As some of you know, yesterday was an extremely hard day for me. What probably most of you don’t know is that I was having the strongest suicidal thoughts that I’ve had in years. So that scared me a bit. I’m glad to be out of that storm. There are also other personal issues that have arisen that have caused me grief, but sometimes you just have to know when to let go of something and not let it bring you down. So that’s what I’m choosing to do.
I’m feeling in a bit of a vulnerable place, and I’m not exactly sure why that is. I feel like my “outer shell” if you will is quite thin, so that if someone really wanted to hurt me right now, they could. I suppose I just need to be gentle with myself and ask others around me that they be gentle with me as well…
Travel
I will be traveling for almost an entire month with the family I work for, starting on Oct 1. When I say traveling, I mean we will be staying in one place, but that place is very far from home. A six hour plane ride to be exact. And it’s in a very remote place that is quite expensive to fly into, otherwise my partner would consider flying out to visit. This will be the longest I will be without my dear partner since we met. It also means that I will be going several weeks without seeing my therapist. Also, because my hours are completely unknown at this moment – I’m going to be working very long hours most likely – it’s not possible to schedule phone sessions while I’m away. I’m sure I will have time to blog though – especially when Little Guy is sleeping. I will probably have nothing else to do to keep me occupied!
Therapy
Therapy is going well. When I say well, I mean excruciatingly painful, but I feel like we are finally starting to get somewhere. I know I haven’t been writing about my therapy much lately. I suppose it’s because it’s been so intense that I just needed to set it aside and focus my mind on other things so as not to overwhelm myself.
I don’t remember much of my last therapy session, except that I revealed something that I had done that I felt extremely guilty about and told her that I deserved to die. I had been triggered earlier that day by an event that I was angry at myself for and felt bad about. This event led to feelings of extreme self loathing and self hatred. At some point, I switched, and a very angry part took over. I assumed that it was R, but when my therapist asked if they were R, they didn’t answer back. So perhaps it was and perhaps it wasn’t. And perhaps if it wasn’t, then I’ve been thinking that this angry part who spouts off about hating the world and everyone and everything has been R when it really hasn’t. DID is so confusing sometimes…
Thoughts about my DID
I’ve also had some revelations about myself, my dissociation, and my DID lately that I’ve been wanting to share on here, but haven’t seemed to have the chance – I am a bit distractable aren’t I! (Is that a word? It seems like it should be…)
I’ve realized that my DID is different than many others with DID in the sense that my parts aren’t that separate from myself (they don’t have their own names, physical traits, etc) and yet they are separate enough so that I am still considered to be DID. Does that make any sense? R has the name R, simply because I forced her to pick a name (other than “my” name), and the name stuck. Same with Coraline, although I don’t call her by that name anymore. She is just “the difficult younger part” or something to that effect. But for the most part, these different parts of me don’t have that strongly developed senses of self. Most of them know that they are not me (and get quite upset when our therapist calls them “brandic”), but they also don’t know who they are.
My therapist is under the impression that the trauma is wanting to reveal itself. That that is the reason behind all the unexplained uncomfortable body sensation, the panic, the anger pushing up, etc that I’ve been experiencing very strongly in the last month or so. I don’t know what I think about this, other than that I hope she is right. I want to know what was so awful that caused me to have such severe PTSD and dissociation. Because truly, besides some emotional difficulties with my FOO, and a few uncomfortable sexual experiences, I can’t quite think of anything that would be traumatic enough to cause me to have the severe symptoms that I have. But most especially the PTSD. Because I can deny the DID at times, but I can’t deny that the PTSD is there. And for there to be PTSD, there needs to be trauma. So… what is the trauma*?
Hope all of you are well. I extend warm thoughts to all those out there reading, near and far. I am grateful for each and every one of you.
Next up: My next Truth from 30 Days of Truth!
* That’s the million dollar question
nothinginmynoggin 