Frog Face

1991 aged 14 and 'frog face' started to follow me. I did not get away until 1997 then aged 20.

Frog face would wait for my school bus and lurk in the roads opposite. Frog face would watch me through the door to the sweet shop I worked in. Frog face would call, send letters and sit on the other side of the road watching our house. Frog face could appear at any point, at any time of day. I could not shake Frog face.

You may think that Frog face was a figment of my imagination, unfortunately that was not the case. For almost 6 years I was stalked.

As previously discussed I have a complex history. Frog face was just part of what has made that thick strong 'C' in the word complex.

Already fairly damaged in my world view, I found myself having to learn to live being disempowered daily. By the 'fear' of the 'ifs, maybes' by the potential of Frog face appearing without my control. I would stand on one side of my front door not knowing, would there be another note on the other-side. I jumped if ever the letter box clanged, or the phone rang.

For reasons I cant go into in this blog, I was unable to tell any one about my situation. All I will say is that Frog face was an adult who held a secret over me. To endure those days at the time, I believed outweighed the shame of anyone finding out. (As I said my perspective was already damaged).

So why write this? if I don't want to write about what happened and why?

Well I love brains, I love how they cope and how they protect themselves. During those years I found my brain doing just that. Protecting me in the best and most honest way it could. You see my brain was my greatest friend. We argued, we fought, we had stand offs! we did all the things together that BFFs do. But it has only been in the last three years that my best friend 'brain' has aloud me/us to share our friendships with others.

Over those long years my identity went from singular to plural. It still remains that way today, I am not an 'I' I am 'we'. At first I split myself in half. The day belonged to Frog face but the night was mine. During the day hyper vigilant, my whole focus was on avoiding and planning ways of out witting Frog face. At night I sewed a hidden pocket into my jeans. In it I tucked a protective knife 'we/I' would go out walking with the families fat springer spaniel. I'd walk in freedom owning my world and revelling in the sense of safety.

Pretty quickly I realised another split was needed if I was going to avoid anyone  knowing what was happening.  At school I created another split in another world as although bullied, it was at least 'seen'.

This splitting carried on until I was nine different people / personalities.  I jumped between these personalities daily depending on the environments encountered.

Soon we were all defined enough to speak for ourselves. We made an internal community. We had all our answers, we did not need anyone. Having lived through this process quite naturally and at the time logically. I have nothing but respect for grey matter.

I met Zippy and so started the great clamp down on the now completely dysfunctional set of people living in my head.  The greater the safety I could trust, the greater the need to want to quiet everything down into something less confusing. As Zippy says 'Carwen nothing directly bad has happened to you now for 13 years'. Today my personalities have been whittled down to bare shadows. Only their voices remain with me. I have learnt to accept them and accept us all living and chatting in my cortex. On good days we are friends, on bad days we are enemies  (especially when I'm tired), there is sometimes just complete overwhelm. But as my strap line says. I am Colourful Carwen, a crowded brain learing to be at peace with itself and its inhabitants!.

Conversations

Silence is a very safe space.

Silence is something that's easy to achieve but silence is a mock friend. It is impossible to build bridges out of silence.  Similarly only listening and commenting on what everyone is doing with their lives is equally one sided and isolating.

So what are these things called group conversations. How on earth do they work. I find them terribly confusing but am determined to persevere.

Recently I realised a great longing to be connected to people, however, I have not got much training in the correct ways of making this happen. The following are some of the formulas I have tried to work it all out.

A simple mess.

Sometimes things build up and get overwhelming; the flat crusts up as if it were a piece of metal rusting in the rain (wet cold and unyielding).

The ability to deal with the rusty crust and to know how much effort it's going to take to sand it back to to metal stops me in my tracks (fear creeps in I gulp it down and look again). I know what it needs. 

You need to fill the dents and prime it up. Give it a first thin coat so it doesn't show a drip and then a second (possibly a final third coat) so it ends finished  in a lustrous deep colour of white.

Ah yes! when the flat creeps into a concentrated mess of layers and sub layers. The easy thing to do would be to sit paralysed  and unable to take your finger out of the dyke for fear of drowning. 

Boldly I learned one day from a friend the following: Go into the mess and pick one thing up. Ask yourself "were does this belong?" Take the item and put it away, if it had no 'home' then make it one. 

Tourettes friends and family weekend

Family & Friends weekend 2013

May 2013 -  The whole family are all helping to put together a holiday weekend for people and families affected by Tourettes.

Back then having only showed or talked about the inner workings of my world with a handful of people. Back then it was to much of a risk, not only was it probable that there would be a melting internally but I was scared and covered in shame. Still at what seemed like the mercy of my physical self and unsure / unaware of why my body reacted the way it did.

As our fellow campers arrived, we watched from our camp. The dodge (our beloved converted camper-van) was placed away from the majority in the corner of the field. This placing of distance was a standard for me and Zippy as partly it meant a place for me to retreat to. A place I could complete my rituals to calm down and not being seen by others but there was a huge surprise to this normality!

The dreaded silent gap

So what I would like to tackle today is what I call the dreaded gap.

As you know, change is not something I adapt to easily and this morning was a classic example.

Over the weekend we had left our car at the office and borrowed the mini bus to help with a children's party on the Saturday.

Monday morning, this morning, Zippy reminded me again that we would drive the kids to school in the mini bus (not the car) . I was greatful for the warning of difference as I had again forgotten the change. His warning meant a softer landing on its encounter.

Remembering

31/1/14

Today I am exhausted and I can't take in any more! A friend once described it as your head being like a bucket with water in it and sometimes theres to much water and the water starts to flow over.

That's where I'm at I think and my bucket has had ten taps on full..... maybe theres not even a bucket or maybe I'm an exploded fire hydrant water uncontrollably everywhere?

So where am I?  In bed trying to calm down and trying to cope with what I've heard, what I'm hearing and what I will hear .

My body is still but  heavy. I'm stuck to my mattress made of concrete.  I'm aware of what feels like bubbling under my skin and tingling. Every now and then  a limb, or over a part of me, will experience a shot of fizzing (inside the bubbles) like Champagne  being poured in a glass.

This is not an unpleasant thing I experience and I used to have it daily. It's a type of paralysis; a deep meditative place thats calm and safe. 

Apart from ringing in my ears,  it's quiet and my mind slows to just filtering suggestions and voices in a way thats singular rather that eight or nine.  Eight or nine conversations  I  can't quite grapple with and one conversation with ringing is the safest quietest place I get.

More movement please!!!

I get stuck in positions that are physically uncomfortable but it takes me ages to realise I am physically frozen and then move.

For example:

Like being sat in a chair with an outside door open making me cold.  I want to move and shut the door (adding to the situation that I'm hungry and thirsty). The thought of getting a cup to my mouth off a table that's so easily in reach - I stare at the cup willing it to fly to me but know you need to bend, move your arm, and pick it up. 

Uncrossing my legs, because my leg is going numb or my ankle is bent and uncomfortable way, I lean over the sink and drain vegetables whilst my feet are still planted by the cooker.  I remind myself, as I realise my back is twisted and mildly hurting, thinking "move your feet, make yourself straight in front of the sink, pivots and loads! pivots and loads! & remember pivots and loads!" 

Finally being able to explain

I can write this now because since going on pills instead of being swallowed into blackness, which is undefinable, I seem to be able to still think instead of being engulfed into my body.

 This is the first time in my life I have ever felt enough logic to be able to describe any of it. As my confidence grows, I learn I will not be swallowed into silence which takes days to get out of. But now I am able from a distance to  put words to it / them / us / me.

The speed at which new subjects or voices come and go are to quick to explain or hold, most are paranoid and threatening 'if u don't do this this that will happen' (driven by panic some will get stuck and reoccur).   'She walked from Leeds to Chester' repeated over and over in a sing song rhyming way or 'Rose will die if u don't say what's in your minds eye'.

 These thoughts will mercilessly haunt me until absorption somewhere else is found or I put music into my ears. 

   Some times, if too many physical places are visited in the day then the present place becomes the whole day and everything else is like yesterday. So although today I have been to Tesco, dropped kids at school, dropped Zippy at work, been at home, and cleaned the computer desk; each of these moments I struggle to recall because I'm on a dog walk.

Wading through suggestions and voices consumed, although now I have remembered each episode so as to write this, they seem so unreal, as if they may not have happened. Remembering putting them in sequence is exhausting as it means going back in thought a million thoughts previously.

 For example the thought of Rose killing herself unless I text Primrose, this I put down to me being hungry this morning. But even now as I've written it I have awakened it again, and now know it will have to be processed and gone through all or got over again.

   How wil I process this I don't want to face it all again I don't have time. I will do it by picking kids up from school, a physical state change that will mean I forget all this. It will become yesterday and I will be shocked if I remember to read this note so much in one day in one hour.  

It's the  crippling realisation that it's been so hard to try and explain, This evil twin/intrusions have kept me from communicating.

  It's a bit like trying to explain an all consuming explosion. But only being given a split second of that explosion to do it in, before it rumbles it's  way into the physical, resulting in body shock. Brain rendered useless and void. 

  A state change, or safe bedroom and routine are the only way to try and keep going, calm down. This maintenance in its self is exhausting and constant.....Apologies I circle...

 I rely on my clothes for comfort they don't change. 

Smiling as I write and reread this I wonder what more words will be put to use, to explain what's always seemed impossible.