Rising from Earthquakes

This time last year I was being registered in-patient on a psych ward. I was in a dark and terribly anxious place with many unknowns plaguing my waking and sleeping hours. I was sleeping between 17 and 20 hours per day and in the times I was awake, I felt disconnected and unaware of my own capacities. I couldn't follow a plot in a TV show or book, I struggled to make conversations. I began having nightmares of my prior abusive relationship and of my childhood. I was unable to discern voices that were in my head and voices in the room. I spent hours simply dissociated from life for a month in the hospital. I didn't socialize with other patients and I kept largely to myself. Mostly I was glad that I didnt have to worry about anything except getting myself to therapy sessions, for mealtimes, and to rest.

In the first set of therapy (Partial Psychiatric Hospitalization Program) after I was released, I learned about the basics of cognitive therapies and general ideas related to emotional regulation but it was hard to find direct application of those ideas to my own struggles. I could see that I was disregulated but it was so hard to think about how to reconnect to my life. I didn't spend any time in that 4 week period thinking about the traumas that existed inside me or the somatic symptoms that made me feel awful. Mostly, I was glad to have a scheduled timeframe 4 days per week and a place to go where people would talk to me and share information with me in a non-threatening and non-pressure environment.

Even with a lot of information that didn't seem new or easily connected to changes I could make in my life, the 8 week period after that therapy was over was so, so difficult. I fell back into long sleep periods and restless dissociation. I found myself back to the place I was in just after leaving the in-patient program. So when my name came up for the next set of group therapy I was really excited to begin. The Psychiatric Out-patient Program, at 12 weeks, 5x per week, was a longer, more in-depth therapy that dealt specifically with emotional regulation and applying CBT strategies, in addition to exploring the basis of one's trauma. For 4 months I cried through the groups which pushed me to explore my anger, my sadness, my triumphs, my darkness.  It was revolutionary. Mostly, I was glad I couldn't hide anything once I fully embraced my therapy.

But transitioning away from that intense level of therapy to being on my own was super challenging. I wasnt able to maintain that level of introspection or find ways to shift my life into forward motion. I was once again, stalled in my progress. My walls went right back up and my stocism and my emotions went back into lockdown as I tried to reintegrate back into my daily chaos. I am filled with regret and judgement for not being able to carry that momentum forward. My somatic symptoms, while less severe than previously, had been, still stymie progress and I must resist succumbing to sleep as a method of coping. Mostly I am afraid of the upcoming therapy at the Sexual Assault Centre and what closets will be unearthed and thrown open.