Avoidance & issues, questions

I had to type this post again after I was no more logged into the forum when I tried to post it. Considering the subject of this post and the fact that, to my knowledge, I took the precaution of logging with the "remember my session" checkbox (which deactivates the auto-logoff after 15 minutes feature), I wonder if it might be the result of another alter logging me off "in my back". I do not know if I have lost time, but I do know my post is less complete because I am more tired this time. It has happened a third time, but I had saved my post in a text file. And I made sure to tick that checkbox, something strange is definitely happening.

I have realized recently that while I am not in denial, I have a tendency to avoid my DID, perhaps unwillingly or unconsciously. I only rarely visit the forum. I have stopped therapy since I forced myself to go and there were few results that came out of it. I have a lot difficulty talking about it to one very supportive and helpful friend of mine. It is always overwhelming, or it causes to go "foggy", with my memory "cleared", and then I try to talk about it, only to say nothing of importance because nothing comes to mind. Or some distraction starts monopolizing my mind out of nowhere (like at the time I write this, again ...).

Yet DID has an impact on my daily life, in very concrete things too, like my ability to care for myself, to hold a job, to meet deadlines. My relationship with time is troubled at the moment which makes it quite hard to hold a routine. I also have other questions which are more about the psychological aspect of DID, but I have a hard time just talking about its existence and the concrete impacts it has on my life, so talking about the deeper and more complex psychological aspect of it is hard to consider. And I am slowly forgetting what else I meant to say. I don't remember enough of my initial post to complete this retry in entirety, so ... Oh, I remember. I have also noticed patterns in my thought process, in the way I act, etc, that, as a part, I may be a collection of parts myself, more or less implicitly communicating, cooperating. It certainly seems to fit with how I can change "widely" (what I consider to be) yet still feel the same. My first post had a better explanation, unfortunately, but I hope you understand. I can change, I feel distinctly different (in another "mode", as one could say) yet still definitely myself, like if the dominant part out of my parts collection changes. It is really hard to explain, but it feels like I could be a set of parts (well-coordinated at the very least yet not "fluid" like a singleton) within a set of parts, like a matryoshka doll...

And I'd like to talk about what I'm going through, yet, I find it difficult to do so. Perhaps instant messaging would be helpful because of the more direct dialogue, but I don't know how much of a good idea it would be; the T has always been ambiguous on what he thought about communicating with other multiples. He asked regularly whether I visited the forum, but never said anything about it; I asked him once whether he thought I should continue or stop going here, and he refused to answer, which may imply he is not favourable, at least when it comes to my case. I still think it would be helpful, though.

I'll now go before I get stopped and/or this post is trashed again, sorry for its structure (or a lack thereof).

[I got bitten by the logoff thing really bad, on perhaps my best self-work effort here. I am sorry you had problems too. I just posted a request asking them to change the time-out.
post1576024.html#p1576024]

I am glad you have at least one supportive friend and a therapist. That's a good start. Perhaps you could find a local support group on meetup.com, or start one? I think I could use one too.

As I've gradually read a few things from people lately I think there might be some problem with the "keep me logged in" option when it is ticked in addition to the "hide my online status" option. So maybe try only ticking the "keep me logged in" option without the other and see if that helps. And give me feedback about if it works so that if that is the problem I can let the tech know to fix it. In the meantime, this is my biggest tip and explanation of some other possible reason is here: post1127998.html#p1127998

In relation to the stuff you mention about avoidance... I relate a lot. I think even in reading and considering to reply to this post I've found myself dissociating more and realising I've gone off to another internet tab about five times already. It's like that distraction you talked about:

lifepuzzle wrote:Or some distraction starts monopolizing my mind out of nowhere

It is hard to think about. I have trouble thinking about my DID too and the impact on my life too. It's like my mind starts drifting off somewhere and I'll suddenly realise I'm thinking about something random, or my mind goes not very clear, or I'll draw a complete blank like there is suddenly altogether nothing going on in my brain. I wish I knew more what to do about it too.

My current therapist has been saying to observe what is happening when I start to dissociate like that. But he has also said that it's relevant what your mind goes to, that in some way those new thoughts will be connected to what you were previously thinking about, even if it's not obvious. He says "all thoughts are related". I'm finding it a lot easier to consider what I get distracted by (and the other stuff that is happening as dissociative avoidance) when I'm focussing on what my mind is shifting to and why that might be. It's a bit less confronting than trying to jump straight to any of the stuff that makes that dissociation happen in the first place. For instance, I kept having thoughts about the pattern of his carpet last session which on first glance seems unrelated to anything. It was interrupting what I was thinking and talking about. But as I thought about it more I've realised that the carpet has been a distraction in other dissociative times for me (with similar carpet that I would use to distract me then) and that helped to bring back a couple of memories that are now solidly associated because it wasn't a stressful way to go about the process.

So perhaps you can give a go thinking about what your mind goes to when you seem to be avoiding something and see if you can work out how it might be related in some way? I'm not sure if this will help as I'm only just starting out the process too to help with the major issue of avoidance.

lifepuzzle wrote: He asked regularly whether I visited the forum, but never said anything about it; I asked him once whether he thought I should continue or stop going here, and he refused to answer, which may imply he is not favourable, at least when it comes to my case. I still think it would be helpful, though.

I don't think this implied that he thought it was not favourable. I think it implied that he didn't want to influence your choices, he wanted you to make your own decision, the one that you needed to make for the stage of healing you are at. He was probably asking if you visited here to see where you were at with your avoidance. If he had then said "go to the forum" then that might have been more than you could handle at the time and would have been not good for you because you would feel bad either coming to the forum if you needed to avoid confronting stuff, or bad for avoiding the forum. If he had said, "don't go to the forum" then you might have felt judged for your involvement on the forum and like your own power and authority over your personal choices wasn't important. I think him remaining tacit implies that he thought you should do what you deem is an appropriate choice at any particular point in time, being guided by what you need and want and feel will be beneficial to you.

Hi !

Let's start with the possibly technical issues : I did not tick the "Hide my online status" checkbox. However, I do use browser extensions to help me maintain my privacy online, which could interfere with the cookies needed by the forum boards to manage a user session, including whether to activate the auto-logout timer or not. My other theory is that another alter may have hijacked my session somehow. Truth be told, I don't know which one is the most likely, but I do know that in the past, ticking the "Keep me logged in" checkbox would deactivate the auto-logout timer; however, my computer and browser configurations have probably changed since then.

salted lipstick wrote:It is hard to think about. I have trouble thinking about my DID too and the impact on my life too. It's like my mind starts drifting off somewhere and I'll suddenly realise I'm thinking about something random, or my mind goes not very clear, or I'll draw a complete blank like there is suddenly altogether nothing going on in my brain. I wish I knew more what to do about it too.

My current therapist has been saying to observe what is happening when I start to dissociate like that. [...] He says "all thoughts are related".

My T has told me the same thing, but one of the problems is that, most of the time, I don't even realize it happens, and I can only remember quite later, when remembering the thoughts at the beginning of such an episode is ... unlikely. And really, the common thing I've noticed about those avoidance distraction episodes were that my thoughts are just derailed to ... something else. There is not a lot of common elements to the thoughts that can end monopolizing my mind. Some times, it will be personal programming projects, I'll start to read on something random, I'll watch an anime ... well, the sole common point is that it never concerns DID; also there often is no obvious or even a bit more cryptic link between what I was doing and the distraction which happened. I'll try to notice when it starts happening, but it is very hard; I've been trying to for a long time, without much success.

About support groups, I could not join nor start one, even if there was one : I'd feel downright threatened by the presence of other people. I'd maybe go with a full-face mask and while modifying my voice, but this would be quite ridiculous. I am not at ease with the idea, much less with the actual thing.

At the same time, I feel like closer communication with another multiple would help me ... in some way. I don't know how yet, however.

P.S.: I have taken a long time to write this, and there were no issues with the auto-logout timer. Could it be that the auto-logout timer deactivation mechanism relies on JavaScript ?

I'm sorry I never have the energy to write much like others have, but I just want to say, avoidance is normal, because all dissociation is a way of avoiding experience--pain, memories, feelings, sensations, thoughts etc. So of course you would avoid DID too. Sounds really familiar to me. I still really push against a label even if knowing I have DID has been the first thing that made a difference in my treatment, ever. I don't like it though. Honestly, I want to be rid of it, as soon as possible.

So yes, avoidance is totally normal. It's a process. Try to accept one little thing at a time. Remember that the goal is ultimately not about semantics or labels or impressing anyone. It's about thinking your thoughts, feeling your feelings, being who you naturally are and putting the past in the past, all without judging or blaming yourself. Everything else, the labels, and whatever else, will all fall into place because they describe you, not because you adhere to them, or even need them. (though I get it can be frustrating working with the mental health community which is so insistent on labels and presumptions which I think are very damaging)

I prefer to just treat my DID as severe dissociation rather than get caught up in the stereotypes and labels. Thankfully my T is the same way. If I wanted attention for having DID, that would just be another way of avoiding my real needs too. If I am afraid to say I have DID even if I know I do, that is avoiding something too. There are lots of ways to avoid, and really the only way to not avoid is to experience, observe and tolerate.

I guess what I'm getting at is, you have to focus on what you ARE thinking, not what you are supposed to be, because thinking about what you are supposed to be thinking is avoiding what you ARE thinking. ><

Honestly, a lot of mental health stuff comes down to that, too. Dissociation and dissociative disorders are normal phenomena that have been rigidly avoided (for good reason, but usually not as good in the present.) You will observe this in pretty much any subforum here. People focus a lot on what they should be thinking, because they think they have to change themselves to be "right," which is avoiding what they are, which is neither right nor wrong, and which they cannot change, only cover up or avoid.

I hope that helps at all, idk, just random thoughts. Sorry if it's not helpful I'm foggy today.

vertices wrote:... I just want to say, avoidance is normal, because all dissociation is a way of avoiding experience--pain, memories, feelings, sensations, thoughts etc. So of course you would avoid DID too.

Thank you vertices for this post. Specially this part. Triggered some really useful understandings for me.

Sea

Hi ! An update, sort of ...

I understand that dissociation is fundamentally an avoidance-based mechanism, but reading made a few gears tick forward. However, I am not voluntarily avoiding my issues, rather the avoidance is an issue that probably prevents from moving forward. As to labels and stereotypes, I don't really think about them when I type DID, to me it is the name given to a particularity of my psychological structure, like the word "blind" describes someone with a total vision disability. I agree that we should treat people respectably, but all this political correctness is heavy, however I tend to think quite differently than others regarding this.

Now, on to the "update" ...

I have had a session earlier this week, and brought up the subject with the T. He thought it was quite normal, but the persisting communication dip (which started when getting more in the subject of dissociation) has him wondering what is going on. He has told me that my case is ... quite particular in many regards. I've decided to not put too much thought in it.

He has suggested that I do what I believe to be mindfulness (the translation does match). He hopes it will help me but only time will tell. I've also brought up how I felt like an odd mix of parts while still being 'me' and he brought up polyfragmentation ... and I'm skeptical. What he has explained fits my experience in some ways but other important features of polyfragmentation aren't visible. I don't quite remember what he answered but I did ask if and how it changed the therapeutic approach. One thing that he mentionned to me was that he had been really attentive to minor dissociative episodes (where no switching occurs but the mind is on a standstill; is it what is called a glitch?) in the most recent sessions and told me that he found them hard to notice in my case but with more attention he claims they are definitely there but that he thought it happens to me fairly frequently. In fact, he was talking to me then I "glitched" (hope this is the right term) and he started talking to me about that and then asked me what I remembered. He was right, I had "skipped a beat", but I never noticed it, which surprised him, he thought I had an awareness of these minor phenomena. At the very least, I went to therapy less reluctantly this time.

So, I'll try to practice mindfulness and we'll see what results come out of it.