Before I was "put under" (I don't know what the proper term is, so I'm just gonna go with this), we chatted about the book she gave me to read and what it's brought up for me so far. What has it brought up for me? About a thousand things, but I told her just a few of the big things.


My eating disorder, and my two major and nearly successful suicide attempts. I've had quite a few suicide attempts, but I call them my ******** suicide attempts because they were like, "Oh, I wanna kill myself. Let me take 10 tylenol and fall asleep."

So she asked me about my first major suicide attempt. This one I don't really consider it to be a traumatic event for me. Why? Because I quite literally do not remember it AT ALL. I don't remember wanting to kill myself or trying to kill myself. And I've always had a bajillion unanswered questions surrounding it. My second major suicide attempt was a lot more traumatic because I remember nearly all of it.

So before putting me under, she asked me what I do know about my first suicide attempt. Anything. Any details about that day and any details about the attempt. My mom was out of town in Spain visiting her mom. My dad and I went out to dinner and had a really great day and I was feeling pretty good. We went home, he went to bed, and I went down to my room. Next thing I know, I wake up a few days later restrained in the hospital. That is all the memory I have of it.

Medically, from asking the doctors, I know that I ingested a large amount of psychotropic medications (more than likely everything I had left of what I was prescribed for my bipolar disorder and ADHD. I was not yet diagnosed with BPD, EDNOS, ASPD, or TBI). I went in to cardiac and respiratory arrest, they inserted a central line to quickly get medication in to my heart (I still have a small scar under my collar bone from it). I was in a coma for a few days only because of the seroquel I ingested. Apparently it is a relatively common side effect from overdosing on seroquel. I can regurgitate the medical crap that happened to me only because I spoke with the doctors .

But I have absolutely no recollection of any events surrounding the actual overdose. Alcohol was found in my system. So apparently I chased some pills with alcohol, or drank and then took the pills. But I didn't have any booze with dinner and don't remember drinking. I posted a goodbye message on facebook, too. I don't remember doing that. When I was released from the crisis unit I logged on to my facebook to read what I wrote and all it stated was "I can't live like this anymore. I am sorry. Goodbye." No explanation. Nothing. So it really didn't give me any clues.

My therapist asked me if any of my previous therapists had ever explored the possibility of DID with me, as I have been hospitalized for dissociative episodes in the past (I call them sober blackouts). Yes, one therapist has. Yes, she had me going for a bit, believing that I had it. Yes, I terminated her very quickly when I realized she was case seeking. Literally the ONLY symptom I had of that diagnosis was the sober blackouts. I don't have alters. My therapist was just curious and asked me the typical "has anyone called you by a different name, etc" no, no one ever has. I do not have DID. I know this for a fact.

So I laid back on her couch and she did her relaxation thing to put me under. And I felt myself go under. I'm not sure how other people feel in this state, but I feel peaceful and weightless, almost tingly. I went to my happy place. To a beach-lake type place. Sandy beach, clear water, pebble bottom of the water. Mountains in the distance, palm trees on the beach. And I'm just floating weightlessly in the water. I can feel the warm sun on my chest and stomach.

Once she sees that I'm relaxed, she takes me back to that day and asks me to tell her about it. At first I have trouble getting there, but I remember sitting in the restaurant with my dad. I'd been out of the hospital for 4 days. We were at Applebees. I'm enjoying spending time with him. It's never just him and me. He asks me how I'm feeling, and I tell him I'm happy. He asks me if I'm better yet. This makes me anxious. I just got out of a crisis unit. How can I be better yet? Now I start to feel lonely and upset. I want to go back to the hospital. At least there I'm away from my parents. From here I start to have trouble remembering and I get stuck.

My therapist talks in her relaxing voice again to relax me because I'm getting anxious. She tells me to try to stop thinking and just feel. She tells me to continue the day.

I don't know.

She tells me if I could tell my dad what I need, what would it be.

"I need you to stop. I need you to stop putting so many expectations on me and so many pressures on me. I need you to just let me be me. I'm never going to be the daughter you thought I was going to be, and I need for that to be ok." She asks me to keep going and tell him my needs, but nothing comes out. That's all I have right now.

She lets me be in silence for a few moments and then asks me to continue with the day.

My dad and I go home, watch TV for a bit, and then he goes to bed and I go downstairs.

That's it. That's all I can remember. I can feel myself coming out of the trance. I'm getting anxious, and I think my therapist can sense it. She moves to a chair closer to me and starts lightly tapping on my forehead to try to tap further in to my subconscious. She reminds me to stop trying to think and just try to feel what's going on. After a while, I tell her I just can't remember anything. She she just asks me what I'm feeling. "Lonely".

She asks me how old this lonely part of me feels.

"Young"

I instantly feel myself fall in to an incredibly deep level of relaxation the second she switches subjects. I guess she hit on something important? IDK.

She asks me, "If you could parent this young part of you and tell her something, what would you say?"

"I don't know," is all that comes out.

So she addresses this "Young" part of me that feels lonely. She tells it, "Adult Mercedes is here, she is safe, and she is doing ok. We are going to do a lot of work with her. Is that ok?" I nod. She starts talk to me again to bring me back to the present day world.

In our next session she wants to work on this young loneliness piece. By young loneliness piece, it's not an "alter" as in the dissociative identity disorder "alternate personality", it is an ego state. It is, essentially, a piece of me, my inner child, that stopped aging when a need stopped being met. For some reason I was lonely as a child and it was never filled. So we are going to explore that more.

When she woke me up I felt like I had failed at remembering the suicide attempt. I was anxious beforehand that hypnotherapy wouldn't work and that nothing would come out, so for a minute I was a little bit heart broken that I wasn't able to remember. But she told me that I shouldn't worry about this. It was obviously a really big event in my life, and the fact that it is completely blocked out from my memory even under hypnosis means that my brain is not ready for me to deal with it yet, so there are other things I need to deal with first. This loneliness piece just may be a key to the puzzle.

So there ya go. How can I assist my brain in letting go to get more information in the future?

[Perna]

We don't remember everything, especially if there is drugs and alcohol and blackouts. The suicide attempt probably damaged your brain (as well as other parts of your body) and there just are no memories. We remember significant things, not all thoughts/actions. Do you remember what happened on February 23rd the year you were in 4th grade? Of course not because there wasn't much there of earth shaking significance but I'm sure you were learning/growing, advancing your knowledge of long division or something? I don't see much purpose in remembering something in the past that is done and I cannot change, correct, learn from. You decided you couldn't "live like this anymore. I am sorry. Goodbye" and did what you did. What would you like to learn from that? If you could make up a scenario, what would it be? I think what you would like right now is better than digging in a very small, obscure space in your past.