Pilgrim's Journey

D.I.D. and Switching-- What's it Like

What is switching like when you have DID? Switching is the process of changing from one alter/ personality/ inside person to another. It varies from one system to another. Some of the members of AMJ, my forum for people with DID, have put together some valuable insights on what the process of switching is like for them. Some quotes:
- Tt is if I am watching what is happening from behind. The best thing I can say is that it reminds me of being back stage watching what is going on through the curtain or wings of the stage.
-There are times when I feel very distant from everything, and everything seems foggy. It’s like I’m on the outside, watching a TV with reception that fades in and out. Sometimes the reception isn’t so bad, so I can follow what’s going on, and keep track of the conversation/events. Sometimes the reception is very bad and I can’t keep track of what’s going on at all. Sometimes I don’t feel outside myself, I just feel like I’m in the background and someone else is talking/doing, but I can do/say things too.
-Before a switch we often get a building pressure kind of throbbing head and just before it's like our eyes aren't in the front of our head anymore, like they get sucked backwards deep into our skull. This part seems to be a co-conscious experience.Then time gets lost except for whoever came out.
(read more)

]]> -Sometimes I feel out of control and that I MUST protect myself at all costs, either by the whole lashing out thing, or by submitting completely. Switching is more of a PTSD thing for me, related to triggers, particularly in relationship. There are sometimes warning signs, but not always. When there are, it is usually my going silent and voiceless, and withdrawing completely, and then comes the storm - unless I manage to negotiate via internal dialogue, or reaching out and communicating with someone I feel safe with, in which case the switch is less 'public'. I am always co-conscious, but as the powerless onlooker much of the time, unless I am more present, in which case it's more of a mix,
-for us it's like a cave. most are in the back of the cave and can kinda look out from time to time or all the time if they like, but when a switch occurs the one coming forward comes closer to the front of the cave and the one up front tends to slide back. depending on how far the one up front (usually me) goes farther back the more lost time i get, but sometimes two come to the front and that is when we are co-conscious. switches can happen instantly if needed or they can happen over the course of a minute or so. usually in therapy it happens over a minute or so unless there is a sudden change in topic conversation and someone feels the need to take over.
-To me it begins in a series of steps:
1) I start to blank out - everything starts looking blurry and unreal
2) I feel as though I am being pulled backwards
3) Then I am somewhere behind, still present but not totally all there... (I have co-consciousness)
It feels like, when you look down a microscope at something, and then, while *still* looking through the eyepiece, you rotate the lens below to a different magnification. Feels almost exactly like that.Unless it is a hostile take over.. then it feels more like a shove from inside my mind, a horrible ripping pain starts in my heart and I feel as though I've been literally pulled out of the front through a small hole. Not pleasant.
-if i switch constantly i tend to loose time and memory. i know when im going 2 switch because we have an agreement to be nice enough to ask the other one if its ok
-If having a partial co-consciousness, I am watching me doing and talking things like on TV, not able to do anything for it. I'm like trapped in our body not able to do anything, but just watch what is happening.
-Backwards in the vision. As tyhough moving backwards from the eyes. Going back and fourth to normal. Slight hit of... dizzyness, eyes go really funny for a moment, feels intense, then back.After that I don't know.
-

feeling really alone

there's a lot going on lately. too much to fit in our head. too much to talk about. too much to say. we feel alone, separate from the world, like no one understands. but its our fault that we feel separate, because we can't talk about what's going on in our heads. if someone even asked us to explain, we probably couldn't. its just all too much. too many paths going nowhere. feeling helpless to make some situations better and just feeling lost. feeling like we're trying to hold back hoover dam with our pinky finger or something. just a lot going on at the moment, and its not a good feeling. family situations really suck sometimes.

Feeling Safe in therapy

Things are kind of tough right now. There's some outside stuff going on that's making life a little challenging and scary and worrisome. Making the world not feel safe again. It has made therapy a real challenge because we don't feel safe again, when we were starting to feel safer at our new therapist's office. The past few months have been really interesting because we all like Kathy a lot and inside kids are doing lots of hard work and we've been learning to trust Kathy and inside things are going better. But then outside stuff happens and--WHAM!-- makes everything scary again. Makes us question everything. But last night, for the 1st time in her life, Claire felt safe in our therapist's office and she hasn't ever felt safe anywhere before. She never felt safe at Sharon's. We didn't ever really feel too safe at Sharon's...but that is a long story. So last night, we really did begin to feel safe at Kathy's, and that was really nice. Something to begin to hold onto. When the kids start to feel something, it does begin to work its way to everyone else inside eventually, even if it takes a while. We know that Kathy is a safe person and we can trust her, we just all have to start feeling it. It was nice last night that Claire finally did. Things are going to be okay, at least in that room, in that city. The rest of the world, well, we don't know yet. But there, we are starting to feel safe.

Artwork by People with DID/ Internal Systems Pictures

Would you like to see how people with DID see themselves and their internal worlds? Here is a link to a series of pictures where people with multiple personalities have drawn/painted their inside worlds and inside systems. Its really fascinating. Be sure to check them out.

Littles and D.I.D.

A lot of people with DID have inside kids, frequently known as "littles". We prefer "kids" ourselves but on the internet most people call them littles or even lils. Remember back in the day when we used to try ignoring them? Not sure a good idea. If you've got them hanging around inside, its a good idea to pay attention to them, give them time to hang out, give them time to play and do the things they like on occassion. It makes things a LOT lot lot easier. We used to try to ignore the inside kids once in a while, but it didn't last for very long. It led to headaches, getting sick, and a lot more yelling inside. They don't like to be ignored for 5 minutes, let alone days on end.
Mae, Tuck, Claire, Mindy, and the others really love to color, play ball, go for walks, and play games, They also love to read books.
.We have a TON of children's books.
Here is a great book called I KNEW YOU COULD read online by Kathy Broady-- if you've some littles hanging around, have them pull up a chair and listen.

D.I.D. Therapy

http://discussingdissociation.wordpress.com/2010/02/10/10-did-therapy-101-tips/
This is a really good article by a trauma/DID therapist with her top 10 tips for how to do DID therapy. Excellent points to think about. Read it.

Online Support for Multiples

Are you someone with DID who needs a safe, caring environment to share your story and talk with other multiples?
Besides my forum, A Mind's Journey, there is also the Survivor Forum at http://www.survivorforum.com/
At Survivor Forum the therapeutic support section is moderated by a trauma therapist with over 20 years experience. It is a safe place that we enjoy being a part of. So if you want to connect with other people with DID, that's your place to go (and come visit us at AMJ too.)

Things Therapists Should Not Do

Ever since losing Sharon, a LOT of people have contacted us about things they have been through with their therapists, from different types of mistreatments, abuses, to just lousy ways of being dumped. Its been really sad to hear their stories. What really hurts is that these therapists are SUPPOSED to be the helpers, the healers...not the ones who hurt clients more. That was one of the things that hurt most about what Sharon did. She was aware of what she was doing, she was trained not to, but she did it anyway. When you're hurt by a therapist, it seems to cause a different kind of pain than when you're hurt by an "ordinary" person.

One of my friends is being brave enough to let me share her story here on Healthdiaries.
Her name is Katie, and thankfully, just as we have a wonderful therapist now, Katie has also been blessed with a great therapist to help her get over the pain of what her old T did. Here is Katie's story, in her own words:

]]> Admitting Stephanie was ever in a position to be my "therapist" still makes my head swim. I had the unfortunate experience of being recommended to her via my health insurance. She represents herself as a "trauma therapist" and yet violates you in ways that are completely retraumatizing. She's very tricky because in the beginning she was kind and seemingly understanding. That quickly changed, though.

So if you are looking for a trauma therapist, ask yourself these 10 questions first.

When is it okay for a therapist to yell at a client? NEVER.
When is it okay to slam doors, stomp up stairs, and throw things because you're angry at a client? NEVER.
When is it okay for a therapist to use profanity directed at a client? NEVER.
When is it okay for a therapist to tell a client that she makes her have sadistic thoughts? NEVER.
When is it okay for a therapist to tell a client she wants to slap her? NEVER.
When is it okay for a therapist to take you to their therapist with them? NEVER.
When is it okay for a therapist to threaten a client? NEVER.
When is it okay for a therapist to tell a client she is emotionally blackmailing her? NEVER.
When is it okay to accuse a client of something they didn't do? NEVER.
When is it okay that you're spending your money to work out your relationship with your therapist instead of being able to work on what brought you to therapy in the first place? NEVER.

These are just a few of the things Stephanie did to me in 2007.
She was unpredictable and confrontational. My anxiety before my appointments was through the roof and it caused me to be switchy and unstable before I even stepped foot into her office. The last session I had with her, she accused me of stealing her clock and something else just as ridiculous (I can't remember what it was). She left me defenseless because I had a key to her office. I absolutely did not do it, but there was no point in trying to defend myself. My mind immediately went to that trauma space in my head and I ended up overdosing that same day. By this time I had been seeing her for 8 months and was the sickest I had ever been because of her so-called "treatment" methods, which consisted of little more than threatening me that if I didn't do everything she said, she'd stop seeing me. When I did exactly what she said, she made things up that I "supposedly" did wrong, added new things to her "I won't see you anymore" list and told me she was treating me like "Pavlov's dog" when I told her she was passive/aggressive. When I emailed her and asked her to stop threatening me with not seeing me, she said I made her feel like an abusive mother and it touched the sadistic part of her brain that made her want to slap me. She drove me to two suicide attempts in two weeks and lied about more than I can even share here.

After I overdosed the first time, she refused to speak to me and sent me a letter in the mail terminating therapy, along with a $1,000 bill, claiming I back-owed her for phone calls and emergency sessions throughout the 8 months I had seen her. That letter led to a second overdose two weeks later because I was still upset over her accusing me of stealing her clock. I am yet to remember that overdose, but I have been told I did it at her office. I tried to contact her a couple of times, but she refused to talk to me (I did send her a few not very nice emails, but I can't remember if she responded). She cut me off completely. The one time she did talk to me was when I asked her for a breakdown of this $1,000 bill. She replied with, "You're smart! You figure it out!" and hung up on me. She sent me yet another letter in the mail and told me I could pay the bill if I wanted to or not. I picked not.

I started seeing her in January of 2007. By July of 2007, after 3 hospitalizations, I went to a Christian lay counselor while still seeing her who was trying to help me break away from her. The Christian counseling center I was going to did not have expertise in DID and were limited in being able to help me. For a long time I was afraid to find a real therapist because of my experience with Stephanie and I stayed with them long past their abilities to help me. They stuck with me for about 10 months until I found my current therapist in late 2008.

I went to Stephanie because of childhood abuse issues. Before seeing her, I had never, ever been hospitalized. She recommended that I needed long-term hospitalization. While seeing her, I was hospitalized 5 times in 4 months due to suicidality and self injury. It is now November 2009 and I have not had one hospitalization since Stephanie. Not only have I not been hospitalized since her, I have worked at the bank and gone back to college. While at times it's a struggle, I know I would not have been able to do this had I continued with her. I'm unsure whether I would even be alive and even if I was, I probably would be in long-term hospitalization because that is the path she had me on. I have a long way to go, but I'm at least going in the right direction now. None of the behaviors that seemed to manifest themself with Stephanie manifest with my current therapist at all, even in my very rough times. And aside from one incident back in the summer, I've not even had to call my therapist outside of sessions more than a handful of times.

It took me a long time to admit I was not responsible for what happened and I still have that part of me that doesn't want to hurt her in any way. When you're in the situation, it's difficult to believe you didn't do something wrong. I still blamed myself and could not spill the words that she was the one that was 100% in the wrong. I was the client; she was supposed to be the therapist. Despite encouragement from many people to speak up, I did not. I wish now I at least had some vindication by knowing my voice was heard, but my one comfort is knowing that I can share my story now.

Now that my story is out there in the open (and there is more but I'd probably lose the reader), I'd like to say a few things to those of you in any situation with a therapist that may be similar to this.

Here are a few things I have learned and I hope this helps you:

Any therapist that has to say, "If you do _______(self injure, act out, attempt suicide, call too much, are in crisis too often) I won't see you anymore" or "If you do not do ______(go to the hospital, do exactly as I say) I won't see you anymore" is a bad therapist using blackmail, manipulation, and is on a dangerous power trip putting him or herself in a position of power over you in such a big way that it recreates the abuse you originally went to therapy to overcome. This is NOT okay for a therapist to do no matter how the therapist tries to justify it. Clients are adults and should be able to make their own choices. Several times...many times...Stephanie accused me of emotionally blackmailing her. A CLIENT IS INCAPABLE OF BLACKMAILING A THERAPIST if that therapist is doing nothing wrong. This is nothing more than reverse manipulation and a good therapist not only would never say such a thing to a client, but would never LET a client blackmail them to begin with. We go to therapy to be guided, not emotionally blackmailed.

This kind of "treatment" is self defeating and abusive, causing the client to act out the very behaviors the therapist wants them to stop. And I also understand, again, how difficult it is to see that when you're in this situation or even when you first come out of it because you become so attached to the person you're telling all your secrets to. But you have to sit back and think about how DID originates and that most of us posting here were told if we did ______(fill in the blank) we were in trouble....yet we were still loyal to the abuser. It's NO different when a therapist comes at you with ultimatums and threats. In many ways it's worse than when you were little because you expect to be abused by an ABUSER, but you do not except to be abused by your therapist. It's very easy for you to take what they say to you and internalize it and blame yourself because you've gone to them for psychological help and you expect them to be safe and healthy It took me a long time to say Stephanie was unethical and she was an abuser, but once I did, I was able to begin moving on. Now she is compartmentalized in my head along with childhood abusers. Unfortunately, I have had one more thing to add to my recovery process.

I have wondered if she considers what she did was damaging as much as I wonder whether my childhood abusers think about how they were damaging or if she just walks about life as if she did nothing wrong and doesn't care. I don't believe Stephanie will never apologize to me or be big enough to admit that she did anything wrong, but I do think she knows she was wrong. She will call me 'challenging' and taking no responsibility because I am the one who acted out in so many ways, failing to see that her own actions caused it because of her constant threats and manipulation. I understand now that just as when I tried to be perfect as a child and it didn't seem to matter and there was still abuse, it wouldn't have mattered if I had been the model perfect client who never acted out, the end result would have been the same.

Had I trusted my own intuition and been at the place I am now emotionally, I'd have run from Stephanie's office within the first month and not endured it for 8 long months, overdosing and acting out like a 10 year old. Stephanie successfully retraumatized me in every way, but I hope my story can have some good come from it. If I could help one person by sharing it, it would almost be worth it. Katie

Thank you Katie, for sharing your story. If anyone would like to leave supportive messages for Katie here, I will make sure she gets them.
-->If anyone would like to leave me your story to possibly be used here, please e-mail me at myfaithlasts@yahoo.com
Pilgrim

Everything Changes when your heart is broken

Losing Sharon changed us profoundly. It broke our hearts. It broke some of our spirits. Yah, we know we made mistakes. Should have never made 1 person so important to us. We read yesterday a quote: "Never put your key to happiness in someone else's pocket." Well, now we know, right? We had to grow up a lot. Had to hurt a lot, to move on. As our new therapist said something to one of the kids last night, losing Sharon DID teach us to work together better. It also led to over a year of immense pain like we'd never experienced before. It wasn't so much that she got rid of us....it was how she did it. That sudden, rip-off-the-bandaid-out-of-nowhere thing.
Kathy has written an article about life changing heartache you might be interested in reading,listed here: http://discussingdissociation.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/life-changing-heartbreak/

Two Year Anniversary

I miss you, Sharon. I just miss you. We all just miss you.
And I'm sorry...for everything. For whatever we did. Or didn't do.
Or whatever went wrong...we're sorry. :(
hearts hurt today.

Two years ago, the last normal morning

Two years ago on this date was right before I went to see Sharon, my old therapist ( i STILL hate phrasing it that way) for the last real time. We were still were excited to go back to see her after 3 weeks of a break for Christmas. We were still excited to go show her family pictures we had taken at Sears with our niece and nephew, and Christmas pictures, and the kids were going to tell her about all the toys they got. And I wanted to tell her about this lady who was really nice to me at the airport, who gave me $100 to help me out, just to be kind. We were going to tell her about plans to go to graduate school. And plans we had to change that year, finally, that were sinking into our head-- even mine.
But then she started acting all weird at the end of the session, and dropped that bomb on us... you can read it here (January 8,2008 entry)... i really really don't want to rehash it all. It hurts too much still.
At this moment though, lunchtime... we still had so many plans. Thought that 2008 was goiing to be such a good year. Didn't know that in a manner of hours everything was going to be ruined.
As Caroline says though, God had to shake us up a bit. Shake our foundations...which isn't always a bad thing. It became our learning year, just not in the way we intended.
Everything changed that year. 2008 was really the worst year of my life...but... in a way, things got better after that, and some changes happened that led us to better places. We know now that God had a plan, and that God can work even lousy things out for good. I wish we would have known that back on January 8 2008.
I miss her so much... just so much. What I wouldn't give to be able to walk into Sharon's office right now, and talk to her, and get one of her hugs, which felt like the best in the world. She may have done some stuff wrong, but we miss all the things she did right. My heart hurts so much some days.
Things change i guess.
Caroline doesn't want me to dwell on anymore of this right now.
For more about where our life is now in all Caroline's wonderful positive-ness go see our blog at http://freeforfaith.blogspot.com/

Understanding DID

Do you feel like you can be very different people?
Do you have trouble remembering what happened through your week?
Do you have minimal memories of your childhood?
Do you feel a lot of conflict within yourself, and have unexplainable extremes in your behavior, thoughts, or attitudes?
Do you have conversations in your head, and do the voices in your head talk about you?

Read this article by Kathy Broady

Books on Multiple Personality Disorder/ Books on DID

Been meaning to put this up for awhile...
Here is a link to a lengthy list of books on DID/MPDhttp://astraeasweb.net/plural/books.html

It is from the Astrea's Web website.

Quite a lot of books on there, not just on DID but also on autism. We've read several of them. There are a few good ones. Quite a few lousy ones. We personally despise books and websites that make people with DID look like victims and long-suffering pathetic people who have no life, but, that seems to be what sells in bookstores *groan*. However, there are a few good books on the list. There don't seem to be any of the newer books on the list-- a few years ago we read one called "Got Parts?" which can be purchased on amazon.com and was helpful in teaching us how to work together a little better.

Breaking the Pattern

Just a quick note-- new therapist is helping lots. Before we left for Christmas vacation, she wrote us a note that said "I will be here when you get back"-- we kept it in our pocket the whole time we were gone to look at. And yesterday she was there just like she said she would be. We were all pretty worried about that--- worried she'd leave us over Christmas vacation. Too many fears of being abandoned again. Still having bad dreams about Sharon quite frequently :(
Everyone was so glad to see Kathy yesterday. And since our 2nd session back with Sharon after Christmas was the one where she dumped us 2 years ago, Kathy said we can come back today for our 2nd session with her after Christmas, and we're going to have a play day and have it be like a new years party. And try to break the pattern of fearing bad news hopefully. Because she said she doesn't have any bad news to give us today. Today we are going to just have fun. Because she is not Sharon and she is not going to dump us. So today the kids are going to take books and games to play with Kathy and hopefully everything will go well and we can start being less afraid of being dumped again. Hope so.

The difference a year makes

I just went and looked at last year's entry for December 7th. It made me sad...because I was hurting so much that I can still feel the ache. But also happy, because i'm so glad I'm not still i that horrible spot. But what a hard year it has been to get here. What an awful lot of work. Just like 2008, when Sharon dumped us, 2009 was also a very very hard year. On Dec 7 2009 I was talking about wearing a mask, hiding who I was. About that ache that I had to hide inside, over missing Sharon so much that it hurt, missing them, thinking about them all the time.
I'm glad to say that a year later, although the ache is still there, and the pain over what Sharon did is still very great and still is a big heaviness within us, at least we don't think about it every moment of the day anymore. We used to obsess over it all the time. Literally. It was so much a part of us that we breathed it. In and out, all day long, the pain of losing Sharon, her betrayal, the flashbacks of January 10 2008. It was horrible.
A year later-- after a lot of fits and starts, and a lot of total duds in the therapy system, we have found a really incredible therapist. Her name is Kathy and she's amazing. Easy to talk to and she is really good with the kids. They like her. And, she thinks what Sharon did sucks.
She has also written an article about losing your therapist.
Anyway... it does help to have someone to talk to, and feel like we have someone who is truly on our side again. I don't know if it ever truly felt like Sharon was on our side. For a long while it did... then the past few years, it was like she was always looking for a way to get rid of us. We did everything we could to keep her, even go to these silly support groups she wanted us to go to even when we knew we didn't need them but she insisted she did (none of us are co-dependent, but she insisted we go to CoDependents Anonymous, so we had to sit there each Saturday monring, when we could have been sleeping in, listening to a bunch of depressing people complain about their lives... it was a real train wreck of a group). Plus go to an eating disorder group that we were constantly triggered at, and a DID group where everyone sat around and complained about how horrible their lives were while the 2 therapists sat there and did nothing. But we did these things to try to keep Sharon happy... while it was never enough.
I don't know. It was all very mixed up.
But we loved Sharon a lot, and she was a good therapist, and we still miss her so much. What we wouldn't give to talk to her again, even just once.
Yet the pain of the rejection is still so fresh... and the shame of being kicked out of therapy is still so hurtful, even almost 2 years later. :(
Now we have our church community group and family, and we have Kathy, and we have a job that we love-- that helps. And we have learned to rely on God, which was probably the best thing that came of all of this.