DID Support group helps, and trying to drive safely

This morning I went to the DID support group in my county again. Its held twice a month, but I wish it was held more often. I had stopped going altogether for about a year because I was just in a bad spot, mentally. But this summer I've been able to go back. Today was helpful. Its so nice to know I'm not alone in some of the things that happen inside. For instance, someone else brought up a problem today that I struggle with all the time, but I dont think I've ever talked about.
Its with driving. Its just always been dangerous for me.
I've had too many friends be killed in car accidents in the past... things I still am not over with for a number of reasons. So every time me or someone I love is in a car, I'm completely paranoid and terrified of them having an accident and getting killed.
Secondly, its a big problem to be dissociating while driving. Lots of people, by the way, do this. The whole "highway hyponosis" thing is when people kind of space out while driving and get to their destination without quite realizing how they did it, because they are so used to driving the route and don't really have to pay attention anymore.
But this is different.
I've always had kids or teenagers take over while driving, which as one of my good friends will attest to, is a BIG HUGE problem. The kids think they can drive. They CANT. They think they can read road signs. They CANT. One time my friend was driving with me, and the 5 year old took over and nearly rushed the car into the highway and traffic. Thank goodness for me, I dont remember the incident because I wasn't there at all, but my poor friend-- who knows what terrible things SHE went through because of that little switch. :(
Also, I've got Nobody inside, and she is always very depressed and sometimes suicidal. She wants to do things like ram the car into oncoming traffic, or head into a semi at 100 mph to see if it'll kill her. It takes every ounce of my willpower to keep her from doing this, especially when her arms tense up and I can feel myself losing control over my body. I hate it, hate it, hate it. Its so hard to maintain control. A few times, I've had to pull over to the side of the road and take a break until Carolineine or someone else more responsible could take over and control these impulses.
Another problem is with the kids, they are very into "Science Experiments." Such as, "hey what would happen if the car went flying over the bridge? would we fly? does gravity work? can we make the car go like a roller coaster? how far would the car go before we started to sink? does the car float?" I spend many a car trip talking to the kids about how we are absolutely NOT going to try flying the car TODAY, sorry; you can do some other science experiment when we get home; YES, I KNOW it would be fun to fly, but we're REALLY not birds.
It was a relief at group today to hear others with DID discuss this, and I also got some ideas about how to handle it. At least on how to handle the kids. Such as with bribes... "We'll do _____ if you let us get home safely... now, we can't do ____ if we're DEAD, right? So lets get the car and us home safe."
Part of my challenge right now is that my therapist is moving her office even farther away than it was already. It was already hard to say goodbye to her office; the 5 year old did that the other day. But now we're going to have to drive farther for every appointment than we already do.
My therapist is worth it; our relationship and the work we do is worth it. I just am so worried that now we're going to be driving more and longer and farther... I'm still trying to figure out how to manage the safety thing when it was already a problem.... not to mention gas money. I'm definitely NOT changing therapists and NOT starting over with someone new. What I have to figure out is how to control everyone inside and how to make driving safer. I've got about 1 week left to figure out how to do that.

Posted by pilgrim | Filed under:

1. Posted by Judy on August 6, 2005