WhisperingUnicorn
Gold Member
@Sandstone .. I had posted on another thread, yesterday, thinking I was posting on this one (oops), but the gist of my point was two-fold, and I hope you'll find this encouraging with my husband's situation as an example:
1) Dissociation does not necessarily have to result in "disorder" (!!) .. In fact, my husband has worked VERY hard to "order" his internal world, and he has been LARGELY successful .. encouraging internal cooperation/communication, etc. And we did this - almost accidentally - by
2) Piecing together his varied and "splintered" memories into a Cohesive Narrative. Memory is a bit of a funny thing - we all tend to "rewrite" bits as we "re-remember" them. So even if there hasn't been any trauma or splintering, etc., it's very helpful for ALL of us to keep journals, save old school papers, photo albums, etc. Because we kinda anchor ourselves moreso in the keeping of an "objective" source of reference. In my husband's case, his ongoing confusion, and his trend to "run away" when people would start to "figure him out" (meaning, he felt they started to view him as crazy - so he'd throw a dart at a map and uproot and move again - this was his cycle every 18 months or so his entire adult life before we met) ... my husband's experience of some memories "bleeding into" others ... like he might KNOW (from objective evidence) that thus and such an event could NOT have occurred when it seemed it had (at a certain age, in a certain town) because pieces from conflicting timelines or locations would overlap in ways that were just not physically possible.
YES, this kind of splintered confusion was cause for much distress for him .. but as his various "parts" would remember things and work them into OUR conversations, I found it very natural to ask clarifying questions, it forced him to re-examine some things, and we started by creating a timeline of the "big" events .. like from birth to adulthood. It didn't matter so much if the ages were incorrect at that stage, we were just trying to get an outline. But as we did that, he found increasingly greater clarity, and because of the TRUST in our friendship at that time, he began to build greater confidence in his own memory - and we would find things in his storage (pictures in an old photo album, an old letter from a family member validating some previously missing or cloudy piece, etc) that we were able to use to fill in the gaps.
Over about 2-3 years of this process - which was really just as basic as "getting to know each other" at its inception - my best-friend-come-husband went from absolute confusion, reliving traumas, running away from the sideways glances of other people, easily triggering, and hyper-vigilant extreme anger episodes to keep people at a distance, etc. ... to a MUCH more steady day to day life, greater curiosity as to WHO all his "parts" were, WHAT they remembered (even if seemingly conflicting) and he began to build internal trust with HIMSELF, too .. which increased his confidence that he was NOT crazy, by the way (!!), and that also boosted his self-esteem because he began to VALUE his "parts" and their "jobs" inside his internal system .. and the natural fruit of that was greater ORDER. Or, if you prefer .. HEALING.
This is purely anecdotal, I realize, but in OUR shared experience, that (a) Cohesive Narrative, (b) compiled inside the SAFE and LOVING parameters of our TRUSTING and unconditionally loving relationship (no judgment, intrinsic grace towards one another even if we made mistakes along the way) .. THIS was the key to giving him solid footing, and "coming back to himself" so to speak. He is MORE than an overcomer. And he amazes me more and more every day I am blessed to love him and love WITH him in our shared life. :)
I hope some of this is helpful!
And for you, @theshadowoftheliving - I hope this encourages you too! .. I am very empathetic, because my husband and I have had our moments of panic, too, as we've walked this walk .. But please be assured, there is really no need to "panic" :) cuz we ALL do well to get to know ourselves more rightly, and once we KNOW ourselves better, we can get BACK to that place of internal order and stability .. EVEN if there is multiplicity!
The awakening to the specifics of internal "disorder" and uncertainty CAN be scary, but that's just the STARTING point of getting to wholeness and true, lasting happiness! .. and such a "diagnosis" as "DID" (which we have purposely avoided obtaining for my husband, btw) need not be the end of a story - it's just a "description" at best and need not be a "prescription" such as to imply a curse of ongoing brokenness :) :( .. My husband may still yet experience himself internally as a "multiplicity" of distinct parts, but he is not "broken" .. he has battled the hardest parts of the self-realizations to achieve a HEALTHY state, and he is healing more every day, and he maintains a good and orderly system of internal "policies and procedures" so that he OPERATES as a cohesive whole .. Anyone looking in from the outside, nowadays, would never know he's a "multiple." But even if they did notice, it doesn't have the same power to wound him as it once did, because he is at PEACE inside with all of himself, even if he's not always in agreement ;)
And one last aside .. *I* observed my husband's brilliance VERY early on in our friendship, and I was forever trying to encourage him as to how truly remarkably intelligent he was, but by virtue of the many abuses he'd suffered, he was - and to some extent still is - CONVINCED he was STUPID. In fact, because of some dyslexia issues when he was younger, and the early manifestation of dissociation though he didn't know anything about that when he was younger, he was put in remedial classes in highschool and treated by most people at large as though he needed special ed, and NOTHING could have been further from the truth! But this TREATMENT by others not only reinforced his self-loathing issues, but added to his internal trauma and abuse, as well as his general disdain towards all others because at least part of him KNEW they didn't know what they were talking about (and couldn't be trusted) .. so he was further isolated from genuinely trust-worthy relationships, and the disconnect only worsened.
Nowadays, he says he "hitches his wagon to my faith" - including regarding his intelligence. And I just make it a point to go out of my way to highlight it whenever I see it - such as when he designs a building from scratch, or just instantly sees solutions to BIG problems - he effortlessly solves things that other people are completely baffled by ...
So TAKE HEART! I am VERY sure you're "intelligent" enough!
Happy, Healthy, WHOLE .. it IS worth the beautiful journey!
~WU
1) Dissociation does not necessarily have to result in "disorder" (!!) .. In fact, my husband has worked VERY hard to "order" his internal world, and he has been LARGELY successful .. encouraging internal cooperation/communication, etc. And we did this - almost accidentally - by
2) Piecing together his varied and "splintered" memories into a Cohesive Narrative. Memory is a bit of a funny thing - we all tend to "rewrite" bits as we "re-remember" them. So even if there hasn't been any trauma or splintering, etc., it's very helpful for ALL of us to keep journals, save old school papers, photo albums, etc. Because we kinda anchor ourselves moreso in the keeping of an "objective" source of reference. In my husband's case, his ongoing confusion, and his trend to "run away" when people would start to "figure him out" (meaning, he felt they started to view him as crazy - so he'd throw a dart at a map and uproot and move again - this was his cycle every 18 months or so his entire adult life before we met) ... my husband's experience of some memories "bleeding into" others ... like he might KNOW (from objective evidence) that thus and such an event could NOT have occurred when it seemed it had (at a certain age, in a certain town) because pieces from conflicting timelines or locations would overlap in ways that were just not physically possible.
YES, this kind of splintered confusion was cause for much distress for him .. but as his various "parts" would remember things and work them into OUR conversations, I found it very natural to ask clarifying questions, it forced him to re-examine some things, and we started by creating a timeline of the "big" events .. like from birth to adulthood. It didn't matter so much if the ages were incorrect at that stage, we were just trying to get an outline. But as we did that, he found increasingly greater clarity, and because of the TRUST in our friendship at that time, he began to build greater confidence in his own memory - and we would find things in his storage (pictures in an old photo album, an old letter from a family member validating some previously missing or cloudy piece, etc) that we were able to use to fill in the gaps.
Over about 2-3 years of this process - which was really just as basic as "getting to know each other" at its inception - my best-friend-come-husband went from absolute confusion, reliving traumas, running away from the sideways glances of other people, easily triggering, and hyper-vigilant extreme anger episodes to keep people at a distance, etc. ... to a MUCH more steady day to day life, greater curiosity as to WHO all his "parts" were, WHAT they remembered (even if seemingly conflicting) and he began to build internal trust with HIMSELF, too .. which increased his confidence that he was NOT crazy, by the way (!!), and that also boosted his self-esteem because he began to VALUE his "parts" and their "jobs" inside his internal system .. and the natural fruit of that was greater ORDER. Or, if you prefer .. HEALING.
This is purely anecdotal, I realize, but in OUR shared experience, that (a) Cohesive Narrative, (b) compiled inside the SAFE and LOVING parameters of our TRUSTING and unconditionally loving relationship (no judgment, intrinsic grace towards one another even if we made mistakes along the way) .. THIS was the key to giving him solid footing, and "coming back to himself" so to speak. He is MORE than an overcomer. And he amazes me more and more every day I am blessed to love him and love WITH him in our shared life. :)
I hope some of this is helpful!
And for you, @theshadowoftheliving - I hope this encourages you too! .. I am very empathetic, because my husband and I have had our moments of panic, too, as we've walked this walk .. But please be assured, there is really no need to "panic" :) cuz we ALL do well to get to know ourselves more rightly, and once we KNOW ourselves better, we can get BACK to that place of internal order and stability .. EVEN if there is multiplicity!
The awakening to the specifics of internal "disorder" and uncertainty CAN be scary, but that's just the STARTING point of getting to wholeness and true, lasting happiness! .. and such a "diagnosis" as "DID" (which we have purposely avoided obtaining for my husband, btw) need not be the end of a story - it's just a "description" at best and need not be a "prescription" such as to imply a curse of ongoing brokenness :) :( .. My husband may still yet experience himself internally as a "multiplicity" of distinct parts, but he is not "broken" .. he has battled the hardest parts of the self-realizations to achieve a HEALTHY state, and he is healing more every day, and he maintains a good and orderly system of internal "policies and procedures" so that he OPERATES as a cohesive whole .. Anyone looking in from the outside, nowadays, would never know he's a "multiple." But even if they did notice, it doesn't have the same power to wound him as it once did, because he is at PEACE inside with all of himself, even if he's not always in agreement ;)
And one last aside .. *I* observed my husband's brilliance VERY early on in our friendship, and I was forever trying to encourage him as to how truly remarkably intelligent he was, but by virtue of the many abuses he'd suffered, he was - and to some extent still is - CONVINCED he was STUPID. In fact, because of some dyslexia issues when he was younger, and the early manifestation of dissociation though he didn't know anything about that when he was younger, he was put in remedial classes in highschool and treated by most people at large as though he needed special ed, and NOTHING could have been further from the truth! But this TREATMENT by others not only reinforced his self-loathing issues, but added to his internal trauma and abuse, as well as his general disdain towards all others because at least part of him KNEW they didn't know what they were talking about (and couldn't be trusted) .. so he was further isolated from genuinely trust-worthy relationships, and the disconnect only worsened.
Nowadays, he says he "hitches his wagon to my faith" - including regarding his intelligence. And I just make it a point to go out of my way to highlight it whenever I see it - such as when he designs a building from scratch, or just instantly sees solutions to BIG problems - he effortlessly solves things that other people are completely baffled by ...
So TAKE HEART! I am VERY sure you're "intelligent" enough!
Happy, Healthy, WHOLE .. it IS worth the beautiful journey!
~WU
