blackspotsite

High

In this moment My eyes are open and I can see so much more It’s coming in I’m letting it in I imagine my little niece laughing the force of joy that creases her face and her warmth filters into my heart I picture my wife’s early morning eyes focused so completely on mine and…

Words have been difficult

I have tried so many times to get myself to start this post. Early August was the last time I managed to write something here. There’s been this sense of futility and utter boredom clinging to me that’s made damn sure I wasn’t even going to open the page. I am bored with myself. I’m…

Multiples

It wanders on, this war Not raging as wars are said to do But throbbing, gnawing, draining my energy in perpetuity. If I could only close my ears Make myself blind to the versions of myself Would it stop? Might there finally be quiet? I must have forgotten the calm Or perhaps I never had…

Therapy break. I’m running out of steam.

I’ve reached the ‘halfway hump’ in the therapy break. It’s been just over a week since I last saw J. My next session is 8 days away. While I know logically that’s not a massive stretch of time, for parts of me it feels like forever. Up to yesterday evening, I’d been ‘managing’ by doing…

Coping with a huge trigger

A little while ago something extremely triggering happened. It wasn’t one of the everyday triggers, the smells and dates and accidental interactions that I am better at managing these days. This was a monster of a trigger. I was helping an older man with something on the canal while I was out walking my dog…

When parents let you down

I haven’t made time for writing recently, and that’s a mistake. Writing helps me order my thoughts and feel less overwhelmed, and connecting with this community gives me a sense of companionship and support. A few weeks ago, I got very withdrawn, and WordPress is one of the things I withdrew from. I was isolating…

The therapeutic relationship is surely the mother of all headf**ks

My therapist thinks we have two relationships; one therapeutic and one personal. I am finding this rather confusing. Unless you’re so dissociative you completely split into different people, surely it isn’t possible to have multiple relationships with the same person? The subject of our relationship has come up again after a disaster of a Skype…

Yet another therapy crisis

For the most part, therapy has been different recently – in a good way. Before I moved onto my boat, I wrote about how scared I was that therapy wouldn’t feel the same. I was scared that the literal distance would put more emotional distance between J and I. It was distressing to think of…

Hoping to give up hope

Hopelessness is fearlessness. Because without hope there is nothing to lose, and the struggle eases. The exhaustion of striving abates. In the absence of hope, there’s a freedom, a letting go. Not wanting is desolate and liberating all at once. Wanting and hoping are intrinsically intertwined with defeat. They’re what drives us, yes, but they’re…

Family, Facebook and failed sobriety

I’ve been rubbish at finding the time and headspace to blog since we moved onto our boat. So much time is taken up with all the daily jobs that keep everything running. Either that, or we are dealing with a crisis or power failure. Or we don’t have any internet signal. This week, I really…

Post therapy break. I’ve missed her and now I don’t want to see her.

Tomorrow I’ve got my first session back after the therapy break, and I have no idea how to feel about it. While J has been away, I’ve had a rough time, and the logical place to begin would be to tell her about that. But there’s a big part of me that doesn’t want to….

Escape fantasy

The fantasy of escape takes up a lot of space in my imagination. This borderline obsession has resided in me for at least three years. I’ve made non-committal efforts to dislodge it, and had short-lived success here and there. Those little pushes aren’t significant though, because in truth, I know it will always be a…