that's awful :( I've heard of people thinking alters are spirits possessing people before, but never thought anyone on a ward would think such a thing!!!
Suspended - I'm glad the diaries are helping. I have to keep a food/ mood diary for ED therapy, and I keep a money one as well because I'm awful for zoning out and spending loads of money.
Lostboys - I'm glad that Ash's mum understands now. Is there anything she does to help support you that you find helpful? I'm glad you got the sleeping pills too :-]
InsanityLives - I think it's really important not to push them to deal with what happened. I tried to push things and it resulted in them getting scared and hiding for months. Maybe find an outlet for them to work through expressively what they went through so that they don't have to take drastic measures to cope?
FlyingStar - To be honest I think I've been dissociating my whole life. I know what particular things were traumatic and made things bad for me, but I have always been like this! And I don't have like one definitive event that caused everything, so I can't even pinpoint the beginning of it all unravelling.
Pneumonia - *Big hugs* How are you all doing? Thinking of you and praying for you. That's awful what the nurse said! But in my experience the nurses don't seem to know anything about dissociative issues. At different points in hospital I/ we have been treated very unsympathetically. Hope you're ok.
I feel really confused about the whole alters thing. Don't know what to believe.
A thousand mile journey starts with the first step
Join Date: Oct 2009
I am currently:
The stress in an exam got too much for me and I blacked out...
I was getting really stressed and panicky and then I heard Skye. She said that she would do some of the exam, so she let me calm down and relax a bit before doing the rest of the exam myself.
I'll find your thread in a bit, Hazel. It sounds beyond stressful.
--
I always seem to mess things up. I don't mean to. Ugh. Self derision again. And self derision against self derision... and so it goes on...
*kicks a bunch of DSMs instead of herself*
Don't mind me. I'm having a Recovery Identity Mid Life Crisis.
Kitkat that sounds really stressful but I'm glad that Skye helped you and that you got through it.
My brothers have loads of friends round and I had to eat dinner with them. The social interaction, the new people, the disruption to my meal time - I coped during the meal but it completely threw me and afterwards I completely zoned out. You know when you disappear in your head and you know there's nothing you can do about it to reverse the process? Yeah so I just made myself throw up and it wasn't a nice one but it's brought me back to reality a bit. I wonder if there's any non-destructive ways of doing that. Anyway wish me luck because my brother is doing a stand up gig tonight and I'm going with my other brother and his friends which means nerves for him, social interaction with people who aren't in the "safe list", and going into a pub in the evening, all of which scare the **** out of me.
And no, I don't know any non-destructive coping mechanisms either. Either I dissociate and I turn into a psychopath, or I cut or mini binge and I end up hurt or nauseous.
*Hugs all*
RYL FAMILY
Jo (Newlife) is my daughter
Kat (Katnovia) is my sister
Last night I was looking through my "Alters Folder" which I stopped doing a couple of months back. I've been wondering whether I just made up the whole alters thing when I was really ill for whatever reason. I came to the conclusion that most of them just seem like crap, I mean they existed to me at the time but now they seem more like embodiments of a state of mind if you see what I mean. But a few of them... I don't know it's like sometimes I hear their voices or I kind of feel their presence... Like they feel like full-formed people with memories and feelings... But I don't know maybe I'm just barking up the wrong tree here... How do I know?
I feel a little bit worried about posting this. It seems really self-indulgent and I feel like an idiot for posting this when you guys are all going through so much and being so strong...
A thousand mile journey starts with the first step
Join Date: Oct 2009
I am currently:
*hugs everyone*
I've now asked people to hit me on the leg when I dissociate - sometimes I do it so much that even holding my wrist or slapping myself gently doesn't help.
flying[star] -- I really hope you're are doing okay. Someone in this world would miss you, and I mean all of you, if you were gone.
Hannah -- Even if your alters are only parts of "states of mind" as you called them, that doesn't make them any less valid. Nor does it make what you went through any less terrible or painful. I have read that not all abuse survivors have the ability to dissociate to such an extent as to make completely separate alters--that's why Black and White and I are so connected that they are not technically "alters," though I refer to them that way for simplicity's sake. I like to think of them as compartments to hold certain information that was so sensitive and they have been there so long that they developed their own ways of thinking and personalities.
Hannah, don't be sad, all your parts are real. It makes me sad that you reassured us and then are in doubt yourself. Jen is doing lots of research and we've learned that abuse can do lots of things that no one really understands yet. And everyone is different, so they react differently. Anyway, I'm going to be quiet now, but thank you for telling me I'm real.
---
We've had lots of good sleep! Horray! No nightmares either. We are all hugely relieved. I (Jen) learned that SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome can cause vivid dreams and insomnia, and our medicine ran out about a week ago and we couldn't get the prescription filled until yesterday. So we felt like crap all around until the medicine got fixed.
Hope everyone else is having a good evening/day.
My name is Matt, and I am a boy. Feel free to PM me :)
I have learned that the world is not a safe place. Not at all. But there are so many people who love me and want to keep me safe. And that is enough.
InsanityLives - it might be a good idea then to see if there is an outlet for her. It doesn't have to be directly talking about what happened, it could just be something like going for a walk or colouring in a picture.
FlyingStar - I really hope that you are doing ok today. You ARE strong enough - you've got this far! Is there anyone supportive you could be with today?
PaleMoon - Thank you so much for your reassurances. I can't help feeling like I'm a fraud or something. And I haven't switched that I know of for a couple of months which makes me doubt myself even more. I do kind of "believe" in a few of the alters, they just kind of feel right, I can't explain why. But they haven't revealed any memories that I didn't have anyway... I don't know I just feel really confused and I'm worried that I'm taking on symptoms that I didn't really have before or something. :-/ Thank you for your kind words though. I'm really glad you got some good sleep! Hope you have a good day today, you (all) will be in my thoughts.
I didn't SH last night cos I got back quite late and didn't really have time. Plus there's not much room left. I feel ok today not good not bad.
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