Trauma and trust issues.

Written August 4, 2021.

 A recent conversation with someone has put a new spin on the old record of mental illness...mine, hers, what that means and what it looks like.

It has taken me a few days to be able to sit with this and write since our Tuesday meeting, to be able to

unpack and dissect our conversation and why it has created a sense of sadness, anger, vulnerability and

apprehension that makes me wary of coming back and talking with you.  It has opened up a jagged can

of worms.

Narcissist. That word is fucking powerful. It’s used to describe Donald Trump in the same breath that he

is called a fascist. It’s used to describe emotional abusers and dictators, people who take and want love

but cannot give it in return. The concept of narcissism is never associated with empathy, mindfulness, or

kindness.

Is writing about this, thinking about it, wanting to deny it, inherently narcissistic? Does thinking about my

own inner workings and outer life make me self absorbed? Is my willingness to pay thousands of dollars

a year in therapy an indication of a desperate need to have someone validate me? Was then my love and

marrying a selfish grab for attention which I was condemned to reject? Was being a parent a desperate

endeavor to prove my worth? If that is true, then my daughter’s death tears that down.

For years, I cut the bottoms of my feet because the pain when I walked took away the pain in my spirit,

my head, in the murky places that I wanted to exorcise. I have taken dozens of antidepressants and a few

antipsychotics. In times when I was desperate for clear light and breath, I considered electroshock

therapy to take away the darkness, knowing that life might not have the vivid blues and greens and reds,

but neither would it have the greys that sometimes take over. Perhaps life would be less painful and fraught.

I have learned a lot in DBT, from getting older, reading about Buddhism and meditation, though it does

not dissipate the greys that come over me, the periodic thick fog that unfocuses the ability to see beauty

and hope. I’ve worked hard to gain a gentle dominion over the krakens that arise. I continued to see Dr. S,

while in a deeper place I have wondered if by seeing a therapist, I am only paying someone to listen to me,

to talk about myself, that it was elementally narcissistic, staring at myself in the pond looking at my reflection

week after week, month after month, year after year. I tread the line, knowing that it’s not appropriate for me

to ask my therapists about themselves, yet knowing that the “relationship” is inherently selfish.  But over

time, I had gotten to a place of calm in my life, and was seeing my last therapist once every 3-6 months.

There was stability at work, I was slowly ending an unhealthy love relationship, and felt that I was beginning

to have friend relationships in daily life. When the cancer diagnosis, the decision to have a bilateral

mastectomy happened, I was okay. Worried, but okay. The isolationism of covid was mitigated by my

ability to see people at work every day.

But when Hannah died, my world was shaken to its roots. I felt like everything I believed was wrong. Every single interaction between her and everyone she interacted with, her moods and actions and my

response to them was worthy of question to try and find the answer to WHY. I wanted to know how a smart,

sassy, beautiful, intense, artistic young woman could have slipped away like a porcelain cup crashing to

the ground. How have I, who am so much less than she, survived and she is gone? I will never know, and

while that’s not what I want, I accept it and will continue on, even when I am in pain.

But back on topic.  After Hannah died, I called my talk doctor.  She was a great therapist for years, but this

loss was a different thing, and I needed someone who could understand. I came to you to deal with the

trauma of my dead daughter under my hands, pumping her chest, my knees in the fluid that drained from

her body after she expired. The lips glued shut, the memory of that last horrible argument. The recognition

that she must have been afraid of my father’s yelling, of her own anger, and in that last moment when no

one saved her by opening the locked door. She must have been afraid when no one saved her. Was she

still alive when I was knocking on her door, plate in hand? I have accepted that I will never know. It’s been

a year of memory of those last moments, of her childhood, touching the objects that were there with her

in her daily life til the day she died and slowly deciding what to keep, what represented who she was, and

to be able to let go of some of the rest in a world where my family - my sons, my ex husband, my parents

- have not been able to deal with. The only way forward is through. While it’s likely as hard for me as for

them, I am doing it because they say they cannot. This year has had multiple surgeries, T-rex arms, work

grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, living my responsibilities in the world, wishing there was a hand I could

grab onto for. Lacking that, I push the feelings down.  

I recognize that my jokes about eating my feelings are the tip of an iceberg, thanks in part to Brene Brown,

which I am about 70% done with. I see that I am numbing when I eat til I am sick to my stomach, watch

tv, listen to silly books on audio, shop, surf the internet for hours, and am only slowly opening to the possibility

that there are other choices. The way forward is through here as well.

I came to you, Laurie, to help me navigate what I could not even accept or comprehend. For a year we

have talked almost every week. I don’t envy you listening to the horrors of the experiences of people like

Craig, Sybil, Rebecca, Walter, Laura and my family.  You’ve heard the stories, experience our pain, seen

our tears. You’ve looked at the drawings, walked through the darkest moments of our lives with us while

we trust you and the others in our group with the things we can’t talk to anyone who hasn’t been there.I’ve felt uncomfortable periodically, about focusing some of what happened with Hannah on my own

childhood, my parents. How they have acted is theirs, whether it be from love or hate, control or absence.

Is it not also true that Hannah and I both ultimately have had agency over our decisions and actions

even when those choices were catastrophic? 

Narcissist.

When one is wounded, do we not rest and heal? I did not take that action last year, needing to go to work,

to talk with customers and co-workers daily.  Is my need to curl up narcissistic, or am I trying to take care

of myself?

Narcissist.

Your use of the word hit hard, and I don’t know if you saw, but my walls went up, the locks began to close.

I was shaken, uncomfortable, offended, shocked, traumatized by the word, the idea, even as you tried to explain.

Not narcissist. Vulnerable narcissist.

Not the same, yet some of the same pathology as grandiose narcissism. The other side of the same coin: arrogance/shame,

extroversion/introversion, superiority/unworthiness, attention seeking behavior/social anxiety. The core elements

are the same in both - Self absorption. Lack of emotional empathy. Sense of superiority. Attention seeking behavior Bizarre.

EntitlementI do feel entitled, I feel guilt and shame for it. I recognize that so many people don’t have access to medical

and mental health, and I do.I recognize the gift of having a home, a car, insurance, family, even when all i

want to do is hide myself away to be alone, to process, to escape. I feel monstrous, ludicrous going to therapy week after week, knowing that I could be taking that time and money and helping the unhoused, the 

powerless. 

Defining Characteristics of vulnerable narcissism: sense of superiority, hypersensitive, vindictive, resentful, ashamed, neurotic, depressed, anxious, moody, introverted, unworthy and inferior. Personalizing criticism?

I try to learn from constructive criticism Though the anxious part of me says that if that were true, I would be

feeling less like I had been attacked). Vindictive? I don’t believe so. Envious? I do have feelings that there are some others whose lives are easier, in part due to just resilience, which

I am trying to learn. Resentful?Possibly. I resent my weaknesses. I resent the sense that I have had what seems  bad - mojo? Karma? luck?

 I want to take responsibility for - control of - what happens so that I can have a sense of management of

the uncontrollable incidents that put me where I am. If I eschew this characterisation, does my “arrogant

denial” make the diagnosis more likely? Do narcissists have an incapacity to see their true selves in the

mirror?

  DSM-5 traits of narcissism:

• Self-esteem dependent on needing others to admire them, and their emotions can go up and down

• if they don’t achieve this external recognition.

• Goal setting is based on gaining approval from others. They set standards high so they can see themselves

• as exceptional – or set standards low based on a sense of entitlement.

• Struggling to recognise the feelings or needs of others, unless those feelings relate to themselves. 

• Not having a clear sense of how they affect others.

• Superficial relationships, mostly to boost their self-esteem.

• Arrogance and haughtiness, believing themselves to be better than others, and can be condescending.

The problem right now, Laurie, is that this is a lot to process, and in citing your insights from the podcast about

narcissism to me, something in our professional relationship became amiss. Maybe I am a narcissist. Maybe you

are wrong. Maybe you are right. But I need to step away from the hurt and anger that I am experiencing so

that I do not lose my livelihood and my way. Even if the way is not the “best” way right now, it’s the one I

can handle.

The New Year

 

The sunflower rug - it got to me. The family joke that ceased to be funny the minute her body ceased to be alive It was in 2006, on a train for many hours mile after mile of sunflowers as we traveled across France  until she said she could not stand to see any more sunflowers. For years it would come back, as a sweet, happy joke when we would see sunflowers. When we went to Europe again 10 years later, she brought a dress with her because she know that she would be going to the Van Gogh museum with Troy.  I think she wore it on her birthday when we were in the Summer gardens in St  Petersburg. She looked beautiful in it. She was cremated in it.

My mom wanted a rug for her kitchen floor and asked for my help to order one online. I was going through a website to find something that would work for her and I saw the sunflower rug. It was pretty, and I remembered Hannah, but it only hurt a little, and it was okay in a few minutes. Her brother saw the photo and remembered too. I wonder if it will always be this way - a little, common thing can make us sad. It's not as bad. I don't always cry and sometimes believe that there is hope for the future. God, I hope there is happiness in the future for the boys...  She's been gone for over 19 months now. I can see sunflowers without tearing up.

I googled her. I realized, again, that there will never be any more things to see when I google her. Her obituary, her published thesis, a photo from her obituary. That's it. 

Reticence

I have fought writing and expression these last few months. God,  it's been over two months.  Hannah passed over a year ago now, and her birthday has passed.  Another birthday we will not celebrate with her. I no longer know how many days it has been,  and the flow of days and weeks brings little comfort. There are  reminders in everyday life of her everywhere I go: art,  music,  flowers,  books yes,  but blue hair,  safety masks and gloves,  blue Volkswagens,  my back yard.  When I hear a fire engine,  my throat tightens. The sense that they are there to rescue is mitigated now by the knowledge that that sound can also be linked the darkest moment in so many lives, in my family's lives. I live in the house where she passed.  The door to that room is closed,  and I struggle to go through her things,  knowing it takes me farther from her. I feel a sense of failure in the avoidance, want to clutch everything to see if I can smell her in her belongings, but know that they are just things.  The phrase that I taught my children all their lives "they're just things" mocks me now,  because her things are all that is left of her. 

There is a softening of the pain of her death,  like a scar that is healing. There is a quote that I am trying to remember about the sensation of a scar. It distracts me again from writing, but I see that,  see the way in which my mind distracted me from getting close to the feelings again.  I will sit with that understanding,  sit with this feeling of peaceful sadness that I am having this morning. 

Trying too Hard, too Late?

For the rest of our lives, those of us who were part of Hannah's life will try to make up for it somehow:  to be a better parent, a better brother, for those who harmed her to be more "woke" after her death. 

It's the not trying, or ineptly, solypsistically, publicly calling attention to how much one is trying that ... hurts like the devil to be near.

My father wrote an article for an online magazine.  In it, he talks about women swimmers, and how 'his realities were changed' the first time he was beaten by a woman when he was swimming, and goes on to talk about woman swimmers.

Something that I have learned from Hannah is to hold space for other voices. In the case of what my father wrote, it's a problem for me, because he's an old white man talking about himself in reference to women, acting as though he is speaking in deference to women, but elevating himself in "woke" context. 

I don't have all the right answers, I know, but learn to stop. Give opportunity to other voices, encourage them without trying to tell them about your own  experiences. Listen without planning your next sentence, your next commiseration. Listen without judgement and hear what is being said, how it is being said.

I am guilty of it, and Hannah let me know. Probably she didn't call me out every time.  Her brilliance and creativity, her depression and torment, were hers.  To poke at it until I figure out how to dismantle it and make it make sense will never happen. The IF will haunt me until the end of my life, the shockwave of realizing she is gone will never completely go away. To find peace is accepting. Accepting we will never see her dance again. Accepting she will never  sing again. Accepting the silent guitar, the hardening paint, the pink dresses and combat boots that she wore, the leaves and flowers and photos and projects that she will never create. The lessons she could have taught children, her friends, her family, me.

A seed is planted in me to try to be better, to reach the next one, to learn the important things.

It has been 338 days since daughter, sister, friend, teacher left this earth.

 I love you, Hannah.

10 months and 4 days

I will always hold Hannah deep in my heart in a broken, beautiful place.

Ten months is no time at all, but it's an eternity of echoes of seconds since she left. Her face, her voice are etched into those of us who love her, and that loss doesn't end. The jagged edges of it have softened, beaten on the tides of tears. When one of her friends announces nuptials or pregnancy, it is a joy tinged with those tears. When her brother has good news for a change, the news is gratefully, lovingly received, but stops at the infinite ocean of  where she no longer is.  

But the sun did come up today without her, and we are learning daily how to navigate through these calmer waters, knowing that  storms will come again. We know that we will continue to push through and survive through them.

Hannah, you are loved and missed every day.

the guilt that comes along for the ride

I have been so afraid of my son's grief and depression that I have let him get away with acting like a child. Today, after a night of constant  interruption of my sleep sure to noise , when I told him to act like the adult he is, he said "fuck you" and walked away. It's almost liberating to realize that I have been reacting in a way to avoid a repeat of what happened to Hannah and I have operated from fear instead of dealing with adults and have caused a regression in the autonomy in both of them.

Don't know what this means.

grief, rage

Lately, I am finding myself suddenly, surprisingly, intensely full of rage. Since I don't know why it's happening, I turn it inward into a sea of frenetic self  loathing and a desire for violence: yelling, screaming, pounding violence against a body and mind that I try to have compassion for and find myself utterly lacking. I want to eat and punch my way out of what is going on inside me, because I give it almost no voice. My throat can't speak these words.

In times of calm, I meditate. Love and healing to myself, to my family, to the world. I tighten around the rage, because I fear that if it's  expressed it will leave a swath of poisonous waste around it. I take some precious breaths, center myself and do what needs to happen next. But my breath is shaky today, my throat tight, and so I left, afraid of what the next words might be. I have so much compassion for the suffering of my sons but can't find my 'self' to be compassionate towards this morning. The cold winter wind and gray sky are my voice, a whipping invisible, touching everything. The sound of it feels more real than the filth of my home, the depth of my despair and anger. I want to leave it all behind and go to a place of love and light and warmth but right now, I know that this is my normal and right now I need to figure out how to survive it. 

Addendum: I picked up a book 10 minutes later and opened it:

"The warrior in your heart says stand your ground. Feel the survival of a thousand years of ancestors in your muscles and your blood. You have all the support you need in your bones"

Jack Kornfield