Afraid To Talk About Dissociation

[ms.mermaid]

So much fear. I'm so isolated. Too afraid to tell anyone how fractured my reality is. Missing time. Can't preform happiness for anyone but the friends, they need it. Have to have it.

Can't talk to my therapist. Can't explain that this feels bigger than PTSD and I am losing control. I'm conflicted and slipping away, part of me is trying to destroy me, and tells me I'll be called a liar if I assert that more is going on than what I've said in therapy. I don't feel like I deserve help when others have real issues.

So many pieces of me are fighting for control and I don't know who to listen to. I don't know what to do. I don't remember why I'm fighting for this life when I don't feel I deserve it.

 

[Ronin]

Okay, what slows any of this down?

You are not a liar. Any part of you. You are not a liar. Your issues are real.

If something's destroying you, in any way? It's bloody well real, important, mattering, and something needing care.

With in-fighting for control... what about finding what you need the control for, and taking the path requiring least energy, least warring going on?

You're fighting for your life because your life IS worth it, and you know it, even though feeling like it isn't there or slips.

 

[greenleaf]

Can you write a bit of this? Maybe show your T what you wrote here, or a part of it or something like it? Writing outside of therapy where the human is sitting there, is much easier for some of us, if dissociation is going on in certain ways.

 

[shimmerz]

I'm conflicted and slipping away, part of me is trying to destroy me, and tells me I'll be called a liar if I assert that more is going on than what I've said in therapy.

This is the most brilliant synopsis I have ever seen put into words of what the internal conflict of PTSD is.

Parts of ourselves. Denial of others to our experience, denial of ourselves for our experience.

The question I would have for you is whether the doctor you are speaking of knows trauma based therapy. If so, he or she will be able to help you untangle what went on in a way that makes you feel more in control. I don't think what you are feeling is any different than what most PTSD'ers do while in therapy. It is really freaking scary. Do you have a support system (friend or spouse)? Have you learned how to ground?

 

[ms.mermaid]

This is the most brilliant synopsis I have ever seen put into words of what the internal conflict of PT...

I'm pretty sure she's a social worker and outside if that, I don't know if she has any specialties in any particular area. She's a lovely seeming person, but very busy. She talks to me about what I do to make myself feel better. I'm afraid to tell her that I habitually smoke marijuana just to drown out the inner dialogue/arguments. I've been this way my whole life, so much that some part of me is insulted that all 24 years of experiences and perceptions gained, the torture and humiliation, the gaslighting and guilt, the abandonment and violation, the self-injury and numbness, apologizing for existing to everyone, keeping everyone as comfortable as possible because no one was able to relate and I would rather suffer silently than be totally alone with myself.

I'm a paradox in a body that doesn't feel like mine and a face that I don't remember.

I guess this sounds very bitter, but that is all that comes to mind with the suggestion (of many searches for grounding techniques) that some deep breaths, mindful meditation and moisturizer are going to tune out the sound of what rages inside me.

I literally only feel safe when I'm stoned, and I am pretty much given to experience some emotional distress anytime I'm sober and/or doing life.

I really appreciate this forum, in spite of it all. Seeing other people stay gives me the tiniest hope that I could have a future.

Y'all are strong people.

 

[ms.mermaid]

Things are hazy and strange inside.

Time is vanishing while tuned into internal dialogue. Suicidal fixation and urge to self harm have subsided, not vanished, but quieter.

Parts of myself have been demanding to be heard, deeply hurt by my critic, trying to soothe the me that wants to stop fighting so hard.

Inside of me over the past few weeks has been a scream, so chilling, so tiny and pained and familiar, and even at work, it breaks into the fog and breaks my heart. I realize after a moment or so that I am sobbing and shaking.

I don't really know who I am, but feel more like a collection of roles and responses that imitate a person.

All of this has been damaging to my body as well. It's distressing to see what my body does after I keep leaving it unattended to manage all this anxiety alone.

Any support or explanation for these perceptions would be very appreciated. I don't understand how to get myself to talk to my T about this, and the side of me that fears I'll be minimized and dismissed is controlling enough that it's created large doubts that I'll be understood.

 

[joeylittle]

You could print out this thread and give it to her. It's often useful, instead of worrying about whether you will find the words, to just give them your words.