BACK ON TRACK OF WHAT THIS THREAD IS FOR -

MY ANSWER TO BIPOL'S WANTING TO KNOW MORE ABOUT MY EXPERIENCES WITH SUCH THINGS AS SAND TRAYS- WHICH FALLS INTO MY THERAPY PROGRAM AND MY RESEARCH INFORMATION.

I LEFT OFF BIPOL AND MAJELLA WHO HAS EXPRESSED INTEREST IN MY EXPREINCES WITH MY THERAPIST SKR DISCOVERING THAT I HAVE DID.

when we disclosed to my lawyer that I had DID he told us not to discluse my actual disorder to DHS. we were told to just work on it and get it done.

Well I had been hitting the library trying to prove to SKR that I don't have DID and SKR was busy doing her own research on how to help me.

Here is a blog entry of mine that tells what was going on at this stage of my therapy program -

Dr. Tracy Alderman and Karen Marshall
Tonight I am going to write about a book that SKR found when she first found out I had been tested and diagnosed with Multiple Personality Disorder (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder) . The day she found out I had steared the conversation to all the different diagnosises I have had over the past twenty years. Then I told her open the DSM IV to any page and I have probably been diagnosed with it at one point or another and started listing some and put MPD right in the middle thinking I’ll tell SKR but in a way that she won’t catch on so she could never say I never told her. SKR was too smart for this tactic and siad - “so you HAVE been diagnosed DID” then to answer my question she told me that DID - Dissociative Identity Disorder is what MPD is now called. They are one and the same. I told her it didn’t matter I wasn’t it and for months afterwards I researched at the local library trying to prove I was not DID.

That of course backfired on me the more I researched the more it pointed to the fact that I had this foot long disorder. So one day sitting in SKR’s office I told her - “Okay I give up I have this so how do we get rid of it before the caseworker tries taking away my parental rights and locks me up in some mental ward?”

Her answer was a workbook she had located called “Amongst Ourselves” by Dr. Tracy Alderman and Karen Marshall.

By the way this book “Amongst Ourselves” and the authors are not responsible nor do they run the on line support group called Amongst Ourselves. They - The book and the group carrying the same name are in no way related or a part of each other.

This is one question I get asked often so I thought I better include it here. This blog entry is about the book Amongst Ourselves NOT the support group that happens to be carrying the same name.

Someone SKR knew that works with dissociatives loaned it to her for a couple weeks more from the day SKR gave it to me. I have no idea how long SKR had it in her hands waiting for me to start letting go of the denial phase.

For some of my readers what follows is a repeat of my answers to emails and pms from people who ask about this book and the authors. But please hang in there a moment and keep reading - New info is on its way.

That night I opened this book - “Amongst Ourselves” - and was absolutely amazed. Here was this book wrote by a professional and her partner who had Dissociative Identity Disorder.

The language of the book is wrote in laymens terms wherever possible and when professional language is used there is also detailed explainations in laymens terms what the authors are talking about.

And top that off in this book I was not only being “talked” to by a professional but Karen a survivor with DID was adding her personal touches to the book by including her own experiences with having DID and the healing process.

My first thoughts at looking at the activities included in the book was “WOW!! and I DON’T have to go back to the hospital to take care of this, these activities are all things that can be done on my own AT HOME.

For the next two weeks I didnt learn how to get rid of my symptoms and alters with professional “preaching” and pushing of medications like professionals tend to want to do with putting me on this medication, and upping the dosage and switching the medications when they didn’t work on me.

What I did learn from this book is that I was not crazy and I was actually very special because I was DID. My DID saved me from becoming crazy and possibly saved my life because my abuse situations were separated and stored in my unconscious level of thinking where I would not know about it until I was physically and mentally ready to remember it. DID was actually a very creative thing that my brain did by creating alters of my memories of abuse.

Then I learned how creative and special I was for having DID - Dr. Tracy Alderman and Karen Marshall had designed activities for the book where my sense of hands on creativity could be used by making construction paper chains with different colored links to represent my life history, making charts to keep track of my alters (which I call memory pieces), comparing photos of then and now so that I can visually see my life objectively so that I had a visual way of distinguishing the past from the present. answering questions about myself and my symptoms so that I would have a better understanding of what my problems were associated with having DID, and activities geared towards helping me to take care of those problems, and also activities for recognizing the positiveness of my having DID instead of always focusing on the negative aspects.

There is also chapters on how to tell others if you want them to know you have DID and how to go about obtaining therapy, and different types of therapy used for DID like hypnosis, group therapy, individual therapy, medication.

This is also the only book that I found out there not FOR or AGAINST integration. Karen and Tracy chose to leave that issue up to their readers because some people choose integration and others do not.

I have since bought my own copy of this book because I kept requesting it so much from the local library.

I was so taken by this book that I went looking for the authors Dr. Tracy Alderman and Karen Marshall. Then I sent them an email with some questions and boy was I surprised when I recieved an answering email. LOL

One day when I was on another on line support group people were asking me for my resourses of my research so that they could also use researching for their therapy process. So I asked Karen and Tracy if it was ok to list their book on my resourse list. I also found alot of the members of the group were interested in the fact that I was charting my alters so I asked Tracy and Karen if it was ok to post some of their book on the on line support groups that I was a member of. I recieved their permission to do so for both.

Well here I am at Psych Central and and as some of you already know you will still find the book “Amongst Ourselves” by Dr. Tracy Alderman and Karen Marshall on the resourse list.

Since posting this list on the community’s Dissociative Disorders messageboards here at Psych Central and here on my blog I have recieved many emails and pms asking questions about the book and if Tracy and Karen have a website and how to contact them.

My reply each time has been no website as of yet that I know of, I could not give out contact info without their permission and would be glad to explain how I did the activites.

When I checked my emails the last few days there were more questions about the book and the authors so today I contacted Tracy and Karen and asked if they have a website yet. and why I wanted to know this.

Sorry but but the answer was no website as of yet BUT Karen and Tracy have given me permission to release their email address (es)

Dr. Tracy Alderman can be reached at - DrTracyA@aol.com

Karen Marshall can be reached at LadyKarenM@aol.com

Many thanks Tracy and Karen

SKR and I had the best time with my doing the activities in this book. I never noticed how much of my life was some sort of abuse be it physical, mental or sexual. But the activity of making a life chain out of constriction paper sure gave a visual effect to the concept.

I still to this day do the Charting who is in your system activity. Only mine I do with a binder that way each memory piece has its own section where I have a sample drawing, and writing sample and any information that SKR and I could learn about that piece of memory by looking at th e drawings or by SKR talking to me when I am rerunning that piece of memory.