#blendyposting

[orbitposting]

The internet is a wonderful place but MAN I wish there was more of a mind-your-own-business culture on here sometimes. Queer discourse online very much revolves around labels and if they are "correct" or "valid" or not, which doesn't actually get anyone anywhere. Queer identity isn't simple or "palatable". If you use a microlabel, you get criticized. If you use the "wrong" label, you get criticized. Don't even get me started on the criticism of people who just don't wish to label their gender and/or sexuality.

[orbitposting]

A Step Back

I am so fortunate to have the health that I do right now. For months and months, I was struggling with symptoms similar to Fibromyalgia. It may have taken until the 10th month of the year, but I've noticed that I don't have the level of chronic fatigue or pain I had earlier this year! I saw a neurologist to get my migraines medicated, who pointedly asked if I have ever been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which I haven't. I have since started on a migraine medication. Also, healed a stomach ulcer. Over time, I started strengthening my knees little by little, which helped with a subluxation I had in the middle of December. I started supplementing mainly Vitamin B12/Vitamin D, since I was deficient in both. I am also on a psychiatric medication combo that works for me, and helps with my chronic pain.

I feel much better than I could have ever imagined. While I knew I wasn't diagnosed, I figured I was experiencing Fibromyalgia, and was worried since I haven't heard that it was treatable. If anything, that sounded impossible. My residential experience gave me my life back in a lot of ways*. My therapist there was incredible and actually treated my trauma instead of telling me to cope 24/7. He instilled (reasonable!) doubt in my BPD diagnosis, and my current therapist agrees that I do not have BPD. My therapist showed me that I don't hate therapy, I just had never had a therapist that was a good fit for me.

As per my DID, it is much more under control now. I believe over the course of residential, I had two alters who split off within that year fuse back. This resulted in much less amnesia and chaos (my running theory is that my system can only handle three "main" fronters at a time). I'm also more confident in saying that I have DID now since I was evaluated for neurological problems (that would contribute to those symptoms), and nothing really came up. Just migraines and a structural MRI observation.

I believe due to the introduction to trauma therapy I had with CPT, I'm much more prepared for system work than I was before. Before then, I had far too much amnesia and chaos to work with anyone else. While we still aren't out to our current therapist, we don't believe we will unless we want/need a referral to a dissociation specialist. In the meantime, we're just working on trauma stuff in general. In our experience, that's enough to help.

During our stay we were actually diagnosed with a couple other things we have known about for a long time, but were denied by therapists. Now we are actually getting treatment for those additional things. Overall, I'm really happy where my life is at right now, and I don't see that changing any time soon. I'm much more emotionally resilient rather than dissociatively resilient, if that makes sense. I actually thrive through life rather than constantly just surviving. I genuinely thought this would never happen for me, and I'm relieved it has.

*My therapist has since been laid off, so I won't recommend this residential program by name, specifically. And your mileage may vary. People who were at my SAME FACILITY had very different experiences.