Quick Summary of Therapy Today

Therapy today:

• I discussed more of the conversations and insights I am gaining from my parts and clarified more about some of my parts which have been telling me about themselves.  
• There was more discussion of the culture of my parents' church which I attended as a child and how the church was such a catalyst for dissociation when things were so surreal there.
• My therapist discussed more about how I don't seem ready to acknowledge yet how everything I have been through is an impactful story.
• I discussed how my focus has been more on accepting myself as having parts and being 'gentler' (therapist's term) with them.
• And I agreed how I really am not ready yet to delve into her astonishment that I have managed to function so well for so long ... bc  ...
• I want to get my 'team' working together, first
• I don't want to just open up a part and then have to abruptly reground myself to be able to safely drive home
• Am I ready to accept that I really am pretty damn amazing but that being amazing was in the contrast of some very uncomfortable images, body feelings and emotions. 

 

100s

I got to swim today. And I was feeling pretty adventurous so I decided to forgo my usual steady paced 1000 yds (20 laps) or my even slower paced mile swim (36 laps) and instead I set out to do sprints. 

Ok, so I have never swam competitively and in fact I was not even remotely in-shape or athletically inclined until around 2002 when I joined the YMCA as a way to work through my first phase of acknowledgement and treatment of Dissociative symptoms. 

By the time I met and started dating my wonderful wife, in January of 2006, I had worked up to swimming 3x/week and running about 4 miles 2x/week. I had run so many 5k races I literally have no idea how many I did, and I had run about 10 10k races (my closet was bursting w/ those t-shirts you get from each race).  And I was playing indoor and beach volleyball w/ a recreation league. I never won a race outright (my best finish was 19th). Although I did have the cool experience of spiking a championship winning kill shot in an indoor volleyball tournament [funny DID note, I wasn't even aware of the score of the game and I didn't 'get it' right away that I had just won our team the championship]. Here's my point: sports and exercise has been more about the quality of the experience, and focusing on doing a good serve, a good flip-turn, a good push at the last 100 yds of a run, than about the score. I find a rhythm well within my limits and stick to it. 

So today was unusual in that I decided to really push myself. In a 25yd pool like at the YMCA, swimming 100s means up & back 2x (Its on my bucket-list to one day swim in a 50 meter pool like the Olympic athletes, just to see how I do).  I was going like gang-busters at first. I copied the flip-turn style of the Olympian swimmers and delayed righting myself after kicking off the wall and I even incorporated the underwater dolphin kick for a bit before breaking the surface into my freestyle stroke (the stoke I do 95% of the time). After a set I would catch my breath for almost a minute and go again. Holy crap that wears you out !!  By the third set I was dragging and by the end of the fourth set I had to change my breathing to every stroke to finish the last length. I had to break for a bit more between the 4th and 5th sets because I had my heart rate up to 200 bpm which is pushing it. Then it hit me that I had forgotten to eat lunch and all of this physical effort done around 3:30 in the afternoon was fueled by only a bagel w/ peanut-butter & honey which I had for breakfast [another funny DID note, forgetting to eat!]. So if I do 100 sprints again I'll make a personal note to eat and hydrate well before I set out.

It felt so good to push my body and to realize I AM STILL ALIVE and I MADE IT THROUGH and my body had the gasping-for-breath and a sore left shoulder to prove it.

So what’s my point? Its Simple, I just realized ... I have a story to tell ... That's it.  

But in a world dominated by my dissociative symptoms, where I feel so behind and feel so immature and feel so unable to share what my weekend really was like ... its nice to have something to share when I go back to work on Monday. Because I'm sure not going to share about the nightmare that woke me up early this morning, or share about how I worry that I responded to another DID blog with a very lengthy comment and I hope I didn't come off as selfish, or share about how one of my parts (Montreal) has decided to communicate in a near perfect British accent and that I was amazed at how I could switch from my usual southern drawl so effortlessly.

Hello 3.0 Meet My System ** May Trigger **

A List of My Parts and their roles, beliefs & needs.
 
Click Here

(Comments Welcomed)

Yardwork + Dogs' Baths + Housework = Tired.

I hope all the weekend activity will allow me to fall asleep and stay asleep.  

I was conversing w/ Montreal* and other parts while mowing the grass. So in my funny little way I do try to attend to my inner world. It took over 2hrs in the heat and humidity to finish our back & front yards bc I have to mow around bushes, gardens, ect. I must have sweat off like 4lbs. Earlier in the day my wife gave each of our three dogs a bath, while I helped corral them and dried them off. I firmly believe dogs have souls. 

Had to referee an argument between step-daughter and her mother (basic teenage-girl backtalk stuff). I really don't like & struggle w/ being around conflict but I can see that I am getting a little better at being appropriately assertive vs. just checking out and going into my deer-in-the-headlights mode.  I started vacuming the house and my wife offered to help and ... I let her help!  Whew; I am Tired & Thirsty. Time to get some water and then go to bed.  *I have a couple of days off this week so maybe I'll have a chance to introduce 'everyone'.

Silence

Just a moment of silence for victims, families, law-enforcement & medical first-responders, associated with the Aurora, Colorado event.

The 1-Second Bliss of Flip-Turns

Yea ... I got to swim today after work-then-therapy! I did 1000 yds (20 laps) and a few of my flip-turns were magical things of beauty ... I absolutely adore that 1-second in time when I am looking up the surface of the water from upside down ... I can't explain why and none of my parts can either, but that 1-second of upside-down-looking-up perspective is like when I get to let every care and worry go and just 'be'. Then I kick off the wall and right myself and its another 25yds of rhythmic strokes and breathing from each side until ... Yea I get to do another flip-turn.  btw I have never swam competitively, but I have taken Advance Lifesaving a few x.

Sad Little-J gets his Tweet erased

I felt 'Little' and Sad much of today. I started a tweet about my 'Little-J' feeling disappointed that we couldn't afford Inpt or IOP bc Little-J really wanted to be able to come out and be free from observing family or co-workers to 'be little' and talk .. at one point I wrote what Little-J said "No ones coming to help, are they?" but I erased my tweet and didn't send it. I reeled in those Little-J thoughts and feelings as I  realized my family needs me to be an adult since my 14y stepdaughter is struggling w/ completing her (summer) school work (bc she failed Spanish) and if not closely supervised (by a Confrontational adult), she will smile and lie about completing work which she hasn't touched. 

So once again I am in a family system where I have to shut down and not share my own thoughts and feelings in order to keep the status-quo and shield the other family members from the weight of my story. I almost (in a weird way) wish I was not so co-conscious and could just go and have my mini-break down. But nope, I keep on moving and trying not to upset anyone else w/ my own issues and needs.


I finished the Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation (MID) today. It has over 200 questions and seemed more comprehensive and less vague than the DES-II which I attempted earlier in the week.


So, I am left questioning, ever questioning ... did I do the healthy thing and "regulate my emotions" or did I ignore (again) a Sad, and too-patient Little Boy by robbing him of his voice when I erased my tweet? 

I haven't swam since the weekend; quite sucky. 


Time to get ready for bed. 

Techno Dancing with My Brains & DID Instruments

More strategic stuff in therapy today. I took the Dissociative Experiences Scale DES-II, what a sucky measurement instrument! It seemed like I had execeptions-to-the-rule for every ambiguous frustrating question. No wonder this diagnosis is mocked by so many. 

Starting late last week, I have been intrigued by the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, I am intrigued by his discussion of the 3 kinds of Brains we all have. Last week in therapy I clarified more of the map of my parts and their roles & themes. My therapist wisely noted my parts seemed to be aligned w/ either the left or right brain hemispheres. But I am taking that a step further and pondering which parts/levels of my brain my parts are associated w/ the "Thinking", "Limbic-FEELING", and "Autonomic-Reptillian-FREEZE-Response" brains. I believe that my experiences of abuse were improperly sensated, emoted, and left w/out much for the frontal cortex to derive meaning and direction from.  So I now believe that in order to make progress I will need to return to the FEELINGS of my parts and the FREEZE (helplessness).

Over this past weekend, on Netflix I discovered a video of a Deadmau-5 concert. I Love Techno Music .. its like an ADHD kid's dream w/ the music & light show.  And Yes - even though I am closer to 50 than 40, I still hopped & danced in our living room since my wife was at work and my stepdaughter was at her biological dad's house. That's a kinda cool thing about DD-NOS/DID, you still get to have "kid-fun".

Saturday I swam w/out counting laps. How awesome to be buoyant and moving but w/out having to meet any expectation of numbers. It was what I call a good "Right Brain" swim. After a short break I did 1-lap sprints, but again I wasn't watching my times .. I was just enjoying being alive in my body, in the water. 

Tomorrow I will do an internet search for other measures for Dissociative Sx and Complex PTSD.

Acceptance, Details and Strategy

Therapy today was about a strategy session. (a) what is going on re: the debt front (b) assessing just how much are my Sx interfering in everyday life (c) is a higher level of care (which would be quite an expense) the best option (d) how to best proceed w/ the given $ limitations (e) acceptance.  


It has been one challenging year. About this time last year my therapist and I were working on preparing me to return to my home town for my Grandmother's 100th birthday. Family & friends were coming from all over the country. I had been anxious for months ahead of time bc my grandmother's party would be held at the very same church where ... I had many, many bad experiences.


It was good for my therapist to review w/ me what I have experienced w/in this past year. I have had increased nightmares. Times when I was so tired from not sleeping that driving to & from work was scary.  Times when my work productivity sucked so bad I had to disclose some of my trauma Hx to preserve my job.  Times when I would sit at my desk and feel "Little" and have to stare at my computer until I remembered what the next step was supposed to be and to re-re-re-check my work to ensure I hadn't missed anything. Times when my father-in-law's behavior needed to be confronted-which was triggering. This whole year of the Jerry Sandusky arrest, trial testimony and now the scandal of wilful disregard by Penn State administrators has impacted me more than I thought possible. Especially in light of the disregard I received from the church leadership when I reached out w/ my story. And here more lately, times when I have been more aware of switches and changes w/in my system. "Rolodexing" as another DID blogger I follow would describe it.


Acceptance ... accepting that I thought I had put all this behind me (like 10 freaking years ago) but that it never was completely resolved. Back 10 years ago, I didn't blog but I wrote extensively for almost a year in a journal. I wrote piece after piece on my feelings in a forum called The Wounded Healer Journal and another forum MaleSurvivor. I learned about DID and dialogued w/ parts, I wrote about my anxiety, my anger, my developing self-esteem. And I moved on w/ my life.  I spoke in therapy today remembering (w/ some level of grief) about how when I first met and dated my wonderful, beautiful-heart wife in 2006, it was if I never had a traumatic past at all.


Acceptance ... accepting that I am not doing so well. Accepting that even though I appeared to have made significant progress towards integration ... my parts are back and w/ a heightened urgency to each perform their roles and to move me towards an epic battle w/ my past.  I don't like fighting and I view violence as a sign of weakness (bc you failed to out-smart your opponent). But the storm clouds are gathering and I must accept that in order to move forward, I have to go backwards into my DD-NOS system to summon my 'team' for the coming confrontation with whatever each part has held on to-so I could go on and function.


Acceptance ... accepting that what I endured, what caused my brain to form completely separated neural networks for the images and emotions I was subjected to - was pretty F'd up. 


Acceptance ...accepting that I am still alive and even though I may be slower, less emotionally mature, less financially stable, that I have the kind of resilience that made my therapist's jaw drop as she began to get more of the details from my journal. I read a section of my journal from 2002 about how my system has organized itself around protecting me from the details of a series of specific events. When I looked up from reading my therapist appeared ashen and emoting from some of the content. My 'Dr. J' part was forward at the time so to me, it was just clinical data. But somewhere inside I knew I should appreciate the magnitude of what I endured and what I have managed to accomplish (and avoid) in spite of my childhood.


So the plan is to up the frequency of sessions to 2x/week for a short time. And to begin exploring some augmented EMDR as a means of letting 'Little J' share his stories and his damned up emotions. Even though I have an abusive part, I know what it's agenda is and I can see through it's manipulative messages, and so I have no concerns about safety or irresponsible behavior. I am not letting that Gdamn priest steal my present or my future from me. 


Acceptance ... accepting that I will most likely have nightmares tonight which I will not remember much of (If I'm lucky) when I wake up. Accepting as I realize I didn't minimize anything in therapy today, nor did I try to over-intellectualize or let 'Zen' put some spin on it. Nope, I shared my honest history and concerns about my future. And since the whole point of Dissociation is "Anywhere But Here" talking about myself in a manner so 'unedited', for me was pretty F'ing courageous.


That's plenty for now.






     

'Zen' Looks for a Quantum Leap

Today I was thinking about my upcoming therapy appt tomorrow  …  I tend to ponder and grow anxious days ahead of the significant appts. I was in a ‘Zen’ state of mind much of today – which means my attention was directed to big possibilities within a responsive universe and having good things orchestrated to me by a benevolent Higher Power. So after listening to the audio book recording of Carl Sagan’s “Contact” I meandered on Amazon, looking for new books in the New-Age/Self-Help neighborhood (just yesterday I was in ‘Dr J’ mode and searching for books and research journal articles on DID Tx). 

All of sudden it occurred to me that I was searching for some quantum leap treatment vehicle to accelerate my resolution of my past and (here’s the key) to AVOID delving into my ‘Terrorized-Little J’s’ story and emotions. And I asked 'Zen' are you in on this too? … And Zen replied "I am trying to attract a miracle to prove I can do it; and I want to bring ‘Terrorized Little J’ his long overdue Joy and Deep Spiritual Exhale, sooner". 

Noble intentions, indeed. But I feel a stronger resolve that ‘Terrorized Little J’ is desperate to get the attention and opportunity to share things which he has held onto for decades. And any miracle I might attract would be incomplete without having honored my past self by caring enough to be present with ‘Terrorized Little J’ and to be present with whatever memory fragments, narratives and emotions, being held back there which are damning up my past and interfering with my present and my future. 

ISST-D & Beginning to Prepare for Memory Work

Spent some time today reading through the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISST-D) Treatment Guidelines for Adults. My 'take-away' was that I seem to be moving towards Phase-2 of Treatment. Which is about "Confronting, Working Through, and Integrating Traumatic Memories" (p 142). Maybe if I knew more, I'd know to be worried. But actually I have a sort of a sense of being on safari when I think of going-in to the jungle of dendrites, axonal fibers, and synaptic connections* in search of this mystic place which is my childhood. Those clinical neurological terms are holding the memory fragments of images, threats, and body feelings which I will be assembling into damned up emotions so as to release them, which may turn out to be disturbing. But I have a determination to reach back in time to help my little terrified self by allowing me to tell what I have held onto for so long and I have my wife and step-daughter as my support and motivation to 'just keep swimming'.**  It's the girls' night out, so I'm making pasta & chicken w/ Sun-Dried Tomato Alfredo sauce (from a jar) for dinner.  ***

*     The "Dr.J" part of me gravitates towards the science.

**   The "Zen" part of me loves to speak of optimism and hope.

***  The part of me named "Montreal" is creative and loves to cook.

(there are some other parts who may introduce themselves later on) 

I have a pretty good "team" if I do say so, myself.

Hello 2.0

More about me. I'm in the fourth-quarter of my 40s and I have a Hx of multiple traumas from an early age. Lately I have been pondering how my young brain's development and functioning was affected.  My amygdala and hippocampus were consistently awash in stress related neuro-chemistry and thus I was wired early on to space-out, check-out and dissociate under a wide range of contexts.  My therapist has said she is surprised I am functioning as well as I have been. 

Much of my memory is just a bucket of memory fragments from earlier childhood, before the ‘known’ traumas arrived. During my MSW and most of my career I steered my training and my work towards childhood trauma. As if I was trying to educate myself about myself.  I am blessed to have never had any self-harmful Bx. But it is a cruel irony that I am smart enough to describe the brain functioning associated w/ Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and yet sometimes feel ‘taken over’ by my foggy montage of scary memory video-clips, and to feel ‘little’ and helpless. I lose time in a spacey sort of manner but don’t seem to completely lose present-moment consciousness when I switch. 

I once broke my finger playing basketball and kept on playing for another 15 minutes - not bc I was super tough - it was bc I dissociated and didn’t notice the pain. I did not have a compound fracture but it wasn't until I jumped to get a rebound and in mid-air, I saw my bone poking up where it shouldn't, then it finally hit me that I was injured. And yet that same keep-on-plodding and never-admit-pain-or-need attitude has negatively financially impacted the very family I am so grateful to have. And I will not allow the past to steal from my present or my future any longer. I worry about being able to maintain the professional license I worked my ass off to attain. As far as I am aware I have about 8 parts which are more diffuse than concrete. Many other DID folks I know of have intricately more detailed inner lives for their parts, than I do. So I am confused about which direction to go in … (a) to attempt to learn skills to calm down and move on in a more ‘integrated’ manner or (b) to sort of go backwards and begin specific dialogues w/ some of the more traumatized parts to assemble meaning to the huge gap in my childhood-I have only limited memory fragments for like the first 9 years of my life-as if I was beamed into the world Star Trek style already in the 3rd grade.

I have managed to forge on w/ this as best as I could for years. I have a beautiful, beautiful wife w/ a beautiful heart, who I didn’t meet until I was 41. I have a wonderful 14y stepdaughter who is artsy and insightful. And we have 3 dogs who are wise, soulful and teachers each in their unique ways. Sometimes I thrash around so much w/ nightmares my wife has to move to another room to sleep. I have a skilled therapist who is knowledgeable about DD-NOS and trauma. In the past I have been ‘smarter’ than my other therapists, and I have a part which would come forward and ‘talk shop’ instead of talking about my traumas.

My next Thpy appt is on Thu 07/12/12, it will be 90-min'er bc it will be a strategy session ...  How bad off am I really? & What to do next? My experiences of feeling small and helpless and other flashbacks are intruding more and more often.  

I called in sick to work last Friday morning bc I had a flashback of something I had totally forgotten about which I witnessed back around 1974!   I literally felt sick to my stomach but after I gathered myself together the only thing I could think of to do w/ all of my angst-energy was read 3 scientific journal articles on DID (to prove to myself I'm not crazy), and then go to the YMCA and swim a mile and change and run 4 miles in the 95-degree heat [my wife was Not pleased]. But I take super-major care to be stretched and well-hydrated and to slow down & drink fluids that I take running w/ me as I need to, besides physical movement is like the only thing these days that gets me out of my head. One hellluva digression there  .. 

Anyway, I feel my murky past and terrorized Littles' damned up and unheard emotions and stories deserve their time, since my DD-NOS has devised and enacted gazillions of ways to appear normal and not "go there". And since I am having the memory fragments, flashbacks, inner chatter, and nightmares anyway, I wish I could dive into to some intensive work ...  Bc I am actually worried these symptoms will be absorbed back into my consciousness and still affect my frozen-in-place life, but w/out me having had a chance to make progress w/ them.

Things That Make Me Smile

• Being w/ my Beautiful, Beautiful Wife  (no really ... every single day she makes me laugh) 
• Listening to my stepdaughter's laughter
• Playing with Our 3 Dogs
• Being in the water  (pool, lake, ocean, shower, ect.)
• Swimming Laps
• Running 
  
• Football
• Soccer
• Lacrosse 
• Pizza  (no olives or other weird toppings)
• Chips & Salsa
• Coca-Cola
• Cherry-Lemon Sundrop  (its a southern thing) 
• Gummy Lifesavers
• Peanut Butter and Marshmallow Cream sandwhiches
• Samuel Adams Light Beer
• NY Strip Steaks off the grill w/ Mashed Potatoes
• Corn-on-the-Cob w/ Old-Bay Seasoning  (its a Chesapeake Bay thing)
• Anything Blueberry  (I once made pasta salad w/ blueberries & yogurt) 
• Electric Cars
• NASA's Mars Rovers  (a new one is due to land in early Aug-2012)   
• Ubuntu Linux Operating System
• TwiT.tv
• Weather Geek  (too much math was required to be a real meteorologist)
• Legos
• DJ Miss Nine  (techno music)
• Pink Martini music  (I sang 1 of their songs in Italian to my wife when we were dating) 
• The New York Times
• The LA Times
• Watching YouTube videos of returning Veterans surprising their loved ones
• New-Age, Law of Attraction kind of stuff  
• Encouraging Others

Hello

I am a complete newb at blogging and social media. But I wanted to try it out and to create a space where I can post my thoughts and feelings as I work through a boatload of past 'stuff'. So I will spend some time wandering around here to try and learn how to put in pictures and links, ect.