Thanks Majella.

at that point my then 8 year old child was in foster care. It wasn't a matter of what I believed or not as to what the professionals knew I had (not suspected any longer because back in 1989 I had been tested and testing revieled that I did have DID only then it was called MPD)

It also wasn't a matter of being afraid that therapy was going to trigger me. I had been in therapy before and I know that therapy is supposed to bring things to the surface not keep the problems burried so I already knew I was going to have many days, nights, times when I was going to be upset.

But the bottom line was I had a child to bring home and the way to do that was to do whatever it took to take care of the reasons why I had become suicidal and self injuring.

The situation was no longer about me and whether or not I am afraid. It was about what was best for my child. If I wanted my child to come home I had to do the work no matter how hard and scary and upsetting the work may be.

My therapists past and present have all done cognative behavioural therapy - finding out what the persons problem is, setting goals around those problems and then accomplishing those goals that will change the behaviour patterns of the problems - including my present therapist LL.

The only difference is that I don't always wait for the therapist to say have you tried this lets try that. this is your problem so this is your goal to change that behaviour.

I sit down and write out my problems and brainstorm (make a list) of possible ways to solve those problems and then I do them to see if they work. If they don't I either figure out why and make that change or I take it to my therapist.

For example - I started researching and found out that dissociation was a person using their relaxation and imagry daydreaming skills to imagine themselves out of the abusive situation that they could not physically walk or run away from. Hypnosis otherwise known as relaxation visualizations is the same thing a person relaxing themselves when in situations that are stressful and so on by imagining a mental afe place, breathing and so on. So Through trial and error before telling SKR (therapist before LL)what I was doing I started keeping track of when I dissociated and how I felt and so on until I had broke it down into 10 steps.

The reason I was doing this was because every time SKR and I tried to talk about a nightmare that I was having I ended up completely dissociated. So I came up with a plan to use my dissociation skills (relaxation and imagry) to fight my dissociating by using it to relax myself to the point where I could talk about that nightmare. It took me about 6 months of research and so on and when I tried it on my own it didn't work becauwse I didn't have a present day focus point to keep me from dissociating away from the nightmare and into my mental safe place.

Now it was time to say hey Im doing this and I need your help to SKR. She took my research and so on and taled with her supervisor and we were given the go ahead. She needed time to get up to where I was.and then things went on that prevented us from doing it - lay offs her moms death and so on.

Im with LL now and when i wrote to LL who also does Cognative therapy and told her what SKR and I were working on and out endd goal with it she very quickly said yes and we started to add relaxation visualizations into our therapy sessions together.

Therapy is 98% the client doing things on their own and they gear the clients sessions based on what the client needs and brings in to the sessions (if a client doesn't say I have this problem they can't work on that problem, if the client doesnt say I want to try this they dont try this) so most therapist no matter what type of therapy approach they use love it when their clients come in with something they want to try even if its just to see if it works. try asking your therapist. Tell him her what you want to do you are the one paying for a service (their help) just like going into a restraunt you are buying the service of someone else cooking your meal and you want that meal to fit what you want to and can eat. otherwise it does not good to buy a meal you will not eat. Therapy is the same way why buy something that you are not going to use right.

Hang in there