[Alatea]

Originally Posted by ReveuseTroublee

Long and unstructured - mind dump

It is hard when you are perceived as so normal even by your psychiatrist and that is exactly what scares me.
How normal I seemed - how long I handled my life even though how mentally ill I was all throughout my life.
If most people would experience only 20% of my struggles maybe even less they would already storm the psychiatrist's offices.
This is not based on suffering. I don't think I suffer more than others. Mostly I am unaware which is quite dangerous for me.
But the broad variety of symptoms and strength of them is overwhelming. It is even hard for me to grasp let alone others.
I don't blame anybody.
It is just my life.
If he or any psychiatrist would have met us in school I probably would not have even mentioned my social anxiety and all the panic attacks and in elementary I would have never talked about my OCD. To me it was so normal... I would have seemed a little scared or shy maybe but otherwise fully normal. You can always have a panic attack/mental breakdown in the bathroom you know, later on. And I was just ashamed of it.
After school I thought life would be good now.
I blamed school for everything.
I usually speak of my issues in the past tense because it is hard for me to describe the present state.
But then everything went downhill from there.
The worst times of my life came when I hoped now it would get better.
And I kinda knew that... Because the outer circumstances did not matter a thing anymore at this point. I could have had the perfect life - I feel like my life was great back then and it still would have ended in desaster.
I can't tell you how many times I was told it was just a phase. How many times I believed it. I wanted to believe so desperately. I had a really bad gut feeling but I still hoped for the best.
I lost lots of time. I can't participate in life. I am so out of it. I wish these people would see me living. They would witness my breakdowns.
When you stop self-harming they think you are cured.
I am not.
That is the issue.
This appointment yesterday (it is 4 am here) and talking about my mother (honestly) is still in my head. I can't sleep.
What if he lied to me? What if he just told me what I wanted to hear?
What if he never believed me? If he just said this to me because he wanted to get rid of me?
What if nobody believes me? I don't even believed myself.
He talked about multiplicity like it was nothing. I have to live with this everyday whatever that is. It is not fun. I also told him I have high doubts but he did not have any. And this was so hard on me. I know he knows me for so long now. But still...
My mother drove me and I kinda remembered the smell of the car and such. I also recognized the exam rooms but it was more like I dreamed to have been there and a voice went 'look there is the bathroom in the back where I had all these panic attacks'. And I was not even shocked I could not even hold back a 'oh, it really happened/it is real' in that childish voice (I hate when that happens and I lose control of my body like this) and I said I could not orientate myself or sth (which is pretty normal but I rarely notice it when I am at home and I think I spent up to 4 months at home now). I don't remember and then the receptionist checked up on me. Of course everything 3rd person view in memory because that is how you enjoy life you know. From never participating from just watching. Sassy. I honestly have no idea.
The issue is I believe it myself sometimes. I am so used to severe mental illness symptoms like regular panic attacks that I can have one in the bathroom and come out maybe only 15 minutes later and be like nothing ever happened. I can't construct days now. I cam't tell really it is just so unchronological and sometimes it just 'leaves my brain. I sometimes can't even differentiate between all the different symptoms. I can sometimes only even say it is a good or a bad day. Sometimes even not that. I am so disconnected from myself it is astonishing. And the amount of times I thought I was magically cured by glasses, meds and even if I just had not self-harmed or thought about it for one day or had a good week... It just leaved my mind. My whole life leaves my mind. My vision and hearing improve and worsen like they please. My cognitive abilities and such - I can't depend on anything. I do things with ease and suddenly struggle with it. You can tell me something 20 times, I will ask 20 times and I won't register it. Good, it is usually maybe just 4 or 5 times (don''t even know for sure) :') but it I won't even register and then I have to rely on my intuition.
I feel like I am really intuitive because I can't rely on my body and mind a lot. I have to analyze and so on and learn from experience to be able to tell things. Thankfully I also have vivid dreams which I can use too. Sometimes even they are more useful then my own memories. I don't remember it unless I take notes and with self-harm I would forget it too. I might look withdrawn and exhausted after I had an episode or sth. but you would never guess anything.
Most people don't know I ever self-harmed.
I would not believe myself if I did not keep all these pictures in my gallery and on my skin and so on.
Sometimes it angers me how I always try to keep it invisible because I want to see it. I want to feel it and know it and be able to recall everything about it. Not just provoking physical symptoms and some blurred visual pieces which I call my small memories. But they are just chunks, third person or dream-like and I have to organize everything. Then they leave, something new pops up but also leaves. Everything just leaves. I am scared to fabricate memories in the process of kinda trying to put them together.
But I more and more learn about ways I harmed myself or things that where planned on to harm myself and I am in disbelief and I wish I would have been on drugs or just physically ill.
I saw this bottle of a cleaner and I suddenly - I just knew something again. And it got disturbing for me. I just can't comprehend this gravity. This severity.
Anything I can grasp. Anything I can easily comprehend.
It just extremely difficult to think about it.
Also the amount of times I tried and maybe still try to believe myself I was faking. And I never succeeded and then you fall down into that deep hole because you realize you truly have struggles. Nobody would fake anything for as long as I did if that person does not have issues. So even if I would fabricate everything I would still have to deal with it.
Because this is dangerous.
I feel so nauseous I want to vomit. I just can't sleep and I can't process anything.
Maybe I should have asked for medication...
But I guess there is no one to make you feel energized and none that takes the somatic symptoms away.
I can't stop thinking about purging.
It would be such a relief.
Everythibg is incredibly dream-like you know. And as much as I would like to make myself believe it was not that bad reall which is easy if it does not feel real or you can't associate yoirself with it.
I also almost got made to run into traffic by one of the people in my head/voices/parts... I FORGOT about that I just remember now that I am back home. So the thing was that I felt like I could not have the apppointment because I was not able to get the steps done to ring the bell, open the door and speak. I quickly took over and managed it for that child at least she behaves like one... But this is dangerous.
How careless I get, how little I can sometimes do, how little I perceive myself and my surroundings. I don't notice what is going on insude but neither outside.
I find notes that describe dissociation before it was even picked on by professionals before I even knew what went on. To me it was so normal. OCD was normal only when things got disabling (the only thing my parents ever picked on usually) then it was an issue.
If I would not have these severe self-destruction habits that are more and more showing artificial disorder tendencies - I would never gotten help.
It is sad but it is true.
I think back then I self-harmed because I felt like that is the only way to get help. Embarrassing I know but I was frightened. Looking back from what I know now there was no life.
At some point I could not leave the house anymore.
I can fill you a book with diagnoses I had... I literally was diagnosed with almost everything you can get diagnosed with.
I am not proud of this.
But it shows what happens if you don't get help or way too late. I did not want help, I was too proud to admit to it at that point but I had no choice - even though I could not talk so I had to find ways to verbalize it. I had so many rules for myself. Things I was not allowed. The way I had to behave and so on. It is ridiculous. Basically being forced to be perfect. Don't ever show flaws, be a good girl, deny and repress. Even though I felt obligated to behave like an adult at 13. I felt like now I was grown up.
It is disturbing to know how long all these issues I have now date back to. I have my diary and such where I can kinda read that. I have multiple diaries in fact. And it is disturbing to me. I just kept it as evidence for what went on.
So I would believe myself.
I am so similar to my psychotic mother.
Her reality is warped.
But mine I just can't even connect to it.
I really struggle with all of this.
I am scared to never leave this fog.
I am scared to kinda get bad again.
After seeing how much I struggled after that appointment.

I just want to say I hear you so loud and clear. It is just as if you described my life. I am sorry you are suffering. I am sorry I am suffering. To all other people who feel so lonely in all this, I want to say: there is someone who understands. And believes. You are not alone. I want to write so much more...maybe later.

Stay safe,
A.

I have been watching baby club and taking my cup for walkies like a dog

rreally not coping with life so just.. well, doing things I enjoy doing

[Taylor27]

I am starting to feel more better then I have been that last few weeks. I had a huge panic attack that really made me dissociate and lose focus. My therapist is away so I can't talk to her, however I am feeling better and I can wait til I see her in a week or two.

[Breaking Dawn]

Originally Posted by Alatea

I just want to say I hear you so loud and clear. It is just as if you described my life. I am sorry you are suffering. I am sorry I am suffering. To all other people who feel so lonely in all this, I want to say: there is someone who understands. And believes. You are not alone. I want to write so much more...maybe later.

Stay safe,
A.

Thank you!!!

[ReveuseTroublee]

Originally Posted by Alatea

I just want to say I hear you so loud and clear. It is just as if you described my life. I am sorry you are suffering. I am sorry I am suffering. To all other people who feel so lonely in all this, I want to say: there is someone who understands. And believes. You are not alone. I want to write so much more...maybe later.

Stay safe,
A.

Thank you, it means a lot... I still don't believe myself but it somehow feels like I am finally moving into the right direction. I did something awful yesterday.
I tried manipulating a child alter/myself, no idea really at that point (I felt forced to do that and like I had no choice) that everything she believes is a lie, she felt so guilty that she self-harmed. At that point I wonder wether I am the issue, I am the evil one. And of course then the a**hole dictated her how to self-injure. Looking back I felt like it was that a**h*le really dictating me and then me dictating her. An odd triangle. I could NOT intervene at that point. I feel awful.
The only thing I later cared about was making it not show, so I told her to hold her arm a certain way so that nobody would see. I was angry at her for self-injuring even though that was what it would lead to... I wanted her struggles to feel like mine. It is hard to describe.
I wanted to feel as a whole or alone.
I wanted the 3rd version memories become mine.

I literally brainwashed her - others supported me in the process.
Basically it was like 'you have to wash the guilt away', 'you have to clean your soul' over and over again with a hand - washing image. Why? No idea.

I felt like I had to appear very disturbed and mentally ill and kinda show that I am the ill one and not my mother and I would have used her for that - I even thought I had to go to the mental asylum again. I don't know I feel utterly disgusted by myself.
I just did not fight I think? I somehow supported that a**ho*e.

It is just hard for me to believe her, to believe myself. She makes me feel like I am not real and the other way around.

I kinda apologized later on and I think it is better now. But I can't help it. I have to call a therapist today and just make an appointment. I need therapy to process everything, but she is the one who really needs help. She knows were the issues lie.

It is just difficult for me to process.

I am also still having huge gaps here and there and I am exhausted all the time.
It is already Wednesday, not Tuesday... It is tough.

And of course my parents still prefer Borderline, then any other diagnosis. She fully fits that criteria. She is literally a butterfly and she can identify with all statements on BPD but she is also very childlike/emotional, she literally is lost in the adult world. She believes everything you say.

She is so easy to break and I feel like her face expression is dear-like. Like innocent but hurt and just obedient at least that is what I feel my face looks like when she is present.

I feel like she got all the mental illness, I got nothing.

The issue is I am not mentally ill, I am more depressed I think and dissociated a lot.
They don't get why I am so upset.
They just think I am a very extreme person, that just has a lot of depth to it.
They don't get how extreme it is. At all.
It is not that I don't want help. I just view things entirely differently.
And I have no idea what to talk about.
Also I am afraid that I will get worse from therapy, no idea if that makes any sense.

I am surprised I am still alive, I really am.
All I could do was harm-minimisation at some point, nothing else.

I also don't remember a lot of conversations, so it is like you were so positive about it yesterday and I am struggling to kinda remember so I am trying to 'assume'. But assuming is not the same as knowing.
To me it is more like believing, and that is not a very nice feeling to have.
It is just so upsetting to me... But she seems to experience amnesia too, she seems to be as confused and disturbed as I am.
So there could be more...

I feel immense guilt but also shame. A lot of shame.
I was so out of it... I am used to just observe and suddenly it annoys me. Idk.
I feel like I am a lot more functional so I want more control.
I used to always be there or at least I thought that and now I feel like I am not able to. It is hard.

I mean it is like with all the self-harm and suicidal behavior? Idk.
It is just a different story.
It is like not supposed to happen/be.
Idk how to explain.
I feel BPD is overrated.
I have a strong aversion against BPD for some reason. I feel like with BPD you can literally explain anything even if it has nothing to do with a BPD label. I don't know if that makes any sense.
But the main reason for the BPD being suspected was self-harm and this is just a dumb stereotype. Also I appear normal or BPD and I appear BPD when she is out and usually self-harms or Idk what she does or whatever.
Also I guess you can have both.


I could be making up everything. At this point I just would like my brain to work better and I wish I could just put a bow around last year and put glitter on it and kinda hide what is underneath - which is quite easy if you are missing the link to yourself.
And it also is something she loves I think.
I am not that much into bows, glitter and colors. It is just not my thing. I am not really that much into Kawaii, but I think she loves it. Ghibli and such. I guess that is really the age-difference. Yeah. Idk at this point. Also I saw a necklace again and to me it was so ugly but she loved it but I still did not buy it. I like neutral, basic things really. I don't care much about looks, but she is really obsessed about it.
I feel like I failed to integrate somehow. I feel like everybody developed into one and I somehow failed to do that and that angers me. I just thought I struggled to combine different interests and created fake personas by choice, but somehow everybody seems to have their own lives and such, they seem to be people, not even just parts that try to imitate each other and be subtle. I felt like I created her and she felt like she created me and we both somehow deny each other's existence and yeah think that Idk.
I guess I am just really a very diverse person and I imagine something.
I kinda thought I would just leave old stuff behind and move on. Idk.
I am utterly confused at that point.
Do I have manipulated myself so much and suppressed so much that I am too dumb to connect myself to everything?
I feel awful.
You matter a lot to me and I am just thankful to get to know you, we all do. <3



Also I feel obligated to deny everything all the time. This is so odd. I must be making this all up.

[ReveuseTroublee]

Originally Posted by Cheryl27

I am starting to feel more better then I have been that last few weeks. I had a huge panic attack that really made me dissociate and lose focus. My therapist is away so I can't talk to her, however I am feeling better and I can wait til I see her in a week or two.

I am glad. <3

[Breaking Dawn]

Dear @Cheryl27, I go through this. God bless you, dear sweet friend!!

[Alatea]

Dear ReveuseTroublee and other friends in here,

I will try to express some of my experience, but ofc it is only my way of approaching dissociation, and everyone is different. It comes after four and a half years of my active engagement in healing, and at times it has been hell, and most of the days very just about survival, and not living. But I do not want it to sound grim, it is what it is, that is how I understood it, and I was like: “ok, I will focus on survival first”. The only thing I had to do for myself was to survive. While doing that, I gradually became the most important person for myself. I couldn’t understand it before, when people say: I care about myself first. I never did, there was always someone more important. But when all this hit me, I could not afford any more to have anyone else more important for me than me. I don’t want it to sound awful, but I actually believe it is part of the healing, and un-learning the conditioning that says: you are not worthy, you are below every other living being. Hell, no. I stood up for myself, all of myself.

When I say four and a half year of active healing, it means for as long as I have been aware of dissociation as a problem. I had it before, I had it always – well, at least from the age of three – but I somehow developed ways to live with it, and I developed ingenious ways of camouflaging and hiding it. I think that people mostly thought that I am eccentric, that I often change gears, from hyper-focus to absent-mindedness, and I had some features that seemed as extraordinary talents, such as to learn a language in a week, to “think out of the box”, but that was due to the way my perception worked. I also had massive amnesia, for a certain type of information – basically, for everything that my brain tried to protect me from, so when I would “see” such awful things in my mind, the whole system would activate to erase it, and bring me back to ground zero, and I would have my identity built from a scratch. Again, and again and again.
To the present moment.

I went through 6 months of EMDR now, after being two times for six months in CBT. EMDR helped with integrating traumatic memories. And just that. Just traumatic memories, so that they do not hijack me from the present moment, and throw me into flashbacks that were tormenting me. EMDR cleared the way for internal communication, because it removed the terrible pain that was preventing me to do so. But what I did in EMDR therapy, was to introduce the metaphor of parts on my own. I already knew about parts, but I was discouraged in my former therapy to talk about them. I was told they were just dissociated capsules of memory. They were not.

“They” are the way my thoughts are organized. It is, and I am absolutely certain of that, a specific arrangement of thinking patterns, ingeniously developed in order to protect the sense of self, and not the other way round. I do not see it is a breakage, I see it as the only way I could save my sane mind. And I refuse to pathologize this specific arrangement of thinking patterns, because if I were to pathologize it, I would see it as something bad. I see it as something that, once I understand it as a way that my mind works, I can use to heal not dissociation, but the wound, the trauma, that caused it in the first place. Dissociation, in my mind, and in the way I deal with it, interact with it and rely on it, is a particular organization of my mind that helps me heal the wounded self. And I did not invent it, Janina Fisher did😊

Fortunately, my EMDR therapist was very open-minded and professional all along. We talked yesterday, it was our penultimate meeting, as I feel I can go on, on my own, without the safety net, at least for the time being.
I came up with the metaphor of sewing through or stitching through my experiences, states and memories, while working with him.
What I am trying to express is how “communication” happens, at least for me. I first had two instances of communication, last spring, well, almost exactly a year ago. Before that, I could not really communicate, just observe. Last spring, I went out of a deep depersonalization/derealization that was anesthetizing me before I was able to deal with the pain. When I got out of DPDR, I was overwhelmed with feelings from primarily two parts. One was a desperate child hoping for attachment, and the other one was a sort of a monster, the pain materialized, that wanted me hurt, sending terrible images of self-hurt and hurt in general, just so that I do not look towards the real pain. I spent months, every day, from the sunset (a huge trigger) until later in the evening, negotiating for my life with the monster. I started talking with them, saying that I understand where they come from, and that it is ok. Parallel to this, I embraced the child, I said it was ok too, and I am here now for all of us. It is more complicated than that, as I had a helper too, the more emotional part of me, that managed to establish that connection with the child. So it was never just me, but I had to act as a manager.

When I started the EMDR therapy, the child craved for attachment, and wanted to attach to the therapist. I talked to the child, and I managed to divert the attachment towards myself. I knew I am strong enough and able enough to take care of us, even though it was very difficult.
It still happens, that I go through the day as “me” or “I”, and in the evening, there is a whole party of people, asking to be acknowledged and heard, and I have to deal with it before going to sleep.

I am preparing some lectures now, for my work, and as I didn’t do it for a while, well, practically since two or three years ago, it brought in some concerns. I am not just me any more, as my former professional persona could be understood as a calm, composed, very unemotional presentation of myself, or that is what I used to be. Now, I am more than that, and when I let my other, more emotional and lively parts inform my work, it produces some interesting and new thinking, and I feel I was upgraded by allowing other parts of me to take a more active role in my favourite activity of thinking and theorizing.

However, I have no idea how the lectures will go, as before I could rely on my professional persona to do it, to a perfection. Sometimes, I would find myself thinking about something else, while she was performing. Now I feel I will be present. I want to be present. And it is scary, as exposing sides of me that I did not dare introduce before. But it is me.

I think I want to say, everyone probably has to find ways of self-regulation that work best for them. It was devastating for my self-regulation when I was first denied my reality of fragmentation, as I felt almost violated as a person for not being allowed to express myself the way I feel I am. However, I was equally afraid of having my fragmentation confirmed. My current EMDR therapist therefore just expressed his opinion on my fragmentation, confirming it, but not labelling it with either DID or OSDD. I said I do not need to know, because I know how it is for me, and I finally understand how to work with it. I told him I don’t want it pathologized, and he has shown respect for me as a person and a client, as I think he saw that I am able to develop a system of my own healing, with his help, of course.

I also told him that it doesn’t mean that it is easy. I suffer every day, but it is getting better. But I have around 5 or 10 instances during the day, when I am triggered, then I need to understand where the trigger comes from, who among my states is triggered, where it comes from and why, and after I understand it, I need to “stitch” it, literally like imagining the act of sewing through, that memory of situation and my present sense of self.
However, the equally important part of this process is “unstitching” or “de-linking” from previous conditioning. Most of my triggers are related to unresolvable conflict within, that I used to have. How can someone supposed to take care of you hurt you? That is what child asks themselves. “There must be something wrong with me”. That is a child’s thinking, because in order to survive as a “self”, she has to believe that the world is not inherently bad. It is easier to think she is the bad one. She thinks she has to be punished then. But when I “unstitch” this conditioning, and I tell her: “No, there is nothing wrong with you, something has been done to you, sweety, but no one can hurt you any more, I am here for us all”, things get better. I can therefore find ways to self-regulate, by de-linking from those learned beliefs, that were just wrong.

Huh, I wrote a lot. Sorry about that. But then, even though I know that every person is different, I wish I knew this before, I wish I could read about someone else’s experience somewhere, just to be able to compare it, perhaps.

Take care, and I send a lot of love to everyone who reads this
A.

[lucidity11]

OMG I nearly had a panic attack trying to find this forum. I have to use my phone because my computer broke. I am a little freaked out by this effort. I am in a new apartment near a good hospital in case I have any issues. I am going to NC with my sister. I love my sister. But I am having a lot of panic. I think once we get started I should be better. I am trying to figure out who we are now. I am back in ny and recovering from cancer. A voice who I trust has said I will die when I'm 68. This voice has always been good to me like angel since I was very young. And she is always right. I think she told me to help me get through my cancer. I just believed I had more time. I am grateful. At present I am finding it difficult to commit to anything. Like volunteering or employment. I feel like I am in between this life and dying. I asked to stay to see my sister and spend time with her. It's been great. My niece has had a son to add to her family. She now has two sons and a great wife. They have a beautiful family. My son and I are on better terms. He is the reason I have gotten this far. Our energy will always be connected. I am lucky to have had this life.

[Breaking Dawn]

I am doing my best to keep myself as normal as possible. Thank you all for being here.

[ReveuseTroublee]

Originally Posted by Alatea

Dear ReveuseTroublee and other friends in here,

I will try to express some of my experience, but ofc it is only my way of approaching dissociation, and everyone is different. It comes after four and a half years of my active engagement in healing, and at times it has been hell, and most of the days very just about survival, and not living. But I do not want it to sound grim, it is what it is, that is how I understood it, and I was like: “ok, I will focus on survival first”. The only thing I had to do for myself was to survive. While doing that, I gradually became the most important person for myself. I couldn’t understand it before, when people say: I care about myself first. I never did, there was always someone more important. But when all this hit me, I could not afford any more to have anyone else more important for me than me. I don’t want it to sound awful, but I actually believe it is part of the healing, and un-learning the conditioning that says: you are not worthy, you are below every other living being. Hell, no. I stood up for myself, all of myself.

When I say four and a half year of active healing, it means for as long as I have been aware of dissociation as a problem. I had it before, I had it always – well, at least from the age of three – but I somehow developed ways to live with it, and I developed ingenious ways of camouflaging and hiding it. I think that people mostly thought that I am eccentric, that I often change gears, from hyper-focus to absent-mindedness, and I had some features that seemed as extraordinary talents, such as to learn a language in a week, to “think out of the box”, but that was due to the way my perception worked. I also had massive amnesia, for a certain type of information – basically, for everything that my brain tried to protect me from, so when I would “see” such awful things in my mind, the whole system would activate to erase it, and bring me back to ground zero, and I would have my identity built from a scratch. Again, and again and again.
To the present moment.

I went through 6 months of EMDR now, after being two times for six months in CBT. EMDR helped with integrating traumatic memories. And just that. Just traumatic memories, so that they do not hijack me from the present moment, and throw me into flashbacks that were tormenting me. EMDR cleared the way for internal communication, because it removed the terrible pain that was preventing me to do so. But what I did in EMDR therapy, was to introduce the metaphor of parts on my own. I already knew about parts, but I was discouraged in my former therapy to talk about them. I was told they were just dissociated capsules of memory. They were not.

“They” are the way my thoughts are organized. It is, and I am absolutely certain of that, a specific arrangement of thinking patterns, ingeniously developed in order to protect the sense of self, and not the other way round. I do not see it is a breakage, I see it as the only way I could save my sane mind. And I refuse to pathologize this specific arrangement of thinking patterns, because if I were to pathologize it, I would see it as something bad. I see it as something that, once I understand it as a way that my mind works, I can use to heal not dissociation, but the wound, the trauma, that caused it in the first place. Dissociation, in my mind, and in the way I deal with it, interact with it and rely on it, is a particular organization of my mind that helps me heal the wounded self. And I did not invent it, Janina Fisher did😊

Fortunately, my EMDR therapist was very open-minded and professional all along. We talked yesterday, it was our penultimate meeting, as I feel I can go on, on my own, without the safety net, at least for the time being.
I came up with the metaphor of sewing through or stitching through my experiences, states and memories, while working with him.
What I am trying to express is how “communication” happens, at least for me. I first had two instances of communication, last spring, well, almost exactly a year ago. Before that, I could not really communicate, just observe. Last spring, I went out of a deep depersonalization/derealization that was anesthetizing me before I was able to deal with the pain. When I got out of DPDR, I was overwhelmed with feelings from primarily two parts. One was a desperate child hoping for attachment, and the other one was a sort of a monster, the pain materialized, that wanted me hurt, sending terrible images of self-hurt and hurt in general, just so that I do not look towards the real pain. I spent months, every day, from the sunset (a huge trigger) until later in the evening, negotiating for my life with the monster. I started talking with them, saying that I understand where they come from, and that it is ok. Parallel to this, I embraced the child, I said it was ok too, and I am here now for all of us. It is more complicated than that, as I had a helper too, the more emotional part of me, that managed to establish that connection with the child. So it was never just me, but I had to act as a manager.

When I started the EMDR therapy, the child craved for attachment, and wanted to attach to the therapist. I talked to the child, and I managed to divert the attachment towards myself. I knew I am strong enough and able enough to take care of us, even though it was very difficult.
It still happens, that I go through the day as “me” or “I”, and in the evening, there is a whole party of people, asking to be acknowledged and heard, and I have to deal with it before going to sleep.

I am preparing some lectures now, for my work, and as I didn’t do it for a while, well, practically since two or three years ago, it brought in some concerns. I am not just me any more, as my former professional persona could be understood as a calm, composed, very unemotional presentation of myself, or that is what I used to be. Now, I am more than that, and when I let my other, more emotional and lively parts inform my work, it produces some interesting and new thinking, and I feel I was upgraded by allowing other parts of me to take a more active role in my favourite activity of thinking and theorizing.

However, I have no idea how the lectures will go, as before I could rely on my professional persona to do it, to a perfection. Sometimes, I would find myself thinking about something else, while she was performing. Now I feel I will be present. I want to be present. And it is scary, as exposing sides of me that I did not dare introduce before. But it is me.

I think I want to say, everyone probably has to find ways of self-regulation that work best for them. It was devastating for my self-regulation when I was first denied my reality of fragmentation, as I felt almost violated as a person for not being allowed to express myself the way I feel I am. However, I was equally afraid of having my fragmentation confirmed. My current EMDR therapist therefore just expressed his opinion on my fragmentation, confirming it, but not labelling it with either DID or OSDD. I said I do not need to know, because I know how it is for me, and I finally understand how to work with it. I told him I don’t want it pathologized, and he has shown respect for me as a person and a client, as I think he saw that I am able to develop a system of my own healing, with his help, of course.

I also told him that it doesn’t mean that it is easy. I suffer every day, but it is getting better. But I have around 5 or 10 instances during the day, when I am triggered, then I need to understand where the trigger comes from, who among my states is triggered, where it comes from and why, and after I understand it, I need to “stitch” it, literally like imagining the act of sewing through, that memory of situation and my present sense of self.
However, the equally important part of this process is “unstitching” or “de-linking” from previous conditioning. Most of my triggers are related to unresolvable conflict within, that I used to have. How can someone supposed to take care of you hurt you? That is what child asks themselves. “There must be something wrong with me”. That is a child’s thinking, because in order to survive as a “self”, she has to believe that the world is not inherently bad. It is easier to think she is the bad one. She thinks she has to be punished then. But when I “unstitch” this conditioning, and I tell her: “No, there is nothing wrong with you, something has been done to you, sweety, but no one can hurt you any more, I am here for us all”, things get better. I can therefore find ways to self-regulate, by de-linking from those learned beliefs, that were just wrong.

Huh, I wrote a lot. Sorry about that. But then, even though I know that every person is different, I wish I knew this before, I wish I could read about someone else’s experience somewhere, just to be able to compare it, perhaps.

Take care, and I send a lot of love to everyone who reads this
A.

Thank you, I am sure a lot of people will appreciate it and find it helpful. I won't post here anymore. It does not feel safe. Not because of any of you I interacted with on here though.
I wish you all the best, you are all worthy, special and incredible. <3

i am currently feeling like I've lost an intire day- it's not difficult, my life's ****ed

but I had an issue with my laundry where I apparently put a certain item in the wash yesterday (not today), and don't even remember putting it in the wash to begin with

and it ****ing sucks

I am also seeing in my head messages from other threads I've posted all jumbled up... it's strange

I started today with a hurty tummy

I coughed so much it really really hurt

it feels better now, I had some pepermint tea, but earlier I wanted to

Possible trigger:

rip the ****er out

doing nothing today as always. dressed and breakfast eaten by 8 A.M for what....

Possible trigger:

sat on a chair wishing you were dead

mission accomplished.

litirally done nothing

eat, go to toilet, eat, go to toilet..

[Breaking Dawn]

The voices are very difficult, especially the tyrant/bully/dictator/abuser, but I was able to enjoy some tv yesterday, & I went to the store, a little market near me. Thank goodness for that little market. Nevertheless, that outing was extremely scary, but I got home ok, & then I apparently dissociated for several hours that I don't remember. Today I am trying very hard to find the energy to push myself into doing some important things that I've been putting off. I can't imagine how I would be able to get through the day if I didn't have this, my friends & the system here at these Forums. Thank you very much, Doc John & volunteers & Members!

[ReveuseTroublee]

I will work with sticky notes and put them on my electronic devices, I hope it works. My feeling for time especially organizing memories chronologically somehow don't work that well. I decided to post here nonetheless, even though 'I am not allowed or supposed to'. It does not really make a difference anymore.
I just hope I won't upset anyone. <3
I hope you are all holding up okay.

[Breaking Dawn]

Originally Posted by ReveuseTroublee

I will work with sticky notes and put them on my electronic devices, I hope it works. My feeling for time especially organizing memories chronologically somehow don't work that well. I decided to post here nonetheless, even though 'I am not allowed or supposed to'. It does not really make a difference anymore.
I just hope I won't upset anyone. <3
I hope you are all holding up okay.

You are not upsetting me. Quite the contrary. Thank you for being here.

[ReveuseTroublee]

I have the urge to just run away, it is quite bad. I am so utterly confused and overwhelmed... I want to go to the places and feel like it truly happened. I want it to feel real. I am so scared. I feel so lost. I know going to hospital and mental hospital is a way to hurt me but I just want to relate Idk. what do I really want? I know ending up in there again would be bad. Idk what to do.
Whatever this is, I feel like I am going crazy. I want to move constantly probably (ED behavior) but I can not let myself get out. I am too out of it. I am scared to lose it. Maybe I have nothing to fear I don't know. I don't trust myself.

[ReveuseTroublee]

Originally Posted by raging vortex

mission accomplished.

litirally done nothing

eat, go to toilet, eat, go to toilet..

You are not alone with that... I am sorry things are so tough. <3