[Jennifer1084]

I guess I just apologize now for writing this. I am just having a really hard time. I had this discussion with my T this moring. We talked about what I've been doing to deal with all my internal parts. I haven't been handling it very well. I've been ignoring them and doing my best to make sure they are not coming out (even though many times they do anyway).

I also keep questioning myself on why am I like this? Am I just doing it?

My T kinda told me that it wasn't me doing it, she knows that. But she explained to me that in a way I am because I started doing this all when I was young when I had nothing else to do but to dissociate. I'm sure it's like that for everyone else who has DID. But she doesn't think I am purposely now doing it. Does this make any sense?

I'm just so torn apart right now. I'm so sick and tired of listening to them and paying attention to them. Sometimes I just wonder if I am just not ready to deal with all this right now. But I don't think I should wait much longer.

When I do things I do them in extremes so it's either I listen to them and make moving forward and everything the main focus in my life, I mean it's all I can think about, all I can do. Or I slack off and don't do anything to progress, anything that really makes me move forward.

Any comments, questions or support is greatly appreciated. I tried to be as open as I could be in this post and I'm sorry it's so long.

I'm sorry you're having such a hard time. You do not need to apologize for anything.

What you are dealing with is to be expected and no, you are not "just doing it."

Do you keep a journal? That is an excellent way for the communication to start and to give everyone a chance to say whatever it is they need to. It should help the chatter lessen a bit.

I think you know in your heart that you're ready to deal with this. This is why it's "all you can think about."

I'm glad you're here at PC. It will help you to have some support outside of T's office.

Makes alot of sense - the way SKR explained it to me -

children purposely use dissociation (daydreaming other wise known as imagry and relaxation otherwise known as self hypnosis) to escape when they are being abused because they cannot get up and run away or walk away from their abusers.

They just keep doing it until it becomes a habit of daydreaming whenever anything the least bit happens to upset the person.

By the time the person is an adult the does not realize they are daydreaming away from whatever is upsetting them.

Because it was such a habit kind of like someone asking me what 2 plus 2 was and I automatically answer with 4. Now I automatically daydream Im floating and my music and my clouds and so on of La La Land. Sometimes I don't realize I am doing it until I stop doing it and notice something is different.

So I had to start paying attention to what was making me upset and when I was feeling floaty use my grounding techniques and instead of float in la la land take care of the problem that is making me feel like I want toget away.

At first I had absolutely no control I floated off and could not - not dissociate. Ino matter what I did it happened I was off floating most of the time.

I couldnt stop it no matter how afraid of the voices and so on were.

It was only after SKR taught me how to use grounding tools by asking me to pay attention to her voice, focus on trying to see her, and what she was wearing, what the chair I was sitting on felt like, what my hand felt like, the sun on my face and so on, and that took months for me to be able to do.

Then after months of this I was finally able to actually feel the chair under me and hear her voice and so on without floating off to la la land.

I also had to learn and practice relaxation techniques but yet still remain aware of what the blanket felt like the chair and my body.

and then finally I was able to start staying in that area of co consciousness to learn what the memories were, then I was able to start stopping my dissociating into the separated pieces of memories.

Only after I was able to do all that was I able to start pulling myself back out of that floaty tunnel preventing my dissocaiting into the memory pieces.

Im not always 100% successful et but I keep practicing every day by on purpose paying attention to what all my senses are telling me and journal writing when things start to upset me.

From time to time I take breaks in doing my therapy projects, but since DID is in every part of my life whether or not I am working on therapy projects I never get a break from focusing on it.

Kind of can't help it like waking up and go to make coffee and find I dumped the brand new can of coffee into the litter pan, or wake up and instead of my bed being in one bed room its now across the house in a different bedroom, or get on my bike headed for the library and suddenly find that I am standing at the amtrack watching the trains go by. Start cooking scrambled eggs and bacon one second and the next Im standing there making a pan of spagetti a week later.
In order to figure out what is going on when I become aware I have to pay attention to my surroundings, my senses and how I am feeling.

For example I can't get back from watching the trains at the amtrack if I am not paying attention to road signs, sounds smells and so on that tell me where I am and what streets I am traveling on.

So for me since theres no break from DID for me there is no break for me in doing therapy work.

You already know how to prevent your dissociating so you are already way ahead of this because you already know how to use grounding techniques.

So now you can use that to your advantage. You already know you are going to dissociate sometimes whether you like it or not right?

When I taught my son how to ride his bike I told him - he already knew he was going to fall so why not make it the best fall he possibly could - we cut up an old piece of foam rubber and wrapped the pieces in material and wrapped up his knees and elbows. and then on the bike he got and I gave him a push and off he went and fell got back up and fell got back up and pettaled a foot realised he was biking and fell, got back up and petaled and went around the whole block.

You already know you are going to dissociate and you already know that whatever the pieces of memories are, are not good and how to use your grounding tools to prevent some of your dissociating.

use that to your advantage -
Use the grounding tools not to force yourself to remain COMPLETELY aware. Just barely aware enough so that you can hear and see your therapist.

now First step safety protocals - using your imagination what is the worst thing you can think of that will happen when you use your grounding techniques that you have been using to prevent your dissociating to keep you in that area where you can hear and see your therapist but yet floaty of dissociating?

Once you have the worst case scenerio put your foam rummer knee pads and elbow pads around that.. maybe you feel you need to have a friend present in your therapy session, maybe having a second therapist in the room while you and your therapist work together, maybe you might want to make sure your therapist is available for after hours and emergency sessions... Whatever you feel you need to keep you safe.

Once you have the knee pads and elbow pads and helmet all thats left is getting on the bike.

I can tell you so far my being in that co consciousness area of seeing and hearing my therapist while the memory is replaying has never reached my worst case scenerio and I have been doing this for 3 years with SKR and now have started doing this with my present therapist LL.

I still have many questions of myself. but I see it this way I was able to use my imagination and relaxation abilities to separate my memories so I can keep coming up with question after question and the answers may never come.

I can also tell you that its more scarey thinking about having to pay attention then the actual paying attention is. Once you start paying attention it will become habit for you to listen.

Before I met SKR I would block out the voices like anything to thepoint where I have running static in my head all the time and in order to listen to the voices first I have to listen beyond the static by relaxing or triggering so much that the voices get louder then the static. I started out paying attention to what I was hearing as I woke up and matching what I was hearing to what my eyes were seeing, ears hearing and so on and soon I realized that those voices did match things like I was hungry the voice stopped once I ate something. it suddenly wasnt so scarey. I ccould actually control the voices not by shutting them out by taking care of what the voices were about. life is so much easier all my energy I was using to shut the voices out can now be used for the things I like to.

Hang in there Jenifer. it does get better.

[Jennifer1084]

Wow, thank you so much for all the info. It does seem to make sense. My T also has told me that all the energy I spend ignoring the voices I could be using to listen to them. So all of this ranjg very true to me.
I sure hope that things will get better.

Last night was hard again. I had a part come out and he hurt me very bad. I almost went to the hospital but I didn't. I just tried to pay attention to what was going on inside. Well thanks again for the reply.

Jennifer

[heartspace]

You're being really brave Jennifer. Hang in there.

You're welcome and I promise it will be better for you some day.

Once you get on that bike of being in the co-consciousness area of dissociating - daydreaming and relaxing, just enough to be able to hear and see your therapist at the same time be able to tell her what memory is replaying in your head that you have an urge to act out, you will no longer be acting that memory out uncontrolably because it will now be stored as a normal piece of memory.

You may still feel like you want to cut and or harm yourself but you will not act on that urge anymore unless you, while completely aware, are making that choice to do so.

The memory will not die, be gone and so on. It will still be there you just won't have to be upset and floating off in order to think about it and so on.

Kind of like meat in the freezer. Its in there until you are ready to look at it and decide what to do with it. theYou move it out of the freezer and use tools - cold water the fridge the counter to unthaw it. precook it and then place it in the fridge to be able to use it anytime for anything meetloaf, spegetti, tacos,

The memory has been plced in the freezer (unconsciousness level of thinking. co consciousness is the tool (unthawing and precooking) and normal conscious memory (the fridge to open and take out a bit at a time as you see the need and want for it without having to unthaw and precook again.)

You will always have that piece of memory. You are just moving it from the freezer to the fridge for easy access and use.

The harmful memory has been separated and stored in the freezer.

You havve started the thawing out process when your therapist was talking to you when you were acting out that piece of memory. so now you have enopugh control to recognize wher its going to happen.

But there is still some ice to remove, so it needs to go through the process of thawing out again - you remaining aware enough again to be able to see hear and talk to your therapist while that memory is replaying, just like you did before.

This time its not going to be so scarey because you have already done it once with your therapist. with this harmful piece of memory.

Im not saying the memory itself is not going to be scarey. But the process itself is not going to be so scarey because you know what to expect.

I can also tell you that most likely until you finish the thawing out and precooking of that memory you will keep going through getting hurt while experiencing a memory.

I did everything possible for over 20 years to stop cutting while rerunning of memorys - threw out all my knives, stayed with friends, called my therapists, volluntarily hospitalized myself, got involluntarily hospitalized too many times to count, have been on just about every antidepressant, antipsychotic medications out there that my medical file looks and reads like the PDR (Physicians Desk Reference - book that has every prescription drug available on the market) But still I would end up cut.

Then working with a therapist I remembered while remaining aware that one time when I was raped I was tied up and after my abusers left I had to cut off the binding on one of my arms.

Once I remembered that I still had the flashbacks - the feeling of the binding on my arm, the feeling and urges to cut, the pictures and sounds in my head and so on but I could now begin to start controling it by desensitizing myself from it.

Now I no longer act out that piece of memory, and I no longer cut because of the flashbacks from that memory either.

Jenifer I know what your therapist is asking you to do is scarey but I promise the actually doing it is not as scarey as the imagination can come up with fighting the idea. please give it another try with your therapist. I think you will feel better afterwards.

[January]

(((((((((( Jennifer ))))))))))))))

Hugs,

Jan

[bipolar_bear]

((((((((((((((((((Jennifer))))))))))))))))) You are very brave. Journaling is a good idea.

[hillbunnyb]

.... sorta like working it out with a team of missmatched horses and donkeys and ponies pulling your wagon....... you gotta get to know each individual so you can put each one in the right place for best funtioning of the whole....

yeah, it confuses the heck out of me sometimes. hang in there

[wanttoheal]

Hi Jennifer,
It's nice to meet you. I'm sorry you are struggling right now.

I tend to hover on the denial side as much as possible, though I am finally making strides to accept. I've gone so long pushing the noise to the back of my head when I can, that now, it's hard to make myself try to listen to what's going on. I think it's wonderful that you are trying to listen to parts, even if not 100% of the time.

It sounds like you have a supportive T and I'm so glad. While this is not a fun thing to deal with, DID makes perfect sense because of what a child was made to endure. It was simply a survival technique. Our brains had no control over doing it or not doing it. Our brains are about doing what it takes to survive. This is simply carried on as adults; our brains have been programmed to do this every time it feels the need to protect.

I never even knew what was going on as my dissociation was so great that even when I was aware of where I was, I wasn't aware of the time passing or days passing. I just kind of went on my merry way from where I landed. It never really came to my mind of what happened to yesterday, etc. I'm not sure why. I guess because it just always was or maybe it was that my awareness was just so nonexistent.

I wish I had some great answers to give you. I think you are doing great though and I think that the all or nothing approach is pretty normal sometimes.

Best of luck to you on your journey to healing.

[Evangelista]

Sounds like you are doing the hard work Jennifer that is part of the healing process...hope all the best for you as you learn your system and to communicate with them and they with each other, and you..its all important and deeply resource intensive work..it can consume your energies, but it is part of the healing..take care..