It’s been a while

I’ve still been working on my herd of elephants (one very small bite at a time), but as life goes with DID, I couldn’t figure out what the name of the blog was or what the password and logins were. Lovely. Seems that the existence of the blog tends to escape me from time to time. Ironically, in daily life I don’t feel like I lose much time, but things like passwords, forums etc. tend to fall off my radar every now and then. I will try to keep up with this as much as I can from now on.

What’s new since my last post? Well, 2010 has generally been more settled than 2009. I have completed just over a year in therapy with my new therapist. Things are still going well on that front. I see her twice weekly and sometimes three times if things are difficult. We have had our ups and downs, but she has always been there in the end and continues to walk this path with me.

Some things that we have been working on and that I hope to blog about soon include:

1) Processing trauma memories

2) When my therapist suddenly seems like my mom and scares the crap out of me

3) Processing grief and realizing that some things that I’ve longed for will never happen

4) Attachment issues

The Holidays

Thank goodness that 2009 is almost over. It also means an end to the horribly triggering holiday season. It all started with Thanksgiving and the inside kids screaming that November and T-day are bad. I didn’t know why. I know some about that now, but wish I didn’t. Then I didn’t think Christmas was an issue…until a memory came flooding back to me. In the end, it was a very triggering, unsettled and chaotic few weeks. I became very destabilized and was not doing well. Fortunately, things seem to largely be back on track. There is a new memory that is filtering in bit by bit about New Year’s, but I’m hoping it won’t be too bad.

How do you eat an entire herd of elephants?

One bite at a time. I went back to therapy last March. I say that I went back, because this is not my first foray into the world of therapy. I saw my first therapist when I was 15 years old. I had to beg my parents to allow me to go, but they finally relented. They were not keen on the idea as I’m sure they were convinced that I would be spilling family secrets. I certainly didn’t provide my therapist with a glowing image of my parents and home life, but I was smart enough to know where to stop. I was, after all, still a minor. I knew that meant any disclosure would come with an investigation. No thanks.

When I was 20, I went back to therapy again. This time was much more successful and I thought I had put all of my demons to rest. We touched on the sexual abuse, or so I thought. What I had been aware of at the time, it turns out was only a taste of the awareness that was yet to come.

Fast forward, one marriage and three kids later to last fall. I cut off contact with my biological family a few years earlier and once I did that things started to get interesting. I noticed that I was dissociating more, especially during intimate contact with my husband. This all peaked last fall when I was triggered by contact from my biological father. I rapidly declined (all the while maintaining what looked like a normal life) and finally in February I told my husband that I thought I needed to go back to therapy.

I started therapy with my current therapist in April. She is a trauma and dissociative disorders specialist. Finally, after months of working with her, in September I was diagnosed with DID. It was shocking, but at the same time wasn’t. I just never realized that it wasn’t normal to have other voices talking in your head.

At this point, I’ve been in therapy for eight months. I see my therapist twice weekly since the DID diagnosis and that has resulted in more stability. I created this blog to chronicle my journey.