DID Splitting

[HelenB]

I am not surprised that you are utterly exhausted after today, and really hope you are able to really look after yourself and have a good rest tonight.

I am also so glad that you are able to feel so safe with your therapist, and know this is so important, and can relate so much to coming to the place of knowing that we do have the power to choose that we can keep ourselves safe and am so glad that you were able to feel this today.

I can also relate so much to feeling that everything is so massively dramatic and though I cannot at all put in words any of what I am going through like you are doing so well at, I do believe that it is true that even though this part of the process and things we are going through is so hard at the moment, that it will get better, and that this gradual connection and learning more to accept all parts and all the emotions which come with it too, will bring safety in all those parts, and ultimately freedom.

I really hope you are able to feed that more and more into all of the parts, and know that the compassion you do feel towards yourself, even when you still cannot fully accept it as yourself, will begin to bring more safety to that part too, and I know in reality for me that my massive self destruct is really because in so many ways there is still so much fear and really hope that as you are able to bring more safety you will be able to find other ways to express all those emotions in that part too, and know there are other ways to be safe.

Hope you sleep well.
God bless
Helen

 

[Echo]

@Bedbug - I'm hoping it is a bit of each. I can see though that our younger selves might well be furious at themselves/us for not being able to protect themselves/us. I hope it is a sign of our 'fight' coming back. My therapist once said to me that I might be able to reassure some part of me but that that part would not trust me until I proved I acted on my words. It may be the reason my younger self is so angry at me; by sending those letters, I have confirmed all her/my fears about what my family would have said all those years ago and how they would act. Textbook really. And it has thrown her/me into such pain. I do still think it is the right thing to have done. Maybe facing what is actual rather than what is feared has a different resonance to it. I just hope we are not tested by our angry, acting-out selves in horrible ways; I hope they chose something symbolic to test us with. I think I would die on the spot if I were attacked again.

I am with you completely about how it doesn't translate into self-compassion. It seems ridiculous really, but there is definitely a split there, isn't there? Well, I just hope we can heal it eventually. I am full of admiration that you deal with this on your own, though I suppose in the moment, we all do. It certainly helps to compare notes and to have 'experts' in books or in the form of therapists EXPLAIN. Honestly, we'll have done enough research to be awarded PhDs at the end of this...

 

[Echo]

@HelenB - I am so sorry that you are struggling, too. I have felt bad that I haven't been able to come back and see how you were doing, because you were having such a hard time. It is so difficult to voice it, isn't it? It was a major challenge for me to reach out instead of trying to support others. It really shook me up for several days, with the thought that someone known to me might see what I had written, but then I thought it might do them good to actually read it. It is also a constant battle with shame and self-blame for me. Is that what you also find so challenging, or is it this nightmare of the awful pain? Thank goodness for this site and the way we can all try to hold each other up.

You are right. Under all of this is fear, of so many things, past and present. Trying to walk through that fear and out the other side is how one frees oneself, isn't it? But trying to do that when you don't feel supported and don't have a clue about the lay of the land on the other side is so hard. I tend to see it as jumping over an abyss and having to trust that there is some kind of doughty archangel there to catch me! Trusting in the rightness and goodness of things after so much abuse is the ultimate challenge, but I guess it is what faces the darkness of fear down.

I do hope you also are finding rest and support and that things are improving for you.

 

[HelenB]

Thank you so much @Echo for your kind words. You really do not need to feel bad for not getting back to check on me. I appreciate your thoughts so much and know that when it is hard it is hard to reach out so much to others too, but know that does not mean that you do not care, and really do feel privileged to be able to be in contact with you too, and appreciate so much the support which is there for me on here, when things are hard.

You are right that it is so hard to be able to voice it all. In so many ways I am trying so hard to cope and function too, with four children, all the extras they have in too and doing childminding and a degree with the Open University which I am doing, and just balancing it all and trying to find time for me too and processing it can be hard, when I know that it does have to be held to a certain extent too, but without trying to shut it all out like I fought so hard to do in the past. I just do not have the energy to shut it out any more, and the more it has come up and more connected with those parts I have been, the harder it has become, which makes triggers and everything else so hard, but I do also know, even though it does not feel like it when it is so overwhelming, that it is right and the only way, and though I too find it so much harder to connect and really say those things happened to me, I know I cannot shut them out any more, and do also feel an overwhelming compassion for that other little girl, who I know I have to stop hating and punishing so much.

Again that is very hard and the more overwhelming the emotions become the more that other part, which coped by being in the self destruct and hating myself come in, and I know as I said before that that really is so much out of the fear. Just like you described its like jumping over an abyss. With the EMDR I am doing and ministry away when I am at Ellel, I know I have connected so much more. I know that that part which it all happened to is just a little girl, and that even though I want so much to still feel like it is my fault, as the anger still feels so much safer only directed at me, I know that is not right and really am trying to allow myself to connect and do know it is all a part of me and that I do have to stop hurting and punishing myself any more, just like I would if it was anyone else.

In those other places, where in the past I learned so much that the only safe way was hating and blaming myself, and in the little girl place, which is hurting and crying so much and still so so terrified, I do know that I do have to continually work through, and now make those right choices that I am going to look after and protect all of those parts, even though connecting to all the pain is still so hard. That is just so hard when it all comes on and I am feeling so much, and it is so hard to function and be ok too, when I know I do have to and know that my husband and little people deserve so much better too.

For me I feel that the constant battle of shame and self blame comes out of the overwhelming pain and that place where I am just hurting so much, as at the time I just knew no other way of dealing with it, and now, though I am trying so hard to, it is still so so hard when the pain feels so emense and so deep, and in those little girl places I know I do just feel so terrified still and the hopelessness and just wanting to give up on it all and never have to face anything any more is so hard.

Again I know it is a gradual process of learning more and more to trust. I know know I have to gradually learn more and more that I can trust me. I have to continually make those right decisions and show those other parts in me that there is another way and that there is safety, but when for so long that has been so hard, it is very difficult, and I know that in so many ways the pain they have is also from the way I have also treated and hated myself, and that so much damage has come out of that, and that it is something which does have to change more and more, and I really am trying to change.

I didn't really want to write quite so much about me on your thread, but kind of know that I do relate so much to everything you have been writing and saying too, and find you an inspiration too in the way you are facing and dealing with things, and again thank you for your kind comments and support.

I hope you managed to get a good rest last night after such an emotionally exhausting time and am thinking of you too.

God bless
Helen

 

[Echo]

@HelenB, I've been thinking about this all morning and sensing the immense pain and anguish in your post. I wish I could come and give you a big, reassuring hug. You have so much on your plate and you are handling it all with such kindness and grace. You really are an inspiration.

We (@Bedbug, @Hope4Now, @macca, @franciemarnie, @Ryn, you and others) to be getting nearer and nearer to our original pain. And it is overwhelming for us all at this stage. I just think we are all so strong and so brave. No wonder we had to suppress so much of this previously. No wonder we dissociated, went numb and stuffed it down inside ourselves. No-one can live at this pitch without having some idea of what on earth is going on. We are such warriors really. I just trust that there is life and happiness the other side of this pain, and that it is worth all this fighting and suffering on the way.

Please keep reaching out and sharing how you feel, long or short posts, wherever, it doesn't matter, and you shouldn't apologise for it. I hope things are better for you today.

 

[franciemarnie]

We are warriors @Echo ! We are in battle within all of our lives (not to mention whatever real-time battles might have gone on.)

And sometimes we have to fight in the dark, and that is the toughest.

 

[HelenB]

I certainly agree about the battle, just wish there was a bit more restbite at times! @Echo I didn't get the chance to write back when I read what you had written earlier, but really do appreciate it and thank you so much for your inspiration and encouragement too. I do know for myself that if I did not believe there was life at happiness at the other side, that there really would be no way I could face any of this, and really am trying to keep hold of the hope which I know I do have set before me, and do know that it is true that light penetrates the darkness, and there can be a way out.

Today has still been mixed for me, and tomorrow I have another session with my therapist, where we will be doing EMDR depending on how I am doing, but I will definitely talk through with her first how difficult it has been (I suppose not suprisingly) since our session a fortnight ago, and see how it all goes.

I hope your day has also been better today, and that the emotional release and being able to see your therpaist yesterday, has been able to bring you more peace in all of those other parts and that you are OK.

God Bless
Helen

 

[Echo]

Thank you, @HelenB. There never does seem a moment off from this stuff, does there? Either heightened anxiety, emotional release or just plain old wobbliness and exhaustion. It has been the latter for me today, but no apparent return of my 20-year old part. My homework is to enter into dialogue with her, but today it was beyond me. I guess she is hiding. My therapist helped by saying that each day is a day away from the worst. It is difficult at times to know what is the worst, when things are very intense all the time. In a funny way, I am glad it happened. I have always thought I was far too calm about it all, prior to the CPTSD, that is. But I know I have a lot more work to do on safety before I can really get down to weeding it all out of me. Eventually I am supposed to be doing EMDR also, though my therapist says I may never get there. I don't really know what she means by that.

Is this your first session of EMDR or was that a fortnight ago? Or have you been having it for a long time? I hope it goes very well for you. I understand it is a very strange thing to have to process. I do hope that the outcome will be very good for you - and that it happens quickly. There just must be an end to all this and then some peace to enjoy your life with your lovely family. I hope it need not take up too much more of your life.

Healing thoughts to you.

Echo

 

[HelenB]

I am not surprised that you have still been exhausted, and being open to dialogue is the most important thing, so that your 20 year old part can come up when she knows she is ready to, and I know it will come up when it is right and does need to.

I had already been working through a lot of the stuff within my ministry at Ellel ministries, but first did EMDR over the summer, working through a particular incident with my biological dad, which was very hard. The EMDR very much compliments the ministry I am having at Ellel and currently it is a lot of the harder stuff which I have been working through, as to me my dad was never there anyhow, so in many ways working through and accepting the reality of that had been very different but all the things it links to and things about my step dad and mum, which are coming up now, are so much harder, and the EMDR facing the things about that I have had a few sessions of fortnightly now for the last three or four sessions.

In many ways I know there is still part of me which just wants it to all go away so much, but I know that is not realistic and that those parts of me, which have been screaming and hurting for so long, do deserve to be able to finally find safety, and really am working on that, and hard as it is, I do know this is important, and really am trying to keep hold of the hope and future, which I know I can only be fully released into, once I do allow myself to have the courage to really face this, and finally be free.

I really hope you also are able to more and more feed in the safety into yourself, so that you can release all the things which you do need to, in whatever way is right for you at the time, and am so glad that you are finding more and more connection with yourself, even though it is so hard, because I know it really is the only way to find true healing.

Helen

 

[Echo]

@HelenB - I do hope this next session puts so much behind you and takes the sting out of it finally for you. How hard it must be to do it when there is so much trauma and so many 'events' to process. Just know you are also facing down the nastiness in other ways. Every day you have spent building your own lovely family life, you have shown you are not part of it and you have given the world something fine and untrammelled. I am sure you must be so proud of that. And that refusal to perpetuate, which is just anyway so foreign to us, is also a very important way of distancing ourselves from the dark, selfish negativity. May you find peace sooner than you think.

 

[HelenB]

Thank you.
Helen

 

[seedling]

that I have a choice,

Thank you for this. I have a part of me breaking through that I feel can overwhelm me, she's in a terrible state. It helps me to think of it this way, I am in charge of what comes through - how much and when.

She was strangled and smothered by my rapist, silenced by my parents, silenced by fear, silenced by meds, silenced by my sisters to protect my parents, silenced by my boyfriend/s who could not cope with me as a rape victim; after ten years of being silent,

I've been thinking of your 20 yr old self today and it seemed to me how much you've let her be heard by starting this thread and this whole section in particular. You describe her traumatic experience and all the silencing afterwards. You've let her pain of silence be known to others in a place where people care about what happened to her. This seems like such a quiet gentle way of letting her "out" a little bit.