Divided into Three.

How long will I love you? As long as stars are above. Longer if I may.

The missing puzzle piece for all of my parts is love. Anna simply wants a mother and I have tried tirelessly to find someone but the sad answer is that professionals can’t be our mother. She wanted our last therapist so bad and hugged her on numerous occasions. She’s not over that ending and she’s still angry at me for playing a role in screwing that relationship up. She cries about this mostly at night when she wants to be tucked in and kissed on her forehead. And then there’s Alice who is incredibly sexually frustrated and craves a fix. She pretty much would sleep with anyone at this point which is both embarrassing and worrying. I am terrified she’s going to try to have a sexual relationship with a male staff member; there are a couple on men she already daydreams about kissing. Hard. And she wants more stuff from them but I refuse to write the graphic detail on here.

The problem lies in my chronic inability to meet their needs. I am useless at being a mother to both of them. I don’t know how to do it. I can’t exactly parent them the way my parents did me. They are already traumatised enough. Me being useless means they have little faith in my ability to help them. This little faith means that at times of heightened or numbed emotion either Alice or Anna ping into action and attempt to meet our needs. This usually ends in complete disaster leaving my physical and mental health at high risk. But somehow for a brief moment they get what they want and the emotion drops or rises to where I can tolerate and be in control again. And so the cycle continues.

Before I was sectioned in July this was my life. I was sleeping around and in abusive relationships taking drugs and downing alcohol as if it was water. In my bedsit you would find me sitting on the floor with my palms pounding the carpet after swallowing paracetamol like smarties. The mascara was running down my face and dripping slowly onto my tight black vest top. I was reckless and out of control. I was the girl who absconded and walked miles and miles to dodge police officers. I was that girl who stood too close to the train tracks hoping and praying that one day she had the courage to leap into the abyss. I was that girl for half of my days. The other half was very much just as distressing. I was binging and purging all day long for a few months until the child had a strop and ordered me to control the only thing I could. The teenager was making life chaotic and disordered. I needed order. So I restricted my food and I still purged everything that entered my mouth. The three weeks before I was admitted to the general ward I stopped eating. I relied on water and pepsi max and I stopped the alcohol because the calories scared Anna. But I kept up the sexual contact and the abuse because I needed some form of chaos. Then it stopped. I was forced to stand still and I was forced to lie back and then they passed the tube. Again. Liquid food filled my painful stomach and the child cried in defeat. And Alice? Alice became more and more angry because the chaos had stopped and the control was snatched away. 

In that moment I felt a mixture of relief and failure. I felt lost. All I could do was lie there completely still and feel the wrath of my parts screaming inside my head. This was my punishment for opening my mouth to mental health services. They hated me for many months and I think Alice still does hate me and I do think that sometimes she does go out of her way to punish me. She misses the chaos and the adrenaline rush she used to feel. It made her feel real and alive and the line between life and death was exciting. Anna was easier to soothe and her cries have lessened gradually. She is still adamant that we need a mother but she’s far more calmer than she was. Her two wishes are for us to have a mother and for me to be smaller. Both of which I can’t do inside a hospital. And Alice wants a sexual relationship and she wants alcohol and chaos and that rush but I can’t do that either. They want me to discharge myself and leave. They want me to return to the life that they both had more control of. When I was simply a body and my own mind was forgotten and lost. My actions were my definition.

I’m fine. I’m completely fine.

It feels like I’m moving in slow motion but everyone around me is moving so fast and I can’t slow them down. I want to go back to when I was nine and I was normal. I was just a little girl with golden ringlets in her hair. I want to go back to before I became this mess who hides in corners and claws at her skin. Before the abuse happened. But I can’t. I’m not normal. Yet I feel so much pressure because I am no longer alone in my bedsit. I’m here on this unit filled with people of whom my actions affect. I feel like they are all waiting for me to do something. Overdose. Flip out and cry some more. To react. But I am happy to try to be this normal person that the community around me needs and I’ll say the right lines and act the right way. But I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know who I am anymore. At least in my flat I was the girl who sat on the floor with those pills, the alcohol, and that rusty knife. That was me until those two psychiatrists and a social worker visited me.

I can manage. I can manage it all. This grief consumes me but instead of feeling the pain I run from it. I run off and it’s not healthy or normal. We are supposed to feel love and hate and pain. Feeling is part of being alive; it’s human. It’s the point. But I want to feel nothing. I don’t want to feel at all. It hurts so bad I can’t breathe. I want my mum back and every night I clutch my blanket that still smells like her and I sleep close to it to absorb her. I miss the way she used to brush her fingers across my forehead when I was poorly. I miss her smile and her laugh. Losing someone and them being alive leaves no room for closure. I cry myself to sleep every single night because I want her. I want her to put her arms around me. I absolutely love you. I absolutely love you, okay? And maybe she won’t see this and maybe she is hurting still from my voice when I chose to speak out about my childhood. I chose to live in a refuge and I chose to sit and tell that detective everything. Maybe she hates me. Maybe she wants me to suffer. That’s fine. I’m fine. I can take that. I’m good at suffering.

I’ve become a mess. A mess of the trauma from my past and a mess of the trauma of my present. But I’m fine and I just wish everyone would stop asking. Stop talking. I managed. It was managed. A year ago I put a knife to my wrist and I swallowed over sixty tablets with a bottle of red wine and I died inside. I lost. I lost the very moment my family chose him and it doesn’t matter what a court of law says or what happens next. Because I lost him and them. Guilty or not guilty I was the person who lost everything. Life carries on, endlessly. Even after loss. It has to. It has to because the people left are still breathing and living even if they don’t want to. Their minds are still producing thoughts and emotions felt deep within their body. My family broke my heart the moment they decided to abandon me. I want to feel nothing. They decided to stand beside the man who abused my body and treated me like a doll from my toy box for 13 years. The moment I told the truth was the moment they vanished and all the memories faded into black and white photographs ripped at the edges. I lost. And so the chain of events started and from the outside you may think I handled it badly. I fell onto the train tracks. But I did the best I could with what I had. I did my best without them.

As far as they are concerned I was and am absolutely fine. Promise.

The Aftermath of Sexual Assault.

For the last few months I have spent ages staring at my reflection and I just can’t seem to understand that this person is me. It’s like staring at a stranger and this upsets me and makes me very confused. It’s like a part of me expects me to look like a child and another part expects something completely different. I have spoken to staff members on the unit here about this but no one has really concluded the reason for this or how to connect and accept this is me. This makes no sense I know, but it’s really starting to get to me to the point that urges to self harm are increasing so that I can see that I am hurting the person in the mirror. I remember mentioning a lot about my dissociation prior to my admission here but I feel like not much empathises has been placed on this and it’s starting to spiral. Until a week or so ago I found myself waking underneath my desk huddled in a ball clutching my teddy that’s shaped like a moon - that significant teddy the police wanted. Then I finally handed it in with huge reluctance.

Since a recent assault during an episode of absconding, I have been looking at my face a lot more. I can tell with one glance. It’s in my eyes which happen to be permanently dark-rimmed, haunted, and very sad. The trauma from the past and the present and the possible future stares back at me. It’s so incredible that it takes my breath away in short painful gasps. I feel like for the last few weeks I have been going through the motions of everyday life in this zombified state. Then suddenly I have outbursts of rage at the smallest of things. Panic drowns me and that fight or flight instinct kicks into overdrive and I need to run. When the calm follows after a dosage of diazepam or a use of a behaviour, the sadness begins to consume me. Tears silently trickle down my cheeks until I feel numb. Numbness comes last and sticks for much longer. That staring into space and apathy just weighs heavily on my chest. That’s the worst.

I just want to sleep. The whole point of not talking about it is to make it go away. But deep down I know it won’t. I wish so badly to erase every forced act upon my body by men who have taught me that abuse equates to love and love is something humans need to survive. I am still struck by the fact that I didn’t know I was sexually abused until I was old enough to find out what it was. By that time it was far too late because the little girl I was had already become accustomed to this kind of love. And even if for some reason I had been aware I really had no one to tell or anywhere to hide.

I feel like I should be over it by now especially the recent assault. I should be used to this and there shouldn’t be an aftermath like there is now. It’s the norm and the way my life is. At the SARC it was all photographs and measuring tapes to document every single infliction of pain and terror left on my body. The scars on my legs from the knife he used. The bruise on my neck where he kissed me a little too hard. Then the violating examination where I had to wear a transparent gown to magnify every area of my body of which I am ashamed and disgusted by. Then the reliving of the attack through gritted teeth because the examination is not only emotionally painful but physically excruciating too.

“If you tell anyone you will die”.

That’s what he told me as he used that knife. The problem is that the reason I told someone about what happened was because I wanted that to come true. He said it so calmly and so clear as if he was talking about a fond memory or the weather for the next day. The scars on my legs were bleeding and all I could think was of the man who taught me to how to cut and how that was on my legs too. And now I scratch a little at the cuts because it reminds me of him.

Every morning I wake up and sometimes for a brief few minutes I forget about the loss and the trauma and the regret. It’s my favourite part of the day, you know? For a little while I am not that scared little girl who was abused over and over. I feel safe. But then. Suddenly. It hits me with that hard cold evidence like a slap from his hand stinging against my cheek. I feel him on my arms and his cold fingers strangling my neck. Then they go to dance along my ribs while I feel the heat of his tongue against my cheek gliding to my left ear. His voice tickles me as he whispers words I still can’t get out of my head. 

My body has never felt like my own. It has always felt like a belonging to someone like a rag doll to be played with. I’ve been picked up, undressed, exposed, and used for their enjoyment until they got bored and then I was thrown back down again. Broken. Which in that moment feels much worse so I try my best to wear the prettiest clothes and make up and be the shiny Barbie doll in the box. My smile never faltering in their presence and my body frozen until one of them wants me again. Please pick me and love me? Abuse me.

The worst part about being sexually assaulted is that I can’t seem to hate any of them. I hate myself for letting it happen and for giving into their threats. For allowing all of them to manipulate me and rip my mind and body apart so that I can’t put all the pieces back exactly where they were. I was too scared to leave because they all reinforced that I deserved it. They made me far too terrified to leave because what if they could find another Barbie who was better and kinder and didn’t deserve it when I clearly did and still do? I’d feel far more guilty if they moved to someone who didn’t deserve it.

There’s this saying, “The axe forgets but the tree remembers”. I feel this reflects the aftermath of rape. Because in reality the victim is destroyed almost to the root. Their ability for growth is paused. I feel I’ve regressed almost to childhood and I need time to grow again. Time to adjust and heal from the trauma of the axe. Yet the axe, although initially exhausted with small visible marks from the tree, is still whole. It can move on and it can destroy more trees almost instantly. Once a tree is cut the damage from more axes is felt so raw because the more times it is cut the closer the blade gets to the root. Once the root is damaged usually the tree dies. 

I feel close to this right now.

It’s not fair. But I know I can’t alter the past or change their actions. No amount of words or behaviours can or will destroy what they did. Maybe for now I need to feel detached and dissociated. Maybe I need to block this out. It’s easier. I feel that if I break down this wall I might reach the roots and find it’s too late and I can no longer grow. I can only take so many hits until I’m too far under the ground for anyone to see me. But then again I could just let the waves swirl around me and sink me into this unbearable depression. Under the ground where my shame and guilt can’t be seen by anyone else. Where it’s dirty and dark and the anxiety is choking me with soil filling my lungs. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. Not even the people who did this to me. No one should have to experience a day like mine.

Suicide: The Reality.

No one ever really talks about the nitty gritty parts of a mental health illness. You see the glamourised photoshopped version all over the media. The touched up and glossed over stories which always have a miraculous ending. Their purpose is to provide hope to those suffering and maybe they do in a way help people to become motivated. But they don’t tell the whole truth and I suppose this article is my truth. Should I be nervous? Should I create an incredible story of strength through pain? No. Because when the pain is so extreme you can’t always be strong. Pain in theory makes you weaker, particularly in a physical sense.

I have spent many days sat on the floor with my back resting against my bed. Head in my hands. Listening to sad music and deciding whether to fight the tears or admit defeat and let them fall down my puffy cheeks. Dripping onto the floor. Slowly. The urge to chase down paracetamol and codeine with a bottle of red wine. The urge to cut into my disgusting skin. The need to punish myself. The need to just let it all go. To not be the strong one. To be weak and pitiful. But then after all this I still have to rise the next morning. I either find myself on the floor dribbling. Or I am hunched over the toilet bowl vomiting. The sting from the cuts is so painful it almost numbs the emotions that can increase rapidly. As the codeine and alcohol dissipate the feelings of guilt, shame, and loss strangle my stomach and force more emotions to escape. The reality is that in the moment all these behaviours worked a treat but that was in the moment. How long is a moment? As long as you continue the behaviours for. It can go on and on.

When I did this in the past it was nearly every night. I would walk my days away in this dissociated state to try and block the crushing feelings of abandonment and then by nighttime I couldn’t wear the mask. I couldn’t fool the person in the mirror because in my bedsit it was just me and my thoughts and feelings. All of which crowded the whole space making me feel smothered by everything. People can judge me for my behaviours and I hold my hands up that I have never coped well. But how could I? I was abused and then I did this stupid thing of reporting. Everyone said I was brave and strong. It ruined my life. I lost my whole family the day he was arrested. Like the click of a light switch. Like a candle catching the wind. Gone. And then I turned to medication which I didn’t need but I craved. And maybe choosing a cocktail of codeine and paracetamol mixed with alcohol wasn’t a great choice. But it made me feel a hell of a lot better than I did fully conscious. 

Some days I was particularly suicidal and it wasn’t glamorous or tragically beautiful. It was make up running down my face whilst frantically calling helplines as tablets lay in front of my feet. It was yelling at friends and storming out of therapy sessions because my psychologist didn’t ‘get’ it. It was swallowing copious amounts of tablets. Drinking bottles and bottles of wine. Slicing my body to shreds and pulling my hair out. It was screaming into pillows. Eventually it faded into numbness. I would walk in front of cars. I would accept requests for sex and then fight against them as they bruised my body. I would constantly change my mind. Then all at once I stopped eating. I gave up. I purged every drink I forced down except for the alcohol. I didn’t eat for 3 weeks. And this romantically beautiful suicide attempt didn’t end the way my mind wanted it to. It ended in a Mental Health Act assessment, handcuffs, forced NGs, tears, and loneliness. Psychiatric wards with abusive patients. It wasn’t how they tell it in those stories. There wasn’t a miracle moment. There wasn’t a day I wanted to live and most days I am tempted to go back to the drugs and the alcohol and the sex. The abuse. I don’t know what stops me but maybe I am waiting on that miracle moment. If it exists.