Archive for My Stories
What’s up Girl? Healed a little, eh?
July 27, 2009 at 12:18 am · Filed under My Stories, Personal Musings, Understanding DID, healing and tagged: alters, DID, dissociative identity disorder, healing, integration, multiplicity, Personal Musings, recovery
My writing has become sporadic. My LIFE is more chaotic. But for (ultimately) a good reason – I’ve gotten a job.
So why do I feel more unstable than ever?
This post does have a point – a snapshot of growth through the hardest external challenges my husband and I have ever faced.
<Yeah yeah, more of that “what doesn’t kill you” crap.>
Lessons Learned From My Successful Family Trip
May 16, 2009 at 11:51 pm · Filed under Coping strategies, My Stories, healing and tagged: coping mechanisms, Good Karma, Psychology
Hello All,
Thank you all for your public and private expressions of support for my trip last week. It’s (terminally) difficult for me to reach out for help, but you overwhelmed me with support – yo Cami wow Emily, you are real and people care for you.
Really. (jaw drop)
I went through a really tough time preparing, and have reflected on the outcome to learn. And you know what? **Nods** It worked. I did it! **Smile**
In this post, I want to thank you all. And I also want to talk about the trip, what happened, what surprises worked, and some takeaways for me and perhaps for you on challenging situations.
Need your help
May 4, 2009 at 6:40 pm · Filed under My Stories, self-injury and tagged: anger, coping mechanisms, flashbacks, self-injury, suicide
I need advice and help. I can’t talk to anyone. Therapy has gotten too hard for anyone to understand, and when I try to share, I can’t explain in any way that can be meaningful to others. Or in a way that helps them support me. I’m stuck in the chaos of my head alone. I’ve had to swear to myself to “be normal” and not talk about this to them anymore.
This is partly why I haven’t been here lately.
I’ve also truly learned what “fair-weather friend” means. And how that shatters ability to trust.
It’s no one’s fault – I know how complicated this is, and I know how fucked up I am. Shit from my head has started to come out first person and I am starting to lose it. Finally the way they advise in therapy, lowering the wall, is just leaving me in confusion, chaos and rage.
I need advice. Wednesday AM, I have to get on a plane for a trip to see family – haven’t been there in a while. They don’t know anything. It will be 24/7 – I am sleeping on their couch. Last time I was there, I was just “really tired” from a conference I’d just come from in the same town. I felt so fake. You guys know how this goes with all the threads of thought.
I am already going nuts and don’t think I can be “happy normal” for 4 days. I am self-injuring with the stress of the trip and with my own rage inside. Today was horrible. Tomorrow is my birthday and it will suck. I just need to somehow get through Sunday.
Right at this moment, trying to formulate these thoughts, is the most rational I have been able to achieve in more than a day.
Probably because I just realized that you all are the only ones I can truly talk to, and who can truly understand.
I am losing my ability to dissociate and “be normal” and fake it.
I don’t know if it is even possible for me to find a way to even partly enjoy this trip, but 4 days of being fake to hide, I don’t know. I’ve used that strategy a lot in the past, but don’t think it’s going to work this time.
Advice please.
My Job Interviewing Status
December 19, 2008 at 2:33 pm · Filed under My Stories, Personal Musings and tagged: crappy economy, job search, Personal Musings
Thanks for all your best wishes on my job search. The economy is just really in the crapper. I have had several interviews – on the phone and on-site, but each one falls through for some reason – overqualified, the job has been canceled, the job has been postponed due to a change in business direction.
It can be (and often is) very depressing.
But, today I just received offers for two on-site interviews! Two different companies contacted me within about 2 hours of one another. Now I feel so happy and relieved. Relieved not like I am getting the job, but more a sense of validation of my own worth to the working world.
At the level I am looking (technical director), there aren’t too many jobs to begin with, and the economy just makes it worse.
Please please please don’t make me have to ask, “Want fries with that?”
The Flip Side: An Excellent Interview for a New Therapist
December 18, 2008 at 7:21 pm · Filed under Information, Mental Health, My Stories, Therapy and Treatment and tagged: amnesia, DID, DID humor, dissociative identity disorder, integration, recovery, switching, therapy, triggers
After deciding to return to therapy, I interviewed two therapists. I’ve already reported on the my response to Bizarre Animal Lady in the surreal interview environment and the surreal interview itself. That “event” was easy to blog about – it was over and gone.
But I’ve delayed writing about the good interview because I didn’t want to jinx the relationship. But it is far enough along now that I am ready to share.
Update on Whereabouts and Job Search
December 6, 2008 at 11:34 pm · Filed under Mental Health, My Stories, Personal Musings, Therapy and Treatment and tagged: crappy economy, healing, job search, Psychology, self-worth, therapy, Therapy and Treatment
Hello everyone – I wanted to say I have been caught up in job stuff. I am looking for a job, I think I mentioned, and have been at it nearly constantly. I know I need to take breaks, but I have been excited about some of the progress and don’t want to lose steam. Since our economy sucks here in the United States, it is especially hard. But I have a few phone interviews coming up, and everyone says that is great.
Dissociative Identity Disorder vs. Schizophrenia – Why I was tagged with both
November 24, 2008 at 9:25 am · Filed under Mental Health, My Stories, Understanding DID and tagged: diagnosis, DID, dissociative identity disorder, MPD, multiple personality disorder, Psychology, Understanding DID
My parents, scared, took me to a therapist a few years after I was attacked as a teen – I had periods of sadness, complete numbness, intense joy and escape in music. And interspersed, periods of irrationality. I found out later I really scared my friends with my mental constructs. I had some sense that my thoughts and actions were very wrong but I was dragged bodily on a roller coaster with no sense of time or space. I didn’t even ponder where the compulsion and agitation came from – I was just there, on a mission to accomplish something I didn’t truly understand and was powerless to control.
The first therapist told my mother that she thought it might be schizophrenia. My mother tells me it drove her on a secret feverish hunt to learn all she could about the frightening disease.
Part 2: Menagerie Aside, The Surreal Therapy Session Itself
November 17, 2008 at 4:18 pm · Filed under Mental Health, My Stories, Personal Musings, Therapy and Treatment, Understanding DID, multiple personality disorder and tagged: alters, DID, dissociation, dissociative identity disorder, MPD, multiple personality disorder, Psychology, self-worth, switching, Therapy and Treatment, triggers
Recently, I scheduled consultation interviews with two therapists, hoping one would be the “one.” Good news – I found her! Bad news, the other therapist has not a clue. You already know how that session started and ended – with the surreal therapy room and therapy menagerie. I promised to follow up about the consultation itself. This post is much less fun. It will piss you off.
Whole Life Coaching for Multiples – What a Coach Will Not Expect
November 8, 2008 at 1:25 pm · Filed under Goddess of Brilliance and Wonder, My Stories, Personal Musings, Understanding DID and tagged: coping mechanisms, DID, dissociative identity disorder, humor, MPD, multiple personality disorder, self-worth, switching, Understanding DID
I am between jobs, which is a polite way of saying that my last company screwed me over by proposing an unexpectedly ridiculous contract that I was being pressured to accept within three days. <I’ll bend over on my own terms when it suits my ulterior motives. These were no longer My Terms. Thus, I was instantly somewhat less motivated to maintain the position.>
Teaser for an Upcoming Guest Post by My Husband!
March 11, 2009 at 6:50 pm · Filed under Comments, Mental Health, My Stories, Personal Musings, Therapy and Treatment and tagged: diagnosis, DID, MPD, Personal Musings, recovery, revelations, Understanding DID
An amazing thing happened tonight!
The other day, Elysium3006 commented on a post I made last May called, Should I Tell My Spouse I Have DID? But today I told Elysium3006 that my response has changed – it all depends on timing and communication. Back then my response was a resounding NO! But today my response is different – my husband knows mostly everything and he is so accepting and a pillar of my support system. He read my response to Elysium3006, and even added a few lines of his own feelings.
He had good thoughts so I said, somewhat flippantly, “You should write a post about what it’s like to be a spouse of someone with DID and what it was like to go through the hard times . When you didn’t know what was happening with me, and I didn’t tell you even that I had started therapy. And how I eventually was able to share, and how we finally started talking so positively for both of us! And then finally stepping back from the very real specter of divorce.“
To my elated amazement, he said, “Ok – start dictating.” And I did.
I told him that his thoughts on when and how much to share with a significant other and family would be SO APPRECIATED by those of us who are afraid to talk, and for those who are support persons.
What an amazing husband I have! If you’ve followed my healing, you will realize the complete turnaround in our relationship. And you will hear how a man who never believed in therapy tells me to keep going as long as I need to. Stay tuned!
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