Tuesday, September 29, 2009

A complex bundle of panicking insecurities.


I saw my shrink today. She's trying to shaft me. She doesn't trust me. Can I blame her? I sat in front of her for 18 months pulling her heart strings, letting her pour her energy into me, and then I tell her it was all a lie. At first she didn't believe me. Thought I was in denial. Then she thought it was brave of me to tell the truth like that. Now she is just sick of the sight of me. Can't wait to off load me to some other poor shrink. She just drops phrases like 'Compulsive Liar' and 'Pathological Liar', as casually as sticking a stamp on a letter, but I'm not a letter, I'm a living breathing soul.

Was I lying if I believed my story? If I lived it and felt it and lay awake at night agonising over it. I cried alone in my bed over the symptoms of that story. It's been me for the longest part of my life. Maybe it neevr happened, but soemthing in me needed to believe it had, and I believed it. Not just while I was sitting opposite her, but every waking moment of the past 2 decades. I was never cunning, or sly or laughing behind her back. I only lie about my story. I don't lie about the rest of my life. I'm honest. I've been called disgustingly honest.


How do I sit down in front of a new shrink and tell them I'm a pathological liar? But that I'll be honest with them. I believe I will, I believe I can. But when I'm ready. Do I let her talk to them first and fill them with the same doubt and mistrust and bitterness? Put me in a neatly labelled box, that says BEWARE on the outside. 'Don't believe a word she says'... So that they hate me before I even meet them? How do you get therapy about your therapy? I'm sick. I know I'm sick. Telling my story brought back compassion, sympathy, concern, care, love. But this. This awful truth is just shunned and shamed and mistrusted and rejected. How can I heal in that environment? It is living my very worst fears.


It was cathartic, the telling. Finally realising the truth. Terrified at how sick I must be to have even wanted such a story to be true. Like this huge weight lifted off me, and I was free. Naked, and free. But now. Now it is terrible. Now there is coldness and disbelief and even a tone of ridicule, sarcasm.


She sits and looks at my list of shrinks. 18 of them. Asks me when I'm going to stop this chain-smoking of shrinks, and in the same breath wants me to see a psychiatrist, another counsellor. I am so terrified of leaving on a such a bad note. She says I have until Christmas. She wants me to stop being distracted in therapy and talking about everyday things. Ouch. I struggle with everyday. I struggle with everyday things. For 34 years I have defended my virginity, even 5 and a half years into my marriage. When I finally resign myself, and am nothing short of traumatised by the experience, and lie in bed for a week and stare at the wall, that's just an everyday thing and it's distracting my therapy. I can't eat. I go days without a proper meal. I can't talk about that, it's just an everyday thing. My husband won't speak to me, communicates under coersion via email, swings from one wild idea to the next every other day, fights an addiction, has a personality disorder, is so depressed I wonder if he'll cath the train home, or just jump under it. He is incredibly hard to live with, but I can't talk about that, that's just everyday stuff.


So today I made sure I didn't talk about anything but what she wanted to talk about. No being distracted with my life. No help surviving everyday. My sole mission as far as she is concerned is sorting out what I'm going to do and who I'm going to see after her, so that she can discharge her ethical obligation, her duty of care and be rid of me, sooner rather than later. Do I survive in the meantime? Who cares? She doesn't.


I think I'll just let run the show and see if she notices I'm dying in the meantime. I just don't cope with this kind of indifference. All day today I fantasized about someone who knows me ringing her and telling her, I AM in denial, my story was true. I think about how my brother might do it. He could tell her he knows it happened, he was there, it happened to him too. I could pretend I have no idea my brother even rang her. I still would have no intention of going back to my story, but maybe there would be enough possibility to raise a glimmer of compassion, a whisper of doubt. It's not the story I want back, it's the concern, the attention, the warmth, the caring.


This hurts.


Isynia Mind

Monday, September 28, 2009

Just maybe the truth is safe here.


I calculated the other day I've had no less than 18 shrinks. Yeah for real. I've been fully obsessed with a couple of them. Like obsessed, it takes all my restraint not ot stalk them. I think about them constantly, and have imaginary conversations with them all day long. I've sometimes seen more than one at a time. Sometimes they know about each other, sometimes they don't. Sometimes it's a psychiatrist, a psychologist and a marriage counsellor. Sometimes it's a therapist, a social worker and a counsellor. I guess I'm kind of a therapy junkie. I don't know how I'd go without someone giving me their regular undivided attention, rescuing me, intrigued by me, filled with compassion toward me, laughing and crying with me. I make a fascinating client, a favourite even, but one thing I've worked out clear and simple. When I lie, they love me. When I don't, they can't get rid of me fast enough.


I don't lie to everyone, in fact if you don't know me too well, you can trust every word I say, but if you wedge your way in, get hooked, my story will start. It's filled with parts of my history, and the rest? well that I call my her-story.
I also don't lie about everything. If I'm undercharged at the supermarket, I'll give the money back. If I'm upset with you, I'll tell you so. I really do have a high IQ, and a couple of degrees and have travelled the world. But I have this one particular story I've lived and breathed, and almost always believed. Until recently, I took some anti-psychotic medication. My head cleared. I saw the story was just a story.
I did the bravest thing of my entire life, and told someone I'd been sitting opposite for almost two years pouring out the contents of my factured soul, that almost everything they knew or suspected about me isn't. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. Then I told my best friend to whome I have been feeding spoilers to my story since out 16 years friendship began, it's not true. I lied. Then I went and told an old shrink I had seen almost weekly for seven years that all of that, all of that, wasn't true. I told another dear friend who has waded through endless pages of prolific emails for eigtht years, reading my story. Over a game of pool in a bar I told a random new friend of only couple of weeks, who has never heard my story, that I'd been living a lie all this time.
I haven't told my husband yet.
I don't really know how to live without my story.
But I guess I'm doing that, here and now.
It's terrifying.
Isynia Mind







my haunted mind


Before I tell you what a freak I am, first let me tell you how normal I am.
Here is the truth:

I have a husband, two beautiful boys, a dog. I have a mortgage on a three bedroom home with a fabulous garden in the leafy green suburbs. I have a succesful career, a couple of degrees and diplomas and I'm active in a healthy hobby. I have contact and positive relationships with my parents, all my siblings, in-laws, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. I have no shortage of fantastic friends. People love me. I'm smart, I've sat an IQ testing with a certified psychologist and exceeded 145. I have travelled the world, visiting over 25 countries. I holiday in my own country regularly. I'm religious. I'm an active member of my church, I teach an adult Sunday school class and do my bit in the community. I'm 34 years old, 5'6", blonde, slim and reasonably attractive.

This is the truth about me.
This is also where the truth ends.
I have Factitious Disorder.
The rest of me, my history, experience, memories, struggles, illnesses, thoughts and feelings may or may not be true. The rest of this blog is the subjective possible truth life. The rich tapestry of reality, imagination, facts, lies, opinions, fabrications, dreams and nightmares will weave through the this blog.
What is truth, and what is not?
Honestly?
Not even I could tell you.
Welcome to my haunted mind.

Isynia Mind