Ordinary People and Good Will Hunting

I was browsing metafilter last night and there was a post in fanfare about the movie, “Ordinary People“. That’s a movie that Dr. D (in Austin) asked me to watch. That was roughly 20 years ago (give or take a year or two)

(Gidgette just crawled up onto my lap and is sitting on my arms. It’s making typing on the laptop quite difficult.)

At the time, it was pretty impactful. I remember us talking about it for a session or two. But I don’t remember what we really talked about.

Back to last night. I decided to see if it was streaming anywhere. Turns out, yes it was, on Amazon Prime Video. As I started watching, the plot came back to me. What hit me this time was how much the mother (Mary Tylor Moore) was obsessed with keeping up appearances. It was all about how the family looked to her friends. January of last year, I talked about that idea with Dr. JD (to differentiate her from Dr. D in Austin), but I know I didn’t really explain it well. I know this because I’ve been journaling daily since 1/1/20 and it gives me on this day in history. When that came up a few weeks ago, I wrote that I wanted to talk about it again. But I never knew how to broach the idea. I think I’ll send her a text to see if she’s seen it. It’ll be a good springboard for the topic.

Around the same time Dr. D asked me to watch “Ordinary People”, he asked me to watch “Good Will Hunting” as well. “Good Will Hunting” hit a lot closer to home, so to speak. I think the scene everyone probably remembers is Will (Matt Damon) and Sean (Robin Williams) in his office as Will is finishing up therapy with Sean because he’s turned 21. You can watch it on YouTube. Just hearing the words, “It’s not your fault.” over and over was hard back circa 2000.

Being a glutton for punishment, I actually bought the digital download and watched it. It surprised me how hard that same scene hit me in 2021. The tears flowed just as freely as they did 20 years ago. I actually journaled about this after watching it. The app I use, Day One (iOS and Mac only), lets me record an audio entry. One of these days, I’ll go back and listen to it. Actually, I might do that before “seeing” Dr. JD on Tuesday.

Starting Up Again

It’s been many years since I’ve written here. I decided earlier this week to get back into writing on this blog specifically.

So what has been going on the last 3.5 years? A whole lot. I had a second bariatric procedure and I lost more weight. My highest weight was 440 pounds. I’m now 177. I was down to 164 but pandemic…….

I’m still working with infants in early childhood education. I’m still at the same place, though I’m brushing up my resume. I’m still coloring, though on my own. The meetup group doesn’t meet anymore because, well, *gestures wildly around*. I’m still baking and I’m part of an online baking “club”. “Club” because it’s only two of us. We are still trying to get people to join us.

A while ago, I quit therapy with Dr. D. I’m back working with her again. Dr. W (who I still see) encouraged me to start therapy again. I’m glad I did. The thing that made me walk away was her trying to dive into (what I recognize now as) my social anxiety. I wasn’t ready to tackle it and I was doing well in other ways. The break was good for me.

In terms of meds, I’ve been able to taper off the Haldol, Effexor and Celexa. In a few months, I’m hoping to start getting off either the Zoloft or Wellbutrin.

Last summer, one of the baby girls in my class at work had some possible vaginal bleeding. The way it was handled by my boss plus just the idea that maybe someone was hurting that little girl really messed with my head. At that point, I was seeing Dr. D. I ended up taking a week off to get my head screwed back on. The family left the center and I occasionally wonder what happened to her and hope she’s okay.

A couple months ago, we had a new family join the center. There are an infant boy, a toddler boy and a preschool girl. These children were removed from their mother. The toddler spent many hours just crying “mommy” over and over. The way the building is set up is there is a half door between the infant room and the toddler room. So I could hear every single scream. It broke my heart. It didn’t help that the toddler teacher was getting frustrated and would say “J, please stop crying.”. Let me say, that I totally understand her reaction. She had 6 other kids under 3 and it was overwhelming at times. I’ve been in her shoes. I was told A, the baby in my room, was born to a crack addicted mother. I need to do some reading on what the shorter term ramifications are of that. I’m probably most concerned about B, the preschool girl. She seems totally unaffected. I know she’s older than J, but she’s only 4.

I’ve been dealing with my reactions to those two incidents with Dr. D. After the baby girl, I took a week off to get my head back on the right way. Last week and this week, I’ve been on vacation. There were many reasons, one being the new family. Another is physical exhaustion. I’m still dealing with fibro. Two weeks ago we were so short staffed because of Corona. I ended up working 8-6 with a 2 hour break. It just wasn’t sustainable for me. I’m also the acting administrator for 4-6. Another staff member thinks she’s in charge and was being a general pain in the ass. I told my boss that E can be in charge since it seems that’s what she wants. My boss told me that no, you’re in charge and I deliberately chose you. And then there’s all the BS that needs to be done for Step Up to Quality. I was doing a good deal of other teachers’ work.

It’s definitely been a crazy year.

Pink Pajamas

I’ve tried to write this out many times in the past.  In fact this is the seventh time the post was titled “Pink Pajamas”.  Today is Therapy Thursday and the topic took up a solid half hour.  Me just sitting there trying to get the words out.  Working hard to keep my head in the present.  Posting this is hard even though I just talked about it.  Here goes nothing.

I was 7 or 8 years old.  It was Christmas Eve.  We read the Bible and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.  We hung up our stockings.  It’s a Christmas tradition to get new pajamas on Christmas Eve.  Mine were those one piece pajamas with the feet.  Mine were pink.

It was time to go to bed.  But I was warned that bad little girls got nothing in their stockings.  And I sure that I was a bad little girl.

Later that night, my dad came in and undressed me.  I remembered how cold it was.  He whispered in my ear that he knew how to make me a good girl.  Then he had his way with me.  He didn’t dress me though.  I slept all night naked.

In the morning, my mom came in to wake me up.  She asked why I didn’t have my pajamas on.  I told her I got hot.  I put them on and followed her to the living room.  I guess I was a good girl because my stocking was full and there were presents under the tree.

Dr. D pointed out that things came with strings attached.  And they really did.  That’s the topic for Monday.  I thought in light of everything going on, I should probably see her twice a week for a little while.

Out of Left Field

I love ER.  I have since the first day it aired.  Now I found in syndication and it cheers me up; at least for an hour it does.

Tonight was not one of those nights.  The plot and the characters weren’t important.  But seeing them examine a 6 year old to confirm sexual abuse was out of left field.  I guess I should start reading the blurbs that DirecTV has.

It wasn’t the exam part.  I never went through that.  It was the thought of the little girl being violated that got to me.  I got pretty close to that flashback spiral.  It didn’t hit me so hard that I couldn’t control it.  I went out to the kitchen immediately and took my PRN anxiety med.  That helped.  I got out of my room so I didn’t have to deal with the bedroom stuff.  That helped.  I turned to a mystery novel to get my head in another place.  It helped.

I have a feeling that Dr. D would be proud of me.  I did the right things to keep my head in the present.  And that’s been hard for me all along.  I can only take one day at a time.  I made it through 19/20 radiation sessions with that attitude.  I know this is a long trek for me and I will have bad times.  Right now the bad seems to outweigh the good.  But I’ve got friends who support me.  I have a fluffy white kitty on my lap right now and another mutt hanging out under the blankets on my bed.

Baby steps.  Just remember baby steps.

“Our Shower”

Holy shit.

I’ve finally pulled myself together after a good 10 minute panic attack.

Dad loved to fondle me in the shower.  He did call them “our showers”.  Ugh.

Dad was getting ready to take his shower.

He said I’m going to take “Our Shower”.

Not a good afternoon.

Walls

I tend to put up walls between myself and others.  That’s definitely no secret.  It’s how I survived the years of endless abuse.  Don’t let people inside, don’t get hurt.  Period.

It took me a long time to dismantle the wall between my therapist (Dr. D) and me.  We’re talking about 18 months.  It took a lot of hard work on both our parts to find trust.

I had been doing well trusting her.  But…

A lot has happened since I last wrote.  I had bariatric surgery and lost 140 pounds.  I was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a lumpectomy.  I had a couple of hospitalizations for suicidal thoughts (getting quite close to an attempt).  Now I’m undergoing radiation for the cancer.  I’m in the middle of psychotic symptoms, specifically voices.

I guess the wall wasn’t completely down.  I was scared to tell Dr. D and Dr. W (my psychiatrist) that the voices were back and I was having severe depression symptoms.  I’m working now with Dr. W to get my Haldol dosage correct.  I refuse to take the new antipsychotics because of the potential for weight gain.  I don’t need that.

Back to Dr. D.  Last week, I was telling her about the voices and the depression.  We discussed how it could be situational.  I think it started that way, but evolved into something biological.  I know, not the best description, but it’s all I got.  Then she said something that shocked me.  She said it seemed like an overreaction to the situation.  The worst started shortly after I had the lumpectomy.

That shook me.  My reaction wasn’t immediate.  I was already feeling bad so I just sat there.  I didn’t question.  Over the last week, I’ve been stewing over it.  Today when I saw Dr. D, the wall was up and thicker than ever.  Before I gave honest answers.  Today all I gave was “fine”.  I could tell she didn’t believe me.  She sat for a minute and asked if I just wanted to get past the question.  “Pretty much” was my answer.  I didn’t say much today.  A lot of yeses and nos in response to questions.  I don’t think I looked at her the whole time.  I stared at the rug.  I stared at the picture on the wall.  I stared at the fish tank.  My trust was shattered in one statement.  I didn’t ask her about what she said.  I don’t know if the reasons are important.  What’s important is how it made me feel.  And I didn’t tell her.  I didn’t want to tell her.  I was scared to tell her.  I didn’t feel comfortable telling her.  I don’t know if I ever will.  I’m not even sure what I would say.

I didn’t want to go back.  I really didn’t.  But I thought that I would give it a try.  That maybe somehow I would feel different when I saw her.  I didn’t feel any different, though.  I still don’t know if I will go back again.  I have a good excuse to take off the next few weeks.  The radiation makes me really tired.  And going one less place on Thursday would be nice.

I’m not sure what she could do to re-earn my trust.  To start the process I would have to tell her about the effect of her words.  But in order to do that, I’d have to tear down my wall a little bit.  I’d have to go on faith alone.  It almost feels like a catch-22.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  I don’t want to start again with another therapist.  She specializes in trauma, and is one of the few psychologists that take my insurance.

I guess I have a lot of thinking to do.

Survival

Much of my childhood and adolescence was about surviving.  Surviving the best I could given the circumstances.  In some ways, I still feel like I’m in survival mode.

Abandonment

First let me say I was not physically abandoned by my family.  This is true despite it being threatened with being taken to an orphanage and left there.  But developmentally, psychologically…  I was abandoned at an early age.

It was often threatened to be driven to the orphanage when I was young.  On more than one occasion, I was put in the car and was driven around.  All the while, I was being belittled and told that nobody would want me.  I lived in fear of those car rides.

But more than that, I was abandoned when my mother looked the other way.  She knew what my father was doing.  She did nothing to stop it.  She looked the other way.  I had no one to protect me.  My grandmother looked the other way too.  In some ways it didn’t seem as sinister as my mother.  I think she had almost no power when it came to my grandfather.

My parents were simultaneously over-involved and under-involved in school.  On the one hand, bad grades were severely punished and usually involved a message to the teacher asking what happened.  But good grades (what I usually brought home) were ignored.

Abandonment is a tough issue for me.  I’ve learned to rely only on myself.  Not having someone who cared enough to stop blatant abuse scarred me for life.  And trust…  Well that’s a tricky one too.  It all goes down to not having someone who cared and left me to my own devices.

Scars

Child abuse leaves scars.  Both seen and unseen.  Both large and small.  Both chronic and acute.  Yet they are all scars.

I think that everyone carries some scars.  Nobody has a perfect life.  But the scars that abuse survivors carry are more extreme.  They impact daily living for so many survivors.

I try to hide the scars I have.  I was “lucky” that my parents tried to minimize leaving marks.  My mom was a guidance counselor and knew the things that CPS looked for.  I was a cutter for many years, and thankfully, I didn’t scar a lot.  Those are the seen scars.  The unseen ones are still there, though.

There are times when those scars get ripped open again.  Flashbacks, physical memories, panic attacks.  All are our mind’s way of reminding us of what happened.

My scars make me who I am.  I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.  I can’t get rid of my scars.  As physical scars are permanent, so are psychological ones.

Punishment

It feels like I could never go a week without getting punished for something.  Those rare times when I brought a bad grade home (spelling assignments, I’m looking at you), it seemed the punishment was more severe.  And I wonder where my extreme perfectionism comes from…

Bringing home a bad grade was my worst nightmare.  It was usually followed by the wooden spoon, no dinner and no books.  The dinner and the books, although crappy, weren’t probably abusive.  I can’t say the same about the wooden spoon.

The hitting was almost always done with my shirt on.  She couldn’t risk leaving any marks.  Sometimes it was the spoon base.  But more often than not, it was the handle end.  In some ways, I preferred the spoon end.  It didn’t sting as bad.  And, in my (probably) distorted view, she seemed to tired out more quickly.

It came to the point, I no longer cried.  I laid there, dejected.  Resigned to my fate.  There was no fighting back.  If anything, tears made it all worse.

Thankfully (I guess) I did well in school except for spelling.  I still can’t spell to save my life.  I’m thankful for the invention of spell check, even if I do still stump it.  So school related wooden spoon contact was rare.  Not that there weren’t numerous other things I was punished for.