I have no diagnosis regarding dissociation but have become aware of it. Prior to my first "major" flashback, which occurred two years ago, and 15 years after the PTSD diagnosis, I had been having over a year of dreams of actively looking for missing babies, missing toddlers, etc. in my dreams. After looking and looking, and getting tired of this frantic feeling, I did soul retrieval on myself. It worked.
For information on this, and I caution you about it, you can look up Steven Farmer's "Oatmeal and Soul Retrieval." I followed his method; it was very simple once I got started. I won't get into details, I'm too tired. But when it happened, I felt a warmth and fullness in my calves (of all places.) I felt my "missing baby" was restored to my being. The dreams stopped.
There was a "feeling whole again" sense for a while, and thinking about "me" seemed more genuine. Then, within two weeks, the flashback hit me, and full realization of my trauma that I had amnesia about for 30+ years was brought up. It took me two days to process it, during which I was emotionally numb. I had known there was abuse, but not how it really was. It was a lot to process.
After the soul retrieval and flashback, I become more acutely aware of these children/traumas rattling around in my psyche. One night, I thought it a good idea to allow my little terrified girl to "have the floor." Bad idea. She "took over" my emotions and body. I was tiny, the room seemed large and looming, I was extremely terrified, and cold. Shaking ensued, teeth chattered, and shadows loomed all over the walls (in true hyper-vigilance, my abuser was everywhere and nowhere!). I was in the fetal position, frozen on the floor, unable to cry for help. My Husband was sleeping. Somehow, the control over me passed enough. I unfroze enough to start a bath and got in the warm water with some oils, which helped the episode pass.
Since this time, I've been on anxiety meds. There have been more episodes like this one. Nothing "takes over" so much as their frozen in time trauma is replayed in real time for me to re-experience. I always get really strong, negative emotions, feel the trauma is present, happening, (I instinctively beg for my mother to come save me) and I get very, very cold (I call this going into shock) during which my teeth chatter uncontrollably as I freeze. I cannot get warm. The bathtub is a lifesaver. I usually take my meds, or a tiny bit of alcohol to warm up, and get in the hot bath water. I try to be the mother I needed then to myself now, or allow my husband to fill the role.
This last time, he and I noticed, the little girl wanted her mother and wouldn't accept any substitute. It took some time to get her to see mother never listened or cared or believed her. "That" mother never existed and never will come. Since then, I have had to grieve that as a child, not as an adult, because I already processed this for years. The child was still waiting for her mother, and I had to tell her, "She's never going to come save you. I/we are the savior."
This has been a very hard kind of thing to go through without therapy.
My recommendation is to not go poking around into the amnesia and ego states/frozen traumatic memories like I did as though they can't hurt you. Just bringing up the buried stuff is hard on me and my family. Integration of it is hard.
I now have arguments with myself, as I feel someone else inside is not willing to do what the nagging adult says it will do even if it's stressful. As that begins, I lose time, usually half hour or so, and miss the appointment anyway, so the inner child who didn't want to go wins by default from the dissociation that was caused in the splitting. Not sure. Are these really alters or frozen trauma ego states or just re-experiencing the trauma in state-dependent memory? I don't really buy the DID theory. It's just that trauma is such a package deal. You get the whole thing, including feeling the age you were when it happened. I am not convinced that personalities split off; I think it's the re-enacting of the traumas by our current mind, confused by the re-experiencing in the now the traumatic memory that is so old, that gives the feeling it has a life of its own. All that's for sure is that it is weird and confusing (and hard to explain.) :)
It is hard to accept this is the way it is now, in my 30s, from childhood traumas. Is there therapy or meds that help?
Thank you if you read this long post. It was hard to get this out. Those of you with this know what I mean.
Muse
