This is how it feels to me...

It is like when you have a wound you don't fully medicate and take care of...yeah it will scar over the wound. But it doesn't heal properly.
You wait several years....seeming like forever...for me 24 years! And, you realize it never truly healed, so you rip it open. All the stench and puss ooze out of it. It smells. It hurts more now then you could remember. It takes your very breath away.
But, you try to remember you are re-opening the wound in order to properly have it healed this time. Cleanse all the gunk out and then feel better and more alive then ever before.
Damn though, if right now the stench is overpowering and the pain is so overwhelming.

But, how else can I really heal from the abuse if I don't do this???

((((((( HUGS ))))))) Twisted Soul - I was once right where YOU are now.... and I can say that the wound can heal if you are willing to put the effort into the therapy that is needed - no matter how much it leaves you feeling and wanting to DIE.... day after day.

It took Me ten years of HELL to rid my BODY of the 25 years of pain, abuse, and hate I went through as a child and then was made to relive as an adult.

LoVe,
Rhapsody -

Boy do I understand and feel that right now. Hang in there

. I know it gets better if we can just hang on and ride out the storm of the memorys and feelings that we are reliving just as if it happened right now. Im holding on tight too.

Thanks for sharing some of yourselves Rhap and myself.
Right now the open wound is festering and spewing such stench and gook!
I wish it wasn't so painful in my head and soul right now.
But, I will continue to press on as far as I can, as long as I can.
I have had a few ~S~ thoughts in the past few days. I had gone so long with not having them. But, I feel like I am so weak and so much in need of peace within that in is such a worthy option.
Well, anyway...

same here I have gone a year and 2 months and the urges are hitting. not as bad today as the past few days but its still there.

Yes it is a worthy option for it will ease and release the pain BUT like you I am fighting it with all I have. for as long as I can.

Hang in there.

Yeah!!
Right now Journaling isn't even helping me.
This hurts.
This sucks!

sure does. lets see - I biked in the rain (literally not mentally), I listened to music, read posts here, put my theraists numers taped to the phone in case I needed it, played yahoo games, took bath after bath, wlaked around the nearby department store, did a couple workbook exercises, wrote in my journal, ripped up cardboard and paper, swept and mopped the kitchen floor by hand with a washcloth and cleaning solution. (Its amazing how much energy can be taken out just by getting down on hands and kness and mopping the floor, I washed laundry by hand, When all else failed I took some benedryl (not for SU$%^$%$) but because I needed some sleep.

Hang in there.

(((myself)))
Hope the Benedryl allowed you to get some sleep.

I had a nother bad dream. I see things I don't want to see. And they seem so real. Like it is happeneing right now and isn't just a memory.

Let me know how you are today.

{{{{{TS}}}}} I feel your pain.... my wound is open someone has poured alcohol in it..... it burns and hurts..... I can't stand the pain anymore......but what else is next..... Try to hang in there.....Lilith

That's exactly how to do it. Your on the right path. Sometimes you have to go through some very painful moments to get to the true happiness. I believe you can do it since you've had the strength to reopen all this.

Hi, Im here and doing ok. Spent the morning paying bills and then walked around my local store this afternoon and did some shopping and on the way home dropped off the rent check and brought home Mcdonalds and ate, watched some tv and here I am. good and tired but here. .

My nightmares and flashbacks are still there but Im doing ok. Yes the benedryl is letting me get some sleep. Not on the best sleep schedule but right now Im not focusing on time schedules just going with what feels calming and so on for me right now. My nightmares and flashbacks feel "right now real " to me too. I have a relaxation visualization recording made by my therapist from our sessions together and that is right there when I wake up and it helps so much to have that familiar voice right then. Maybe you and your therapist can make a recording. All we did was my therapist read a relaxation visualization from a book and I relaxed on the couch and followed along doing what she was reading and while I was relaxing and she was reading we had a couple tape payers gonig one with a cd with instrumental music playing for background music and the other was placed on record. It turned out great and it sure helps to wake up and put my headphones on and listen to the recording. Because we did it during a therapy session Im able to kind of slip into the imagry of being in her office doing the relaxation visualization which is really cool.

Hang in there.

yes, can't beat recordings from t for sure. My t has made me some and it's been incredibly helpful. Even if I dissociate, when i come back, hearing her voice is very comforting.

I never thought about using the recording after I come back from la la land. My dissociating doesnt upset me. Ive been dID all my life and so I have always Dissociated - daydreamed myself into my la la land or have "fallen asleep" and then come back either to a new day or doing something I wasn't doing when I "left". I always come back from dissociating foggy but calm. I used to think that was strange because movies and so on didn't show that side of being DID. But professionals tell me that my coming back foggy but calm is normally what happens with DID so I was not to worry about it because a person "comes back" so to speak when they are no longer upset by what ever the trigger is. If Im coming back that just means that I am feeling comfortable and no longer afrad and so on.

So the way I see it since coming back means Im not upset and so on theres no reason for me to say ok I dissociated and run in panic to my recording. I came back because I was ok not because I was in panic so no reason to create panic after the fact so to speak.

When I am alone and realize I was off floating instead of in the here and now its just another normal day for me no panic or uncomfortable feelings and so on. When I am out in public and I "come back" again its just another normal day to me. I look at my watch for the time and day and continue on with my day.

I am a bit embarrassed when I dissocaite with my present therapist, because I have worked this hard and this long and I still don't have total control. My therapist is great about it though we just continue on with whatever we were donig. for exaple when I came back from la la land after using the sand tray she was shaking down the sand tray and then we both stood and were standing. She asked me if I had noticed if I had stayed aware the who time and I told her I knew I had gone to la la land and then she told me we're heading back to her office to schedule my next appointment and then we just continued with doing that.

Since I use the recording when I am upset, in panic, and so on and dissociation does not cause me to feel anything but foggy and calm I have never thought to grab my recording to listen to my therapist after dissociating.

I do use focusing on my therapist during sessions if I start feeling far away but that is before I get to the point of full dissociation to prevent myself from dissociating which to me is different from being dissociated and coming back and then using the recording. So for me theres no reason for me to focus on my therapist after coming back - Im already back and have the effects of dissociation - relaxation and calm - and am able to go on with my day.

yep, understand myself. it's been the same here. when you don't know it's not normal, it's not not normal. my life is never calm i guess but t's voice always is. if i am listening to the recording when i dissociate and it's still on when i come back, it's just nice once i figure out it's playing (I can't do headphones as things on my ears are a bad trigger and so it's just playing out in the air).

my t's voice is calming to me because my life is not yet safe, physically or emotionally and so when i am back, i always also come back to the realization of "unsafe". I guess that may be the difference. T's voice helps take the edge off a lot for me. I hope to get to a calm and relaxed world some day as you have.

a lot of times the only way i know i even left in t is that the subject seems to have changed, or she says, are you back now? A lot of times, I think, I was gone? and then we continue on.

im glad you are working well with your t and that the sandbox therapy is opening up doors for you.

Not sleeping tonight. 3am....and I am like a scared little 12 yr old. I want someone to rescue me. To hold me. To love me for the right reasons.
I want someone to just embrace me and tell me it is going to be okay.
I am hurting bad.
I have been cutting.
I can't seem to quiet my thoughts.
My mind is like speeding w/ flashbacks and memories and lots and lots of pain.

Unfortunately there are no knights in shining armor in the year 2006. One thing that helps me is that I take my pillows and arrange them into an upside down v and curl up in the middle then I imagine that the pillows is the person I want to hold me. Sometimes I take it even further by not only imagining someone special is holding me but my other friends are there also. one is standing at the window with the glass bottles she loved to take into the woods and smah when she needed to release some anger, antoher would be standing at the door with a baseball bat and still more would be scattered around the house with their protection items of their choice ready to do battle if needed.

It isn't even like I am looking for"knight in shining armor">>> I am just looking for someone to take care of the 12 year old. She has so much pain and anger raging inside of her. <font color="red">She is the one right now who is ~S~!!
It isn't even me this time just wanting to run away. It is her. She has been through too much. Her memories are destroying her.

I have an alter that self injures. What I had to come to understand was that that memory piece was being triggered into replaying because of something in my present life. Basically if something in my present life was making me feel like I wanted to cut then when I dissociated the cutting would happen because the situation in the present would match the past memory that was separated and stored at my unconscious level. So I had to stop thinking in terms of its not me doing it. That memory piece was the memory of me cutting in the past so when dissociated and that peice of memory was replaying it was me doing the cutting. That piece of memory is not a separate flesh and blood person for example my neighbor coming over to my house and cutting my arm. Since the voices were in my head I was DID. To believe the person is outside my body and attacking me - that is schizophrenia not DID. Schizophrenics believe others are out to get them. DID alters are memories so it is a memory that I was acting out when I cut when unaware.

To stop it I had to pay attention to what was going on in my present life. if it made me want to cut then I knew if I allowed myself to dissociate then when I became aware I would be cut.

So I had to find the trigger in my present life and take care of that trigger. For example I would become aware that I was cut. I would have to backtrack to the last thing that I remembered before I dissociated - floated off to my daydream world -- Having a fight with the DHS caseworker. Thats the trigger. then I had to use my coping skills of grounding and relaxation so that whenever I was near that caseworker I did not dissociate. Instead I stayed there and took care of the situation. Caseworker was baiting me into fights and then claiming I was volitile for no reason. Solution...Set up a third person present when having to meet with her that way she could not bait me. She instead had to flat out tell me what she needed and what I needed to do. End result I stopped becoming aware with cuts after encountering the DHS caseworker.

If you have DID then YOU can control this with using grounding and relaxation. It just takes wanting to and practice... lots ot practice.

If you cannot control it its time for a new evaluation for the possibility of having a different disorder and one that medication can help you.

The bottom line is that I can't stop you from cutting and neither can anyone else here and neither can your therapist. Only you can do that by wanting to and actively working to do that.

Hang in there