Hi,
I may write this and it may not post as I am a little confused where to start. So I will keep this brief. I was 45 when I was first diagnosed. Firstly with BPD and then with CPTSD and BPD. I suffered abuse from as young as my first memory. I then went into a profession where trauma was a day to day experience. I didn't know and thought everyone thought and felt like me. Then, one day, something horrible happened and I broke down and have not recovered. I feel isolated. I dissociate and make my families life a misery. I have lost my job and in turn my identity. One which I created for myself. I have inner ego states, these are manifesting more and more. It scares me. The UK seems so behind with this condition and I am constantly having to explain my illness. Sometimes to those working in MH. I read The Upside of Down, and I read it every day. I feel less like I have lost my mind and less alone. It was like reading a mirror of my life. If nothing else I want to thank with all my heart the brave lady who wrote it. I had books, but, I find reading and concentrating a struggle these days. I don't have good days, I have bad and worse than bad days. My family are all sat downstairs now, watching FANTASTIC BEASTS and WHERE TO FIND THEM....I am where I will always be found. In my room, where I breathe each day and do little else. I don't leave my home or room. I have stopped living and I cannot see a future. Will stop now, as this probably won't post anyway
Welcome to the forum! I'm so sorry that things are so difficult for you atm. By reaching out here you've made an important step.
We do care about our mbrs here and we are all in various stages of recovery ourselves. There are other mbrs on here from the UK and mbrs who've been given Ego States diagnosis, including myself. I know it sounds very scary. If it's not too much for you may I offer a gentle :hug:? If it is too much, just ignore.
Hang in there, Donna. Keep coming here. It helps with the feelings of isolation, I find. Befriend those inner ego states. Get to know them. As I understand it, each is there to help even when the help appears to be anything but helpful. The way they initially helped may no longer be helpful, but that was never the intent. I hope that makes sense.
Glad you're here.
Hi donna
Thank u for sharing i am 45 in the UK and ended my career in mental health this year due to my own health ...
I don't disassociate too much unless have been triggered ..anti dep helps me ..
Yes it is quite a thing educating mh profs on cptsd and i see it as we are pioneering both for ourselves and others..
Glad u are here and that there is hope yet i do know what it is like to feel there isn't ..
I haven't heard about inner ego states and would be interested to hear what this is like ...
Thanks for the book mention
hello Donna
I'm so sorry to know you are living with such challenging stuff, but really glad you reached out - that is a really healthy, strong action.
I, too, am unfamiliar with 'inner ego states' and interested to understand more. Though due to CPTSD and related debilitating health issues I also spend my life largely confined to bed and bedroom, so I could very much relate to your following comment:
Quote from: Donna M on January 05, 2019, 08:38:29 PM
I am where I will always be found. In my room, where I breathe each day and do little else. I don't leave my home or room. I have stopped living and I cannot see a future.
It's not a fun place/ state to be :/
I also really related to the following:
Quote from: Donna M on January 05, 2019, 08:38:29 PM
I had books, but, I find reading and concentrating a struggle these days. I don't have good days, I have bad and worse than bad days.
I often find reading painful and impossible to process. And I also know what it is like to just have unendingly horrid days for prolonged stretches of time, differentiated only by their degree of horridness. That is also incredibly far from fun and extremely wearing :'(
These lines stood out to me:
Quote from: Donna M on January 05, 2019, 08:38:29 PM
I read The Upside of Down, and I read it every day. I feel less like I have lost my mind and less alone. It was like reading a mirror of my life. If nothing else I want to thank with all my heart the brave lady who wrote it.
I'm really glad you found that book. It's so healing and comforting to read and engage with things that make sense to our experience - even if only in very small, manageable steps and bites, because that's all that is achievable. It really can help build the feeling in mind and being that we're not all alone in our experience and not completely crazy and useless after all. This certainly seems to be a major common thread in people's recovery process and I sincerely hope this continues to be the case for you.
I hope you feel able to continue to connect, and like Boatsetsailrose said, thank you for mentioning The Upside of Down - I'm going to go look into it :thumbup:
Please take care :)
Hello Donna, I'm glad you're here. This forum opened my eyes to the fact I wasn't alone, I wasn't sub-human, that there are others like me out there. The people of this forum are always here with a word of encouragement or a virtual hug (sounds cheesy maybe, but those hugs help).
Like you, my abuse started at a very young age. Was diagnosed with PTSD in '12 and found out about CPTSD after that, when I joined this forum.
There's a lot of info here, and there's hope for healing. And there always seems to be someone who can relate. :hug:
Welcome, Donna, from a 52 year old woman, also in the UK, abused from day one by my mother, who also went into a stressful job, married and had children, but nothing ever felt right. I understand exactly what you are describing.
Please continue to post, as you are able. This really is a place where you can find true compassion and understanding, something so lacking in the UK at the moment.
I'm so sorry for your situation, but I really understand where you find yourself.
Thank you all, sincerely. The Upside of Down is on this site. About PTSD (home page) Personal Stories. Your hugs and words were very kind.
My Ego states, I am no expert, but I think it happens because when the traumas occurred my brain, in order to protect me, compartmentalised. So one part of me stopped and another started. They are all me, but at different ages, and they all have their own personality. I call them child under ten, thirteen year old etc. They speak/argue with each other and me. A bit like split personality only you know they are you and not someone else. Well that's the case for me anyway. Sometimes they take over, especially the thirteen year old. She coexists with me most of the time. When I am very stressed, she appears and I will speak as her not me. She sees herself as being in control, only she isn't, she is very damaged. The child under ten she protects. The child under ten rarely speaks almost as though she died, but lately, she has started to speak through pictures she draws and words. I know this makes me sound very mad! The weirdest thing was when they both wrote things down to my psychologist, they both wrote in different handwriting and writing that was age appropriate. I took it to the meeting folded up but never handed it over to my psychologist. I couldn't, it freaked me out and I just brought it back but can't throw it. When the 'probably seven' year old wrote, she was spelling words incorrectly, I at 48 felt present, I knew that she was spelling words wrong, but my brain...or her...was insistent I wrote as she wanted to and not correct them. I feel like I invented myself at a point, about 19, and I just watched other people and how they acted and built my life on this. I always knew I felt different to others and depression came and went through the decades. The depression is the thing I find the least difficult to deal with. The anxiety the worse, because it keeps me from going anywhere or doing anything. I was a strong independent woman and it is difficult to look at what I have become. I detest not working but I cannot be around people, I dissociate and put myself in danger. I stopped making eye contact after 'the trigger'. Having CPTSD and then BPD makes things complicated. I know many of the symptoms are similar or the same, but I do the whole love me, don't love me thing and I destroy relationships. I feel like I am on a rollercoaster and for me, the numb feeling is the better, though I feel nonexistent, it is also safer. Anyway. Thank you all for replying, I think I would have had a very bad day if no one had. :grouphug:
Hi donna
Thank you for sharing ..
What you describe doesn't sound mad to me ..i get it ..i totally get how we split off to survive . I've done some work with t on my different parts ie different ages and different parts of the trauma . i got in touch with the toddler and she felt so free after some work (i rarely feel this freedom in my life ...
But mostly it was the cremated ashes of the younger girl that was cowering in the corner that i connected with ...she doesn't trust me at all...
I don't work either now but i really like it i did a highly responsible job for too long .
I needed to grieve and find who i am without that title but now im so pleased i can give the energy to myself and the space that i gave away to others for years .
https://drarielleschwartz.com/parts-work-therapy-dr-arielle-schwartz/#.XDJt5WSnzN4
Donna, I private messaged you before I read your post from today. You'd asked about dealing with different parts. I wasn't sure we were talking about the same thing, but I see now that we were--structural dissociation! Yay. Fun. No, but it's so nice to hear others' stories about how they experience their parts and how they interact with them.
I've got an angry male teen part who tries to act tough to help protect my littler parts. He's often frustrated that he's not strong enough to stand up to the adults who are hurting the little ones. I asked him his name and he said it is John. I thought, "Well, that's kind of boring. Can it at least be Jon without the h?" I think at the back of my mind I felt I was making John up, so if I were, why couldn't I have come up with a cooler name, right? Nope. John. I found that whole interaction/thought process funny.
A member of OOTS named Hope mentioned a book by Janina Fisher called Healing the Fractured Selves of Trauma Survivors that is an excellent source of information about structural dissociation and how it's best treated by Internal Family Systems-based therapy. It's been a huge source of help to me. Huge. I highly recommend it if you haven't already read it.
QuoteThey are all me, but at different ages, and they all have their own personality. I call them child under ten, thirteen year old etc. They speak/argue with each other and me. A bit like split personality only you know they are you and not someone else. Well that's the case for me anyway. Sometimes they take over, especially the thirteen year old. She coexists with me most of the time. When I am very stressed, she appears and I will speak as her not me.
This is me, too. You don't sound mad at all. :hug:
Thank you so much Donna for writing about ego states. It got me back thinking about mine and helped me re-connect with old tools I used for dealing with them.
You don't sound mad at all. I wish I could write more but I don't seem able atm. Just, I'm really glad you found us. There's tons of information, experience and hope here. It can and does get better. :grouphug:
Kat that is a great book i was flicking through it in the library ..
I'm so glad you found us, Donna, and reached out. I can relate to a lot of what you're saying, although I don't think I experience parts as strongly as you described. I can definitely relate to being triggered by work things, and it has become frighteningly more apparent to me in recent years that I'm probably not much longer for the workforce. Forced interactions with people (read: coworkers, colleagues, the general public) is getting harder and harder for me. People really are just too triggering for me. It's seriously starting to interfere with my functioning (especially because of anxiety, dissociation, and rage at not feeling heard/respected).
We're roughly the same age, and I've recently realized that I'm probably experiencing perimenopause now. It seems to be exacerbating my CPTSD (it's currently way worse than it's ever been and I'm seriously worried about how bad things can get).
I don't know if you're going through something similar, but I thought I'd mention it, in case that might be helpful. I have read a lot of accounts of women (e.g., on myPTSD) who talk about menopause + CPTSD as being a really toxic combo.
I send you my hugs, too. I really understand. It's invisible, but it's SO HARD...
Thank you!, Donna, and to Kat and others who have described more about the ego states/ structural dissociation.
This sounds like what I have noticed in myself. I have spoken to my T about it, and she seemed to accept my attempts at description, certainly did not seems to dismiss in any way, but she also didn't elaborate or name anything, so I have never really pursued it as I thought perhaps it was normal for everyone.
I've sort of been aware for years of these distinct 'modes' of personality I go through, and only as I was really twigging to the effects of trauma did I start to see there was a connection to DID. I didn't feel what I experience was distinct and strong enough for a DID diagnosis, but I did start to wonder if it was like a kind of nascent form of it.
Anyway, I'm really grateful that you have mentioned it, Donna, so that others have had an opportunity to discuss it a bit more. I'm definitely going to try and find a copy of the book Kat mentioned, and try to find some online articles, too.
Glad you're here, and take care :)
Hello
More Stupidity from me. I am confused about two different forums. I don't know which one I should post on when I feel the need. One is headed for CPTSD developed in Childhood, the other for in Adulthood. I don't understand where I fall? So basically, I have this condition because of long-term childhood trauma, but did not get diagnosed until adulthood. I had further significant trauma in adulthood which triggered the underlying risk to developing this condition. It is suggested that my frontal lobe would have developed differently in childhood due to trauma, but I am told had this further adult trauma not occurred, I would not likely have developed CPTSD, though, I had BPD and Depression, BPD likely inherited. Can someone please tell me which of the two I can post on? I am very confused. The Childhood one has more headings familiar to me? (re abuse). But that also occurred as a trigger as an adult. I'm sorry, you have all took so much time replying to me in the first place and here I am, being completely stupid again! :thumbdown:
Hi donna
Stupid is the language of the inner critic hey you and all.of us here don't strike me as stupid just human..
I can see you dilemma
As you say long term child trauma happened and the childhood tab has more familiar headings so sounds like that is a good place.
For me in my recovery i always tend to go with what started first (primary)
Adult trauma section is always open to you as that is also your added experience ...
My suggestion is post where ever you feel and are drawn to wanting to and you will get the most from. no one is vetting that and as a survivor of both you have all of it open to you..
Asking questions and checking things out is really good self care I'm learning to do that more ..
Ha, indeed that inner critic is no friend of mine:) thanks will go for where it started too :)