father told me sometimes he likes to roll his own cigarettes, and I accepted that. Little rolling paper packets were scattered around our house, and my sister and I (quite innicent at the time) thought they looked like the perfect doll Kleenex, so we collected them, and that's what we used them for. Of course, by the time I was 14, I knew what it was and what my father had been doing.

When my father was under the influence, his sense of boundaries blurred, and over time as we grew up, he would push the limits further and further. He sexually abused us in a confusing way. I would say that my father pushed the boundaries as far as he could push them without ever actually having sex with us. The most confusing part was that eventually he would be soder again, and be back to his "good Daddy" self. Talk about a great mind f*uck!!!

My parents divorced when I was 13. This had the effect of increasing my father's use of drugs and alcohol, which in turn, increased the boundary violations. My father got so drunk on numerous occassions that he blacked out. Once my mother had to go get him in the wee hours of night because he stumbled home that evening, parked in fron of his apartment, collapsed into some bushes, and awoke later to find that one of the branches on the bush had literally sliced a large piece of his ear completely off. He also found his wallet emptied and credit cards scattered for several feet all around him as if he had spun around and just thrown them like a game of "52 Pick Up". He had no recollection of that night at all.

My father eventually remarried but divorced again shortly thereafter. His wife left him for the same reason my mother did. He was a large child, unresponsibile, and his drinking had taken its toll. During that time (I was about 17) my father became suicidal. He would call me, of all people, to talk to. He would be drunk, of course, and tell me how depressed he was, talk about killing himself, and he had a plan. He was going to jump out of his high rise apartment window. I never understood why he would call me to talk to. I felt HUGELY incompetent. During this time my father was also a basket full of nerves. He went to his doctor, and the doctor prescribed him Valium!!! Now as young as 17 I knew that was a mistake. I remember looking at him the day I found out he was on it. He was sitting in front of me stoned off Valium, and I could not believe a doctor prescribed and alcoholic drug addict Valium!!!!

My father has been remarried again, divorced, and remarried again. His alcoholism has cost him many relationships. It also cost him his own company. My father used to own his own business. In fact, he owned two. He was quite successful, but as the alcohol and drugs took more and more control of his life, he lost them both. He declared bankruptcy when I was in my late teens/early 20's. He seemed to have lost everything at that point. No wife, hardly seeing his kids, no business of his own, no money, owe the government tons in back taxes, crappy job, crappy apartment, shitty car. He drowned his depressed self in alcohol, pot, and Valium. I talked to him about his drinking at this time (I was about 21) and suggested he look into AA. He actually went. He came back to report that he had nothing in common with those people. They had lost everything! I remember wondering at what point would he consider himself having "lost everything."

My father does drink less now. He has aged som much over the past few years. He just doesn't have it in him anymore. However the drugs and alcohol have taken their toll on him over the years, and his mind is not what it could be. He is largely dissociated. I'm not sure if he was always this way, or if this is some ong term effect of too much alcohol and too many drugs or what. He can't think straight to save his life. He appears confused and lost a lot of the time. Honestly, it's like he has brain damage from too much drugs.

What is left, is that I really don't know how I feel about my father. It is hard to process the totality of the life I have had with him. There were definitely really good times, and there were obviously really bad times. Life is not black and white. There are shades of gray everywhere you look. However, due to alcohol, my father's behavior was black and white, and I have had a hard time processing that over the years. My mind, even as a child, wanted to make it gray. My mind wanted to make it mesh, to make a cohesive whole that made sense. My mind wanted someway to link these two "Daddies" together so it made sense,  but I never could. As an adult, I am closer, but I still have lots of work to do. That is the next step on my healing journey.

Copyright© 2011 by Lothlorien– All Rights Reserved