Tag: DID

Difficult therapy session

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, depression, mood disorders

Difficult therapy session

I had sent my therapist the “Hyde here” blog that I wrote the other night. We ended up talking a lot about my “parts”, mainly Jack and Hyde. She wanted to know more about what brought Hyde out and I told her I was exhausted but felt the need to write. Hyde always comes out when I am in that state. Jack has been elusive. He only seems to come out if I am angry at my therapist or something she says triggers him. I don’t know too much about him but I think today I figured out that he has been a part of me longer than I thought. I think he has been a part of me since my teen years when I was cutting. There was a dissociative episode I had when I was 17. I had started cutting and spaced out. As I was telling her this, I could feel Jack saying it was him. It is possible. A lot of anger and pain was expressed in all the cuts I was doing over the years.

She was trying to engage the parts but I can’t call them up on command. She said that it was important to talk about this. I had texted her before our session I didn’t want to talk about my father at all. I felt like we had spent enough time talking about him on Tuesday. But she brought him up anyways. I was vulnerable and something triggered me crying. So I spent the last few minutes of session crying because I couldn’t stop. I had gotten angry at one point and that almost always leads to a crying spell. But I was crying tears of sadness because I know my father isn’t going to be around much longer, if things progress the way they do. I never had a good relationship with him because he is a liar and an abusive one at that.

We also talked about my suicidality a little bit. Hyde is tied to my suicidality. He wants to die and so do I. But I have been failing at it because of my therapist. She wanted to know when he was formed and I have no idea. He is a part of me that comes out when I am extremely exhausted, usually doped up on meds, and am fighting sleep yet have the urge to write. I also feel slightly suicidal when he makes an appearance. He has been quiet a lot lately because I haven’t been so suicidal for whatever reason. The psychache has been relieved. I don’t feel as much psychological pain lately as I did in the past. I think it’s due to increasing my mood stabilizer. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel sad and depressed at times.

My therapist stirred a bunch of stuff up for me today. I found it very exhausting. I am glad I don’t have to talk to her till Tuesday. I was thinking about writing my recovery from self harm but I don’t think I will do that today. It’s just too triggering for me and I don’t want Jack to come out. My therapist called him like a bodyguard. Maybe he is. I don’t know. He is elusive and only came out at least twice since “finding” him. My therapist brought up the woman I can’t stand as she had told her that my “parts” need a voice or they will kill me. As whacky as this woman is, I think she might be right about this one. It makes sense. But I won’t tell my therapist that.

Morning musings

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, depression, mood disorders

I had a long morning. I kept on waking up from 0430 on till my alarm went off at 0630. I didn’t want to get up but I had to if I wanted coffee and breakfast before picking my father up. His appointment went well. I then scuttled off to my therapist’s office/town. It took me a good hour to get there as I hit every red light from one town to the next. I was traveling the back roads rather than the highway. Once I got to my Starbucks, I tried to edit but my brain was dead. I saw the words but it wasn’t holding my attention. I was too tired from the early morning awakenings and the drive out there. So I just pulled out my journal and wrote. I wrote about how I had to end a friendship because she kept on choosing bad habits and I was tired of seeing her hurt. She wanted someone else to save her but wouldn’t do anything to save herself. At least meet me half way but then she did what she intended to do that last night and I had to cut her off. She is just too toxic and I can’t be part of her injuring herself. I tried my best to help her but she is just too far away from me. I talked about it in therapy. I really didn’t want to, but it came up. My therapist is glad that made a “wise” decision but it still hurts me. I hate losing friends that are troubled. But I guess you can’t save them all if they can’t help themselves. I thought I could but I can’t. I just am not strong enough I guess.

We also talked about my upcoming date. She was pretty anxious about being here for a week and then leaving me to my own devices. With the stuff going on with my friend, I kind of forgot my own troubles for a bit. But leave it to my therapist to bring it up again. We talked about Hyde and how he comes about, or not. We haven’t pinned down exactly what triggers him. I could be writing something grand and then he will come in and write something awful. I have no way of knowing. It’s making me scared to write anything for fear of the white coats being called on me. My therapist asked if one of the journals I had bought was for Hyde. Hell no. He isn’t going to be in a nice journal. He will be in a composition notebook. But the things is, as well as that sounds, there is no guarantee he will use it. He might just use a word doc or email someone in the dead of night. I have warned people that if they should get a message from me late at night to just delete it or ignore it. Trouble is, they have not done so. The best I can describe when Hyde takes over is that I am in a dreamlike state. I am vaguely aware of what is going on. I have intense feelings of pain, anguish, and despair. And I have an agitation to write something, anything, to express these “bad” feelings. I don’t know where Hyde came from. He is a part of me, I know that. But just like cutting is to my friend, so is Hyde to my writing. I have just swapped out cutting for writing and it’s with poison ink! Some day I know I might be hospitalized again for my words. And I am going to have no recollection of this happening. It’s like I stepped out, Hyde takes over, and I write. I am not malicious, except to describe how terrible I feel. My psych wants code words and my therapist wants a notebook. How am I going to satisfy both when I have no idea what is happening until the next morning. Because soon after my/his words are exhausted, I fall into a restful slumber and wake up thinking it was a dream. I am safe as far as I know. Hyde has never taken lethal action against me. I think the writing wears him out and then he is too tired to act on the feelings he is writing about. Either that, or the cocktail of meds that I take finally give in and puts him/me out. But what brings on Hyde remains a mystery, least for now.

Mockingbird won’t sing

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, suicidality, writing

Mockingbird won’t sing

I spoke to my therapist about my pw protected blog. It is about my coming out as a transgender. She liked it and recommended that I send it to my psychiatrist. I have no intention of doing so because I just think it will be a waste of my pdoc’s time. I know she enjoys my writing but sending her something she already knows seems redundant to me. We had already discussed this (TG issues) when I saw her last. I took down the blog but have it saved in my trash bin, should I decide to send it out again.

After my session, I was a little hyper. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I did some journaling and that seemed to calm me down some. I think I drank too much coffee. LOL It is weird that on days that I don’t have coffee I can function fairly well but am not as productive and on days that I do have coffee, I am more productive and can think a little more clearly.

I just had my lunch, a bowl of cereal. I really wanted a bacon sandwich but I am trying to lower my salt intake. Plus it was cinnamon toast crunch and I know cinnamon has some health value.

I seemed to have done something to my right hip between changing my sheets on Sunday and walking yesterday. I took a trip to the basement to freeze some bread as our freezer was full and by the time I got there, my hip and sciatica was acting up. I was having pains in the buttock going down my leg. Soon as I rested it went away. I want to do another walk tomorrow, the same distance I did yesterday. I need to try and do more exercise but I also don’t want to hurt myself in the process. I am going to try stretching those muscles to see if that eases the pain. It might just need a gentle stretch as I am out of shape. I haven’t walked long distances in over two years. I wish there was a Starbucks I could walk to but there isn’t. There is no way I can walk to my Starbucks place in the square. That will be my goal one day but not off the bat. It still depresses me that I can’t walk far without pain. I used to be able to walk anywhere I wanted to. Now I am so limited that even a walk more than a few blocks hurts me. But if I don’t test my limits and move past them, I am never going to know what I can and can’t do. I want to be more mobile but not to be in pain all the time. I am NOT willing for that to be the price I pay for increased mobility. And I know it will take time. Maybe walking halfway and back is what I need to do until I can do the 1.2 miles again.

I have titled this “Mockingbird won’t sing” because it was the song that I was listening to when I started my blog. It is a song by Rob Thomas. It reminded me of the time when my therapist and I were not on the same page. No matter what we tried, we just were batting heads. I wasn’t making much progress in what was being said. I felt like I was at a stand still and was doubting whether I should stay with my therapist. That was when we decided on consultation, and even then we had different opinions on what kind of consult we needed. She wanted me to see a DID (dissociative Identity Disorder) specialist and I wanted to see a suicidologist. We ended up seeing both, though not at the same time.

I got nothing but bullshit from the DID specialist. She denied my hallucinations, called them “parts of self”. If they were parts of me, why did they respond so well to medication?? I felt like I was back in the old ward of the Trauma unit of the hospital I was just discharged, where they wanted me to name my feelings and “talk with them”. This person had some pretty eclectic ideas about how trauma works. But I guess she got the idea from Europe and brought it over to the States, where it didn’t catch on. And the reason for that is because DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) takes precedence. My therapist did like her style and I hated it. I still think it is a crock, though, I will admit, there are some merits to what she was saying. I don’t remember them now but I remember the specialist’s papers were interesting.

The suicidologist was more my type. He was analytical, complete with a couch in his office. We had a few sessions but I found that transference (my feelings toward him) was getting in the way of our therapy so I stopped going. He is still available to me should I need him again. Unfortunately, he doesn’t accept my insurance so it will be a hefty bill, if I do see him again.

suicidal self vs DID

by Midnight Demon, posted in depression, mood disorders

I was reading an article tonight about DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple personality disorder). It got me thinking in a lot of ways that I will ask my therapist about. I am wondering if I went into an “alter” last week when I became really suicidal. My pdoc thinks that I am just not made to be menstruating, that anything to do with it, I just become suicidal. But it’s so strange that I become this suicidal maniac until I start bleeding. Then I am back to my status quo. I woke up differently on Thursday than I was feeling on Wednesday. I still feel like I should be dead but it’s like last Tuesday was eons ago rather than just last week. I don’t know if I am making any sense. I just know that I was different than I am now and I am trying to figure it out. Nothing triggering me into being someone else. I just figured that since no one was home, they would have a hard time finding me and then it would be too late to save me. I am not going to say what I was planning on doing.

This “different” state happens all the time and I should know by now that it is hormonal. But does hormones play a part in DID? No one really knows that much about it. They know that trauma plays a huge part in forming the alters or different personality states. But why should I have just a suicidal state? I mean I am suicidal most of the time but this was different. This was borderline hospitalize me now or I am going to end my life state. And then, just like that, I didn’t want to kill myself anymore. It was the furthest thing from my mind. I am not saying that I wanted to live, because I NEVER do but suicide was the last thing on my mind and has been that way the past few days. I actually have been feeling “happy” and not moody. I am finagling how to make a future for myself that includes going back to college and getting my degree. That I don’t have a car anymore, kills me. That I am not working anymore, kills me. And the big one, that I am disabled, absolutely destroys me. I have to be on bedrest for the next month. That absolutely sucks. I literally have to make the swelling in my leg go down before my next appointment. I don’t know what they will do. Probably start me on more pills or something to get the swelling down if rest and ice doesn’t work.

And all this is fueling my suicidal gauge again. It got empty for a while but now it’s back to being full. And I cannot tell my therapist I am on bed rest because she will fucking pull that card on me big time and I don’t want to hear it. It would soon be grounds for admission to hospital and I can’t do that. FUCK that. Problem is, I haven’t figured out how NOT to keep this from her because I have a big mouth and I tell her everything that is wrong with me. I don’t know how she stands me. I really don’t. I torture this lady week after week with my suicidality. I bore her to tears with my pain issues. She doesn’t let on about it, but I know I bore her. But I am getting off topic of the DID stuff…

I don’t know when the suicidal self began. It happened really quickly and that is what scared me. I started thinking about this on Monday (last Monday) and then poof, Tuesday I was in the running for a suicide attempt. It got spoiled only because my fucking idiot therapist wanted to keep my appointment with her. Damn bitch and her decorum. It was a beautiful day to kill myself. No one was home. I would take what I needed to do the deed and be done with it with no one to fucking stop me. So the plan was to proceed anyways. NOPE, didn’t happen. I had to text her that I was going to be dead by Wed and would not be keeping our appointment because of my death. Or something like that. I am the biggest idiot alive. One hand I was having keen suicidal thoughts and in the other hand, I am texting the one person that could stop me from going through with it. I am a fucker, as she has called me numerous times now. I am not kidding. But it is true. My ambivalence got in the way, maybe, and thus my beautiful plan was never executed in the fashion I wanted it to. So then I started thinking of other ways to end my life. Until Thursday came with a little gift of discharge and all was right with the world again. Doesn’t make sense. I didn’t lose track of time. I was in the moment, well, in a suicide moment. The constriction was deep and flowing. I couldn’t wrap my head around anything other than killing myself and then poof, it’s gone. Just like that. And I am left stunned. I am back to the land of the living though I certainly don’t want to be here. I am left feeling like “did that really happen”? “Was I really thinking of taking my life that way”? Why did I want to die so badly? It just doesn’t make any sense. And I don’t think my therapist or my psychiatrist can make sense of it either. Just a few drops of menstrual blood was all that was needed to break the insanity, to lose the suicidal self. My psych doesn’t see that side of me often. She doesn’t see what my therapist sees on a regular basis. I think it is harder for her to diagnose me as a DID because of this, if I do have DID. But I don’t think having a suicidal self “counts” as a “part of self” or an “alter”. And that is really frustrating me.

I am on birth control pills that are supposed to control my menses so this break should not be happening. Yet it happens and I have no control over it. I don’t think anyone can really have control over it. Even though the discharge was only a day or so, it was enough to break the suicidal self and bring me back to being miserable. And that is that sad part of this. I don’t die and I am forced to live when I don’t want to.