safe in memory [journey thread]

raptureblues wrote:it's always felt better to stick with what i'm used to, even if it's awful, because you become numb to it eventually. better that than get used to a nice thing and it get taken away. i know that's not healthy though so i'm trying to work on it, it's just hard.

I bet many people on here would agree that they've lived by this philosophy. I know that we do, and it's a hard habit to break.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:

raptureblues wrote:it's always felt better to stick with what i'm used to, even if it's awful, because you become numb to it eventually. better that than get used to a nice thing and it get taken away. i know that's not healthy though so i'm trying to work on it, it's just hard.

I bet many people on here would agree that they've lived by this philosophy. I know that we do, and it's a hard habit to break.

Yes. This is difficult for many in our system, including me. Thank you both for validating this.

Charity and others

Yeah, it's same with us. Inertia, lethargy, fear of change, whatever.

It's how we were taught. I'm sure it's from our mum, but our dad even told us an expression for it. "The devil you know is always better than the one you don't."

Viola

it's been a huge problem for me for a while now to talk about things to do with trauma and DID. whenever i try and talk about it, i feel this really heavy mental block in my mind. it becomes hard to think, i dissociate a lot. the words won't come out, or i find i've ended up talking about something completely unrelated instead. it's also been a huge problem online. i keep deleting things. i either can't type at all and have to give up, or i manage to get something written but i almost instantly delete it.

it's weird because i have an almost constant need to vent, to talk about how i'm feeling. if i don't talk, i feel overwhelmed and unable to cope. but there's also this really powerful feeling of venting being bad, that i shouldn't be talking. it's really bizarre. i end up having this weird tug-of-war where i want to talk, i want to heal, i want to express how i feel, but if it's anything to do with my parents or my memories or to do with DID, i either can't talk at all and dissociate until i can't remember what i was talking about, or i end up talking about a completely different topic without realising i'd done so, or i try and cover up what i said by deleting things.

i tried looking at this as a DID-related thing, like "oh, maybe this is due to an alter that doesn't want me to talk about this or get help for whatever reason" but every time i think like that, i get this weird rush of anger and this feeling that i'm "making excuses". in the sense that i clearly must be sabotaging myself on my own, that i don't want to get better, that i want to stay ill because it gets me attention, that my constant need to vent is unhealthy and attention-seeking, that saying it's because of DID is just a "convenient excuse" to avoid responsibility.

it's difficult because i truly feel like i want to get better. i don't want to be ill. i want to move on and live my life. the cycle i'm stuck in right now is exhausting. the denial is exhausting. i just want to be okay. it's something other people have never understood about me, that i don't understand about myself. i have such a strong motivation to get better, i've never resisted therapy, i've always been proactive about my treatment. and yet i also seem to repeatedly contradict that by sabotaging any and all attempts to deal with trauma and anything connected to it, to the point where i can't move forward. i don't understand it and it's bugged me for a long time.

it would make sense if it wasn't my feeling or my actions, but a different alter's feeling and actions, that someone doesn't want things to move forward for some reason, but i can't shake this feeling that i'm somehow making an excuse for something. it's really strange.

it's just frustrating because i feel really stuck. i've been in therapy for four years on-and-off in which i've been with my current therapist for a year and a half of that time, and yet i can barely remember any of my previous therapy. i saw five therapists before, three of whom only gave me six weeks of treatment (standard short term therapy time under the NHS), one of whom saw me for ten months, and another i saw as part of a group therapy program for five months. i remember bits and pieces, but they're all unrelated to trauma. as far as my memories go, i've never done trauma work before the past year and a half. i remember idle mentions of it, or certain aspects of my relationship with my family being brought up, but i can't remember any detail at all. it feels like this is the first time i've tried to focus on the trauma and dissociation side of things, but now any attempt to move things forward is repeatedly sabotaged by denial and avoidance.

it confuses me because, to me, i overshare. in my head, i'm really open about my family situation and my past and being mentally ill. i can't understand how no-one picked up on things and why no-one tried to do trauma work with me before now. i know i've mentioned it to previous therapists, my doctor's aware of it, and yet my psychiatrist had no idea before our last appointment that i had any trauma at all, and he'd been my psych for three whole years! he never gave me any kind of trauma-related diagnosis (he left it at OCD, MDD and BPD). the denial has a field day with it. it feels like i'm stuck between "you hide a lot more than you think you do" and "you don't have trauma / DID, no-one picked up on it because it's not real / wasn't bad enough / etc".

it almost feels like me going to therapy was "okay" before now because i wasn't doing trauma work (seemingly). i do deal with other conditions and i feel like the previous therapy helped with that. but it feels like now that there's no other convenient problem to work on in therapy, that i'm now not allowed to talk or be open, because the only thing left is the trauma. the alternative is... well, i have no idea. i don't understand any of this. i know that sounds weird because this is about me and my actions and my feelings. i don't know why i don't understand it. it's a genuine mystery to me.

sorry for all that rambling, this has just been on my mind a lot lately.

raptureblues wrote:it feels like this is the first time i've tried to focus on the trauma and dissociation side of things, but now any attempt to move things forward is repeatedly sabotaged by denial and avoidance....

...it feels like now that there's no other convenient problem to work on in therapy, that i'm now not allowed to talk or be open, because the only thing left is the trauma. the alternative is... well, i have no idea. i don't understand any of this. i know that sounds weird because this is about me and my actions and my feelings. i don't know why i don't understand it. it's a genuine mystery to me.

sorry for all that rambling, this has just been on my mind a lot lately.

Have you worked on attachment and trust with your T? And are things feeling stable enough in your daily life to start to deal with trauma? Those are all phase 1 things that need to be solid before you can start to do trauma work. Maybe your system recognizes that you're not ready to go there yet.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:Have you worked on attachment and trust with your T? And are things feeling stable enough in your daily life to start to deal with trauma? Those are all phase 1 things that need to be solid before you can start to do trauma work. Maybe your system recognizes that you're not ready to go there yet.

it definitely comes up, especially when it comes to how i am with both my therapist and my partner. i'm not really stable right now, not been stable for a while now. the focus of therapy does shift a little depending on what's happening but lately it's been focused on struggling with denial and the feelings that come up while it's bad, some of which does tie into attachment and trust (particularly with my therapist + partner pointing out things connected to alters, memory loss, etc).

i guess i feel stuck. can't remember stuff, can't talk about stuff, or if i talk about stuff i just end up feeling denial about it. i just want something to budge. it's so frustrating being held back but not knowing why. i just wish there was better communication. if the others talked to me and worked with me then maybe i'd understand better why we're not ready yet and have to stay as we are right now. instead i'm just left alone with it and it's really hard. i know i need to bring up the communication issues in therapy again (we focused on it a lot back in september/october) but the denial's been bad since october and i haven't been able to handle talking about it. i'm hoping after the holidays i'll feel less resistant and less terrified of talking about it.

it's been a while since i updated this thread, and a lot's happened, i guess. we spent christmas with my partner and their system, and spent new years eve with friends. there were a lot of switches when my partner was here. jones had been fronting on-and-off beforehand, same with bubbles, i just wasn't able to process it and kept getting strong feelings of denial about it. it's easier to know when switches happen when someone else is there, and also harder to deny it happened since someone else can validate it.

someone potentially new fronted who had no idea what year it was or who my partner was or where we lived. this happened twice. not sure if it was someone we already know who just forgot everything and was strongly dissociated from things, or if it was someone new.

lain fronted and talked to my partner for a while (which both me and my partner were surprised by, since lain doesn't seem like the talkative type). i don't really remember what was said, but i do kind of remember lain saying they had a strong bond with scarlet, and how he's been there since "the beginning". it seems like everyone who's here apart from scarlet and werne were previous hosts. i know my partner mentioned that lain talked a lot about things being "necessary", and how they were scared of not existing if they let things change.

bubbles was brought to the front during an intimate moment with my partner, which was awful, but she got to open presents that my partner had gotten for her at least. i cried a lot when i came back to the front later because it was very scary and distressing to lose the front in such a context, though i am glad bubbles got to open her presents. she also fronted for a short period of time a few more times.

jones fronted and got to spend time with his boyfriend and open the presents his boyfriend had gotten him. they talked stuff out and everything's fine between them now, which is a relief. i ended up coming back suddenly after an intimate moment between them, but jones's boyfriend handled it well (apart from being embarrassed). i had a catatonic moment afterwards because i felt really overwhelmed by everything. jones also fronted a few days later and got to have a sort-of date with his boyfriend and relax. he also fronted and took us home from the airport. i was crying in the airport bathroom and didn't feel able to take us home, and he took over shortly after that. we had his clothes with us so he got changed and took us all the way home and put us to bed.

it's a lot to process for me. not seeing my family over the holidays was really good for me, but it's hard to accept that. it's also hard to accept that all the switches happened and that the others are real. it's very easy to push it out of my mind and try and forget about it, but i want to try and deal with the denial better. i'm hoping we can share the front more, and try and communicate better. jones taking over to make sure we got home okay really helped me, and i felt a lot better the next day than i would've done if i'd had to take us home. it's proof that it helps to share the front, because while one alter is exhausted or not doing okay, another is relatively fine and can help out. i think working on that would be a good idea.

i've been considering trying to use the journal again, but i'm worried it's going to overwhelm me and trigger the denial. i'm tired and burned out so i'm going to try and recharge and do lots of self-care.

jones has been fronting really regularly lately and i don't think it's a bad thing, i'm just overwhelmed by things and wondering why things changed, i guess. i'm happy he's able to front more, he's always wanted that and he seems really happy at the moment. i guess it's just difficult dealing with coming back, finding myself in different clothes, not really knowing what's happened and struggling to process the second-hand memories. i ended up going catatonic and severely dissociating after i came back to the front earlier today and i still feel bad now. it's probably a denial reaction, or some sense of "this is too much and other people would find it weird and misunderstand", but i'm not sure. i just feel out of it and can't think too much about the past week or two without getting really anxious and dissociating more.

all of the system stuff just feels crazy, you know? i keep feeling like if the others just stayed inside but talked to me that it'd be "acceptable enough" to other people, but i keep imagining people going "so this guy in your head takes over and puts on different clothes and wears a packer to alleviate dysphoria and dates someone you don't" and not believing me or finding it weird, and it's hard not to feel anxious about it. i don't know why it matters so much, what other people think about all of this. it's a little hard just in myself to deal with things because it's disorientating and sometimes a little scary, but nearly all of my doubt and denial is rooted in other people not believing me or misunderstanding me, and it's exhausting.

Hi,

We figured out that when we were out and changed things it made Host kind of crazy when he got back. That wasn't very nice. But it was mostly because he was SO into denial. He felt crazy because he was SO into NOT looking crazy. Now Host has gotten a lot more ok with us (he even kind of trusts us) and we have some agreements about what we will and won't do (like not using the credit card and cleaning up after ourselves etc.) so he can calm down. It mostly works - unless he's back in denial again which happens sometimes.

Iain

IainEtc wrote:Hi,

We figured out that when we were out and changed things it made Host kind of crazy when he got back. That wasn't very nice. But it was mostly because he was SO into denial. He felt crazy because he was SO into NOT looking crazy. Now Host has gotten a lot more ok with us (he even kind of trusts us) and we have some agreements about what we will and won't do (like not using the credit card and cleaning up after ourselves etc.) so he can calm down. It mostly works - unless he's back in denial again which happens sometimes.

Iain

it is hard to come back and find "proof" that the others have been out, because other people would find it weird or not normal. i'm trying to get used to it and accept it though. jones seems so much happier now that he has his own clothes/items that alleviate dysphoria, so i wouldn't want to take that from him. it would be easier to deal with switching back in if he could get changed beforehand but we don't get any warning for those kinds of switches, so it'd be an unreasonable expectation, at least at the moment. i think it's just a matter of getting used to things and trying not to overthink it too much.

-------------------------------------------------

jones, lain, and charles (he used to go by the name "scarlet", and we called him the "one in charge" before that, but he chose a new name that he likes) fronted yesterday. jones had some time with his boyfriend and had a shower, which we really needed to do. charles cleaned a little and made us dinner, though he couldn't eat it (apparently eating is repulsive to him), and left a sort-of long message about himself and his feelings. lain ate dinner and put us to bed.

i had been talking earlier in the day about sharing tasks / sharing the front, and feeling like it'd help us collectively function better, and directly after that charles fronted, then lain. charles said in his message that he and lain felt cynical about us changing things, but they want to try, since we haven't been able to function for a while now. jones wants to try and co-host with me and see if it helps. it's a little overwhelming, but i hope we can build on things and keep it up.

i keep getting scared that the wall is going to come back, that i'll forget everything again, the denial will consume me, they'll all "disappear". that's what usually happens when the others are out a lot. but it seems like lain and charles have been the instigators of that, and they're willing to see how this new set-up pans out, so maybe we'll be okay. i'm trying not to overthink it too much but it's hard.

it's also hard not to let the denial take over. i know that how things are isn't "normal", but it's actually helping. jones got us home from the airport, and got us into a shower. charles cleaned and made dinner. lain made sure we ate before bed. normally, when i'm stuck at the front on my own the whole time, i barely manage any of those things because i'm so tired and burned out all the time. the others helping with outside tasks has made me feel a lot less tired, and i've been able to handle things better. jones is also really happy about fronting more, which makes us all feel lighter.

i guess i'm so used to good things suddenly disappearing, or any changes being reverted back after a short time. i keep finding myself thinking "so when is this all going to suddenly stop and i'll end up alone and stuck at the front 24/7 again?" and it's hard to feel like any of this is real and actually happening and indicating some kind of change that will last. but i do really need to stop overthinking it, it's early and we didn't sleep enough, so i need to get more rest.

- alice