Friday 25 February 2011

Dyslexia the route to my defective outlook and self harm

I tried to explain a schema the other day but I am not a shrink so its hard for me to do so I will try and do a short summary here.

When I was about 8 I was put into a 'hand writing class' because my writing was terrible and I was unable to join up letters and I was writing letters upside down as it were...my S I start from the bottom (as an example). I still do.

In this class I was made to write giant letters on A3 paper..'make the S appear like a wave in the sea' the non teacher said.

I could not do this and became frustrated very easily...something was going on here...the way I held my pen (and still do) was not natural.

Instead of 'teaching me' the process was more of humiliation. I was showing the early signs of dyslexia, according to john my Psychologist. This issue with my spelling carried through to my secondary education and my School reports back this up....'Tim's prose is not easy to follow....Tim must practise spelling...his work is untidy etc etc....'...He also did not understand Maths.......

In short the 'defective Schema was planted in my system during that hand writing class at School. That defective Schema grew and grew until I then decided my body and the whole of me was defective...I have often called myself 'thick' stupid'...ugly..grotesque..a freak. In terms of my psychological assessment, which is carried out with a series of questions (about 600 of them) John tells me that the defective schema's highest score is 56...my score was 56.

I have several active Schema's and they are stubborn fuckers...they fight your treatment...they are your critic...the voice that says you are useless....the devastating effect of these feelings and emotions turn you to harm your own body....me I burnt my arms...pushed cigarettes into my flesh and abused my medication. This resulted in my being put into an acute ward 13 years ago. I was given 12 electric shocks etc...

One of my other very active schema's is emotional deprivation...the feeling of never having been loved. And then, almost my most dangerous one is 'detached protector'. This means that I can take my head away from a very serious or dangerous situation and care little for it....it protects me from the world.

That is the best I can do to explain my marriage between hating my body and dyslexia. Dyslexia has only come into my life as a known fact in the past year. It has given me the day light I needed to understand why it is I struggle with anger and so many easy everyday things.

I hope this little explanation helps....its important for me to shout about it. I am not ashamed. I am Tim and I have dyslexia and Body Dysmorphic Disorder....John has made me a different man after all these years of fighting what I did not know and so many Dr's getting it wrong. I never self harm anymore and have not done for 16 months.


Tim Roberts London February 2011




Saturday 19 February 2011

One hard mother fucking confession...do read please

Hard, hard week where it has all gone tits up again. My biggest problem remains not having someone close to talk about these things to. I know I am a bore with it but you can not imagine how damn hard it is.

When I go in to my Psychologist in that kind of mood he will give me what is called a crisis session. We got talking about dream scapes. I often spoke of the kind woman who comforts me in my dreams. They are not lust loaded dreams..she is kind and holds me, comforts me. John says that I have never been loved and cared for in the fullest sense of the word....after all, I did not get like this by some accident of birth. This desolate person was made this way during the childhood process. This is not cheap guess work..it has taken John all his skill to get me to really open up and he has used imaging to access the parts of my head that lock down about that past.

I told John, early on, that ever since I can remember, I have felt odd...like I do not quite belong. I was treated in a disgusting way at School and no one was listening. My School reports are a document of education abuse. Hearing a drunk man shouting the place down is what John calls terror....pure terror because a child can not compute what is going on...why do you think I despise drunks...mouthy men who have had a few.Things being broken and smashed induces terror but a terror that grows with you into your adult years.

John does not use Psycho babble or jargon as he calls it..he is a tough northerner...he explains my schema's to me so that I understand them.

I told him of this really painful thing that happened to me when I was going to School once...I was 11. I used to go and meet my friend, Paul Berry, and we would walk to School together. It was when his Mum opened the door that I burst out crying. I told John that I have never forgotten this and how much terror I felt. I told him this because I was trying to articulate the terror I go through when I meet people....go places...do ordinary things.

I cried because I was scared of my History Teacher...I was scared of showing him my home work. I was scared because I was dyslexic....he gets angry when I say no one had heard of it then..he says no Tim, no one gave a shit about your situation...he says, you were in two inner London schools with a process that had been known for years and years...after all, he says, how did they know Churchill was dyslexic..he concludes that everyone was too busy doing other stuff to notice or care to notice that I had a problem.

For fuck sake it is as clear as day in my school reports....Tim can not understand...Tims spelling lets him down...Tims prose makes no sense.....Oh and I must remember we were all on a time limit...16 and out of School....off to work you go...yes John is right....no one gave a shit and all I have ever known is that School was terror for me...which is why I skipped many days of my last two years....I left with 2 CSE grade 2 and 3s...total educational failure....

John does this thing when I say something massive....he stops me...holds me in the moment. He says that this one thing is one of the most important things I have ever told him and it has taken a year to get there. I told him that this one moment lives with me most weeks....like the awful hand writing lessons at Heber Road my awful Primary School.........

John said...why did you cry to your friends Mum and not at home..?...John has come to a conclusion that I was scared...but scared beyond what an 11 year old boy should be. I told him that in my video diary, before my 1st swim recently, I said to the camera that I was sure that I was going to die in there...but was not sure that what would kill me....I knew I would not drown. I still have this video. John said that this extreme of feeling that I am going to be killed or am going die has been in me since School...since being a kid. I know that and I now have someone who has finally dragged it out of me....Dr Bernini said similar things to me 10 years ago.

John thinks I am scared of people.....but not in any rational way....I fear death by them. I have often said how pathetic and sad I think drinkers are....men drinkers...all in the pub like repressed cunts who will go home and batter some poor soul......I hate groups of men and always have done....that oh so fucking macho little angry Englander who gets shit faced.....I fucking hate with all my energy groups of men...all lads together.

I have never been one of them and I am a better man for it.....right wing cunts who need viagra to get a cock up yet they judge me......me with dyslexia....me with bdd....let me tell you something....I never did this to me....me and john know who that is....and in my life that is all that matters....so if I am fucking angry I have every fucking right to be....me who was sent to a two bit all boys Comp....

T Roberts London Feb 2011

Monday 7 February 2011

The fear of the everyday ordinary

I am going to a gig tomorrow and even though I have been to 100s and even though it is tomorrow night I feel fear; it is not a very rational fear but it is a fear all the same. This is why I have been seeing a Psychologist for just over a year now; I am armed with some tools to deal with this fear but the fact that exists still fucks me off. It should be something to look forward to. OK yes I am going on my own but this is normal. I do everything on my own, so it is not that. I can not even put it into words what this feeling is.

Recently I have been swimming twice and in the words of my therapist this is remarkable; please believe me, it really is. If you had told me a year ago I would be able to go swimming, on my own, in a public baths, I would have called you insane.

I know nothing will happen tomorrow and like I said, I am not quite sure what it is I fear. Once I really understand this, I will have cracked a life time of being afraid....how alien but nice that will be.

T A Roberts (2011 London)