For a week, a different between us my psychologist and me.
This conflict generated so much stress that I asked that we take a short break of a week from our dates.
This week, I had a hard time taking a step back and coming out of the overflow of emotions that were overwhelming me. The sessions with my therapist did not help to calm down and ease this conflict and on the contrary seemed to reinforce my discomfort. I was so overwhelmed that I had the feeling I had to take a step back, rest because I felt that my daily life, the balance in place was on the verge of exploding.
I will try to analyze what is at stake to try to see more clearly.
It all started with a word. One and only word. And it has taken on huge proportions!
During all this week I felt a gigantic anger mixed with an immense despair, moments when I was anesthetized and others on the contrary when my head seemed to be on the point of exploding so much my thoughts and my feelings did not stop d 'flocking, overlapping ... It was exhausting, trying. Despite everything, I had to go to work, take care of my daughters and continue to manage my daily life. Last night I felt empty.
I felt the urge to end my therapy, to close this site, to stop working. I wanted to "blow everything up".
My psy had shared something with us, a document that belonged to her and that she agreed to share with us with very laudable intentions, with the desire to help us understand, grow, trust her ... this "gift" allowed that the therapeutic bond is strengthened because my intellectual parts need independence, understanding to trust him.
Thanks to this "gift", I was able to advance a lot inside, much more and much faster than if she had not given it to me. My intellectual parts therefore have difficulty understanding the fact that she asks me to "give back" to her because for them without that, we would not be there in our progress. They experience it a bit like a betrayal and a setback.
And they make amalgamations with the past and the psychological manipulation that I underwent in the sect. This turnaround is analyzed as an attempt to regain control over myself and my mind, to control my actions and my thoughts without being able to separate the facts.
Some of my parts in the face of internal conflicts seek to obscure. They have thoughts of the style:
"I would like to be locked up, I prefer to be locked up, it's better for everyone, we will hurt no one if we are locked up". Thinking that asking to be hospitalized will put me and my shrink to safety, for fear of this anger I feel and this desperation.
"We can forget and put back the amnesic barriers as we did before. We would just have to forget and nothing would have happened." But my game system has evolved. Now there are too many of us to share the daily life, I have fewer moments when only one part is present. Now, there are too many of us to “know”, to “share”. We can no longer "forget". We have learned to face conflicts, discuss them together and find solutions. We can't just lock him in a corner and forget him there until he explodes right in our face one day or another ...
Some of my parts get stuck in what they have been through in the past and have a partial and inaccurate event analysis:
"She takes advantage of me as the guru. I'm just a puppet. She doesn't see that she is using others. She doesn't even understand like the guru when she too has to give for balance." These parts make no difference between the rapes I suffered and the relationship I have with my shrink.
In the sect, the concept of "property" did not exist. Nothing belonged to us, whether on the material, bodily or psychological level. The guru had a right over everything. The items we owned could be taken from us and given to someone else at any time. The body of the adults was forced into labor and my own body was raped with impunity by it. The guru was at the same time a father, a confessor, a judge. No thought should be hidden from him and in order to survive I had to "create" a dissociative part whose sole purpose was to be present at the "confession" sessions with him. This part was amnesic and completely ignorant of what I was going through outside of these "confessions" and therefore could not reveal anything of my thoughts, analyzes and attempts to escape from the sect.
Many of my games were reactivated by realizing that my shrink wanted to "get" her "gift".
Some see it as a betrayal and feel abandoned by my shrink. As if the bond between us, the trust was broken.
Some are angry and think that she is like the guru and that she is just trying to make us suffer like he did by giving us and then taking things back. To play with the feelings and emotions that we experience.
Some have left in a struggle between attachment need and attachment phobia.
Some associate and amalgamate "confession" and "psychotherapy session". Their mistrust is reactivated and they put themselves in protection mode vis-a-vis my shrink thinking to be again manipulated.
Other parts still struggle to understand that my shrink is not in my head even though until now she has shown us that she intuitively understands many of our thoughts and emotions. We have very little need to verbally explain things to him.
Until now we have been connected. She knew how to respond, react to each part in a very appropriate and appropriate way. And it is difficult for us to understand that she may not be feeling what we are feeling and hearing and experiencing what we are feeling inside right now.
The fact that on this conflict she does not have her usual attitude and is so firm and seems indifferent anger many parties. They have the impression of being betrayed and abandoned, left alone to manage this conflict whereas before my shrink always managed to help us to clarify and put order in all the contradictory perceptions that we were experiencing.
I can't really take a step back from this. Is my analysis of the facts one-sided or impartial? Does my shrink really refuse to help me or is it me who only presents her with hostile parts and prevents her from starting a constructive dialogue to distinguish the present from the past and the different basic beliefs that we have?
Parts also still struggle to understand that what they think and believe is not a single thought that everyone should buy into.
In the sect I was instilled with a concept that I still believe in. A concept that I consider positive and that I continue to apply in my life.
Each person, each adult or child in the sect with a "gift", a "knowledge" or a "talent" had to share it with others in a free and altruistic way. We gave of ourselves for the common good, to grow others, help them ... Be greater than yourself, offer yourself to others ...
I found it noble and beautiful. A person who knew how to sew taught it to others, a person who knew how to play an instrument taught it to others ... Nothing was kept selfishly. Knowledge, skills were for everyone.
Suddenly it is very difficult for me to understand that a person who knows something does not share it for free or change their mind and decide to keep everything to themselves.
I did a training a few years ago and I shared this training with all the people who crossed my path without asking me questions. I considered that it could help, it should not be kept. If I hadn't done it I would have been selfish. So they see my shrink as a selfish person and therefore bad and unhealthy.
And I find it hard to understand and accept that others may think differently and that the concept of "ownership" may be important to them. Here too I am forgetting the dichotomy between my parts. Some have suffered from not owning anything and others want to give everything and blame the desire for property.
Is the extent of this conflict really linked to this "word" used and this request from my shrink? Or is it an attempt to scuttle my therapy and the projects we are currently putting in place? I admit I have trouble analyzing this.
Usually when I have parts that are doing tests and trying to test the bond and trust that we can put in a relationship, I always have other parts (the observers or the controls, the adults ...) who keep control and help temper and dose these tests. Here, this is not the case. On the contrary, I experience a feeling of cohesion, a common agreement: all my parts are unanimous, my shrink screwed up, we must make her understand it.
The analyzes and the reasons for this disagreement are of course multiple and all my parts do not reactivate for the same reasons but in general they agree.
Usually when I have parts that are testing or provoking, I am always torn and I am in great pain inside. My parts seeking to maintain the bond and depend on it fight those that test it or seek to test its solidity (my phobic parts of attachment).
There it is as if, for once, all my parts are in agreement. It's a first for me and it's very confusing!
My controls and observers are angry. Not on the fact of this decision made by my shrink but on how it was done and how she explains and justifies this decision. It is for this reason that they accepted that we take a break from therapy.
They understand very well why she "took" this gift but are very angry that my therapist put us in "danger" by this request because this period is already very complicated and it is not the moment to add to it. upheavals
The functioning of my game system has changed in recent months and I am starting to project myself into the future, to set in motion long-term projects whereas until now I have lived almost exclusively from day to day without projecting myself or very hard. This event turns these projects upside down.
We are no longer the same. Now, a large majority of my parts really live together and help each other in my daily life. I am no longer a part then another then another as in the past. We seek to share experiences, thoughts, feelings and feelings. We can no longer do the same as in the past and just "take control" and cut off parts, relegate them to the background and force them to obey. We must decide and act together.
This balance is very fragile and puts me in a vulnerable situation because my TDI is much more visible from the outside. The slightest event can cause me to lose control and give a glimpse of vulnerable parts (my small parts or teenagers) to the people around me. What I have always hidden and controlled. So I don't need to have to manage conflicts in addition to the difficulty of managing my inner troop! And the fact that this conflict comes from my shrink makes me angry because on the contrary, she is there to help me, not to sink me!
We have always hidden our TDI and what we went through. For some time now we have made incredible progress! We are less afraid to speak, less afraid to show ourselves as we are. The latest events and their sequence upset this victory and come at a very bad time strategically. My parties had finally agreed to trust, to listen, to change their basic beliefs and to undermine our therapeutic relationship at this moment is very angry! We didn't need that! We were advancing so much! We were finally starting to free ourselves from our anchored fears, to gain confidence ...
My observers and analyzes see inconsistencies in the explanations and decision logic of my shrink. Their alarms go on and warn me. They think that trust is damaged and that one of his explanations highlights a mistake made on his part. She didn't do what she said. She lies. We can't trust him. We can't believe her. So in this case, how can we continue to open our inner world to him? How can we continue to present ourselves as vulnerable to it? And that reactivates a sense of endangerment that we had experienced with her at the start of therapy. A moment or awkwardly she tried to push us to put ourselves in physical safety without understanding the inner insecurity in which it put us.
I also tend to put my shrink on a pedestal. And I find it hard to accept that she can make mistakes, make mistakes, have contradictions like any other person and reactions linked to her experience.
She has gotten me so used to meeting my needs in an incredibly fair way that I find it hard to understand why she isn't.
I find it hard to understand that our opinions diverge. Difficult to understand that we don't feel and see things the same way for once.
Perhaps we should review together the limits necessary for each? Maybe some things were needed at some point in my therapy but for the sake of both of us do those boundaries need to be redefined?
Maybe I didn't understand the same way she did what a psych link, a therapeutic alliance? Maybe I need her to explain it to me?
I consider our link to be twofold. On the one hand there is therapy and on the other our common desire to make others understand what it is to live with a dissociative identity disorder. Does she like me make a distinction between the two or does she consider that both are the same thing and that therefore are governed by the same therapeutic limits and rules?
I consider that I am making an effort that deserves that it be supported and taken into account in this process of putting myself in danger by seeking to explain what it is to live with a DID.
Instinctively, I have always had the mode of operation to cover it up. The relationship I have with my shrink and the fact that I "let" her have direct access to my dissociative parts is certainly beneficial for me, but I would not act this way if it were not for this common challenge of to understand the TDI.
Without this will, I would explain what I think and hear about my dissociative parts, but they would not present themselves directly. They would not speak directly without filter, without adult and protective parts which relay their wishes and words.
I consider that this immense effort deserves to be recognized. Am I wrong to put this "gift" that I am giving her on the same level as the one she had given me?
Apparently we don't see it the same way. And it hurts me that my shrink does not measure how much I make a great effort which costs me a lot. I am hurt by this non-recognition. And I have the feeling that she considers that she alone has given something.
Some of my parts make a knot of people who hurt me, betrayed me, backed down, abandoned me ...
Since the beginning of the week, my shrink has been put in this bag and complaints are circling in my head. She's like the others, she's going to abandon us, she doesn't love us ... We can't trust her ... And at the same time, in the session I did everything to provoke her and push her to her limits . I'm afraid that she will abandon me and I want her to do so so as not to suffer anymore and to feel this anguish of abandonment and rejection. The pain, anger, sadness and despair of all the past betrayals and abandonments come back and join with the present conflict. Everything is multiplied and I find it difficult not to be overwhelmed by what I feel.
I begin to blame him for the actions of my previous shrinks and my painful course of psychological follow-up. I can't see the differences between my previous shrinks and her anymore. I can no longer see my evolution thanks to it.
The mourning of my brother who committed suicide returns and I blame my shrink as if it was because of her that he died. As if the fact that she takes back her "gift" is linked to the deplorable therapeutic support he has had and led to consider suicide as the only solution to his unhappiness.
And I also have trouble distinguishing the facts:
The society that refuses to listen to the victims and forces them to silence. I feel like my shrink wants to shut me up.
The shrinks and the anger that I feel against them because I find that they are too divided, that the psychology could be much more simply explained and the impression that they seek to keep it all complicated in order to have power and hold over their patients. I feel betrayed by my shrink and I feel contrary to what I thought she is trying to do the same. And suddenly disappoints me a lot.
And a professional for me must be flawless, without errors, without missteps. He carries a responsibility, so I tend to be very tough and very demanding of them. I would be much more able to temper and question myself with an average person but I am incapable as soon as a person is a "pro".
For a week, I was unable to recognize my own wrongs in this conflict. My shrink betrayed me, she and she alone is at fault. Last night I was finally able to reflect and try to remember how and when this "gift" was given.
My shrink had set conditions there. I had completely zapped it and did not accept to recognize it. I did not respect these conditions because I continued to use this "gift" as I wanted it despite the rules set.
In my defense, my shrink should have been firm at the time and not let this situation continue. She recognizes it and told me. She didn't listen to herself and let the situation get worse. It is important that I respect her rules and requests just as it is important that she respects and hears my needs. I would feel hurt and misunderstood if she didn't. I owe him the same. Our therapeutic alliance is important!
My amnesias and the difficult communication between my parties are one of the reasons for not respecting the "conditions of this gift" but not only.
I also have parties who do not give a damn about others and who when they have a goal go for it without worrying about respecting the instructions and the rules. Our main objective is: to inform and understand the TDI. Anything that gets in the way of this objective should be avoided. It doesn't matter what the consequences are.
Some are also selfish and self-righteous and want to appear intelligent and want to be attributed with skills or knowledge. This "gift" made it easy and without any real effort on their part. It saved us time and energy spent ... It resolved time-sharing conflicts. And that put aside my frustration and my nervousness about having to study and accept that acquiring knowledge does not happen in a snap. That it takes time, energy ... They just wanted to understand the essentials, forgetting that for knowledge to become acquired it takes a whole interior work of memorization, reflection ... and there, this is not was not the case.
My parts lacking recognition and attention, consideration used this gift as a due and a good belonging to them even if it was not really mine. And are angry that my shrink puts an end to it thinking that suddenly I would have no more value in the eyes of others, no more legitimacy, that I will no longer be listened to. I feel ashamed, I feel incompetent, dumb again. And I blame him for making me feel that way. And I find it hard to recognize that I have strengths and skills within me. That I don't need this "gift" to be legitimate and listened to.
I have just reread what I wrote above and I can see how far I have come, how much I have changed! I realize my evolution and how much my quality of life has improved. I am capable of sharing, of joint decision-making, of agreement between my parties. My analyzes of what I live are more complete and complex. I no longer see things in black and white or in any case it is quickly delayed and rectified by my parts. I have more and more complex and interwoven feelings. I also manage emotions much better even if I experience strong anger or despair. But I am able to feel them without running away from them and to analyze them much more quickly while leaving them aside for a while to manage my daily life. I am better able to perceive my limits and my needs and to express them without shame or guilt.
Today, I finally feel at peace. Calm has returned inside of me.
And this road traveled is a common victory between my psy and me.
Comments