Tailspin
I said in my last post that I’m treading water in an ocean rip… well the current just got bumped up a notch or three…
I had my last session for the year with Liz on Tuesday. I’ve totally forgotten everything that was said except for one thing… I told her that I wasn’t angry and she laughed, saying that she didn’t believe me as she could cut the pain and anger that was in the air with a knife. I’m honestly not aware of the pain and anger. Sometimes I can get a glimpse of annoyance with something, but not pain and anger. But they must be there, I’ve disclosed two more abusive events over the last two weeks, that must generate some emotion… surely.
As a result of the session, I had a really bad night trying to work through the different messages and fantasies that were coming through. It was a blur of switching, talking to a friend and negative behaviours. By morning the previous day was a gone from my memory and I had a made a firm commitment to taking further steps toward respite care. I still hadn’t heard back from my psychiatrist, so I went to see my GP yesterday afternoon. The appointment was very surreal… I explained why I needed respite care and she was so unprepared for organising it that she didn’t have the right referral forms with her and was unsure if they would accept me because I have suicidal ideation. I can understand them not wanting to accept someone with suicidal intent, and I’m not sure how far along the scale I am between ideation and intent, so I’m possibly not a safe bet for respite. But I have to try.
When I got home, after assurances that the doctor will fill in the forms the next day and send them off, I found an email from my psychiatrist. I’d also asked him about respite, but basically he passed the buck to the crisis team. To put this into context, I haven’t physically seen the man in over six months. He’s changed and increased prescriptions via email based on my reporting of issues. So this latest passing of the buck is a bit of a blow. Whenever I’ve asked the crisis team about respite care in the past, they’ve always said that they are full. The only option is the psychiatric ward. The psychiatrist said that he will warn them that I might need respite care… well that’s pretty meaningless in the scheme of things…
So… I have no therapist for the next month; a GP who has said that I might not get into respite because of suicidal ideation; if I do get into respite, it could take weeks to get a spot; and a psychiatrist who is fairly casual in their level of response. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come and save me… but at least someone to offer some realistic hope would’ve been good. I’m now at work and can feel the heaviness of the depression and hopelessness closing in.
In the good news stakes, the mother has suggested that she doesn’t come up for Christmas. I can’t yet bring myself to confirming that I don’t want her here, but I know I have to.
PDF Is this what anger feels like?
“I always thought there was something going on.”
Those are the words my mother has repeated to me several times about one of the sisters boyfriends who was abusing me.
“I always thought there was something going on.”
Those words are possibly meant to validate what I experienced… sort of a vote that the mother believes we may have been hurt… But this is what those words say to some of us…
“You were not worth worrying about. I suspected you were being hurt, but you weren’t as important as the sister… our reputation… my feelings… anything… you are, and were, worthless and meaningless.”
Because of how we view that sentence by the mother, I think there is a deep seeded feeling of resentment towards her. I don’t know if it is anger, maybe it is. I don’t know what anger feels like… Liz tried to explain to me that my feelings of anger drive my self-injury and suicidal ideation. If this is the case then I’m in trouble, as the mother is coming up for a two week visit over the Christmas break. Already the craziness has started… Last night I spent a disastrous night in the local psychiatric ward because I felt so unsafe.
Last nights experiences again raises the question of where I can get effective help in keeping myself safe. I talked to Liz about my safety last week and she suggested respite care places I’d never heard about before. This might be my only hope of finding somewhere I can go to stay safe and have the space to work on what I need to internally. Last night has shown me that I won’t find that environment in our public health system. So my only hope is to work this through myself with the basic level of assistance that Liz can offer. I realise that I can’t do this with the mother here. I could try to cancel her visit, but this is unlikely to occur as she has sold her house and will effectively be homeless over Christmas. So, my devious side has come up with a plan to use her to feed our cat while we go into respite care. I’m not sure if I can work it – it will depend on the psychiatrist saying that it is necessary, the respite places having an opening and me being able to cope with the place without necessary things like my computer – I will have the iPhone though, as long as they have wifi or 3G… I’ll also have the camera…
I realise that the people in the respite care won’t have any specialisation in trauma or DID. But, as a friend suggested, I need to work on this stuff internally or else I’m in trouble. So, if I can’t look for external sources for that help, then I’d better find some way of facing the internal chaos in my own way. I won’t necessarily find the answers or get the insight that would come with an external opinion, but it’s better than treading water in an ocean rip like I’m currently doing.
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Now playing: Hollie Smith – Bathe in the river
via FoxyTunes
Failure – as in, I feel like one
As a warning, this might not be one of my most rational entries – and there have been some pretty irrational ones over the past year…
Today we went to see Liz for our scheduled appointment. It was a monumental disaster. We had to talk about a report for ACC to ensure we continue to receive funding (yes, this funding seems to be a continual battle). We were in protection mode, pretty much shut down with Sophie only able to look at the keys she was playing with in her hands. We’re very aware that ACC want to see improvement – no matter how small. But, we haven’t improved much and if we put that in the report, we would probably end up being sent for a psychiatric assessment. We had this knowledge sitting in the back of our head and were trying to tailor our answers as a consequence. Then Liz casually dropped a bombshell…
“We can’t have you functioning too low or out of control or they’ll refer you to mental health services for the DBT programme.”
This is one of our nightmares… being sent to DBT in New Zealand.
I know people are helped by that programme every day. I know it helps with emotion regulation and mindfulness… I know it could potentially help me immensely. BUT over here, there is no streaming or grouping according to functioning, you are placed in the first opening they have. There aren’t any evening courses, so I’d end up having to take time off work. This means that I could end up in a group which is incredibly low functioning and triggering for me. I don’t cope well with groups, so I’d sit there like a stuffed dummy, avoiding the whole situation – I didn’t talk once during a Mindfulness course which lasted for six weeks. What’s worse is that it will odds are trigger M to come forward to protect us, so we’d end up appearing saner than the therapists and be ticked off as “cured” very quickly.
Yes, I know this hasn’t happened and was just an idle comment by Liz… but with the changes in ACC policy, it’s a very real possibility. I never thought I’d say it, but please let them decide that I need a psychiatric assessment. Anything but DBT.
The flip side of this conversation, is that we now think that we’re too much for Liz to cope with and this is her way of introducing the idea of us moving on to someone else. So the concept of testing her with our trust, went flying out the window. Again, I know that she hasn’t said that she’s going anywhere… It’s just our damaged perception of what happened.
Problem is, our damaged perception seems very real right now.
Broken heap on the floor
On Thursday we got a call from ACC. After three months deliberation on our case, they made one minor change. M asked how our corrections to the report had been factored into this decision. ACC response – what corrections? They had never received them, or lost them. To put this into context, we started this process in February of last year, it’s gone through about five different variations on the report and now gone to mediation. It took us two weeks and a lot of strength to write those corrections which involved correcting the details of our abuse and more devastatingly, writing anywhere for the first time that the father sexually abused us. So this was highly confidential, soul destroying information… and they LOST it! It could have ended up anywhere, anyone could have been reading it – it had our name, address and everything on it.
When I’ve told people this, their immediate response is “Oh no, do you have a copy on your computer?” Yes, of course we do. I know that’s the reasonable response you give to an adult. But SO holds the secrets on that bit of paper and she is 7. All she sees is that we should never have told the secrets cos it’s bad and lots of people read it and it’s bad and we’s get into trouble and we’s bad and evil and it all our fault. It becomes a mantra that we’re bad and evil for telling. W and SO are closely linked within the system. SO gets upset and W will react. This action meant a call to the mental health crisis line on Thursday night to stop the suicide. In typical form with our interactions with this team, the connection was bad and they were going to call back. They did eventually – on Saturday. We had the usual conversation:
Crisis Line: You’re suicidal, lets bring you in for an assessment.
Us: No thanks, your only option is hospital and that isn’t an option for me.
Crisis Line: No, we also have community placements or agree to regular contact for a week to see how you’re going. We can also get you in to see one of our community psychiatrists.
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Almost like they will be able to help.
Us: In my experience that has never happened. I’ve been promised community placement, only to end up in the psychiatric ward. I’ve had phone calls daily from your team and they’re more triggering than helpful.
Crisis Line: Well I’m sorry that has been your experience, let us know if we can help.
I know that those of you who haven’t experienced their services will say I’m being stupid for rejecting this assistance. I know that they have saved many lives. But our issues with authority and psychiatric hospitals mean that they are more likely to kill than save us. We call them for the distraction, nothing more.
One of us called them again on Saturday night and we ended up being hauled in for an assessment. It was hell. We need peaceful surroundings and control when we’re suicidal. But last night it was raining and there was international rugby on TV. Those two factors meant that a great deal of the homeless had decided to be suicidal that night in order to watch the rugby, have a shower, get a meal and warm bed. The shelters would’ve been overwhelmed, and they know that if you say you’re suicidal, they have to admit you.
We managed to get out of the hospital and get to the relative safety of home. But we’re a mess. The oddest things are triggering. We know that people need to talk about how they cope with sex as a survivor. But today, it’s too much. It’s become about others not being safe – cos all sex hurts.
We’re in trouble and I don’t know how to fix it.
Hospitals – the psychiatric type
In the town where we grew up, there was a psychiatric hospital. It was spoken about in hushed whispers as a scary place where crazy people were fenced in and tortured. In reality, the hospital catered predominantly for those who were institutionalised during a time in our history when those with even minor problems were often hidden away. We were told as part of our abuse, that if we told the secrets we would be sent to prison or this hospital forever. So our early contact with psychiatric hospitals was negative.
If you place these experiences within the context of our rather traumatic experiences with the medical profession, you get a picture of someone who has deep seeded issues and fears about all things medical. The young ones especially react with terror even when driving by a hospital. We avoid dentists, doctors and nurses where at all possible. In many ways this fear enabled us to appear high functioning for many years – if there was a threat of having to ask for help through therapy or medication, well that just wasn’t acceptable. Time to stamp it all back down into The Basement and carry on being invisible.
Then arrives the dissociative train wreck we experienced when about 34. Our coping mechanisms fell apart. Then there was the final straw – we were teaching a group of 40 students when something about the interactive whiteboard markers caused Angel to come forward. So there you have a 5 year old drawing pictures of flowers on the whiteboard while a group of adult students look on. M comes back to find half the board covered…
So back to therapy we went. We were in the throes of an abusive marriage and suddenly facing a childhood that wasn’t as perfect as we’d convinced ourselves it was. These factors led to constant suicidal ideation and intent, which in turn resulted in us needing to find some support to keep safe.
In New Zealand there are a few support lines for suicide help – Lifeline, Samaritans, Youthline, the emergency number or the local mental health hotline. Lifeline, Samaritans and Youthline are confidential – unless they feel you are in danger, in which case they will try to get your details and send around the Police. Emergency services transfer you through to the mental health hotline, unless you are already need emergency care. Once you’re in the mental health system, you are told to call the mental health hotline. Usually you wait for 5-10 minutes on hold before the phone is answered – ever been suicidal during the Christmas season and had to listen to Christmas carols for 20 minutes while waiting to see if someone can help you stop killing yourself? You can at least double the waiting time if you call after midnight, as that’s when they go down to one or two operators.
If you do manage to get through to a human, you’re asked for your details – name, phone, address, caseworker and then why you’ve called. If they consider you to be at risk, they will send around the local mental health workers to assess you. If they consider that you aren’t at risk, they will discuss grounding skills you can use before sending you on your way. The problem with this is that at any one time we can have up to 5 suicide plans – apparently that means we don’t really mean to die as we’re not focused on one plan (we consider it covering our bases in case one doesn’t work). We can also begin the phone call with one who wants to reach out for help; but by the time we get to actually talk to someone, we’ve switched to one who either won’t talk or says that everything is fine. So in many ways the service doesn’t suit us (and a majority of the population).
If you are considered at risk, you get the joyful experience of being escorted up to the psychiatric ward of the local hospital. Where you begin the wait for some poor registrar who has been working for at least 10 hours and is surviving on a combination of adrenaline, coffee and sugar. This person then has to assess your level of danger. Most registrars haven’t dealt with anyone with a dissociative disorder, let alone tried to understand if there really is a risk. They have a thankless job of walking a tightrope – is the patient telling the truth? To make this job more complicated, during our experiences with registrars they’ve encountered -
- Aimee (9 yrs old and carefree) who smilingly told the nice young registrar that she was too young to drink. Quite forgetting that the body she shares is in it’s mid 30′s and sitting cross-legged on a hospital bed while drips are hanging from each arm to pump us full of drugs to counter the drugs we’d OD’d on.
- Sophie (16 yrs old) who is our safest bet for these assessments – no one would section Sophie. The main problem is getting close enough to hear her as she talks very quietly when scared or worried.
- M who is the other safe bet. She’s confident and knows how to work the mental health system to ensure that we are released. Release is always her goal as the young ones she protects are violently triggered by hospitals.
- Ellie who won’t be sectioned as long as she can keep her swearing and scorn for the medical profession under control.
- Frank who is the worst one to front for an assessment. He doesn’t get suicidal, but doesn’t understand what constitutes aggressive behaviour as seen in the eyes of a psychiatrist. He doesn’t actually get aggressive, but his anger at being in a hospital is seen as aggression.
It’s at this point where we’ve usually been sent home. But on two occasions we’ve been admitted or sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
Event 1: Sectioning with two nights in hospital.
- Night of admission, put into art therapy room with triggering artwork around the walls.
- Given a single room across from an alcoholic man in his 40′s (the father is an alcoholic).
- As punishment for being admitted W used all of her strength to try and break the arms by bashing them against the storage unit in the room.
- A miracle was there in the form of a part-time night nurse. She realised we wouldn’t sleep so asked if we wanted art supplies and then she sat and talked to us. She didn’t care who she talked to, she just sat on the floor and let us talk and draw. She got us Arnica cream for the bruised, swollen mess that was now our arms without a fuss.
- Then there was the daytime registrar. We had asked to be released as the hospital was too triggering. He went through the whole assessment again. He asked why our symptoms made us special. We tried to explain that we weren’t special, just sometimes experienced dissociation. He dismissed the dissociation saying it wasn’t important. Then when returning after talking to the consultant, said that the dissociation made us too unpredictable to release. Yes, the one symptom that he totally dismissed, became the thing he used to keep us in.
- That night the same part-time nurse told us how to get out – say the words “I have no intent”.
- The following day a different registrar got the consultant to come in and talk to us. He was going to let us out for the day, but M came forward and dazzled him with a veil of sanity. We were outta there.
Event 2: Admitted to the secure unit with one night stay.
- Saturday afternoon attempted suicide through an overdose and was taken to ER by the husband.
- Put on a drip and was overwhelmed by the dissociation.
- Overheard the nurses say that we hadn’t really overdosed, but were just attention seeking – our bed was right beside the nurses station and strangely enough the curtains aren’t sound proof.
- As soon as we were coherant, we asked to leave.
- After a 5 hour wait, we were assessed by the same psychiatrist who once picked up the phone while we were in the room and told the DBT specialist that “the borderline actually turned up, do you want to come meet her?”
- Because of all the triggers, Ellie and Frank weren’t able to control the anger very well. We were escorted to the secure unit by the Police. We didn’t threaten anyone or even raise our voice, but we were considered to be irrational and dangerous because of the barely contained rage.
- We were released the next morning.
If we are ever sectioned again, we’ll request to go to the secure unit. It was comparatively peaceful and safe. If any of the half a dozen patients even raise their voice, they are immediately surrounded by about four staff and taken away to be calmed down. The only downside was that the cups of tea were lukewarm – hot water being a dangerous weapon.
This is a very light hearted look at our experiences. In reality, during the sectioning Sophie was nearly destroyed when her twin came from The Basement to tell her why they were created. The day after we were released from the secure unit, the ex-husband tried to kill us. Other incidents have occurred while we’ve been waiting to be assessed, including one I’d like to forget where a patient masturbated while looking through the window at us.
We sit in wonder when people say that they voluntarily go to hospital. It’s a concept that we don’t understand – why would you volunteer for torture, ridicule and scorn? We know our perception is warped and that hospitals help people every day. But it’s not something we identify with. It was once recommended that we go to Ashburn Hospital for a minimum of six months to try and break our cycle of destructive thinking. Just the thought of that was terrifying. I wonder if part of the reason is that in New Zealand the focus within the psychiatric ward seems to be on holding you in a safe place until the suicidal intent goes, rather than helping you in a long term way. It’s reactive rather than proactive.
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Now playing: Dixie Chicks – Wide open spaces
via FoxyTunes
Irony and psychiatric meds
Today we felt good! The birthday is over and we are clear of some of the pain and confusion that birthdays bring. We even got a call from the local primary school to say that we’d won a raffle, with the prize being a $50 meat pack. It’s rather ironic in that we can’t touch meat. What will be even more amusing, is if the meat pack comprises mainly of pork (otherwise known as Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web).
So we were feeling settled and mildly amused by life again. But then we made the mistake of opening an email from our psychiatrist. We’d emailed him earlier in the week to tell him that the trial of Buspirone was not working very well as we’ve been experiencing the common side effects of light headedness, nausea and a worsening in our insomnia. We asked him what he suggested considering this reaction, thinking that he would want to talk over the options. Instead we got an email from him saying that he wants another trial. This time of Stelazine (Trifluoperazine) and Propranolol. They’re rapidly running out of drugs to trial us on. We’ve already been told by two previous psychiatrists that drugs are possibly not a viable option for us as we’re sensitive to drugs and often experience quite dramatic side effects.
We’re not sure if we want to go through another month of playing around with our brain chemistry. At the very least we were hoping to have a discussion with him about the options. But then, he knows we’d just go and research the drug he suggested anyway, so this way he saves himself a half hour appointment. OK, that sounds too harsh… He actually is a very kind man. I think we’re just stinging a bit as it feels as if we’ve been treated as a number rather than a person.
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Now playing: Missy Higgins – Stuff and nonsense
via FoxyTunes
Own worst enemy
We’re currently being trialled on some medication to see if it can assist in reducing the anxiety that we have fairly constantly. This in itself isn’t a bad thing – reducing anxiety is good. What is a problem, is that the psychiatrist who has prescribed the medication has put it on closed control dispensing because we’re considered a suicide risk. This means that we have to go pick-up the medication weekly. Normally this isn’t a problem. But last week they didn’t have enough pills to fill the prescription so told us we had to come back in a couple of days when they’d been resupplied. Again, this wasn’t a problem. We thought that we’d be able to just go in when the current meds finished and pick up the ones owed and the new weeks medication – it was their error for not having enough supplies on site, so we didn’t see the big deal. Well apparently it DID matter…
- Initially they were just going to give us the new weeks worth of medication.
- We stupidly asked for the balance of last weeks medication.
- Pharmacist went back to the computer to check what the balance was about.
- She brought out the 1.5 days of medication that was the balance from last week.
- We asked for the new weeks as well – we didn’t want to have to waste more petrol by coming back in two days.
- Then they started on about the closed control dispensing and not being able to give the medication early, or more than a weeks worth at any one time.
- We questioned the validity of this statement considering they were about to give us the weeks worth two days early just a few minutes ago, and it was only when we asked about the balance that this became an issue.
- They again talked about closed control and brought out the original prescription notes from the psychiatrist.
- We agreed that it was closed control, however it was not our fault that they couldn’t control their stock levels.
- They talked about not being their fault and that they couldn’t not fill other peoples medication just because we might come in.
By this point we were more than a little unimpressed. We haven’t attempted suicide in nearly a year. Closed control is pointless – we’re librarians, we could find a recipe online easily that didn’t include taking this medication. This medication isn’t working, so we’re jumping through hoops to obtain a medication that is doing nothing – but we need to keep taking it until we see the psychiatrist again. At least we’re having no side effects…
After much discussion, we walked out of the pharmacy with the weeks worth of medication and the assurance from the pharmacy that they were going to call the psychiatrist to tell him that we’d come in early to pick-up the medication. We asked if they were also going to inform him that the reason why we had to pick-up the medication early was because of their stock issues. We were assured they would. Doubting whether it happened…
What we found really interesting about the whole interaction is that the pharmacists immediately thought that we were saying that other peoples prescriptions shouldn’t have been filled because we were more important. They didn’t seem to understand that we were questioning their ability to manage their own medicine stock levels. I would hope that they gave the medication to the other people. Again our inability to carry out basic communication.
I sometimes wonder if we get mixed up because of the internal conversations that occur. I wonder if we forget or don’t realise that something that has been discussed internally has yet to be verbalised to the external world??
As a separate issue, we created the clip One year on… We are worried about making it live because the friend who has been strange with us, might get hurt by it. Really annoyed with ourselves that we are changing things we should be happy about because of him.
We are our own worst enemy at times…
Who makes DID a valid diagnosis?
This is going to be a rant. I offer no apologies for this fact, nor offer any reasons other than the ignorance of others and our current level of switching. I’d like to acknowledge the work of Emily, Camigwen and David when I write this, as their blogs and responses have helped to stir questions within this system that we needed to address.
Our questions include:
- Why do people not believe in a diagnosis that has been proven over time?
- Why would people want to fake such a disorder?
- What within this bodies past would cause such injury to the identity that it caused dissociation to become a disorder?
I consider that all of these questions come from one:
Who or what makes DID a valid diagnosis?
As this is our blog, I’ll concentrate on whom and what makes DID valid for us.
Is it the fact that we refer to this body as the collective terms “we”, “us” and “the body”?
No, this could be a learned behaviour that comes from some bizarre need to get attention through faking such a disorder. We are intelligent, this has been shown in IQ tests and our ability to get A+ grades at the Masters level, so remembering to use these ways to address the body would be easily done.
I’m told that when we first went and saw the new therapist that our fear of referring to the body as “we”, “us” etc was so high that we avoided saying any personal terms. Which worked to the point where the therapist asked us why we weren’t using any of the “I” terminology? Her observation annoyed those who had been present for the initial interview. But it also gave them hope – she may be able to help us unravel this mind and sort out what is occurring.
This concept is further complicated by some of us using the terminology “I”, but it only referring to the part that is present. So while Sophie may say “I’m worried about … today” Aimee may say “I’m happy today”. So the context of the “I” is only for that part and only for their experiences. This has caused difficulties when contacting crisis lines, as it is usually Sophie who calls, but she is never suicidal and never self-injures. So the crisis line worker hears a rather shy voice that is able to communicate that there are several different suicide plans and that there is a need for help – but the person asking for the help has a consistent speech pattern, is worried and fearful but is not obviously suicidal. What they don’t hear is the states that are totally devoid of emotion and have the suicide plans. We are unable to get them to communicate with the crisis lines as there is an inherent danger that they may be able to carry out the plans, or they just don’t want to reach out for help.
Having discounted basic terminology, what about the symptoms that we experience? Once, while being assessed for release from sectioning under our Mental Health Act, we were asked to list our symptoms. The list includes derealisation, depersonalisation, dissociation, sleeping problems, anxiety, hypervigilance, hypovigilance, flashbacks, nightmares etc. The assessing resident response was that everyone experienced that, so what made us so special?
So do those symptoms make us special or different? No they don’t. They do however mean that at times we are unable to carry out the normal activities that other New Zealanders enjoy. It means that at times we react oddly or badly to triggers. It affects nearly every aspect of this life – from doing the shopping, to intimacy, to household chores.
We don’t call attention to these symptoms, and are rather stunned if someone around us notices that we do something slightly differently from everyone else. As we are the only ones who can truly see what is going on in this head, it is also difficult to establish whether the severity of the symptoms we have is consistent with having a dissociative (or any other) disorder. Possibly our symptoms are in the “normal” or usual range of experiences and we just can’t cope with them. Considering the amount of assessments we’ve been subjected to over the last three years, it’s become obvious that we’re either a very good actress, or there is some form of disorder occurring.
So should we believe the psychiatrist, clinical psychologists and therapists that we’ve seen? It would be easy if they agreed. We’ve had experiences where we’ve switched in front of our first therapist, she even asked what had happened – according to her we were still physically sitting in the same place, but it appeared as if we’d moved away from her. This was just a switch from the softer Sophie, to the older and more confident Management. We’ve been told that the anger the Frank shows is reason enough to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act. We’ve been told that we have Borderline Personality Disorder, DDNOS, Depression, Anxiety disorders, Epilepsy; Bi-polar disorder… the list goes on. Some of these labels were put on our medical records in an attempt to get us assistance. What’s been interesting has been other mental health professionals responses to those diagnoses. Some look at the list and say that we’re typical Borderlines who are just attention seeking. Our clinical psychologists counters this by asking what attention we’ve enjoyed receiving over the last three years, the response is NONE. Our life revolves around trying to keep the appearance of “normal”. The ex-husband used this trait, and the dissociation to abuse us severely.
So if we can’t trust the mental health professionals, who are we meant to believe? Who do we look to for making the DID diagnosis valid for us?
The answer always seems to come back to one thing – Katie. Katie is our youngest active part. She is three, nearly four. She constantly follows Sophie and will only talk to her. She is precious, she is the reason many of us fight to keep this body alive and in one piece. She is not the identity of birth, but she is our centre. It makes us all stop instantly if Sophie says that Katie is “scaredy cat”. The worst sight ever is seeing her curled up rocking from the pain – either from memories or what is occurring within the system/life.
It could be argued that Katie represents an “inner child” that everyone experiences. This is again possible as we only have our own experiences; we don’t know what anyone else’s inner child acts like. However, we also have W, SO, S, M, A etc. These parts all have different memories, ways of interacting with the world (inner and outside), and mannerisms. W is calm, quiet, reserved, has issues with religion and is a Science whizz; while SO is anxious, must keep moving, constantly scratches the arm and talks rapidly.
So where does that leave us? In limbo. DID is not recognised widely in New Zealand. We’ve never been formally tested for any of the dissociative disorders, and in some respects it would be pointless to do so. We’re intelligent; we would be able to skew the results of the tests if we wanted to. So all we have is our collective experiences which seem to add up to DID in the eyes of many of the mental health professionals we’ve seen. What it hasn’t done is given us hope. We’re still struggling to find a therapist who can help us. We try to express our thoughts, feelings and experiences through media such as YouTube and get told that what we’re experiencing is delusional and we need to accept that delusion in order to move forward.
All we know is that we need help. We are becoming lost in the dissociation. Our fronting personality for many years has gone to sleep. We’re struggling to find a way to make this life work with the parts that are here and functioning. We’re asking parts to be up front who have never had that level of exposure and sometimes it doesn’t work. Just recently one of the women at work asked us if we had multiple personality disorder. That gave us all a shock. We managed to laugh it off, but it shows that our ability to hide as developed cracks. We need to repair those cracks rapidly.
Sorry for the length of this post. I rarely am here, so wanted to raise questions for the others to see.
Take care.
Be well.
World’s shortest stay in respite care….
Ok, so we managed to get respite organised. They said they would extend the stay out for two weeks if we needed it – they were really nice :)
But then we got there… PANIC… They forgot to mention that the respite place was an old converted hospital! We can’t do hospitals. One of our worst triggers. Sure it had been converted and re-decorated and everything, but it was still looking like an old hospital. We lasted about an hour and 2mg of clonazepam. They tried having someone there that we could call on for help, and then leaving us totally alone. Then they nicely asked if we thought we could cope. Well did a bit of craziness then bugged outta there!
They drove us around to the local psyc ward as they were concerned about our level of safety, but were released after being assessed by some resident who didn’t know much. Random question – why do they make the least experienced people in the hospital do assessments?????
So we’re back home with our cat… lol.
Hating what our clinical psychologist and psychiatrist are going to say considering that they were the ones that organised the whole thing! Caught between feeling like a failure for not being able to stay at a respite place and just pure relief for having gotten outta there! It was a place where we were meant to relax and be safe for goodness sake… But no, we freak out just cos of the shape and feel of the building. How pathetic is that?
