so i have d.i.d. (dissociative identity disorder) and one of my alters is named benji. benji is an 8 year old boy in the body of a 18 year old biologically female. i have no issues regarding my gender or sex and feel i was born in the right body. benji has such bad dysphoria that he hates coming out, refuses to look at himself in the mirror, refuses to take pictures, and everyone can feel how much sad it makes him. last night was the final straw though when my mom wanted to take pictures and he was co-fronting with me he started to cry because he asked her why she needed to take them. my mom dismissed his feelings and i just want to help him. anyone have something similar to this or have any ideas on how to help? i am so lost right now...

I am Hartlepool_lad, I have tried to type my experience on the blog about seven or eight times but each time I have erased it, the abusive voice in my head yells at me that no one is interested in my story and that I am alone, pathetic and other words that have been planted in my mind which I don't wish to reveal at the moment.

My systematic mental and physical destruction was to start almost immediately, I couldn't call or meet friends I had to explain where I'd been why I'd had to go there and what I had been doing while there and who had I spoken to, my phone and internet were checked as were my texts and e-mails. Bank account details were demanded and checked almost daily and a reason had to be forthcoming if I had withdrawn money, receipts were checked if I had paid for anything with my card, I was cut off from contacting family as she would put it “this is the only family that matters to you now” this was being constantly shored up with abuse of the type that I was crap at what I do, a useless person and painful insults that I can only shudder at now, I was verbally abused everyday, physically abused every day, I have been beaten, punched, kicked, humiliated, stabbed, had buckets of hot bleach thrown over me her aggression hightened if the house wasn't clean enough the dish washer hadn't been emptied or the ironing hadn't been done exactly how she wanted, constant accusations of infidelity, squandering money, being a useless person.

Then the torture of previous relationships started, I was given full and frank details of all the one night stands she'd had, I was informed by an ex friend of hers that she'd had threesomes and multiple encounters in one weekend.

She would regale me with the sordid details of these encounters and once estimated she'd had in excess of two hundred that she could remember and not counting the drunken one night stands she couldn't, all the while telling me that I was worthless, useless, a crap person etc.

It all came to a head in September 2005 when after months and years of such brutal torment the stress levels had reached such levels that my brain shut down for three days, I didn't know who I was, anything about myself, what I did for a job, my past anything.

I was diagnosed with P.T.S.D. Dissociative Amnesia, severe depression, social phobia and I have lost everything, my memories of my life are just shadows, the event is, as always right at the front of my eyes, she still haunts my mind and still continues to influence me inside my head, I have no respite.

Hartlepool_lad.

Ok, so I've been up for about a half an hour since this "nightmare" that I had. I don't remember the beginning but, it was short, extremely vivid and has me a little shooken up.
Ok, so I was at my ex boyfriends house. His mom had this extremely amazing camera which she let me use to take some quick pictures of. So I proceed to the back door, snap a picture of the sky from the back porch. Then I end up towards the end of the back yard by the fence while holding the camera on an angle. I take a picture of the backyard and the back of his house and review the picture. There, I see a little girl, in a purple dress with curly long brown hair bending over picking a dandelion. I look away from the camera in awe checking to make sure I'm not seeing anything, but low and behold I am, I just captured a ghost on camera. She was freakishly see through but yet so bold. I then run around to the front of the house avoiding her area. I run in the house and show the picture to my ex boyfriend telling him "do you see anything wrong in this picture!?" He then says, no. Then I zoom in on her, and he says "wow that's insane" and calls his mom over. I then show her, and it begins to get darker and darker in the house while she just has a blank stare on her face. She runs upstairs disappearing saying, "someone turn some lights on in this house" meanwhile, I literally cannot breathe, I am literally having a panic attack in my dream as my ex boyfriend picks me up and holds me. I then awaken from this physically terrifying "dream" with my mouth open, and I'm stuck. Literally stuck for twenty minutes in a daze and I cannot move. After I actually come to my senses I'm scared, terrified and in a lot of pain. As of right now, about an hour after my dream, my legs hurt really bad. Like they got ran over or something. A very dull pain shooting from my hip down to my big toe. I have never EVER experienced a "dream" like this before, and if anyone has any insight, or opinion as to why I woke up in pain from this, it would be appreciated. I'm honestly still in shock from how vivid this little girl was. I'm too afraid to go back to bed and rest peacefully.

Im really looking for help, just insight from people who have been through this tough and stressful road... (Cant afford, to see a therapist at the moment, insurance doesn't cover lol)
21, young..
I love people... I would give my last dollar to someone who says they need it.
Have trouble keeping a job, but getting one is easy as cake, I just get bored real quick..

Now that we've been introduced,

For a few years now I've been struggling with panic attacks and high stress...at first it was just that id get dizzy and start panicking, and my heart would feel like I was just lifting a fridge. ha

But as the years progressed I started looking up things like schizophrenia, and ADD and OCD, and for about a year and a half now my obsession with being scizo has consumed me... what sucks is that I developed a mean phobia of people doing things to my food.. I was afraid someone had done something to things prepared for me if it be in a dinner or already packaged food.. I would come home and think, what if someone broke in and tampered with the food my mom made.. Or if the delivery guy was late, did he do something to the food... I stopped eating mushrooms (because of the fear that I may eat a magic shroom lol ) I lost alot of weight because of this...lol Which would bring me to the conclusion ( and i know self diagnosing myself is bad) but that i may be scizo...

Well I started attacking my fears head on, and began eating again, anything, and everything... Things got better.. and worse. I still get the occasional panic attack but my mind is now consumed by other thoughts regarding me being scizo for other reasons now...

My mind is stuck on the what if idea that one day I snap and kill someone, or hurt someone i love.. My attention has been targeted to one person, (for a small period of time) then sometimes just anyone.. i started to push myself away from sharp objects and such.. STOPPED that early. ( i knew that once i went down that road id be screwed with more weight to carry.)

I also read that if you loose emotion towards these ideas, and instead of fearing them you become excited, or question what if you might just enjoy murder, that you may be deranged. So I (being the hypochondriac that I am) started to question this as well.. I get these weird and obsessive thoughts but now I try to laugh bout it and keep moving but i cant tell if im just getting better or tricking myself and just getting worse....

I also adopt symptoms as i read them, like i read that someone with scizo will have difficulty speaking or writing, or doing certain things, or they may hear noises or see things, so I began finding myself watching myself, (and almost forcibly) started having difficulty with speaking, or seeing things out the corners of my eyes, or hearing things around my house... I feel great when i write or talk about it, i just want to know if anyone is on the same boat as me. Am i crazy, is this normal OCD, or am I wierder than i think lol. I can get a job, I have no difficulty getting woman, Im kind of a metro sexual so i take a little to much care of myself, I like to talk, i can get along with anyone..Im just so lost rite about now, I want out of this fear, and what feels like limbo!!!

What scares me the most out of all of this is that i know how to write well, and speak well, maybe my grammar is horrific on this little yahoo answers piece, but when i really want to throw down i can... And thats what scares me, am i sane, and just obsessing over being crazy or just crazy pretending to sane...?

please leave a line, much love
Richie

Usually people who struggle with drug and alcohol abuse or other forms of addictive behaviors come from a background of abuse or neglect or have experienced some kind of trauma when they were younger. Being in these situations, a child and/or a young person can experience various painful feelings such as fear, helplessness, shame, guilt, sadness and eventually hopelessness. Becoming overwhelmed by these emotions and not having anybody to help them and validate their feelings may lead to them learning to run away and avoid such feelings to protect against pain or become consumed by those feelings and act upon them impulsively. Later in life, they may use substances or engage in addictive and destructive activities to numb those painful feelings. Despite their effort in avoiding these emotions, they are stored implicitly in a deeper level of the brain and will be triggered more often than they may have expected.

These emotions that have been stored in a less conscious part of the brain may not be accessible verbally, but can be found symbolically in images that the person creates. Therefore, the goal of art therapy is to access these hidden and avoided emotions that once had the purpose of protecting the individual, but either have been denied or exaggerated and lost its purpose to rediscover their adaptive qualities.

Images in an art therapy session can simply be composed of a few lines, colors or pictures from a magazine to more elaborate drawings, clay sculptures and other forms of creativity. These images will give an expert art therapist the opportunity to help the recovering person uncover meanings behind the symbolic images, discover more information about oneself than just talking and open many deep thoughts and emotions. Participants in art therapy don’t need to have any skills in art.

Talking about feelings can be very frightening and painful for a person who has been avoiding them for a long time. This person may not even be able to verbally express him/herself, but may be able to express thoughts and feelings about past and present events and situations non=verbally through lines, shapes and pictures. Creating them can become a new form of communication which is less threatening and safer for the recovering person.

Individuals struggling with addiction are usually very judgmental of themselves and are flooded with shame and guilt. Creating art can give them a tangible, concrete perception of their feelings and thoughts and give them the opportunity to observe themselves from a distance which can help them gain a new, less judgmental and more compassionate understanding of self.

Recovering individuals may engage in a simple art project whenever they feel overwhelmed or have an urge to take drugs/alcohol or engage in an addictive activity to distract and sooth themselves. Creating can give them a sense of control over the situation and a tool to accept and manage overwhelming feelings. Using their hands while using art materials such as colored pencils, markers, crayons, clay, paper and scissors can help them release some of their avoided feelings such as anger and lower its intensity, and to sooth and calm themselves when they are anxious.

In general, in art therapy sessions, the recovering person will be given permission and opportunity to experience and express those feelings that he/she has been running away from and avoiding for a long time in a safe and supporting atmosphere, with the presence of an empathic professional psychotherapist /art therapist who will help him/her understand and make sense of those painful feelings, acknowledge and accept them with compassion, reduce their intensity and tolerate them, and finally use them effectively to fulfill their needs and goals.