neloran

[neloran]

My guest post on /r/OSDD about Cycles of Recovery.  I wrote it from the perspective of healing from ritual abuse, but it still applies to non-RA systems.

[neloran]

Yeah, this was one Disney movie my parts really didn’t need to lift the amnesia curtain on.  **Trigger Warning: RA, Cult Abuse** The Watcher in the Woods Trailer (1980)

[neloran]

[Trigger Warning: RA, Denial] I’m not sure how we missed this, but in February of this year, Psychology Today posted an article about Dissociative Identity Disorder by [redacted]...

[neloran]

Thoughts from the SIA Meeting tonight

It is not uncommon for incest survivors to wonder if the experience really happened or if they imagined it. What is important for you to realize is that children DO NOT, on their own, imagine situations of sexual arousal or violation. That information is not within a child’s realm of knowledge. As an adult, if you think something happened, it probably did. The truth is shown by the emotions you feel as you try to remember.

-The Definition of Incest

[neloran]

Triggers

I’m learning so much from SIA Meetings.  Like, this is what I learned just from the group guidelines:

If someone on the line is triggering, we learn:

* to deal with the evoked emotions responsibly by stepping away from our phones when needed

* setting boundaries with anyone who triggers us

* taking evoked feelings back to the original abuse experiences, 

* comforting our inner children,

* and refraining from acting upon the desire to gossip that may arise due to being triggered by a fellow survivor. 

[neloran]

Multiple Pathways to DID Recovery

Let me preface this by saying, this is my opinion only. Take what you like and leave the rest.

Education is starting to transform misconceptions around dissociation. Change is happening. Look at the ISSTD Treatment Guidelines, Plural Positivity Conference, #actuallyDID hashtag on Tumblr, Reddit, WordPress, and many other collective communities of people speaking up about DID.

I’m starting to see, as someone living with DID, that people recover from their trauma and dissociation in varied ways. This can be for many different reasons. People have varied innate resiliency, others have supportive family members, while others received access to appropriate treatment early in life. Some people face the added struggle of stressors like homelessness, addiction, or physical health problems. Those are just a few of many factors that can change peoples pathway through recovery.

One aspect that seems to be central, is a support system. Sheppard Pratt’s Trauma Disorders Unit, in conjunction with ISSTD Guidelines, incorporate this as the therapeutic milieu. Patients are encouraged to utilize both their “small team” and the entire unit as peer support throughout the program.

Here are some ways I have heard people on Reddit, Tumblr, and YouTube explains their healing.

Self-Help/No Treatment

Some people don’t have access to treatment geographically close to where they live. Or, perhaps treatment is available, but for financial reasons not attainable. Others choose not to seek treatment for privacy reasons.

Self-help proponents claim to achieve a natural stabilization of their dissociation symptoms. This is done through various changes in habits to support stability. Some people exercise, practice meditation, or find safe, supportive peers with DID to talk out challenges.

Support Groups

Building on the idea of finding safe, supportive peers, some people find support groups in their community where they can meet and talk with other individuals living with mental health issues. Most of these groups are face-to-face but some meet online as well. Some examples:

1. NAMI Support Groups

2. Celebrate Recovery

3. Double Trouble

4. Tumblr/Reddit/WordPress/YouTube

Recovering Our Own Way

I am a big proponent of treatment. I believe in therapy, including inpatient for treatment of Dissociative Disorders when needed. I love the Reddit DID community. I don’t think it’s wise to share names of parts online, so as not to trigger other people who have parts with similar names. I don’t believe in recording ourselves or watching videos of DID Systems on YouTube (again, because this can be extremely triggering). Some people are clearly seeking attention on YouTube, and deep down are not posting their videos for educational purposes.

Here’s the thing, though. Seeking attention isn’t a bad thing. Especially validating or positive attention. It’s the way we go about it, that is important. Realistically, we can’t expect followers to flock to our tumblrs or channels and receive instant gratification for our loneliness. Even if we’re lucky and they do, it won’t be lasting. Building safe relationships is hard. It requires communication, boundaries, respect, and trust.

But it’s oh-so-worth it.

There are people who will disagree with me. They have had bad experiences in therapy, or have found creating YT videos to be internally fulfillling.

And that’s okay, too.

We should support one another and respect the benefits of the supportive systems we have built. We will have different ways of healing and different perspectives on living with trauma and dissociation. By respecting each other’s approaches to recovery, we also respect the trauma we’ve endured, whether it is spoken aloud or not.

That is what it comes down to. Breaking the cycle of abuse and respecting individuality of our systems.

[neloran]

We go through intense feelings of shame, fear, anger, and abandonment. Give yourself credit. You experience these feelings and don’t run away. You advocate for yourself and the abuse’s effect on your life loses its power.

Mina (part) reminding us to feel good about feeling bad.

[neloran]

Self-harm and dissociation

Just passing through to say, I am really frustrated regarding this push-pull between parts right now.  It’s making safety a real obstacle.  Self-harmed again.

[neloran]

Am I the only person with DID who doesn’t call themselves “The [InsertNameHere] System”?

I do not want to honor my abusers by any means. They created systems and subsystems, they named them “A—— System,” “B—— System,” etc in order for them to be able call forward whoever they wanted in the situation.

It makes me feel very strange that other DID folks find it empowering to use abuser-created language.

For me, it’s important to stop trauma repetition. In my recovery, I choose to no longer recreate and reenact my trauma over and over. I no longer become whomever abusers desire me to be.

Sometimes this means, we rename ourselves something we like, or something that is safe. But it’s usually individual names. We don’t rename the whole subsystem.

Obviously, I feel profoundly about this topic. It’s triggering still, to see abuser language all over the place. I realize that many of these DID folks have not experienced abuser-created DID, so they are probably picking up on language that makes sense to them in their recovery.

As they say, “take what you like and leave the rest.”

[neloran]

Checked the heck OUT

I participate in SIA’s online Step Study meeting, and this month’s discussion is on Step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, the abuse, and its effects on our lives.

Here’s a snippet from the meeting:

This Step asked that our search within ourselves be fearless and that it be a moral inventory. Many of us recognize that fear is very much a part of our lives, not only fear of the abuse and the abuser, but fear of ourselves, too. We have been exposed to the dark sides of other people... That’s as far as I got before I dissociated.  Serious fight for control of the brain at the moment.  Fear not only holds me back in my recovery, generally speaking, but it keeps me from truly feeling free my abusers.

[neloran]

“The universe will surprise you, constantly.” - The Doctor

[neloran]

Step One Inventory: Powerlessness

I finished the first half of my Step One Inventory on powerlessness.  I’m not going to share it here because it’s the most detailed account of my trauma I’ve ever written.  It’s something I would need to process in therapy and perhaps with a sponsor first.  But here are a few of my takeaways...

**TRIGGER WARNING**

I fought a lot as a kid, and again as a teenager, against my abusers.  There were many times I just fought and fought.  There were also many times I gave up and dissociated.  There were many times early on, I had no idea what was happening was wrong.

All of the mixed messages (fighting but failing, telling about the abuse but not believed, disconnecting from my body) caused intense self-loathing to develop.  

A childhood so out of control, the only thing my child-brain could accept, in order to survive and not go completely insane, was that it was my fault.  

No wonder “admitting powerlessness” is so triggering.  It forces me to connect with the terror, confusion, and utter helplessness -- so intense -- that I had no recourse but to hate myself.

Yet--I also must respect this.  

Blaming myself for the abuse was a survival technique that worked.  It allowed me to make sense of the incomprensible trauma, and file it away in my brain with a neat label.

I’m alive because I believed it was my fault.  Yeah, I struggle with DID, low self-esteem, depression, and a whole host of nonsense, but I. AM. ALIVE.

[neloran]

Recovery is about more than walking away. Sometimes it means learning to stay and deal. It's about building and maintaining relationships that work.

Beyond Codependency

[neloran]

We may have an intense yearning “to be happy,” but we have no clues of what to seek or where to find it.

The Recovery Process, SIA

[neloran]

Progress, not Perfection

We may never fully overcome the trauma. But our desire to keep striving for healthy behaviors and compassionate connections with other DID survivors will create new, safe experiences we always deserved growing up.

Yesterday, my fiancé told me how much he loved me and was proud of my recovery. I felt uncomfortable with the positive feedback and I didn’t know how to receive it. How could I when my whole life was nothing but abusive feedback for everything I did?

I started internally beating myself up, feeling like an idiot or as if something was wrong with me. Why couldn’t I just accept his love and support like a normal human adult?

Well, guess what? Progress, not perfection. The fact that he is in my life, that I trust him, love him, and sought a relationship with him is progress.

I keep being aware of what I need to work on to keep going in this right direction. It’s not a step backward. It’s a sidestep that I take notice of, so I can stop doing this awkward dance.

[neloran]

Powerlessness at its best...

I finally sucked it up and dialed into one of the SIA phone meetings.  

Well, it's 9:15pm now, and it was to start at 9:00pm.  I'm listening to a silent phone line for $0.01 per minute..... ughhhhhh.

Trauma is isolating enough as it is.  I'm really struggling sitting here, and I'm struggling even more listening to a dead quiet phone meeting.

[neloran]

We admitted we were powerless over the abuse and its effects...

The first half of Step One of SIA is about powerlessness.  I mentioned in my last step work update that the term powerlessness is triggering to me, as it drags up feelings of terror and helplessness.  

That being said, going through this step should not be done lightly (for this very reason).  It should not be done quickly.  It’s imperative to the rest of the step work (so I’m told).  The idea is, truly connecting to what you remember about your abuse (mind, body, and soul connection) puts into reality the full nature of the trauma.  Having that reality in your mind, body, and soul in the present day changes our relationship with ourselves.

For instance, although I am fully aware I am a trauma survivor and I manage daily live with severe dissociation (I am SO not in denial of this), my dissociation prevents that full mind, body, and soul connection.  It’s easy to ignore my insiders partially or be fully amnesiac to their pain.  When I’m depressed and can’t go to work, I am often self-critical.  By beating myself up, I’m also being not-so-kind to any child parts listening who are the source of the sadness.

Step One, even though it’s terrifying to connect with such powerlessness, allows me to flip a switch on the conditioned abusive response of being self-critical.  I can start to be more compassionate to my insiders, practice self-care, self-soothing, and empathy.  This strengthens my choices in life, so that I begin to make decisions that are kinder, healthier, and healing.