I feel stuck.
I've been procrastinating for a little over 4 months and can't make a decision.
My situation at work has deteriorated greatly. A year ago, my boyfriend and boss met my psychologist at the time at my request. I needed him to have factual information about my psychiatric disorder, to really understand and take action. And I wanted the help of a third person to dialogue with him and to establish rules between us. He had accepted and for several months stuck to it. He helped me like no one had ever done before. He brought me the entourage I had been looking for for so long. A benevolent, curious entourage, seeking to understand. An entourage that allows me to be me and all my dissociative parts of me in complete safety. Thanks to this, I was able to advance enormously in my reconstruction and my "healing". My part which is afraid of "doing the papers" for example could be reassured by my boss, could dialogue with him and express his terror. It has helped me in an incredible way !!! And I remain convinced that this is also adequate care, it is necessary that in the course of care offered by professionals, time is given to this, to meet relatives, trusted people and teach them to react, inform...
Helping a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder involves making sure that he or she no longer has to permanently mask and hide his or her dissociative parts. And that he or she learns in his or her daily life, in relationships and safe environments no longer to dissociate themselves to face their daily life but to welcome and accept everything that he or she thinks and feels in order to gradually have a functioning more unified and adapted to its present.
Unfortunately, this has not been possible for me for several months. And that internally generates a lot of conflict and suffering.
At first, I believe I tried to "control" these internal conflicts with the help of repetitive behaviors, obsessive-compulsive disorders (new OCD that I didn't have before). I had so much amnesia in my daily life due to the refusal of certain dissociative parts to bend to my adult schedule in my present that some parts compensated for this by writing down everything I did in my days and by checking it several times a day. Dissociative parts have been sounding the alarm for several months but I refuse to listen to them and take them into account. I have to put my foot down. But I can't do it. At work, I had long time slots that I didn't know what I had done. I had adrenaline rushes and very strong anxiety attacks that would trigger at any time (days and nights) or I wondered if I had accomplished such or such a task at my work without any memory of have done it. I was then so anxious that I had to go and check sometimes 20 times a day if this was the case. I had a lot of suspicion of myself. The feeling more and more strong that certain dissociative parts in me were trying to sabotage me, to put me in difficulty. I felt a lot of inner anger. The onset of these symptoms coincides with my boyfriend's gradual refusal to accept that my psychiatric disorders are visible and that I express them in front of him.
He asked me little by little to be autonomous, qualified, competent ... And the "agreements" that we had made together, the fact that he was committed to helping me, accepted me as I am and was perfectly aware of my suffering and my difficulties and committed to being a help in my daily life to overcome them, no longer being respected, it became very difficult for me.
I think strategically, the appearance of these new OCDs was a way of saying to him “do you remember your commitments?”, Putting him up and putting me up to the wall. If you don't take us into account, if you don't listen to us, we'll force you to do it ... I'm unable to control these OCD, I think it was a roundabout way of telling him listen to me, look at me , help me. And force my adult dissociative parts and work to take into account all my other dissociative parts. Internally, we had agreed to cooperate, to leave room, time for each dissociative parts so that all could experience my present, be confronted with it and so that they evolve and adapt. The months when we were able to do it, it allowed me to evolve enormously! I felt less pain, my internal conflicts were less painful and difficult ... And stopping that makes a lot of my dissociative parts very angry.
My boyfriend's business suffered losses and the Covid made it all more difficult and put him in difficulty. My boyfriend has "changed priority". Over time, he became blind and deaf. His priority is his business. I, the adult, understand that. But not my dissociative parts which are suffering or are "small or adolescent". For them, a commitment is a commitment, a given word cannot be reneged on. It's a betrayal. We can no longer trust. We're not safe. He no longer sees us, no longer hears us. He does like the others, like the adults in the sect. He abandons us. He betrays us. So I feel a lot of internal conflicts vis-à-vis him. Anger, blame, a feeling of betrayal, abandonment, tears, despair ...
My usual patterns of thought and reasoning are circling in my head. We must not trust anyone, everyone betrays and abandons us. We must not be dependent on anyone if not we are suffering. And I am seized with a very strong desire to leave him. What is difficult is that for several years I have been trying to change these patterns of fatalistic beliefs and "predictions" in me. I open up to others, I express, I show, I explain ... For several years I have tried to create around me a supportive and understanding environment. I cut ties with my friends or relatives who consciously or unconsciously hurt me. I have sought to explain and inform my friends and relatives what in fact has been selective in my relationships. Many refused my explanations or denied what I said I had experienced. It was very painful but little by little, even though very few people stayed, I finally had a caring environment that allowed me to feel safe and accepted. Then I had a "conflict" with my former psychologist which was very difficult to overcome. and now, this "betrayal" of my boyfriend causes the victories gained to crumble. Instead of gaining the experience that healthy and lasting bonds exist, that showing me, trusting does not imply suffering and abandonment, the opposite occurs. And my daily life, my past beliefs, my difficulties of links become identical again ...
At work, I have less OCD lately. I think that since that doesn't work, that my boyfriend doesn't want to hear me, my dissociative parts try an "other strategy". I suggested that I be put on therapeutic half-time. But he refuses. He refuses any dialogue, any explanation. "I don't want to know, I don't want to hear anything. You should start thinking about weaning yourself off the psychiatrists and the drugs. You loop through your past. Move on."
It is extremely painful for me! And very difficult to understand that he could hold this kind of speech. A speech that I have heard from so many people throughout my life ... It makes me very angry and at the same time makes me very depressed. How can a person who was so understanding, so helpful, change so much overnight? He loves me. He says he loves me. How can he not see my pain and how much his speech hurts me?
His change of attitude and speech correspond to negative events on his company but not only. It was also the moment when I decided to take steps to file a complaint. I think subconsciously it changed something in him. His will that I shut up. A form of rejection on his part.
I feel a lot of anger towards him. But what complicates things is that it's not the only feeling I have about him.
I feel indebted to him. I am grateful to him. He loves me, me who was convinced that I deserve no love. He accepted me when I thought I would be rejected. He helped me like no one had ever done before. It is as if every kind deed he has taken is written on a slate and I have to pay for it ... I feel a very strong sense of guilt. How can I let him go right now when he needs me so badly? While he has helped me so much? I denigrate myself inside, I am selfish, I am a bad person. I'm a shit. I deserve to lose everything. I don't deserve to be loved by him.
I'm stuck in a kind of role-playing game. Replay kinds of scenarios like in my childhood. The guru or my father, all those on whom I was dependent as a child, when they brought me a crumb of my needs, whether material or emotional, I was so grateful! And I felt so much internal conflict when I felt or thought something negative about them. Are they hurting me? Yes but he did or said that about me, I must be grateful to him! I am ungrateful. I am bad.
Of course my current situation as a couple has nothing to do with what I experienced in the past but it still echoes ...
I feel guilty for having needs and expressing them. I feel guilty and not legitimate in the face of the difficulties my boyfriend is going through. I put myself in a position of "savior" because he loves me and has been good to me. I owe him that. I must sacrifice myself ...
I am both aware and unaware of all of these patterns. I can't get out of it and I can't make up my mind. Either accept and continue like this. Either say stop and choose what is good for me.
Everything I write may sound silly ... But damn if life and living with Dissociative Identity Disorder could be that simple ....
This is without counting the conflicts that I can experience linked to internal triggers ...
I am terrified of being alone. Terrorized at the idea of being abandoned. Terrorized at the idea of facing my daily life in total autonomy. I am very afraid of being financially independent. I have a kind of diagram where my right to money, to an income is linked to the presence of a man in my life, my feeling of security too.
Currently, my memories of what I lived are relegated to the background. I have so much to manage and assume on a daily basis that I resumed my operation in mono mode. A single task, a single action attributed to a single party who assumes it. Work takes on work, mothers take on my role as mother, Conchita takes care of the daily life at my boyfriend's house and does the housework, shopping ... My daily life is again completely fragmented and I no longer have several skills at the same time. I am a dissociative part and capable of accomplishing a single mission, then I switch and another takes another role in my daily life. My boyfriend is very anxious and gets angry quickly. I fall back into past patterns ... I am constantly anxious. When he comes home, I have a lump in my stomach. I bend over backwards to serve it. I play the role of the perfect woman again, the perfect wife and no longer listen to my body. I am in the hyper activation constantly. I can't sleep much anymore, I can't sit down and do a single task and I can't finish them. I am like a little butterfly who is afraid of burning its wings ...
And I have a lot of flashbacks. At the slightest alarm, I become again the paralyzed little girl who does not move and does not say a word. It annoys me to be still stuck in all this!
Until now, my decision-making has been made in the urgency of a situation, a question of survival ... I believe that I am learning to make a conscious decision. To weigh the pros and cons. Know what you lose and what you gain. So as not to find myself in situations like in the past where I was fleeing then I was invaded by dissociative parties who regretted this decision. And above all, wait for all my dissociative parts to come to the same agreement.
I specify that this post is not a call for help. I am not in danger. My boyfriend is a good man, respectful, no one is perfect, and in life we can have ups and downs, change our minds or be so invaded by our own problems that we can no longer take care of those of others without this being violence ... Everything is not all black or all white and simplistic ... Especially when living with a person who has a dissociative identity disorder. Not only do I involuntarily replay patterns from my past, but my boyfriend has his own experience and his own wounds that come into it. Momentarily, because the current situation is difficult, there are misunderstandings and conflicts in our relationship. He is not responsible for my ways of reacting nor for what it awakens in traumas and memories passed in me. It is important for me to clarify this. The purpose of this site is to provide information on the experience of a person with dissociative identity disorder. It is for this reason that I deliver my victories but also my fights. I have a quality psychiatric follow-up, I am not alone and I have the capacity to take a step back on myself. I am therefore on a path of resolution and healing, of adaptation ...
I try to learn to be aware of my patterns of actions and instinctive reactions, to find out how to resolve them or modify them if they are inappropriate. And above all and above all to change my perception of the world in black or white, to accept my contradictory feelings and thoughts and to find solutions adapted to my present situation. Changing an entire life based on reactions to abnormal situations takes time, is complex, involves complex and plural beliefs and ways of functioning and cannot be resolved with the snap of a finger!
No one can come, "save" me from my situation by forcing me or by deciding for me. If I was in danger and a victim of violence, then of course I would have to intervene. But this is not the case. I do not like the current over-simplified speech. Making patriarchal violence visible is important, making known the extent of incest and child abuse and rape and their consequences is essential. But I don't like the oversimplification given to the phenomena of dissociations. This certainly has the advantage of making it understandable for the general public, but it also has the disadvantage of simplifying situations which are in fact extremely complex.
I have spent my life experiencing violence. I built myself, I forged my personality, on wobbly bonds and insecure attachments. I cannot change my whole education, which means that I survived so much violence in 5 minutes ... Awareness is gradual, with a lot of intermediate stages, back and forth ... of a traumatic experience is very, very long.
Currently I am very aware of my "addiction" to be in a relationship with a man, I think about what I want and do not want, what I need ... I have of course already advanced on these points everything throughout my therapy. But here I am touching knots linked to traumas that I was not aware of before. It took me several years to successfully create this site and testify to it. Not long ago, I took another step to my release from my word, I am filing a complaint. I seek to repair and improve my relationship with others. I managed to cut any unhealthy ties that I might have, I am still learning what a healthy friendship bond is, I am learning to think and not think in binary anymore ... I move forward on a lot of things simultaneously and it takes time. To undo my modes of action one by one, to confront them with my adult life in a society that has qualities and faults ... To succeed in thinking about what I want, what suits me or not and dissect what stems from beliefs linked to my past and automatisms and what is really my own free and informed choice ...
I like the image of the rainbow or the color palette. That's how I see myself ... With a lot of colors ... Currently my colors do not form a pretty harmonious picture. Sometimes it's more of the goose poo type ... but little by little, a drawing is formed, the colors smooth and come together ... I just haven't found what tone to paint myself yet ;)
Comments