Tag Archives: Dissociative disorder

A pink hamster

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3

I’ve been incredibly negligent in keeping up with comments and reading other blogs, and I apologize. I’ve been caught up in a number of things, one of which is preparing for the new job. Many thanks for the support y’all have given me on that very exciting development.

Last week I had a training session in my current job that I had to attend with my colleagues. It was one of those fluffy-team-building things that makes the introvert in me want to run away. I know it makes no sense. I have no issue with interviewing witnesses in employee misconduct cases or going to a hearing to represent our employer. I do well with facts, contracts, and laws. I can argue and question someone on all of those things. But team-building events where all the extroverts will be talking over each other and order will cease to exist just makes my mind shut down.

And that is exactly what happened. The extroverts were all over themselves talking and talking and outdoing each other. I could feel my peeps inside of me going haywire. I was trying to keep it together, but I was sitting at the table upfront (how did that happen?), and it was growing difficult to keep myself from shaking. A few shakes escaped from me.

The peeps liked the large training tables. They wanted to get under the table. I started reminding them that we can’t do that at work. It was exhausting doing all of this internally while trying to look engaged and unaffected.

Finally the trainer called a break, and asked us to come back as soon as possible because we were behind on time. I thought I was going to lose my mind because I had hoped to get outside just for a few minutes. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I must have had a look of utter panic on my face because my boss, who was sitting right next to me, asked me if I would like to go across the street to get her a cup of coffee. God love her, in that moment I wanted to throw my arms around her. I was so stunned that she mistook my silence for a wait for money from her. Finally I snapped out of it and said that I was happy to get it for her, my treat.

I flew out of there like my life depended on it. I felt so relieved to be outside. I could feel my peeps start to finally settle down. My legs then took me to the drugstore next to the coffee shop, and this is what I found …

Someone, I don’t know who, needed something. I didn’t know what they needed, but I had the sense that I wasn’t going to find it in the coffee shop. I walked into the drugstore, and right in the center there was this kiosk of stuffed animals. When I saw it I knew that was what at least one of the peeps needed, though I sense it was more than one. I approached the kiosk, and I immediately started negotiating, “Ok, I get it. Today is hard, very hard. But we cannot get the huge stuffed hamster. We have to be discreet. How about this guy?” That was when I picked up the small pink hamster-looking thing that you see right here. It appeared to be a workable compromise.

I paid for Mr. Pink Hamster, and made sure I got a shopping bag. Usually I forgo shopping bags to cut down on waste, but today I needed one, as I was not going to walk back in with a stuffed pink hamster for all to see, especially since I anticipated returning  late to the training.

Finally, I got the coffee, and when I got back to the training session they were still on a break. My boss then said to me discreetly that she remembered that I had told her that I liked running errands, and that she saw that I was uncomfortable so she thought I might like an errand.

My boss is one reason that it will be hard to leave when I do so in a couple of weeks. She’s smart, fair, and very reasonable. It’s too bad my heart is not in this work because she’s a very good boss. I even showed her the hamster in the shopping bag, and she thought it was a great idea to get it. She’s familiar with my PTSD and my DID. We were friends first, and then she became my boss. That was how she already knew about my situation. But she would be, and is, supportive with any of her staff, not just me.

Supportive people can be found in unexpected places. For me, it was in a job that was not a good fit for me. This detour in my life led me to some very great people. Perhaps that’s why I had to come here.

Never ever again

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6

He had been nagging me that he felt “unequal” in the fact that I had not yet been in his apartment. I pointed out that we had been dating less than two weeks, but I think the statement fell on deaf ears. Finally, on Saturday, I felt ready to venture into his apartment.

On Saturday night I would have preferred to go listen to an Irish band play nearby, but I knew he wasn’t ready for that kind of outing as he does not go out a lot because of his anxiety. Still, I didn’t mind the prospect of having a cozy Saturday night with him.

There was an ominous sign from the start. For one thing, you could not fully open the front door. This was because a huge box that previously held a 60 some-odd inch flat screen TV was in the hallway leading to the doorway. It had been there long enough that it was full of paper trash. You could not walk in the door in a straight forward manner. You had to enter sideways because of the box that was in the way.

Right away, my peeps did not like this. But I was so taken aback that I did not notice the internal chaos inside of me. There was too much going on all at once. The way I had to enter his apartment reminded me of my childhood home that had boxes of magazines from floor to ceiling in every hallway. I always had to walk sideways in hallways at my house as a child.

Walking further into his apartment sent me into fuzzy mode. There was stuff everywhere, in every available crevice. When I finally sat down I had these 4 foot speakers with scary looking gargoyles on top of them staring back at me. The apartment gave me the sense that it was tightening its grip on me.

We watched a movie he had downloaded for me. But through out the movie I twitched and shook rather painfully. Mercifully, the movie was only an hour and a half long.

When I rose from the couch I felt shaky and dizzy. Once I got out of the apartment I had to hold on to the hallway walls in order to make it out of the building. I felt drunk, though that wasn’t possible because I had not drank a thing in that dreaded place.

He followed me out to my car. Surprisingly, once I got inside my car I started to feel like myself again. The drunk feeling left my body. I was no longer twitchy or shaking. I even got my voice back. In the moment my voice returned I turned to him, and said without thinking twice, “I can never go back in there.”

The abruptness of my statement shocked me, and him as well. But as soon as I said it I knew it was true, and my body relaxed even further.

He then said to me, “Why should I be surprised? My ten year old daughter won’t even spend the night.”

Then he commented that 5 am comes around quickly, and he needed to go so that he could get enough sleep for work tomorrow. And before I could respond, he flew out of my car, and ran back into his apartment building.

I think there’s the possibility that he expected to come after him when he ran off. But I don’t play those games. I drove away, and the further I got from his place the calmer my peeps became. No worries, kiddos, we are never ever going back in there again. I promise.

Coming up for air

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5

You look out into the sea of faces, and welcome the group to the video conference. All is well, and going smoothly until a voice starts bellowing, “There is no contract between blah blah blah blah.” At least that’s what it sounds like to you because you are not there once you hear that inevitable berating nasty tone. You’re gone, just like that. Somehow you’re saved because one of your colleagues handles the nasty woman with the question/comment.

But then there are others with the similar berating tone, and you find a way to fake your way though it even though your body is floating, and you hardly feel like you’re on the ground. You’re answering questions, and keeping your body from shaking, but it is the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life. It is painful to stand there, and keep it all buttoned up.

Right before the lunch break a woman approaches you to ask you a question. She’s nice and polite, but you haven’t eaten in three hours, and you feel yourself start to fade while she’s talking to you. You take her hand in yours, and tell her that you desperately need to eat something, and you would love to hear her question after the training ends. Mercifully, she smiles and says that’s fine, and that she’ll see you after the training.

You run to your office cube, and shake and shake and shake ,and then you eat your yogurt and granola. You want to cry like a baby, but you go back on camera in 15 minutes so there is no time for that.

You are back on camera, and the worst of it is over. However, your body does not know that, and it wants to TWEAK out. Keeping a lid on the pressure cooker in your body is an “all-hands-on-deck” affair. Somehow you get through it.

The lovely woman with the question right before lunch finds you after the training, and she turns out to be a joy to speak with. She is the one bright spot in the entire experience. The two of you wind up talking extensively about issues tangentially related to the training.

You are able to get to the end of the day, and you’re exhausted. Unfortunately, your body is in overdrive, and does not realize that the ordeal is finished. Your friend, Jack, takes you out for an early birthday dinner, but you’re twitchy. In fact, you’re especially twitchy when a couple is seated very close to you in the restaurant. You just about jump out of your skin.

Finally you get home, and just melt down completely. It is full on panic/freak-out mode, and you are drop-kicked into the horrid past of your parents yelling at you in that berating voice. You find yourself wishing that your mother had killed you that time she tried to run over you with the car. One of your friends calls you in the midst of this episode, and comes over to check on you. They wisely assess that you need your Xanax, and a break from your brain. You take one, and eventually are able to peacefully sleep, and put this dreadful day to rest for good.