The Strait Jacket

“Frankie and Alice” is a movie about a woman (Halle Berry) with Dissociative Identity Disorder.  It’s in limited theaters, and I saw it today. In the course of the “based on real life” story, Frankie ends up in the psych ward with a compassionate and savvy psychiatrist. Berry does a good job portraying the different alters and her switching is subtle yet discernible. In one scene, an alter switches and then freaks out, needing to be restrained due to her violent outburst. They put her in a strait jacket.

That’s what triggered my memory. Despite giving my psych history to numerous therapists and psychiatrists over the past twelve months, I never mentioned it. I didn’t remember. Suddenly, though, watching Frankie get forced into the strait jacket, zapped me into that same scenario. I had been put in a strait jacket. I also had fuzzy memories of being restrained, tied to a bed in that same hospital. Why? What happened that I was so out of control? Then I remembered. I tried to hang myself there. Was that one of the times? Surely, if I fought the staff. But the other? I don’t know.

I urgently needed to talk with my therapist. Under cover of my jacket (no texting in the movie theater) I sent her a text telling her of these restraints. I didn’t expect an immediate reply, but straight away (ug!) she responded. Initially, I think she thought I was using a metaphor. T texted back: is it a wish/fear maybe? Feeling out of control, and in a way wanting to be safe (in restraint) and also fearing that it may happen.” Not a wish, I told her. A memory from a long time ago. I had forgotten it.

It was like being hit on the head or crashing into a tree, I texted T. Like I can’t catch my breath. She replied, Probably a flashback of sorts. Just remember that this horrible thing you’re experiencing already happened to you. Try your best to embrace yourself with every ounce of love you have to give. And think about how amazing you are to have survived all of that. That person who survived something horrific with, I would presume, no support, needs your love, needs your patience and needs your forgiveness. That person is you. And you deserve it.

“A flashback. Horrible thing. Already happened.” Yes, okay. I still didn’t feel present in the moment, but I started to think about what these words mean. It was a long time ago, maybe fifteen or twenty years. Why is this coming back now? I do need restraint, I think. I’ve been on a path that is careening out of control. I’ve obsessed about pills. I’ve given thought, multiple times, to checking out as a way to avoid the pain and stress I’ve been feeling. My thoughts are out of control.

“Embrace yourself. Survived it. Deserve it.” Embrace myself. That’s a notable phrase. In a strait jacket, you do embrace yourself. And when you stop fighting the jacket, you are calming, soothing, comforting yourself. You are holding yourself. Interestingly, one of my greatest traumas came from being held. And then not held. Touch. My primal need. My nemesis. Where, now, can I find this holding?

Winnicott’s “holding environment” comes to mind. It can be defined as “a psychological space that is . . . uncomfortable . . . enough that a person cannot avoid the problem, but safe enough that the person can experiment with a new way of being.” (More about the holding environment here.) T is creating this with me. We are working through my fears and anxieties about the relationship to provide the necessary safety to create this environment. It feels right, and I need this type of holding. I need the other kind, too, but for now I’ll see how far we get in the psychological space.

What about the jacket? I think I must sit with this for a while, ponder it, see what it teaches me. I hunger for comfort. If it comes in the form of a strait jacket, so be it.

Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.  - Dinah Maria Mulock Craik