</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
___Shadow___ said:
It's the emotions That make things hard.

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Yes, totally! For me, I think part of what is so hard is not being able to "name" the emotions. I'll just feel like a big mess of BAD, and it's kind of scary - not knowing what it is, what caused it, what will make it go away. A lot of times, I'll just kind of switch and then I'm not dealing with it anymore. It's when I'm trapped and don't dissociate and CAN'T dissociate that the emotions overwhelm me and I start turning toward other unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Hey! Typing that just now, I just realized how much dissociating really HAS protected me over the years. If I can "check out", then I don't need the unhealthy coping stuff. Huh. I guess it's like Judee B said - we're not "crazy"!