May 13, 2005

It's Pilgrim!! Hi everyone!! I just got home from the hospital, and I had a very good experience there. I've learned so much that I'm not even sure where to begin. For right now I just want to let everyone know that I am home and in a much better place. I'm glad I went off to the hospital. In 16 days I learned a lot, and I look forward to sharing things with everyone.
Pilgrim & Company.

Posted by pilgrim at 10:15 PM | Comments (3)

May 14, 2005

I've been free for 23 hours now ;) and I am loving it. I've been so extremely busy trying to catch up with everything that I missed while I was inpatient. Today my friend and I ran a lot of errands and also got massages, which felt great. My body (muscles) was so tense while being in the hospital though and doing all that therapy that I am STILL SO SORE though... I am one giant ACHE from head to toe. I can barely move at this point. But my mind is in a better place.

I feel like some of the fog that I've been living my life in has been lifted. All my life, and especially the past 10 or 15 years, I've had this dark fog covering my mind, making everything look dark and blurry around me, weighing me down. Now that I have done a LOT of work in the trauma unit, with some very tough and expert therapists who taught me a lot (which I'll get into when I have more time), it feels like my mind is working together a good deal better. It feels as though some of that fog has lifted and I can see more clearly, colors are brighter and more bold, the world looks a little sunnier.

Posted by pilgrim at 4:17 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2005

Today was a great day. I feel like I'm getting a life back.
At work today, things went so well. I had a great time being back where I belong and feeling needed and taking care of things, and being around my colleagues. After work I went to therapy. It was so good to see my therapist again. She is really the best. While I was waiting, I noticed that there are windows high up on the wall of the waiting area, and a skylight out there. I never noticed them before, and I've been going there for 5 years now. I never looked up before. It was a strange realization. So today while I waited for my therapist to come get me, I watched out the window, amazed that I had never even looked up, amazed I'd never seen the bright light that came in overhead. My session went really well. I shared with her a bunch of things from the hospital including work that I did there. The neat thing was, I stayed present the whole time. I was there, myself. She even noticed me using some of the others' words, expressions and gestures. Its so strange to think about. I have noticed that I'm doing it. Its weird. Its certainly not a bad thing by any means-- its just different, and something new to get used to. For instance, the word "lovely" was always Carolineine's word before, but now sometimes I use it too. The word "dammit" was Missy's word always.... but I have noticed myself using it at times. Its so different.
What I need to do is keep pushing myself and to hold on to all that I learned while inpatient. I learned so much and got a lot of great skills. I actually have self-confidence now and can handle things on my own, which I never did before. My therapist said I seem more peaceful. And I do-- I'm certainly less panicky now.I feel like I can stand on my own 2 feet.

Posted by pilgrim at 5:54 PM | Comments (4)

May 21, 2005

I've been running myself ragged since I got home from the hospital. Today I'm working on resting, FINALLY! I've just been laying around the house, trying to take things easier, not moving around much. My heart has been hurting-- too much stress I think, and thats not good for me. I have just had so much to do, trying to catch up, and do end of the year things at work and home. However, things are finally starting to slow down now. Today I'm not going to do much at all and that is a wonderful thought. I'm going to work on little things today like scrapbooking and reading. Thats a new one for me-- WANTING to take it slow instead of rush, rush, rush. I actually sorta want to take care of myself a little. How weird is that?

Today I have printed up a bunch of my old writings that I've had saved on my computer... thought that I would share them with my husband, to let him know what's been going on the past few years. I've isolated myself so much and kept everyone out, and I dont want to do that anymore. Isolating myself just makes things worse. So I printed out my stuff, and I thought I'd offer them to him to read, when he's ready, so he knows what's been going on inside my head. I dont want to shut him out anymore. I dont want to shut the world out anymore. It isn't safe to let everyone in, but it is safe to let SOME people in SOME of the time at my choosing, with those I determine to be trustworthy, and I have learned how to do that. I want my husband to know me better and I want to know him better so we can get closer and have a better relationship. He doesn't trust the other insiders and doesn't trust me right now-- I understand that this is a lot for him to deal with. My hope is that he will understand that he already knows everyone really well because we've all been around all this time and Carolineine & I can be trusted to keep things under control. But it may just take time for him (and my therapist, and friends, and others) to see, and that is understandable. The best I can do is do my best.

Posted by pilgrim at 11:16 AM | Comments (1)

May 22, 2005

Wow, what a rough morning.
I think I am helping one of the little inside ones learn to trust me and hopefully strengthening our relationship.
One of the things I've learned I need to do is not only tell the people inside that they can trust me but also ACT in ways that show them they can trust me now. I am trying to show them I am strong and can handle my life now.

We go to a very cool church. Today was a big celebration and goodbye because our pastor is moving. Parting with people is probably the hugest trigger for me and I could tell that the 5 year old was really worked up. There have just been WAY TOO MANY TIMES that people have gone away (on purpose or by accident or whatever reason) and there was no goodbye and that I just got left hanging without even knowing someone was leaving or that a person just disappeared or got taken away or got killed in an accident or killed themselves or lots of different things. And there just wasn’t a goodbye.
So today at church I made SURE that I went up to our pastor (got myself in front of a thousand people as fast as I could) and told him thank you and gave him a hug and looked him in the eyes and told him goodbye. That helped a lot. That also helped the little one calm down faster. I know its important to her to get to say goodbye to people too. Last week at the hospital a friend left and she didn’t get to say goodbye and that brought all kinds of hard stuff for her and we stopped eating. On Friday morning when some of her other friends left I made sure to say goodbye to them which made things go better.

I hope that this will help build some more trust inside. I want to make things better for the inside people who are still living in the past and having a hard time.

Posted by pilgrim at 1:50 PM | Comments (1)

May 25, 2005

Maybe if I take a little bit of time while the laundry is in the washer to just sit and write it might help. I am so tired that my eyes keep trying to close while I’m walking and I’m just too stressed out. So I have just got to sit down for a little bit before I fall down.

I don’t have any support tonight and I need some but there isn’t anybody available.
I need to figure out what to do on my own. I tried eating soup for supper and I made myself eat a few bites but I knew if I ate any more I’d be purging and I didn’t want THAT to happen so I stopped eating. and I have so much going on inside my head and there’s so many changes going on so many things are changing at work and there is so much stuff to get done at work in the next 2 days and I’m constantly so busy from 5:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and I’m not sleeping well. AGH! Plus there are things to do at home. And the laundry and dishes don’t do themselves. There is also an emergency going on with a friend that has me really concerned and I keep thinking about her.
I just wish I could SLEEP. I need to SLEEP. For about 12 hours straight, instead of only a few. My mind is so busy that I wake up all the time, even with THREE meds to help me sleep. Even in my dreams, my mind is working over time. I can hear Mae and Misy and Carolineine and sometimes Jo and Tuck and EVERYONE talking, talking, talking. Its NOT a bad thing but its just very overwhelming and I am not used to it.
Plus this thing of figuring out how to switch places with Mae like we did in my therapist's office today—that is just Weird. Bizarre. It takes a lot of energy out of me (and Mae too, I think) to be able to do that.. and it feels so strange physically inside my head and there’s a shift that goes on in my brain that I can feel, its just so odd.
Mostly I j ust feel really alone and I don’t know what to do. I’m so tired and overwhelmed. I need someone to help me out but there’s no other people who could. I almost wish I could be back at the hospital when school gets out but I have too much to do next week AND I only get 30 days a year from my insurance, and it seems like I should save them because what if things get bad in October like usual? If I use them in the summer then they will already be gone. Oh and then there’s the fact that the hospital ALREADY HAS ALL MY MONEY. I couldn’t afford to give them a dime right now, my money is spoken for and now I also have a huge credit card bill to pay. Dammit.

(Later)
I finally got ahold of my husband at work and talked to him about 10 minutes. He was in a good mood and not busy. That doesn’t happen very often. I told him what’s going on and how I’m feeling. He had some ideas to help like light some candles and don’t worry about anymore housework tonight and stuff. I feel a little bit better at least not as worked up.

Today I thought it was very helpful of Mae to let me come talk to my therapist at the end of the time and I told her so. Its strange but its nice to have Mae trying to help.
That helped me a lot to talk to my T at the end so I knew some of what was going on and I told Mae that. I have so much noise in my head and I want to do the right thing... i just nneed to figure out what the right thing to do is
i'm so tired i dont think i can keep my eyes open anymore.

Posted by pilgrim at 6:11 PM | Comments (0)