it will actually solve the majority of your traumatic memory problems throughout the process, as most trauma symptoms stem from distorted views and perpetuating symptom cycles.
And it does make a huge difference. It takes a lot of time and dedication, but it is really worth investing the time. It might not feel like it, or seem like it, for the first couple of years, though some people get much quicker results than I did. I had a lot of mess to sort out.
Sometimes the way DBT or CBT doesn't work for me the way it is presented - it triggers off the self hatred, suicidal ideation, the savaging of myself for being present enough to think about something - don't I Know that is too dangerous. So you have to find other ways in. I have found the other ways in. I keep reading research, setting goals, and working millimetres and more milimetres, and some days it is micrometres. Most of my friends that I had when I first came here are gone, and several sets of friends have gotten better and headed off into the world.
But now I can work with DBT and CBT the way they are presented and the only thing that is stopping me mow is my own procrastination and fear. I am fearful. I am fearful of my changing. I am fearful of connecting with who I am and how I feel, because what if I am a horrible person underneath it all? What is I find a monster in there, and I have to euthanase it? What if I am not really worth of life? What is I am exactly like my parents? What if I am no different from my family. What if I am exactly like the nightmare my sister is to be around? I know I am to a certain extent.
DBT will remove all but:
- fragmented memories, and
- the really tough traumatic aspects that need different methods to align.
Having parts that you can't access is a tricky, or having parts that you are kind of aware of from a great distance is also challenging for me, but I am going on as if at some point I will access them, and at that point all the work I am doing will somehow transfer over, or I will have to relearn it all again. There is no way I am going to access those points/parts, despite trying very hard for a long time. So for me it is just keeping on keeping on, and doing the work, and at some point it will improve. If it doesn't then at least I have worked really hard with the parts that I can access, and that will limit the fallout from the other part/s. I almost have access across one big split. I can't wait to get there. You have to work really hard on it each day, but it is worth it. I had to work out stuff for myself. I have to work it out my way. One of my biggest problems (there are a few) was the corrosive self doubt, which is still a huge problem but has improved marginally. I worked so hard for each millimetre of that improvement, and it is a great achievement for me. It was my Mount Everest. I have stopped self doubting myself enough to not live with chronic suicidal ideation, and that is amazing. I had that since I was 8 years old. So it was such a hard lot of work. It still is really hard. To make a simple decision is so f*cking hard. All the fear comes up and I go in to flight, freeze, fawn or fight. I don't remember long periods of my childhood. I also remember a lot of my childhood as being in the air watching myself from above.
Nothing treats amnesic memory -- they will either return when your brain feels safe enough for them to, or, they will never return as they were never fully encoded to make a complete story.
I am starting to wonder if that is how it is for me - I was so dissociated, derealised and depersonalised - that the memories will never come back, because I wasn't really there in the first place. Other people remember me being violently abused, and I don't recall it at all. I remember heaps of stuff - heaps of emotional, physical and sexual abuse - so I am very lucky I have always had access to that. For a long time the memories were frozen with no thought or feeling attached to it. Anyway all that is irrelevant for me now, I just have to do the work. A lot of my peers - school, youth refuges, homelessness, squatting etc are all dead. So I am alive, and that is quite the privilege - I am aware of some of the others being missing from this world. I don't really feel upset or anything - just that they are not here. I think of my school friend from time to time, and people I thought would make it and who killed themselves and that is sad. I keep trying to create narratives around it to make it more digestible, but that is a waste of time, so I need to stop it.
One of my problems is flashbacks, I am getting better at it, but I need to improve. I can do a bit more than I used to be able to.
Reactive attachment disorder is really a hard nut to crack, and I am stuck with that. Though to be fair to myself I found out about a heavy duty betrayal yesterday - sometimes it sucks to be present - and I haven't gone ballistic over it - I would be well within my rights to just cut that whole situation off. It is huge betrayal. I actually can emotionally regulate enough to wait to speak to my psychiatrist. So I am lying to everyone by saying I am okay. I really am not okay at all, but I want to make adult decisions about this. And if I decide to accept this, is it really worth putting everyone through so much pain? I am in shock at the moment I might be, I don't know, and that is one of the hard things for me I often don't notice I am dissociated, derealised or depersonalised until I come out of it. So I often don't really know if I am here or not.
The DBT selfhelp website is really a good, free resource. You can work through it at your own pace and the instant mindfulness meditations are awesome and I use them a lot at times. The Kristin Neff Self Compassion website has all the information and the guided audio to download for free. The perth meditation centre you can read the articles and listen to the guided audio for free. The frantic world website has Mindfulness meditations to listen to or download for free. Mindfulness is not a panacea you need to not start doing it when you are in a major depressive episode, having panic attacks or are triggered. I did my first 8 week course of Mindfulness, I told the guy, who is apparently a psychologist, that I was suffering from suicidal ideation, and they let me in, and that was in 2013, and that was went my first really direct suicide attempts began - and that was a crap three months. So you need a really good trauma sensitive teacher, and there are none of them in Australia as far as I know. I had to work out my own ways of doing Mindfulness that didn't trigger me or let me go in cyclone ruminations. At the very least you need a competent teacher, who is grounded and has a good practice of their own. There are a stack of free stuff out there. You find out stuff and then if you can't do it, then you work out ways of translating it for yourself. It might not sound like it but I have improved out of sight in the last seven years. I am very slow with my progress, and I used to get angry at myself for being slow. But my strengths are my persistence, tenacity and my intellect where I can work out complexities and translate them for myself and others.
