Dissociating and Cutting

seesaw · Jul 28, 2014, 04:31 AM

I go into dissociative states when I cut. They are usually triggered by stress. My pdoc really wanted to do inpatient hospitalization, but I was very much against it at the moment because I'm in the middle of job interviews for which I'm the top candidate and I have no family even in this region of the country and I can't take my service dog inpatient so I'd have to figure out how to get care for him while I'm inpatient. Plus being separated from him is extremely stressful for me.

Anyways, after a bout in a crisis management house almost two weeks ago, I started to do really well. I was using coping strategies for when I started to dissociate to try and keep myself in reality. I made it quite a while without cutting. Even so much so that I made a deal to reward myself.

Things had been getting better since my sleep had been improving since I was no Prazosin to help with nightmares. So I was having fewer dissociative spells and fewer episodes of time loss or blacking out (it's not really blacking out, I remember it in some ways but I'm not in control and I can't tell what day or time it is and it seems like I've lost time). It's during those episodes that I would self harm but I was doing a lot better.

Then I had a really bad night. I was triggered just before going to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, and then my dogs woke me up at 6am as they are trained to do. I was facing triggers beginning right from the start of the day and I could feel the dissociation starting.

I fought it all day long. I was having a good run of not cutting and I didn't want to hurt myself. I tried to base myself in reality and give myself tasks to do. I worked on paintings for my arts and crafts booth at the market next weekend...but around 4pm I was so tired I had to nap.

I had the most terrible nightmare ever. I woke up paranoid, upset, frightened, angry, not sure where I was, disconnected, etc.

I took my dogs for separate walks. During the separate walk I tried to call my dad but we kept getting cut off...and I felt the dissociation pushing harder against me.

When I got home I finally got a connection to my dad, and he just wasn't listening very well and trying to push me to ask about different meds that my stepsister uses for her lupus instead of listening to me about how I was feeling, which is what I needed to talk about. I ended up just cutting him off so he didn't trigger me anymore than he already did. His tone of voice was just that "I'm treating you like a child, and I know best, and I should be father of the year even though I was emotionally abusive and neglectful" and I couldn't take it. I just told him I had to go, said I love you, and hung up.

I was still hanging on to reality but it was a thin rope that I had a hold of.

Then I went onto chat here on Psych Central and even though the people I chatted with meant well, they kept insisting that I would be involuntarily committed if I needed to go get stitches (which isn't true), and not intentionally, they just weren't validating me, which is all I needed. And the suggestions and insistence that my worst fear of being involuntarily committed would come true was pushed upon me, that thin rope broke.

I was back in the nightmare. I had a blade. In reality I was cutting my leg, but every cut was a defense against the people who were lying about me and trying to hurt me and abuse me.

It was the worst dissociative episode I've ever had. And I did some good damage to my leg. I'm actually going to have to go to the walk in clinic tomorrow to see if a few of these cuts need stitches or if they can help bandage them up, or provide maybe a pain killer for just a day.

I'm so angry that I couldn't over come this episode. I fought so hard against it. I really tried. I had so many opportunities all day where I almost gave in and I told myself that I am in reality and that the cutting is not going to make me feel better or help.

Tomorrow morning I have to be at the walk in clinic at 8am so that I can hopefully make my 11am job interview. Then I see my pdoc and then my therapist. I don't really trust my pdoc anymore because I don't feel like she respects my concerns about certain medications and treatment plans.

I just had to share. I need hugs, validation, support. I don't need judgment or people telling me what I did wrong or why I should go inpatient.

I just wish these nightmares would stop...they seem to be the basis for a lot of my dissociation.

Thanks for listening.

Seesaw

kraken1851 · Jul 28, 2014, 09:10 AM

((((seesaw)))) I'm so impressed with how long you managed to keep the episode from fully kicking in! Even though you weren't able to prevent the cutting, to me it sounds like your strategies are effective. If you focus on them, build on them, you'll be able to withhold even longer the next time. Try to focus on this as a positive side, not the fact that this time you weren't able to prevent SI. What's important is that you have strategies in place that work and will work even better in the future if you persist.