Sleeping Wolf's Journey Thread

We've decided to create our own journey thread, now we know what that is! We started something similar a while ago, but with a confusing name, and we didn't really know what we were doing it for...

But now, I guess its to put down and share our journey. Any comments are most welcome, and its great if any of it is of any help to anyone out there.

So, we had T today and that went ok. I've got the usual post-T-shitness and pain...but its ok and I've planned for it. I went today, Sky, and I don't think I've ever been before. I was quite nervous, and it was hard to start talking and such. I'm usually the 'Mother' type, and usually does Sundays in our System.

We were talking at one point and our T said 'sorry, what did you mean you 'weren't there''....and we had no idea what she was talking about! Its still weird when that happens. I think we try and brush over it when we can, as it's quite strange.

We're mostly co-conscious and have good communication levels, so we can usually 'hear' stuff to collectively say. Every so often though we must switch out, for the briefest of moments, and a deeper personality has a say.

In a way, its nice though. It's nice to not be 100% perfect, and to have such things. I think we try to hide a lot of it away.

I think thats why we can also hide away our DID from others too. Its important for us to reach out with others with DID as it reminds us and helps us...instead of feeling like 'we're the only ones' and how we are is somehow alien or cryptic. It's grounding, you guys are grounding, the DID community is grounding... and gosh, do we need a lot of grounding!

I know some others of us will disagree with the above, or find it hard. But we do need to find grounding, and if this helps then its in.

Overall, feeling kinda rubbish, but functioning ok.

sleepingwolf wrote:It's grounding, you guys are grounding, the DID community is grounding... and gosh, do we need a lot of grounding!

I definitely have parts that use the forum this way. Checking it is usually the first thing we do when we get home, or back to the car after an activity. I never thought about it as being grounding before, but that's exactly what it is.

It's good to hear that you guys use the forum this way, it does make sense...I've never seen it that way before either, but Sky was right I think!

Melden

It's been a mixed week for us, with some good progress and achievements, and some challenges and lows too.

I think one main thing is realising that we live with depression and anxiety, as a semi-permanent feature. It's not fully 'caused' by our outer world any more, and nor can it really be 'cured' or put away either... It's proving quite hard to take that...that we just have a flowing, up and down mood, and anxiety. Of course the outer world has an impact, but the flow still goes on. In the past we have rushed to 'fix' ourselves, or have been pushing for a life with no ups and downs...but I think we're getting a bit more clarity and reality with it. Ultimately its good...as we can strive for realistic helpful things.

I know we can all get bogged down with our 'pain', and want to somehow 'cure' ourselves. This gets in the way a lot, but its hard to let go of...

We also sorted out a load of Admin stuff in our lives...which actually made us feel very emotional and quite low! I think its linked to a negative time as the last time our life was this ordered, we had depression really hard, about 10 years ago...and we've been struggling to 'get things in order' ever since. But now we have, pretty much...and thats a scary thing!

The past few days has also shown that self care actually works! If we do the right things, we do feel better in time...

We also started a much better communication with other personalities in our System. We have a bunch where communication is very small, and we really have very little 'common ground'. But we're working on it. They speak some kind of broken latin, which none of us understand. They also want us to do simple, but special things, in our daily life, like give a prayer to Angels, and doodle certain special symbols for them. We're moving forwards with it slowly...

Hyydii

I just wanted to get out into the world that we are feeling pretty rubbish and low today...which is hard going.

We've had a really nice few days, and achieved a lot in our personal lives...which has been really nice...but its left us now with a lot of emotion, and real high waves and crashes of emotion. It's proving quite difficult to ride out...but I'm doing my best and trying to keep to what I know is good for us.

It's hard, because feeling like this after achieving something positive...it puts you right off. I know it will pass, I know its a process...but it really makes us feel like quitting. We're about 45% to 55% in balance of quitting or staying strong and carrying on...which makes things tough too.

Thats us at the moment anyways...with our heads down and struggling quite a bit. Hopefully nicer times will come soon


Lucy

Hi Lucy,

I'm sorry to hear you're struggling. I think that things will even out a bit more with time... sometimes when calming arousal it also helps to stick to routines.

Sending hugs if wanted.

Hey Lucy. We're sorry to hear that. We hope things improve for y'all soon.

Thanks fireheart for your nice message, and yes we very much accept your hugs!

Thanks Ponyta too for your kindness.

We're doing a bit better now...well, just about!

It's Alice today, and we've just had a therapy session. It went really well, but it was another challenging and gruelling one. At one point we got very emotional too...which was amazing for us! So we can savour that...

We've been having a challenging time the past week or so due to various triggering things around us, at work and other places. It's nothing bad or serious, we're all safe, but its just bringing a lot of stuff up for us. We were able to talk about it all at T, which was really nice. It also lead us to talk about a big feature in our lives...pain.

We experience a lot of bodily pain, daily, and always have. When we're triggered sometimes it becomes quite a lot, and we're in quite a lot of pain most of the day. This has been the case for the past week or so. We've experienced this all our lives...and we've realised we're afraid of the pain. We interact with it in a negative way, trying to push it away, avoid it...so on...

We're seeing this has to change.

We also realised today something huge...that the pain is from our body, and we're not fully listening to our body.

We were talking to our T, and it dawned on us that all our protection, and DID, was to protect the mind. We chose to protect the Mind over the body. We also chose to protect our beliefs, or positive views on the world, even though this meant punishment, and so more pain for the body.

When we realised this, like fully realised it, we got very emotional and felt quite sad for the body. We can see that it still expects us to act that way, and is still scared of us causing it more pain. We don't, not for a long time...but we're not fully letting the body know that.

We need to let the body know that we won't choose Mind over Body again, that we're all a team now, and can fully help one-another.

Thats us for now.


Alice

Wow...well.....we haven't posted on here for a while....so I thought I better update....

A lot has happened in a few months...and its interesting to read the previous posts too. I think not long after the last post we had a breakdown, a small one, but still a breakdown...which lead us to re-think a lot, and make some pretty big changes too. Those changes have begun, and we're now riding that new wave...which is scary, but true to us, and very good too!

Looking back, we were trying to minimise our issues, and do too much at once. Really, our career success was becoming a problem. We've wanted to move forwards with our career so much, that as it did, we quickly ran into issues. We're just not ready! We need a lot of work in a lot of areas...and this needs to happen before we can 'up a level'.

We can easily cling to what we're good at, and push away what we're not...but as of the breakdown...not any longer!

So, the changes...

- We're changing our jobs, from being self-employed, to in a few months having a more straightforward job (like a cleaner, factory worker, so on). This will stop our issues here, which will give us space to do a few courses, learn a few techniques, and focus more on our Recovery for a while. We're not too sure what the new job will be, which is terrifying! But part of this is trusting in the Universe that we can find one, if we do things timely, right and good for ourselves.

- We realised we're reclusive, and so are now actively doing a lot more social things. It's been super hard so far, but we're getting there! We're trying to do one or two new social things a week...at 'mental health' places...and its going ok so far. We realised we'd use our work, 'having no time', as an excuse...so that had to change.

- We've stopped our current therapy. We're now officially therapy-less! It's quite scary and quite freeing though. Oh, and today we're on a 2 year waiting list for NHS help...so that will come along when it does! Our old T was really good, but not DID trained (or barely), and as our knowledge and understanding grew, we realised she was out of her depth. For our next stage of healing, we realised we need something fully secure, with someone who has experience. So, we've emailed the PODS people for a T in our area who they recommend...and we'll try and sort something out there. Of course, we're daunted by the potential cost and travel...but we're also 100% sure we need it...

- We've 95% realised the extent of our lives and trauma...and its like, ohhhhhh my. We wrote it all down in a letter and having been giving it to Healthcare people for a few months (after our breakdown we went to every clinic and mental health place available!)....and their reaction is always like, holy &%$*, how are you still standing...?! This has made us think, yea maybe we need to take some time out to really get to grips with this...and maybe running a business (no matter how small) isn't the best idea...

This is all quite new for us...and is all still sinking in....but we've made moves with all of it, so all of the changes are now 100% happening!

I think, overall, what we are looking for is a few years of 'soft pedalling', where we can really focus on our healing, and also learn the skills we need to move forwards in life... to a lot of us this feels like a failure...as we've always thought 'charge ahead with what you are good at!'...and now we have to put that on hold, and do stuff like learn to be less socially anxious, reduce our panic attacks...stuff like that...before we can do our next career steps.

Anyways, thats us, as a round up.

We're feeling positive, really quite positive, but scared too!

We're also a bit more in the 50/50 balance too. Overall in our days we have 50% emotional/trauma hurt, 50% present pleasantness. So if we keep our vibes and energies up, its kind of ok. Next step, try to bring down that 50% of hurt...

In time, in time!

Pastella

Sounds like a lot of positive change, but change is always hard.
I'm glad you're taking care of yourselves!