dissociative barriers

I've been seeing my current T now for about 4 weeks. So far so good I suppose. She already knows that I suffer from a dissociative disorder...it's crazy once I start seeing the right type of doctors that my disorder is so easy and plain as day to spot but for years I went undiagnosed. Anyways, we're delving into my symptoms and so forth, my history blah blah blah and even though I really like her, her main approach to treatment in psychoanalystical. I dont understand how dissociative barriers can be broken without some sort of adjacent approach to knock them down. I feel disocouraged because talk therapy has never quit done it for me-ever. I thought EMDR was the answer but I went a whole year and my last T didn't touch the surface with it. I'm paying about $500 out of pocket to these T and just want to know how I'm going to get better! How does/can talk therapy break down any dissociative barriers I supposedly have?

*Woah, that was really weird. After I postedt his question I was sitting there thinking about it and thinking of how weird my head feels almost like there's liquid swarming around in my brain and how I can't think because of the pressure and feeling out of my body and it occurred to me that my denial over what's wrong with me is gone....I used to think I was medically sick and that's what created my symptoms...I now see that I create these symptoms subconciously to protect myself from whatever is in there inside me that doesn't want to be seen. This new revelation thrilled me and I felt chils run throughout my body but of course I'll forget it within 5 min so I probably wont bring it up to me T. Is that an examply of a dissociative wall being broken down?

I'd say yes, it probably is a wall breaking down. Denial over the subject seems to be the greatest barrier to processing the problems we face. But those walls of denial exist for a reason. They have to be chipped away at a little at a time, and hopefully they'll fall when your mind is prepared for it.
In one way you are right- psychoanalysis alone can change nothing. Talk therapy alone is useless, the catalyst for change is the impact it has inside. If your system is not prepared to process the subject, all it will do is reinforce the walls, your mind doing what it has always done and unconsciously denying the truth of what your therapist is telling you.

If you want an example of how talk therapy should work, look at your own post! You talked, or more accurately, typed, and the wheels were set in motion, the cogs in your head ticked over and your mind was ready for this epiphany. A therapist cannot possibly have all the answers, they are really just a guide, you have to make the real progress on your own, like you did in your post.

It's fine if you feel you'll forget this revalation. It's the in-built self defence mechanisms of your mind reacting to the feeling of decreased security. If you might permit me to indulge in metaphor, it is like a castle, with the drawbridge left open, traffic and trade free to come and go. The over-vigilant guard keeps trying to close the gate again. Over time, he might see that they are in no danger- the traffic is good, not an invading army- and allow the gate to stay open, or he might feel his role as guardsman is threatened, and kick up a fuss. It's a slow process to get your brain, or certain alters, to trust that everything is ok, even with this dissociative barrier removed.

You have to be proactive in keeping your mental cogs turning. I'd suggest keeping a notebook around, where you can exclusively write down realisations like these, or alternatively, keep a journal. You may well be making progress, it just might be too hard to see it.

talk therapy has taught me to try to process emotions by talking about them, or just naming them, instead of "dissociating" from then, compartmentalizing them, invalidating them, or pretending they don't exists (especially emotional pain).

I'm not saying I am good at it yet, but on occasion I can cope in a more productive way.

But that is me. And my T, and what he has done for me.

I agree with Ghosthound - your post is an example of how it can work. I find it also works better when you are not expecting it to. It is almost like if you try to control it, the ability to break old habits is very hard.

I'm not sure I will ever cease being dissociative, but therapy has helped be to be able to control disruptive dissociation which interferes with functioning (job, relationships, etc). But I will always be me, half in Samsland, half on earth!

Sam

Thank you guys for answering my question. I don't want to be dissociative anymore...it has ruined my life so far and almost feels like worse of a curse than anything that could have possibly happened to me to make this process start in the first place. I do see progress within myself...just last year I was so conviced I was sick that I was paying probably like $1500 in one year going to see doctor after doctor. I wasnt a hypochondriac...I just wanted to know what it was so I could get better. I'm not actually sure yet what my dissociative defences are. I dont know too much about how my internal system operates because I've been in the dark about it for so long that all of this is quit new to me still but I'm learning and trying to be as self reflective as I can be for my therapy sessions but my mind doesn't permit me to go inside so I usually wind up going to therapy feeling like I have nothing to say. Sams, I don't know if you'll ever not be dissociative either for sure but I do hope that you don't have do deal with it for the rest of your life because no one should ever have to go through what we all go through-no one. You seem like a strong person though so that will be to your advantage. I feel I'm pretty strong too and there's not too much I can't take except for maybe losing my son...then I'd have no reason to live anymore but I always pray for God to protect and watch over him. Thanks for responding to the both of you

I asked my gatekeeper once why it was that after all these years I am now co-conscious with everyone and the walls that were rock solid for decades have begun to crumble. His answer was something like "because you were willing to know."

It's a very simple answer but I believe, based on most systems, that is they key. You may have some very strong alters who work against it -- deniers or protectors who fight hard against the knowledge coming back or persecutors who attack you when you even imagine what might have happened or introjects of abusers. But the host or co-hosts or even a key alter can open up the dissociative walls by being willing to learn about what happened. Not all at once. If it happens like that it can and will be overwhelming.

I remember thinking last year, well, what if the one thing I remember my dad doing to me, SA but not extreme, was just the tip of the iceberg? What if he did the worst I can imagine to me? I know my mom was unbalanced overall. What if what my sister remembers she did to her she did to me as well, maybe worse? If I were multiple, and I've met two parts which suggests that I am, I wouldn't remember any of that. What if both parents had been monstrous to me and I didn't remember it? Could I deal with that? And my answer was, well, yes, I could, if it means there's any hope that the mess that my life is might start to clear up. The alternative would be going on in life crippled like this, so suicidal I will surely end my life in the near future. Can I face that disgusting, horrific things happened to me? If so, could I get beyond that? Am I strong enough to deal with it? I don't know but I'm willing to try.

I thought of all the movies I'd seen where a courageous hero or heroine did exactly that, faced something from their past. The formula is cliche. Of course that's the right path, I told myself, I know that, everybody knows that when talking about someone else's life. But even thinking of the possibilities much made me feel terror, nausea, and I had sudden bursts of body memory and puzzling emotion. I heard myself try to deny that anything could have possibly happened. That response made me suspicious of my own thinking so I told myself, okay, it's now. This time it has to be different or I won't survive. And if something did happen that bad to me, I have a right to know. It's my life and I'm tired of not remembering. I'm not a bad guy, I'm not twisted, but I am really mixed up about some things. In any case, I have a right to live more than 10% of a life and maybe, just maybe, all this can clear up and I'll be a healthy, whole person. That would be nice.

Johnny-Jack you're right in feeling like you should be able to know and that you could handle it. I really dont remember anything that could have happened to me that made this so bad but i dont think I'm multiple either. I have my suspicions but I try and think maybe it's just DDNOS or maybe dissociative amnesia. I'm not really sure anymore. I also was thinking today maybe I'm sick again and the doctors just can't find out whats medically wrong with me so I need to start searching again but I know this too is not true, it's my denial speaking. I want to know, if anything, what happened but I don't know for sure. My T says something had to have happened to make me this way but I can't hardly even remember my childhood at all how could I then remember any type of abuse? I can remember weird things but nothing horrific. I think I'm making everything up. I feel really depressed and overall disappointed in myself and my life thus far.

Wow. I am new here (my first post) but I am amazed at the threads in this post -- how much brandonsmom77 sounds SO MUCH like me. Every bit of it. I record all my sessions with my T, listen and hear some new revelation, and then forget that I had it or i will disavow/minimize it when "remembered" each time I re-listen to the recording. Other times, I feel as though I have just experienced a conversation with the T, having been very 'present' for it, only to have "someone" come into my mind immediatedly thereafter and scramble it or swipe it from my recall, within seconds of the experience. Could that be an "alter" whose job it is to scramble my brain after the fact?

I must also say that while I have been dx DID and sometimes I think that might be correct, 'most' of the time I feel so bad that I have allowed my T to dx that because it just isn't/can't be true for me. After all, I cannot recall any abuse in childhood! Certainly nothing so severe as to cause DID....

What you have all written has been "enlightening."

Brandonsmom777 and Askew, I would have posted something almost very similar myself a year, year and a half ago. I had absolutely no memory of horrible things happening. Just one of "mild" SA from my father and an unstable mother. I am not saying you will discover horrible things in your own past. If they're there, you probably will, because you both seek answers to the confusion and pain. If they didn't happen but something else did, you'll probably remember that. But I can say that no one was more shocked than I was to discover how a mind -- my own -- could block so much. It was, unfortunately, incredibly effectively at blocking over 99% of what happened to me. I want to be furious at my own mind, but that's absurd. The fury belongs with the sick people who hurt me.

It is very common for the host himself or herself to block bad thoughts, images, automatically. It is also very common to have parts whose specific job is to actively block the host from remembering anything, or cause relentless doubt, or wipe acceptance and understanding away afterwards. Somehow, Jonathan and/or Sphinx were able to shrink my memory of lost time, abuse, etc. to a tiny dot. I found myself looking for that damn speck a million times and I felt absolutely sure something was there, but had no idea what. After a while, it was too frustrating and I went on to something else. Even memories that I did have were rewritten, bowdlerized. Upon more recent reflection, there were gaping holes in them but I never thought hard enough to inspect the memories. They were probably kind of frozen anyway.

Not being able to recall things doesn't prove anything bad happened. DID can be caused by things other than abuse or you may not have it. But when abuse does happen, dissociative barriers as thick as the Great Wall of China can be built to protect a child. It's very unfortunate that just because you can't remember, that doesn't mean there's nothing to remember. Not in DID. I know you already know that, but someone else reading this might not be sure.