Denial can be seductive

It's not that I'm ever in intellectual denial but I often am in emotional denial in that DID feels unreal ( goes along with my first post about being numb).
When I don't feel anything going on inside I feel stable -maybe still with lots of issues but stable. When I'm in touch with inside people or learning things from my past I often feel high anxiety, ungrounded and fearful .

How do you keep moving forward when you know it involves so much pain and instability ? It's the instability that unnerves me the most .
Thankyou,
Beth

for us it was understanding the cost of staying numb, dissociated and keeping the amnesia.
without our feelings we never felt alive. without each other something was always missing.
and huge chuncks of our life were missing.
at some point being numb became unbearable. we were suicidal because it was unbearable.
staying dissociated meant not being alive. we could just as well die. or start to live.
life includes pain. but it also offers a lot moer than that. a lot more.

Thankyou . It's an embarrassing question but I have to ask . When I do have connections and know about us , in time feel more alive. It's the getting there.
Perhaps the real issue is to have the commitment to work on ways to stay stable and grounded . And here's the biggie-ability to tolerate uncertainty, pain and discomfort . I always start to feel like I'm just coming apart at the seams .

nobody said that you need to do it all in one day.
as you walk you learn, you grow, you get stronger.
baby steps. one after the others. always making sure that you are not coming apart

a thought... actually, you have come apart a long time ago. does not being able to feel it make it go away? or does it just take every possibility for you doing something about it...

another thought... numbing and dissociation can trick you.
when you are triggered you might freak out with only small cues that something might be dangerous.
when you are dissociated and numb you might not notice even big cues and get yourself into danger.
not being able to feel pain is not safe.

birdsong87 wrote:when you are dissociated and numb you might not notice even big cues and get yourself into danger.

Very true.

Charity

Two things:
First - I find that as I have accepted this is true and have communicated with "my people" my anxiety and feeling out of control and coming apart has lessened.
Second- and this might be a cliche but it sure helps me. "In life you will have pain, it just depends on whether you desire to feel the pain of moving forward or the pain of being stuck."
Warmly,
Berta

You're right birdsong. I'm a Protector and when Host numbs out it also means he's not listening to me. I can't warn him about stuff if he won't listen. It's really frustrating. The other day Host walked right in front of this Fiat. I'm yelling "CAR CAR!" but he's in his own little world. Damn it was close! We're supposed to be working together but sometimes he just wants to be numb and dumb.

Colin

Birdsong-you are correct . I split a long time ago and don't think the denial is a conscious type of thing . I journal and do lots of thIngs to communicate / when Theres no response it's easy to slip into denial.
Its definitely not going away , just harder when I don't have great communication to keep trying . Or the opposite happens and I'm on overload . Lately the voices are letting me hear and it's not so loud which helps . But there isn't any dialogue / more like I hear a conversation but I'm not really part of it .i write it down and respond in a journal and let everyone know it's ok to write or draw or talk.
Numbing out isn't safe at all-when I have feelings ( which I'm not used to) it's a bit unnerving , but safer.

Thankyou Berta -I appreciate your warm response . Maybe I'm just impatient I don't know . It seems like I'm not so successful and then when it's quiet I think maybe this isn't real . The pain of feeling stuck is what motivated me to even post , I felt kind of ridiculous posting it because I know I have many parts , it just feels like all or nothing sometimes .
I think too my T is frustrated with me so I feel I'm not moving fast enough .
Just don't want to feel alone with this -
Beth

-- Sat Aug 19, 2017 8:33 pm --

Wait wait. They did communicate with me a lot last week. Every night for 4 or so nights they sent me visuals of a scene . Piece by piece like a puzzle .
So what am I writing ? I guess I don't know " who" talks or shows me things . I do have some names and why they're here. Did I forget ? Do I expect too much ?

-- Sat Aug 19, 2017 8:34 pm --

Wait wait. They did communicate with me a lot last week. Every night for 4 or so nights they sent me visuals of a scene . Piece by piece like a puzzle .
So what am I writing ? I guess I don't know " who" talks or shows me things . I do have some names and why they're here. Did I forget ? Do I expect too much ?

-- Sat Aug 19, 2017 8:34 pm --

Wait wait. They did communicate with me a lot last week. Every night for 4 or so nights they sent me visuals of a scene . Piece by piece like a puzzle .
So what am I writing ? I guess I don't know " who" talks or shows me things . I do have some names and why they're here. Did I forget ? Do I expect too much ?