MY WAY: The opposite direction

Most of this has been posted in my Norwegian blog, 

and some of it is elsewhere in this blog.

Some days ago I wrote
about  A STRANGE ANNIVERSARY, and
ended with  Shirley Bassey’s renditon of “My
Way”.

My own way has not been dramatic
or glamorous, and I did not stand tall … it was more of a grungy trek
through tangled thickets in order to get to a place where I could stretch my
spine.

And it began a long
time ago, when I walked away from conventional wisdom on how to “heal”. Mindfulness
wasn’t a thing then, but after more than 20 years of letting go and
meditation and all the other tools, in many different frames and guises, I finally had to admit
to myself that this was not working. I was not unloading old crap and walking
towards a craplesser future – the crap kept coming back, just like the cat in this
song:

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/8Kj1Fsf9a2U&source=uds

Link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKmQr0EnZgs

So I began to let go
of something else: all the tiny automatic switches that ruled my
no-feel/no-show response to invasions of my Self.

And the results look
good. I came on 50% sick leave in 2009 with symptoms of fibromyalgia. Now I am
doing a normal day’s work, my body does not hurt any more, my cholesterol is
down, and so is my blood pressure and my weight.

And today I am
translating some notes from my journey, and there’s even a happy ending.

Update
March 2011: Scan and Puke

I received copies of
my file from the local District Psychiatric Centre (DPC) today, and I am in
tears over the not-seeing and sick-making that it contains.

The contents confirm
that answers to «Do you really have to do this?» and «Can’t you just put it
behind you?» have to be «yes» and «no». 

Next week I am going
away for a while to go through this file thoroughly. But first I have to do the
“scan and puke” thing again. The last time I did it, my back was much less
stiff afterwards, and I wonder if it will get better this time, too.

I am thinking a lot
about a poem by Stein Mehren that begins like this:  

          I no longer ask so often
          who I am
          I show it
          so that others can show me
          what I mean to them

This poem was with me constantly in the late 80s too, and in the file from DPC
I can see how clearly I showed who I was. And the Health
Services documented a paranoid and projecting borderline psychotic who demonstrated omnipotent control.

What will the Health
Services show me now?

Update December 2011: MY WAY         

I have
a plan. To continue detangling, and be able to do a full day’s work in a year.
Right now, that looks realistic. I am 62 years old, and I hope to continue
translating and writing until I am well past 70.

I have achieved a lot in this year, and that has had a good effect on my eating
problems and fibromyalgia symptoms. There is progress.

With the same approach that I am
using now, I got rid of seasonal depressions in the 80s. And because of what
happened then, I get post-traumatic stress reactions – again – when I try to
tell my GP why I need to do things my way. 

He wants to talk about blood
pressure and cholesterol, and not about “that mental stuff”.

And his mental stuff supervisor
is the psychiatrist who supervised another GP into borderlining me. And that
other GP is now District Health Supervisor. And they have not reassessed their
knowledge about me.

I know how important it is for me
to go my way … and continue working with that mental stuff. The problem is
that I need to base my work on my actual problems, my actual knowledge
and experience … none of which align with psychiatric realities.

In connection with those
realities, I want to take a closer look at the concept of   grandiosity, which “… refers to an
unrealistic sense of superiority, a sustained view of oneself as better than
others that causes the narcissist to view others with disdain or as inferior.
It also refers to a sense of uniqueness, the belief that few others have
anything in common with oneself and that one can only be understood by a few or
very special people.”

Yes, I did think that I was
unique. I still think that I am unique, like every single human being on this
earth is unique. So what?

I did think that I did not have
much in common with what Ibsen calls “the compact
majority”. And I still think that. And that is natural for a
person who constantly finds herself on the bias of normal, both by nature and
because I grew up a Third
Culture Kid, and my “… sense of belonging is in relationship to others
of similar background”.

And I have been lucky – I have
always known people who understand what I am talking about. Which is why I was
able to notice when my opinions were not understood in the health services. And
it is why I notice when they still are not understood there.

From 1987, when I came out as a
childhood victim of adult sexual use, until the end of 1992, when the Chief
County Medical Physician asserted that I did not have opinions, (link
to Norwegian document here) I tried to communicate with professionals who
listened with deaf ears.

They did not tell me that they
only heard emotions, delusions and symptoms.

I need to look more closely at
how this correct and legal mental health care slowly and almost imperceptively
corroded my identity as an autonomous, thinking person. 

I
can only be free of the victim role when I see what I was a victim of.

I need to be able to trust the Health Services. I need to know that I have a
right to think and have independent viewpoints in interactions with the
Health Services.

And I can only know that I have
that right when it is self-evident that I have viewpoints until the opposite is
proved.

And if I do not have these rights
in the Health Services, I need to know it.

And now I have psychiatric symptoms until
the opposite is proved. And the symptoms are not falsifiable. They cannot be
disproved. A Catch 22 situation. 

Earlier this year, I wrote:

During the years when I kept crashing into unvisible
“realities” in the HS, I thought that I had the same rights there that a
lawbreaker has in the Judicial System:

·        
A right to know what I am suspected of. 

·        
A right to accusations that are so precise that
they can be disproved.

·        
A right to self-defense.

·        
A right to take responsibility for my own
actions. 

But these rights do
not seem to be compatible with legal mental health care.

I cannot change others. That I
realized a long time ago. I cannot change others, but I can notice and
evaluate what they do. And that also goes for the HS.

Time does not heal all wounds, but time 
gives distance, and I needed almost 20 years of distance before I could
look back at what happened. And now I need time to  fix the damage. And I need to take the time
it takes, no matter how long it takes. 

And I need to be able to tell my GP about what I need to repair my
identity and my integrity.

And when I do  that, I put him in
a bind. So I need a situation where my GP does not have to choose between
believing me or his psychiatric area supervisor (PAS)  and his district health supervisor (DHS).

Earlier this year I thought I had found a solution. I wanted to say in
front of  witnesses what I often had said
to the PAS and the DHS privately: “I accept your statements as your
opinions, your interpretations of reality. I cannot agree that these statements
are “realities” about my life and my problems. Therefore I suggest
that we agree to disagree”.

So I asked the Mediation Board for a mediation meeting.

The Mediation Board refused and told me to contact the
ombudsman for patients.

And I have a block about doing that. Because …

Because this, to me, is not a patient problem. It is a freedom of thought and speech problem. A decency problem.

In «The
Decent Society»,  Avishai Margalit writes:

“…a decent society, or a civilized society, is
one whose institutions do not humiliate the people under their authority, and
whose citizens do not humiliate one another.”

Wouldn’t it be nice
if mental help services stopped legally humiliating the people they are supposed to
serve?

Update March 2012: I DON’T GIVE A FRAK!

To
my file at the Medical Centre:

GP appointment tomorrow. Don’t have time to
write more now, so there will be a proper update later.

I have been doing body-oriented process work
since my last appointment.

And that cannot be descibed in a few words, for
it does not exist in the HS.

I feel much better that I did at my last
appointment, and enormously much better than the time before that, when I could
not come to my appointment because of post-traumatic stress reactions.

I have gained three kilos and my blood
pressure is probably way high, and I don’t give a frak!

The process is the most important right now,
and it will take the time it takes. Taking shortcuts would be like fiddling
with an arithemetic problem to get the correct answer.

The goal, being able to work a full day  again – is in sight. So are reduced weight and
blood pressure.

But not today.

                                                     

March 2012: MOVING
IN

MARCH:

I see unwritten Christmas
cards.

And I think: There they are.
I see thick layers of dust.
And I think: There they are
I see woods I can walk in.
And I think:  There they are
I see mountains of clutter.
And I think:  There they are

Everything is THERE.
Where I am not.

I am here.
Sinking into my life.
Accepting what I find there.
Not-achieving is the greatest achievement. 

APRIL: 
A year ago I began

to move into my life.
And my body.
Millimeter by millimeter.
Not with pressure and will power.
With confidence and permission.
Confidence in Resistance.
Permission to be aware of Resistance.
Resistance knows that I notice.
And relaxes. 
A little.

I began to allow my fear of death to surface.
Allow the thoughts and fears that Resistance hides
in my many millimeters of body tissue.
Allow the tiny, frail reactions that fear has hidden.
Millimeter by millimeter,
three millimeters forwards and two back,
my body is becoming a part of me.
No longer a hostage to society’s need
for delusions of niceness.

MAY
And now my body shows that it is ready for change.

It notices dust and mess.

It begins to clean and declutter.

A little.

It is restless.

It wants to move.

A little. 

We have been here before, Body and I, 

and this time we agree.

It is time to move into doing
mode.

Little by little.

Move into my house and my health.

Little by little.

This time I will do it differently.

Follow Body into doing mode.

No plans, no objectives.

Trust my Body.

See which paths my Body takes

into my house and my health.

June 2012: The
Story of Thing

Pollyanna Positive
was the survival self of the child I used to be. Can you see that in this
picture?

It is easy to see the
smile. And I was lucky, I met good helpers who also saw the anxiety, loneliness
and confusion. These people gave me something very important, silent
acceptance, a friendly presence, a safe place where I could put aside my smile
and rest for a while.

I was given silent
acceptance and a friendly presence. 


So I know that they are. 


And because I know
what they are, I now can give silent acceptance and a friendly presence to
Thing.

Thing is a part of
me.  


She cannot speak, she has no mouth.
And I have been ashamed of her. I have denied her as long as I can remember, so
she is almost lifeless. And I recently stopped Action Man, who is another part
of me, from killing and burying her. And I am not crazy, I just have very
interesting dreams, and I use archetypes and metaphors to find and tell the
stories  that I otherwise would have no
words for.

After many years,
Thing has slowly been allowed to emerge. And she wants to write her own story
with her own words.

And now, finally,
that is OK with Pollyanna and Action Man.

And with me.

***

About being Thing.

Ingrid thinks she
knows, she knows not.

Thing has mouth.

Ingrid sees it not.

Mouth is shut with
huge stitches of shame.

To be Thing.

To be silenced.

And shamed.

Ingrid knows not.

Ingrid did it.

Silenced and shamed
me.

Thing has no life.

Thing has no
protection.

Thing has no borders.

Thing has no voice.

Thing has no
emotions.

Thing has not.

Thing is not.

Thing is for.

Thing is for using.

Cog in the machines
of others.

Chip in the games of
others.

Statue in the
landscape of others.

Doll in the life of
others.

Pivot in the dreams
of others.

Thing is not.

Thing is for.

Thing is for using.

Thing was needed so
that others

could make wheels go
round.

Could decorate
landscapes.

Could play games.

Could live dreams.

 

Pollyanna was there.

Pollyanna smiled.

Pollyanna smiled the
ABB smile.

Action Man was almost
dead.

No room for Action
Man in Ingrid.

Ingrid closed the
mouth of Thing.

Thing was not.

Thing was for.

Thing was for others.

Does Pollyanna see
Thing now?

Does Action Man see
Thing without

wanting to kill
Thing?

Does Ingrid see
thing?

seemeseemeseeme see
me see me

see my mouth

see the stitches

take away the
stitches

***

I hold the virtual
body in virtual mother arms. Cut off the virtual stitches that have closed
the virtual mouth. I love the silenced, exhausted, harmed little virtual being
that is a part of me with aching heart.

And I say:

Yes, I did this.

I closed your mouth
with stitches of shame.

And I thought that I
knew that you had no mouth.

I did this.

I own this.

I was ashamed of you.

So I disappeared you
from my life.

You were shamed away.

I did this.

I own this.

***

And for now the story
stops there. The concept of forgiveness is far from the thought frames of
Thing. Is it possible to forgive a life in voiceless isolation?

Forgiveness is also
far from my thought frames. In asking for forgiveness, I can only make Thing a
cog in a story that makes me feel better.

To be in the
situation.

That I can do.

Own what I did.

That gives peace.

“It is like
this.”

The best words in the
world.

The best thing in the
world: to see what is.

With no lies.

No tangles.

No filter.

And be.

UPDATE JANUARY 11, 2014:

Thing is now Littlest. Still not very verbal, but communicating constantly.