Tag Archives: personal

This day is not going to break me … I hope …

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For some mysterious reason the week of the Fourth of July has historically been hard for me, and I have no idea why. I know in the past that I drank heavily on this day, but I don’t think that’s why the day is hard. I drank to get through it because it was hard. The difficulty of it is still a mystery to me.

In the wake of a stressful two weeks at work I knew that the dreaded Fourth of July was in my sights, but I had to focus on getting through the work stuff. Then it hit me yesterday that the stupid holiday was upon me. And what makes it particularly hard is that my usual supports are gone. Friends have come and gone. I do have some friends, but I don’t push the closeness. These days I am largely on my own, truly starting over. Plus, this week both Doc and my therapist are on vacation.

I’ve written here about my struggles in AA, and being a consistent presence in The Rooms, as we call them. I knew that I needed to get to some meetings today if I was going to get through this day.

Meeting 1 occurred at noon, and it was a very large meeting. I amazed myself by raising my hand to share, but I was never called on, likely due to the very large group. I actually felt okay at the meeting, even in spite of the fact that it was a bit hot in there without air conditioning.

Meeting 2 occurred at 4:30, and it was a very small group of us, no more than 8 of us. I was grateful for the meeting as this really is one of the worst days for me. I shared in the meeting, and embarrassed myself by crying. There was one woman who recognized me from a meeting I used to attend, and she talked to me afterwards. The meeting was a source of comfort, so much so that I did not want to leave. Just an hour earlier I could barely get out of my car to go inside, and now I could hardly open my car door to leave.

Then there was a third meeting. Yes, this is a record for me in most meetings in a day. This meeting occurred in a place with some weird security. It was not easy to get into this meeting. I’ll leave it at that. I walked in, and I only saw men. I immediately looked at the group listing on my phone to make sure I was not at a men’s only meeting, but no, it was a general meeting. It was not necessarily a remarkable meeting, but I didn’t mind as I’m just glad it was there.

And that was my Fourth of July, meeting after meeting after meeting in order to stay kind of sane. I just heard a newscaster say, “It’s a bummer that the holiday is over.” I beg to differ. I want real life with all it’s monotony and routine to come back posthaste.

I kept eating burgers

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A cheeseburger.

I went to a party today, and had too many hamburgers. They were nothing like the picture above. They were the smallish homemade burgers that remind me of burgers at Stuckey’s. I’ve no idea what burgers are like these days at Stuckey’s, but back in the day (the 1980s), burgers at Stuckey’s were small and oddly tasty to me when I was a child.

As I bit into the first burger at today’s party I was instantly transported to that very abbreviated time in my family when things were okay. I wouldn’t say they were great, but they were okay and certainly tolerable. Perhaps that’s why it’s one of the few childhood memories I recall so well.

The discovery of Stuckey’s occurred on a car trip from the Southwestern United States all the way to the Northeast. We were on a month long car trip to visit my stepfather’s family. Stuckey’s burgers were exciting for me and my sisters because we had never known a life of eating out. A cooler full of Sunkist soda and Big Red was a boon for us as well. We felt rich, and carefree with all these new conveniences and treats in our lives.

Then there were hotel rooms! Who knew such a thing existed? All of us piled into one hotel room with a rollaway bed for me. It was pure fun, even with my sisters stepping over me in the rollaway to get to the bathroom. It was like we finally stepped in the realm of Middle Class America.

Stuckey’s burgers were cheap, and my parents would buy them by the bagful for us. To go from a life of true hunger to having a bagful of burgers on demand was mind blowing at times. It’s amazing that a bagful of burgers and a cooler of soda can make a child feel like they’ve arrived in life. We learned all the Beach Boys songs and listened to them ad naseum, but it was an ideal soundtrack for that summer trip. It’s wasn’t a beach summer by any means, and we came nowhere near California. But the cheery cheesy songs were fitting to the dreamy and jubilant experience.

For the first time in our lives we had some consistency. If we stopped at Stuckey’s we knew we were getting burgers. The cooler always had soda. In the hotel room I always slept on the rollaway bed, and Beach Boys tapes were all we listened to in the car. We had never had any consistency of any kind, and innocuous things such as this made me and my sisters feel an odd sense of safety and stability that we never knew before that trip.

The dark period in our family started up again later after that summer, but during that trip all was mostly well. And just as I never wanted that period to end, I didn’t want the memory to end today. I wanted to hold on to it, so I kept eating burgers.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What the what?!

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Today, as usual, I woke up with that stuck to the bed familiar feeling that I often have in the morning upon waking up. The difference is that I’m better able these days to shake it off in shorter order than I was in the not so distant past. Though I did have the sense that I had a rough night of dissociative sleeping, but I had no clues beyond my foggy feeling.

Fast forward to the kitchen, last stop before I head out the door, and I’m trying to find the damn grilled chicken that I’m taking for lunch. I can’t find it, and I know I bought it, and I know where I put it in the refrigerator. I proceeded to nearly empty the entire refrigerator looking for this chicken. Finally, I see the chicken on the counter, right near my lunch bag, and I have no idea as to how it got there. I start furiously searching my memory for the moment I put it on the counter, and there is nothing there. I shake and shake and shake my brain for the memory of taking out the chicken to no avail. Finally, I just leave for my appointment with Doc, and I’m late for it by 5-7 minutes.

As I sit down, Doc mentions to me that I am consistently 5-7 minutes late for my appointments, and he asks me why. I tell him that the reasons are different each time. This time I tell him about the chicken incident, to which he says to me, “Did you ask inside?” I became slightly annoyed, and I said to him that I did not ask inside as I was running late for an appointment. He then pointed out that asking inside about the chicken might have given me some answers as to who took out the chicken, why they felt compelled to “help out” or whether someone was trying to delay getting to the appointment, etc.

Then I became further annoyed because he asked me why I did not ask inside, why did I just keep going through my memory bank when I know I have DID. I then said that sometimes in moments like that I question the DID, and look for another answer.

He seemed to soften when I said that, and said that he understood that tendency. But, he went on to say that intrinsic memory will only become extrinsic memory when I start questioning why certain things are happening. For example, a good time to look for the extrinsic memory would have been upon waking up with the stuck to the bed feeling. He said that if I make myself open to the extrinsic memory when odd or disturbing things happen eventually the extrinsic memory will come, but only if I make myself available to it.

I want that, and I don’t want that. I want to move on from this limbo of trauma and dissociation, but I am afraid to fully know what got me here.  I will try to be more open to answers. We shall see, but make no mistake, I’m afraid to know what lies beneath.

Photo credit: Wikipedia