My Monster Has A Name

Trigger Scale: (1/5)

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:

Script for Therapy Session

• Brief Discussions: PTSD & In Treatment
• Script Introduction
• Questions About the Blog
• Questions About My Status & Therapy
• Questions About DID

communication. by ~liamu on deviantART

Brief Discussion

Things I would like to discuss briefly today:

• PTSD – purchased the book “The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook” and came up with a few questions. I also created a timeline of my PTSD progression.
• How trauma memories are different than normal memories (see Figure 2.1 from PTSD Sourcebook)
• How people with DID might be different at storing memories than just PTSD (see drawing)
• Why memories come into consciousness in parts
• Why did people like Stalin, Castro and Hussien choose their path and not me? What made this difference?
• Feel better that my actions can be described by PTSD, but isn’t this still an excuse?
• TV series “In Treatment” on HBO

Script Introduction

Read to my therapist:

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?

Questions About the Blog

Read to my therapist:

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?
• Will you leave comments & register as a user?
• SIDE NOTE: Raising money through Blogging for a Cause for iSurvive

Questions About My Status & Therapy

Read to my therapist:

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…

Questions About DID

Read to my therapist:

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’?

1. Session Splash – June 6, 2009**
2. Session Splash – May 12, 2009*****
3. Session Splash – May 26, 2009 Part 3**
4. Safety First Checklist Part 2*
5. Session Splash – May 26, 2009 Part 2*

Trigger Scale: (1/5)

After my last session I spent about three days in shock (Read about it: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). I had the following sensations, which I wrote about on iSurvive, here. These are expanded in this post to include all I can recall:

• Increased pain in known injuries (back)
• Increased pain in jaw and constant clicking (I have Lockjaw/TMJ)
• Extremities going numb, especially my left hand for some reason
• I feel like I am in a very thick skin, and cannot feel anything properly, like my nerves have retreated and made everything dull
• Hazy vision, like a white blurriness (foggy feeling) OR
• Vision warping in the middle, making it impossible to read text. Looks like my world has been pinched in the middle OR
• Everything looks like it is vibrating against each other…like I can see the molecules that make up everything constantly fighting
• Slowed responses
• Out of touch with surroundings
• Feeling disoriented
• Derealization

NOTE: Now that I have read more about dissociation, I realize that the first list of ‘body sensations’ are also all dissociative symptoms as well. It was very loud in my head at that time, with my different ‘voices’ were most likely fighting for expression of feelings, thoughts and ideas. I had to lie down often and just listen to everybody, validating and understanding all positions, to get things to quiet down.

Other issues that have increased or started over the last week:

• Increased amount of time spent holding my body in uncomfortable positions. I have done this with my neck, shoulders and back for some time when agitated. I have now begun holding my arms, hands, legs or feet in uncomfortable or painful positions for long periods of time before I become aware of it
• Increased picking (read a great post about this on Blooming Lotus). Mine centers around picking any thing that makes skin un-smooth, especially in the middle of my back
• Increased limb tapping, twitching, jiggling. I especially wiggle my right foot, almost constantly right now
• Extreme fatigue all day
• Insomnia or sleep avoidance (drinking coffee right before bed, coming up with things to do, eating, not taking Tylenol PM, not lying down for bed, etc.)
• However, when I do finally sleep I am over-sleeping
• Increased problems with eating; not eating at all or binge eating
• Increased issues with body image; seeing a distorted self in mirror, uncomfortable in my own skin and/or in loose clothing (feels too tight)
• Increased depression and isolation
• Increased avoidance of feelings, not allowing flashbacks; flat emotions
• Increased drug use (which means days without use to make up for it, leading to increased agitation)
• Increased agitation and irritability leading to a couple temper outbursts
• Spending more time pacing, just petting cats or staring off into space or tuning out
• Not being involved in the present; missing parts of conversations
• Increased need for cleanliness and order
• Urges to spend money I do not have (purchased two healing books, but had many more urges)

I have somehow always known that DID fit me, but it still shocked my brain and brought a flood of feelings, brief flashbacks, emotions and thoughts. I think I knew that DID would eventually be used to describe me because I have had many issues with memory in my past. My therapist says she thinks maybe, but I know. We both agree that I have PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as well.

It is weird to discover the DID diagnosis now, when I think I have somewhat integrated myself already. Even with this being the case, it is still very hard to accept, but comforting at the same time. Comforting because it makes so much of my experience, such as the way I think and feel, make sense and not feel so foreign. I am sure I will talk more about this in my future session splashes, but here is a partial list of why I have suspected DID:

• Lost time as a child/teen (read about one account here, last three paragraphs)
• People in junior high and high school:
  • Recounted events I had no memory of
  • Told me I said things I had no memory of
  • Acted as if they knew me, but I had no recollection of who they were
  • Acted knowing, or asked “Are you ‘My Name’?” and would look at each other knowingly, like they knew something I did not
• Can recall lost time after triggering events (such as receiving gifts, which is especially hard for me) which I have now verified by reading old journals
• My thoughts are split into separate voices. These have different thought patterns and often different conclusions, feelings and emotions. Some are more distinct than others:
  • Small voice is very hard to hear unless I try to listen – most distinct and most disturbing. I have a feeling my anger is associated with the personality part, and it may be one of my only FULL alters
  • Sometimes when I try to talk to the small voice I can get answers, but usually my questions are answered with questions. Recently this voice asked me “Why weren’t YOU there to protect me?” when asked what she wanted to say
  • Sometimes when trying to communicate with the small voice I get the following repeated image/video, which is more disturbing than it sounds:

At first I am just trying to talk to the small voice, then get an image of a very scary creature/voice in my brain. She looks like a combination witch/demon and moves in a very fast paced, blurry dis-fragmented way. She reminds me of a combination of the Queen in Snow White when she turns into the witch to give the apple to Snow White and the junk-collecting character in Labyrinth who can take the main character to a fake home.

So this character almost always interrupts when I try to get in touch with the little voice, asking me “You want her?” and promptly grasping the little voice by the arm and putting her on a huge wooden chair (out of proportion, Alice in Wonderland style). The witchy/demon character is running around and and screaming nonsense and suddenly the little me turns into a doll, but with real eyes. Her eyes look so sad and trapped, but she is terrified of the character and will not come out.

NOTE: Just writing this I am feeling VERY creep-ed out. My skin wants to crawl, I am getting easily startled, I’m suddenly afraid of what might be under the bed, and did not want to look at my notes about this dream (I had written it down in my journal before I fell asleep one day). I also get the feeling that I am not allowed to look at these thoughts or talk about them. I also got an immediate migraine.

• • Another more distinct voice, or I should say non-voice, is who I call ‘Stoic”. I think this may be a full alter or close. May have helped me to go through the worst of things, such as severe ritualized abuse or surgeries reminding her of that abuse
  • I could go on, but I will stop…

I hope that this post helps anyone who is struggling with questioning their sanity when it comes to handling the healing process, and being newly diagnosed with DID and/or PTSD. Even healing can be stressful, and cause PTSD/DID symptoms, if you are pre-disposed to it, as I am. It is not a matter of sanity, but a matter of symptoms. That’s just my opinion.

Even though what I went through this week was horrible, and it is still in process, I am left with a sense of hope. Hope that there is an explanation for why I am the way I am and because I know others who suffer with the same issues who have recovered. Not just recovered, but moved on to build a happy, healthy life. I know I will not give up until I get there, no matter what the process takes.

So I am always left with some form of hope…

Related Resources:

• Picture of wall supplied by Mind Parts
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook
• Safe Passage to Healing: A Guide for Survivors of Ritual Abuse

1. Session Splash – May 5, 2009*****
2. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Timeline**
3. Face the Issue – Great videos*****
4. Safety First Checklist Part 2*
5. I Have Been Abused – Please Believe Me!***