Being Eliza

Every choice that I make
Changes the course I take;
Won't be afraid when I make mistakes.

Open my arms and give in
Do it all over again
Do it all over again and again
To get to the end of who I am now
I'm gonna find the answers,
and yes I know how
I know I can win some of my dreams
and ever thing I ever wanted, everything I ever wanted to be.

Erica passed her test; she's training to be a therapist now.

Cross your fingers for me.

Emotional Flashback Management

For my own reference, a good article on emotional flashbacks and complex PTSD.

1. Say to yourself: "I am having a flashback." Flashbacks take us into a timeless part of the psyche that feels as helpless, hopeless and surrounded by danger as we were in childhood. The feelings and sensations you are experiencing are past memories that cannot hurt you now.

2. Remind yourself: "I feel afraid but I am not in danger! I am safe now, here in the present." Remember you are now in the safety of the present, far from the danger of the past.

3. Own your right/need to have boundaries. Remind yourself that you do not have to allow anyone to mistreat you; you are free to leave dangerous situations and protest unfair behavior.

4. Speak reassuringly to your Inner Child. The child needs to know that you love her unconditionally—that she can come to you for comfort and protection when she feels lost and scared.

5. Deconstruct eternity thinking. In childhood, fear and abandonment felt endless—a safer future was unimaginable. Remember the flashback will pass as it has many times before.

6. Remind yourself that you are in an adult body with allies, skills and resources to protect you that you never had as a child. (Feeling small and little is a sure sign of a flashback.)

7. Ease back into your body. Fear launches us into "heady" worrying, or numbing and spacing out.

Gently ask your body to relax. Feel each of your major muscle groups and softly encourage them to relax. (Tightened musculature sends unnecessary danger signals to the brain.)

Breathe deeply and slowly. (Holding the breath also signals danger.)

Slow down. Rushing presses the psyche's panic button.

Find a safe place to unwind and soothe yourself: wrap yourself in a blanket, hold a stuffed animal, lie down in a closet or a bath, take a nap.

Feel the fear in your body without reacting to it. Fear is just an energy in your body that cannot hurt you if you do not run from it or react self-destructively to it.

8. Resist the Inner Critic's catastrophizing.

(a) Use thought-stopping to halt its exaggeration of danger and need to control the uncontrollable. Refuse to shame, hate or abandon yourself. Channel the anger of self-attack into saying no to unfair self-criticism.

(b) Use thought-substitution to replace negative thinking with a memorized list of your qualities and accomplishments.

9. Allow yourself to grieve. Flashbacks are opportunities to release old, unexpressed feelings of fear, hurt, and abandonment, and to validate—and then soothe—the child's past experience of helplessness and hopelessness. Healthy grieving can turn our tears into self-compassion and our anger into self-protection.

10. Cultivate safe relationships and seek support. Take time alone when you need it, but don't let shame isolate you. Feeling shame doesn't mean you are shameful. Educate those close to you about flashbacks and ask them to help you talk and feel your way through them.

11. Learn to identify the types of triggers that lead to flashbacks. Avoid unsafe people, places, activities and triggering mental processes. Practice preventive maintenance with these steps when triggering situations are unavoidable.

12. Figure out what you are flashing back to. Flashbacks are opportunities to discover, validate and heal our wounds from past abuse and abandonment. They also point to our still-unmet developmental needs and can provide motivation to get them met.

13. Be patient with a slow recovery process. It takes time in the present to become un-adrenalized, and considerable time in the future to gradually decrease the intensity, duration and frequency of flashbacks. Real recovery is a gradual process—often two steps forward, one step back. Don't beat yourself up for having a flashback.

Candy:

Louise had often said that she felt I was the first face she had imprinted on, and that she sometimes watched me to see what it was that humans did or were supposed to do, just the way a baby bird will imprint on its mother, surrogate or real.

I found this article and want you to read it. It may be triggering. It's about a therapist leaving her client of 6 years (who has, I suppose, a dissociative disorder somewhere between yours and mine).

Other people may find it useful too.

It's okay.

Today my Inner Control Freak was triggered and I have spent this entire evening trying to manage the resulting anxiety and obsessive/compulsive feelings and thoughts.

I do resent having to do this. It would be far nicer if the feelings just disappeared. In reality, I'm observant enough now to know that had I been capable of expressing my emotions honestly in the moment, I would not be in this situation. But because I let my frustration grow to the point of feeling out of control and I was 'trapped' in the meeting, my brain reverted to the same old crisis toolkit: EMOTIVE SHUTDOWN MODE.

The curtain falls.

I become unresponsive.

God help even the most well-adjusted of adults. I'm a monster. It's scientifically proven. An unresponsive mother is the most feared of all creatures. Developmentally normal humans crave response. Therapy leans on this principle. I've pissed off a lot of people in my life because of my inability to connect, respond. Feel.

Only this time it's even more psychotic, because I'm not just unresponsive. I'm fighting that damn wall. Searching for how I feel (FRUSTRATED, ANGRY, WANT CONTROL) and trying to find a way to appease it. But I'm still a baby at this. All I can do is try to contain myself and wait. Sacrifice society. Wait it out.

And meanwhile? Try not to hate yourself for failing. For your increased heart rate, your shaking limbs, and the disappointment on their faces. As though you weren't juggling enough, facilitating that meeting.

But I'm practicing radical acceptance. So instead of fighting the anxiety, I tell myself it's okay. It's okay to feel upset at myself. It's okay to be afraid about what the others think of me. It's okay to be frustrated because the meeting didn't go as planned. It's okay to be upset at Boss-man because he disregarded the agenda and wasted a lot of time asking inappropriate questions. It's okay to want it to be perfect. Because I am a Person in Progress.

I didn't hurt anyone. I wasn't mean. I got through the agenda. I was flexible. I let people talk, including my Boss-man. I pushed where I needed to push. I let go what I could let go. I ended the meeting with a reassuring compliment. I got a reassuring compliment in return.

I feel ashamed to feel out of control and to want the control so badly. But those are my unrelenting standards, not theirs. I am disappointed in me. Not them. I am the one that needs reassurance.

So I'll provide it. And if it's not enough, I'll ask for it tomorrow.

And it's okay to have those needs. It's okay to be me. It's okay to feel this way.

I heard her.

She wants her mommy.

But I told her again: she'll only be disappointed.

Family of Origin

Someone asked about me. So, she called because she didn't have an answer. But she had a reminder: your daughter, just one politely questioning stranger and one phone call away.

I hate it when they call. The phone says 'International' and I wince. Sometimes I don't answer. Most times, my husband picks the phone up and hands it to me silently. I sigh and pull deeper inside. My voice drops. The curtain falls on my emotions.

"Hello."

The phone call is as shallow as our lives have been. What is new? Anything else? My mother says XYZ have asked about me. She lists their names. I don't know most of them. The others, I pretend I don't. It's easier that way. I feel in control.

We talk about Dad, who is taking calculus. My mum mentions that she was good at Math in high school. Very good. I pause, because this sudden burst of confidence is out of character. Suddenly I engage: "Were you gifted, too?"

My mum shyly but proudly affirms.

My thoughts race for a second, and then I elicit some stories from her while I focused on my reaction.

First, noting that there is a genetic link for my giftedness after all. It helps to be validated by biology.
Second, reinforced disappointment that she only shared this with me after THIRTY years and only when I asked. To be honest, I always thought my mum was a bit of an idiot. Hard-working, yes. Sensitive, yes. But not altogether there upstairs.
Third, that finally, finally, finally, finally, finally we have something to talk about. Something in common. A united experience. Knowledge to pass on.

So of course she changes the subject.

For the first time, I feel like there is a chance for us, which is on its own a very good thing. But surrounding that hope is a sea of increased anger, because I just can't accept how someone so gifted could have been so stupid and scared when it came to raising me.

Building Self-Confidence 108

I have a dissociative power they don't describe in scientific literature.

To cope with the pain, I would disappear into my head, my thoughts, my imagination, dreaming stories, and finally sleep. Eventually, I trained myself to sleep on a dime. Within a minute even. In the middle of sentences sometimes.

So, it's no big surprise to me that I suffer from derealisation/depersonalisation (DR/DP) disorder which is said to be caused by a breakdown in the barrier between sleep and consciousness. When I have migraines, the first stage is DR/DP and then yawning and then pain because I am so, so sleepy. I can't cope with the sensory information and stress. I become numb. I just want to sleep.

And then I sleep. And most of the time, I wake up a new person. I've trained myself to let the emotions of yesterday wash away in the night. I struggle to remember how I felt.

When overwhelmed by stress, especially emotional stress, I get migraines. Is it my body's way of saying 'WHY WON'T YOU LET ME SLEEP ALREADY, THIS HURTS' ? I'm just not sure what to trust, because even though the pain is gone right now, it will be back again another day.

Another day I'll wobble. I'll feel the hate inside.

But for today, I'll marvel because I can't find a single bit of hate. I search inside and all I feel is pride, love, acceptance, calm. It unnerves me that somewhere in my brain are neural connections full of hate and revulsion and distrust, ready to activate on my triggers, and I have no real ability to access them at the present.

Dissociation.

It's hard to build self-confidence when I know that a part of me will betray this current happiness. That, out of nowhere, the Inner Bully will emerge, waving her sword and threatening me. Moreover, I will become her / she will become me. And this current happy, secure person will be the inaccessible one.

Strangely, the solution isn't to shut the Inner Bully away. It's to teach the Inner Bully how to love herself. Radical acceptance means accepting that the Inner Bully is scared and angry and protective and insecure. It's loving the Inner Bully despite those feelings. Sitting with the Inner Bully while experiencing those feelings. Learning that it's okay to feel scared and angry and protective and insecure and suicidal, because those feelings don't mean we're going to hurt ourselves or others. We're smarter, more kind, more capable than that. We may be afraid, but we shouldn't be afraid of that.

I'm using mindfulness (meditation techniques) to hold on to good feelings, so that when the Inner Bully comes I can show them to her. So she can learn how to sit with the positive feelings and realise no one is going to take them away.


Read on the NHS Choices blog.

Humans are attracted to familiarity.

For some people, the only thing that is familiar is pain.

Radical Acceptance

I thought this article would resonate with quite a few of you:

No one knows how many people with severe mental illness live what appear to be normal, successful lives, because such people are not in the habit of announcing themselves. They are too busy juggling responsibilities, paying the bills, studying, raising families — all while weathering gusts of dark emotions or delusions that would quickly overwhelm almost anyone else.

It's hard for me to admit this, because I am one of 'those people' who try SO DAMN HARD to function, but I am, at the core, emotionally identical to those who are borderline. On good days, I dissociate the bad feelings, I distract myself from the chronic emptiness, and I fill myself with the desires and emotions of other people instead of facing my own. Because my own feelings are so painful, I'd do anything to get rid of them. Thank god for dissociation. Thank god for splitting myself into parts. Because if it weren't for the controlling part, that obsessive OCD part who is trying to fix everything about me, I would have easily succumbed to self-harming and suicide a long time ago.

I'm sorry to be so unsympathetic here, but I sometimes find it hard to read how other people are feeling (aka poorly) and managing their own moods (aka also poorly). Another blogger recently wrote about being depressed for the third time in her life. I'm thankful for the days I'm not fighting depression. People get diagnosed with Bipolar and given medicine for far lower (and less often) levels of despair and mania and suicidal thoughts... is it really all down to self-harm and unsafe behaviours? Because if it were down to feelings alone, they should have locked me up a long time ago. But instead, I escape attention by being convincingly okay.

I read a blog post recently about someone discovering their friend was so clinically depressed she couldn't stop crying. They took her to the hospital, because she was suffering. One day of dark thoughts! One day!

I didn't have friends. I didn't have parents. All I had was sleep. School, suffering and then sleep.

I think what stuns me is realising (thanks to therapy) how severely emotionally neglected I was growing up. I can't fathom seeking help when I feel so much despair. I just cry and cry for hours. I detach. I shamefully desire death.

I see people write about these experiences on the boards or blogs, and people urge them to get help. I can't relate. I don't share those experiences, not even with my therapist. Because it's my responsibility? Because I am deluded into thinking I have weathered it alone since I was 10, that no one else can change anything now?

People with depression ask me for help because they think I am sensible. They've read my story. They see how much I function. They think I understand, that I could tell them the secret to feeling good again. I treat them with compassion. I urge them to connect to others.

Why can't I take my own advice?

I don't even want to post this, because I know I will just react defensively to your comments, especially the helpful ones. The more helpful you are, the more I will push you away. And I am fighting against this. Fighting against myself, while simultaneously trying to accept myself. It's a nightmare. But every time I learn how to cope on my own, I find another reason to stay alone.

I wish someone smarter than me would see how much I'm suffering and force me to accept help, rather than hiding it. But I'm just too good at hiding it, I guess.

Thanks to my dissociative disorder, I hide it from myself.

A Modern Feral Child

Phew, on my way out of that storm. Now imagine 3-5 of those a week for the last 4 months. I am the poster child of resilience.

Now, on to my next moment of brilliance.

Today at therapy we realised how alone we've been most of our lives. Unheld, untouched.. a vacuum fuelled by invalidation and suppression of needs. I've been fighting the 'we' but I can't see a way out of this without an 'us'. In order to eradicate this Inner Bully and make up for critical years of emotional and physical neglect, I need to be my own parent. How can I be effective at parenting myself unless there is more than one of me? It just doesn't make sense.

My future as a securely attached adult depends on my ability to split myself.

I wish I had some support. But if I had some support, I wouldn't need to make this herculean effort. So many years of depression, my self-esteem is in tatters. So much anxiety, I have mild OCD. The cycling moods mix into a destructive suicidal firework. I fall asleep and wake up like a shot, because anything slower gets me stuck between dream and reality: a soupy mixture of dread and detachment that precedes every migraine. The losses accumulate year on year, so the grief is unrelenting. The stress is too much. My brain falters. I forget words. I smell things that aren't there. I hear a voice that isn't mine. I am coming unhinged. I am disintegrating.

I am fighting to be human. I'm shouldering my family's inadequacies. I'm stopping the generations of abuse and neglect. I lost my childhood. I have probably lost my parenthood, too.

But I will keep trying to turn this around with all the time I have left.

Leaking

What am I, that people don't see me?
Am I a monster?
Is it my fault?

No one knows what I need. Not even myself.

Untitled

I can't even pretend to be eloquent and inspirational. By all accounts, I had a good therapy session: I was able to talk to her about the hugs. I shared my news about going back to school. We discussed my family some more. We talked an awful lot. Maybe that was the problem: too much talking, not enough feeling.

I brought up how therapy might end. The NHS has finite sessions of psychotherapy, especially for people with my supposed strength (cough - control - cough). It sounds like I'll run out of time in September.

After learning that, suddenly the uncertainty, the ignorance, felt so much better. Give me back the Unknowing. Feelings are just too much work.

I am ready to share how crazy I am, I think. The derealisation and depersonalisation. The mixed episodes (anxiety + depression + suicidal thoughts). The cognitive soup. The hallucinations.

More and more, the 50 minutes feel unfulfilling. I am moving too quickly, covering too much ground, to bring it all to session. And how can she keep track of who I am if I am constantly changing? And then there is the end.

Our relationship is changing. I'm not sure I like it.

I'm upset. Defensive, even. The Inner Bully is being mean to me for feeling like this. I just can't win. Happy, or sad. It's never good enough. I feel so insecure.

That's a new vocabulary word, btw. My first naming of a complex emotion -- it's almost like saying my first word! I didn't even get a chance to share it with her. She sets the agenda, because up until this point I've been unable to. But now we've reached the level of trust where I do want to share. But what's holding me back is routine. Our routine.

I tried to explain it to her. How, the more I am able to hold on to my emotions, the less I want to talk about my childhood and the more I want to talk about the feelings that scare me here and now.

I didn't say it like that, so no wonder I wasn't happy with her response.

I get it. I'm both numb and in pain (migraine again). I'm exhausted. I don't want to think about any of this stuff. I feel fragile. Insecure.

She asked me again to consider journaling. I told her again I already do so. But maybe she means something even more thorough. I've been considering making notes each time I feel something. But I don't want to feed the obsessions. It's the obsessions and the anxiety and the panic which are the fast track to psychosis. I don't want to be on that train.

So I guess I'll grow at a slower pace. Accept that in September I'll be on my own again, and that ending won't invalidate all the hard work I've already put in. That in learning how to build a relationship with my therapist, I can do it again with someone else.

....

I'm pretty sure I just wrote stuff and I'm not sure where it's gone.

I suppose no matter how I feel right now (which is, pretty shit), the moral of the story is I need to be kind to myself.

Triggers R US

Even after last night, today was a heavy day. I'm going to stumble and fall into therapy like a bag of leadened worms.

I faced some major triggers head on. The emotions are still present. I've recognised the maladaptive thoughts each time. I'm coping.

How I'm going to fit all of this into 50 minutes? I don't know.

Speaking of 'Good Night'

Must remember to tell Therapist about feeling of detachment, disconnection, and paranoia. Normally occurs when woken incorrectly. Associated with hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations. May occur at times of stress or extreme fatigue. In that case, may be associated with auditory or olfactory hallucinations. Usually triggers obsessive thoughts and anxiety. Relieved by sleep and/or migraines. Otherwise known as: your brain is fucked up.

Keep holding on (we'll make it through)

Times I wish my parents were there for me:
Moving 3000 miles
Feeling sad
Missing home
Making friends
Taking care of myself
Looking nice
Moving another 3000 miles
Being bullied
Feeling unsafe
Making friends
Getting my period
Puberty
Having relationships
Being a friend
Feeling good about myself
Being ill
Going to university
Making friends
Feeling unsafe
Having a boyfriend
Having sex
Being ill
Going to graduate school
Being bullied
Leaving graduate school
Dating
Making friends
Moving to England
Getting married
Buying a house
Infertility
Being ill
Feeling sad

Things I wish my parents didn't do:
Take me away from my family and friends
Hit me
Tell me I'm fat, ugly, stupid, and mean
Tell me that I'm not good enough
Yell at me for not doing something to their standards
Yell at me for answering honestly
Yell at me for my feelings
Yell at each other
Yell at each other about me
Ignore me when I'm sad
Punish me when I'm angry
Avoid talking about anything meaningful
Avoid me

Read on the NHS Choices blog.

Something to do with change.

It is very tiring holding up this trident: decreasing dissociation, managing anxiety, and stopping obsessive thoughts. I push myself too hard. And yet, when I don't push myself, I criticise myself for not working hard enough. Overcoming a maladaptive personality, OCD, social anxiety and an attachment disorder while specifically NOT using my best coping method.. is it a bit much?

My 'peace' lasted 24 hours. Now the anxiety builds. And it will build, straight into depersonalisation/derealisation, which will turn into the fifth migraine this week.

WHAT AM I SCARED OF?

I could shout it all day long, but no one inside will tell me the answer. So, instead of ignoring how I feel, plodding on with my day, the 'evolved me' has to listen to someone with nothing to say. IE, me.

(several hours later)

Something to do with change. Expected. Unexpected. Planned. Unplanned.

Touch in Therapy

I've been avoiding some feelings about my therapist attempting to hug me in our last session. I was in distress, battling to control some overwhelming emotions. To understand why she attempted to hug me and why I rejected her with a strong 'no', we need to take a few steps back.

Or more than a few, in my case.

You see, I told her 'no' because in actuality touch revolts me. It revolts me a lot less (a LOT less) than it used to, thanks to many years of studious self-managed exposure therapy, but for anyone other than my husband, I need to dissociate to let them touch me. It increases my anxiety and makes me feel unsafe. Heck, even my husband can only touch me in certain ways, in certain places, and for a certain length of time before I become overwhelmed.

I'm not 100% sure why, but I reckon the combination of emotional neglect, multiple caregivers, and being physically and emotionally abused by my father at a very young age made me aversive to touch. My parents didn't nurture me in that way, so I had to learn to regulate my own feelings through dissociation.

For a long time, being touched provoked a physical aversion reaction (startling, jumping, moving away). Having a boyfriend? Well, that was a challenge. I pushed myself to become sexually active. In doing so, I probably entrenched my ability to dissociate, because I had to dissociate to cope with being pushed out of my safety zone -- to be touched.

So, sex has to be something I control, because I've learned to enjoy sex through dissociation (cutting off my emotions and manipulating my body's pleasure receptors). I'm very good at orgasming. Very good. Not so good at being emotionally present (and sometimes even cognitively present) during sex.

As I grow less willing to dissociate, I grow less willing to have sex. In the few times I was emotionally present for sex, I burst into tears, overwhelmed by the emotions. Not exactly the best ending to sex, really.

Touch isn't all about sex. I hug people now, when they need reassurance or there are social cues. I don't like it. But, it's something else I'm trained to do. Unexpected hugs, such as when people try to reassure me, are revolting. Only my mother-in-law tries, now and then, to touch me in the way intimate family members do (hand on shoulder, rubbing back, holding arm). But these acts of physical intimacy are so foreign to me I feel attacked. My hyper-vigilance turns on. I pull away.

I am human, though. Touch is important, and my body knows what I need better than I do. So, you will find me invariably attached to my husband: holding his hand, curled in his arms, hugging him. People have asked if we were courting because we are always so close, it looks like we are in the honeymoon phase. In reality, my body realises it feels better in his arms. This feeling of safety is practically bliss.

Three therapy sessions ago, I expressed my emotions in a calm way. My therapist had tears in her eyes. Normally, I avoid looking at her. She looked sad. It made me feel uncomfortable, like my sadness was infecting her, but she also conveyed a sense of pride. Or maybe I just felt proud to be able to share my emotions so calmly (without anxiety).

When we left, she walked me to the door of the building and just as I went to leave, she opened her arms and essentially asked me to come over and let her hug me. My immediate feeling was panic, which I controlled through a gritty dissociation as she hugged me. And I avoided thinking about it, other than a few sporadic feelings of resentment.

She made a mistake in hugging me. She was hugging me to fulfil her own desire to parent me, to reassure me with physical intimacy. It wasn't my need. It wasn't my desire. But, I accept therapists are human. They are not perfect. I understand her motives; it damaged my trust in her slightly, but I didn't realise that until last session when she tried to hug me again.

I assumed the first hug would have been a one-off event, so when I was trying to express some strong emotions (and failing completely) at the end of the last session, I didn't expect her to come out of the chair and try to hug me. I panicked more visibly. My attempts to control the situation (my emotions, her physical closeness) were becoming desperate. I was pressing my fist to my forehead, pulling away, forcefully saying 'No.'

Thankfully, she respected the boundary I imposed, but she still didn't move back into her chair. I still am not sure I can face how I feel about that. I didn't like her being close to me. I rejected her like I've rejected so many people, including my own mother. That fear of intimacy was almost stronger than the other emotions I attempted to contain.

And now I feel guilty about hurting my therapist. Ashamed to have had a stranger so close to me. Vulnerable to feel so not in control. Scared to confront her about the touching. Angry at myself for causing this situation by being in distress aka not controlling my feelings. Anxious about being touched in the future. Confused about what my therapist wants from me.

Yes, dissociating all of these feelings is a lot easier than processing them.

There are a lot of reasons a therapist shouldn't touch their client. A lot of reasons. But how does that fit with a client whose primary mental health problems stem from an attachment disorder -- a childhood with a distinct lack of emotional and physical intimacy? Does a lack of touch perpetuate the neglect that caused the original injury?

The article says that touch can be "exceptionally caring, comforting, reassuring, or healing," but in my case it was none of those. Dealing with my own pathological response makes it even more obvious how 'screwed up' I am.

I don't like feeling so un-human.

Mr Medicine, I will take anything. What do you recommend?

24 hours

That's a record, even for me. I'm a bit suspicious.

I've got so much on my mind, but I'm not letting it turn into obsessions. I feel quite sad and scared, but I'm not letting it turn into depression or anxiety. I didn't hide my feelings when people asked, not completely, and it felt okay. It felt okay to be sad.

I just let myself be me. And the weird thing is, it worked. The world didn't end. People didn't bully or reject me. We talked. I smiled. Twice. I felt connected. And then relieved.

Because I finally have something of 'me' to go on.

I like to talk.

Fighting myself

I couldn't hold up the pan. My hand was too weak. The homemade garlic bread, fresh from the oven, slid to the floor. I grabbed for them, burning my fingers.

I couldn't feel the burning in my finger tips. The weakness caught me off guard.

The self-hatred rolled over me.

I pushed myself too hard in therapy. Went overtime too. Oops. Need to get these feelings under control. Fuck birthdays.

Change management

The universe is having a laugh with me now.

Put simply, what happens to the girl who finally admits she wants most of all to belong?

She gets booted out of the department offices because the department head (who, granted, has narcissistic personality disorder and therefore is not expected to make any sensible choices) decides he wants her desk for some transient junior doctors reviewing case notes a couple hours a day.

This is a typical narcissistic punishment, because it actually hurts the small department to lose me to another building. Only a narcissist would shoot off his own foot just to exercise some control over the seemingly uncontrollable. But I can't help being his kryptonite. Having a narcissistic introject part inside means I can out-step his passive aggression on every single level. Dissociation trumps grandiosity and rage any day of the week.

Except I didn't dissociate.

I sat there, considering the news. Calmly reading his face. And maybe the loss flickered on mine. Because despite recognising it as a narcissistic punishment, all I felt was sad. I decided last week not to transfer because I felt committed to helping the department. But with every passing day, the department is less and less committed to me. My job isn't at risk -- I bring in my own funding. But my sense of belonging? What was left, anyways... is completely gone now.

This thread of sadness hasn't wavered since that meeting. I'm getting better at holding on to and containing feelings without dissociating them. Soon, though, I'll need to let this go. I push myself hard, but even I know this week is altogether too much for me now.

I've officially cancelled my birthday.

Stigma, meet Truth. Truth, meet Stigma.

It's hard to believe that this time last year, I thought Dissociative Identity Disorder was a diagnosis reserved for "properly crazy" people with serious brain damage and a childhood of horrific trauma. That sounds harsh, but if that's what a smart girl with a psychology degree believed, imagine what the average Joe thinks. Granted, I had been aiming for a lifetime achievement award of "COMPLETE AND UTTER SANITY - NO CRAZY PERSON HERE" which meant avoiding all references to clinical or forensic psychology, keeping everyone at the end of a long stick, and being fine just fine thanks for asking. Dissociation wasn't in my vocabulary until Candycan showed up on the NHS Choices blog and I started to wonder why on earth our experiences were so similar, since our disorders were obviously so different. In a way, reading her blogs have been more valuable than therapy, because it's helped me face aspects of myself that I would normally have avoided, obsessively controlled, or outright denied.

The (good) leading researchers on dissociation and trauma refer to dissociative identity disorder as an attachment disorder. It happens when the chronic and severe trauma or neglect is caused by a primary caregiver, you know, the person who should be protecting you rather than hurting you. I suppose that's the ultimate betrayal. But not everyone who experiences trauma develops DID. The reactant in this chemical equation is pressure to deny those bad times resulting in the persistent emotional neglect of the developing child.

I'm not entirely sure where the similarities end between me and Candy. I don't feel like I have multiple identities or personalities. I habitually dissociate most of my emotions which makes having relationships quite difficult. Some days I'm utterly in love with my husband. Some days I'm terrified about the stranger who wants to touch me. I KNOW he's my husband. But for some reason, the feelings that should go with it (familiarity, intimacy, love, attachment, desire) aren't often there.

I like to think there are no splits in my cognition, that it is all purely emotional, but I've noticed that my rapidly changing needs correlates to my rapidly changing behaviour: voice, vocabulary, abilities. Would I have noticed this sooner if my husband wasn't so childish and playful himself? It's ironic, but he fell in love with the child part. The child part loves him to death. It's the adult part's turn to be lonely.

I can see why my therapists have been so adamant about getting me to just be me. Maybe if I loosen the reigns, we can start to see the extent of my dissociative disorder. I am so obsessively afraid of losing control, that I can't bear to let anything go through without my approval. I can barely talk about my parts without thinking "I must be wrong. How could I think that? No one will believe me. That's crazy talk. It's just metaphors. You're only using an analogy, right? There's nothing wrong with you. You must be hypochondriac. You don't know anything. Your experience is wrong. You are wrong. [Insert self-hatred here]"

I don't even need to think a single word. They are all stored somewhere, with the hatred, guilt and doubt, in a magic bullet of introjected abuse. It happens in an instant, and I'm left with increasing anxiety as I continue to push myself to accept the TRUTH of MY experience and MY feelings.

I'm sick of this mental self-harming. I'll never take off my super-shield of dissociation unless I stop showering myself with Stigma bullets.

Can we work our way backwards? Maybe treating ourselves with compassion means letting ourselves be crazy.

Thank god I backed my posts up here...

NHS Choices is changing the mental health blog to a forum. I know, I know -- I can't stand things being changed without my permission -- but I am quite pessimistic about this change on so many levels. I love supporting the NHS and promoting patient involvement, but this news just makes me sad.

Here is what I said to the NHS Choices Talk team:

I understand the desire and need to alter the site structure, but this is a fundamental change in the purpose of the site (from blog post to forum discussion) that appeals less to me as both a contributor and a reader. It downplays the appeal and continuity of following a single expert patient's journey of experiences in favour of healthcare topics. Is there any way of preserving the emphasis on people rather than symptoms and disorders?

I would still participate in the new structure, but it will not be the same level as before. I am personally less interested in contributing to 'discussions' and especially wary about the inclusion of 'experts' especially in the area of mental health.

I'm not sure what I will do when this change goes into effect.

What she said.

A principle of self-parenting is listening unconditionally. I've not started the exercises though I've read the theory. In practice, I can see how it would benefit me. Maybe I'm the worst sort of dissociative disorder: I have parts, but I don't let them out. I deny they exist most of the time, because it's easier that way. Decisions are simpler. And the better I dissociate, the less I feel my own deep unhappiness.

Byproduct of therapy, I'm listening to my emotions more. Which means listening to my parts more. Which means letting them out. Which means letting myself just be. Definitely what my therapist wants, but not something I'm capable of coping with yet.

During a crisis on Friday, I experienced something totally surreal. I completely switched to my emotional part (rather than just fighting to contain it). The feelings were overwhelming. And though the feelings part of me has historically been totally severed from the cognitive part, it's a testimony to my hard work that she (I) managed to get some words out. Here is what she said:

No one loved me.
I am so sad.
It hurts.

I feel quite guilty to be sharing that, especially when I'm not her. In order to cope, the emotions have gone back into their little compartment and we're not sharing this moment of writing. But I remember how it felt to be her, to say those words. Does that mean I can find my way back through this dissociative haze?

I know these emotions are mine. I know I should be feeling them. That those words are mine, and I mean them. But I find it hard to take ownership of feelings and words that don't feel like mine. So for now they won't be mine. They'll be hers: this little girl I'm taking care of inside.

Now that I've seen more of what I've been hiding from myself, I have a greater respect for the amount of work left to do in therapy. How on earth can I connect two parts of my brain that historically have operated alone?

Read on the NHS Choices blog.

Emotions

They suck.



That is all.

Starry-eyed

Starry-eyed by justeliza featuring a knee length black dress

Building Self-Confidence 107

People fell in love with me. All sorts of people. But for some reason, it always turned me off, not on. I guess I knew, even then, that it was a deception. There was no me. That person they loved was a creation I made to appease and attract them. It worked, every time. It worked too well.

"So what does Eliza want?"

Sigh. "To help people?" I shrugged lightly.

"And?"

I turned my head to the window. "Family." She nodded. I pressed my eyes closed. "As you said before -- to belong. I want to belong."

"Something your family doesn't really give you."

I folded my scarf. I re-folded my scarf. I breathed in. I breathed out. "No." No, they didn't.

Therapy was not so heavy this week; partially because last week was quite intense. Also because my therapist was recovering from being ill. But mostly because I refused to let myself admit the truth of what I was thinking and feeling. She didn't push me.

So what does Eliza want?

I stumbled into the house in tears, admitting to myself what I didn't want to admit in front of my therapist.

I just want someone to love me. Me, when I decide who that person is.

I want to love myself. But the more I ask who I am, the more I am repulsed. I feel such intense self-hatred. There is a deep conflict inside and I don't know how to take a side. Who is speaking right now? The me desperate to control everything for my own good or the me wanting the freedom to explore her desires? Which is me? How can they both be me?

My eyes burn; I'm allergic to my tears. At least the self-rejection has a sense of humour.

My walls are, oh, tumbling down.

Building Self-Confidence 106

One thing I've learned in therapy is that saying something with feeling behind it is a completely different experience to just saying something. Before I started 'feeling' things, I didn't even realise I -- life -- could be different. The first few attempts to express emotion were pretty catastrophic. I became nearly psychotic and just barely coped. I can appreciate that someone less controlling than me would have completely broken down, but then again -- perhaps someone less controlling wouldn't be in the position where expressing one's emotions causes a psychiatric breakdown?

The problem in the beginning was that I had no other coping mechanism than dissociation and distraction. And therapy is having me fight the dissociation, so all that leaves me are books and video games. Not even the best game in the world can make deep despair go away. No offense Sony.

It took everything I had to get through that time. Ultimately, I changed therapists and made it a priority to find ways of staying safe. I was lucky that my new therapist was on the same page and concentrated on building up trust. So now we are at the same place that I broke down before -- expressing deep emotions -- but in the context of a healthy therapeutic relationship it feels completely different. I felt something I hadn't felt in years (and years and years): secure. Deeply sad, but somehow not at all scared or alone.

Outside of therapy, I used my meditation skills to hold on to that feeling of security and continued to juggle these new feelings without dissociating. It was going well until I panicked and all the balls dropped.

The cause of the crisis is still looming. It's hard to unlearn the automatic wish for death that follows the dark brew of despair, fear, insecurity and detachment. The instinctive grapple for control and avoidance would usually result in obsessive rumination or dissociation, but I've named my enemy. I've seen its face and know it’s time to think differently.

Like Candy experiences different alters, I experience emotions as 'not mine'. Even knowing the theory behind dissociative disorders, I still find it difficult to accept that I don't know everything in my head, muchless anything in my heart. My deeply controlling Parent filters everything. She's engaged with therapy, yes, but even therapy has to be on her terms.

I can see why my last therapist was so frustrated.

Both of them, in their ways, have asked me to just be me. I get what they are saying: let my Child out. Allow myself to express the emotions inside, even (especially) the ones I don't understand or approve of. My therapists want me to learn that life can be different: that they, unlike my parents, aren't scared of my feelings, won't be shocked or disgusted by them.

What will it take for my own controlling Parent to not be shocked or disgusted by my feelings?

Read on the NHS Choices blog.

Run with the wild horses

I feel these four walls closing in
My face up against the glass
I'm looking out... hmm
Is this my life I'm wondering
It happened so fast
How do I turn this thing around
Is this the bed I chose to make
It's greener pastures I'm thinking about hmm
Wide open spaces far away

All I want is the wind in my hair
To face the fear but, not feel scared

Wild horses I wanna be like you
Throwing caution to the wind
I'll run free too
Wish I could recklessly love, like I'm longing to
Run with the wild horses, run with the wild horses!

I see the girl I wanna be
Riding bare back, care free along the shore
If only that someone was me
Jumping head first headlong without a thought
To act and damn the consequence
How I wish it could be that easy
But fear surrounds me like a fence
I wanna break free

I am not strong.

I am not strong.

A strong person would be able to cope with her feelings. A strong person would understand and accept them. A strong person would be able to negotiate and compromise between her desires and her needs and the world, without compromising all of herself.

Don't mistake my calm, my inhibition, and my clarity for strength. It's not my strength. It may be a strong wall, but it's a wall. And while I'm putting all of my energy into maintaining it, I have nothing left for myself. My own strength.

I don't allow myself to self-harm or follow suicidal thoughts, despite knowing the endorphin release from the pain will revive and distract and ground me, and despite feeling so much despair and loneliness I feel already dead. I don't allow myself to drink alcohol. I don't allow myself to feel bad about my increasing girth or spotty skin or frizzy hair. I don't allow myself to feel bad. I don't allow myself to ask for help. I don't allow myself to be scared. I don't allow myself to be happy.

Controlled != strong.

I am not strong. I am controlled. Don't look to be more like me. We all have our own bad habits to break, and you don't want mine.

Read on the NHS Choices blog.

It's good practice.

So how exactly does one treat oneself with compassion and be the Parent that one never had, in order to experience personal growth and integration?

Share.
Listen.

Sing.



I walked across an empty land
I knew the pathway like the back of my hand
I felt the earth beneath my feet
Sat by the river and it made me complete

Oh simple thing, where have you gone?
I'm getting older and I need something to rely on
So tell me when you're gonna let me in
I'm getting tired and I need somewhere to begin

I came across a fallen tree
I felt the branches of it looking at me
Is this the place we used to love?
Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?

...

If you have a minute, why don't we go
Talk about it somewhere only we know?
This could be the end of everything
So why don't we go somewhere only we know?
Somewhere only we know.

Landslide

Oh mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?

Well, I've been afraid of changing
Because I've built my life around you.
But time makes you bolder.
Children get older.
I'm getting older too.

Building Self-Confidence 105

I had created a new avatar, a vintage photograph of an anonymous model smiling into a mirror. It was supposed to represent self-confidence. But then I went to my weekly therapy and left owning a few more pieces of me. It doesn't seem right anymore, having a mask. So here is my new one. Me.




It's one of my favourite self-portraits because it shows a me that is both human and ideal. I am in motion, my dark brown curls swinging to half-cover my face. I tried replicating this photograph a hundred times, but there is no replacing the beauty of an individual moment.

I am: smiling.
I am: playful.
I am: young.
I am: curvy.
I am: guarded.
I am: embarrassed.
I am: excited.

I am sitting in a chair that must have been upholstered in the late 80s, staring at the blue carpet, tears streaming down my face, talking about myself.

"I miss it. The family. When I moved it was all gone. All of it."

"And how did that make you feel?"

I frowned. Didn't I say how I felt? Hesitation. "I missed them." What's the right answer here? What is she looking for? "Sad?"

She nodded, but it wasn't enough. "I bet it felt very lonely. I bet you felt very alone."

I faltered, searching the room as though it were a library of my memories. Alone? Yes. Alone? Yes. Still alone? Yes. Each memory, check. Alone. I felt very alone. Breath. Heartbeat. Heartbeat. Breath. Cry.

Still remembering, still feeling, I looked back at her. Her eyes were wet, too, but inside that empathy was a smile. Something in me was letting go. Something in me feels this is right.


Read on the NHS Choices blog.

New Avatar

 

I've updated my avatar to reflect my focus on self-confidence. It's based on a vintage photograph.  What is your avatar based on?

Read on the NHS Choices blog.

Building Self-Confidence 104

In another recent post, I wondered why I drop so quickly to these feelings of detachment and emptiness. It isn't depression; it's not anxiety. It's something else entirely and I don't really know how to name it. So, 'suicidal feelings' it is. I hate feeling this way. It's easy enough for me to use healthy thoughts and behaviours to control them, but the feelings still persist. They start up 'randomly' and finish just as randomly.

Theoretically, I understand dissociation. I know I have a dissociative disorder. My therapist and I have talked about how I heavily dissociate my feelings. I have the emotional intelligence of a gnat. But I am trying to treat myself with compassion, love myself regardless of how I feel, and even use my dissociative abilities as an advantage. For example: even though it seems silly or even crazy, I talk to myself.

I know that properly attached children develop such that they have a healthy mum/dad inside themselves. So, even when the mum/dad goes away, the child can still regulate himself. He knows who he is.

I know that I never had any healthy attachments, so the 'mum/dad' inside me is quite controlling and protective/defensive. I have to learn to be a better parent to myself (aka treat myself with compassion), which may sound straightforward but isn't really. Because bad parents assume that they know what is best for their children. They don't listen to what their children have to say. They don't let the children express themselves. I admit, I'm guilty of treating myself like that: ignoring my own needs, my own voice, my own desires.

I have so many huge decisions to make right now (jobs, home, kids, marriage), and I've been paralysed because I don't know how to treat the different parts of me with respect. But it strikes me that my child part doesn't really care about any of that (and that's maybe why I've not been able to decide).

[This post was written on May 18th, but I didn't have the courage to finish or share it.]

Read on the NHS Choices blog.