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I've just read your post and my heart goes out to you. It sounds so difficult, I'm sorry

I have either partial DID or OSDD rather than full DID, and I don't have any meds for that. I just take Citalopram as an anti-depressant and L-Thyrox for thyroid underfuntion. I don't have the impression that Citalopram helps when I'm in a really bad way, when I'm in EFs. I think it helps a little bit in general when I'm more hit with depression Being in EFs - I think that's really when I'm more in a Part than in my Adult of Today. I don't find it surprising that there's not a medication for that, tho my psych doesn't seem to understand. Unfortunately, he doesn't know enough about DID and sub-forms of it...

My present psychiatrist is probably the best I can do round here. I have been in far worse, far less competent care. It took me a good while to find a semi-compatible one. I wish it weren't so.

I'm sorry I don't really seem to have anything helpful to say, so just sending support.

Hi She, welcome to the forum 

Thank you both san and Hope for your words of support and comfort and hugs. You're right Hope it was a very big thing which I managed to do for myself, and continuing today too like I went to see my gp about certain minor symptoms which are continuing, just because I needed re-assurance. My gp was totally fine about that, didn't berate me for 'wasting time' or anything like that. When I left, I felt better because my anxiety had gone down again, thanks to her words including factual information.

You may be proud of me san! In fact I'm proud of myself     and I know that's a very big deal.

To you both san and Hope 

I signed up for one of the freebie Conferences, this current one on Expanded States of Conscious. Today is the 7th day maybe, but the first day I've felt well enough to try. Just noting for myself here to check out Rollin McCraty at HeartMath Institute, because his talk resonated a lot with me. Just reading his website will be helpful for me, probably.  Certainly better than trying to take notes.

Heart intelligence!

    

    

Thank you both for your replies. Things are tough for other reasons atm but I will get back to you. 

Thank you Kizzie
There are more realisations coming, I mean healing ones. But today I'm also feeling the affect of the anti-allergy meds I've been put on for the next days, a bit like depersonalisation maybe.

But still - considering everything that went on, I'm doing really, really well and I'm proud of myself for managing, and also for taking good care of myself today. I'm drinking just water, eating carefully with regards to amount and what exactly, taking no risks. I had some cherries in the fridge anyway and had a couple but noticed they were weird on my tongue, so not eating those. It goes against the grain to throw them in the compost, but I'm not well enough to find somebody who might like them.

I allowed myself to lie down and doze for most of the day, I needed it.
I felt better for being and talking in and being supported by my Zoom Group this evening tho

Thank you NK     

[*** Trigger Warning Medical Trauma ***]

*** Trigger Warning Medical Trauma ***     (not too gruesome, I don't think)




I was bitten by an insect yesterday and had an immediate allergic reaction that got pretty full-on within minutes. Not progress obviously, but the way I dealt with it was:

I was at an outside event where there were ambulances anyway and headed straight to them and tho I was in shock and trembling and feeling sick and itchy/burning all over,  (1) I did manage to tell them I'm allergic to a particular medication that is used to bring an allergic reaction down. (2) I also told them before I was injected with cortisol?/cortisone? that I know they have to inject but I have a cptsd trauma thing with injections and the paramedic was caring about that, in her tone of voice, gestures. When she had to give me a further injection she signalled to her colleague who had a free moment to distract me while she injected, which he did by asking some totally non-related questions. That was helpful in the moment, kept my Adult of Today distracted and I think maybe helped out whichever ICs were so badly affected.

They took me to hospital and I was in overnight on the emergency observation ward. At first I always apologised for using the bell to call nurses, cuz I know how under-staffed and stressed they are, but they were so nice and said not to apologise that (3) I stopped feeling bad about it and rang with abandon, when I needed to.

Sometime in the early morning (4) I started connecting with and communicating with an IC. When I say 'connecting with', I mean I can sense and feel a lot more than if I'm just talking and she can communicate with me. So I explained that I know an injection is scary for her but it's necessary. She knew the latter, didn't need to be told. Instead, she cried about how scary it was. And repeated 'scary' a couple of times. I could sense that what she needed was to be able to name her feeling and have that accepted and especially NOT have it pooh-poohed as my FOO would have and did. I'm not going to write how because this is meant to be about success and progress  (plus - 5 - I can feel that going back into the trauma rn would not be good for my Adult and undoubtedly not for ICs). I (6) acknowledged IC's feelings (that it was scary).

*** End Trigger Warning Medical Trauma ***





(7) This morning I started tapping (EFT) in order to bring my anxiety down somewhat. I can't remember my sentences but things like 'trusting the hospital', which I had good reason to, unlike the times I was traumatised as a small child in medical settings. This time the hospital and paramedics showed me by their behaviour and words that I could trust them! I yawned a lot, which shows me that the EFT is working. I haven't tapped for seemingly ages, today I noticed (8 ) when it's the appropriate method, then it's there, I start doing it and the correct sentences for me to work with just appear and sometimes even change into something different mid-tap. It's all good, that's how it works for me so (9) not just appropriate to have trust in the hospital but also in ME, TRUST in ME and my capabilities.  A bit later after talking to the doc, I couldn't tap anymore, just not the wherewithal so (10) I remembered to place a hand on my stomach and a hand just below my collar-bone, which are calming spots for me.

By all these things I was doing, I (11) knew that I was reducing the chance of the medical trauma already there being compounded, and it was brilliant of me to be acting on it in the actual setting - both place-wise and emotion-wise. Going at it in the moment.

    

I'm sorry that happened and that you're beginning to notice how badly you sometimes dissociate

I dissociate a lot as well. But not always as badly or with as much problems as other times. It varies. I do understand your worries, though, like about work. I simply cannot work any more (not just because of the dissociation), but that's not ideal for a lot of reasons.

You can learn to manage it better though and/or as you process the trauma the amount of time you spend dissociated and the intensity of the dissociation can lessen. Maybe 'managing' it is not quite the word, but you may notice with time what can trigger your dissociation and then see if you can avoid it to some degree.

More own experience than insight, I guess.

Nice to see you on the forum again and good to hear the comments were helpful.

Just one for today:

The scent of some peonies out of the garden permeating my apt. Been strengthening all day and now in every room. Mmmmmm 

[for you]

Just want to say I feel for you, beautywithin. Tons of FOO shenanigans in my background too. I agree with Kizzie that nobody can tell you what to do. Other members' experiences can be useful though, they were to me too.

I have been NC with some FOO mbrs over the years/decades and then back in contact. I had two very awful experiences in FOO within the past 15 years, after one of which I was severely retraumatised to the point of 'leaving' myself, a form of dissociation I hadn't yet experienced and which continued for about 3 weeks. After the second awful experience (I refer to it on the forum as Horrendous FOO Event no.2 or similar), I went VLC with the whole of FOO. I didn't announce that to them, it just developed. It's hard, it's painful. I find it particularly sad with my small nieces and nephews because they're not actually part of the FOO dysfunction that exists in my generation and at least 2 previous generations.

In a certain way, your oma has a point I think about families being there for you and friends not. But only to a certain degree. First of all, some people do really well with a FOC family of choice - find a supportive life-partner who doesn't treat them the way FOO does. Maybe said life-partner comes from a fairly healthy family emotionally-speaking and so there aren't all these mind games going on. I don't have a partner, never have had, and I don't imagine my healing will ever get to the point where I can countenance something like that.

On the other hand, what your oma does not take into account or simply does not bother to mention is that there's often a VERY high price to pay emotionally and possibly otherwise for remaining in 'normal' contact with families like ours. Mine, yours, and plenty others here on the forum and not on the forum.  I don't think I need to list examples of the high price? You have your own examples of those. There are healthier families who don't expect their members or 1-2 particular mbrs to pay this high price. A family like mine will say: "You can't do that! You can't go NC with your mother for 3 months!" I'd asked for a break in communication, way way back before people talked about going NC or how to do it. What my FOO meant was: "This is unheard of and we can't handle it, it's not OK for you Blueberry to set your mother a limit. It's OK for us to do so but we need you as scapegoat, we need you to take the flak." That final sentence didn't come clear to me for a long, long time.

Your oma is also categorically wrong in stating that friends are fake. All friends   Come on! That's one of these all or nothing statements, possibly based on her perception of life but just not true!

What may unfortunately become true, since many of us here on the forum seem to notice with time: people we thought were really good friends, turn out not to be so good. But that is certainly partly because we haven't had good role models on how to choose emotionally healthy people, nor on setting limits of any sort. And also just that as we heal emotionally, our friends may not be quite so overjoyed that we no longer leap in and help when they need us, or that we no longer sit and listen to everything they say or all sorts of other small changes that we make on the way to healing. I've also had to say to occasional people in my past: you choose - me or FOO. You can't be friends with us both (cuz flying monkey). Tho in my case it was to people who were not from my past. They knew me as an adult and then FOO through me. And when I set my parents limits, these "friends" undermined my limits by giving my parents the information they wanted.

There are certainly good tools to use when going LC like Medium Chill over at our sister website https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/medium-chill
Personally it took me a long time to be able to apply these types of measures. Other people with cptsd seem to be able to do them quite quickly from what I've read here and on sister website OOTF. Maybe reading there will help too. You can search on here too, just reading old posts of how other people dealt with similar on this board or also maybe Letters of Recovery https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?board=43.0 where we have the chance to write what we really want to say to certain people but will never send because very counterproductive e.g. making oneself too vulnerable etc

Sorry, my posts tend to get rather long... I hope there's something useful in here for you. 

I'm in one of the Zoom groups hosted by PapaCoco and just want to say for any new OOTS members interested in joining if there's space, I'm unlikely to be the only one who feels wary of new OOTS members joining before you've written a bit about yourself on the general forum. A Zoom group is much less anonymous than a forum...

Well, another Zoom Group mbr maybe wrote better than me: https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=15329.msg151130#msg151130

I see some new members ask about a Zoom Group or similar and then don't come back. I'd really appreciate new mbrs using the OOTS forum while waiting to see if there's a spot, then the mbrs in the existing groups have more idea who you are. Things may be different for a third Zoom Group if that comes about. It's a good, supportive forum though! Well worth being on with or without a Zoom Group.

Does anybody have the impression that they were eventually able to head directly to a core or primal traumatic wound with trauma therapy and process this a good distance, so that they don't feel as if they're constantly re-hitting that old thing?

My example is my core belief that I am bad through and through and I shouldn't exist. It comes up again and again. I've done lots of work on reducing its power over me plus lots of work on disproving it to myself, taken lots of concrete steps to show myself I do exist and I'm fine that way, heard tons of positive feedback including in therapeutic settings (where people feel/sense a lot plus don't usually lie for the sake of it), but that old FOO stuff sits pretty deep. I've been mentioning this in various ways in T since, let's see, 2002 or maybe even 2001. Not to moan or anything, but getting sick of coming back again and again to this, despite non-head-on ways of therapy, so as not to be overwhelmed etc. (For those on Mbr Journals, I've written there too but that info must please stay there).

I am not so much interested in what all else I could try in my spare time like journaling or etc etc (partially because I have done far more than I can list, some of which I don't even know what to call, don't know if it exists in the English-speaking world but was still helpful plus I am writing this on a Therapy board    ), I'm more interested in hearing if any of the more advanced in healing on the forum feel that they've made significant headway in tamping down this kind of pervasive false belief about themselves, that they believe came from traumatisation in childhood (including preverbal) or generational trauma? So that it doesn't keep re-surfacing?  And how they made that headway, with presumably a therapist - I need a therapist anyway. 

Please note: I'm somewhere on the OSDD/partial dissocation spectrum, have Parts, might well make a difference.

Can EMDR help in this kind of case, to 'get at the root' type thing? Some other trauma therapy type I've never heard of? Or does it have to be some form of Parts work, going thru each Part at a time? It probably has to be Parts work... I was just imagining: wouldn't it be nice, if I could work directly on banishing these types of feelings - I shouldn't exist, I'm so bad through and through I don't deserve a spot on this earth, but no, how would that work out when not every Part picks up on it...?  

Still, in case it did work out, maybe for somebody with fewer Parts or no Parts, could you write a bit about it? I'm guessing it wasn't over in one session... tho i wish for us all that it could be. And of course there could be other core beliefs/wounds too, there certainly are in my case.

I hope my question makes sense. If not, do get back to me, I'll try and explain better. Thanks