With my psychologist, we usually see each other twice a week and I can write her emails at any time.
We work on the model of phase-oriented treatment in session.
For phase I:
In terms of security and stabilization, I have come a long way. I have an apartment, a job, I take care of my two daughters. My home is clean and tidy, a cocoon where I feel quite safe. I still have a hard time staying there permanently. I spend a lot of time with my boyfriend mainly when I don't have my daughters with me. I don't have absolute stability, but I still remain constant. I have two places where I feel safe. Loneliness is always difficult for me to deal with. I have no ties to my former attackers or the cult. I have few close friends and very few connections with outside people. At the moment I am not yet able to forge effective friendships. But I know how to protect myself and I am no longer dependent on that side. I am no longer looking for saviors or surrogate parents in my friendships, which is a big step forward for me. I am consistent in my therapy, my job and my role as a mom. I am not on medication and do not need to be hospitalized. I have always had strong protections vis-à-vis my self-punishment systems (my controls prevent this). I don't do drugs, I'm not an alcoholic. Sometimes I use alcohol to get me to sleep or numb myself or sometimes to let a party express their sadness or how they are feeling, to let go. But it remains very exceptional and always without excess. I never had more than 3 drinks. At home I don't have alcohol, I don't go to bars. Sometimes I drink but only at my boyfriend's house and only when I can afford it without endangering my daughters or myself. Never when I'm alone. I attempted suicide but it was allowed in relative safety and in order to allow me to escape the cult and alert for help and protection. I scarified myself once but it was more a form of testing and provocation to one of my shrinks to see how she would react, and my scarifications were very superficial. These risks are also under control. I want to live. I want to help others like me. I want to be successful and my system protects me from that. I still cannot eat properly when I am alone without my daughters, preparing meals and having fun is still complicated for me but I work at it and I am not anorexic or bulimic. My hygiene is good apart from my teeth, but I manage to make sure that it doesn't show too much. I smoke cigarettes. A lot. This is the one thing that I still cannot control. It's sort of an agreement between my parties. Right now it's the only destructive thing against me that's allowed. One day I will manage to stop it when I have made peace with what was done to me and my feeling of guilt and shame (and my father in particular). I am much better at controlling my affections and tolerating my emotional feelings. I am much more accepting of feeling my sadness, my anger, my pain. I am less fragmented when I experience it. I try less to avoid sharing the time and presence of my different parts. My interpersonal skills are better, I fall less into the trap of trusting people and “disappearing” (switching) as soon as the going gets tough. I am more successful in dealing with friendly loneliness, but I am still very dependent on a relationship with a man, his protection. I am more tolerant of stress and internal and external conflicts. I am no longer a victim of violence from those around me, I have loosened the bonds that generated it and in my relationship, I am not a victim but an actor in its proper functioning and if necessary I know how to protect and defend myself.
For phase II:
My tolerance for sharing is much greater. I'm better at remembering that there will be an end to sharing, that I will survive it. It scares me less even though the phobia of dissociative parts and traumatic memories are still present. A lot of partial sharing has taken place. Some of my parts continue to have partial or regular amnesia. I still have amnesias on my present and my past. I still have moments of doubt, of battle, of refusal. I still sometimes deny the behavior or beliefs, words of many of my parts, the fact that they are part of me, are me. But there is a lot of daily dialogue between my parties and a certain internal cohesion due to common agreement and internal contracts. We are still looking for ways to live in harmony together but our understanding and our mutual listening are much better. With my shrink, we plan the sharing as much as possible, its exploration as well as its dosage. We take regular breaks and return to phase I stabilization. My daily life remains manageable despite the upheaval of sharing. I begin to realize what has been done to me with an adult gaze and my dissociative parts living small begin to hear and understand what we have been through. I feel less fragmented, more whole. Sometimes I regress and again feel a strong separation between some of my parts but I no longer forget that I am dissociated and I no longer deny my suffering. I accept my strengths and weaknesses and accept my ups and downs a lot more. I try much less to rush things and force our internal dialogue. I no longer accept the world as it is and the fact that I can feel contradictory things, that everything is not in black or white. I still cannot really use my inner world as a safe place and do not consciously use it. I still find it difficult to come out and calm down on my own when I am overcome by traumatic memories. I find it difficult to use the breathing and relaxation techniques I have learned. On these points, I still have a lot of blockages and internal mistrust. I need to understand, to see the effectiveness, to study, to research for myself and not that it is imposed on me. My parties do not yet agree to fully trust my shrink on this point. We are still in a testing and control phase. For phase III:
Some internal cooperation and coordination has taken place. Some of my parts grow and evolve. Some have changed their roles and internal strategies and are therefore more appropriate in my present. Some begin to think about their future role and ask themselves questions. At the moment I am not ready to do any integration, merger or resolution. New parts still emerge regularly in my daily life and I am gradually learning to welcome them, get to know them, understand them. My sense of self has evolved a lot. I am still far from being able to function optimally on a daily basis. In psychotherapy, we talk a lot with my shrink. Each of my parties is free to come and express their thoughts and opinions. They therefore follow each other one after the other according to their needs. We did an EMDR session to treat the snake phobia of one of my dissociative parts. We are currently working in the form of a discussion on the lies I was taught as a child and the ritualized violence I suffered. Phase-oriented therapy is not fixed and immutable. We work the 3 phases simultaneously, come back to one when I need to. I have advanced on each of the 3 phases and for each of these 3 phases, I still have some way to go. My road to a united and unique sense of self is still long, facing my traumatic experience will still take a long time. But I'm on the right track!