Queen of Avoidance

I have been burnt before. By how professionals in the mental health field have treated me. All the terrible medications, hospitalizations and misdiagnosis. I was incredibly proud when I had been finally able to cut ties with professional mental health support. I was painfully aware of how they had turned me more into a patient than a human being, and how they had absolutely no clue about what they were doing. Let’s be honest: psychiatry is in its baby steps and a lot of it is just a load of horseshite. Things aren’t as clear-cut as they might be in somatic medicine but for some reason, psychiatrists still have way too much control over treatment and diagnosis, while patients are infantilized and silenced. Does this sound like anti-psychiatry? Well, I most certainly hope so. Because fuck, I really do not trust psychiatry other than keeping people safe and sedated when they are a danger to themselves or others. Short-term. That is it. Big pharma, narcissistic personalities and the strong need to legitimize diagnosis that are often more blurry than very easily spotted, just makes psychiatry laughable.

For some years now, I have been stuck in the regret of having been so naïve to turn to psychiatry when I was struggling. I am convinced that I would be way better off with both my mental and my physical health if I had never talked to a psychiatrist. But I was desperate and I hoped that some meds would sort my wonky mind. Naïve, I know. But I didn’t want to write about the past today, I wanted to write about the now. But I guess it helps me understand why I am where I am now, if I take a look at what shaped my views of professional help.

See, however much I mistrust psychiatry, I don’t necessarily look at psychology in the same way. While a lot of psychology is a bit wishy-washy and too close to spirituality for my own taste, there has been so much progress. Some behavioural therapy forms can give you so many tools to be able to handle overwhelming symptoms. Where psychiatry infantilizes and tries to silence you, psychology empowers you to take care of yourself. I love that. It is a totally different approach, which gives you tools to make things better for yourself. Well, if you are ready, and if you believe you deserve to be better, and if you have symptoms and illnesses that can be controlled by those tools. There are definitely short-comings.

Well, I am glad that I got that out. It kind of reminded me of where I stand on professional help. I have had therapy before and it never made any difference for me. I don’t blame the therapists. I blame wrong diagnosis and hence wrong therapy. All the DBT and CBT in the world isn’t going to fix my C-PTSD. But because nothing has helped in the past, and I am not a strong believer in my own abilities to fix my own shit, I abandoned the idea of therapy just as much as I had abandoned the idea of ever getting in touch with psychiatry again. Just all professional help seemed wrong to me and for me.

But here I am, back in therapy. And I feel both incredibly stupid and incredibly confused. I can’t even recall why I contacted a therapist (hello dissociation, my old friend). I know that my partner has long said that I need some professional support so our relationship can improve. Our relationship is actually pretty great but the issues that we have (of course there are some), are definitely related to my mental health. So I get it. And it is kind of what has kept me going the last four months: I am doing this for my partner. Because if I were doing this for myself, then I would have jumped ship after a couple of sessions. Not because the therapist sucks (nah, great therapist, pretty awesome person, actually). But because therapy is fucking hard.

And I kind of did it right this time. I picked someone who is specialized in trauma and dissociation. I know it won’t do much for my bipolar disorder, but as all my mental health struggles are sort of intertwined anyway, I feel this is the best option for me. But fuck, I am a difficult person and I annoy myself. I am beyond frustrated that I just can’t get my shit together and try to talk real, try to figure things out. But I am the queen of avoidance. Because it is fucking hard. And fucking scary.

And we haven’t even gotten anywhere. We are still in the “getting to know you” phase. I wish we were in the “alright, you are all better now, let’s finish this up”-phase. I just feel incredibly uncomfortable talking about myself. I can talk about the now, I can always find some fuckery to discuss. But I have a hard time with depth. And every time there is a poke, I just automatically put up walls, boundaries and an army is waiting in the back of my mind, in case I will have to defend myself against any attacks. I frustrate myself.

And after every session, I am just questioning everything. Myself, my illnesses, the reality of my trauma. I feel like I am failing at therapy. I have been called therapy resistant before, and unwilling. But I don’t think that is fair. I don’t think anyone has ever tried to even get closer to understanding why all this is so much harder for me than the average person. My therapist has been patient but I am scared she is going to run out of patience. Although, I am really trying. I show up. I have tried harder to give her space to speak. I have tried to at least not become passive aggressive when she accidently gets too close to a trigger. But I am not doing what I am supposed to do. So I am questioning if I should even do therapy. I get panicky.

This week I am especially struggling with believing myself. Back in Europe I had a good psychiatrist (only one I ever met, really) and her and I discussed at length the severity of my trauma, and she validated me, my symptoms. And she was around when I first became aware of the system inside me. She didn’t question it and her and I discussed the possibility of DID, over and over. In that country, no one really gets diagnosed with DID as the medical community is not very trauma-informed. So instead she wrote C-PTSD with strong dissociative states and personality changes in my file. I never lied to her. She was kind, she was helping me to get trauma therapy. But then I moved and I was back to zero.

So the DID, or the system, or whatever. Ever since moving to North America, I have been very isolated and for years I didn’t have any mental health support. So it kind of became something I didn’t put focus on. I was only with my partner, I never spent (and still don’t) extended periods of time with anyone else. So I sort of just went with the flow. I didn’t like the idea of there even being acknowledgment of anything. I found the whole thing embarrassing, and just sort of ended up in a state of denial. The whole idea of actually communicating with the inside, or about it, or to explore, just became alien to me. I didn’t want to. And I started to question over and over if this is really real. I “switch” with my partner, sure, but what if it is only the way our relationship works, and it is still me? When I get asked who is out, I don’t have an answer 99% of the time. I don’t want to think about it, I don’t want to deal with it, I find it unlikely that I have it. My partner strongly disagrees.

I am in therapy with someone who is specialized in trauma, so like, yes, okay, I do have trauma. Although I feel like I don’t remember any of it. I don’t think about it. I get hit by flashbacks and triggers and yeah, I do have C-PTSD symptoms. But I even find it odd talking about it. I feel like I am lying because when I describe things from traumatic experiences, I have absolutely zero emotional connection to it. Things come out of my mouth, I hear them, and automatically think: why the fuck am I lying? I would remember this? Am I exaggerating? Why am I lyyyyyyyyyying?

I know that this could very well be dissociation. But here it comes: if I am already questioning the validity of my trauma, how much can therapy really do for me? Shouldn’t I look for a therapist that can treat someone with Munchhausen Syndrome?

And then there is the DID thing of course. I do not want to know if it is real or not. I don’t want to deal with either it being real, or me being a fakeass liar. If this was Schrodinger’s cat, I’d walk away from the box. Can’t that be an option? Why can’t I just continue to go with the flow, and not think about it. I get incredibly agitated when I am asked to look inside, to feel what is going on inside, when there is any mention from the therapist’s side of others. I sometimes mention things without thinking that I do, but the moment there is acknowledgment about it, I just get defensive and then suddenly question it all. Just straight to denial. I remember back with that psychiatrist in Europe, and with my partner, I was able to map out and discuss an innerworld. I was able to sit down with different parts and talk. But I seem to only look outward now, not inward. I don’t know what has changed. It might just be that I have been too long alone with it, that I took the easier road of denial.

It could be a thing about trust, of course. Maybe I just need to give it time, to feel safer with the therapist. But I also know that if I am being coddled, I use it to not act, to just avoid, to try to get care and not be pushed. I don’t know if it is about trust, or about it actually not being real and that I am aware of that now and I don’t want to be revealed as a fraud. Or, which is probably a huge part of it, I have a strong need for control. I have always wanted to be seen as a functioning human being. I never really talk about my issues with anyone. And letting go, and going inside, and allowing switches, is so unlike me. So different from who I feel I am, and how I want to be seen, I get scared.

I have been considering to drop out of therapy. In my old convenient fashion – queen of avoidance. Because if it is all a lie, I don’t want to be caught in it. I don’t want to deal with the consequences of having to face someone telling me that. It is one thing to lie and fake switch with myself and my partner, no harm done, really. But with a professional, it is just another level of fuckery. When you don’t know yourself what is what, what is real and what isn’t, and you are supposed to talk about it, it seems like a logical consequence to just want to walk away. Just because of the possibility of taking up time from someone who could really be helping someone who has more of a clue.

So I have been trying to rationalize to drop out of therapy. I am telling myself that it is unhealthy to do therapy for the sake of another person. That therapy will never help me to become the person I was supposed to be, and that it won’t do much to improve my quality of life. And that, the DID and trauma being real for me or not, might not be the biggest issues that cause distress in my life anyway.

I will never be that creative genius, or that academic wizard, or that community leader, that I was on the path toward in the past. I am broken by psychiatry, by physical chronic illness, and yeah, by mental illness. So none of that won’t be fixed with therapy – then why should I even do it? Why do I have to go through the discomfort, the possibility of being exposed as a faking liar, or having to face that my fuckery is way deeper than I want to admit because it is all real?

So I come up with all these ideas of why I should totally quit therapy: I am old, my partner is even older and the day they no longer exist, I wouldn’t survive one day. So what, I have another 20 years to live? Not worth putting the effort in for such a short period of time. It costs money. I take the spot of someone who is more deserving of support because they have more willingness. I wouldn’t frustrate my therapist. And I could breathe out, not feel like a fucking loser who would get an F if therapy was graded.

I want to continue to just go with the flow. Deal with the issues when they arise and just walk away from the box. I acknowledge that this line of thinking might be heavily influenced by emotions, most specifically fear – fear of ridicule, abandonment, loss of control, getting hurt, having to face reality. The goal of harmony and more stability in one’s own mind should make my life better. I know.

But please can I climb back on my throne and reign as the queen of avoidance? Pretty please?