This was a response to my therapist asking me to draw the “unreality” that I had been having trouble with at the time. I had explained to her that I sometimes did not feel alive, or real. I would say now that at these moments I feel like a marionette doll or like a Sim controlled by somebody else. This was especially happening while driving. All of a sudden I would get this feeling and then become very afraid that I was going to crash, so I would pull over to calm down, and the feeling would pass. Sometimes it would pass before I could pull over. But it happens others times to, such as when I am taking a shower.
For some reason, and especially when I am having trouble with memory flooding and flashbacks, it is triggered for me to take a shower (I know why, I just have not gotten to the abuse memories associated with it yet). It happens almost everyday now, for the last two weeks. I just feel like I am watching myself and there is a broken tape in my head repeating, “This is not happening, this did not/could not happen.” I eventually recover and ’snap back’ to reality and move on with my day.
It is a feeling of being disconnected from myself, from my mind and body. ‘I feel’ is not really the right term either, more accurate would be that I DON’T feel at these times. I sometimes think that ‘I’ am dead or that I have died.
So that is the background behind the unreality I was trying to represent in the picture above. I felt like there was a spotlight on my brain that is run by my memories. I also mixed into the picture how I try to solve problems, or maybe the problem of the unreality, which is represented by the A, B, C purple path and the grey/brown square symbols. I explained to my therapist that the grey/brown squares were like binary computer information.
On the back of the drawing my therapist wrote the following notes:
The path – I noted some was connected and some not, she insisted that it was connected. There would be loops, but she didn’t want it to look that way.
She drew her own circle, even though I offered!
List of words:
Hypnotize
Path
Brain
Sun
Archaic
The first note frustrates me because I tried to explain that the path only looked like it was not connected, but that was only because it went into the “hypnotize” area.
However, I still am not sure what this drawing says, expect that I feel it is related to dissociation. It did help to calm me down to create it at the time.
I mentioned in my last Session Splash – May 26, 2009 Part 1* that I often bring notes of what I want to talk about to therapy. I also expressed having a hard time asking and saying what I really want to, as I am at a very vulnerable stage in my therapy. To help with this I am creating the following script, which I brought with me to my last session on June 6, 2009. I will post this session splash within the week so you know how it went.
This script was inspired by “mmaaggnnaa”, or Marie, who writes the blog “Coming Out of the Trees”. She wrote a series of posts about a script she read to her therapist, which starts here if you would like to read it. Here is mine:
This is going to be very hard for me to today. I am going to be more vulnerable than I am comfortable with. I may shake, I may cry, and I might have multiple panic attacks, which I would like you to ignore unless there is an emergency.
When thinking about this session I have had the following repeated thought or mantra from one of my voices: “I am not allowed to be weak. I am the mountain, that if moved will spew out Satan’s dominion and maybe even Satan himself.” I am trying to say there is a lot of fear associated with this content, I guess.
Here are my questions. You might not have answers to all of them, and I may even have the answers to some of them. I am also comfortable if you want to answer some next session so that you have time to think about the answers. Okay?
I feel like we have gone back and forth about the blog. At first you said you wanted to think about whether or not you would read it, but we never brought that up again. Next you told me that you had read parts and how we should use the blog in therapy only for assistance, that I would need to talk about what I wrote in session. I understood this and was not mad you had read the blog without us discussing it again, because I do want you to read it.
Next time when we discussed the blog you decided that you would not read the blog or bring up topics written there unless I brought them up in session myself. This back and forth is the first real time I have been frustrated with our sessions. However, I think it would help if right now we decide together how we will handle the blog going forward.
Questions:
Are you going to read the blog?
What parts of the blog can I expect you will have read?
What parts are off limits to read, if any? What parts make me uncomfortable for you to read?
Should we discuss issues on the blog that I did not bring up first?
Are you comfortable with me posting the session splashes?
I wanted to let you know that I am aware I do not often look you in the eye when we are talking. I usually do like to look people in the eye when I talk to them, and consider it rude not to. I am not trying to be rude, but only do this because of how vulnerable I feel here. I hope you have not felt offended. I have been wanting to let you know that for a long time.
Okay, here are my questions about therapy:
Questions:
Am I going too slow, or maybe too fast? Does the pace seem right for me?
How could I do better? What am I doing well?
Am I holding myself back in some way? Do I have habits that are making therapy slower? (such as over intellectualizing concepts)
What do you feel we should focus on in sessions right now?
I think you hold back too much on your assessment/comments and offer your opinion/critique more often. How do you feel about this?
Do you sometimes wonder if my case is too serious for you to handle?
Do you still think you can help me? I feel like I might be too messed up…
I trust you, but maybe other parts of me do not. This will be harder to discuss than specific abuse memories because I have spent a lot of time covering it up. This diagnosis was probably also the reason I have not wanted to work on a timeline in the past. I must have sub-consciously known that my missing time would become very apparent. I tried so hard to cover it up, I forgot that I had worked so hard to forget about it…
Answering some questions may help to ease me. Here are my questions:
Questions:
I had a lot of issues since our last session associated with this topic. Here is a post I wrote on my blog about this. Do these symptoms concern you? What do you think about my DID suspicions written here?
Do you have other patients with this diagnosis?
Do you have hope that people with DID can be healed?
Do you believe in false memories?
Do you believe my memories are real?
How can dissociation be different than repression if dissociation leads to repressed memories?
Discuss best friend’s reaction and if I should discuss it with him at all going forward.
Afraid of anger – shaky, white vision, uncontrollable urge to get MY point across and have it agreed with. Feels like it is not ‘mine’?
This is a personal weblog, about topics that are at times controversial, offensive, horrific, and hopefully sometimes inspiring. Read more about me and this blog.
