[OneAndMany]

Background:

I have been seeing a T for 3 weeks now. Have been remembering bits and pieces of my childhood during the past month. I don't recall any s*xual ab*se specifically, but I do have enough triggers that it is very probable that I was. I do recall being emotionally/verbally abused by my mother, but the memories so far are few. But something must have taken place during my childhood that causes me to have DID, right??? My mother and I now have a pretty amicable relationship,

My daughter is 2 1/2 years old and goes over to my parents house twice a week (without me or hubby) from 10a to 4p. She truly loves her gramps and has come to love her grammy now too. This house is not where I grew up--my parents moved 5 hours from home to live 10 minutes away from us to be close to us and their granddaughter. We made this arrangement before we remembered any of the bad stuff.

Question: There are some inside me who are really concerned about dd getting hurt by my mother. But they express nothing more than a vague uneasyness. This is really not enough to go on to have dd stop going to my parents house, is it??? My T says to keep a watchful eye on how dd reacts to grandparents. This is slightly complicated by the fact the dd was s*xually ab*used in an orphanage before age 1, so she already displays unusual reactions and body memories at times.

I'm afraid to pull my dd away from my parents if my mother was nothing more than mean to me growing up and someone else caused the trauma. This would be truly unfair and detrimental to everyone involved. However, what if there is something dark and terrible from my past with my parents and I am unwilling to remember to keep my sanity now and that causes dd to become abused?

How in the world does one go about this?

Elizabeth

Hi OneandMany,
Do you have to leave her with your parents alone?
Isn't there anyway for you and/or your husband to be there with her?

[(JD)]

I agree with the T, watch dd for reactions. I would also give her the choice to go or not. Slowly educate her about privacy and her right to not have to allow anyone to touch her etc if she doesn't want.

Do the grandparents know of her abuse history? Perhaps sharing that they need to be especially careful and respectful of her privacy? Good wishes.

Until you have something that will stand up in court - physician reports, therapy reports all you can do is like your therapist says watch her behavior patterns and so on and any changes from what you normally experience with her then get the documentation and so on.

regardless of past abuse if anything is going on there will be noticable changes.

one thing you may want to keep in mind - being abused yourself there is a possibility of you seeing problems where there arent any because the child could be the age of an abuse situation that happened to you and so on,

So if you suspect anything may be going on then its time not talk to the child about it but contact a professional - physician and therapy professional and let them know what you are seeing in the child and let them take it from there. They are spcecifically trained in finding out if a child is being abused and talking to the child without scaring the child and or seeing symptoms because of their own abuse history. and here in the USA those professionals are mandated reporters.

If something is happening and visitation gets stopped, and the granparents take you to court to get their legal "Grandparents Rights" you have the documentation needed so that the court will not force you to give them visitation based on grandparents rights laws.

[OneAndMany]

Just got back from vacation. I think you have a good idea to have one of us go over there with her. That will be possible most of the time, except for when I go to therapy. I haven't figured out how to get around this obstacle yet.

[OneAndMany]

Yes, I do always give her the choice. She loves her gramps so much that she wants to go over there. I'm not sure if she feels the same way about grammy, but since they are both at home when dd is there, it is impossible to find out specifically how dd feels.

When dd spoke about the abuse, we immediately told her that she will be safe now, that mommy and daddy will never do that, and that no one ever has the right to touch her there. She seems to really get this.

My mother does know about dd's history. My father doesn't--I don't think he would know how to act normally around her if he knew and my mom agrees about that. That is a good idea to share that they need to be esp. careful and respectful of her privacy.

Thank you.

[OneAndMany]

Just got back from vacation.

Your post gave me some things to think about. I guess (in looking back at my post) what I really wanted to know is if there is some way to bring back a specific answer from all alters as to whether either of my parents s*x*ally abused me. I don't think that there is a safe way to do that.

I don't currently suspect that anything is going on over there. I just know that I would be devastated if one of my parents did something bad to dd because I *should* be able to know them better than anyone else and *should* be able to know if they are safe or not. But, I really don't have that knowledge. I can't remember sooo much of my childhood.

One thing that you mentioned that I didn't even know about is Grandparents Rights. It is good to know about it so that if I do see anything unusual, I will go through the right channels so that the courts won't force visitation.

Thank you.

your welcome.

In other posts you stated you were past the denial about having DID but were denying the abuse -

from your post -
But, I recognize that I'm in HUGE denial over the fact that something bad must have caused this.

-----

for the work needed that you are asking for -memory work - certain things have to be done and in place such as -

You must be past the denial of both that you have DID and that you were abused.

You must already have some memorys of that type of abuse whole or parts of ) to work with

You must have 100% trust in your therapist judgement as to what is best for you.

You must have a support network in real life set up.

You must have an "emergency to do list" set up and have consistantly used that list when in crisis for when the actual work begins things are going to go from calm to the chaos of fully feeling and experiencing those memories you want to access.

You must have done work on grounding techniques not only by yourself but also with your therapist..

You must be able to pull yourself out of your "tunnel" (the feeling of being floaty and things are far away)

You must be able to focus on your therapist. Your therapist acts as a "tour guide" so to speak with memory work by asking you questions and asking you at times to do things that are going to help ground you should you start slipping / floating off away from him/her and the memory you are working with.

You must have done work on relaxation techniques. not only by yourself but also with your therapist. It takes total relaxation in order to access repressed memorys.

Your therapist must be comfortable with doing the memory work with you.

Your therapist must be willing to see you upset and at times force you to feel and experience things in short that therapist must be willing to trigger you and see it through.

Your therapist must be available to you. doing the work the week that therapist goes on vacation is not the right time to do it.

Once you and your therapist has everything set up (it takes about 6 months to a year to do all the setting up of the above foundation work) and the therapist is confident in your abilitys to stay grounded in your normal day to day functioning level and you have consistantly used the grounding tools and relaxation tools during your daily life crisises the memory work can begin.

There are two different ways I know how to do this - the first one is by using your known triggers to trigger the memory and then the therapist asks you questions while you hold yourself in your tunnel at a point where you are aware of the therapist and at the same time aware of what is going on in the memory replaing like a flashback in your mind.

The second way is to use relaxation and visualizations (hypnosis) to and then the therapist asks you to focus on one memory that you already know a little bit about and when that memory starts going like a flashback the therapist asks you questions about it.

Since you are still denying your abuse history these are not going to work with you. as long as you are denying your abuse history you will not gain any knowledge or memorys about your abuse. that is what DID is - separating abuse memorys and storing them in the unconscious level so that the person has no memory or access to them.

Like I said before people are usually diagnosed with DID after they have been in therapy a while and their therapist has some sort of history and behaviors that makes them suspect the disorder.

In order for your therapist to suspect you have this disorder you had to have told her about some sort of abuse and have dissociated to the point where you are acting out memories while not aware that you are doing that during your therapy sessions.

then the therapists asks specfifc interview questions to find out if the test should be done. depending on your answers to the interview questions the therapist refers the person to a psychiatrist or psychologist for a Comprehensive Psychological Evaluation with suplimental tests specifically for diagnosing DID.

When the results of the testing comes back the person is told they have DID.

So in order to even think about testing you your therapist had to have witnessed you switching from full awareness to the autopilot of acting out pieces of memories (Alters). and so your therapist already knows abuse situations that you went through.

So if you want to know if you were sexually abused but you do not remember that all you need to do is ask your therapist.

She / he may not give you the detailed version of what you were acting out when you switched during sessions but she will tell you yes or no as to if you were sexually abused and who the perpetrator is that sexually abused you.