Running away from a Good Thing

The most exciting news I have since my huge break is that at the beginning of the year Elmo proposed! We are planning a small garden wedding for March 2013. I feel very lucky to have found someone who is so loving and supportive and who respects my needs even when they can be a little difficult. He also amazingly great with my littles but I plan to post about that in a later post.

A drawing I made representing how safe I feel with Elmo

The hard thing for me at the moment is that despite all this, I am having to fight a part of me that is telling me to break it off and run away. I understand that this just my subconscious just trying to protect me from being hurt and have been talking to Margaret about it too. According to her, everyone has pre-wedding jitters and when you couple that with my abusive childhood, a father who left me and hasn't contacted me since age 6 and the lack of good examples when it comes to marriage; its no wonder I am fearful of commitment.

The thing is, knowing all this doesn't make the feeling go away - I still want to run away. I'm really worried that I'm going to screw up and ruin this great thing. Its frustrating because I want this to be a fun exciting time and I cant seem to escape my past. I'm angry that long after his death my grandfather is still screwing up my life.

I have talked this all through with Elmo and as usual, he is completely understanding and loving, though I know it hurts him that part of me wants to run away. One of the things I have been doing is writing a list of all the things I love about Elmo and reading through it when I get scared or want to run away.

Terrified of hospitals

I'm over hospitals, first Elmo fractured his L1, then a couple weeks ago I became really sick and couldn't keep any food down and became so dehydrated I needed to go into the hospital for a day. They did lots of tests and never did find out what was wrong however they believe it was just an infection. Then a few days ago Elmo went back into hospital for what they thought was appendicitis but turned out to be a swollen colon. He was released yesterday and is much better but over all I am just sick of hospitals.

I have to go back to the hospital tomorrow morning for yet another test as my doctor keeps wanting to check that the Chronic Fatigue isn't anything else. I will only be in there an hour or two, however its still the hospital and the truth is hospitals terrify me. I have managed with all these trips because Elmo needed me or because I knew I needed to be there and I'm not going to let myself be horribly sick to avoid hospitals. At the same time though they terrify me and it gets me all uptight every time I have to go. 

I am rather impressed though that I have managed to visit the hospital this year and I didn't switch, well for very little time anyway. A year or two ago I would not have been able to cope and would have hid away inside and let another part deal with being at the hospital. I even managed to avoid panic attacks. For me this is a huge improvement, that I have been able to face my fears and keep myself calm.

I believe I know where my fear from hospitals comes from, but it frustrates me at how irrational it is. When my grandmother went into hospital (she was sick for all of my childhood) it usually meant I was left alone with my grandfather and bad things would happen. I believe I associate the hospital with those bad things despite the fact I realise that it was my grandfather and not the hospital at fault, and it just provided my grandfather with opportunity.

I am not really sure about the point of this post, other than to let out my frustration and anxiety about hospitals out. I do want to write in my blog more and plan to try, however as you may have figured out by this post I am still struggling with the Chronic Fatigue and been quite sick on top of that and that makes it hard to keep on top of blogging.

Falling

It has been over a month since I last posted and I feel bad for that. Not simply for the people who read this but more for myself. Writing this blog is extremely therapeutic for me - it helps me to really analyse what I am going through and help me to feel calmer. Margaret explains this as the thinking, logical part of the brain connecting to the emotional part of the brain and helping process things and calming the emotional part. It is why journaling is supposed to help so much. I have also been avoiding doing any art and this is also particularly unhealthy for me as art is a way of safely expressing how I feel.

The reason for all this is I have been having a particularly stressful couple of months. To summaries, Elmo fell and fractured his spine (he has a wedge fracture in his L1 for those of you who have knowledge about spinal injuries), I caught a nasty flu which exacerbated the Chronic Fatigue, I started getting flash backs in relation to a new and particularly nasty memory, and started getting pranks and threats from a man who has hurt me in the past. My house-mate, and good friend has also been particularly struggling with his own issues. Overall, the last 7 weeks have been more than a little difficult.

It can be interesting how things work out; this year I have become a lot closer to a wonderful group of people and started dating Elmo and now all of this difficulties have been dropped in my lap. Had it happened 6 months ago I don't think I would have coped however with the great support I have around me I have been able to get through with out completely breaking down (though there have been moments I have felt close). I am not saying that any of this is good, or even okay - more that it is amazing how the universe/God provides.

Before I began to write this post I entitled it 'Falling' because that has been how I have been feeling lately in a number of ways. I feel that I have fallen off the side of the planet when it comes to keeping in touch with people and keeping up with my blog and reading others. I was literally falling down I was so tired with the Chronic Fatigue (even managed to give myself a mild concussion one night and sprain my wrist). And I have been feeling like I am doing everything I can to not fall into all the emotions that have come with this new memory.

Things are getting better slowly. After 7 weeks in a full back brace, Elmo was given the all clear today to take the brace off, and is getting around just fine. I changed my mobile number and the threats seemed to have stopped (though Elmo is still being very protective). I am very slowly starting to get my energy levels back to where they were and I am not falling down any more. While I am still having a lot of nightmares and still struggling to come to terms with the new memory I am beginning to be desensitised to it and the number of flashbacks has significantly reduced.

I will be trying to write more often though my posts may still be short and irregular at the moment. But I do want to get back in the habit because as I said at the beginning of this post, it does help and when you guys leave comments it really is encouraging and does make a difference.

So to all those people who have regularly read and commented on my blog in the past, thank you, you have helped me get through some difficult times.

Forgiveness

I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness - why I need to forgive and how to accomplish it. For a long time the reason I felt I needed to forgive was because God told me to, as a Christian that should be enough, however this didn't help me know how to achieve it. It wasn't until recently that I realised that I couldn't answer those questions until I figured what it meant to forgive.

My mind and some of my little ones have been raging at me, why should we forgive HIM? He hurt us and he took pleasure in it and you want us to forgive him? The pain and anger with those questions is so overwhelming that it has left me shaking in the past. Anger is something I don't deal with very well, honestly it's not something I deal with at all, some of my parts hold a lot of the anger -but for the longest time I haven't been able to get angry, I simply hid within myself and let another part deal with confrontation. I am getting better at this, I now get frustrated and even a little angry at times. I stand up for myself more and I am more likely to voice my opinions. This blog has helped me with that last part. However anger still frightens me, even anger that comes from within (maybe even more so) and the anger I feel with those questions terrifies me.

This is where my epiphany stemmed from, it was from this that I realised why I should forgive: because I don't deserve carrying around all that negative energy, the anger, hatred and pain. Several dictionaries describes forgiveness as "to pardon an offence or an offender", to absolve*. I am starting to see forgiveness as more than this - to me, it is letting go of the hurt, anger, hatred. It is accepting what happened and choosing to live on without the negative energy.

I created this in Polyvore after I wrote this post and decided to add it...

The key word here is acceptance. When I say acceptance I do not mean pretending that what happened was okay - if what happened was okay then there would be nothing to forgive. By acceptance I mean acknowledging what happened, understanding it was beyond our control and choosing to let go.

understanding... accepting... letting go... forgiving...

Not that I am saying this is easy, it is anything but easy. And this sudden epiphany doesn't mean I have suddenly forgiven and let go of the pain and anger. I beginning to understand that forgiveness might not be something you just decide and move on. It's a process and sometimes a process that needs to be repeated several times.


I am starting to recognised that this is even more emphatically so when relating to myself. The few times I have felt anger it has usually been directed at myself, there have been times when I truly hated myself and believed that I deserved all that happened and more. Yet I hadn't thought really of forgiving myself because I do not see what there is to forgive - what happened was not my fault. And yet there are times when I still need to understand this, accept it and let go of the hate. I need to forgive myself.

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*  forgive. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved January 29, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/forgive

When the Tears Don't Fall

Please be warned this may be triggering to some survivors

please take care of yourself

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A few days ago I read castorgirl's post "Expressive Arts Carnival: Self Portrait". I was really blown away by her artwork, which triggered some very strong emotions for me.  I found the images very confronting and could relate to them on many levels. In the comments section I explained what I saw however it was castorgirl's reply which really articulated what I saw:

 I can see why you would see the perfect face people want us to present to the world, and the hidden damage we feel. That was another motivation for taking the picture – to show the dissociative coping, show how others see us, or how they want us to be. 

When I was reading the post and viewing the artwork there was a lot of internal conflict, for many of my parts and for me as well this images and some of what castorgirl said really reflected how we felt about the abuse of my childhood. The sense of feeling dirty, used, broken. It really made me want to cry, not just for the hurt we had, and continue to feel - but for the huge number of people out there who feel the same pain.

I still struggle with the ability to cry, to let the tears fall. Its not that I don't want to cry, because these days I do - I want to let it out and feel the release that comes from a good cry. In the last few years I have started to be able to cry - but I can still count the number on 1 hand. I believe the reason I struggle so much is because I was punished for crying and so I learnt not to, and now I don't know how to undo that learning.

Generally when I feel I want to cry, but can't, I draw the tears. Its not the same thing but it does help me to reflect on the emotions and to find a sense of calm. I have drawn hundreds of these pictures over the years and generally they have a similar look to them. This time, when I drew in relation to cartorgirl's post something different came out.

In this picture I didn't just see the tears I wanted to cry, I saw the deep hurt, shame and fear that I have been unable to face for years.

Over the last few days as I have been reflecting on my reaction to castorgirl's art and my own drawing I have found a deep sense of accepting that all this hurt is not my fault and that I did not do anything wrong. It was not my actions that cause my grandfather to hurt me the way he did. While I have intellectually acknowledged this for a while now, this is the first time that I have had a deep sense of accepting it.

Home again and crashing...

It has been a very long tiring week and I fear I am crashing both  emotionally and with the Chronic Fatigue, because of it.

I am now back home after 14 hours of travelling over the past 3 days, the reason for so much travelling is that I had to make an extra trip for Ann's funeral which was on Tuesday. The funeral was very well done, and a beautiful reflection on Ann's full life and the love she shared with so many friends and family. I found the wake harder than the funeral - there were a lot of people and I was expected to be involved in all that small chit chat with people I barely knew (I didn't know a lot of Ann's friends and have never been close to her family bar Judith).

Now that I am finally home and I am alone, I am starting to come apart after holding it together since Ann's death. I am physically exhausted and my body  is aching a lot, I know I have pushed myself to far this week physically and adding the emotional stress of it all I am not surprised that the Chronic Fatigue is hitting me hard today. I tried to take plenty of breaks and rest but I did do too much.

Emotionally I feel numb, too tired to feel much more. However at the same time I am uptight and anxious and I am just feeling generally negative at this moment. I feel disappointed in myself too considering how well I have been doing and how positive I have been despite the sad events.

I recognise that it is okay to feel this way and I just need to take some time and take gentle care of myself in the mean time. However I have this fear that now I am home I will settle back into some old habits of last year and just give in to the Chronic Fatigue and feeling down again. Don't get me wrong -  am glad to be home, to sleep in my own bed, to be able to follow sleeping routines and other healthy habits I have at home that are harder to follow when I am away. But I am scared of the bad habits I have here too, I am already overwhelmed by the amount that I need to do around the house and I am feeling dreadfully alone in having to handle getting it done.

Dissociation, Fears & Facing Stigma

 I started to reply to Candycan's post and what was just going to be a small comment ended up being another huge post in itself, alot of the issues I talked about I want share here anyway so here is my full reply:

Yes, I experience a number of different dissociation types - from what I have read, and what I have discussed with the psychologist I see this is normal - that the different dissociative disorders do overlap to some degree (as in you may have DID but experience Depersonalisation).

I occasionally feel that unconnected to my body, particularly during really hard times. I also "dissociate" from my emotions - so I am completely aware and functioning, & while I might have an emotional response to what is happening I wont feel those emotions at the time. This is something I particularly have to work on in my healing. Because I will often remember the memories of my past but not the emotions attached to those emotions - and I cant work through those emotions until I can connect with them - if that make sense?

I think the most frightening for me was when I first was really experiencing the DID full on before I knew what was going on. Way back when it all started I couldn't hear my alts, I wasn't really aware of their existence. So when I first became aware of me losing time I had no idea what was going on. I would be doing one thing and then all of a sudden I would be in a completely different location, different clothes, having no idea how the minutes/hours and occasionally even days had passed in what seemed to me a split second.

Id have people ask me a bout conversations I never remembered having, and on a few occasions ran into people at the shops/school that I didn't know but who obviously knew me. I would find artwork in my sketch pads that I never drew. That was terrifying and there was a constant fear of what I would do in these mysterious losses of time. And there was the fear of telling anyone in case they locked me away in a straight jacket.

I think that is one of the hardest things we have to get past - the stigma of mental health issues. My fear of switching is all but gone, I am more in touch with my alts and can always ask them what is going on or what has happened. The not knowing is what was the scariest part for me. My biggest fear these days is people finding out, switching in public & behaving in a way that people will realise is not "normal". I still get nervous about switching in front of friends who don't know.

And this fear comes from the fear of losing friends, fear of people's judgment. And this fear stems from the stigma that surrounds things like DID - that is what makes me think people will react negatively, and usually the reason why those few closed minded people do react so negatively.

Wow this comment has become almost as long as another post!! I hope this answers some of your questions, I hope it helps you feel less alone.

I want to add this - that stigma is slowly changing, but its something we need to face head on ourselves. But to do that we need to be confident in ourselves that DID (and whatever any other mental health issue you may face) is NOT a bad thing, its NOT your fault, and it DOESN'T make you any less "normal" - because what is normal? & when you take into consideration what lead us to be like this - who is to say this is not a normal response to such extreme actions, in which we had no control??

I do struggle to remember these things, to be confident in myself and not to be ruled by my fears, including fear of rejection. But it is something I am trying to change in myself.

This brings me back to Jackson's journal post on SuperForest (check my earlier post here). This post touched me deeply, it really reminded me how much I let fear control my life, and how much I want to change that.

Fear has seemed to come up a lot today - I think someone really wanted to remind me of goals.

Fear and Control

I had a wonderful trip to Katoomba, and from there even took a side trip to Sydney & caught up with a couple of other friends too. The trip has worn me out - though not as much as I expected, maybe that B12 shot is helping...

This link is to an awesome journal post on Fear and Control in our lives, how we carry it with us and how we should let go. Enjoy :

Jackson's Journal - Fear and Control

further update

There is not alot I can say about living with DID lately, being so tired I dont have any energy to fight it and to be honest I no longer want to. I still find it scary and I am still worried if people will be able to except all of us, but I know already that there are people who do except us and still love me.

True, I have lost a few friends over it, but to be honest it is their loss - not mine. What kind of friendship did we have anyway, if they could not except all of me? There are other friends who dont know how to handle it and they just pretend it doesnt exist. And I am ok with that, I worry what will happen if I switch in front of them but I am less worried about that then I was when they knew nothing.

So what am I still frightened of? Never finding love. Not finding a person who would willingly take me and all the baggage. I am lonely, and even more than ever, I want someone who can wrap their arms around me and tell me that it will be ok - that they are there for me. I want someone to share the load with.

Back on topic...
Being able to retreat these days and let Stacy handle things is such a blessing - maybe not the healthiest way to deal with things. But when I have no idea how I am going to organise clean clothes because I dont have the energy to do the laundry - its nice to just let another part deal with it. We are all tired and none of us have the energy but sometimes different parts are better at finding enough energy to get the little things done.

I think Chronic Fatigue is hardest on the little ones. The 4yo wants to know why we cant go to the park anymore and play on the swings. Or visit a pet shop on a bad day just to see the baby animals. She doesnt understand why we dont have the energy to play.

A few of my alts find it frightening because they feel vunerable. If anything was to happen I wouldnt be able to fight anyone off. I dont believe anything will happen & its not like I ever go out, but once bitten, twice shy. Though I dont know that is the right saying for this instance - its close. I guess what I am trying to get at is that after everything that has happened its hard not to consider the worst happening again.

Now Natalie is all upset at this train of thought. **sigh**

I am tired, I think I will go back to sleep now.

Misdiagnosis - Skitzophrenia vs DID

Thursday is the day I visit my psychologist. I cannot say enough how lucky I am to have found someone who can help me and my alters. There are alot of therapists and psychologists who dont know how to deal with DID. Some just dont believe it exists. There alot of misdiagnosis - usually saying DID is skitzophrenia.

Let me try and explain the differences between skitzophrenia and dissociative Identity disorder:

DID is a way with coping with trauma, usually sexual abuse. A young mind breaks off apart of themselves to deal with the memories, the on going trauma, the emotions etc. This is basicly how alters created, they deal with what our minds couldnt cope with at the time. However each alter is a part of the host.

skitzophrenia is a mental illness, its a chemical imbalance in the brain. Skitzophrenia actually destories brain tissue. There are a number of symtoms one of the most common is hearing voices. This is where the misdiagnosis comes in. However the voices a person with Skitzophrenia hear are not parts of themselves. ANd usually they believe these voices are coming from outside influences.

I saw alot of psychologists and councellors before Margaret (my current psychologist) but while I went to them to help me with what I had been through I did not tell them about the DID. It took me over a year with Margaret to trust her enough to tell her about my alts.

I was terrified that if a doctor or councellor found out they would have me locked up in a hospital - have me committed. I have a large fear of hospitals - not quite phobia I have managed to enter them without having full blown panic attacks at the door - but they are a place I try to avoid - at all costs.

Luckly Margaret reckonised it for what it was, and has been able to help me with it alot - despite how good I am at avoiding. I have a habit of steering the conversation away from anything to painful. Funnily enough I cant actually say what happened to me without trouble if I trust a person. But when I do I tell it like its a story I dont connect with it within myself. I just say the words. I never let myslef feel the pain.

Part of therapy is to visit that pain in small doses to learn how to handle it. I am just starting to get to this stage in my therapy - first I had to establish trust and make sure I was in a stable place. Which I am for the most part - uni assessments dont help. Another part of therapy was learning how to deal with results of trauma - the symtoms of PTSD. the panic attacks, the fear, the nightmares.

I can handle panic attacks now - it took a long time but now I can focus concentrate on my breathing and calm myself just enough before I am hit with a panic attack. I still panic and it is still hard when I am triggered but I dont go into a full blown panic attack.

Nightmares are harder, but in some ways I am doing better with this than 2 years ago. For a long time a good nights sleep was 4 hours max, nightmares where a constant thing every night. Now I can get a full nights sleep, and sometimes go 3 or 4 nights without a nightmare. However it comes and goes in waves. there are times when I will only get a 1 or 2 nightmares a week and they are fairly easy to manage. Then there are times when the nightmares come back every night worse than ever, alters and myself are triggered really badly and our body remembers. But with time and work with Margaret I hope the bad nights are further and further apart.

Fear - it is still very much apart of my life, not just fear of being hurt again, but fear of rejection from people. Fear of large groups of people or loud noises. Fear of how people will react if I switch and an alter comes out. Fear of never being loved.

This is probably the biggest thing I am focusing on at the moment - trying to get past my fears.