Personality States Grounding

[shimmerz]

I carry essential oils with me and spray them on my hand. The olfactory is wired straight into the brain, so this is the sense that hits me ASAP.

I am co conscious as well. I try not to judge when these parts come out. I acknowledge. Since I have been doing that it seems that the regressed part more easily gives up control. I have been working hard at calming skills for my normal fronting part. The more effective I am getting at automatically calling in these tools, the more quickly the other parts back off.

 

[ms spock]

I don't get how this is grounding @Deeem? Being grounded is theoretical to me. What does it feel like for you to be grounded?

 

[Deleted member 541]

@Disco Dancing Queen My therapist taught me the same grounding technique that @Deeem mentioned. It makes you bring your focus back to the here and now and forces you to stay focused on the task.

 

[Deeem]

She does have trauma training and has done seminars on the subject. I'm really happy to have found someone...

A pronoun is "a word that replaces a noun in a sentence" symbolically, that would make sense...

I don't get how this is grounding @Deeem? Being grounded is theoretical t...

When I am with my therapist I usually don't use grounding techniques. We all feel safe when we are in therapy and free to come out as we want. Our goal is to inform all parts of myself that we are not living in the past and those abusive people aren't here in the present. Meaning times have changes. I see my therapist three times a week . Basically, when I use grounding techniques is doing the weekends to keep me and all parts of myself safe. I have an abusive and aggressive parts that will cause physical harm on me and other inner parts. By using these grounding techniques that I have learned from my therapist keeps me safe from harm and present, meaning in the here and now, over the weekends. That makes me fill good! I'm not saying I can ground every weekend it does take a lot of practice to be able to do that and I'm not there yet. But, using grounding and keeping myself from harm feels good and is a great accomplishment to me.

 

[Deeem]

@Disco Dancing Queen My therapist taught me the same grounding technique that

I am happy your therapist taught you grounding techniques . How do they work for you ?

 

[ms spock]

I have been doing all your suggestions as I remember to.

While it's definitely crucial that I practice grounding pretty regularly.

If I could do this regularly it would be really helpful. You are all a lot more advanced on this stuff than I am.

 

[ms spock]

I am still struggling with the grounding stuff. I am getting closer to it though.

I am really keen to read about how it feels to be grounded and how that works for you in your day to day life. I still don't get what "grounding is".

 

[Sideways]

how it feels to be grounded

For me? It's nothting special. Being 'grounded' simply means that I'm present, and not dissociated.

So, I try and ground regularly throughout the day, which is kind of like a check in with myself. Am I present? Where am I, and what's going on around me right now? Is my brain in auto-pilot, or have I switched, or is it me here in this moment and paying attention?

Things like mindfulness, or checking my suds? Are going to be a much more involved process.

 

[ms spock]

I don't have a baseline for feeling present. That is the problem. I cannot tell if I am dissociated, depersonalised, derealised or off with the fairies. I can pick maladaptive daydreaming now. I can pick some types of dissociation and depersonalisation and derealisation, but I really find it hard, and I often wonder if I am here or not, and it is only when something big happens that I can tell no I haven't been here/there or sometimes some other state has taken over. I can't tell which part of me is there either. My psychiatrist doesn't believe in parts she says most of it is caused by poor therapy, and I have seen a whole forum in an organisation come down with DID after a couple of therapists did a workshop, so yeah it is a problem in Australia - highest rate of psychologists per capita but the poorest training.

 

[Sideways]

My psychiatrist doesn't believe in parts

Do you suspect that you have DID?

I'm in Bris, and I'm now fortunate to be attached to the TDU at Belmont, where they accept DID as a real thing (!). For the first 6? years of my therapy, I was with a treatment team which didn't acknowledge my DID, and it was really destructive ultimately for me. One of the bonuses of working with the tdu team is their accommodation of dissociative disorders across the whole spectrum.

Sadly, yes, it's an extremely politicised and polarised profession with the majority of private consultants looking down pretty poorly on those that work with dissociative disorders. Hopefully that will change as cptsd becomes a more mainstream diagnosis and the dissociative element gets more recognition. Because even without DID, if you have a T that is in the anti-DID crowd, they seem to want to shy away from addressing the dissociative features at all.

To give you an idea, the last hospital-run groups that I originally started with? Dissociation (of any kind) simply wasn't discussed. Ever. Whereas my current group therapy, we have grounding tools of all descriptions all around the room so that people can ground throughout the sessions. It's not just encouraged, it's treated as a fairly intrinsic part of the way people with cptsd tend to cope. DID or not. That's definitely helped me to make grounding just part of my daily process.

One thing that might help? A lot of people in my group carry a grounding toolkit with them in their bag. It's usually just a small number of items (anything from spinners and stress balls to little scented oils and keyring teddies) that they know works for them. It would be fairly standard for any T (I should think) for their client to have self-soothing items with them at therapy, and there's not a huge difference between self-soothing and grounding...?

 

[ms spock]

I don't think I have DID.

I do have severe and profound dissociation, and somatisation due to the chronic nature of such early childhood sexual abuse, physical violence and emotional abandonment. I don't think that my psychiatrist is in the anti DID crowd, she is just really skeptical about people being diagnosed with DID by people who really don't have the clinical experience to do so. She has a lot of respect for Dr Warrick Middleton, whose specialty is DID. He has some great youtube videos online. Very interesting man.

I do have splits, and I don't know who to manage the part that is cut off from the other part. I don't even know how to explain it. I talk aloud to myself to try and work it out.

I have profound dissociation. I have profound derealisation, at times, as well as profound depersonalisation. Sometimes I do lose time, and I once came out of a dissociated state and wondered where I had been the last two years. So I have issues that I am not sure how to deal with.

The grounding toolkit sounds like a great idea.

My psychiatrist doesn't shy away from talking about dissociation, that is for sure.

Until I actually learn to be grounded and centred, well until I learn how that feels so I have something to aim for I am in a bit of a double bind.

 

[7Cs]

The grounding toolkit sounds like a great idea.

I was just reading about those yesterday and really want to make one!

Some suggestions off the top of my head (and I may repeat a few already mentioned) are:
List of grounding techniques, reminder to breathe- maybe even how to breathe, positive affirmations and good memory prompts, pictures of family or friends (healthy relationships only of course), small/ varied textured items like smooth rock, rough rock, piece of fabric silky or textured, essential oil or scented lotion.

For a larger box at home you could include favorite music disk, favorite movie, book, notepad and paper, coloring book and crayons colored pencils, stuffed animal.

Decorating the outside of the box to personalize it and make it meaningful to you.

I sell jewelry and beads so I was thinking I could make a mini "to-go" grounding box with a little jewelry box and then a bigger one at home could be in a basket or something.

I already have my grounding box but I always forget it when I'm in therapy. I think I'll have T remind me in the future.


Some good grounding techniques might be...

Put both feet firmly on ground and press feet down for pressure, deep breathing slowly in through nose - hold - slowly out through mouth and repeat, dragon breathing slowly in though nose - forcefully out though mouth making a dragon breath sound on the out, take a walk outside if you're in a state that is not too young or scared, music and dancing, meridian therapy points (you'll have to google this one), touching thumb to each finger both hands (I like to start with thumb to pinky), get a hug. :)