DBT and the Teeny Tiny Version of Me

You know how kids think having to eat vegetables is some sort of punishment? After they’ve turned down yet another food you know they would like if they would just try it, you’re like, “just eat this fucking broccoli because it’s good for you! Why won’t you listen to me?!”

That is how I have felt about this whole DBT group idea. Clearly, I’m being punished. But I’m an adult so I can see how irrational that is. Whereas my kids wouldn’t eat broccoli if their lives depended on it, I can swallow my emotional-broccoli reservations and go sit in a small conference room and listen.

It’ll take me a while to admit to learning anything, though. It’s sort of like asking Lorelei what she learned in school.

*shrug* Stuff.

The only thing I hate more than being told what to learn is admitting to learning it.

Ok. Fine. It did occur to me that the teeny tiny Rhiannon that lives in my head is basically the embodiment of emotion mind.

How have I never written much here about the teeny tiny version of me? Here is something I wrote about her to my therapist earlier this year.

 I talk a lot about the little tiny version of me who lives in my head. She gets to do whatever it is that sounds comforting or useful or honest, in the moment.

I think of her as little, because she lives inside my head. But, I suppose where consciousness is concerned, she could be little or she could be infinite. Either way, she’s both part of me, and someone I can observe. And in a way, I can learn from her a little. When it’s difficult to untangle how I’m feeling, I can witness the underlying emotions by checking in with her. She spends a lot of time curled into a tiny ball, hiding under and behind things.

When she’s scared and overwhelmed – which is most of the time – she shrinks until she almost disappears, hands over her head like an elementary school tornado drill. She’s both fearful and angry — a slightly lost child.

On Thursdays, I sit on my therapist’s couch with my feet pulled up inside my skirt, or on top of my jacket. But the tiny version of myself is curled into that ball, head down and hidden under a pillow. She’s all the vulnerable parts.

We become one in panic. Or not-quite-panic. Whatever you want to call it. The moments when I feel like I’ve fallen deeper into my brain than is safe – when I feel like I’m watching everything through my eyes as a spectator, not as the player.

She has to spend most of her time in the dark recesses of my brain, because she’s a little destructive, too. Sometimes she wants me to just stop walking and sit down in the hall at work and cry. Sometimes she wants to throw things, and scream, and yell. She doesn’t give a shit about societal norms, self-care, or even self-preservation. I’m both scared of her and a little envious.

Sometimes she’s a siren, calling me towards the rocks, begging me to just give in.

Because maybe it would be easier to just stop fighting? Let it all burn to the ground?

She’s so scared. So angry. And so very sad.

I have compassion for her that I’ve never had for myself.

With everything going on in my life, my defenses are lower. She is picking the locks and demanding to be heard, and her ideas are the worst.

“Don’t you think self harm would be a good hobby?!”

No. No I don’t.

“Can we at least ruminate about some of these intrusive thoughts? Let’s dedicate some serious time to imagining ways we could hurt ourself – you know, put the obsessive in obsessive compulsive – wouldn’t that be great?”

She needs to chill the fuck out.

So I went to DBT group and I reluctantly learned things and I suppose I will continue to learn things once a week for the next 6-12 months. Like my way around the Duke hospital parking deck.

I went to my primary care provider because I’ve been lightheaded, generally foggy, short of breath, hearing my heartbeat in my ears, and plain exhausted recently. Most days involve at least one period where I simply cannot keep my eyes open. After discussing all the moving pieces in both my life and medical history, she said, “Wow. That’s a lot,” and proceeded to send me to the lab. My vitamin d, b12, and iron were all low. So I researched and purchased all the supplements.

Now that I am a single-income household, I qualify for financial aid for things, so I joined the YMCA and have been going swimming. Occasionally.

A visit to my new psychiatrist yielded some changes in medicines. Lowering Zoloft and adding Prozac. Adding Propranolol as the first line of defense against anxiety, but keeping Ativan as back up. I even went out and bought a new pill organizer that has AM and PM, because I’m old now.

Sometimes self care isn’t as fun as the internet promised.

I’m trying to keep sight of how difficult this year has been, without using it as an excuse to fall apart. I suppose that could be thought of as self-compassion, which probably explains why it’s so difficult for me. It’s much easier to beat myself up about not mowing my own yard. So I try to keep in mind that it’s ok to hate some parts of being single, even if I know it was the right choice. I did not, upon signing a lease, become someone who enjoys putting away clean dishes or laundry. The driveway is long and trash cans are heavy. It makes sense to feel conflicted on how I spend my solo time.

Most of the time things are ok. I feed the teeny tiny version of me candy and buy her shiny things — objectively terrible long-term solutions, but at least it shuts her up enough for me to figure out how to work with her.

It gives me space to remember to pick up my guitar for the first time in years. Long baths to read books. To buy and hang decorations that I love and that feel meaningful in this new stage of my life. To have friends over; friends who I love and who feel meaningful in every stage of my life.

There are lots of things to look forward to, to dread, and to figure out. It’s going to be messy and there is still so much work to do to pull everything back together. Or… at least as together as I’m ever likely to be.