A Chart With Pictures On Disassociation, Easy Enough For Our Distracted Minds

[whserenitynluv]

Hey everyone, my T assignments this week was to read this and understand it and place it into senarios for the next two weeks, I found it helpful so far(crossing fingers on public exposure) lol
It is a set of picture-postcards demonstrating a passage through time for a trauma survivor with dissociative identity disorder. (DID / MPD).

These pictures show different phases of the dissociative healing process, and illustrate how healing occurs. Notice that they move from a more shattered, painful, chaotic place to a calmer, structured, organized place. Where there is originally nothing but a fragmented sense of self, there later becomes a clear sense of personal identity...

You can read the whole exercise at:
[DLMURL]http://www.discussingdissociation.com/2010/03/08/picturing-the-healing-process-for-dissociative-identity-disorder/[/DLMURL]

 

[shimmerz]

this is awesome whserenitynluv - thank you so much. This is just the stuff I am working on myself. Thank you.

 

[whserenitynluv]

@shimmers your very welcome:) I dreadfully read them, but they help. Lol

 

[shimmerz]

Would love to hear your experiences on this over the next couple of weeks @whserenitynluv . It sounds like a good exercise.

 

[whserenitynluv]

@shimmerz I can post as I go, but cannot promise lol my T didn't identify it as a DID with me, but informed me that it had signs of going there because my defense mechanism for me would set the bar so high all around me, that nothing could touch it. I would only allow people to get so close,then not any more. This is the whole reason for the non substance and the food and excersize regiment, and the reason I am having to feel the waterfall of emotion I have never felt, which scares the living shit out of me. My whole life until now everyone I have been around has said something to the effect of "you won't let me in" I would get so frustrated because I didn't understand, I really did care about them, but couldn't feel safe enough to allow myself to feel safe. Unfortunately the healthy partnerships I had a potential future with I would run so far as to go to another country when they said they were falling in love with me. While the predatory ones I felt like were the right way to go. This isn't love,this isn't falling in live, and matter of fact the long term relationships I have had were severely abusive and co dependent. I could see it in them, but not in me. The one or two very quick safe and healthy partners I did have or dated I would retract into alcohol or other things just so I could relax enough to be around them. From this pattern that we identified, it came the time to allow myself to start some exposure therapy. The first two weeks we had discussed writing, journaling, a feelings chart, and structure. My patterns of ptsd were identified through many things, and like I've said in previous posts I was misdiagnosed or classified as having ADHD. I can understand now why they would think that because the two can be very similar in behavior. I've told people that my behavior in things would be to start one, dance to another, have multiple things going, then get frustrated and quit. So my first two weeks were to get a routine, finish tasks all the way through, and start writing and reading. It also involved exposure to public anonymous venues that would "expose " my emotions to a public eye, but in an anonymous way. That was one of the scariest events in my life. It started with a few words, and grew into story books. Like this one. Lol I hated to write before I started therapy, and now it seems like I cannot get enough of it. My emotions went from super love of everything to suicidal and I have learned coping skills through writing and strategic placement to cope through those situations without letting anyone know, but being able to express them as well. So with this week and next week, I will be doing work in big cities, exposure to direct public both online and off and attempt to continue conversations with people I meet without reading so far into it that the one thing makes me run. I haven't got past that yet. I noticed that last night. It seems like they could say one thing to me about something that doesn't even relate to me, but related to say for example, a movie name that had the word murder in it and that friendship would end or I would question it. I will try to keep you guys posted as I go hoping that I get continued confrontation in the selected places and it turns out that I am safe and people aren't all bad. If that makes any sence
. Here is some more information, about my dissasociation. I am inviting you all to chat with me out of the forums as well, not only if you have this or not, the more exposure for me the better. BUT please understand if I drop off the conversation it is nothing personal, it's just a healing process. Thanks guys!

• Depersonalization Disorder: periods of detachment from self or surrounding which may be experienced as "unreal" (lacking in control of or "outside of" self) while retaining awareness that this is only a feeling and not a reality.
• The old category of Dissociative Identity Disorder Not Otherwise Specified is now split into two: Other specified dissociative disorder, and unspecified dissociative disorder. These categories are used for forms of pathological dissociation that do not fully meet the criteria of the other specified dissociative disorders, or if the correct category has not been determined.

Both dissociative amnesia and dissociative fugue usually emerge in adulthood and rarely occur after the age of 50. The ICD-10 classifies conversion disorder as a dissociative disorder, while the DSM-IV classifies it as a somatoform disorder.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_disorder

 

[Chava]

interesting. I don't have DID but I have a pretty fractured self and I see that in my artwork. My main thing is color. Some colors feel like "my" colors. Others make me cranky, depressed, heavy, like I'm a slave to someone else or only half a self....or heavy tones that correspond to a girl without a body. Colors carry a lot of "meaning" for me. Certain people are associated with certain colors and I feel icky all day if I accidentally use the wrong colors, thinking I can make them my own. Nope.

 

[whserenitynluv]

@Chava I neither have did, but my T said I was well on my way through the things he saw. So for example, my facebook page was of one, it was irrational and when we went through it together, you could see when I was having severe attacks, because I would disappear or things I would say would change drastically. We leave it up there, but made an additional one for other purposes. I also have a hobby I practice a lot, and that helps too.

 

[joeylittle]

@whserenitynluv, when you post information copied from the internet, would you mind including the web address of the site that it came from? It's better to be clear about sources here, I think. I've edited your posts so far to include the info, but it would be great if you could start doing that yourself. Thanks!

You're clearly doing a ton of great work right now. Congratulations on that, and I hope you keep feeling the progress :)

 

[whserenitynluv]

@joeylittle yes:) my apologies guys:/ and thank you, I am doing a lot of work, I guess for me in this time of my life it has to be, I want it so bad I can taste it. :)