Take care of yourself

A vast program that turns out to be very complicated to manage and improve for a person with DID!

 

Free time and relaxation :

 

Quotes from the book: Managing the dissociation of traumatic origin (Boon, Steele & Van der Hart, 2014):

"Learning to use your free time to relax, rekindle your energy, sometimes listen to your desires, have fun and start new hobbies are important links on the road to recovery ."

"Being interested in different subjects, learning, laughing and having fun contribute to a better level of energy , a better awareness of the here and now and a greater sense of well-being ."

"There are two factors that disrupt the good use of free time in people with a dissociative disorder: the tendency to avoid relaxation and the appearance of internal conflicts over the occupation of free time."

 

I grew up in a sect where relaxation was prohibited. My parents and the adults I grew up with were all the time working in this sect.

The "tir-au-flan" were criticized and denigrated. Even times that could have been seen as quieter such as prayer or the worship of the Blessed Sacrament (praying before a host representing the body of Christ) had a specific purpose, we had to pray for something, our mind could not should not wander and we should not fall asleep on pain of being strongly reprimanded! Each minute of the day was directed, supervised, one task succeeding another.

 

It is as if the least of our thoughts and actions are being watched. We had talks with the guru who lectured us for the slightest of our deviations and made us feel guilty for our bad actions, our selfishness and sacrifice, the exemplary self-giving of others ...

Each observing the other and judging him and reporting even the most minimal misconduct.

 

Relaxing, taking time for yourself was inculcated as being the work of the evil one, of the devil and was imperative to fight! It was seen as a bad trait, a bad addiction. The children grew up with the example to be followed by the saints, it was the stories that we read daily. Each of us wanted to be François d'Assise, the shepherds of Fatima, Sainte Claire ... The people highlighted were those living in the most difficult conditions, in shantytowns, in the midst of the poor ... we had to pray daily for them, everyone admired them.

 

Any act of selfishness was denounced and we had to ask for forgiveness and respond to it before God and the whole community in public sessions of humiliation and guilt in the chapel ... Our goods were to be shared with everyone (even our gifts from birthday or packages sent by our grandparents ...). Owning something was prohibited unless the guru agreed. To have clothes, food, you had to ask for authorization ... Going out for a walk, going to the beach, going to the cinema ... it all depended on the good will of the guru.

 

Buying something is a source of guilt ... Owning things also because like the saints extreme poverty was shown as an ideal of life.

 

Because of all this, even now, I experience a lot of internal conflicts when some of my parts want to relax. They come into conflict with certain parts of me which have assimilated the rules of life in the sect. But, I think that everyone instinctively knows that taking care of themselves and obeying their own desires brings pleasure and inner well-being and makes one feel good. It is a basic need.

 

But how can we reconcile this fundamental and instinctive need with deeply ingrained prohibitions?

 

So I have parties whose "reason to act" and to make me feel good, pushing me to go for a walk, to rest ... and other parties who have taken on the role of "forbidding me "to do so to comply with community dictas and therefore comply with the group and avoid punishment. These two groups of parties are in perpetual conflict.

 

I do this a lot in my work for example, I am able to work hard until exhaustion without listening to the signs of fatigue in my body, work even when I am sick ... I hear a lot of voices, of inner thoughts that reproach me for all rest and well-being and I feel a lot of anguish and terror from divine punishment if I don't do it. Anger against me too, anger from the parties who know that I am free from my actions now and anger from the parties who have not realized it and think that I am putting myself in danger again. I hear sentences heard in my childhood and I recognize the voices of those who said them, I again feel all the shame and the terror of having committed this act of selfishness ... the punishments suffered take place in my head like i was there again ...

 

To this is added the triggers of my emotional parts carrying the trauma.

 

Going for a walk in the forest for example is a source of pleasure for certain parties and brings me peace and well-being, but each time I also have a switch for a party which has been raped by a priest. in forest. I then plunge back into the memories and sensations linked to it. As if the reality of now no longer exists, that of memory becomes more present, more true. I suffer identically as if it were happening again. And so I do everything to avoid being subjected to it again, struggling, repelling, preventing myself from going to the forest. The more I think of going there, the more the moment approaches, the more the anxiety and the inner terror rise and grow in me.

 

Take care of my body, feed me:

 

Taking care of my body is also very difficult.

 

By being raped, I lost my awareness that my body is mine. It is as if my body and my mind have become detached to become two separate entities. Not being able to defend ourselves, not being able to prevent a rapist from penetrating us and dirtying every part of our skin leads to a feeling of overpowered helplessness, of non-control over our being and thereby makes it foreign to us. In addition, the biological reactions that my body may have had during these acts (mismatched sexual arousal) is experienced as a betrayal, our body in turn betrays us, became accomplice, "accepted" what our spirit refused by screaming ... So we must separate ourselves from him, distrust him, hate him, make him pay, make him suffer for what he did ... He becomes a stranger, someone with whom we live together because we have no choice ...

 

It is easier for us to hate our body and mistreat it for "revenge" than to hate and take revenge on our rapist. We are children, our possibilities of action are very limited, our control over our life too. We depend on the adults around us for everything, our food, our safety ... and our rapists often manage to establish a bond of attachment and dependence with us. My main rapist, the guru managed to become my "father" in the sense that he decided everything for me and my parents. I had to love him and respect him, he was the one who decided everything I received or not. My life, my survival depended on him. So I couldn't hate him openly.

 

All my rage and helplessness had to turn to something else, something hidden, internal, which would not be seen: hating my body and making it responsible, mistreating it.

 

I live my mouth as an independent part of myself, I hate it, I hate it. I only brush my teeth very rarely, it's a test for me, and I compulsively bury myself in the clay when the stress rises too much.

 

During the rapes I sometimes felt the sensation when the pain and the terror were too strong the unreal impression of leaving my body and observing myself from above. I was finally relieved, I no longer suffered, I no longer felt anything ... It was done to another person, not to me. This split from my body was seen as beneficial. I sometimes try to feel this again, this impression of floating, of being in cotton, in peace.

 

For the past few years, I have been smoking cigarettes. I hear all day long conflicts about smoking, parties that gleefully and hope that my "mouth cracks, that I have cancer", and parties that are afraid and worried about my health.

 

Smoking is a way for some of my parties to rebel against my father, all my childhood and adolescence he kept telling us "it's no good smoking", a way even when he died for a few years to taunt and disobey him, to do what made him the most angry. Smoking is an addiction deemed not too dangerous and acceptable by my control parties. I am fortunately slowed down and stopped in all the other addictions which the victims of rapes can face (drugs, alcohol ...) because I have parts which integrated the rules of the sect and the prohibitions of drinking alcohol or take drugs. When I feel the need to use these means to disconnect from reality, to escape suffering and traumatic memories, parties block me and send me feelings of terror, the memory of dogs chasing me, fall asleep ... and I stop.

 

Eating and preparing food is the source of many internal conflicts. I hear parts calling me fat, others ordering me to lose weight, others telling me that I must not exceed 45 kilos (I recognize the voice of the guru's wife). When I feel bad, I punish myself by not eating. I don't have a balanced meal, when I'm alone, I eat a small piece of bread and cheese, I skip meals ...

 

Fortunately for me, my game system is very complex. In the sect, there was a period when eating well, eating organic was advocated by the wife of the guru. So I have parts that counterbalance my anorexic tendencies and force me from time to time to eat better. So I never fell into anorexia strictly speaking. I maintain an acceptable weight. And the fact of having to take care of my daughters, forces me to counter these destructive parts of myself because my parts "mom" have the role of being a "perfect mother" and therefore of making balanced meals and to time for my daughters when they are with me.

 

I also sometimes want to compulsively eat cheese or meat or ice cream ... things that we ate very rarely in the community and that we were deprived of very often. I then feel a lot of shame and guilt.

 

Basically, it's a mess all the time in my head!

Lots of different points of view, lots of struggles ...

 

Little by little, I become aware of all these voices, of why I act in this way and little by little I try to modify my actions, to improve my cohesion, my internal discussions ...

But it is very long and trying!