dissociation

Significance

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

Have you ever wondered why certain dates are so significant?

I mean, most people know why a date is special. Why they feel a certain way on a certain day. Maybe it’s someone’s birthday. Maybe it’s the anniversary of someone’s death. Maybe it was the date that something particularly impactful happened to you so many years ago, enough that you still feel it years later.

But what do you do when you have no idea why a certain date is so significant?

I have no memories of April 25th. I don’t understand why it is important to me in any way, or why it would matter. It’s nobody’s birthday. It’s nobody’s death anniversary. I don’t remember anything happening to me on that date.

Yet three times over the years of my life, on April 25th, I have tried to kill myself (and failed, obviously).

Is that coincidence? Possibly. But what are the chances?

I’ve tried so hard to remember some type of significance for that date. What the hell happened to me? Something had to have happened. But will I ever remember anything? Do I even want to remember?

It’s funny how trauma and DID affects the brain. Clearly, a part remembers something. And here I am, not remembering shit. And it’s frustrating. And terrifying. And I hate it.

Why can’t I feel anything?

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

I had therapy this morning.

It started out okay. But I knew my therapist wanted to talk about my parts, a topic we haven’t been able to delve into much because my life has been a clusterfuck lately. Talking about parts is not the most comfortable thing for me, because parts come out and I hear things that I am sometimes not quite ready to deal with, or things I don’t want to deal with.

There has been an issue with some of my parts and therapy. Parts don’t want other parts talking. One part doesn’t want anyone (including me) talking about a particular event that several of us happen to share experience and memory of. It’s so complicated. And the problem is that this particular event was so traumatic even for me, that it is very prevalent in my life and I need to talk about it. But every time it comes up, it causes chaos on the inside.

I tried to explain to my therapist a little bit of what was going on without going into specifics, because I didn’t want to trigger myself into a switch. That didn’t work for too long, because I realized I was thinking about the event in question and it brought up feelings and feelings get you in trouble and off I went.

When you come out of dissociation, you ground yourself. You try to engage your senses. My therapist always tells me to put my feet on the floor. I’m able to bounce back pretty quickly at this point, without going through the entire process. She told me to feel the water bottle I had near me, and asked me what the temperature of the water was. I held the bottle in the palm of my hand, but I couldn’t really feel it. I tried to close off everything else going on around me and focus on just the bottle and my hand. I still couldn’t feel it. I think my therapist sensed my frustration. She asked me what was wrong. I told her, “I don’t know, I can’t feel the water.”

She got up from her chair, took the bottle from my hand, felt it, held it out in her hand, then held out her other hand towards me.

“Touch the bottle and my hand and tell me which is warmer.”

I grabbed the bottom of the bottle with my left hand, and reached out and held my right hand against her palm. I tried, and I still could not feel anything. I was frustrated. My therapist played it off like it was okay. She told me she thought her hand was warmer, and went and sat back down in her chair. I sat back and started to cry.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

I was hesitant to answer at first. I just wanted to tell her I was okay. My go-to answer. But she knew by my expression and my tears that I was not okay.

“Why can’t I feel anything?”

She asked me if I really wanted to know her thoughts. I already knew. I developed parts that shut off feelings because that is what they needed to do in order to survive. They believed that feelings were wrong. They believed that feelings resulted in pain and hurt (because they did). How horrible it must be to still be stuck in a world where you believe you cannot feel. The sadness I experience with not being able to feel the water, or my therapist’s hand…that doesn’t come anywhere close to what my parts (and I) have experienced in childhood.

While I was crying over not being able to feel a bottle of water, I was actually crying over a whole lot more.

Panic with a side of panic, please.

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I had a horrible week last week. Really, these last few weeks have been fucking atrocious. But last week was a monster all its own.

I ended up spending St. Patrick’s Day night in the local emergency room with a bunch of people who got a little too carried away drinking. There’s nothing like being surrounded by deluded drunks, angry nurses, and the permeating smell of vomit.That’s exactly the opposite of how I wanted to spend my night.

I wanted to be at home sleeping. I was at home, lying in bed, preparing to go to sleep for the night when shitstorm 2.0 began.

I go to bed early. Hell, sometimes I’m in bed while it’s still light out. I have a horrible sleep cycle even when my sleeping is relatively stable; I sleep an hour or two, then wake, then sleep an hour or two, then wake. I have to wake up at 4:30 AM because I work early. When most people are eating dinner, I’m in bed reading a book and getting ready to sleep.

So anyway, I did not want to have any interactions or conversations. It was already past my bedtime. This really should have been respected. I was available during the day, but no, it had to be when I was tucked in bed. I politely declined a conversation. More than once. Initiate shitstorm. Screaming, yelling, cursing, name-calling, kicking, punching, whatevering my door. Well, I guess I’m not getting any sleep. And now I’m irritated, and upset, and frustrated, and scared. Violated boundaries. Flying off the handle.

It’s hard to have a conversation with someone who is in an emotionally volatile state. I tried, but it wasn’t working very well. The entire time my heart was pounding and my internal world was imploding, until I finally broke and had a full-blown panic attack. I don’t even really remember everything that happened during the attack. I guess there were police there. I remember the paramedic and the ambulance ride. I remember being absolutely fucking exhausted and in fear that they were going to hospitalize me.

But they didn’t. Just an ER observation, thankfully. Got home eventually, laid in bed with my mind racing despite my exhaustion. Finally fell asleep only to wake up an hour later to shower and walk to the bus stop for work. Let’s just pretend like nothing ever happened. I’ve been so good at that all of my life. Nothing’s wrong here. Move along now.

I realized while I was waiting outside of work that I still had my hospital bracelet on. I was so exhausted, I didn’t even care. I just wanted to get through work. Somehow I needed to get through work. I’m surprised I managed to walk the mile without passing out. I was fortunate in that.

Work started out fine. I was visibly exhausted, but I still got my work done like a boss. I even finished my work early and started helping my supervisor out with another task. As my work day got closer to ending, I felt my anxiety getting worse. I was more on edge. I had less than an hour left of work and it just hit me. I started hyperventilating and walked to the back where no one would see me. I sat on a stool and tried to catch my breath, but after a minute, I knew this wasn’t asthma and that it wasn’t going to get better.

I started to panic even more, struggling to catch my breath and crying. My coworker heard me and went to get help, and before I knew it I was surrounded by my very concerned coworkers. I think I scared some of them. They weren’t sure what to do, if they should call 911. I told them no. I quite literally had just gotten out of the hospital hours before, I did not want to go back; that would have surely resulted in an inpatient hospitalization.

Someone brought me a bottle of water. My manager came and tried to calm me down. I was such a mess. I cried all over the desk, had snot all over my face, couldn’t sit still, couldn’t calm down. I don’t even know how long the attack went on for. But I know my manager stayed with me the whole time, rubbing my back and telling me I was safe and that it was going to be okay.

I eventually calmed down enough so that we could walk to the lounge. I still felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I wasn’t hyperventilating. I must have apologized to my manager at least 100 times, and I’m not even exaggerating. She continued to try to calm me down, asked me what happened to trigger it, and told me I didn’t need to apologize. I still kept crying. I felt so bad for taking up her time (it was at least an hour by this time). She stayed with me through the whole thing, until I eventually passed out sitting at the table from exhaustion.

I woke up a couple of hours later, still exhausted, though my mind was kind of blank. I stayed sitting there for a while, not really wanting to leave. I was in a safe place. My manager checked in on me, asked me if there was anything I needed or wanted, but I told her it was okay. She had already done enough. And she had a shitload of her own work to do.

I knew I had a panic attack, but didn’t really remember everything that happened during it. Coworkers had actually filled me in on some things that I didn’t quite remember. I got through it. And I realized that I had a really amazing group of coworkers who went above and beyond in their responsibilities, because anyone else I’ve dealt with would have just called 911 and been done with it.

I ended up staying at work for a while. I sipped on water and tried to keep myself awake. But I knew I couldn’t stay at work forever. I worked up the energy to gather my things. I found my manager on my way out and thanked her. She asked if I was going to be okay – and I gave my standard “I’m okay” response. She gave me her number and said if I ever needed to just hang out somewhere, I could call her. She must not know I don’t ever call people.

I wish I was okay. But as I walked through the parking lot in front of my workplace, I felt myself panicking again. Fast, shallow breathing. Shaking. This was not happening again. Part of me wanted to turn around and go right back to work. I talked to myself, focused on my breathing, tried to remain calm as I walked across the highway to the shopping center. I convinced myself this place was safe. And I stayed there for a few hours, until the last bus of the day came. Then I knew I had to go home.

You would have thought I was practicing labor breathing exercises the whole way home. I sat on the bus consciously breathing out loud, telling myself I was going to be okay. I walked the rest of the way home, unlocked the door, went straight to my room and right to bed. I just couldn’t deal with anything else that day.

I’m still planning my days waiting for another panic attack to hit. I stay places where I feel safe. I try to distract myself whenever I can. I’m living on edge once again.

Doctors

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I haven’t been to the doctor at all since I’ve moved here.

I’ve been avoiding doctors like the plague. I was always like that, though. I never really liked doctors. I felt like I needed to protect myself from them, and my way of protecting myself was to avoid them any way that I could.

It probably wouldn’t be that bad if I was a person in generally good health. But I’m not. I have asthma, arthritis, anemia, and malnutrition – all conditions that should be monitored regularly by a doctor. I know I need to see a doctor. I made a few half-hearted attempts to find one nearby, but the places I called were not accepting new patients, so I quickly gave up the search.

Then I received a notice from my college that my account was blocked due to missing health records. I’m not sure if I had mentioned it before, but I have no medical records, no immunization records, nothing. My mother switched doctors so much that my medical records were never complete, and I eventually lost track of them altogether. The only required vaccination to get into graduate school was the MMR, so I found a Walgreens clinic last month and paid for the vaccine with my credit card.

I didn’t realize, however, that a second MMR vaccine was required. I got so frustrated and angry because I know I had to have had these vaccinations as an infant, but because of my mother’s foolery, it is impossible for me to prove it. I looked into paying for a titer test, which would cover all vaccinations, but that cost way more than getting a second vaccine would. If I would just find a doctor, this would all be no problem. I have insurance that covers everything. But doctors. No doctors, please.

Perhaps it was because doctors and medical issues had been on my mind more than usual, I don’t know…but last week, I had a memory that eventually put things into perspective for me.

I was very sick. I had been sick for awhile, but my mother didn’t like doctors very much so I only went when required. By the time I got in to see the doctor, I was sick enough that he wanted me to be hospitalized. My mother talked with the doctor, right outside the exam room, insisting that she could take care of me at home. After enough back and forth, my mother somehow convinced the doctor to not hospitalize me. I was stabilized with breathing treatments and sent home with a bunch of supplies and medications.

And just as my mother had often done, she saw opportunity in my illness. I was a perfect target now, sick enough that I could not fight back. She abused me. Under the guise of a concerned, caring mother, she took advantage of me. And she got away with it, because she continued to do it every time I was sick, throughout my adolescence and adulthood.

At first, I didn’t really think much of this memory. I didn’t think it had a purpose. But I thought about it for a couple of days, and then I realized something. In some twisted way, I associated doctors directly with the abuse my mother inflicted on me. Doctors were not there to care for my health; doctors helped my mother hurt me. As an adult, intellectually, I know that those doctors had no idea what my mother was doing. They didn’t help her perpetrate; she did that all on her own. And as I’ve mentioned before, my mother had the amazing ability to sway people on to her side. Those doctors didn’t know what hit them.

As a child, I wouldn’t have known any better. I didn’t know the extent of my mother’s powers over people at that time. I just knew that the doctor sent me home with my mother so she could hurt me. So I associated all doctors in the same way: as my mother’s helpers.

My feelings towards doctors became less muddled as I thought more about this. This whole time, I have been unconsciously blaming doctors for my mother’s abuse. I can’t do that now. My mother has no access to my doctors anymore. I can go to a doctor without fear that I will be hurt. This was a huge realization for me.

Acting on this new insight, I gathered some more phone numbers from my insurance website and made a few calls. I found a doctor who was accepting new patients, and scheduled an appointment for the end of the month.

I told my therapist in the beginning of our session Monday about the big news. My medical issues and my hesitance to go to the doctor have been an ongoing discussion over the last several weeks, and I had regularly shot down her subtle insistence that I see a doctor. She smiled as soon as I told her I finally made an appointment. I could see that she was genuinely happy for me taking this step. I gave her my usual weird look and told her that this wasn’t that serious.

I could tell that she was holding back excitement. “I really want to celebrate, but I don’t want you to be all uncomfortable and tell me I’m weird,” she said. I told her to just let it all out. So she did. She did some version of a sitting dance in her chair and threw her arms up in celebration. All I could do was laugh.

My therapist then asked what prompted the sudden change. So I told her about the memory, and my subsequent insight and connecting of the dots. She agreed that it made sense, and was not surprised at all that I would have formed that association in the first place.

We started talking about the possible complications of seeing a new doctor. She had e-mailed me a packet of information for trauma survivors on how to handle medical situations a few weeks earlier. During today’s session, my therapist asked if it would be better if I called the doctor ahead of time to explain my trauma history and some of the things I may need. I gave her a look, and she already knew my answer. Using the phone gives me horrible anxiety, and needing to engage in a regular conversation, especially about those topics, is still not doable for me.

Then my therapist suggested a second option. She offered to call the doctor for me, to vet her and her experience with trauma patients, and find out if the doctor would be a good fit for me. If she was, then my therapist would talk to her about some of my issues -my diagnoses (physical and psychological), my triggers, things I would not want to talk about, etc. I was all on board for this. My therapist and I came up with a list of what I wanted to be included in the discussion – she would not talk about anything that I didn’t want to be disclosed.

I agreed to have the PTSD diagnosis disclosed, but not the DID; I don’t feel like most medical doctors have enough of a grasp on DID to handle that information adequately. My therapist asked if I wanted her to address my issues with eating. Since I am overweight, doctors automatically assume I need to diet and associate all of my health issues with weight. The reality is that I have lost a significant amount of weight in the last two years and I struggle with an eating disorder that often causes me to not eat enough. I know that my eating habits will need to be addressed because I have chronic malnutrition, but it would be helpful if my doctor knew my specific issues ahead of time so she doesn’t end up triggering me into starvation.

We talked about what procedures I wouldn’t be comfortable with, and what the doctor could do in case I am triggered during the appointment. It was a lot to discuss, and I ended up getting a headache halfway through our session today just thinking about it. I still have a few weeks to prepare. My therapist is going to call the doctor in the next few days, and I guess we’ll go from there. Until then, I’ll just try to deal with my anxiety about it as best I can.

 

The ongoing battle: Why I deny my DID and why I know that I have it

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I’d like to think that, as I am now six months into my official dissociative identity disorder diagnosis, I wouldn’t still be struggling with accepting that I have DID. But the truth is that I still have doubts. Some mornings I wake up in complete denial. I try to rationalize my denial my pointing out the differences between myself and others with DID I’ve come across, even though I know full well that the dissociative spectrum is so diverse that no one’s DID is the same as another person’s. Yet I still try to convince myself that this all just a misunderstanding.

Reasons I use to tell myself I don’t have DID (note that I am not saying any of this is true for all people with DID – these are my irrational rationalizations):

Medication: I am not taking any psychotropic medications, and I haven’t since September. Every person I’ve ever come across with DID (and mental illness in general) takes at LEAST one psychotropic medication. I tell myself that since I am functioning without medication, I must not be ill at all.

Functioning: I function decently well. I’ve held jobs (and excelled at them), I’ve always been one of the highest achievers in my class (from elementary school through college), and I am able to live independently without assistance from anyone. I know many others with DID are not that fortunate. They are unable to hold jobs, unable to focus or stay present long enough to manage an education, and many are in supportive living.

No inner world: In my reading and through my participation in DID support groups, I’ve come across so many people speak of an inner world that they can actually picture inside of their minds – filled with different rooms and places for alters to go. I don’t have that. I find it difficult to imagine having that.

Trauma: This is difficult for to me admit, as I would tell a client to never compare his or her pain to another person’s. Yet I find myself regularly comparing my trauma to other people’s traumas, insisting that my experiences are minor in comparison to what other people have gone through. I tell myself I don’t have DID because what I went through just wasn’t that bad.

Lack of alter involvement: I realize in typing this out that it is one big oxymoron, because admitting that my alters exist actually supports my DID diagnosis. Many of my DID friends have actively participating alters: alters that use the computer and social media as themselves, alters that perform certain life tasks, etc. None of my alters use the computer (that I know of). None of them have their own accounts. As far as I’ve realized, I’m the one putting the work into daily tasks, not any of my alters.

Memory: Although I don’t remember everything, I do have memories of quite a few traumatic experiences I have endured. I tell myself that if I really had DID, I would have dissociated during these events and blocked them out from my memory. Why didn’t I dissociate all of the time?

Reasons I use to counteract my denial:

Medication: Funny how I use this both as a tool for denial and a tool for acceptance. The fact that psychotropic medications don’t affect me actually supports a dissociative diagnosis. DID cannot be treated with medication. The symptoms that may coincide, such as depression and anxiety, can be treated with medication, but DID itself must be treated through therapy. It explains why anti-depressants never helped me, and why even the strongest anti-psychotics never stopped the voices in my head.

Outsiders have met my insiders: When I told a good friend about my DID, there was no sense of shock or surprise. In fact, my friend had suspected something long before I even realized it. When I asked why he never said anything to me, he said it didn’t matter to him – it was just who I was. I even found out he had met one of my younger parts. My therapist has also met several of my parts, even before they were comfortable enough to come out to me.

Recognizing differences: Two weeks ago, I had a disagreement with a coworker. We were discussing an issue with boxes that needed to be shipped out, and I insisted that I didn’t pack and label the boxes. I couldn’t recognize my own handwriting. As I stood there vehemently denying that these boxes were mine, my coworker reminded me that I was the only one who knew how to do it, and no one else would have written those labels out. He was right. It could have only been me. But that was not my handwriting. Someone else had taken over for me, and it wasn’t the first time. Over the years, I have come across many notes that were not in my usual handwriting, but I knew that they must have been written by me. These differences are never subtle, either.

Ending up with things I don’t remember buying (or liking): I’ve been known to carry around a pink and white polka dot bookbag. My therapist commented on it once, and I mentioned how I hated the color pink. And then she asked me why I had a pink bag. Truthfully, I don’t even remember buying it. I don’t remember buying a lot of things I end up with.

The voices in my head: I can’t ignore it. Hearing voices is not normal. Yet I’ve heard them for years. Sometimes I can understand what they are saying, and sometimes I can’t. Medication doesn’t make them go away because they are parts of me. They are not auditory hallucinations. They are my alters.

Memories: There are entire chunks of my life missing from my memory. Sometimes I can’t remember what I did last week or what happened in therapy. These are clear indications of dissociation. When I am present, my memory is exceptional. There is no other reason for my memory to be that shitty, even with the drugs and alcohol I’ve taken in the past.

Trauma: This is another dual-purpose tool for both denial and acceptance. I know through my research and involvement with other survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse that the incidence of DID seems to be much higher with survivors of this type of abuse, so inevitably my risk is higher. I also endured physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse by both of my parents, increasing my risk factor for developing DID even more. As much as I don’t want to admit it, I had a traumatic childhood and early adulthood. Saying that my life was fine won’t change the fact that it really wasn’t.

As I sat in therapy last week and insisted that I never went through any trauma, my therapist reminded me that that just wasn’t the truth. She told me that if I continued to deny my experiences, I was also denying everything that my parts went through, all of the trauma they endured. It’s not just about me; it’s about them, too. I realized that I was doing the same thing to my parts that other people had done to me: denying the reality of my/our experiences.

Sure, I wish I didn’t have DID. No one wants DID and all of the shit it comes with. But for every reason I come up with to support my denial, there are even more reasons that support my diagnosis. I can try to maintain my dissonance, but that will never work in the long run. Maybe one day I won’t have to fight myself anymore on this issue. We’ve done enough fighting already.

A much needed return to therapy

~ KJ ~ Leave a comment

I admit it.

I can barely handle going an entire week without a therapy session.

My wallet would certainly approve of one therapy session a week. But for right now, my life is still a little bit of a mess and I need more therapy than normal. And that’s okay.

I brought my list with me, but I ended up being able to remember most of what I wanted to discuss. We were able to tackle the most notable events of the past week. I saved a couple of topics for the next session, but they aren’t too serious so I can handle waiting a couple more days.

I told her about my experience on Black Friday that led to the panic attack and flashbacks. Even though it took hours, I managed to finally calm myself down completely. I told her how my coworkers reacted and responded to my needs. I guess I was fortunate in that way, because some people would not be understanding at all. It happens that there is another worker there with PTSD (combat-related), and people at work weren’t really knowledgeable about it. I used it as an opportunity to explain what PTSD is, what causes it, and what can happen, and I think that was helpful for all of us.

My therapist asked me if I had dissociated at all during the incident. I told her I didn’t think that I did, but I couldn’t be 100% sure because I was feeling so chaotic. She said I handled it well, that I knew what I needed to do so it wouldn’t get worse and I was able to assert my needs. I did tell her that I may have dissociated at work in the days prior. On Thursday, a few coworkers asked me if I was okay, because they said I was “out of it” and fumbling around the day before. I remember the earlier parts of my day just fine, and I remember walking to work and starting my shift. I don’t really remember anything specific after that, which makes me think that I did dissociate.

This prompted my therapist to ask if any of my coworkers know about the DID. I have one coworker that knows, only because he found my blog and read it. He doesn’t really know what DID is, and I haven’t made any wholehearted attempts to explain it to him or to anyone at work. My therapist reminded me that I was able to explain about PTSD and had positive results with that. I told her I found PTSD easier to explain than DID. I think that DID needs to be explained through a process. If you try to explain everything in one sitting, you are going to overwhelm a person. I feel like I would need to give out a few tidbits at a time and see how people react to them, and then go from there.

Disclosing and explaining DID is just not something I’m ready for yet. Oddly enough, one of the managers made a comment about her other personality coming out (which had a name) and made jokes about it the other day. I felt a little uncomfortable, but I tried to be understanding in that most people just don’t know about DID and how those comments could be offensive. With that being said, the only way they would know those comments could be offensive is if they knew the reality of DID. I just don’t want to be one of those people who are labelled as sensitive because they find everything offensive. I try to understand both sides, I really do. But I also recognize that, in my attempts at understanding, I am also perpetuating the lack of knowledge about DID by staying silent.

We moved on to discussing graduate school. I completed Monday night of last week and finalized my application that Tuesday night. I’m still stressing about how I am going to be able to handle everything, especially financially. I can use loans to help ease the financial burden, but it’s not going to be enough to live on. I will still have to work, and quite possibly get an extra job if I am cut back to part-time after the holidays. I’m pretty good at stretching a dollar. I can live on little food (one benefit of the bullshit I went through as a child), and have been managing quite well doing that. I’ve been selling some of my things for extra money. But I still know that realistically, I’m not that far away from financial hardship. It’s nearly impossible to get benefits or assistance when you are single and childless, so even if I wanted to go that route, I can’t. Maybe I just need to play the lottery.

Despite the chaos that I still see my life as being, my therapist thinks I have made so much progress, even in the last couple of months. She brought up possibly restarting the trauma-focused therapy, more specifically delving back into the mother-daughter sexual abuse…the same subject that led us to stop intense therapy more than two months ago. I wasn’t expecting her to bring it up. After thinking about it for a minute, I did agree that I was in a different place. I still don’t think I’ve made as much progress as she thinks I have, but I also know that my self-perception is a little distorted. I told her I would be okay with trying it and seeing how it affects me. If it sends me back to a bad place, then we can take another break. I don’t expect miracles. I don’t expect to be emotionless.

We’re starting next session.

This shit is hard.

18 weeks

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

I can’t believe I’ve made it 18 weeks.

This journey has been anything but easy. But I’m still moving through and moving on. Not everyone would be able to do that. I never thought that I would be able to do that.

My coworker has told me numerous times that I have “found a home here.” I know that he is referring to our workplace as home, and I agree. I fit in so well at work, even being the only female among so many men and boys. I can be myself…my sarcastic, funny, cursing-like-a-sailor self. I’ve also learned that I don’t have to put up a wall there. It’s okay not to be happy all of the time, and they accept that and embrace it. As much as my workplace is a home for me, I feel like I’ve also found a home here, in the city where I now reside. I’ve met so many people and done so many things here that I would have never done in my old home. Being free feels so different, so scary and yet so rewarding.

A friend of mine reached out to me yesterday. It was strange because I had just been thinking about her, realizing that her birthday was coming up and wondering what I could mail to her just to let her know I still care. My best friend showed her some recent pictures of me and she noticed how much better I looked. She said I looked good and relaxed. I thanked her and told her it’s still a struggle, but I manage. Then she told me she was proud of me. I put my phone down and tried to hold back the tears, but they came through anyway. Someone was proud of me. I know it’s such a simple statement, but it’s something I wanted and tried for so long to get my parents to feel towards me; of course, that never happened. I’ve recently heard it from other people in my life and rejected it, as I tend to do with positive compliments given to me. Hearing those words from her just…I don’t know how to describe it. It meant so much to me.

I’ve been working on acknowledging my denial of my DID diagnosis and trying to get past it. I think I am in a better place now – not all the way there, but close enough – to accept everything. I’m not going to lie, I’m still scared of what will happen in the future. As I get closer to my parts, I know that I will have to deal with new memories, and those memories will not always be good ones. I think I have a good support system in place to help me through it, though. I’m not alone. We’re not alone. We don’t have to feel like we’re all alone anymore. I don’t want my parts to feel like they have to hide anymore. They’ve been through enough.

There is a DID conference coming up in February through An Infinite Mind. I’ve thought about going to a conference for the last two months. There was a conference given by another organization just a few weeks ago, but it was on the other side of the country and just not feasible. This conference is probably the closest and most accessible to me, as it’s taking place in Orlando, FL. On a whim, I asked my best friend if he would go with me (the conference is for people with DID, their supporters, and therapists). He said he would. I feel so much better about going there with someone I know and trust. I think it will be a good experience for me. I still have to figure out exactly how I am going to manage it financially, but I’ll do what I have to do. I’ve already gathered some things to sell online to earn some extra money that I can put towards the trip. I think I deserve it. I know I deserve it. It will work out somehow.

I have a little more than two weeks left to get my graduate school application completed. I’ve ordered the transcripts, mailed out recommendation forms to be filled out by my professor, and filled out the FAFSA. All I have left to do is the essay. It’s funny how writing comes so easily for me until there is something that I need to write. Then I put it off for as long as I can because I feel that my writing will be inadequate, or that I won’t have anything substantial to write. I’ll get it done. I need to get it done before life gets so crazy that I just won’t have the time.

I felt a little guilty today because I had off from work and didn’t really do anything except wash my laundry. I haven’t really had a day off to myself in a while. I probably needed to sit at home and do nothing. I’m tired, physically and mentally. I’ve had a headache for four days. I need a break. But there’s really no time for breaks. I just hope I don’t burn out.

Without a name

~ KJ ~ 2 Comments

I’m disappointed in myself.

Apparently a new part came out to my therapist today. I don’t know her (my therapist is assuming she is a girl) name, only that she is 12 years old. I guess she and my therapist talked for a long time because my session ran over two hours. I wish I was there for the conversation.

She told my therapist she thought I was mad at her. I guess she heard(?) my increasing frustration over the last week or so about peeing my pants. I didn’t blame anyone but myself – it’s an issue I’ve dealt with for most of my life, and just as likely for those time periods in which I have no memories of. She took my self-criticizing and I presume believed that I was criticizing her; she told my therapist that she pees herself out of fear.

As my therapist is relaying some of the conversation back to me, I’m sitting on the couch across from her thinking how horrible of a person I am. In criticizing myself, I hurt another part of me in the process. I still have difficulty acknowledging that these parts can hear me. I forget that they are there. I lied. It’s not that I have forgotten. I purposely try to ignore their existence at times because I just don’t want to deal with it. I still refer to myself as I and not we. I don’t talk about my system. I haven’t yet owned my DID. And now, I’ve become just another person who has hurt these parts. I’m sure they’ve been hurt enough. I hate that I have added to their burden. It’s no wonder most of them are in hiding. I’d hide from me, too.

With my background in psychology, I should know better. Yet here I am, damaging my own parts as if they haven’t been damaged enough. There’s no handbook for this. I could read all the books in the world and still not have all the answers. This shit isn’t easy.

I just want a simple life.

Evil

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

I woke up this morning thinking about my mother.

That’s never a way I want to start my morning, but unfortunately I’ve been stuck in a place where her words have become heavily involved in my current self-perception. I’ve been trying to overcome the feelings of being inherently evil, but nothing has worked.

While in therapy Monday, I was discussing people who call their children names and how they might grow up to become that name; it was sparked by something I saw on social media, completely unrelated to me. As the conversation went on and I continued to color my butterfly (we’ve been coloring a lot to keep my hands busy) I said “that’s why I’m evil.” My mother said it so many times, that it came true. I remember feeling nauseated and not wanting to talk anymore. I don’t remember much after that.

My therapist has been trying to help me come up with statements I can use when I feel myself slipping into that self-blaming or evil mindset. I admittedly haven’t done much myself because I’ve been so drained physically and emotionally. But I need to. It’s so strange because on one level I know I’m a good person, but those beliefs get pushed away so easily by self-blame and the belief that I am, in fact, evil.

I thought about what my mother’s intentions were when she said those things to me as a child. Did she genuinely believe I was evil? Or was she telling me I was so I would think I deserved all of the shit she was doing to me? For a while, I believed her reasoning was because she knew I was evil. I never once considered that she used it as a way to manipulate me into accepting the abuse. If I had to decide between delusional or manipulative, my mother was definitely the latter.

Why is this even important? If she believed I was evil, it’s harder for me to believe the opposite. She must have known things I didn’t. If she manipulated me into believing a lie, I just need to remind myself that it was her manipulation and not the truth. I’m not quite sure which side of the fence I stand on. I’d like to be on the side of manipulation, but there’s also a part of me that believes my mother hated me for a reason, and I don’t know what that reason is.

I have a lot of questions that I know will never have answers. Some questions are more concrete. Is my father really my father? There are some genetic improbabilities that have put doubt in my mind for a while now. Is that why I’m evil? But then, what does that matter? That doesn’t excuse her behavior. Am I looking for answers or am I looking for excuses? Then there are the abstract questions. Am I evil? What is evil anyway? Why should I care?