Diagnosis DDNOS

Long time gone

2011-04-27T16:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry to my readers for my long disappearance. The last four months have been busy. Houseguest, house foreclosed on so had to move, and currently prepping for moving again. Since my father's death last November, I have been in communication with all of my siblings and mother. The death of dad has been a relief to most of them, especially mom. A healing era has begun for the family.

Since I have no job, and no income to pay for housing here, I am moving to be close to family. My brother has a place I can stay in, on my mom's land. She has moved to a senior apartment in town. I will be in rural wetlands, slapping mosquitoes and growing veggies all summer. It will be a challenge emotionally but I think it is time. I will try to post frequently again once I get settled in my new northern rural abode.

Thank you all for the encouraging comments!

One Friend can make a difference

2010-12-13T09:35:00.000-08:00

It's been two months since my last post! I'm improving and gaining strength every day.
Alot of that has to be credited to two things: a friend coming to stay the winter with me, and the other is the passing of my father/abuser in early November.

October was a month of doctor visits, short term disability checks and weighing my options on what to do regarding pursuing long term disability. My T and I filled out the paperwork for extending short term disability into November. In mid-October I got word that my father was in the hospital again due to severe diabetes and scheduled to have his other leg amputated above his knee. At the end of October I got word that my mother had decided that she no longer wanted to live with my dad and they were pursuing separate housing for the two of them. It was news I had been waiting 23 years to hear and so made plans to journey across the country to see my mother, and to make a brief visit to my father in the rehab center.

November was the month a good friend of mine had scheduled to drive across the country to spend the winter with me. She had a second driver all lined up, but the driver bailed on her at the last minute. So I arranged to be her second driver. My plans were to fly up to see my parents, and then drive back down to my home with my friend. My father died at the rehab center three days after I bought the ticket, five days before the flight. I couldn't get to the funeral home to see him before cremation but my family did schedule the memorial service for the timeframe when I was already scheduled to be there. While it may seem disrespectful to say, it seemed everyone in the family was relieved that my father had died, even my mother, though she was also sad. After all, she had been with him 56 years.

Despite the long time separation between siblings and myself, I didn't feel much tension. Everyone cooperated to get the memorial service planned and completed. No one fought. We used technology to communicate, texting, emailing, and using Facebook to stay on task. We put up a memorial page. We had a powerpoint presentation of photos with music for the memorial service. We digitally recorded the memorial service and sent it to out of state relatives who couldn't make it to the service. Each sibling took a task to get the service formed and done. I am proud that we could do all that without the drama or strife more characteristic of extended family events. And it was all done in a week's time.

I drove back home in my friend's car. A four day road trip was a nice break. The only negative of the trip was getting a speeding ticket three miles from home. $172 for 13 miles over the speed limit just coming off the highway. After I got home and found that my short term disablity didn't get extended into November, the amount of the ticket was very painful indeed! I also received notice of Trustee sale of my home after I returned home. The foreclosure is a relief, actually. Its time to make some life changes. Being relieved of the burden of a high mortage that I cannot afford and a property that needs repairs I cannot afford will be a blessing!

So now it is December. I am reducing the amount of meds I take to save money but also because my spirits are better now that my friend is here and the tie to Dad has been eternally broken. I have decided not to pursue long term disability- will try to get a part time job instead because I do need some social interaction and to feel productive again. I have only a few more weeks to go before the timeframe for filing an EEOC claim expires. The trustee sale is in February. My mortage broker neighbor has told me about relocation funds for people going through foreclosure. Things are not all dire. Despite all the stressors landing on me this fall, not even all of them together are as bad as what I felt daily when working a shift at my employer.

As it stands today, strange as it sounds, I feel really blessed!

Update

2010-10-08T09:15:00.000-07:00

I continue on leave, receiving short term disability. Thank goodness I had the sense to pay into that "benefit" for it is what's keeping me afloat financially. I sold my car at the end of September and bought a nice bicycle. Riding it, walking and taking the bus will be good for me physically, and help produce endorphins and increase dopamine, etc. to help my brain rebuild some of the connections that PTSD can break. My T is thrilled that I did it. Physical activity improves mental health considerably!

My new health insurance administrator is pretty much useless. It's been six weeks and they still have not completed their review of my T to get him on my plan. The T I used for EMDR is not covered, period.
Due to the numerous stressors from many directions, I'm having some cognitive slowness. Of course, I'm in my mid-forties now, so that may also be "middle aged brain" kicking in.

I'm sure its scarey for those of you out there reading this blog, seeing that someone who has gone through years of therapy and has "healed" on many levels has still so much trouble internally. (And.. externally) You probably don't want to read this stuff, because you want to believe that DDNOS can be "fixed." I too have always wanted to hear that it can be "fixed." And it can be/has been on many levels. But, sometimes it takes a long time to reach all the levels, especially when denial is the gatekeeper to each and every level, and the abuse began during initial, critical brain development stages. You can't get back to a state that never was in the first place.

I try my best to be gentle with myself and do what I can. I hope you are being gentle with yourself too.

Little Victory

2010-09-20T08:41:00.001-07:00

Short term disability has been approved! It's a relief to have some income coming in. It won't save my condo, but it will give me money to move my stuff and pay health insurance. Here's to little victories!

Surgery, meds, insurance

2010-09-06T08:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I've had my thyroid removed. Hyperthyroidism was jacking up the level of anxiety I was continually experiencing. Surgeon recommended removal due to multiple issues going on within thyroid that would require constant tests and biopsies down the line. There was concern that cancer was lurking, so we just took it out. Now its a matter of doing monthly or quarterly bloodwork and tweaking thyroid replacement medication dosage to maintain optimal functioning. Its nice now to not always have the shakes.

My primary care physician walked me through some meds we could try to help with any residual anxiety, depression, and mood fluxuation that I have. I've been on anti-depressants for short periods of time a few times in my adult life. I'm not a fan of pharmacological intervention, think its more harmful than useful, but since I need to function well enough to work again in a hostile environment, am going to try. So I'm on depakote. Mood stabilizer. (Sleep inducer, headache producer, dizziness maker.) I can feel some difference in my head, not feeling as much brain buzz. While it is an anti-seizure medication, it does not stop pseudo-seizures, so far.

One step ahead, three steps back....Just when I got my psychologist approved with my insurance plan, my employer switched insurance plans. Now I have to scramble to get him approved all over again. Note to self: keep a T "on retainer" in the good years "just in case!" Have to pay out of pocket full price - ouch!

I am still on unpaid leave. Waiting for the verdict on whether short term disability will accept PTSD flare-up as a coverable condition or if it'll be denied as "pre-existing."

Stay tuned for the next episode of .....

Anonymous comments turned off

2010-09-06T08:28:00.000-07:00

Due to ever increasing spam, anonymous commenting has been turned off. My apologies to those of you who prefer anonymity. If you need to ask something specific send me an email at deannandme at gmail dot com.

Endocrine issues and PTSD

2010-08-17T18:48:00.000-07:00

I've been battling thyroid issues for a while. Dx'd with hyperthyroidism, got scanned and got another dx of toxic multinodule goiter. Had a biopsy, now having the entire thyroid removed - in two days, actually.
There's a wealth of studies out there which show the link between endocrine diseases and PTSD. They each can feed the other. Hyperthyroidism ramps up your system with increased anxiety, heart palpitations, tremblings, irritability, etc, etc. Increased anxiety ramps up your other endocrine glands like adrenals and parathyroid, pituitary, etc. which in turn can ramp up your PTSD. Conversely, a high percentage of people with long term PTSD ( articles call it complex PTSD) eventually come to have endocrine gland issues due to the effects of PTSD on their physical body.

I am looking forward to having my thyroid removed so that the hyper activity of the gland will cease. I am hoping that in time, with the right dosage of thyroid hormone, I will get some stablization of anxiety levels which might lessen the severity/duration of the flashbacks.

Anyone out there also have thyroid or other endocrine gland issues due to PTSD?

Dangers of Disclosure

2010-08-12T18:21:00.001-07:00

Despite my own better advice (written of in April 2010) I came clean with my employer about my condition, with an emphasis on PTSD. Disclosed in writing, not connected to any drama, just as part of my daily report of productivity. Handed it in via email, as usual, and went home at end of shift. The very next day I got a call from the Human Resources guy. He said that they are concerned that the job is stressing me out, that I should just take the night off, "if that's what you want to do." I told him "I'm fine, some days are harder than others but I'm fine to go in to work, my only concern is that we're low on files to audit, and that would look bad on my productivity report if I did not audit any files." He said "well now we're concerned for your health, and you did have that incident with a coworker a few months back, we have to think about the staff's safety." (The incident was me melting into a puddle of tears and telling the coworker that she was out of line. No safety issues..., wtf?) He asked me again if I wouldn't just like to just stay home, rest. I said that I was fine, totally ready to work the night's shift. He didn't take yes for an answer. After his fourth time of "suggesting" I stay home from work, I relented and said FINE, I'll stay home if that is what you want me to do. I don't want to, but since you aren't hearing anything else, I will stay home. His answer was " if that's what you want...."

HR officers are manipulators for their companies, not your helpful agent. He committed two violations of the EEOC and ADA in his actions: first, coersion of an employee - second, discrimination based on the assumption that someone with PTSD would be violent in the future.

Four days later, which was my next usual scheduled shift, I received by courier -hand delivered to my home- a package with a letter that said per my request I had been granted a 12 weeks unpaid leave due to my disclosure that I have PTSD/DDNOS. And a requirement that I return enclosed leave papers with doctor's certification within 15 days or my leave could be denied.

I never asked for a leave. I did not say any such thing in my written disclosure nor verbally on the phone. I only caved in to one night off due to pressure from the HR guy and the realization that they were not likely to allow me in the building if I did show up for work for my shift due to his emphasis on "staff safety." How this translates into a full blown request for 12 weeks unpaid leave is beyond my comprehension. The letter was written by the law office my employer uses for all their legal issues. What it has done for me is lock me out of applying for unemployment, and forcing me to produce papers to get a leave so they can prove by that submission that I asked for a leave.

It gets worse, more complicated and convoluted. Moral of the story JUST DON'T DISCLOSE!

SSI, SSD, disability

2010-07-21T22:28:00.000-07:00

If anyone knows anyone who is in the United States and is receiving disability benefits for DDNOS or PTSD due to the effects of childhood abuse, I would like to talk to you! I am investigating this as an future option but have many questions.
If you do not want to post here but want to do so privately, please email deannandme at gmail dot com.
Thank you!

Results of Pressure

2010-07-20T02:03:00.000-07:00

I'm still under pressure at work. I'm meeting with managers once or twice a week to review productivity numbers and assess where the problems are in my not performing to their robot level standards they require. (sarcasism intended there, heh.) While they say I am improving, what to me it is is really assimulating, acting more like all the other workers, getting faster, but making more mistakes. But, that is their definition of improvement, so I guess I am improving.

What is increasing is the anxiety I feel daily, continually. That anxiety triggers flashbacks. Flashbacks that can be on continually for days, which called for getting back in to therapy to see if I can get them resolved. I've found a therapist who is was trained by Francine Shapiro's institute, is certified in EMDR, and actually has room in her schedule for new patients! I've started with her, and have some optimism about getting some relief.

The funny thing about suffering all these years with flashbacks (its 30 years offiicially this year) is that the clues have been there for understanding what is going on, but not enough to create the right picture to know whats what, well enough to get resolution. Over the years the flashbacks got clearer, stronger, more defined, and their triggers were more observable and defineable so that the dots were enough to connect and see the picture they make. I'm going to list those clues and triggers now, and the other pieces that contribute, to show the picture. There's probably triggering material in here for someone, so be warned.

******POTENTIAL TRIGGERING MATERIAL AHEAD, CAUTION*****

Flashback time progression and symptoms

*feeling of fullness in my mouth
*occasional sensation that I was drawing in air, as if I was inhaling on a cigarette (non-smoker, never smoked)
*distant visual/ vibrational sensation that something was coming at me in a repeated pattern right at my face
*sensation of being pounded repeatedly in the face and about the head - but not painful
*tingling feeling inside my mouth, the roof of my mouth and cheeks
*throbbing of the tissue on the roof of my mouth
*throbbing in a certain part of my brain that responds at other times to sexual arousement
*dissociated image of myself gagging
*an automatic restriction of my breathing when feeling anxiety, a puckering/narrowing of my mouth cavity
*a response of stuckness, numbing, trancing when several of the above symptoms occur at the same time
*a tightening of my throat, a feeling of rawness or dryness in throat when in trance
*if moving the anxiety energy over to a different part of my brain, immediate seizure like response - or head jerking, head shaking, snapping head to one side. The seizure is a whole body response in a rhythm that mimics being in the throws of vigorous sexual activity.

There are more symptoms, but can't think of them now

thought/feelilng symptoms
*I made a mistake =anxiety and panic
*the simple act of pursuing what I want will bring terrible trouble :"I want"=anxiety or fear of impending threat
*Acknowledging that others see me or are watching me (ie, "being visible") = anxiety, panic. Restriction of breathing
* Realizing that others DON'T see me and are not being respectful = feeling of mortification, despair, shame
*long held realization that my upbringing taught me that you must trust untrustworthy people.
*a sense of being centered, grounded, in my body, connected to the physicality of the world and in touch with my ego=being visible, to myself =anxiety of pending abuse. It would also make me aware of blood flow in areas of my body that "were the same" as when the abuse was occurring. Associated heightened blood flow with abuse activity in that same body area and the feelings that those particular abuse events had contained.

Facts of the abuse
*dad, my perp, used to show up in the oddest places around the house, (outside bathroom window (standing on a ladder!) when I was bathing, behind a door of a room, in the room next to where I was, peeping around the wall, etc.) I'd notice him watching me just before being abused. The abuse was oral, and digital, and then later also anal, and at age 11 vaginal. All forms were used by perp after age 11.
*there was some child porn years in the abuse where we kids were taken to a private home and coerced to perform sexual acts on adults for the camera (sometimes the acts were just simulated and not actual, but the coercement was real) this added to the sense of being watched, and "being seen and then abused"
*I have an aversion to being in front of a camera - video and film cameras included.
*as a toddler/preschooler the simple wanting of a toy that was located in a place in our house where I had to traverse to- When i'd get there, I'd find the toy and then realize that HE was there too. It was unpredictable, but opportunity then made itself clear to him and so he abused me. (Which made me connect the "I want" with "I made a mistake" + anxiety of pending abuse, plus sensations from abuse
*of the many ways I dissociated, which included numbing, trancing, out of body experience; was a technique I call immersion. When I couldn't do any of the other ways of dissociating, I would focus on the sensations of the abuse itself. I would only focus on one specific thing, such as vibration, or pressure, or rhythm, or the specific sensations in my muscles or tissue so that I became only that specific element without recording meaning to it. There were times I'd transpose the location of the abuse to another part of my body (if it was anal, i'd record the sensation as if it was vaginal, so as to lessen the shame I felt during the event.) There were times when during the abuse event I recorded myself as being him and not me. That, therapists say, is called identifying with the abuser to escape the feelings of being the abused. Helps me understand why for many years I had dreams that I had a penis, or believe that I could feel what it was like to have a penis. Sheesh, the things a kid had to do to survive!

****END TRIGGERING***

The flashbacks that I have been having for 30 years are the pieces, the sensations I had isolated and fixated on and recorded so that I could survive the individual abuse event. The flashbacks are triggered by one thought or feeling as listed above. Sometimes it could be a resemblance to the feeling. It will be interesting to see in EMDR therapy how all the various sensations are linked together and how they can be reconnected and then disarmed.

I want to let my readers know that while its true that 30 years of flashbacks suck, it does feel good to know that with each insight a fuller, more connected picture does eventually emerge. All the clues I listed above were there pretty much since day one, but not connected in any obvious way.

One of the biggest hinderances to healing for me over the years was that POSITIVE feelings of being visible, feeling whole and centered, which are actual GOALS for therapy, were the biggest causes of my flashbacks. The therapists over the years that I've seen didn't know what to do with those obstacles. Now, there's hope that they will no longer be lasting obstacles, because I can now connect the dots and see that I with each flashback, I am reliving a piece of an abuse event that actually happened and know what they are, actually, and know what the thoughts and feelings are that bring them on.

Its hopeful that I won't have to employ the strategy that I have been using for the past 15 years, which is organizing my whole life on avoiding experiencing flashbacks. That strategy has lead to a very restricted life, an isolated life without much joy. I look forward to someday soon feeling ok when I realize someone can see me, that being recognized and visible isn't a horrendous repeat of the abuse, but a pleasant way to feel connected to others who care about me. Thats a good goal, right?

Under pressure

2010-07-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

What do you do when your coping mechanisms get in the way of performing at work? I am having a stressful time these last two weeks at work because my productivity is not up to the expectations of management. I am in a tight spot right now. The pace I usually go and mental space I work out of to do my job w/o flashbacks interfering is the very thing that is preventing me from meeting the "go faster" expectations management is now pressing me for. In order to work like they want me to work, I will need to operate out of the brain space I have been using to store the anxiety and flashbacks of past abuse so they don't constantly interfere with my functioning. Management's pressure is anxiety producing, which is directly drawing from that brain space, and has me in constant flashback mode.

I fear my brain (or my adrenals) will fry from constantly accessing that flashback space while trying to use it to do my job too. I don't want to lose a secure income, but I don't want to be forever stuck in perpetual flashback.

I'm shopping for a therapist again, preferably one that is skilled w/EMDR to try and release some flashbacks so I can get some relief. It took inquiries of five different therapists to find one who even is accepting new patients.
One actually was listed as working with PTSD but upon an in person interview proved to be outright contemptuous of a dx on the dissociation spectrum as a legitimate diagnosis. Needless to say I did not pursue any further appointments with her, and told her that if she didn't believe in dissociation, there was no point in working with her. Careful out there when you're searching for help. If your T has contempt for the dx, she'll have contempt for you too. Be kind to yourself, leave those T's behind!

Riding the waves

2010-06-17T06:48:00.000-07:00

Here it is mid-June 2010. Seems like yesterday we were all worried about Y2K and what would happen when we entered a new century. Now we're ten years into that new century. Things have changed but mostly they have stayed the same, for people, human nature, has stayed the same.

I'm trying to be philosophical lately because in truth my internal life has been like a little boat swirling in continuous waves. Not big, scarey waves like the teenaged girl sailor experienced last week that snapped her sail and forced her to activate her rescue beacon. More like gentle waves that push just enough to send leaves spinning as they slowly move downstream. I keep trying to focus on an anchor, but not much seems strong enough to stop the spinning.

What does help is routine, habits, and saying NO to anything that creates more confusion. Getting down to the basics of life, healthy food, a regular sleep schedule, a routine of chores, and paying bills helps me feel safer in physical reality. Telling myself that no matter what new ideas seem shiny and exciting, no matter how many other people say something is so important that you need to change your life to embrace it - no matter what other priorities are suggested to you by others as being IT! I cannot allow any of it to sway me, because for me all of that isn't just an intellectual exercise, its a disruption to my inner focus, and activates fragments that cause too much deviation from a unified effort, that pull me off course, confuse me, and later brings regret and defeat from once again seeing proof that I don't have control over my own personality.

When I say that I don't have control over my own personality, Its not that I am switching all over the place so that everyone is aware of it. Its more like I keep changing my mind, don't follow through, don't keep promises (because I don't remember them) and generally seem "flakey." I don't want to be flakey. I want to have one direction and stick to it. Its just that my subconscious has other plans and other impulses. Like herding cats. ...

Spirituality and healing

2010-05-12T17:22:00.000-07:00

How much of this affliction that ails me is spiritually based? Science has been trying for centuries now to show the existence (or lack of) of the soul or spirit. Many people find that they feel better with a spiritual practice of some kind, feel more whole when they do something to address an inner desire to connect the dots of their physical, mental and emotional lives to something bigger and more all encompassing than just themselves.

I go through phases where I do things to feel more one with a more universal power. Sometimes just riding public transportation helps - I feel part of a larger body of humanity, all of us going in the same direction without necessarily ending up at the same destination. Other times I get a great sense of peace and calm walking through nature, though a beautiful wooded area or large garden. Sometimes I get that feeling just looking over the horizon and seeing a vast landscape, feeling like a little speck in a large expanse of life that will go on without me. (That especially feels like it takes the pressure off ME- it lets me KNOW that life will go on after I am no longer and that its ok to take things at my own pace. )

I've tried more conventionally known spiritual practices. Christianity- attended churches and even belonged to several different denominations of christian churches at different times in my life. I've investigated Buddhism, Judiaism, Meditation, New age ideas, Metaphysics, astrology, and have done past life regression. All so I could get some inkling of what its all about, what these inner feelings are all about.

As in everything else DDNOS, its not easy keeping consistent, or even remembering that I have spiritual needs. The important thing, I guess, is to attend to them when you do remember. And to enjoy them when you do.

To disclose or not

2010-04-28T05:14:00.000-07:00

It must be at least two years ago now that Emily/Cami/Gwen over at Emily-First-Girl did her post and survey about whether those with DID have disclosed their condition to their friends and employers, or maybe fess up to a partial condition such as PTSD. If I remember right, most people said that if they had done any disclosure, they opted for a partial one. A few people who responded said they had disclosed the full extent of their condition, with mixed consequences.

In the past I have eventually disclosed to a boss or two a less than in depth report on having a disorder in the dissociative spectrum. It took me like three or more years to do so each time. I don't know if it was the time delay that made a difference of acceptance and understanding on the boss's part (finally they had something that they could use to understand my behavior that had puzzled them over the past X number of years?) It was the length of time and the history we had created together that allowed me to feel ok with disclosing.

Therapists in my past usually counseled against disclosure, especially in the late 1980's when dissociative disorders diagnoses were still very controversial and not accepted as legitimate in the mental health, medical and psychiatric realms. Now its been 25 yrs, and people like Roseann Barr and Herschel Walker have gone public about having it, and the world didn't fall apart. It's still a subject of controversy, but people are getting more familiar with it, and seem more open to accepting its legitimacy. It's no longer automatically considered the UFO of psychiatry.

So, now, there is a questioning in myself, with only 6 months in my new job, of whether I should disclose to my managers. I have had my six month review and they have pinpointed behavior that I have been doing which is interfering with my job performance. They know I can do better if I just unblock myself. How can I tell them that the blocks that I have put in place allow me to do the job as well as I am doing and to function in life without being in a constant state of flashback? How do I tell them that the more emotionally connected to things I am, the faster, more constant the flashbacks are, but that emotional connection is how most people stay motivated and feel rewarded in their work? How do I admit to having something that, according to the "warning signs" checklist from the training we attended about workplace violence, I'd be added to the "constantly watch" list due to having PTSD? How do I disclose without becoming fodder for workplace gossip? How do I tell my boss that I have experienced both my manager and assistant manager violate confidentiality of others, have heard my co-workers parrot phrases to me that I have only used with my managers and I fear that this information would not stay private, but would be "shared" with my co-workers in the (unreasonable to me) attempt to have them "understand" me better? How do I say that being talked about by others is one of the biggest buttons that anyone can push for me? Basically, how do I tell them all this and also say "I don't trust you to treat this with discretion?"

So, I shouldn't tell. To tell would be more like self sabotage, walking into the lion's den knowing that the lion hasn't eaten in weeks. Foolish, career suicide. Because the biggest thing that they'll take away from it is that I cannot trust. Not that they are not trustworthy. My failure to trust will be my defect. The irony never leaves me.

Switched in front of my very eyes!

2010-04-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

Last month I was going though a depressive spell. It lasted 8-10 days, I was getting worried for myself. Was very low, indeed. Wasn't eating much, and what I was eating wasn't healthy. As a lifeline, I reached for some comfort food, one of which, for me, is some old fashioned tomato soup. I heated the soup in the microwave, in a coffee cup, and with it at the right sipping temperature, I took a sip.

Instantly my entire mood shifted, my vision cleared and I took on an entirely different ego state. For several weeks after that drinking in of the tomato soup I was energetic, tackled the very needed spring cleaning of my place and generally was not depressed. The change was amazing! And the switch was so obvious to me internally that I had to re-evaluate what is really going on with me these days. Not that I have any answers. Just many more questions.

Anyone else ever have such a clear switch? What did/does it mean for you?

Technologically challenged

2010-03-02T09:37:00.000-08:00

I've been using blogger for two years nearly, and still have not figured out how to know which post has received new comments prior to publishing them. Comment moderation just lists comments that need approving, not which post they were in response to. So I approve and then have to scour through the entire blog site to find which entry has a new comment.

If any of you out there know how I can see which post has a new comment PRIOR to approving it, I'd so much appreciate the info.

Searching for an anchor

2010-02-27T15:56:00.000-08:00

Time, change and increased isolation have had a negative impact on me lately. My new jobs' non-traditional hours sometimes get switched around so that my weeks are not uniform, which messes up my sleep schedule. For weeks now I've been feeling lost, disconnected, sometimes uncertain as to the date and what time of day it is and what my purpose in life is. These past few weeks I have had an increase in negative internal feedback, old tapes of punitive messages playing over and over in my head. I definitely need to do something to alter the mental direction this is all heading in.

Some of the difficulty is trying to integrate the new role that I play at work with my overall concept of "me." Who I am at work, what I do and the overall industry that I work in is so different than who I've been in the past. When I return home for my several days in a row break, the contrast is striking and leaves me confused and lost. So far I have not built a bridge to knowing that work me and home me are both me. Instead, to cope, I've embraced an old stand-by SLEEP. It helps my physical body recover from the odd hours work schedule, but is not helpful in building a transition me that can connect two very different worlds.

Its as if I were a Kaliediscope - an old time toy, built like a small telescope, with the inside lined with a series of mirrors, and the body of the telescope being two pieces, one which holds hundreds of tiny colored chips. The smaller piece of the telescope body can spin, making the chips tumble. As you look through the eye piece, you see patterns formed from the chips reflected off the mirrors, like infinite new snowflakes. Depending upon the capacity of the kaliedescope, the patterns will eventually repeat themselves, though not always in the same order. Now as someone with DIDnos, I try to understand myself to be the body of the scope and all the parts of the scope. But the issue comes in when I believe that the individual patterns (snowflakes) are ME too. Or rather, me ONLY. That each snowflake, each me is totally and only me at the time that I perceive it to be me. I forget that I am also the mirrors, the body of the scope, and all the chips. My perspective becomes skewed, and my identity narrows to me seeing the world only from the perspective of that one snowflake. With the slightest twist of the small scope, the chips can fall, making a new pattern, erasing the old snowflake and a new perspective/identity is taken on. Most times the transition is flawless and unnoticed but not always. Sometimes the new snowflake is so foreign that confusion results. Meaning is lost and the way through the day/week is lost.

What can make a transition for me so that my work snowflake and home snowflake are not so very far from each other in my patterns in life? How do I integrate this new snowflake into my overall body of who/what is me? How do I stop buying into the idea (or habit) of believing I am the individual snowflakes instead of the kaliescope as a whole? These are the daily challenges of someone with didnos.

United States of Tara?

2010-02-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

I've joined Netflix and found the Showtime series United States of Tara available for viewing. I have rented the first two discs. I'm interested in getting other people's opinions about this series. It didn't live up to my expectations for it.

Anyone care to weigh in?

Sometimes ignoring your condition helps

2010-02-02T07:09:00.000-08:00

Time flies by when you're getting used to a new job. Christmas was low-key, New Years came and went quickly, and through all the ups and downs, I'm still here. That's life.

A number of posts have been started, but not finished, and eventually discarded. Sometimes I just don't want to acknowledge that I've got this condition, and how it affects me everyday. You could call it denial, but really its just ignoring the obvious. My way of feeling in control - those who have the power to name a thing have the power. Or so I learned in Women's Studies classes.

This is a ramble, just wanted to let readers know things are going, not good, not bad, just going. Grateful for that.

Stress, Pseudo-seizures, triggers, progress

2009-12-03T10:05:00.000-08:00

There have been many times in my life where I have been triggered and landed in an innner emotional state that was difficult to escape healthily. In the past I'd despair of ever becoming free of the intense symptoms that would seem to descend upon me. But what do you know, there really is a resolution to my symptoms, even if it is now just a view into the future, and not yet reached. A resolution and a healing resourced from the oddest of places.

For any of us who live with wounds from the past that seem to repeat in a continous loop, we know how it seems like there are no end to the triggers that send us spiraling. In our more philosophical moments, we think of karma, and growth, and how perhaps the trigger is a lesson or a healing that hasn't quite made it all the way down to the level of consciousness that it needs to in order to resolve. Over time, and with outside guidance, we learn to become objective about our suffering, observant of our pain, detectives involved in tracing the way back to how and where the pain started so that a bypass or stopping can be injected. Every backward tracing creates a map to how things are, and gives a clue as to how or where newer, better, healthier tracks could be laid.

This all sounds so cryptic, I know. But we all have these conversations with ourselves. My new job has been a blessing financially, and a major source of triggers emotionally and psychologically. There has been a difference though, in how I am experiencing the triggering. I think it has to do with the nature of the work itself and who I have always believed I am and needed to be.

My new job is in the death services industry. I answer phone calls from people who have had someone they love die within only a few minutes or hours. I help coordinate funeral home pickups, death certificates, and other related processes. For the most part, while the event happening is profound and about the most stressful anyone experiences, the actual phone call does not tend to be intense. The cumulative effect of knowing the what and the how and who and how many and knowing how suddenly life can change, is a source of stress and self-reflection. None of which is a bad thing at all, actually.

The most stress I feel from my job, ironically, is from the expectations of management. Not that they have unreasonable expectations, just that their style is similar to what I experienced from my own mother when growing up. Like being told what is expected to be known only after I have done something wrong. Criticism for making mistakes (which they say is no big deal, just a correction) but hearing and feeling how I did as a kid that a mistake leads to punishment of the severe, humiliating, mortifying kind. Triggers that mean something to the kid in me that mean something different to the adult that is me now. Triggers that nevertheless still start the fear, anxiety, panic, within, which in turn calls forth physical memories of events unpleasant and unresolved.

The saving grace in this situation is the deep belief and need I have had throughout my life of recognizing, acknowledging and validating emotional truth. It was a long, and continues to be a long, journey of learning how to deal with emotions, period. But it does not bother me that people on the phone are experiencing profound grief in their lives as I speak to them. There is a strong part of me that says, Finally! Here is a place and time where it is OK to acknowledge REAL emotions, REAL experience. I don't have to pretend it is not happening, do not have to minimize. I only have to maintain objectivity and professionalism so that they may stay functional through their crisis. By doing so with them, I am learning to do the same for myself too.

The triggering I have been having from "mistakes" has gotten to the point where I am experiencing pseudo-seizures. I used to be very afraid of these, especially afraid that they might happen when I am away from the security of my own home. Afraid someone will see, someone will label me as something that I don't want to be labeled. But I am trying not to let that fear be so large. Just trying to trace things back inside my head, in my body, to see where they start and how, so that they may be resolved, finally.

One of the amazing side-effects of doing this new work is experiencing how I am changing, or rather what my psyche is doing to create a counter-balance to what I experience at work. I've normally been a depressive person, not too eager to take on life at its fullest, for myriad reasons. But now, perhaps as a survival strategy created from deep within, I am feeling a push to LIVE! To examine what things and habits I have utilized that keep me from wanting to really LIVE! While I have not gone bungy jumping or anything like that, I do notice a changing of perspective towards allowance of little bits of joy.

Not unrelated to this new-found redirection towards life, is an increase in sexual awareness. Perhaps the conscious realization that life is finite ramps up the biological imperatives that are hard-wired in all of us. Of course this heightened awareness feeds into past pain, too, making the electrical pathways in my brain traceable to a spot which actually sets off a pseudo-seizure. What used to be scarey and make me feel out of control, now is more understandable and more controllable, and actually repeatable - like a scientific experiment. Which makes me feel, very, very heartened that long term relief and resolution is not so far away anymore!

Employed!

2009-10-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

After four months of unemployment, I am happy to report that I am now gainfully employed on a full time basis.
So far there is inner calm and a steady determination to learn all I can and do well. This is such a relief!

Spontaneous Imagining

2009-09-26T04:53:00.000-07:00

Projecting oneself into the future is something some people do more than others. Where will I live? What will I be doing this time next year, next decade? These are things that I pretend not to care about but my inner life tells the truth. As time pushes on, my stress level regarding my financial situation increases greatly. The scenarios of options for my life in 2010 have begun to churn in my imagination. There is a part of my mind that is actively producing movie-like scenarios and commentary about possible futures spontaneously, on just the minute suggestion of one place or job or another. It is creative and I can see that it is a way for my internal system to cope with uncertainty. Some of the created scenarios are so vivid, they are almost like memories instead of future path options.

What do they say - the power of the imagination....

For example: One job possibility is in a rural area of the US, in the same state I used to live in. I've applied for the job, and am hoping for an interview before mid-November. It's in a field I used to be in, and the majority of my work experience is in that field. I've done that same job before, at a different place. I've seen pictures of the workplace, and the town. That's all I needed for my imagination to fill out what my future could be there. Its not long before I can "feel" myself walking down their sidewalks and riding my bike down the streets. The problems I might face, and the friends I might make. All this sweeps by in my mind in an instant.
Its just imagination, but so strong its like a vision. A desire for safety and purpose so strong it can make me want to move towards it, without giving it greater scrutiny.

And its not just one clear vision for the future. Each sliver of an option gets the same expansive spontaneous imagining. Each option "feels" like I'm already there. Projected into the future, scouting ahead for potential pitfalls, scanning for the emotional traps and setbacks that might come if I chose that direction.
My mind needs to project myself, my emotional self, into the future, into each option, to see if that direction, that choice, is safe. I cannot rely on my logical mind to determine this.

What concerns me is the entirely spontaneous nature of this imagining. The speed with which it creates whole narratives. What it tells me is that I am far more stressed than I allow myself to know. Its a coping strategy my mind uses to keep me from feeling the stress.

I can see that these are imaginings and know that the scenarios are just creations, and not foretellings of my real future. But it is comforting to rest for a minute or two in the scenes. I just cannot allow myself to begin to believe they are at all real. Is this what people call day dreaming?

Two months, wow!

2009-09-19T15:29:00.000-07:00

How time flies when you are lost spinning trying to find work. Ha ha.

I didn't get the job for which I was in the running. It was 7.5 weeks before I found out that they passed on me. I'll be starting a short seasonal job at the end of September, but it won't be enough to save my home. So, I'm dealing with basic survivial issues right now. My ddnos is not contributing positively to the situation - I'm finding that my imagination and wishful thinking is creating either denial of the seriousness of the situation or exaggerating the ease with which I will get work and move on into a new job, either in this current state or another one across the country. Its the same skill I used as a kid, painting my life to be safe and manageable when it was (is) not. Humans can really take only so much reality. Well, this human, for sure anyway.

Worrying and fretting all day won't help the situation, so I try not to do that. I save that for when I am asleep, so I can toss and turn all night. ha!

This week I decided that I'll be changing tactics and am going to pursue jobs in a field I used to work in, and in which I have lots of experience. The passion for it left me long ago, but there are other aspects of the work that can be fulfilling, and can certainly act as a laboratory for personal growth in other ways, if I reframe it to be that way.

Sorry for the long abscence. It's been hard to stay centered this summer.

Brain Buzz

2009-07-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

Dissociation is the act, the ability to separate various data away from a centralized cohesion so that individual elements exist independently from one another in the storage areas of the mind. The gift of dissociation is that the skill can also be used to slowly identify and re-assemble those elements to again know a whole event that was once too unbearable or too conflicted to comprehend.

Within all of us is an observer, a part of ourselves that takes in data - sights, sounds, emotions, physical sensations - and just notes them, without judgement. The observer is detached and impartial, thus an excellent part to help in healing. Some people mediate to strengthen this part's ability to just observe without judgement. While the concept of co-consciousness is controversial and questioned among some in the field of psychology, I believe that the observer is the conduit of co-consciousness, and that everyone, dissociated or not, has an observer part and is always therefore co-conscious.

The observer part within me has been the primary aide in my own healing. It allows me to identify each element in a flashback experience and de-construct so that I may then re-construct to understand, process and integrate the memory into my general life memory store.

I am in the process of interviewing at a company for full time work. It is a lengthy process, but I am glad that I have a prospect for employment. I am sure my mortgage holder is glad too. ; ) This process has triggered me in numerous ways that always seem to culminate in the same experience. It is something that I must pay attention to so that I can understand and finally integrate the experience, the memory, into my life story. I don't expect that this one ah-ha moment will cure me, but it is a step closer to wholeness. The following is a jumble, but it is clearer (to me) in its connections than has been known to me in the past. Perhaps seeing the progression might help others too. I am sorry if it causes any of you trouble. If you are not in a good place, just don't read it.

*********TRIGGERING INFO FOLLOWS********

When I made a mistake on the 10 page document which I had to submit, which I then worried would disqualify me as a candidate, the anxiety about making a mistake brought up the part that speaks baby talk - actually it sounds more like speaking in tongues. I can intersperse adult vocal english with the baby talk, at different volumes, and mostly I can control that I don't speak this way when others are present. But it definitely is a separate part that is communicating, co-conscious with me (the host?) Anxiety about making a mistake, of being judged and feeling a threat to my survival (a lack of employment/income as a single person in the US is a threat to my survival!) triggers other dormant parts to activate.

When I was called in for an interview (mistake didn't disqualify me, yeah!) I found after listening to the interviewer, who would be my manager, that one of the traits that would help me in that job, and would motivate me to do my best, is my desire for accomplishment and desire to please an authority figure by completing tasks according to their time table. This realization brought the feeling of wanting to please to the surface, and it mixed with the anxiety I was feeling, as well as the feelings of fear of making a mistake, and the fear of being judged. Those feelings combined triggered other elements to wake from their dormancy well after the interview was over. As the days pass, more elements surface, like an oral fixation - to eat, and a desire to kiss someone. (Alas, no present outlet for this!) So I eat more than usual, not ever seeming to be satisfied.

Then the left side of my brain feels like it has been isolated, and is slightly buzzing. There is a distant physical sensation of my mouth being full, then an overall feeling of overwhelm and loss of control. I feel panic inside my chest. My brain feels like electricity is bouncing all around the sectioned off part. Then an energy concentration in the brain, similar to what an orgasm does to the brain.
Then I feel a distant sense of terror, and slight all over body tremor, and head tremor and my head begins to shake, body shaking similar to shaking when you've experienced a fright (car accident, or seeing/hearing an explosion - adrenline crash.)
Then distant sensation of needing to vomit or gagging, more distant feelings of panic and actual body seizures. Then feel that someone somewhere inside is screaming, panicking, feeling like their body is out of control.
Brain buzzing with electricity
Conflict, wanting the pleasure but ashamed of the source
Defeat
Shame of letting go
of being betrayed
of not being valued
of not being seen as a separate person
Despair for not being valued
for not being seen as a separate person who exists
Mortification
reduced to nothingness
valueless
tenuous existence - ego wonders "AM I REAL?"

The thought that the french call orgasm "the little death" and those that study sex have said that orgasm is a momentary loss of the ego. The idea that children, who have not yet solidified their ego, would experience orgasm not just as a "little death" but actual death. How profoundly wrong it is to subject them to that when they are not equipped to survive it.
*******TRIGGER ENDS************

This summary is closer than I have been in a while to understanding what overcomes me sometimes. The mixture of feelings surfacing out of nowhere really messes up my ability to function sometimes. Looking at it from an observer it appears to be a whole memory of something I experienced. Progress, I'd say. Progress.

On the lighter side

2009-07-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

Unemployment is like a vacation, without any money (except unemployment checks, of course.) So, I'm doing things that are cheap but fun to amuse myself and keep "centered" but still feel adventurous.

Since I have to grocery shop anyway, I have decided that each time I go, I'll try something new that I've never eaten/drank before. Some items I have tested lately are these.

Tamarind soda. I don't remember the brand. I tried it because I never even tasted tamarind before. It's actually quite tasty! Definitely will buy it again in the future.

Canary melon. Sweeter than a honeydew and it looks like a bright yellow football (US.) Recommended.

Gaia melon. Smelled spicey but did not taste spicey. Bland and overpriced. Will not buy again.

Santa claus melon. Tasted like a cross between a honeydew and a cantaloupe. Looks like a green pinstriped football (US). If it is small and on sale, I might buy it again.

Coconut water. Not a real fan of coconut taste. Decided that I won't buy that again.

Coconut oil. Louanna, for general use, and "organic" other brands for fancy stuff. Louanna is inexpensive and works great in pizza dough. Plant derived fat with a much milder taste than olive oil. This is now a kitchen staple! Keep it in the fridge to extend its shelf life.

Coconut milk. Doesn't really taste coconutty, well, not strongly anyway, and has plant based fat, which works well with my new vegan diet. Well, 75% vegan, 25% flexitarian. Long story there. It too has become a staple in my pantry. I haven't come across a brand yet that I didn't like. Comes in convenient cans for easy, long-term pantry storage. Great in smoothies and a good all in one substitute for the fat (butter or margarine) and milk in instant mashed potatoes.

Naked Juice, Green Machine. Looks questionable but tastes marvelous! I only get this when its on sale. Supplies many vitamins derived from leafy greens of which I need to eat more.

Odwallah's Superfood and other flavors of juices. Same as Naked Juice, only more expensive. Yum! Special occasions, only.

Rice pasta. Tinkyada Pasta Joy brand is preferred, but Trader Joe's brand is good too. Cooks up firm, nice texture. Costs twice as much as regular pastas, but then I don't eat much pasta, so I can rationalize the cost. It contains no gluten, which helps me tremenduously. Rice pasta is now my pasta of choice.

Late July brand cookies. Well, I actually tried these last year and liked them better than Oreos. But now can't eat them due to the filling ingredients. Sigh. But you can. I highly recommend them!

Trader Joe's Hemp Protein powder. No, I don't get high. It supplies plant derived protein to put in my juice smoothies. Can't eat soy nor whey protein. Egg white protein is iffy too. That leaves Rice, pea, and hemp proteins that are moer readily available in my area.

Pacfic brand Almond Milk. Blue Diamond brand is ok too. Because I'm lactose intolerant. Rice milk started giving me trouble, and the almond milk has more protein for my smoothies, so its now a staple. A plus is that it can be stored up to a year in the pantry, and only needs refridgeration just before opening for use.

Hemp milk. Richer than I care to have my milk. Won't buy again.

PAPAYA! Wow, this fruit is packed with vitamins and good for you digestive enzymes. Can't recommend it enough to those with IBS, crohns, etc. I eat it daily and juice it and freeze it for future uses.

Aloe Vera Juice. I use the Lily of the Desert brand. Soothes the tummy and cleans the gut. Taste is a bit astringent, but a tablespoon of it added to smoothies provides extra vitamins.

Rice Works brand rice chips. Expensive but good, tastes a bit like fritos corn chips or sun chips but does not contain gluten, wheat or corn.

Popchips. Potato chips that are neither baked nor fried. They are "popped." Tastes like Pringles without the salt. They come in a variety of flavors. I get the smaller bags since I have no self control once the bags are open.

Tribe brand hummus, forty spices flavor. Very spicey but excellent, to me! Hard to find so when I do find it, I buy it.

If you see something in the grocery store that looks interesting, but you haven't tasted it before, buy a small one and try. You just might discover something that then becomes your newest gotta have favorite thing!

When there's no way out, go deeper in

2009-06-21T22:08:00.000-07:00

Status update: I am now unemployed. I knew that it was coming since my most recent job was seasonal temporary. If not for the need to pay the bills, I could happily remain unemployed indefinately! The Unemployment office has so far approved my benefits claim - from when I was employed for a large company earlier last year. For those future weekly unemployment checks- I am extremely grateful!

"When there's no way out, go deeper in." That line is from the movie 'The International,' which I watched earlier this week on DVD. Not sure how truly sound that advice is, but I find myself coming to the same conclusion today, wanting to apply that new philosophy to my current job search.

Year after year I've operated my life as if this DDNOS / PTSD was something that was attached to me externally. As if it was a boil or a mole that I could just cover up, something that just irritated a bit, and got in the way occasionally, but was not a huge obstacle in my life. (I guess there is no limit to the denial I use!)

But lately I have come to see that the DDNOS and PTSD are a huge deal, especially in relation to how I go about making a living and how I interact with people at work. Everything I do in my daily life is predicated on my need to be aware of what triggers I may encounter and how well I can stay centered and cohesive internally. I experience a great deal of stress on the job when I work with so many people who come in and out of my general workspace. The confusion I feel when I cannot understand the decisions management makes, and the bewilderment I experience when I cannot understand fluxuating social alliances just makes the stress build and build until I become an intense, difficult, negative, pain in the ass to others around me. This pattern goes back through each job I've held since my working life began. It appears that I am controlled by that pattern, and I am unsure how to change or stop it. So instead I've recognized that now I am attempting to control the pattern (eliminate the possible occurance) by looking for jobs that might isolate me more than I am already. Which is not the way to have the pattern broken, I know. For the isolation and lack of opportunities to do a broader range of tasks which utilize a broader range of my skills will only feed the stress, and repeat the pattern once again. I know, I know.

So this "no way out, go deeper in" thing... Instead of denying that what I have is truly a disability, instead why not run towards it? Embrace it. DDNOS / PTSD controls all the other areas of my life, why not give it a premier spot in my work life too? Make it my whole life (for it really has been anway.) Perhaps working in areas that address disabilities, and serving those who have disabilities may be the key to helping me come to terms with my own. Perhaps I'd be able to heal on a level that I haven't been able to before. What do you think of this logic? Is it logical at all?

This new approach has actually revived some old, positive, creative energies within me. I am reminded of other skills that I have that have been dorment for a very long time. It's exciting to recall them. As always, there's a caution in the background, telling myself to be mindful of the dangers of flagrant optimism and zealous enthusiasm - mustn't fly too high towards the moon, its important to keep the feet on the ground!

And so now I feel trepidation and internally defeated. Somewhere inside I finally accepted that I am human.

Approaching something new

2009-05-17T05:53:00.000-07:00

The last two weeks of April I attended mixology classes - learning to work as a bartender. I chose bartending because it seemed to be a job that had flexible hours, and supplied cash in hand via tips (because I'm preparing for a further drop in the economy and I want to be as "liquid" as possible.) As jobs go, bartending doesn't seem to be hard, task-wise. Objectively, its a job I can do. Subjectively - which is how I really live my life- it has been more difficult than I imagined, and I've been dragging my feet about finishing up.

Why its so hard

I've been a teetotaler for a long time. Not because of ethical reasons. Mainly for monetary and health reasons. In my college days I did drink some, but by some that means a drink or two a week or fortnight. Never anything even moderate drinkers do. The bar culture, and the activity of doing shooters and shots is unfamiliar to me.

Change to overall approach to life. I've mostly lived in my head. While I have had forays into manual labor, and have learned over the years how to do cash handling, and customer service, my approach to life has been cerebral. This new work will require me to be more social, and to live more in my body. It will require me to act on my observations and be more fluid in my social interactions. It will be a good thing, but it will be a big adjustment.

Memorization. To complete my course, I need to take a written test and a practical, which consists of making twelve drinks in 8 minutes getting all aspects correct. Those aspects include choosing the proper glass for presentation, choosing the correct mixing method, using all the correct ingredients in their correct measurements, choosing the correct presentation (up, on the rocks, frozen, etc.) and finally the correct garnish (lime wedge, lemon twist, olive, cherry, etc.) In order to do all this I need to memorize about 150 drink recipes that MAY be on the final and practical. I'm having a tough time memorizing the recipes.

Fear of the future. Once I finish this course and am in the job search, will I find work? Will that work pay me enough to pay my bills? Will other factors such as my physical appearance and how others perceive me keep me from getting work in the more lucrative venues? The job listings I've seen ask for a recent photo and 2-3 years experience. I'm a newbie, so can't be picky about venues. Just need to get hired and get experience. During that time I'll need to slim down further and get myself prettied up. Judgement about appearance is always an issue for me. (A lifetime of never measuring up to others expectations, sigh.)

Fear of failing, and of making a mistake. The school that I chose makes it very easy to complete the course. You are your only impediment. You can take the courses over and over. You can take the tests over until you pass. They want you to succeed. You have to pace it yourself. So I have taken the courses over two weeks and then wimped out taking the test the next week, and the next. Now I'm thinking that I need to take the classes again. All my issues listed above have decended upon me in this new environment, and I choked. I have been my own impediment.

Other self-imposed worries. If I get into this field, will I get trapped in it? Will it make me less marketable in other fields that I have been in prior to this? Will this field bring out the baser side of me, which has been taking a greater share of self-expression over the past several years. I used to be more refined, used less profanity. Will this new line of work suck all refinement out of me? Will I be judged by others to be less refined because of my new line of work? Will that over time be a deteriment to getting into more lucrative venues? Or am I just imposing my own internal judgements outward?

The act of going to school, and the built in assumption of being judged creates huge anxiety in me that translates into flashbacks. Can't try something new without being beaten down by old messages and lessons from the distant past. Very sad, very frustrating.

My abuser was/is an alcoholic. He drank lots beer at home. The pro is that I've had plenty of years of experience dealing with drunks. They don't scare me, and they don't rattle me. The con is that a future environment that contains drunks on a consistent basis may bring up issues that I've thought I've long dealt with but aren't finished.

All of these things, and so many more are contributing to the head trip I'm giving myself about learning this new thing called bartending. The worries line up to be identity oriented - who will I be once I do this? And also stir up the identity issues I already have - cerebral vs physical, refined vs base. Perhaps its giving me a chance to experience an identity making phase that I missed as a teen. What a gift but also what a challenge!

Yep, I'm a mess right now!

Resurfacing

2009-04-09T21:35:00.000-07:00

Disappearing and resurfacing. A pattern of mine socially. Out of touch for several weeks or months, then suddenly, I resurface. Like a dormant plant seed germinating and then pushing up through the soil to grow for a while in the light. It is spring after all.

I'm really curious if others with this diagnosis also have this same pattern. Does it have a trigger, or does it just seem to decend upon you unexpectedly?

Avoidance, Ambivalence

2009-03-16T23:01:00.000-07:00

There is a cycle I go through that doesn't involve switching or parts, or flashbacks. While perhaps the more normal of the phases I experience, it is a cycling through ambivalence about relationships (of all kinds) and an avoidance of communicating to others about the mundane, very human experiences of life.

I have friends whom I have not written to or spoken to in months. Am I angry with them? No. I feel great fondness when I think of them, and hope that they are doing well. But I cannot bring myself to reach out and make contact. I'm not depressed nor am I embarrassed about anything in my current situation. It's just Avoidance- of opening that emotional connection which makes me feel more real, more present, more vulnerable.

This avoidance of relationship(s) is a defense mechanism. Defense against what? Reality, vulnerability, the impermance of life. A way to give a mental nod to the idea that no matter how firm a relationship, there is always the possiblity of it ending, a possiblity of one day experiencing betrayal. Unfortunately, this habit done too much, becomes self-fulfilling.

Little setbacks

2009-03-01T10:42:00.000-08:00

The hives were strong for ten days and then slowly lost their itch. Not that I like to admit this, but the hives scared me. I had just come off the master cleanse and was a third day into drinking freshly made veggie juices when the hives started. I didn't know if I was allergic to one of the veggies or if my body was trying to kick toxins. This fear was a setback, and I reacted to it by stopping the veggie juicing. I know that it is a healthy way to get my nutrition, and will try again soon. Hopefully the hives don't return.

Two weeks ago on a Saturday night after 9 pm, I almost got into an auto crash. While I was driving through a green light and half way through an intersection, a pickup truck pulled out in front of me to take a right turn. I slammed on my brakes - the sound was probably heard for several miles!- and missed the truck by about three inches. The truck driver kept going and didn't even look back. I wonder if they even heard my brakes!! I was surprisingly calm during this whole incident, but it did bring up a reluctance to do any errands/driving at night. Another setback on my way forward.

Its odd to see how little things, and not so little things can impact the spirit of a person so that they veer from the course they were on previously. While these two examples have a good outcome, its a good example of how delicate an equalibrium we have. (I have?)

Some have accused me in the past of doing too much personal analysis- their probably right- I just know that I have some things to learn about my reactions to things, and what it takes to set me back.

Way back when in therapy when we were looking at things from a child development stages perspective, the issue would have been about feelings of safety and security, and uncertainty about making mistakes. It all comes back to how we originally strung our internal wires. (There is an internal baby part that is eternally uncertain about her safety and the seriousness of results of actions done by her and others.)

This post was going to me more thoughful, but sort of lost the whole thing before I sat down.

What constitutes a setback for you? How do you/how long does it take you to get back on track?

Hives, anyone?

2009-02-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

I got through the whole ten days of the cleanse without much trouble. Got hungry, of course, but overall it was a great experience. Last Tuesday I switched over to a veggie juice diet, and also kept drinking some of the lemonade from the Master Cleanse. I really like the taste of the lemonade!

Well, wouldn't you know, on Thursday afternoon I started itching. And got hives on my wrists, then arms, then stomach and all the way down to my ankles. There are no other symptoms except hives that itch. Some literature says that some people get them early on in a cleanse, like before day 6. Mine started after the official cleanse ended - day 14! I suspect that the veggie juice combo I made, which was designed to flush out toxins from the liver, actually worked - so well that my body is trying to flush out toxins through my skin = hives.

Gonna go with it and see what happens. I'm breathing well, sleeping ok, and don't have any other allergy like symptoms. So for now I'll be queen of the itch. lol.

Day 7 completed

2009-01-31T05:20:00.000-08:00

There have been no other incidents of triggering on this cleanse besides day 3. I've completed 7 days on the master cleanse and will be starting day 8 today. Can't say that I haven't cheated and ate sometimes. Usually a small bowl of apple sauce or some instant mashed potatoes. I've lost 6.5 pounds so far and the pain in my right side is reduced significantly when I am not eating solid foods.

This lemonade "only" cleanse will end on Monday night, and I will ease on into a vegetable juice and soft veggies menu. A co-worker traded my extra coffee maker for a juicer she no longer uses, so I'll be having some fun figuring out how to juice things like lettuce and garlic.

Its interesting how much clearer my thinking is when on this lemonade cleanse. I'd been in a lethargic fog for several months, not wanting to do much pro-actively. Now I'm more eager to get up in the morning and have found some gumption and optimism again. It will be interesting to see how the veggie regimen changes things.

Day 3 followup - possibly triggering

2009-01-27T08:38:00.000-08:00

Day 3 turned out to be a triggering day. I did not do the herbs as I planned. Today is another day for that!

The triggering was caused, I belive, by the chemical balance in my body. In mid-afternoon I drank two glasses of my homemade Master Cleanse lemonade back to back. Twenty minutes after finishing it I go all shifty and stall a bit (half trance but not quite there.) Two separate parts of me are present. The higher host who knows all my history and can rationally explain all the things that have happened to me and their various effects on my system. The other is a 12ish me in the throws of an abusive event, who sees and knows what is happening but refuses to accept its meaning and the betrayal feelings attached. Host me tries to infuse some of the current info to 12ish me but she's not accepting. Host me tells myself that its an opportune time to finally release this stuff, but 12ish me isn't cooperating. This dips in and out while I assist customers and talk to co-workers. My whole health state feels quickly deteriorating and the erge to either vomit or have a seizure propels me to negotiate to leave work early and just go home. Which I did.

When I got home I had neither seizure nor nausea. I just crawled into bed and slept. Host me said that is not the way to work through this stuff. The rest of me says, "whatever."

I woke up three hours later and decided that perhaps some apple sauce and instant mashed potatoes would be ok, and so ate some. Tuesday will be back on track with the cleanse only diet.

Cleansing progress, Day 3

2009-01-26T06:04:00.000-08:00

Its already day 3 of the master cleanse program for me. Day one went smoothly. The lemonade tasted good and the heat from the cayenne pepper warmed me up. My mental fog lifted and I found I had more energy to do things I had been ignoring for some time. At the end of the day upon review of what I had done I discovered that I had used too much water in my lemonade, and needed to add the salt water bath (interior) to my next day's routine. Didn't feel hungry once during this first day. Intake of lemonade: 6 glasses plus 2 pints of filtered water.

Day 2. Conducted the salt water bath (interior) upon rising. The salt water drink was ok tasting, the effects of it on my gut was not so ok. I persevered. Decided to NOT take the herbs today to see if just lemonade and salt water elimination was going to work for me. By mid-afternoon my hunger got intense but I did not veer from the cleanse. Mental clarity again higher, bloating and inflamation of body overall was reduced. I did have one episode of flashback, the same stuff that has hung on for the past 28 years. Hooked into sensations of pressure, vibration, texture, and the clear understanding that those were the things I focused on during the original event without giving it a meaning or context. Hooked in like a skip on an old vinyl record. Lasted only a minute or so and then shook it off and went on with the tasks at hand. Total lemonade intake for the day: 7 glasses plus 2 quarts of water.

Day 3. Conducted another salt water bath (interior) upon rising. Still unpleasant for the lower gut. Decided that I will take the herbs again today thinking that the processing of the capsules may just fool my stomach into thinking its getting food so won't growl so much. Planning to have an intake of 8 glasses of lemonade and 2 quarts of water. Total pounds lost since Friday: 3. Any pain relief? Only slight, so far.

Self Medicating, the positive way?

2009-01-24T14:10:00.000-08:00

I've been experiencing some health problems these past two years. In Fall 2007, I was rejected as a blood donor due to a false Hep result. Went to my doctor and blood tests showed elevated liver enzymes. Then more tests were done which said I had hyperthyroidism (but not losing any weight!! grrrr.) Then more tests were done to find a multi-nodal goiter in my thyroid. I was supposed to get a radioactive iodine test on that goiter but changed jobs before I could do that. I didn't want the radioactive stuff in my body anyway. If my liver is compromised, it would not be able to handle it, says me. After the recent holiday food, my right side started having burning pain that I used to know as a gall-bladder attack. My gall-bladder had already been removed, so I know it isn't that. I used some high-level meds, samples left over from a GERD situation last year, but it did not alleviate my symptoms. A bland diet will lessen the symptoms, but not eliminate them. Time to try something radical.

Over the years I have been diagnosed with IBS, GERD, lactose intolerance, fibocystic breast disease, cystic acne, gall bladder disease, and now add high triglycerides, hyperthyroidism, and goiter. I will add liver stones /kidney stones and sensitivity to wheat and gluten. My cholesterol has always been on the low side, which is good. So why am I listing all these things? They seem like a usual list of what an American my age experiences, but not necessarily all at the same time. Some of these things, like IBS and GERD can be linked to stress and anxiety. Many with PTSD have these too. I'm listing these things to show myself the progression of illnesses through my body which I believe is totally based on DIET. Though I cannot find again the white paper I read which traces the connection between fibrocystic breast disease and the subsequent development of goiter, I KNOW that is what has happened in my case.

What am I going to do about all this? My radical solution is to try a full system digestive cleanse. I have researched a number of them via the internet and have decided to choose the most cost-effective for me. The Master Cleanse. Basic ingredients include fresh squeezed lemon juice, maple syrup, water and cayenne pepper. Herbal laxatives and other herbal assistance to help loosen everything up and flush it all out. I've read a book on how it should work, and what things to expect. Initially should do it for 10 days. Then extend it based upon how it goes.

Three concerns I have are dealing with hunger, how to deal with fatigue, and lastly, what to do when it triggers emotional stuff as the book says that it could. Can I "stomach" it? Time will tell.

If anyone has done this cleanse or another type, would you share your experiences/results. Did you find that it stirred up emotional stuff ?

Emotions and memory

2009-01-16T17:13:00.000-08:00

Scientists and researchers who study human memory capacity and function have released new study findings which say that memories are stronger, and retrieved more easily when there are emotions embedded or associated with them. They were researching general memory formation, storage and retrieval. I wondered if the results had any implication for the prevention of Dementia and related diseases, but then quickly did what others who have suffered from PTSD probably say, "duh, I could have told them that." Bottom line is that these studies are saying more generally that people are more likely to hold onto information and memories of events if there is also an emotional component to them.

That info is something that I discovered in my self a dozen years ago. I found that I could more easily remember information and facts if I had been emotionally committed to the task, topic, etc. at the original input of the data into my experience. I also found that the more detached approach I took to a topic or task, the less memory I had for it in the long term.

My balancing act then, as one challenged with a dissociative disorder, is to be connected/committed enough, emotionally, to the task, information, subject, at hand so that it gets deeply encoded into my memory storage but be detached enough so that the emotional traps that have already been ingrained internally don't get sprung, or alternatively, don't get so connected emotionally that I become the "intense" stressed out person who is not so nice to be around or know, which makes the experience be encoded as if it was a "trauma."

I'll search for the citation for the studies and add it to this post later.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-05T08:58:00.000-08:00

My how working through the holidays has consumed my time. Filled my pocketbook some too, thank goodness! I can see that its been almost a month since I last posted here. Lets see if I can manage to write once every five days so that I'll have 5-6 posts per month. Eckk, a public goal stated. Probably doomed to fail now! lol

Happy New Year, everyone! Its a new year and new opportunities to begin again or do things differently than the year before. I like the notion of letting ourselves release the old and try again. Its quite liberating!

There isn't any one particular "resolution" I have for my life this year as it relates to living with a dissociative disorder. Mostly I think I want to re-engage the good coping skills and healthy caretaking habits that help manage my stress levels and thereby minimize my reactions when under stress, things that I have done in the past but have recently let slip. By good coping skills and caretaking habits I mean these: eating healthy food and taking nutritional supplements as needed according to how I have learned my body handles them; sleep regulation - for me that means reducing the amount of sleep I get instead of increasing it; sensory depravation - reducing noise and people contact on a scheduled basis so my sensitive system can reset and regenerate, especially because I work in a job that deals directly with the public; practicing tapping again for stress reduction; allowing myself to dream and plan - these are extremely important to me to maintain a sense of control over my life and a sense of security.

Are there habits or coping skills that you want to incorporate into your life routine as a way to manage your dissociative disorder? If you had to only choose one to give you the best return on your time investment, what would it be?

December is tourist time here

2008-12-09T21:44:00.001-08:00

I live in the southwest. The snowbirds have landed! I work at a tourist oriented place so business has picked up. Actually been getting overtime, so not so much time to write any posts here. Once Christmas has passed work will slow down a bit and I will have more time to blog.

Here's wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Dissociation and body work

2008-11-25T08:59:00.000-08:00

There was quite a stretch in my recovery process where I focused on becoming more comfortable being aware and present in my body. I took yoga, and monthly massages. I read books on the Alexander technique and other movement techniques. I walked and walked, trying to stay mindful and aware of all the sensations in my body without checking out and retreating to the world of thought and/or rerunning television shows or movies in my head that I could concentrate on instead.

Staying in the body, staying connected to the sensations and rhythms of my body is a continual challenge. What is most challenging is the awareness, especially after exercise, is how the increased blood flow heightens sexual awareness and occasionally arousal. For those whose dissociation was fostered by sexual abuse, this sexual awareness is full of conflict.

Does exercise trigger you?

Whistling past the graveyard

2008-11-22T18:24:00.000-08:00

That old saying people use to describe acting nonchalant to cover fear or anxiety. Action taken to reduce your anxiety. That's what I'm doing lately, metaphorically. Observing what triggers are there, and acknowledging that small blips may happen but if I just keep focusing outward and onward, I can get by without the triggers winning.

I actually live right next to a graveyard, aka, cemetery. Its very serene. The grounds have some of the best views in the city, so I make a point of walking past it nearly everyday. I don't feel the need to whistle going by there, since I don't see cemeteries as scary places. I like to read the headstones and wonder what the lives were like of the people memorialized there. But I am not sentimental about it. Just curious about the history the people lived through. Looking at the headstones, the length of time the people had lived, reminds me of the stretch of time that my life will have and has had, and helps me take a long term perspective about what I have experienced in my life so far and what else is ahead. I am now just about at the point in my life where I have lived as much time without being abused as I had lived being abused. How about that!

Ordinary days these past two weeks

2008-11-15T21:10:00.000-08:00

I've been busy baking pumpkins, making homemade ricotta cheese and generally living life without thinking too much about DDNOS. Can't quite escape symptoms, but can do a really good job of ignoring them! lol!

Faith over at Blooming Lotus has some excellent posts about recovering from child abuse. Her most recent posts cover developmental stages children go through and the challenges that occur when abusive experiences interrupt the natural progress in the developmental stages. I know that much of my "Ah ha!" moments in therapy came when my experiences were looked at from the developmental perspective. Good job, Faith!

One of the things that frustrated me about therapy when I was just starting out was when my therapist would say "its a process." I was hell bent on getting to the other side, to "fix" myself and get on with reaching "wholeness." She couldn't convince me to slow down. I forced myself to remember, I pushed to get on with my life. All the while not realising that doing that was just another form of denial. Another way of not allowing the full experience of my emotions to come forward so that I could feel, and then heal. As the years went by and I hadn't "healed" the way I imagined I'd be, I began to slow down and accept that damage had been done, that since the abuse I experience happened during my childhood developmental stages, I had to acknowledge that some of those stages had been passed through incompleted. I had to learn to be gentle and accepting of myself where I was at, in order to be in a mental place to look back with compassion at the little one that was me who was still hurting.

I'm an old DDNOS veteran. And I still have DDNOS. Probably always will. But some of those earlier childhood developmental stages have been revisited and completed. Some of them still need addressing. But I can say that I at least am gentle with myself and go slow. If you can't hear it from your therapist, take it from an old veteran. The slower you go at the outset, the quicker you'll get to the otherside. In this area, the turtle wins the race every time!

Procrastination, Inertia, and Shining my light

2008-11-03T04:40:00.000-08:00

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine. Hide it under a bush, OH NO! I'm gonna let it shine! Don't let Satan blow it out, I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. This was a popular song that has many verses. We sang it in Church and in Sunday school. It's sung all over the world. The message is a powerful one. It was also a message that as a child I knew I could not heed. The message is that no matter what the devil does to you, keep shining your (godly) spirit for all to see. The message that got added to that by me was that if your spirit is shining, abusive people are more likely to see you, more and often, which makes you more visible, more vulnerable. Hiding my light under a bush was NECESSARY. A light in the darkness on your enemy target is a great way to find your target!

It's Profoundly sad that a toddler already knows this battle maneuver. Lights out for safety! Hide in plain sight. Don't give the enemy a trail. We who've been abused know these war-time tactics. And the first to go is the bright, shining light!

This cause and effect logic about safety on the battle field got itself mixed up in me with spiritual expression and personal power and control. As a toddler I decided that one of the reasons I was abused was that I could be seen, that my light was too bright, and it seemed that when it was shining the brightest was when my abuser saw me quickest. So I built up shame about shining my light, and learned to keep it under wraps. This belief stayed with me even though I had plenty of evidence that my abuser did not need to see my light to be driven to abuse me. For after all, my light was pretty much out when I was deep in sleep, but that didn't stop my abuser from waking me in the dead of night to abuse me. He still found me in the dark! But lesson learned at an earlier time, and on a deeper level is not so easily undone. When you have so little control, you cling to the things that give you illusions of control.

I think that my siblings also learned this same battle tactic, for it was evident in the culture of our family life- inertia developed within our home. Don't shine too much, definitely don't outshine Dad or Mom. You've heard those laws of motion - things in motion tend to stay in motion and things without motion stay immobile. There was a palpable tension in my family home that had everyone slow moving, just barely above the inert. My former brother in law likened it to us having knowledge that there was a live bomb under the table, that everyone knew the bomb was there but did nothing about it, except to walk lightly so that the bomb wouldn't go off. If you live with that tension, that need for inertia over a long period of time, it gets conditioned into you and you do it even if you don't want to, all the way into adulthood. Even when the situation has changed and there are no longer any metaphorical bombs under the table.

The need to maintain inertia and keeping the light dim is in great conflict with the natural human need for self expression and progress. This conflict is at the root of how procrastination develops in my life to this day. Which to do, stay low and safe or try doing a project and feel some self-esteem about learning something new or a job well done? Conditioning from the past is a tough thing to break.

Living with Ghosts

2008-10-22T19:21:00.000-07:00

I don't know how other people experience their inner world, I only know about mine. I don't know if what I experience is what others with DID or DDNOS experience. Perhaps everyone does this and its just normal.

The dreams that I dream at night sometimes do not stop just because I've woken up. Sometimes they continue in the background, like a quiet movie playing that I can dip into and out of to see where things are in the action. Sometimes the dream does end, but it echoes and the images float in and out of my inner vision, like so many double exposed photos on film all day long. I wonder if this is qualifies as co-consciousness? One of my therapists said that I have a very low dream thresh-hold. Yeah, I guess so.

Flashbacks that I have are like this too. They're ghostly images layered one over the other, co-existing with my present focus of a task at hand. They're not just images either. Sometimes sound, sometimes sensation, sometimes emotion, sometimes a remembered physical posture or focus. All this bleeds/breaks through while I am active and engaged in other activities. One part of me concentrates on the ghost while the other part handles the task at hand. I think the awareness only goes one way. The present one (me), dealing with the task at hand also knows that the ghost is there. The ghost is locked in the past and does not connect with the present. The ghost thinks that the past is present and what it is expressing is currently happening. Trying to tell, trying to resolve, but doesn't know it's over. Repeating, repeating, repeating whenever the right trigger is pulled. They say ghosts are just dead people who don't know that they died. Haven't yet reached the 'live' awareness level of the part that keeps haunting me so that I can say that "its over. You're not there anymore." Ghost has been haunting me for 28 years.

Self-abandonment

2008-10-17T17:26:00.000-07:00

I've been in my new job one month. I'm full time seasonal and bringing home only 70% of the income I was with my other job. But I am close enough to walk to work, and I get to see green plants and blue sky all day long. Will be selling my car to get money to divvy up each month to fill the income gap until tax return time comes around and I can use that money to fill the gap. I keep saying that I will be ok. And I will be.

I have been worrying lately about something I call "abandoning myself." I abandon my own needs and stuff on my to-do list for the safer realm of playing a role. Example: I have two days off during the week. My work life is not mentally demanding so I do not get mind fatigue from work. Instead of using my two days off to clean my house, do some long needed sewing and other creative projects, I surf the net, reading others blogs and online news stories. For hours. Until my eyes hurt and my poor sitting posture causes dizziness and then I do have mind fatigue.

I've been telling myself lately that it is vital that I have the next 9 months to just concentrate on getting me to not abandon me. Keep the computer off, or at least make a list of things to do while on the computer and then once they are done, turn it OFF. Pay attention to my own life. There is so much that needs to be done. And then I look up and six hours have gone by and I'm still on the computer.

Reluctant to own me, to engage myself in my own life.

Tomorrow I go back to work to start another work week. A chance to fill a role and have a reason for not attending to the things that are not yet done at home but need to be. Filling a role is at the center of my comfort zone, for its similar to dissociating. Focus on something external, ignore the immediate physical environment, and limit the range of expression to match the demands of the role. Work as refuge from the self.

I do need the next nine months to see if I can break out of this long ago formed habit. I need to see if I can feel safe engaging myself in my own life. A process, a journey, not really a destination.

Reading and Writing blogs

2008-10-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

Why do you read blogs?

People ask me this when I mention that I read something in a blog. I only just started reading blogs this summer. Never did it before, but got hooked quickly. I like to hear other people's opinions and get their perspective on issues. Its nice to know someone by their writing who may live across the world from me.
I also read blogs to feel connected. I moved to a new city several years ago and know only a few relatives. I've been hesitant to "make friends" and have never really done that kind of thing quickly.

Reading blogs about healing from mental health conditions and past abuse is a way to remind myself that I still have issues that need attention. (Flashbacks have that purpose too, I suppose!) Since its usually so easy to push things aside and "forget" its important, not being in therapy, that I have some external reminders of my reality. I've begun thinking about it as "surprise" prevention.

Why do you read blogs? Why do you read this one?

Why did I start writing a blog?

I started a blog, actually two blogs, to dust off my writing skills. A long time ago I wanted to be a professional writer and playwright. I had a play produced while in college, and wrote a teleplay that no one bought, but haven't done much since. Writing this blog, dxddnos, is a way to take a first step in "going public" about the challenges that make me, me. I have not told my friends or supportive relatives about THIS blog. I still have so little trust about all THAT would entail. My friends and family do not see me as challenged in any way, well other than being a restless job hopper who shuns marriage and is REALLY independent. My friends know about my abusive childhood. We just don't talk about it, and they don't see it as a factor affecting my current life. Well, if they do, they don't talk about it. So I need a place to write about, and listen to others who do know, and can relate to how what happened many years ago can still have an affect on my life today. Eventually, I will give this blog more focus and purpose. Since my header says that I'm blogging about DDNOS, I should get serious writing about DDNOS, right?

What can I write that would help you? What do you want to hear that I am not saying?

Researching and resources

2008-09-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

When I first began my journey into the mental health world (as a consumer,) I did so because I "knew" that there was something wrong inside me. Not wrong WITH me, but that something within me was not right. I was sixteen, living at home and numb to the abuse I was being subjected to regularly. I knew I had a ticker tape of images that played in my head of things that appeared to have happened, but I told myself I had "no memory" of that kind of stuff, so I had to be going crazy! I was depressed most of the time, missed at least one day of school each week, if not two, and slept 16 hours or more a day. My parents did nothing about this except sign my excuse notes for when I went back to school. There was only one discussion about seeing a shrink, and my dad convinced me that they lock kids up, they don't help them, plus it was too expensive. Even at the time I knew this answer was more about HIM than me, but I didn't have the strength to push. Whatever strength I had I needed to put on a front for the kids at school so they didn't know I was so depressed. So I began my own quest on my own.

The library. What a fantastic place! You are only limited by your skill in finding what you need. I started reading self help books, psychology books, astrology books, numerology books, spirituality books -anything and everything that had any kind of insight into a person's inner world. I read Virginia Satir, her poetry and her psychology books. They tapped something internally. I didn't pursue her ways of doing things, but they put a tiny crack in the wall of my denial. I discovered that I didn't have a clue about emotions, what emotions felt like or how to identify them.

The astrology books were entertaining, and it was for me as for most people, a way to stroke the ego to read "about me." As I read more, I got deeper into the ways of natal charts and aspects and the interpreting of personality and character. It wasn't something I took as gospel, but it was a jumping off point for asking questions of myself and seeing what answers I returned. Leaving home, going into psychotherapy, EMDR, and then I'd say learning how to study a natal chart for the psychological influences were the keys to my healing. The astrology let me keep my inquiries intellectual instead of emotional, because so much of it requires reading psychology and mythology to help understand the energy patterns the plantary positions and aspects represent. I could look, read, interpret, ask to what extent the idea was accurate, and ponder, ponder, ponder. And I could do all this at home without my reading material threatening my parents.

In college, one of the things that I landed on during my "research" is Neuro-linguistic Programming, or NLP for short. This is when I still had not begun spontaneously recovering memories. I was eager to be free of the mental habits that plagued me, the obstacles that I would put up to doing my homework, and the general weird thoughts that would come into my head. Stuff like, if I was waiting at a bus stop in the dark and generally desired to be back at my dorm already the thought would flash through my mind that all I'd have to do is offer to give a guy a blow job in exchange for a ride home. OMG! Whenever I thought this I was horrified, since to my best recollection I had never given anyone a blow job, wouldn't know how, nor had I ever let anyone give me a ride home that I didn't know!

NLP, via Anthony Robbins books, was something that I tried. NLP basically says that people have three main ways they process information, Visually, Auditorially, or Kinesthetically. I've put a few links in the resources sidebar if you want to read more about NLP. There are all kinds of things NLP can be used for to help change behavior and give you advantage over others in negotiations, etc. It says that people have a preferred dominant processing sense. I determined that the order of processing preference for me is Visual, Auditory then Kinesthetic. (Later learned from a therapist that generally the worst memories are stored in the way we use least. So, my worst memories were stored Kinesthetically, so were terribly hard to get at, and were eventually retrieved via bodily activity.) The other thing that Robbins spouted was the idea that people go towards pleasure and away from pain. They will choose the less painful option everytime. Well, I kept trying his techniques, and kept choosing the more painful option. I didn't understand it. Was I a masochist? No, actually, it turned out I was really choosing what to me WAS the least painful option, for I had associations tied to pleasurable options that ultimately lead me to painful memories. I chose the lesser pain over pleasure because that pleasure would lead to worse pain, self hate, shame, etc.

Each research tangent brought me a little insight into the puzzle that was me. We all have our own way of approaching our healing, and our own timetable. There is still a flashback that plagues me and won't resolve. It triggers when I have anxiety over making a mistake, feel vulnerable, or feel "visible." It locks up a space in my head and hums there, sometimes replaying a feeling of something pounding at my face, a need to breathe through my nose, and throbbing on the roof of my mouth. (It is replaying forced fellacio/oral rape) There are so many emotions and beliefs attached to this flashback. Since it involves a type of abuse that I was subjected to repeatedly, but unpredicatably over many, many years, its been too generalized to be released by EMDR. It was almost released once at a Pranic Healing workshop, but I couldn't let it go. I need to keep trying.

Pranic Healing - when you have suffering in your life you will try anything, nor nearly so, to get relief. Maybe I'll write about that in another post.

Who let the cat in?

2008-09-25T06:20:00.000-07:00

Or should I say when did I let the cat back into the house? Every morning after my cat has breakfast she is let outside to check out the driveway and grounds of the condo complex for anything interesting. This morning I let her out and went to my computer to see what the dailykos had to say about this financial bailout proposal. After a while of reading I got up and went to the kitchen to make some breakfast for myself and noticed the door closed (it is usually propped open 8 inches so that the cat can get back in.) Whaaaat? When did the cat come back in, when did I close the door? I searched around the condo and found the cat lurking on the balcony. Ok, so she's back in.
Dissociated. Totally. And not even triggered by anything usual, just so intensely concentrated on the topic of the immenent collapse of the Federal Reserve that I don't recall walking back to the door, shutting it and locking it! This falls into the normal definition of dissociation, I think.

Not that this bailout proposal is neutral in the emotions department. I'm beyond flailing anger. I've reached the steely white hot stubborn to my spine anger about the audacity of Treasury Secretary Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, attempting to have the US taxpayers cover the losses of all his greedy, corrupt and incompetent friends (the ones who ran all the institutions which have recently been bailout out!) It comes down to this choice - do we let the Federal Reserve go bankrupt, or let the US Government take on the Fed's debt which will cause the US Government to go bankrupt thereafter? The rich fat cats, who by the way are not offering up their own ill-gotten gains from the past decade of robbing and pillaging- before he became Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson himself was able to cash out $500 million in Goldman Sachs stocks without paying any capital gains taxes on it!!! No, the Fed Chairman Ben Bernake, and Henry Paulson, US Treasury Secretary - a cabinet post in the Executive Branch of the US Government, want the US Government to be the one to go bankrupt, nice patriots that they are. See, told you I got some anger about this.

Read up on the what and the how of this financial crisis, call your Senators and Congressional representatives, join a protest! This is financial abuse of each and every American!

We definately need to add to the bailout the confiscation of the passports of all players who benefit from this mess. I am sure Paraguay is looking mighty awesome to these guys right now, Bush included.

When denial doesn't work anymore.

2008-09-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

The moment that my mind stopped denying my past is crystal clear to me. Halloween night, 1987. I was engaged in what I thought- what I had told myself- was my first time having sex. I was 23, and in North Dakota for the long weekend, double dating with a high school friend and her boyfriend, and the guy they had introduced me to whom I had been telephone dating for a few months prior. The sex was so-so, but the environment (a basement bedroom) and his body type seemed to click things into place for me. It seemed I had stored my memories kinesthetically, so that physical intimacy was the key. At one point within "the act" I felt my mind split into five separate parts. It was the most amazing realization- who knew they were in there! I didn't say anything to anyone. But it was an epic moment for me, one that started me on a seven weeks journey before the truth of my past had permanently surfaced out of repression. During those seven weeks I could hardly eat anything, my hands and body shook continually, everything seemed loud, and I was extremely sensitive to sexually violent movies. (Can't watch Mad Max to this day!)

It took another year and a half for 80% of the repressed memories to surface - they did so spontaneously, outside of any therapeutic environment. It was hell, but it was also the road to freedom from much self-hatred, unexplained habits/obsessions, and overwhelming feelings of shame and guilt. When I sought out a psychologist whom I had seen over 3 years previous to this, he was just as blown away by my story as I was. Three years in therapy previously and not one inkling that my past had been so horrendous!

Denial is a tool we use to cope. Denial has its own timetable to dissolve. Most of my family members are still living strongly in denial. It may never dissolve for them. It did for me and I'm the safer for it.

Coping Mechanisms II

2008-09-15T07:13:00.000-07:00

Two coping mechanisms that I sometimes use, which are considered negative coping mechanisms by the therapeutic literature, are isolating and self-imposed depression. I'm very much an introvert so isolating fulfills many needs for me. I don't see isolating as a negative for me.

Isolating is the act of separating yourself from others, either by standing back from participating in a group or restricting your presence and interaction among others generally. From toddler-hood I felt the need for space from my siblings and the people around me. I loved to wander the neighborhood, mooching cookies off the neighbors, sitting down on the sidewalk and watch the ants build their ant hills. I'd sit in the grass and smell the clover, watch the bees and enjoy the quiet. If one of my siblings would approach me, before I ever saw them I would feel their energy approach and I'd just get all "vurklempt" and begin to feel a loss of my own personal unity. Relatives thought I was a strange child, going off alone to look at bugs, all quiet. Today, I'd say that I was a Highly Sensitve Child, and did what I needed to do to maintain some interior cohesion in the crazy world that was my life in a world full of abuse.

As an adult, I isolate for similar reasons. I restrict the number of people in my life physically by living in a far away city, and interacting on a random, infrequent basis. Being alone feels natural to me. Being in a group of people, having lots of activity and places to go and things to do drains me. Having people and their dramas swirl around me on a daily basis causes me to absorb stress and slowly lose connection to myself. It's true that sometimes the isolating is extreme, and when it is I begin to feel the need to reconnect, to get out and meet people to get some balance in my life, to have someone to just chat and play cards with. Once I reach out and get a little of interaction, I quickly stablize and feel my energy is balanced.

Self-imposed depression. This is trickier. One of my issues is feeling extreme vulnerabilty when feeling "visible." I can go for a while being optimistic, creative, engaged in ideas and be tremendously productive. But after a certain point the energy becomes a bit manic, and grandiose thinking takes hold. (ie, of course I can change my life by studying physiology and become an exercise guru. - so what if I don't have the science courses in my transcript, and I haven't exercised for several years. This is an actual example from ten years ago.) This type of swinging towards the unreasonable began in high school. It frightened me very much, and I could see that it helped trigger me into switching from part to part, so I began to use my other coping mechanism, sleeping, to suppress the positive, optimistic feelings at their start, so that I may not get to the inevitable, semi-manic end.

The suppression of positive outlook (self-inflicted depression) by forcing myself to sleep more got to be a bad habit. I used it, plus some of my old unfriendly, punitive mental tapes, to keep myself down mentally. I didn't want to use drugs to keep myself from flying too high. I don't want anything but me controlling me.

Back in the late 1990's I read about Cyclothymia, which seemed to fit what I had experienced since my late teens. What I can say now is that since I have fewer people in my life physically, I have not had an occurance of it in six years. Is this approach healthy, not healthy, I'm sure many therapists would say it is unhealthy. But, they don't live my life, I do. While I do think I will be working on getting my tolerance for optimism higher, I need to employ the tools on my own terms. So far isolating to maintain personal energy levels and not letting myself get overly optimistic works for me.

Morning Music

2008-09-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up to music blaring inside my head. This happens occasionally, and its usually rock or rhythm and blues that is blaring, loud and clear, each word audible and understandable. This time was an instrumental by Eric Clapton, one of the songs from his Unplugged Album that I have listened to many times over the years. Funny how it takes on a life of its own inside my head. If I connect with the music, and just give a suggestion of another artist, the music will switch and the suggested artist will play, just as loud as the first. Janis Joplin (Take another piece of my heart) Sammy Hagar (The girl gets around). Sometimes the music will last all day, sometimes just until I've dived into the depths of my mind in search of the source. I never really find the source. You can see then, how important it is that I control the music that I listen to. Whatever I've heard, it's bound to resurface sometime in the future!

Coping Mechanisms

2008-09-14T07:16:00.000-07:00

Ah, therapy! All those buzz words and concepts that help you understand what it is that you do that may or may not need to be fixed. Coping Mechanism is a term that I learned nearly twenty-five years ago when I first began my journey to understanding myself and "fix" the problems that I was encountering internally. I have many coping mechanisms, like intellectualizing, minimizing, denying, avoiding, and my favorite, sleeping!

Intellectualizing is focusing on the intellectual aspect of anything, especially regarding feelings, so that you don't actually have to experience the thing you're talking about. I do this a lot. You could probably tell by the tone of this blog. I am so much more comfortable talking about the whys and the whats of a feeling or event then the when, who, where, or how. The latter four tend to allow the actual visceral feeling to connect with my body, which slows me down! Intellectualization keeps me living a fairly normal life, well if you don't mind being compared to Mr. Spock or Data from the Star Trek franchises. This particular coping mechanism was one I chose very early in life- Mr. Peabody from the Bullwinkle and Rocky show, a Saturday morning cartoon, was someone I could relate to and wanted to emulate, particularly his tendency to look for "the Moral of the story." Thinking was and is my refuge.

Minimizing - "no, it wasn't that bad,"" yes, it happened but it didn't effect me very much," "there are plenty of other people who went through a more hellish experience then me," these types of approaches to thinking keep the full impact of whatever from impeding progress through my day. Not that I haven't done years of exhausting emotional work, I have. It's just that I have a tendency to ruminiate and rehash in a continual loop unti I am stuck in those feelings. I have to minimize to get free of the loop!

Denying -"that's not me, I don't look like that in the mirror!" As if a digital photo viewed directly inside a camera can somehow lie! "The Shrink agreed with me, I don't have DID, I have PTSD." When truthfully the shrink said DDNOS, which is closer to DID then PTSD. Denial is a human tendency. I think that humanity in general can only take so much reality.

Avoiding. Like when I know that some relatives of my abuser, though they admit that he's an SOB and is capable of horrendous, nasty stuff, still want for their own personal need for family unity, to have me phone my parents. Instead of arguing with these relatives or giving in to their, to me, unreasonable pressure, I just regulate how much time I spend with them. I can't see them if I can't afford to be down or sleeping more. Avoiding triggers is a useful skill, as long as the triggers don't multiply and you find yourself, like I have in the past, avoiding so much you really aren't living. Everyone avoids something.

Sleeping. For those times when the emotion does seep through and I find that I do not have a solution or resolution to those feelings, my head gets foggy and very heavy, and I find I must sleep immediately. The deeper the feelings, the longer the nap. In college, when I was in the beginnings of spontaneously recovering repressed memories, I called this THE BIG SLEEP. I'd be reading a textbook at a library study table one minute, and then wake up an hour later, the pages and book cover having dented a huge crease in my cheek, and my glasses twisted and jammed into my temple. I'd also use sleep more generally, like forcing myself to go back to sleep in the morning as a way to reshuffle the deck of my "parts." Somehow the most threatening thing for me was to wake up in an optimistic and cheerful mood, filled with ideas for a productive day - to me those feelings were identified as "happy" and "visible" which internally I knew were flags for potentially extreme reactions ahead for later in the day. Better to shuffle the deck, and start the day less enthusiastic, but more protected, for the rest of the day. Does anyone else use sleep this way?

D/S isn't for children

2008-09-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

It's a mixed up world when a child is treated like an adult in a D/S relationship. My abuser was sometimes sadistic, and occasionally used bondage and weapons on me- but no costumes, thank God! I remember seeing him looking at a Hustler Magazine that had a woman in black leather and chains on the cover, and I asked him "why is she wearing chains, Daddy?" It seemed to excite him to see others in print being confined and dominated. Despite having to endure his abusive behavior throughout my entire childhood, I could never come to an understanding or emotionally relate to why he liked overpowering and dominating others. It seemed he always picked the weakest, smallest kid to be "mean" to. I was always for the underdog, countered his meanness with compassion for those who he had harmed, and blocked my soul from being "like" him.

As an adult, I can look back and see my dad as a man who was struggling with many demons, and that he carried lots of rage, particulary at his mother, rage about feeling powerless when he was a child. He could tap into that powerless feeling enough to get a child to empathize with him, and then he'd pounce, leaving another child violated and betrayed.

I sometimes wonder, when I bother to think about him at all, if he has DID. He is still living, but I haven't seen or spoke to him in 20 years. He wasn't always dominant and mean. He was actually the more attentive, supportive parent, when he wasn't raping and abusing. He frequently denied having done any bad behavior, even after it just happened. He denies everything to this day. I used to get all in knots about that, but I long ago decided that I believe my truth. I didn't need his word to validate what I knew about what he did to me and how long it went on. I also think that the denial is just another part of maintaining the silence, enabling him to keep doing what he does and has nothing to do with DID.

Nevertheless, just as I had to be responsible for myself, attend to the "mental illness" that I have experienced, he too is responsible for his own behavior and mental illness. I sincerely wish that those adults who have the urge to dominate others pick others of their own age and mental ability to engage in their activities. Leave the kids alone!

Dominance and Submission and the loop of power

2008-09-07T08:59:00.000-07:00

I watched a movie the other day, an older one from 2002, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader. The movie Secretary was chosen because I have been reflecting on my current situation, leaving an administative assistant job (new term for Secretary) and how I had chosen it in the first place. The movie in no way resembles my work life! But it does start the internal wheels turning on the reasons why I choose the work situations I do, and has me pondering the issue of power.

The movie is not about being a Secretary. SPOILER here! It's about two people's lives and their psyches. Maggie plays Lee, a woman who self-abuses by cuttering herself, who is newly released from an institution, and needing work. James plays a lawyer name E. Edward Grey, who goes through secretaries like hotel rooms go through guests. His law office sign has a permanent Secretary wanted sign, that lights up when a new one is needed. E. Edward is struggling with life too, and he takes the tact of trying to control things so that he may not feel out of control.

The film was surprising to me because it was not advocating, or exploiting Dominance & Submission. It was explaining how some people use it to cope in life, in a way that gives them a solution to the internal emotional and psychological puzzles that seem to have no solution or resolution. Lee could get the emotional release she needed through D&S without having to cut, and she found a new confidence and strength in herself by accepting certain emotional truths about herself. E. Edward took a great deal longer to have a catharsis because he was always struggling against his nature. It took Lee's acceptance of his nature, someone else to say they loved him as he is, before he could accept himself, and accept love into his life.

I'm not advocating D&S at all. Its the study of the dynamic between dominance and submission that I am intrigued with, intellectually. In the film, Lee and E. Edward take turns being dominant, although at first glance it seems E has the power in their relationship. But Lee has needs of her own, and knows how to push the buttons of E so that she gets what she needs. She plays the role of the submissive, but she is not powerless. She knows what it is she is asking for. She knows that they are playing, that she is playing and embraces it as play. It is E who though dominant, feels powerless over his urges, emotions, and actions, does not see it as play, but rather as something shameful to hide.

I have long known that one of my habits is to be of service to others. I have excellent customer service skills and cannot go a day without someone complimenting me on the "excellent customer service" I have provided. This habit of being of service, was a defense that I chose as a child, to find a way to deal with my support of underdogs, and the quandry of how not to overshadow or surpass the success level of my abuser. This was difficult because as a young child I already knew I had more intellectual gifts than he, and that his social and success level was quite low on the worker scale. As a child, I did not have the same physical or rhetorical strength as he. What currently keeps me from making a fabulous career in customer service is my inner rage against elitism, prejudice and authority figures, in general. I can help the person on the street, the anonymous caller, no matter what walk of life. I just cannot do my thing for people in authority over me who feel entitled to it, and who are perfectly capable themselves. I resist the loop of power, the manipulation that is required to "play" in the work arena. Somehow I feel that if I embraced the "play" and did the manipulation, even if it is "positive manipulation" that I have turned into my abuser, and all has been lost. Lee emotionally embraced her inner manipulator, and E did not embrace his. Is it ok to know you are manipulating someone to get what you want? I keep insisting that being honest, open, and asking directly for what you want is the way to go. That's what they teach you in therapy. But therapy is not the same as daily life. The more therapy you get, the sicker the rest of the world appears to be. Not everybody has had therapy. So how to embrace the inner manipulator, how can I be ok with it? Once I have a catharsis about that, my life work life will improve substantially, no doubt.

Playing with the format

2008-09-03T07:08:00.000-07:00

One of the nice things about having your own blog that few read is that you can play with the elements until things are just as you like them. The previous format I used was too blocky for my comfort. I like the left hand orientation for blog navigation, but need something thinner, more streamlined for the overall presentation.
Sorry if the change throws anyone off!

EMDR and Emotional Freedom Technique

2008-08-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing and EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique are two types of therapy that I have used with positive results. I worked with a woman who was certified to use EMDR, through an entire year to eradicate several very difficult memories and flashbacks that had caused me unrelenting emotional pain for two decades. Through systematic attention to proper technique and unraveling the layers that were attached to one particularly violent event, I was finally freed from a flashback's hold. It doesn't normally take that long to work out of a flashback. It normally takes fewer than 5 sessions to resolve things. I'm just a stubborn subject! I am forever in the debt of Cathy A., my EMDR therapist, for persevering with me. For those who think that EMDR is like hypnosis, as a first hand participant, I can say that it is in no way like hypnosis!

EFT - Emotional Freedom Technique, what I prefer to call "tapping for calmness," is a great technique to learn to help yourself wherever you are to remain calm and quickly stop reactions from within from overwhelming you. Its based on the ancient knowledge of energy meridians in the body. By tapping with one or two fingers in a sequence over meridian points, mainly on your arms, trunk, neck and face, and repeating calming, assertive messages, you can change the negative feelings to more positive ones. I think it would be a great technique for anxiety prone kids to learn - they'd see that they could have control over something that they thought was beyond their control.

You can learn more about both of these techniques by clicking on them in the Resources for Recovery list.
I especially encourage those who suffer from PTSD to seek out a trained EMDR practitioner and start getting relief!

Fight, Flight, Freeze or....Fragment?

2008-08-23T18:23:00.000-07:00

WARNING: POSSIBLE TRIGGERING MATERIAL HERE FOR MILITARY FOLKS

When reading about PTSD the usual stuff mentions the natural responses to a perceived threat to physical survival: fight or flight. The more detail-oriented writings also include Freeze in the choice of natural responses, such as when animals in the wild will freeze like a statue, when they sense a predator is near. Their predators see best when there is movement. Freezing or playing dead will let the predator not see them and move on to other prey.

I think, though, that there is a fourth natural response to threat, and that fourth is fragment (or dissociation.) A person in a situation, say a soldier in a fire fight, runs out of ammo, his fellow soldiers have perished around him, he cannot escape for all the ammo of the enemy flying around, and he damn sure can't freeze and still survive. His fourth option is to select the element or elements in his experience that are impeding on his ability to act (a thought, his grief over the loss of his friends, or perhaps sensory data -smells, sounds, the way the light shines on something, etc.) These get chopped up, fragmented and moved to separate places in their mind for later review and reunification. It needs to be moved so the task at hand can be done, and personal survival assured. If the review and reunification cannot be done soon, and more situations are encountered which also require fragmenting for survival, then PTSD takes hold.

Yes, dissociation is at the beginning of the spectrum that includes PTSD. But somehow it is still seen as an aberrant response, instead of a natural one. I recall hearing that some large animal keepers explain elephant rages as PTSD. If we would think of fragment as a fourth response to the threat of physical survival (trauma) then animals, being a part of the natural world and having that basic survival instinct too, may indeed have occasion to develop PTSD. I think Fragment should be added as the fourth survival response. What do you think?

Cellular memory?

2008-08-22T22:18:00.000-07:00

No, not cell phone batteries. I'm thinking about biochemical cellular memory, and to what extent its possible that cellular processes are conditioned along with the cognitive and emotional processes. My abuse began in early infancy. At that age a human is finely tuned to their body and its every subtle detection of temperature, pressure, vibration, taste, smell, sound, light, and internal pings and pangs of hunger, thirst, and gastric events. Babies bodies are just one big cellular recorder!

I find that there are certain foods that when I eat them trigger some inner disturbances and flashbacks.
Usually its sugar. If I eat too much, my baby part starts to jabber internally. (She also jabbers when I'm stressed or when I feel I've made a mistake that could be trouble for me.) But its really curious that sugar would trigger that part out of silence. I'm building off some other writers ideas and publications that discuss sugar and chocolate as drugs- chemicals that alter mood. And also using what I read in Candice Pert's book, Molecules of Emotion. If I remember it right, she posited that emotions have a chemical signature. So, stay with me, if sugar and chocolate alter mood, could it be that their chemical structure is the same or similar to certain emotions? By eating the sugar, I am bringing into my body the chemical structure that matches the emotional or cellular memory that was laid down at the original abuse time. Like nicotine and other hard drugs restructure the brain, the emotions during traumatic events also do it, so that whatever resembles or matches those emotions will cause the same response or reaction.

I need to work on this a lot more to be clear about what I am really thinking. I just know that for me sugar intake has the same result as other stressful triggers. I know that the cells in my body react instantly, faster than cognition, more like part of the involuntary nervous system. There's a new scientific field that studies this stuff - psycho neurobiology, or something like that.

Quitting your job- enlightenment or just another cycle in DDNOS?

2008-08-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

As creatures of habit, we grow used to situations that are less than comfortable, less than tolerable, because the stability and predictability are more assuring than change. In the last 6 years I have become more in need of stability and predictability than I used to be. Getting older, I suppose. It also has me tied to the habit of enduring (employment) situations where I later find myself feeling trapped, and needing escape. This becomes a constant hum internally, with a part of me screaming deep inside- a separate little piece of feeling existing, a token of one of my real feelings, disconnected so that it can't rise up and become audible. With DDNOS and PTSD, I'm not really sure if I'm seeing clearly or reacting to something that resembles situations in the past. Situation(s) that because they happened so often and were so traumatic, were sort of fused into my nervous system and lead me to see negative when others may not, see danger where others may not. I end up doing a head trip on myself, engaging in the same second-guessing that my abuser employed to control me.

Enduring. So, instead of anyone hearing my inaudible screams, people at work see my smiling or scowling face engaged in completing the current task at hand. And instead of doing anything to get out from the unpleasant situation that triggers my need to scream internally, I stay put. Endure. Tell myself that I'm an adult now, and adults sometimes have to be places and among people who aren't so nice to be around, like upper level management, and crazy customers. There are bills to pay, and a pet to feed - job brings in money for those things. And I keep enduring because I hesitate to over-react to something that society in general would call "normal." I know the truth of the situation for me emotionally, but don't know intellectually where the line is before I should give up, and walk out. This habit of enduring is a carry-over from childhood, when everything had to be endured, and nothing was to be heard, seen, admitted to, or discussed. Keep it all under wraps, protect yourself by enabling and protecting the abuser. Stockholm syndrome, home-brewed.

If the only feeling I felt is trapped, it would have been easy to walk away. But there are also other feelings-of satisfaction for completing tasks, self-esteem about being able to multi-task, pride in helping others and belonging to a group. Its not all internal screaming. So that makes it more difficult for those of us who did not get to learn the full range of human feelings at the regularly appointed developmental stages. In my teens, I only had about three feelings which I knew how to identify internally: sadness, shame, and righteous indignation, well, OK guilt, too - four. It was only after years of psycho-therapy that I was able to expand my range of recognition to include how it was to feel happiness. I was 23 years old the first time I could feel and identify my feeling "happy." Without skills to discern your own feelings, delay in acting for one's own best interest is the norm, and is detrimental to success.

This conflict I've been having between the internal scream and the other positive feelings continued over three years. For two years I have been applying at other companies to have an external excuse for escape. No bites. Then one bite and an interview that bit back! No external power was going to make a decision I needed to make myself. And then it happened, as it inevitably does, on its own timetable, the "seeing clearly" moment finally hit me. I saw the future to be a repeat of the past three years. Nothing would change except that I'd be asked to do even more work with the same pay and no one to delegate to. My subconscious shined a clear bright light on the situation, and said NOW, now is the time to say enough. Now is the time to go. So I calmly updated the resignation letter that has stood ready in My Documents, and handed it to my supervisor. Three weeks and I'm gone. Without other work, without a plan. And it felt great- a huge relief! The internal screaming stopped, and cheering began. I smile all the time now. It has revived me. Somewhere inside there is a sober voice saying "you know this might not be easy? Are you really ready for the consequences?"

I still feel too good to begin the analytical deconstruction of this momentous action. I know it is inevitable that I will one day in the near future have another bright light moment where I ask myself "why did I think it was such a good idea?" Truth is, 'this quit your job, and do something else', is part of my cycling. Cannot stay in any one full-time job for more than 4 years. Can do longer if its part-time and I can change locations or departments yearly. If I am stable in a job, then I move my home a lot. Last year I bought a condo, now that it is the stability, I am compelled again to change my job.

I know that this need for change is rooted in my need for chaos, to keep things moving so that the serious hurt and full power of my past won't take center stage. Keep something active in an extreme enough way that I will focus my "survival" energy on it, and not have to have unsolvable psychological and emotional things rise to the surface, causing trouble. Yes, I've only grown to a certain level in all the years I've had therapy. Feel that my choice always has to be survival over healing, for the healing process requires falling apart, and as a self supporting single person, falling apart isn't compatible with making a living. DDNOS does not qualify for disability!

Fighting the diagnosis

2008-08-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

In the early 1990's, after already having been in various types of therapy with other therapists for six years, I went with my therapist to see a psychiatrist who specializes in treating people with Multiple Personality Disorder. I did not believe I had MPD (did not WANT MPD), and was less than open to being assessed for it. At the time, I came away with the general explanation from the Psychiatrist that I indeed DID NOT have MPD, and that my current therapist was perfectly capable of helping me cope psychologically and emotionally. I remember the psychiatrist explaining that there is a spectrum to Dissociation, and that I was in the spectrum, but not very extreme, somewhere around PTSD - post traumatic stress disorder. I essentially grabbed onto that, and rejected everything else.

Ten years later I was cleaning out some old personal medical files and came across the written diagnosis that the psychiatrist had given my therapist, and that my therapist, at the end of our time together, gave to me. The diagnosis was DDNOS. Not PTSD, but higher in the spectrum than that. Definitely of the dissociative persuasion, prone to fluctuations in self-concept and recurrent cyclical changes in self-identity brought on by external influences. Wow. Ten years of denial! I breathed deep and acknowledged that the shrink had been right, and I just had not accepted the label.

I can see that this DDNOS has been a real obstacle to the therapists that have endeavored to help me over these last two decades. There are parts inside me, ego states, really, while not full-fledged individual personalities, are solid enough to prevent change to the internal system. The cycling through of these ego states was more fast and frequent when I was in my teens and twenties. By my thirties I had learned, for better or worse, how to avoid sending myself into another merry-go-round of identity changes. That was done mostly by insisting that no matter what cycle I was in, all parts had to participate in the tasks of the day, artist needed to do business stuff and science stuff, scientist needed to be social, etc. I also imployed the limiting coping mechanisms of isolating and self-imposed depression. More on that in a future post.

My definition of cycling through is the experience of having what I'm doing for a living, what I'm focusing my energies on, how I see myself and my future suddenly just lose all their meaning. What I thought I was dedicated to was just an illusion, and no longer had meaning to me. Alot of the time this would be precipitated by some kind of disappointment. Not the kind like others letting me down, but more like a belief I had embraced was suddenly shown to be hollow and corrupt. That little shock would hit me like it was a lie that had been exposed, and I no longer had grounding. It would take me a few days, maybe several weeks and then I'd be focused on some other idea or value (ie, how noble artistic endeavors are) and then set about with great energy, almost obsession to "become" that image. Until something came to shatter my belief, and then I'd move onto serious work, like business or science. Then social work. Then back to one of the ones I'd had before. Merry-go-round, each ego state and "focus" real at the time, and remembered. No losing time for this gal. As a younger person, I'd get so upset about this cycling, because I wanted so much to just choose a career direction and stick with it. My internal system wouldn't allow it. Each part needed an opportunity to express itself.

Of what I've described above, some of it, like the sudden loss of meaning, can be labelled as a type of depersonalization and derealization which are two terms used in dissociative spectrum. DDNOS folks do a smattering of this, and a dab of that to patchwork together a way to deal with life. I am sure that each person is unique, and so that make DDNOS not easily defineable.
If there are others out there with this diagnosis, what smatterings and dabs do you use to cope?