Triggering (Abuse) - dissociative distress thread

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Yeah, when things started to get really bad for me I did endless research to try and understand what was going on. Mental illness is frightening and my research helped me to defend myself against the onslaught. I think dissociative symptoms are particularly frightening because reality isn't the same, and lost time makes things even worse. Just remember that your mind will settle down and things will get calmer, but at the moment you are reacting to things that you haven't come to terms with yet, and that's normal. Are you currently getting therapy? Also remember that the little girl, and dissociative hallucinations etc in general, are kind of extensions of what's going on in your head. With my hallucinations, they generally make sense. Sometimes the hallucinations or switches are an expression of things that I don't find acceptable as part of myself, so they go outside myself. Sometimes they express my fears, or my memories. It's kind of like thoughts in picture form. Though having said all that they don't always make sense... Anyway stop rambling now!!

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the psychologist I used to see use to be VERY against self-research

personaly though I think research can make life easier, as at least you know what's going on lol

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I think my old psych thought that self-research could sort of creat symptoms... like you'd get so convinced that something was gong to happen that it would... I think that depends on the person though

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right... I have to go for a shower I think been putting it off lol

be back soon

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I just got a letter from the DWP people... saying "sorry that we have not yet processed your request for us to look again at your DLA claim" 2 months it's taken them so far

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I've been told before that I shouldn't research. Especially by my mum lol, cos she knows how over the top I go. I think it can be dangerous, especially with EDs. I know there's been times when I've looked up ED stuff and seen possible symptoms and thought "There's something I don't do - better start doing that". And yeah there is the risk of self-diagnosis. But I've always found it a huge comfort to be armed with knowledge. I hate seeing psychs and not knowing what they are talking about. When you get a diagnosis I've never had much explanation and I like to know everything about it. My mind is a very confusing place but doing research and finding out about common symptoms and treatments helps me to make sense of the madness!!

Emma yeah if you are getting therapy for SA then that probably is what is making things worse for you at the moment. Whenever I've had to try and deal with something from my past things always get a lot worse for a little while. There's a whole library up in my head where secrets are boxed away never to be looked at again, so opening up the boxes exposes me to all these things that I have never dealt with. So dissociation and hallucinations are actually a way of protecting you and helping you get through this time, even though I know it feels like it's just making things worse. But we're here for you. Just remember it will get better. And it's a good sign in a weird way that you are having more dissociative symptoms, because it shows something's happening up there. *Hugs*

Hazel sorry to hear about your DLA letter. I got a letter last week about my application saying they need to get a GP report. It's so annoying, it takes so long... But then if you get it then you will get back payments!

I'm feeling a bit frustrated and angry right now. I've been thinking about signs of my illness from when I was younger... Like when I started hallucinating at 4 years, when I was hearing voices all through my childhood, when I cut at 13 years... And I've been thinking - why did my parents never seek out professional help for me??? If they had done then maybe all this mess now could have been avoided. My mother tends to blame my illness on my drug use which really pisses me off. I know taking drugs didn't exactly help things but it certainly didn't cause things either. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

i know what you mean about not understanding how parents never noticed something was wrong and them blaming it on things that had little to do with it. I think they are so scared that your mental illness is their fault that they want to explain it away with something else. Plus a lot of parents never notice their kids have depression, etc. cause they want to see the best and they also believe they are doing the best they can, so they figure what could you be depressed about? It's not true, but i think that's what happens.

My mom tried to blame it on my friend (yeah like i started cutting cause of a friend!) and also demons. My dad tried to figure out if i was taking drugs, which was fair enough, but i wasn't. Plus if your mental illness was from drugs, you wouldn't have had symptoms at four considering i doubt you took drugs at four years old!

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I get a bit worried about researching to be honest... I mean I do like to research things and I HATE to not fully understand things, but... I get scared that if I research and so appear to know a lot about a topic (i.e. my diagnosis) the psychs willl think I'm looking up symptoms and acting to fake them...

though I could just be being paranoid lol

no haze i have that fear too. i purposely pretend to know nothing about mental health and just say the facts of my symptoms so my research doesn't come into play with how they assess me.

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I've been thinking about signs of my illness from when I was younger... Like when I started hallucinating at 4 years, when I was hearing voices all through my childhood, when I cut at 13 years... And I've been thinking - why did my parents never seek out professional help for me???

hmm... I've never thought about that before then again I think my parents caused alot of my issues, but I lived with my gran for a fair bit of my childhood so why didn;t she do something?
I don't remember much before the age of 14... but I do know that I've been able to hear Jess and Faith in my head since I was very little, and I vaugely remember speaking to my mum about it when I was 6... then again, maybe she just dismissed it as childhood imagination? and she did have a lot going on at the time

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My littles say the same thing some times that why am trying to quit
for them and for my own health as well


we are very switchy at the moment we are having flashbacks
littles are upset trying to calm them down but we feeling so bad right now

[AMCarmody]

Emma & Atomics: so sweet about your littl'uns. We used to cry when mummy smoked as well, given dramatic PSA adds about effects of smoking. Best to quit in any case; you'll enjoy your littl'uns more.

6-hour nap calmed us down. Still feeling adrift and overloaded senses-speaking. Bit hungry but we don't feel like cooking. Probably walking to Spar in a bit to clear our head and get some crisps or a flapjack or a bappie.

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Yeah the younger ones always get upset about me smoking. And little Jasper never understands why we don't have more cake.

Atomics hope that things settle down for you soon. Can you do something that would calm the little ones down? Watch a cartoon or something?

Frozen - yeah I guess a lot of it is not wanting to have to accept blame for what's happened, and not understanding why they should be to blame. My parents have given me a really good childhood and always been very supportive. I think that probably they thought that the cutting when I was 13 was just a phase that I would soon forget about. They're big believers in the value of the *family*. And they blamed the cutting on some other kids in my class at the time who had also cut. I guess they must have thought that the hallucinations and voices were just something I'd grow out of... And I don't think I really brought it up after the first time I mentioned each thing. I'm not really sure why. And my parents knew about my increasing OCD rituals as well (started at 4) but I think they thought I'd grow out of that too... I don't know. I can understand why they wouldn't want to rush off to a psychiatrist for their little baby girl, but I wish they had because so so much could have been avoided.

Hazel - maybe your gran was the same, thinking that it was a phase you would grow out of, or that her love and care would be enough to get you through it?

I don't know. These days I tend to view a lot of things in terms of mental health. And I know that if my kids were talking about the kind of things I was seeing from such a young age, and certainly if they were self harming, I'd want to get them some help quickly. But I guess that's only because of what I've been through. I just can't help feeling a bit resentful.

And the other thing (I'm really sorry, I'm really waffling on but I need to get this off my chest). My mother tends to undermine what I say all the time. Like she will ignore all the stuff from when I was little and blame all of my problems onto my drug use, even though she knows that I started taking drugs as a way to escape from problems that were already there. If I say I had a terrible day she'll tell me it really wasn't that bad and I shouldn't exaggerate things. It's just little silly comments but they really get to me. I don't know why she expects me to open up and be honest when I either get a huge lecture or a stupid little put down that makes me feel like a fake.

When I was 13 and cut for the first time it was the same thing. My parents were initially really shocked when they discovered the cuts. And then my mum was saying all this stuff about how I had nothing wrong in my life at all and I just was trying to fit in with the other girls in my class who always had problems and dramas, so I was trying to create my own dramas out of nothing and how I should be grateful for what I do have and stuff. It makes me fuming just thinking about it.

Don't get me wrong, 95% of the time my mother is really amazing and supportive. Just been full of resentment about these things the last couple of weeks.

So sorry this has gone on so long.

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I guess for people who have had less experiance of mental health then us the signs may not be as obvious

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And then my mum was saying all this stuff about how I had nothing wrong in my life at all and I just was trying to fit in with the other girls in my class who always had problems and dramas, so I was trying to create my own dramas out of nothing and how I should be grateful for what I do have and stuff. It makes me fuming just thinking about it.

Ooo I've had my parents say things like that really frustrating

[AMCarmody]

Banana: Stigma surrounding mental illness and getting help for mental conditions still very strong. Probably why they put it off?

Have you tried calmly telling your mum that you can't open up when you feel like she's not being empathic/supportive? Letting out resentments always good: don't bottle them up or you'll implode/explode and it won't be nice for anyone.

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Thanks for the comments about it guys. Hazel yeah I guess I'm kind of hyper-aware of possible symptoms of mental illness, but they probably wouldn't even have thought of it. And I don't really fit the stereotypical image of someone with mental health problems so I guess it's not a conclusion that they would have jumped to. Still... kinda hard not to think "There's something seriously wrong here" when you see a sh*t load of cuts down your daughter's arm, surely...

Annie - yeah that's true. I suppose if I had a 4 year old daughter I wouldn't really want her to have to go through all of the rigmarole of seeing psychiatrists and stuff. Though both my parents have had depression in the past, and have both dealt with people with pretty hefty issues, as my father is a church minister so they've both done a lot of pastoral work. Maybe they thought that they knew enough to fix me themselves or something.

I've been told countless times by professionals that one of my major issues and causes for my illnesses is the fact that I am totally unable to express my emotions, in particular anger. I just don't find it an acceptable emotion to show to others and because I don't really have much practice in expressing anger I don't know how to do it appropriately. All my life I have just shut everything away inside myself and the resentment has brewed away over the years. So on the very rare occasions that I do express something I just explode.

Plus me and my mum bounce off each other. For quite a while I wonder if she has issues herself because she is so over sensitive to certain subjects and just twists what you say. Telling her that I don't think she is being supportive etc would straight away be taken as a severe insult and proof of how ungrateful I am and how oversensitive/ exaggerating/ looking for drama I am. Which would then gradually escalate into essentially a shouted lecture from her. Which wouldn't solve much. So I just keep quiet instead. It's a bit of a vicious circle really. She's not empathetic so I get angry but I don't say so she can't empathise with what she doesn't know. I'm in a phase of keeping all of my ED and self harm as a complete secret so I guess I'm to blame really.

[AMCarmody]

Have you tried letting out your anger via exercise, writing, painting, etc? Explosive expressions of anger won't hurt there - unless you run too fast or hard and injure your knee or summat, is what we can think of.

We had trouble communicating things to parents - they had loads of issues of their own to solve in any case - back in our teens. What eventually helped was writing them down. We would write letters and we wouldn't give them time to interrupt us or yell at us. Then again different people = different scenarios. Still. Have you ever tried giving that a go?

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Exercise is difficult as I'm anorexic so my family are always on the lookout in case I start overdoing it. Writing does help and I also read a lot which is a good way of escaping from things and calming down.

When I was younger I used to write letters to my mum like every day. I used to feel this need to "confess" every night (part of the OCD). It worked quite well. But nowadays it doesn't work so well. I'm at home all the time so there isn't any distance which would be needed for both "parties" to think things through... Plus the anxiety is just agonising about how they will respond...

I don't know, I know this is a really contrary and stupid reply considering I asked for advice and I'm just thinking of excuses for everything... It's just I really hate getting into confrontations with my mother and there's no way to avoid confrontation if I was to criticise her manner with me. I should really say something though because otherwise I'm just gonna boil over and be really nasty.

[AMCarmody]

When anxious we all look for excuses to do/not do things. completely understandable. Part of getting over the issue and the anxiety however is trying out those things we do/don't want to do.

Which is what you should avoid (exploding), for her sake and yours. Let it be very clear that you're not criticising her, rather the way some things she does make you feel. Tell her you love her, and appreciate everything she's done, but some things have to change - for both of you - in order to have a better relationship.

How are you coping with your ED? You're not letting it take over hopefully? Please don't make us tempt you with cupcakes (joking). What about dancing? Great stress+anger outlet.

We've been meaning to say, we like your siggy. Text very familar - where is it from?