On denial

Sorry for the vague title. I just hope that everyone who has any thoughts about denial and DID could share them here, and their personal experiences too. Most of us have been there, haven't we? Since my own thoughts are just getting organized around this subject I couldn't think of anything more precise, and neither is this post precise, but I feel that I can think better when I can type it down.

Looking back on my life I can say now that I've gone through moments and episodes of dissociation from ever since I was very young. But my first actual alter who seemed to be another person came into my attention during a time when my denial had reached its peak and become as elaborate as it can possibly be in my case. Was it a coincidence? I don't know yet, but I'm interested in finding out. This is something that I've been thinking for the first time today.

When R surfaced it didn't awaken me from my persistent refusal to remember and/or recognize all that had gone wrong so far in my life, because he fitted in my beliefs and the generally surreal way of perceiving and explaining reality at the time. I was rather spiritual and religious then, which I guess is okay as long as you don't use it to help you dive deeper in denial like I did. Accordingly, I made a guess he was my spirit guide, although he was rather broken to be one, which bothered me. Nevertheless I managed to see him as a new and exciting piece in the miraculous jigsaw puzzle of my life even though his arrival made me more aware of my vulnerability and lack of resources, and the ensuing gender confusion forced me to reject my former social frame of reference. I stopped regarding myself as normal, which was kind of revolutionary, but I still didn't get the big picture. This was one feature of my denial, not being able to see connections between the events of my life. I just thought that it's a new cycle in my ever-changing life and as long as I keep on rebirthing myself over and over again it will keep me going. Or something like that.

Oops I think I've lost the clue of my original idea why I wanted to make this thread.

I talked to a friend today and heard myself say that I denied and actually blocked the truth about our family up until both of my parents were dead, and for some time afterwards. And then, when it was safe to approach the truth (actually I even postponed that for a couple of years out of respect for them), my others started to influence me more and require for attention. Simultaneously, the elaborate framework of my spirituality started to feel like an extra burden. Lots of it was just artificial and designed to mask all the strangeness inside me.

Maybe this sort of development is something very obvious in discovering your dissociation, or is it? I mean, if you have lied to yourself for years to be able to deal with your parents, and you can stop doing it, you become aware of your dissociated parts. But I didn't know that I was lying, I just thought that I'm surviving pretty well. Anyhow, all of this sort of explains to me why they have come to my attention as persons so recently.

But still I'm wondering if my development has happened kind of ...backwards? I'm rather confused on some level.

One more thing, I found a poem I wrote about R when I had just gotten to know about his existence but didn't know yet he's there due to dissociation. I had written something about trying to find him in order to release him from a prison cell, although it's my own prison. I dunno, it just suggests that I he was locked up inside me, like the rest of them.

Sorry for rambling. I don't know how important it is to get over denial, or whatever, but all I know is, things were less painful when I was the eternal optimist. And it kept the others behind the bars, which was unfair. But I keep weighing my life in denial and after it against each other, and so many things have changed upside down. I don't know if it's all good.

****

I dunno, it just suggests that I he was locked up inside me, like the rest of them.

I see what I did there

Hi under ice.

I saw that you replied to my post earlier. I'll reply back when I can. And thank you beforehand!

You asked experiences of denial so I'll tell you our/my experience! The post I did earlier explained it a bit so I try to write in more detail than what I did there...

Denial is the main survival method with traumas...one of my parts told me that. Getting over the denial is humongously painful and hard part in healing but it also gives you amazing amount of relief and happiness. I actually felt that today! For a couple hours I was completely broken, crashed and in shock. Then I understood how it all worked: tears of joy and relief came out after that. (It's hard to explain this...) When the curtain of denial had been taken away from our eyes, we saw things the way the were. The painful truth. I felt like there wasn't anything between me and the trauma! No walls, no transparent walls, nothing. Just us and the past exactly the way it was!

I think that getting over denial is like realizing the facts and throwing the earlier ways of coping with traumatic life away. Denial is a HUGE break in healing process and it gives in when the time is right. I now understand that my child/teen parts had two separate ways of seeing our parents: a good and caring parents (imagination) and an abusive criminals that emotionally weren't our parents (reality). Getting over the denial caused the imagination version to be destroyed so there was only facts and truth left. I'm repeating myself... Basically I see denial as an obstacle in the way of accepting the traumatic past to be part of your life. So it's pretty important to get over it!

I also feel like going backwards. :O The more I understand, the more I feel broken and emotionally handicapped. But it's not actually "going backwards" but realizing how broken you really are. And like my therapist said: things go worse before they get better. I like to think that things go worse when you dig under the denial and amnesia and see what you have to work with. And when you start working with the root of the problems, it starts getting better. So I think that you're heading the right way.

I hope this helps. ^^

Under ice,
I can very much relate to your post!

My own journey has felt strange and, in a way, like a maze. Not very linear. For many years I was under the belief that my parents were amazing and wonderful parents, loving, nurturing, supportive... The tricky part for me is that they could be at times. They were not horrible people, and yet they inflicted some deep emotional wounds. I am not saying this to protect them, I actually truly feel they are not horrible people, or horrible parents. But I also recognize that my emotional abuse was nothing close to what many others on here had to endure at the hands of their parents. And yet their (emotional) neglect definitely scarred me deeply. At some point however, the walls of my denial began to crumble. It was not a conscious decision on my part to become more "aware", if anything I would have chosen to stay in my denial, I think. I, too, kept parts of myself locked up behind prison bars, never to be allowed out. I was like a prison master, ready to crack the whip at any moment.

I, too, became deeply spiritual. That whole period of my life was filled with confusion, because I turned to spirituality to help me feel better, when in fact it made me feel even crazier. I tried so desperately to "escape myself", but the truth was, going inward actually made me go deeper into the craziness of my own mind. For a while, I thought I was "possessed", hearing voices in my head and feeling overwhelming impulses to do horrible, drastic things. I was constantly fighting myself. I thought I was fighting my "demons", or my "ego", but in fact they were just parts of me. Disowned parts.

Lifting the veil of denial is like taking the bandaid off a wound. Keeping the bandaid on it keeps you from feeling the pain, but also keeps the wound from healing. Taking the bandaid off is painful, but a necessary step in order for ourselves to begin to truly heal. At least that's the way I like to look at it.

Adameil wrote:Hi under ice.

I saw that you replied to my post earlier. I'll reply back when I can. And thank you beforehand!

You asked experiences of denial so I'll tell you our/my experience! The post I did earlier explained it a bit so I try to write in more detail than what I did there...

Denial is the main survival method with traumas...one of my parts told me that. Getting over the denial is humongously painful and hard part in healing but it also gives you amazing amount of relief and happiness. I actually felt that today! For a couple hours I was completely broken, crashed and in shock. Then I understood how it all worked: tears of joy and relief came out after that. (It's hard to explain this...) When the curtain of denial had been taken away from our eyes, we saw things the way the were. The painful truth. I felt like there wasn't anything between me and the trauma! No walls, no transparent walls, nothing. Just us and the past exactly the way it was!

The bolded part is exactly what I needed to hear. Although it's a basic fact, when I try to see the power of denial in my life it all tends to get fuzzy. I'm not able to analyze it on my own.

After R's first period of regular surfacing I noticed that I'm not that good at ignoring the effects of stress and trauma anymore. When something negative happened in interaction with people I lost my balance and got PTSD symptoms. Occasionally I felt the same as when I was in my teens, and I also became sort of unpredictable to myself. During the five years after R disappeared I became more aware of unknown influences in my behaviour 'that should not be there'.
I noticed it at my work too. I met a lot of people who had a high risk of dropping out of education, among other things. They needed a helping hand in getting back on the right track and my job was to help them in planning and getting things done, and when they told me about their emotional and mental problems it was like looking into a mirror. I managed to hide this but I couldn't ignore it.

Adameil wrote:I think that getting over denial is like realizing the facts and throwing the earlier ways of coping with traumatic life away. Denial is a HUGE break in healing process and it gives in when the time is right. I now understand that my child/teen parts had two separate ways of seeing our parents: a good and caring parents (imagination) and an abusive criminals that emotionally weren't our parents (reality). Getting over the denial caused the imagination version to be destroyed so there was only facts and truth left. I'm repeating myself... Basically I see denial as an obstacle in the way of accepting the traumatic past to be part of your life. So it's pretty important to get over it!

Yeah, still I'm thinking a bit why it didn't happen earlier. Maybe it was because I had so many problems going on with my family, there was no possibility to listen to the insiders. My mother and my ex were demanding individuals. I focused on making everyone's life more tolerable (read: hopelessly pleasing them since I saw no light at the end of the tunnel), and when I had no more work in that sector, that was when R surfaced.

Adameil wrote:I also feel like going backwards. :O The more I understand, the more I feel broken and emotionally handicapped. But it's not actually "going backwards" but realizing how broken you really are. And like my therapist said: things go worse before they get better. I like to think that things go worse when you dig under the denial and amnesia and see what you have to work with. And when you start working with the root of the problems, it starts getting better. So I think that you're heading the right way.

I hope this helps. ^^

It does! Thanks Adameil

brandic wrote:Under ice,
I can very much relate to your post!

My own journey has felt strange and, in a way, like a maze. Not very linear.

I got goosebumps when I saw the word maze. It's a major metaphor in my life since I used to have horrible recurring nightmares about an underground maze throughout my childhood and teen years.

brandic wrote:For many years I was under the belief that my parents were amazing and wonderful parents, loving, nurturing, supportive... The tricky part for me is that they could be at times. They were not horrible people, and yet they inflicted some deep emotional wounds. I am not saying this to protect them, I actually truly feel they are not horrible people, or horrible parents. But I also recognize that my emotional abuse was nothing close to what many others on here had to endure at the hands of their parents. And yet their (emotional) neglect definitely scarred me deeply. At some point however, the walls of my denial began to crumble. It was not a conscious decision on my part to become more "aware", if anything I would have chosen to stay in my denial, I think. I, too, kept parts of myself locked up behind prison bars, never to be allowed out. I was like a prison master, ready to crack the whip at any moment.

A familiar pattern.

I gotta say that I never thought that my parents were amazing or supportive, but I firmly believed they had tried to be that in their own way and failed. They played the martyr and accused each other and everyone else. Everyone did that in my family but me, and everyone had their own version of the 'truth', and those versions were far from each other. I didn't believe anything, but I forgave everything and to everyone. I kept dreaming that we can change things together, that they can turn a new page if they want to, that one day they realize how foolish they've been and we can start from a fresh page. Like Billy Liar in the novel I turned over a new leaf every day, but the blots showed through, and besides, I was the only one who did this... so I also developed a sense of superiority and aloofness.
Although my parents were highly selfish and acted crazy at home, they were focused on preserving the facade. Since the facade was the only hope of normality it's no wonder I built one inside myself. They weren't the most abusive, neglective parents around, they had so much good sides in them, which probably kept me hopeful for so long. They told fairytales to us and taught us to read good literature, they knew loads of things about nature and history, they were intelligent and sensitive and all that. You just had to tiptoe around them all the time, and even that wouldn't stop the daily catastrophes.

brandic wrote:I, too, became deeply spiritual. That whole period of my life was filled with confusion, because I turned to spirituality to help me feel better, when in fact it made me feel even crazier. I tried so desperately to "escape myself", but the truth was, going inward actually made me go deeper into the craziness of my own mind. For a while, I thought I was "possessed", hearing voices in my head and feeling overwhelming impulses to do horrible, drastic things. I was constantly fighting myself. I thought I was fighting my "demons", or my "ego", but in fact they were just parts of me. Disowned parts.

Lifting the veil of denial is like taking the bandaid off a wound. Keeping the bandaid on it keeps you from feeling the pain, but also keeps the wound from healing. Taking the bandaid off is painful, but a necessary step in order for ourselves to begin to truly heal. At least that's the way I like to look at it.

I think you nailed it, Brandic.

By the way, R is here and says hello to everyone .

The last sentence sounds so cheesy. *heads to schizoid subforum*

I just hope that everyone who has any thoughts about denial and DID could share them here, and their personal experiences too.

I asked my T today in session if she had ever considered a differential diagnosis for DID for me, such as "factitious disorder with predominantly psychological features?" She said no. I told her she should consider it. I do not deny having depression, anxiety & abrupt ego state shifts, but I think my diagnosis should be borderline personality disorder along with fictitious disorder as it applies to my parts having names and being separate personalities. Why? One reason: My parts don't have much of a life history really. I don't remember calling them by names before age 14 at which point I just sort of formed a representation of them in my mind to help me cope through a severe adolescent depression. So I think they just represent different emotional sides of me. If they were true parts, I would have come up with them at an earlier age. No. 2 Reason: I can't even remember any truly severe trauma, just smaller stuff from childhood which I am bitter about. But as long as my T thinks I have DID then she is convinced I have significant memories of trauma inside which she expects me to share at some point. It's driving me crazy because she thinks I'm holding back. I don't want to fabricate trauma stories to satisfy her! But my T won't believe me that my parts are only ego states. It's my fault because I can't stop communicating with her as if from the vantage point of different personalities, whether in person or more often through text. It's like I am driven to do it -- I try but I just can't cork it. I don't have the willpower to silence it. Maybe its an addiction as a way to secure her attention.

I don't know if I've reached the full denial point yet, cuz I still have yet to disclose certain potential deal breakers to my T. I legit lost time 2 to 4 times in one day a few months ago, but am scared of disclosing this. I am afraid of...I don't know what I'm afraid of lol. Her reaction I guess. I know a dx doesn't change anything, whatever I have I have, no matter what label it is. It's hard for me to accept dissociation into younger versions of myself as an actual thing sometimes. I often times just want to say that I'm immature and socially inept. But I know in my heart it goes deeper than that.

Sweet n Sour and Divided, thanks for sharing.

I also feel that regardless of R and the others whom I've met, I'm me and nobody else. On the whole, I experience their influence marginally unless my stress goes up.

Sweet n Sour, I often wonder too which ones of my supposed alters are just ego states that I decided to decorate with qualities that make them seem like personalities. I know that one of two of them can't be just self states, but for example three of them have existed like characters that appeared out of nowhere and started to float around in my thoughts and emotions, and I don't know if that qualifies them to be alters. Two of them seem to be variations of the one I consider an actual alter. I've decided they can go on their alter-like existence, but only because I've never made stories or created characters intentionally, and they can't be side product of that kind of hobby. Still I'm doubtful. Why did the majority of them surface to me after I joined this forum? Did I wish them into existence?

Divided, I think I understand what you're saying, kind of . I can say that getting a diagnosis at this point in my life isn't that important. If I get one, which will possibly happen if I have to go to the mental health services again to seek help, I won't care whether it's schizoid, borderline, DID, DDNOS, ADD or a mixture of those. Out of these, DID is the one that has helped me to organize things inside my head so that they don't seem so disconnected and random anymore. The other disorders seem to lack something essential and have something too much to me, but it's not like this has to be DID, or else. If I had more difficulties in coping in my everyday life, that would certainly change the situation. If that happens, I hope it doesn't, I'm sure that I have better possibilities to work things out in therapy than if I had never heard of DID.