My Monster Has A Name

Trigger Scale: (1/5)

During a session on January 05, 2009 I created this drawing:

Unreality – can also be viewed in the In Session Gallery

This was a response to my therapist asking me to draw the “unreality” that I had been having trouble with at the time. I had explained to her that I sometimes did not feel alive, or real. I would say now that at these moments I feel like a marionette doll or like a Sim controlled by somebody else. This was especially happening while driving. All of a sudden I would get this feeling and then become very afraid that I was going to crash, so I would pull over to calm down, and the feeling would pass. Sometimes it would pass before I could pull over. But it happens others times to, such as when I am taking a shower.

For some reason, and especially when I am having trouble with memory flooding and flashbacks, it is triggered for me to take a shower (I know why, I just have not gotten to the abuse memories associated with it yet). It happens almost everyday now, for the last two weeks. I just feel like I am watching myself and there is a broken tape in my head repeating, “This is not happening, this did not/could not happen.” I eventually recover and ’snap back’ to reality and move on with my day.

It is a feeling of being disconnected from myself, from my mind and body. ‘I feel’ is not really the right term either, more accurate would be that I DON’T feel at these times. I sometimes think that ‘I’ am dead or that I have died.

So that is the background behind the unreality I was trying to represent in the picture above. I felt like there was a spotlight on my brain that is run by my memories. I also mixed into the picture how I try to solve problems, or maybe the problem of the unreality, which is represented by the A, B, C purple path and the grey/brown square symbols. I explained to my therapist that the grey/brown squares were like binary computer information.

On the back of the drawing my therapist wrote the following notes:

1. The path – I noted some was connected and some not, she insisted that it was connected. There would be loops, but she didn’t want it to look that way.
2. She drew her own circle, even though I offered!
3. List of words:

• Hypnotize
• Path
• Brain
• Sun
• Archaic

The first note frustrates me because I tried to explain that the path only looked like it was not connected, but that was only because it went into the “hypnotize” area.

However, I still am not sure what this drawing says, expect that I feel it is related to dissociation. It did help to calm me down to create it at the time.

1. Session Splash – May 12, 2009*****
2. Session Splash – May 5, 2009*****
3. The Anxiety Process
4. I Have Been Abused – Please Believe Me!***
5. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Timeline**

Trigger Scale: (1/5)

In the post “Session Splash – May 26, 2009 Part 1*” I mention two letters that I wanted to write to a former client. I wrote the first of these two in the post “Angry Fuck’in Therapeutic Letter to Former Client Part 1**”. Please read those posts for background if you would like.

Anger Management by ~protogeny on deviantART

Since writing the angry letter in Part 1 I have almost completely forgotten about this client. I have not yet replaced the work I lost, but I am 75% of the way there, which helps me to let go. I also do not feel angry at him anymore, and have let go of all the negative emotions associated with the situation. For these reasons I did not feel it was necessary to write a second letter at all. And no surprise, but he never contacted me to come back to work at the end of last month.

The reason I say I have almost completely forgotten about him is because while I have let go of the negative feelings, I do not want to forget the lessons that I learned from this experience. I feel I learned, or starting working on ways:

• To trust my gut instinct when someone feels “off” to me
• To respect myself enough to set and honor my own boundaries
• To find ways to express my anger in an effort to let it go
• To healthfully express my anger to those I am angry with directly, but with respect
• I can not change, or help change, those who do not want to change themselves

I have used this experience to further my confrontation skills, such as with my roommates. It is still a nerve racking process for me, with many panic attacks along the journey, but I am getting there and not giving up.

1. Angry Fuck’in Therapeutic Letter to Former Client Part 1**
2. Session Splash – May 26, 2009 Part 1*
3. 10 Things I Like About Me – Project Positivity
4. My Monster Is Alive*
5. Session Splash – May 12, 2009*****