dissociative identity disorder

Twelve

~ KJ ~ 11 Comments

I haven’t written much lately.

I’ve been stuck between two worlds. Sometimes, I am 29 year-old, adult me. Other times, I am 12 year-old, child me.

This has been going on for a couple of weeks now, but more in the last week or so. It is confusing because I know that I am a grownup, but I don’t feel like one.

While I know that I am free from harm now, my 12 year-old self is still frozen in time and constantly in fear that mother is coming.

As a result, I am in an ongoing battle in my head between what I know and how I feel. I know mother isn’t coming, but I feel unsafe. I’m on high alert, just waiting for her to come through the door. I panicked in school the other night because I was scared she was going to find me. I’ve been scared to go to sleep at night because I fear that she will find me and hurt me.

Irrational fears. I know they are irrational to me. But my 12 year-old self doesn’t know they are irrational. For her, they are valid.

My therapist said that there is dissonance between what my adult self wants and does and what some of my others parts want. While I don’t care whether or not my mother looks for me or knows what I’m doing, some of my parts are still too scared of her and feel unsafe that I am so open. It creates a chaotic experience, both inside and out, and ends up causing a downward spiral much like I’ve been experiencing over the last week.

I just want to be an adult again.

 

Why I’ve Been Crying

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

I’m so used to being able to shut down my emotions, to numb myself entirely of feeling. But for the last couple of weeks, I find myself crying. Consistently crying. I cry in the shower. I cry at work. I cry in the bathroom. I cry walking home. Most nights I cry so much that I end up falling asleep from exhaustion. Normally that would be a bad thing, except that has been the only sleep I’ve been able to get.

Crying gets you in trouble. Crying gets you beat. Crying creates more pain.

I hate crying. I hate feeling weak. I want people to think I am strong and put-together.

I hate crying.

I’m not even crying over one thing. I’m crying over everything.

I’m crying because I’m alone.

I’m crying because I want to belong to a family. I want my family.

I’m crying because I never had the childhood I deserved.

I’m crying because for 29 years, all I was was a pawn in my mother’s game. I was never a person.

I’m crying because the home I am living in doesn’t really feel safe.

I’m crying over all of the relationships I could have had with people, the relationships my mother stopped from happening.

I’m crying because I will never experience the joy of bearing a child.

I’m crying because I’m still so scared of the world.

I’m crying because my father will die before I ever tell him how I feel.

I’m crying because my brother is so far brainwashed, he will never experience true freedom.

I’m crying because so many people could have helped me, but chose to look away.

I’m crying because my mother will never get the justice she deserves.

I’m crying for the children my mother will hurt because I’ve allowed her to roam free.

I’m crying for the people that I’ve hurt because I didn’t know any better.

I’m crying for my younger parts, the ones who miss our mother, the ones who don’t understand why we had to leave.

I’m crying for my younger parts, the ones who got hurt instead of me, the ones still in so much pain.

I’m crying because I’m exhausted. I just want to be able to sleep.

I’m crying because of the pain in my heart.

I’m crying because I fear that a piece of my mother lives inside me, making me just like her.

I don’t want to cry anymore.

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.

 

January 30th

~ KJ ~ 3 Comments

January 30th is no longer my mother’s birthday. It is now a day for me.

I contemplated how I could turn this date into something different. Part of me wanted it to be the day my mother died; not her actual death, but her death inside of me. I wanted it to be the day I completed severed our relationship. I wanted to become an orphan. But I realized that wasn’t the right thing to do. I know I am not emotionally ready to make that full disconnection. I also know that wouldn’t be fair to my parts, some of whom are still bonded to our mother. Killing her, even though it would have been just emotionally and psychologically, would have traumatized and confused my younger parts even more. They don’t deserve that.

Another part of me wanted to send her shit (literally) in a box. But I’m not even sure she is worth the effort and the $14.95 it would have cost to ship it. I wanted to write her a letter, telling her all of the amazing things I’ve been doing. But that wouldn’t even matter. She wouldn’t care. It wasn’t worth the effort of writing or typing it out.

I didn’t know what I was going to celebrate, but I decided that morning to just roll with it. My therapist sent me a text that morning to remind me that it was MY day. So I decided I would get out of the house and see a movie. As I was walking from the bus stop that morning, I got a notification on Facebook. The PAFPAC Facebook page had reached 100 likes. Now, I am not a person that takes “likes” seriously, I never have been. But I couldn’t help but find the irony in the timing. Of all days, it happened on my mother’s birthday. My mother, the very woman that symbolizes everything I created the organization to fight against. My mother, a child abuser. My mother, a female perpetrator.

I felt a rush of emotions come over me. I actually laughed at first, because I realized the irony right away. And then I started to cry and had to dart into the nearest bathroom. It wasn’t really tears of sadness, but rather tears caused by the realization that I’m doing so much more than she had ever planned for me. I calmed myself down in time to get to the theatre, but even as I was watching the movie, my mind was bouncing back and forth with thoughts and feelings about my mother and about what I’ve done with my life.

When I came home later that afternoon, I made chocolate cupcakes. My roommate made buttercream icing from scratch and frosted them for me. And they were delicious. And I didn’t have to share them with my mother. So it was a double win.

This morning, as I was talking to my coworker about my day yesterday, I realized something that I hadn’t noticed before. I made it through yesterday completely sober. I knew it was going to be a difficult day, and I’ve always responded to difficult days in negative ways. But I didn’t drink. I didn’t turn to drugs. I didn’t hurt myself. I made it through the entire day completely unharmed, for what is likely the first time ever.

That in itself is an amazing accomplishment for me. I thought about that for the rest of the day. I thought about how I made it through that day unscathed. I thought about all of those other times that I ended up in a downward spiral into the dark place and struggled to get out. But this day was different. And that in itself made it a special day.

How my mind and body have learned to cope with trauma

~ KJ ~ 4 Comments

When you think about it, the human mind and the human body are amazing things. I’ve been thinking about this more lately, as the topic of connecting (and disconnecting) from my body have come up in therapy quite a bit lately.

I think of all the ways that my body has dealt with trauma. In response to damage in my foot, my body built bone on top of bone to strengthen what was already so weakened and damaged. When I had surgery two years ago to remove some of the excess bone, the doctors discovered a mass hidden underneath. The bones had literally formed a protective cocoon around it in a way that my doctor had never seen before.

I also have extra bone in other parts of my body, in response to fractures that were never properly treated. When they get really noticeable, I would give them names. Before it was surgically removed, I lovingly called the cluster of bone spurs on my foot “Humphrey”. As the same thing began to grow on my opposite foot, I called it “Humphrey II”. I have a palpable spur on my hip that I call Hipsley. It seems rather silly, and probably not quite normal, but it helps me not think about the damage that led to these growths in the first place.

To tackle the physical, sexual, and emotional trauma I endured as a child, my mind fractured to help me cope, leading to the development of DID. Many people don’t really understand DID, but it is truly one of the mind’s greatest coping mechanisms. It helped me get through childhood and the early part of my adulthood. It kept me alive and able to function without coming completely undone. If I never dissociated, I don’t think I would have been able to handle the trauma that had been occurring every day of my life.

Some of my mind’s and body’s coping skills are not so safe in the long run. My therapist and I have talked quite a bit over the last couple of months about my disconnection to feelings and sensations in my body. Sometimes, I can feel. Other times, I am completely numb and oblivious to any sensation.

There are times when I don’t feel hunger even when I haven’t eaten for days. There are days when I don’t feel any pain, even though I know that I have problems that should be causing me to feel pain. I also have periods when I cannot feel the temperature. It’s something that has been occurring for awhile now. It actually served me well when I was working in a warehouse in somewhat extreme weather conditions (100+ degree weather, below zero temperatures). I was able to work in the loft, where temperatures reached well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and not feel the heat at all. My coworkers used to joke that I didn’t even break a sweat – they were right. I wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference if it was 110 degrees or 50 degrees.

I had (and still have) the same issue with the cold. There were days where I’d go to work in a tee shirt in the middle of winter in freezing temperatures. I didn’t feel cold at all. Other people were concerned, however, because I would turn blue and red from the cold. I couldn’t feel a thing – cold or hot. I just didn’t feel. I still have this problem. Last week, I was waiting outside of my work for the manager to come. A coworker said I could wait in his car to stay out of the cold. I told him it wasn’t cold and that I was okay. Except that the temperature actually was cold. It was 12 degrees outside, and I was wearing a hoodie. But I felt fine, because I couldn’t feel anything.

I had an incident several years ago while cooking. I leaned over the front burner, forgetting that it was on (I was reaching for something in the cabinet above). As I was fiddling about in the cabinet, I heard someone shout, “move, you’re burning!” I didn’t really understand what was going on because I hadn’t put anything in the pot yet. Then I looked down and realized my shirt was burning. I quickly patted out the fire. My shirt was completely ruined, half of it had disintegrated from the burning. I had a coil-shaped burn across my abdomen. And I didn’t even know it was happening. I was so disconnected, I didn’t even realize I was burning.

It may seem like not being able to feel is a great thing. I assure you, in the long run, it’s not good at all. I try to make an effort and check the weather and dress appropriately, even though I may not feel the temperature at all. I’m always afraid of overheating in the summer, because I’m not connected with my body enough to know when it’s reaching a danger point. When I broke my foot a few months back, my mind blocked out the pain and I was able to walk on it, even though I shouldn’t have been. I ended up causing even more damage. I’d rather not accidentally set myself on fire again.

For the last six months, I have been experiencing pain off and on in my tailbone. I appreciated the days that I was able to block out the pain completely and move around like nothing was wrong. Some days, I can’t block the pain and I feel it intensely. I use those days when I can’t feel pain to rationalize that nothing is wrong with me on the days when all I feel is pain. I feel like if I were to go a doctor and tell them that I feel great some days, and horrible other days, that they would minimize the pain just as I do. Doctors won’t understand that cutting myself off from feeling is how I have learned to cope with trauma.

My therapist suggested that my disconnection from feeling is related to my history of trauma. I am so used to it, that I never really thought about the reasons why I am that way. It makes sense. I just wish there was an easy fix. As much as I’d like to not feel anything, I also need to eat like a normal person, to fully experience my environment, and to feel when something is wrong with my body. Right now, I can’t do that fully. It is something I need to work on, along with the 8 million other issues I have thanks to life.

I was wronged.

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

In November 2014, my nurse practitioner called an ambulance to her office to have me escorted to the hospital for suicidal ideation. No one in my family was told the real reason why I was going – I said I was having tests done and to please leave me alone. Despite my mother’s endless calls to the office to find out information, my nurse practitioner revealed nothing. It made my mother so angry that she actually became threatening. Fortunately, my nurse practitioner knew that my mother was my abuser and saw right through her bullshit and kept my privacy intact.

My experience in the hospital, however, was a different story. Before I even made it to the psychiatric floor, my mother already knew I was admitted to the hospital and to which exact psychiatric unit. She had already placed several calls before I even got there. I did not want my family to know where I was. I needed to feel safe more than ever, and that was taken away from me.

My mother continued to call the hospital dozens of times a day, despite my outright denial to speak to her. Some of the nurses provided her with information on my status. This was after I made it clear that I wanted my family to have no information about me. I was 28 years old and a fully capable adult. My emergency contact was someone who maintained no contact with my family, and I instructed the staff that any issues concerning my care should go through that person and no one else. The social workers and nurses were aware that my mother was my abuser – I was open about that during our initial meeting the day after I was admitted. Yet still, my mother was allowed to call and allowed to gather information about me. The hospital would not release me unless my parents picked me up. They literally sent me right back into the hands of my abusers.

The same issues (and then some) occurred in my subsequent hospitalizations. The second time I was hospitalized, I admitted myself. I took a cab to the emergency room after work without telling anyone where I was going. As I laid on a bed in the hallway of the ER, I saw my parents approaching the front desk. I started to panic and asked the watcher if I could hide, but obviously I couldn’t. Within minutes, I saw my mother approaching my bed from the other side of the hallway. I turned towards the wall and hid myself in the sheet, refusing to talk, and struggling to catch my breath from the panic attack I was having. My parents continued to talk and I continued to ignore them, banging my head against the wall to make them go away. After a few minutes, I felt the anger in my father’s voice when he told me “I don’t know why you are doing this to us” and then walked away.

During that whole time, I just wanted someone to make them go away. Why did they tell my parents where I was in the first place? Why did I have no right to privacy or confidentiality? I wanted the watcher or the nurse to see my panic, to sense my pain, but no one noticed. Once again, when I needed to feel safe, that was taken away from me.

As my second hospitalization ended, I was released at night and the nurse called a taxi so I could get home. Freedom. I contemplated going to a motel, but I still had so much fear inside and ended up going home. As I walked up the last landing before our apartment, I could hear my parents arguing. Apparently my mother found out that I left during one of her many calls. My parents were furious. I could hear my father screaming that there would be no more secrets in his house. There was so much irony in that statement, since my whole existence and our family’s existence was built on secrets. He just didn’t like it when HE didn’t know something.

I knew as I unlocked the door that night, that I would be walking into a shitstorm. I wish so badly I would have gone to a hotel instead. I wonder if I would have been able to escape the pain and the heartbreak that continued for months after until I finally moved away. I wonder if I could have avoided that third hospitalization had I just not gone home that night and ran away forever.

I feel like I was wronged. The hospital continually violated my privacy and put me at risk by allowing my abusers access to me and to my information. Why is there an automatic assumption that, because someone is family, that he or she is a safe person and should be given access to information? Something isn’t right here, and I can’t be the only one who this has happened to.

If I was a minor when I was hospitalized, my mother would have never been given access once I revealed her as my abuser. People don’t realize that child abuse continues into adulthood. They didn’t see the severity of my situation. They only made it worse by handing me right back over to them, again and again. I will admit, my social worker was concerned about sending me back to them – but her hands were tied. There is no help for adult victims of continued child abuse. We continue to be abused by our families as well as the system.

I’ve been failed. We’ve been failed. Something needs to change.

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.

Migraines and malnutrition

~ KJ ~ 5 Comments

These past couple of days have been rough on me. I’ve had no energy, alternating fever and chills, and a pounding headache that would not go away. At first, I thought I was coming down with the flu. I stopped in the drug store before therapy today and looked at the OTC flu medications, and realized I didn’t have most of the symptoms. I had no cough and no more congestion (I had some the day before, but it was probably allergies). Then I looked at the pain relievers. On a whim, I picked up some extra strength migraine medication. I took it, and within an hour, I felt substantially better. The pain in my head is still there, but the sensitivity is gone and I feel like I can actually do something more than lay in bed in the dark.

I completely overlooked the possibility that it could have been a migraine. I haven’t had a migraine in awhile. I used to get them often. Headaches were also a huge problem for me. I remember I had one a couple of years ago that lasted for a month. I was miserable, and nothing I took helped. Then one day I woke up and it was gone.

I’m sure my diet doesn’t help my situation, either. I was so scared I was going to pass out at work yesterday that I ate a half a banana. I don’t think I can adequately explain how hard that was for me. I’ve mentioned before that I have a lot of food aversions and issues with taste and texture. The texture of banana is so off-putting to me. It took me 10 minutes to eat it and I tried very hard not to gag. In that moment, I was desperate.

My therapist has been aware of my eating issues and my previous hospitalization for malnutrition. We’ve only talked about it briefly, but she seemed a little more concerned given our last couple of sessions. Last week, I couldn’t even focus in session because I hadn’t eaten. In today’s session, I told her what happened with the banana and while she was happy that I took that step and ate something “new”, she was worried about the path I was going down. She asked me if I thought there was a possibility I could be hospitalized again. I hesitated. I’ve been taking some vitamins, but I’m afraid it’s not enough. I’m losing my hair, my energy levels are shit, I have regular muscle cramps and I have the all-too-familiar beau’s lines on my fingernails.

I wish it were easier for me to eat consistently. Some days are good for me. I feel hunger; I eat. Other days, I don’t feel hungry; I find excuses not to eat. I try to rationalize it in my head by going over all of the reasons I don’t deserve to eat. It’s horrible. It’s twisted. I admit it. I feel like I am repeating bad childhood habits and experiences, but instead of my mother being the critical one, it’s me. I have a lot to work on. I know that. My therapist doesn’t want me to end up in the hospital; I don’t either. So we’re going to tackle my eating issues a little more in-depth. It’s my fault for brushing it off for this long and pretending like everything was okay.

I have a lot going on this week. I have a full work schedule.Therapy again on Thursday, and a meeting for PAFPAC on Friday. I also need to make sure I have everything I need for grad school next week. I just hope this migraine subsides so I can get everything done.

6 months

~ KJ ~ 1 Comment

Six months ago today, I left my abusive family and gained my freedom.

I had no idea what my future would hold. I left everything that I owned (with the exception of two bags of clothes and shoes and my computer) and everyone that I knew and loved to move somewhere completely new and unknown to me. I had low expectations. I was scared that I would not be able to make it very far on my own. I realize now that those beliefs were part of my programming. I was made to believe that I could never thrive, or even exist, apart from my ‘family’.

But I have existed, and I have thrived. And I couldn’t have done it without therapy. It’s amazing how much time I’ve spent in therapy just in the last six months. Over 50 individual sessions and two six-hour sessions of group therapy, with thousands of dollars spent. I wish I could send the bills to my family. Even though it is a significant financial strain on me, I can’t be without therapy, so I make things work.

During my therapy session yesterday, I told my therapist that I expected more…I didn’t even finish my sentence. My mind got lost for a minute and I told her “nothing, never mind.” She asked me what I was going to say. I told her nothing. “I don’t know how you would finish that sentence,” she said, “because you’ve done so much. You got a great job within weeks of being down here, you’re starting grad school in two weeks, you’re building an organization and helping people. You’re doing awesome.” I knew that already, but that wasn’t where my mind was heading. I expected to have closure.

I didn’t approach dealing with my family in the way I idealized it in my head. I wanted to confront them somehow, but I didn’t. I never even sent the letter I had written to my mother before I moved.  I wanted to get everything off my chest. I wanted my parents to admit to what they had done. I wanted them to be sorry. My therapist quickly reminded me that, even if my parents did admit their wrongs (which itself is a stretch), they would likely never be sorry.

She was right. My mother is a narcissist who never believes she does any wrong and my father is just…I don’t even know. They’re both too fucked up for words. I have to tell myself that I will never get what I need from them. I never have before, so why would I now?

I decided to celebrate my six months of freedom in my own way. After work today, I went to the movies and then went for ice cream. Then I stopped at the Disney store and picked out a dinosaur toy (one of my littles is dinosaur-obsessed – s/he hasn’t stopped talking about dinosaurs for days now).

I went to the bookstore and perused the children’s section for an hour looking for some books. I found a book on courage, but in a quick scan of its content, I noticed it mentioned being with mom, and quickly put it back. Then I found a book about feelings. It was really colorful and described all of the different feelings and reasons and all that good stuff. Feelings are something that I struggle with and I imagine the inside struggles with as well due to our upbringing. It seemed like a good book to let them know that it’s okay to have feelings and to talk about them. I also found a book about not being afraid to be who you are, even when people say or do mean things to you. I just want them to know that they are safe now. I hope getting these books will help us all just a little.

I am looking forward to tomorrow. I have a lot of sleep to try to catch up on. I am going to stay in all day and try to do fun things – color, work on puzzles, write – all of the things I haven’t had much time to do lately. I’ve been ignoring my parts. My therapist has been encouraging me to reconnect with them, so I’m trying to do what I can. It’s exhausting just to care for myself, and I often neglect those parts of me when they may need me the most. I’m still learning. I’m not perfect. But I am going to be okay. We all are.

[For the first time, I am going to share my blog on my regular social media account. I realized that, in a weird way, I still felt like I needed to protect my mother and my family’s image by hiding the blog from people that know her and I. But why am I protecting her? She doesn’t deserve my protection. I should not be the one hiding. She can’t hurt me anymore.]