Book: Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation - Boon et al

tylas wrote:Yes, breathing is very important.

Yeah...I forget to do this a lot. Sometimes I don't realize how little I'm breathing until I take a big gasp for air.

I thought I would write for chapter 2 . Sorry it took me a while to get back to our book group.

Problems with identity or sense of self.

This section was difficult for me to work through I related to a lot of the feelings that they talked about. I had a bad time a few months back and had some SH happening pretty regularly, that led to me seeing a councilor in my neighborhood at the YWCA down the street to help get me stable. That T specialized in hypnosis and tried to put me under. I guess it went well but when she tried to bring me back, I came to crying and shaking and scared and incoherent for a good hour. I still don't understand what happened with that. I guess I'm getting at is that I came back to therapy after a few years because of problems I was having in other areas of my life. I had come to a point where I couldn't deny that something was going on in my life that my S.O's were able to see but I couldn't. I had heard voices since I was little but had assumed that everyone had similar experiences until I got old enough to know that, hearing other people in my head wasn't something I should tell other people about and started to worry I might be crazy. I had 2 separate S.O's try to talk to me about the possibility of me having MPD or DID over the course of 4 years, the first time, I was very upset that she felt that i wasn't there for her and didn't understand. I thought she was calling me crazy since I had thought for years that something was wrong with me for hearing them and just stuffing them away or trying to block them out. The second time an S.O. brought it up I couldn't just push the idea way anymore and started to do some research of my own to figure out what was going on. I didn't realize that I lost time. or didn't remember doing things. or why my memories of events and recall was so skewed. Or why fights seemed to happen every day. (well that part wasn't too hard to figure out since both of those relationships were toxic, and had begun to trigger parts of me out to deal with the stress of handling abusive people again in my life after so many years, combined with the betrayal both of these people dealt me by physically and mentally torturing me.) ok sorry getting on a tangent. I didn't know I had been losing executive control for a very long time. I have an alter who "gaslights" and feeds me false or skewed memories of what happens when they are out.

Experiencing too little

DD is struggling to accept what I have put together. He can't accept the diagnosis. As far as I know he doesn't feel things like I do, pain, love, being lonely, fear. He is numb and unfeeling. he has a hard time understanding what he feels and fights me for control regularly. we are becoming less and less Co

Dissociative amnesia/time distortions: I didn't know what was happening to me for years. I assumed I just had a terrible memory for Dates, appointments, keeping track of time, things people had told me in the past, and that my recollection of events was perfect and not different from what actually happened. as far as I knew I never lost time. When I got into my first serious relationship and lived with someone for an extended period of time this became a serious problem. She began to see me as unreliable or absent minded, or that I didn't care enough to remember the important things in our life together, or that I didn't care or think about her at all when I was at work or not around. even though when I am around I am an incredibly caring person who gives total devotion. That might just be me (Fox). I can't speak for DD.

Depersonalization: When I first became aware of not being in control and was still out. It was like riding in a runaway carriage or sitting in the passenger seat of a car while someone else was driving, and driving badly. I was terrified but not able to take the wheel. I was totally frozen, watching my body do things I was not telling it to do. It felt like I had just been dunked in icewater. I was freezing cold and shaking. I won't get into the situation that caused that to happen. it is triggering to try to think about. day to day, I don't recognize myself in the mirror or feel like the face I see isn't mine. It's disturbing and confusing since logically its attached to me it must be mine.

Derealization: Places I frequent, are occasionally very hard for me to be at. I will have an anxiety attack and leave because a place which is normally calming an quiet for me will feel dangerous, or unfamiliar. People who know me will try to talk to me and I have no idea who they are. I run home to someplace that feels familiar or safe.

Intrusive thoughts: Flashbacks are pretty common, I went back to therapy years ago from problems I was having with PTSD and anxiety. I didn't understand where the images that flooded my brain came from or why I felt the way I did in a given situation when It made no earthly sense. Or why I heard a baby crying when there was no baby in the room. or why I heard someone telling me things that weren't true in my head and having to fight to shut them out. and believe that what I felt was real and true.

Anchors to reality: My puppy. he is very real, I know dogs aren't allowed in hospitals. When I wake up at night and don't know where I am or what year it is he is there and i can hold him if I'm scared. I keep a piece of jade carved into a fox as a necklace my sister gave me, I always have it on. If I don't I know someone else has been out and taken it off because it's not theirs.

MrFox,

Hypnosis can do nasty things for us dissociative people. At least the person doing that should be very well educated about DID, cause hypnosis can bring front any kind of nasty "material" from our mind. Uncontrollably.
Interesting to read your thoughts about this book.

I have felt the impulse before to go to a hypnotist instead of a T just to find out what is going on in my head faster! But luckily so far... I have resisted that impulse.


I am smiling. People that want to discuss a book and understand its meaning! Yay!

-- Fri Oct 07, 2011 11:01 am --

Mr.Fox wrote:I thought I would write for chapter 2 . Sorry it took me a while to get back to our book group.

Awesome!!!!

"I came to crying and shaking and scared and incoherent for a good hour. I still don't understand what happened with that."

You don't remember anything obviously. Maybe you experienced a trauma memory?

"I had heard voices since I was little but had assumed that everyone had similar experiences"

Me too! But I just recently realized it was not normal.


"I didn't know I had been losing executive control for a very long time. I have an alter who "gaslights" and feeds me false or skewed memories of what happens when they are out."

There are often tricksters in the system! This is well known by psychiatrists. They have an agenda, its just not always the same as yours.

"I didn't know what was happening to me for years. I assumed I just had a terrible memory for Dates, appointments, keeping track of time, things people had told me in the past, and that my recollection of events was perfect and not different from what actually happened."

Wow does this ring true for me! My kids write everyone on my big calendar now!

"She began to see me as unreliable or absent minded"

Yes! My husband hates that about me too!

"It's disturbing and confusing since logically its attached to me it must be mine."

Well put!

"I run home to someplace that feels familiar or safe."

I like home.

"Flashbacks are pretty common"

Those are so odd and come in so many ways!

"Anchors to reality"

My new T said something about this and why its so difficult for me.

LinaeveWorkman wrote:I agree with this. I absolutely despise not being able to be present. I dislike being unable to connect with nature; I'll sit next to the ocean during a beautiful sunset and can't enjoy it. I feel like life simply slips me by; and I always have the thought 'what's my name? Who am I?' running through my head.

I am starting therapy with a new therapist and of course the place to start is where this book starts - with grounding. While talking with him via email, we have not met yet --- I have come to realize that I am almost always dissociated.

As I wrote to him... when one of my kids comes to my desk to ask a question, it's similar to be drowsy in a car and waking to almost driving off the road. When my kids want to talk I have to be present. It's painful for me to be here. I don't like it at all and I am almost never there. So, we have agreed to work on grounding and I will again read this chapter in this book.

I also realized from my blog that I want to put important things in bold now. I understand that is yelling in this sort of communication, so if I do it, forgive me, its just like a heading on my blog and my mind has wandered and I had not noticed.

tylas wrote:I am starting therapy with a new therapist and of course the place to start is where this book starts - with grounding.

This will be good for you. My therapist helps me ground before and after each session. I'm not so good at it lol...offices are not pleasant areas for me to be in. But the better you get, you will be so much more in tune to your body. I must have been super disconnected at my last session because I didn't feel the after effects (drowsiness and exhaustion) from crying till a good 20 minutes after the episode, once I walked outside. I have found I have to lay outside on the grass and practically pass out after each session, yet I feel fine (not drowsy and exhausted, I mean) while I am in the office.

LinaeveWorkman wrote:I agree with this. I absolutely despise not being able to be present. I dislike being unable to connect with nature; I'll sit next to the ocean during a beautiful sunset and can't enjoy it. I feel like life simply slips me by; and I always have the thought 'what's my name? Who am I?' running through my head.

Are you able to connect if you are alone? Just the other day I was riding my bike and stopped at a trailside bench to eat a snack. All of a sudden I got the urge to turn off my headphones and just sit there, listen, and look around, not eating or doing anything, just sitting. I totally zoned out into my head for a while, but I would come back and notice the oddest things. I saw the way the bushes were moving in the wind and was amazed at how it looked like ocean waves. Feeling connected is definitely going to be a process for all of us, but it will come around little by little.

I am working in this book too. I think i have didnos. I know I dissociate. I am struggling between thinking I do not have parts at all, but just dissociative or at at least only main me and little part, but reading the third chapter, about dissociative parts, just felt so much like me. When I read it I felt so much relief and recognition. But now I feel numb mostly. When I talked to t about it last session the only thing I can remember about it is that she stressed the importance of grounding and learning not to dissociate. I am confused by this.

I find the object exercises useful in getting out of terror state. I don't want to come out of foggy/anesthetized place sometimes. Am I supposed to always stay in "ANP?"

I am feeling like the protective part (that I don't have) has become activated and I don't like therapist or anything.

littlevine wrote:I am working in this book too.

First of all every human has parts, its just most do not recognize them so they do not even know they exist and they are not 'extreme' like the traumatized parts in a DID system. See the IFS model for more information on this. So DID and the normal brain all have parts, but the DID person has dissociated traumatized parts.

I am with you about always being dissociated, but its because we have so much trauma still going on in our heads that has not been dealt with that we find it painful to not be in a dissociated state.

This part is complicated because the host, probably you, is the Apparently Normal Part, which is what I assume you are talking about.

That part in me and sounds like you as well is numb, foggy headed --- it's almost like be very drunk all the time. Nothing is clear! That part can dissociate and be numb without switching, but most of the time I find I am co-conscious with someone else. They move my face all the time when I think or read something. It feels like being possessed. Awareness is getting to recognize what is happening, that another part of you is present as well as your ANP (host self).

Healing would be dealing with all the trauma memories and no longer needing to stay numb and foggy headed.

I really identified with chapter 3 too. It is well done. This book was written by some of the foremost researchers in DID - in my opinion, some of which did the original research on the ANP and EP information. They are brilliant!

Re-read chapter 1. I keep getting stuck there too!

How do they want us to work on this stuff and stay present all the time! Grrrr.... I do share your frustration. I have ignored it all my life and I know I could ignore it now, because I am a Master at numbing, but then I will never heal. I feel I need to dive in and take the pain and go for