Inside Out - Journey Thread

I'm sorry you're going through this. Only Seven and Christian know the answer to why they think this is necessary. Sometimes it's easier to believe there's something wrong with you than to know that it was the people around you who did things that hurt you. I hope you can talk to your T about what your days and nights are like. You could print out your posts on this thread and bring them (or email them) if it's too hard to talk about.

I agree with the Gang, I think it would be helpful for your T to know.
What you're going through sounds really dysregulating!
I hope you'll be able to feel more safe soon.

We're very sorry to hear that. That's horrible what your sister told you. Please don't listen to her. You are important. Your life is valuable. We care. We hope things get better soon. We wish we could do more to help.

We went to therapy today, but I was totally locked up and couldn't talk. I gave her my journal, though, and I had copied my posts into my journal so she knows what's going on. She said I did a good job looking for help when feeling suicidal, but she said in the future she would recommend that I go ahead and call mobile crises or life crises numbers to get more immediate help. She said they won't make me go to the hospital unless I really need to, so I don't have to be scared of that.

We didn't really resolve, or even change anything in therapy today, but I guess, if I'm in crises in the middle of the night again, I can maybe feel a little safer calling for help.

Thank you all for your replies. It feels better to at least be heard.

KK

it's been a while since I posted here, but I've been going through the same thing, day after day. I've been binging really heavily, as well as vomiting. My weight went up and I was panicked about not being able to stop binging to get it back down. Night times have been the worst, with little sleep. Last Monday night I was suicidal and I called Mobile Crisis and they've been calling to check on me every day since then. I've had a lot of hopeless, suicidal thoughts and some self-harm. I saw my T on Friday and she was really concerned because my kids went to camp Friday night, leaving me home alone, but, by some miracle, when I weighed myself Friday night, my weight had come back down to a more comfortable number and so far, it has stayed down, so, while I've still been binging and purging all evening and late at night, I have not been so suicidal as I was.

Currently, if I'm awake and at home, I am constantly binging and purging, I'm constantly feeling Seven's loathing and Christian's judgement, my sleep is all off track and filled with vivid, disturbing dreams, but I'm functioning adequately during the day to keep my kids and dogs fed, medicated, and where they need to be.

I see my T again tomorrow am, and on Tuesday I see a psychiatrist about my meds.

KK

I saw my T on Monday, but I was all locked up and had a hard time coming out to even answer questions. My previous "treatment plan" had expired so we spent more than half the time making a new one. If you're not familiar, this is the document that states strengths, barriers, progress, goals, objectives and interventions, as well as listing all of my various diagnoses. I had to answer a lot of questions for this and it was hard to think about goals when I'm really fighting just to get through each night. After the treatment plan she read the journal I keep for her and said that she's noticed me referring to my parts like they are separate people, but I have to remember that we are all part of one person. I'm not sure how to handle this. Like maybe she wants me to take more personal responsibility for their self destructive thoughts and behavior. I'm not sure how to do that. If I could just say, "Okay, guys! Stop it!" that would be great. So, after that I just retreated farther inside because I just couldn't figure out how to be good by anyone's standards. When my appointment was over I was upset and sat in my car in the parking lot for an hour and a half because I couldn't calm the voices in my head, release the tightness in my muscles, stop shaking, or get present. I found some paper and started writing my thoughts to get them out of my head and in focus and after a while I think that helped. When I finally left, I did what I needed to do, but I still couldn't speak to anyone until I picked up my kids. Last night I typed the stream of thoughts that I wrote in the car into my journal, so that I can share it with my T on Thursday.

I had another rough night full of binging, vomiting, self harm, and only four hours sleep. This morning I had my appointment with a new psychiatrist and he increased my anxiety med and one of my sedative meds, so hopefully that will help. I am sleepy right now!

KK

GKOKD wrote:After the treatment plan she read the journal I keep for her and said that she's noticed me referring to my parts like they are separate people, but I have to remember that we are all part of one person. I'm not sure how to handle this.

That's not really in accordance with the treatment guidelines for DID. Does she have training or experience in treating it? They need to be treated like separate people while she keeps in mind that you are all part of one person--one system. I don't think you're likely to forget that you're all sharing a body! She should be inviting them to speak to her if they want, learning about who they are and how they feel--as much as they are willing to share.

https://www.isst-d.org/wp-content/uploa ... ED2011.pdf

While it does say this: "it is important for clinicians to keep in mind that the patient is
not a collection of separate people sharing the same body. The DID patient
should be seen as a whole adult person, with the identities sharing responsibility for daily life."

It also says this: "Helping the identities to be aware of one another as legitimate parts
of the self and to negotiate and resolve their conflicts is at the very core of
the therapeutic process. It is countertherapeutic for the therapist to treat any
alternate identity as if it were more “real” or more important than any other."

Aren't they writing in the journal also? Or is it just you? Perhaps if your T started hearing from them directly, she would get that they are separate from you.

I'm sorry you had such an upsetting time. It sounds like you did a great job calming down, though.

I hope the new meds help.

Thank you for your response.
It is only me writing in my journal. I have invited everyone to write, but have not had any response. My T has met Christian and Seven, though. They've each come out briefly in therapy, but each time it was because they were angry about something she was saying. She knew it was them, though. I see her again tomorrow morning, so maybe I'll print out your response and share it with her.
As far as the meds go, I started them last night and I actually got 6 hours of sleep, which is still not enough, but much better than before, so maybe they are doing what they are supposed to.

KK

I haven't posted on here in a while, I guess, because I didn't want to keep posting the same. things over and over. We binge all afternoon and night. We self-harm. We feel awful. We have a hard time talking in therapy. Actually, after my last post I did print out the last few posts and copied them into my journal for her to read, and she apologized to me and asked me to help her understand how I experience it. I felt better about that.

Yesterday, I picked my kids up from school, like normal, but after being home a little while, I started to feel a sharp pain in my abdomen. I thought it was gas and that's what I told my children, when they saw me wincing in pain, but it kept getting worse and seemed to be more on my right side than on my left. I couldn't reach my mother, so I called my pastor and she encouraged me to call an ambulance, so I eventually did. They sent two ambulances, in fact. I have no idea why, and my entire neighborhood was standing outside, watching me get loaded into the first of this unnecessary fleet of emergency vehicles. I had to leave my service dog home because I was in too much pain to take care of her. I also had to leave my kids home alone, but it was okay, because they are both teenagers. They took my vitals in the ambulance and then triaged me at the ER, and then parked me in a wheel chair in the waiting room for three horrible hours. I was trying not to cry out loud from the pain, and Christian was there. He was angry that I called for help. He said they were going to look at me and tell me it's just gas, and laugh at me and send me home. He scratched my arm open while we sat in the waiting room. When they finally took me to a room, the doctor said it sounded like my appendix or gall bladder, but when they checked they were fine. He said there was excess fluid in my abdominal cavity, which could be because of a burst ovarian cyst, in which case it would just get better with time, and at that time, the pain was still bad, but it was better than when I first got there (but they had me on Morphine, so that could be the reason.) I wasn't alone there. I think it was 2T that was with me, because we were shaking and scared and sometimes crying, and I was having a hard time staying close enough to answer the doctor's questions. When he finally said that we did not need surgery and could go home with a laxative and some painkillers, without being admitted, she started to settle down. The doctor couldn't understand the shaking and crying, when I was saying the pain was decreasing, so I tried to explain it to him, and he asked if I wanted me to get someone to talk about that with (meaning someone from the inpatient psych. unit) and I said no. They don't treat trauma here and I definitely don't want to go inpatient! They finally released me around 1am, and my pastor drove me home, to find my kids all camped out in the living room, waiting for me. I was wincing in pain until at least 4am, but eventually I went to sleep, and when I woke up around 10am this morning the pain was gone. I am so relieved. (Now we're back to binging and self-harming, but at least we're not in the hospital )

KK

Hi KK,

That sounds like a really scary evening! I'm glad you're home safe and the pain has gone.

Arin