Sunday, July 31, 2011

No One should have to WITNESS Child Abuse????? Bad Advertising

I haven't had time to look it up but I passed an "interesting" sign in the Chicago Airport this morning. The line that I used as this post's title was the line on the poster. It was a poster to increase awarness of childhood sexual assualt/trauma in the Chicago area. While I applaud the effort, I am seriously annoyed the verbiage. Seriously, can't we start with "No should get away with Child abise"? All these fucks that get little to no time, repeat offenders, and just general shitbags that hurt kids...lets go after them before stopping people from "witnessing" child abuse.
I get the premise of the advertisment....but it still pisses me the fuck off!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Group was a croc of shit today!

Today is the fourth day of a long week...so long that its felt like one LONG day. I did do one nice thing for myself: I bought myself a gift from Amazon. I bought the book "Victims No Longer" as a birthday present for myself...kind of anyway. I had asked my Doc earlier in the week if she could recommend any literature or other things to keep me moving forward. It's not that she isn't helping, just that it's going to be a month until my next session with her and I am afraid of getting stuck. The book is for male survivors of childhood sexual assault. Maybe after I get a chunk into I might write more about it on here.

However, the focus of this post is just more on how shitty this week has been. About the only good thing was that the Doc was awesome, a complete smartass, and didn't take any of my shit or self-pity...all things I think I really needed this week. It was strange at first because she was definitely in a mood different from how I have ever seen her. But, like I said, that's probably the only good thing this week! My head has been in hell otherwise.

Most of my mental pain this week has revolved around the childhood shit. Some has been around Iraq...mostly about the damn PX. I haven't been to group in a few weeks and was SO looking forward to today's session. I was especially looking forward to it after the weather this morning. Sitting at my desk the thunder was so loud and so back-to-back that it reminded me of so many bad times in Iraq. Unfortunately, when group started there was no Doc, no social worker, and no recreation therapist (at least not the one I recognized). Nope...just some older lady. She gave us a print out of relaxation mantras, started a 30 minute audio track, and then walked out. After the track was done, everyone complained about the whirring noise (which we later found out came from the damn printer) and then left. So I drove 45 minutes round trip for a 30 minute nap. I wanted to talk today, and to listen. To spend some time with others like me and to lean on them. But that didn't happen. I am certain that some of the guys in the group would have hung out had I asked...but I struggle with being a burden and didn't feel like being one this afternoon.

So I might try to go next week, because after that I have some travelling for work to do and other things that will keep me away from the VA for awhile.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Checking in

It's been a little bit since I last wrote on here. The delay was me being really busy and me writing in my journal. I had a session today, first time in 2 weeks. It seemed like it was a really good one and I had some breakthroughs(?) with some stuck points. What we went over were four stuck points that the doc assigned to me when I texted her all out of whack and thinking I was a piece of shit of just doing something bad to Shane. Those were hard stuckpoints to work: "I AM Horrible," "I AM an ASSHOLE," "I Piss EVERYONE off ALL the time, and "I AM a burden on everyon" It's not fair to say that this whole crappy feeling and these stuck points came just from Shane apparently deciding he wanted nothing to do with me or my family.
On that regard, I think that a couple of possibilities exist:
- I DID say something to just piss the guy off,
- He's just an asshole and is ignoring people
- He read something on here that really pissed him off in regards to my earlier comments (since removed) about a certain person causing him shit.
- He was really mad about my comment about the Doc, even if it was innocuous.

Anyway, I guess I am kind of fair-to-midland today. Some parts of today's session where rough but it just mainly the Doc helping me but blatently kind of putting some things in my face. Got a rather shitty headache, AGAIN, after the session, and then got sick from the Arby's.
The real bummer about the therapy though is that I don't have another session for a MONTH!!! Guess the Doc's going to be out of town, and I have my own trips as well. I am actually not that worried about it becuase I know if I absolutely have to get ahold of her that I can. I do wish that when the schedule picked back up that I could maybe get two appointments that week. Or maybe set time asside to talk about the peripheral issues I have with all of the shit in my brain. I know the focus of the sessions has to be on the trauma and working through the different parts of that. However, I have really been wondering if that, as part of the "GETTING BETTER" if I am going to be able to maybe approach sex from a more normal standpoint that I do these days. :-(

Bad memories and scared of sleep

For the last few months I have been working on some of my shitty childhood trauma using Prolonged Exposure. I have to say that is pretty much is the worse thing I have ever volunteered to do. It's kind of funny too, a few weeks ago I left the session with the realization that I have been leaving there with the same damn headache every time! This week's session was no different. What was funny was that the doc mentioned that she has had patients complain of nasea and/or headaches BEFORE their sessions. Only thing I feel before a session is scared and/or pissed off.
Anyway, I have wanted to write for a few days but just couldn't find the time. We had a big party this weekend for our friends at the new house. It started with a balloon exploding and two Lorazapams and ended with too much vodka and a bad hangover in the morning. Pretty stupid for a guy who rarely drinks anymore. In any event the last few months have been sprinkled with on again/off again bad nights, horrible memories, and a general fear of going to sleep, among other things. Yesterday's session had me climbing the walls completely unwilling to go to sleep until I was actually falling asleep on the couch....which is what's going on now so I am going to try to hurry this thought along without screwing it up.
In yesterday's session, the Doc wanted me to record my talking about the middle instance of hell. And, she told me that she thinks we have to address the later one that is soooooooo bad and fucked up!!!!!!!!!!!! Good news there is that it won't happen for a few weeks..gotta love the holidays.
But I digress :-)  ...last night, actually since leaving her office, I have been in a funk. I remembered some more stuff and none of it pleasant. Additionally, I was having some short but painful flashbacks yesterday as well, and all of which was just a mess. Most of it dealt with the childhood sexual abuse while there were at least two distinct instances when I would find myself dreaming/flashing back to Iraq