Goodbye Panda

I'm not sure from where or when, but there is a story that has been stuck in my head for years about using a panda as a way to distract foolish onlookers. "Hey, kids, look at the panda!" is a phrase that has repeated itself in my inner monologue countless times. This typically comes up in situations where quick, slight-of-hand shenanigans would provide a momentary lapse in concentration thereby allowing some simultaneous shady act to go unnoticed. Perhaps it was the punchline of a joke. Whatever this was made a lasting enough impression on me that it has now become synonymous with my mind's coping mechanism of using the trauma with my mother as a distraction to keep me from acknowledging, dealing with, and healing from the darker truths that laid dormant far beneath.

I spent over two decades of my life living my mother's story instead of my own. I was overly obsessed with helping her, assuring the care she needed, understanding her illness, finding a diagnosis that made sense, and later assuming care and becoming financially responsible for her. I also venture to say that much of my hyperdrive overachievement in life has to do with my desire to get to a place where I could care for her. In some ways I became a mother at age 12 and had to procure and ensure safety and prosperity for both of us. (See earlier post on Growing up with Schizophrenic Mother for more details.)

At times I recognized the relative unhealth of this behavior and indeed I had many hypotheses for it. That I needed to fix her. That I needed to relieve my guilt of not preventing her suicide attempts. That I needed to pay penance for not being able to keep her well. That maybe someday I could even regain her love. It saddens me to write this now because, at 38, I see how very much of my time and energy was lavished on these needless and fruitless activities.

When I first began meeting with Em we used drawing therapy to extract and articulate the pain I was experiencing before I recognized it as The Breakthrough Crisis. At the time I only knew that my life was in disarray and my mother seemed to be the cause of that pain - or so I had assumed for many years. All of my drawing therapy centered around mother. Em asked prompting questions to which I drew out the answers. It went something like this...

• How do you feel right now? My artful representation was of me with lightning bolts for hair, drowning in plane tickets and work documents, surrounded by piles of money that I could neither reach nor spend, with all of the things I longed for (community, social life, free time, family) far off in the distance.
• What is your biggest problem? This one shows me on  my knees begging for my mother to love me while she sits silent and ignoring me while smoking cigarettes. In the background are all of the things I've done and bought for her and, ironically, a pile of money that I later recognized was a mirror image from my first drawing.
• What will it look like when your biggest problem is solved? I went numb. I sat and stared. My throat grew hot and then closed up; I began to cough. I had to run to the bathroom for a glass of water. We were at Zi's house (Em's friend) who was visiting in Bali for the month and the pipes had frozen so there was no water. I was able to calm myself with deep breathing before returning to our therapy room.

The body has a funny way of telling us things if only we will listen. I wasn't ready to hear what my body had to say, but I was being prepared. I was able to complete the drawing after thinking about it for awhile. At first I saw no solution. I divided the paper in half and drew a picture of mom and I holding hands and smiling, then immediately put a big black X through it. I then drew what I understood to be the real (and only possible) solution which is a picture of myself in meditative position feeling happy, healthy, and well all by myself. This icon became a theme in my mind's eye and in my journals for months.

It wasn't until the appearance of The Black Oil that I began to understand my mother was only the surface issue.  After many months of therapy, EMDR, and recovered memories (see The Theatre and On Shame) I now understand what and why I was hiding. What an amazing and resilient little brain I must've had in order to cover my trauma truth for so long. This charade parade made me incredibly functional but also inordinately fragmented. To not have access to my full self, to divert my focus onto a decoy for so many years, to treat my mind-body like a machine - always demanding and never recognizing limitations - all of this came at a cost. 

Now that I am acknowledging and confronting the layers of my trauma onion, I am paying myself back bit by bit for what was lost. I can never regain it all; some things are gone forever. And for that I am deeply grievous. But I am now able to take care of myself in a way I could or would not before. I am kind to myself. I have oodles of self-compassion and grace when I fall short. I look for signs of fatigue and depletion, and I restore and rebuild when needed. I surround myself with things and people who give me energy and add to my life. I no longer force myself to do things I "should" when they are things that make me feel bad. This includes discontinuing the charade with my mother (fully elaborated in Healthy Boundaries.)

Em and I did a second drawing therapy session many months later and I was mesmerized by the stark contrast. First, I noticed that in my second set I was clothed where I had been exposed in all of the first drawings. Mother was no longer in any of my drawings; upon this revelation I was not upset, I merely accepted. Perhaps most interesting was the change in my viewpoint. The first drawings were myopic, situation specific. The later drawings were teaming with ideas, people, places and included a variety of settings. The multilayered complexity and beauty of my life without charades was being revealed. And unlike my first set where I was off to the side, my later drawings showcase me at the center: calm and radiant.

And so it is with great pleasure that I bid adieu to the decoy, to the distraction, but ultimately to my pretending and fragmented self once and for all. "Say goodbye, panda!"

Anniversary

It has been almost exactly one year since the onset of my Breakthrough Crisis. Celebrating or at least recognizing milestones is an important rite of passage in any culture. I often find that looking back on where I was helps me to appreciate where I am. It's why I journal so much. How else am I supposed to gauge progress?

Unstuck includes a number of journaling exercises at the end of each chapter. The book views depression as a call to change. An initial exercise is to outline the specifics of your call and how you can respond to it. These are my answers from one year ago.

1. What's going on right now?

I am extremely dissatisfied with the level of busy-ness in my life due to my demanding, hectic, and travel filled job. I've figured out that I am a person who needs a great deal of stillness, downtime, and routine in order to thrive. On top of this I am trying to deal with the fallout of realizations and changes in my relationship with my mother. Feelings of guilt, resentment, anger, and mostly depression are near consuming me.

Underneath both of these issues is a deep sense of loneliness because I have few friends and little time to build a personal life due to my job. I've spent all of my life's energy, time, and money in fixing my mother instead of investing in myself and my future.

2. Where do I want to be headed and what changes are necessary?

I want friends I can call to have dinner, watch movies, and see the city with. I want to sleep in my own bed most nights. I don't want to feel tired, rushed, behind schedule, and out of control all of the time. I want to enjoy my free time instead of feeling like I'm merely recovering in between times of intense work. 

I want to feel energized and hopeful about life again. I want to regain my sense of wonder in nature, God, people, and animals. I want free time and space to do good for others which makes me feel expansive. I want to express the full range of human emotion, to inspire and be inspired. I want to express Who I Really Am and feel I am making a difference in the world by doing so.

3. What are my first steps for getting where I am going?

- Make an appointment with my doctor to discuss depression and rule out any possible physical causes such as thyroid, hormones, or adrenal abnormalities.
- Find a therapist and stick with it, at least until my major symptoms subside. 
- Talk to friends. Stay connected.
- Pursue closeness with key family members; they are more important than friends.
- Make some modifications in my diet to support health and well-being: more beans, oatmeal, eggs, salmon and water; less coffee, cookies, chips, and crackers.
- Pursue a job change. 
- Set up my mother's care in a way that minimizes my involvement. 
- Integrate things into my life that I know support Who I Really Am: yoga, volunteering, running, hiking, nature, time with my dog, family, reading, traveling for pleasure.

Looking back at this is quite helpful, and I can almost not believe the progress I have made. I was able to make all of the changes I wanted in less than 12 months.

I found not one but two wonderful therapists; the work I've done with Dee and Em has been life altering. I went on two international trips for pleasure. I have a new job that I enjoy which requires little travel. I moved back to a city where I had an immediate circle of supportive friends. I set my mother up in a new living arrangement that no longer requires monthly oversight from me. I bought a lake house surrounded by nature and a peacefulness that allows plenty of time for stillness and introspection. This has enticed my family to come visit which has allowed us to grow closer than we've been in a long time.

When I started this post I thought I was going to lament the passage of time. A year sounds so long. And yet, seeing my own progress laid out in this way I now feel differently than when I began. I am incredibly fortunate to be able to integrate such massive change in a relatively short amount of time! But I believe it was necessary. I could not focus on my healing in the midst of near-constant travel to perform in an overly demanding job, nor when I was consumed with the care and well-being of my mother. I had to identify the barriers and then remove them one by one in order to create a safe place for me to process, reconnect, and integrate.

Most of all, I am amazed that my inner wisdom knew exactly what I needed and precisely how to guide me here. The universe responded to my call. I am forever grateful.

The Lady Amalthea

On the origin of my pseudonym...

When I was a kid I fell in love with the movie The Last Unicorn. There was something hauntingly appealing about it, and not simply because little girls love ponies. It was the complexity of this character Lady Amalthea.

In the movie she is a unicorn who, through a series of misfortunate events, is forced to take the form of a human girl. A woman-child of sorts. Being thrust out of her body, she spends a great deal of time in a hazy state of disillusionment. Unicorns are immortal and pure; becoming a human cost her these things and thus her innocence was stolen. She feels this new, flawed body dying all around her. As a result of this experience she develops what no supernatural creature was ever made to feel: regret. It is easy to see now why I identified so closely with this character.

Em, my mind-body skills expert, and I use a variety of healing modalities in my quest for wholeness. Dance, draw therapy, mindfulness meditation - basically anything that can help bring about holistic healing. We meditate on many things such as Safe Place (which I will blog about later) and finding Inner Wisdom.

Unstuck has a number of guided imagery exercises. Fortunate for me, I have an active imagination and so I find these visualization exercises particularly easy and pleasurable. I am most often times surprised and amazed what comes out of them. The resulting ideas are things that I am certainly not consciously thinking of or about, but make an immense amount of logical sense ex post facto and leave me feeling more integrated, more Me.

One night Em and I did guided imagery on finding my Inner Guide. As with any guided imagery there is a great deal of relaxation prework and mental picture painting (sounds, smells, etc.) but I will summarize for brevity's sake. (You can find the full exercise in Unstuck chapter 2.) When I walked into my Safe Place and waited for my Inner Guide to appear, it was Lady Amalthea in a white sparkly dress who came. I have visited her on a number of occasions when I am having a difficult time understanding or getting in touch with my feelings. (See previous post Word Art for more details on how and why I am so often out of touch with my feelings.) Sometimes she is on a white horse, sometime she is the white horse; they are one in the same.  I have found this exercise both useful and calming.

One of the tendencies of ASCAs is that we have a difficult time trusting ourselves, much less anyone else. People, loved ones, and even our own bodies betrayed us and so we are left with nowhere to turn. No reliability, no predictability, no safety net. Having this Inner Guide to rely on has been incredibly comforting to me. The answers are coming from Real Me hidden somewhere down beneath the Black Oil. But this way it is coming through and from someone I trust, someone I connect with and idealize. It brings me peace to know that I have a trustworthy source of information even in the darkest of times.

I've also used Amalthea as a sort of healing barometer. I find myself seeking her less often during periods when I feel integrated, but there's an even better incident which affirms this theory. So let's end this post on a great positive note, shall we?

Em and I decided to create a guided imagery for Integration. I went to my Safe Place to interact with all the younger versions of me who have over the years, one by one, split off through dissociation. I am sitting in a circle with all of these Little Me's, one for each of the major abuse memories that I have been able to isolate; we are playing games and laughing. Usually when I am in my Safe Place I have on a long, flowy pink sundress and flowers in my hair, barefoot. On this particular occasion I look down at my clothes, and I am wearing the white sparkly dress. When fully engaged with all of Me, when fully integrated, I am my own inner wisdom.

THAT is healing.

Unstuck in Tibet

After my Breakthrough Crisis, an unhelpful therapist - no slight on her, we simply did not connect - and miserable attempts at medication, I opted for the holistic route. This is true to my nature anyway, as I am not one for repeat foreign substances in the body. Occasional beer and wine, sure. Maybe even a cigarette or two when the mood (or the lucky) strikes.

Don't get me wrong, I do believe there are some people who have legitimate need for regular chemical rebalancing assistance. Case in point: my mother, the schizo-affective. The miracle drug of Zyprexa brought her out of a near 12 year catatonic fog which she affectionately refers to as her "period of unawareness." This was nothing short of a miracle, so rest assured that I do not doubt the usefulness and necessity of psychopharmacology in warranted cases. However, I had an inkling that my acute onset of emotional despair was of the let's-dig-in-and-deal-with-it variety, not with a numb-to-a-bearable-muted-existence solution.

I have been a turkepescatarian (I eat fish and turkey but no chicken, red meat, or pork) for nearly 10 years. I run marathons and teach yoga. I'm a hippie in corporate America's clothing; my brother calls my style of dress "business bohemian." I wanted a natural way out of this mess. Having worked my way out of a failed marriage and emotionally messy divorce (what divorce isn't emotionally messy?) through self-help books and soul-discovery exercises, I began searching for resources to help me unpack my emotional baggage. Understand that at the time I did not realize the size of my suitcase. I thought this was garden variety depression, perhaps with a little near mid-life crisis sprinkled on top. Everyone's healing journey is unique; the beginning of mine was overly optimistic and woefully misinformed.

I found an incredible book titled Unstuck by James Gordon, MD. He speaks about depression as a call for change. I had been feeling this call for many years and proceeded to outline them all in my journal. The call to process traumatic memories from my mother's multiple suicide attempts and resulting abandonment. The call out of my unhealthy, emotionally abusive marriage. The call away from my constant need for overachievement; I am off the charts in McClelland's nAch scale. The call to slow down from my overly taxing 70hr a week corporate lifestyle. I was finally ready to answer.

While Dr. Gordon's book had a lot of excellent information, and I do highly recommend it, it did not provide the total package of assistance that I required. But it was an excellent start. Most importantly, it led me to a mind-body skills expert in my area (the book mentions a website of providers who are trained in the Unstuck therapeutic methodology) who then ended up referring me to a talk therapist with whom I connected immediately. I continued to see them both separately once a week for the next 8 months. The combination of these two ladies, to whom I will refer as Em and Dee in subsequent posts, very well may have saved my life.

Em, my mind-body skills expert, gave me the most wonderful gift I could ever have imagined. Well, she gave me many but this one really takes the cake. I had recently purchased a new set of mala beads to help with my meditation practice. I chose the set pictured below because there are two colors of stone intermingled within each bead; I saw this as a representative balance of Em and Dee working together toward my healing.

The most special thing about these beads - Em's gift to me - is that they have been blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In person. He held them in his precious little hands and said a prayer just for Me. The pricelessness of this gift in the eyes of millions is not lost on me.


I am forever grateful for the miracles the universe will bring if you can simply open your eyes to see and hands to receive them. Never underestimate the power of connection. A quote from Unstuck: "Connection is loneliness's daimon. Accept who comes. Enjoy them. Do not burden with expectations. In experiencing one connection, you will realize that others are possible."

When the student is ready the teacher will come. When you are suffering, remain open to all possibilities that healing can and will come from a variety of sources. Though Unstuck did not heal me, it led me to many things, resources, ideas, and people who have helped me greatly along my journey. This is hopefully a theme you will pick up from my writings. There is an infinite supply of resources, relationships, help, and support if only you will look.

You are not alone. You are worthy. Healing is possible; all it takes is your openness to it.