Adjusting to a new self image with a fractured identity - ch

this is oddly hard to talk about. in word choice and vulnerability.

how do we - persons with dissociative disorder - adjust to large changes in our life?

I am really floundering tonight as I try to understand that I am disabled or differently abled. and I cant even hide it anymore. I have obvious impairments. cognitive, motor, speech. i dont blend in. it's not just work. I'm wonky anywhere. the grocery store. a social thing at someones house. a restaurant or retail space. and people see you differently. they think of you differently. and they treat you differently. I'm struggling to adjust my own identity (identities?) and self image and self awareness to understanding that and its beyond hard.

the closest thing I can remember to this is when I lost my youth/beauty/hotness. and things got harder because I didn't get all sorts of freebies and favors whenever I wanted. that was 10 years ago and parts of us still haven't adjusted to being a fat middle aged woman. now I have to adjust to being a fat, disabled, middle aged woman? wow.

the hardest part is a toss up between two unhealthy extremes. people who are so uncomfortable they won't even acknowledge your presence as a sentient being. no eye contact/ dont speak. it's like you dont exist. not gonna front, I'm a cold hearted bitch and that $#%^ still hurts a little. or the people who are so ######6 pushy with being in your $#%^ and they are so "concerned" and so "helpful". when really they wouldn't know a boundary if it bit off their ear. I'm so tired of saying "I need to practice being independent, thank you." or "please dont touch me, I'm just making visible corrections to my balance". it's not saying it once its saying it over and over to the same ######6 people. I'm really thankful for the rare middle of the road people who acknowledge it but dont make a big deal of it.

I have to learn to accept that there are a plethora of jacklegs out there who are going to treat me like this and grow a thick skin and vigorous "no, thank yous".

but am I going to have to accept 30+ times? probably so. that's how it worked when I got diagnosed DID and had to really and truly admit that we were me.

there is a silver lining to losing your youth/beauty/hotness. and that's the freedom that comes with not being seen as a sexual object. you can go about your day without getting hit on!!!

there was a good side to accepting multiplicity. cooperation, communication, and the rescue and rehab of lost soldiers.

I haven't seen the good side to my differentlyabledness. but I have cried over how differently I'm treated. like worthless. completely without value but perhaps worth pity. and that's ######6 vomitrocious.

dont get me wrong. I've got a fire deep down inside. and I KNOW what i survived would have killed those #####& looking at me sideways. but I do have to accept my own limitations (ex needing a support person to travel). I need to accept my adaptive equipment. I need to accept that people will see me differently. that my life, abilities, and future are different.

I think it is hardest for the little bees, it breaks my heart that such darling little creatures full of love and light are trapped in a body like this. and through it all there is this undercurrent of RAGE and anger. like.... we survived that $#%^. ALLLLLLLL that $#%^. we went to college, worked our asses off, raising a kid, did some therapy, faced and accepted my $#%^ and thought it was over. thought I had survived. only to discover the jokes on me with the traumatic encephalopathy. I dont get the happy ending. just a downward slope to dementia and death. I got a #######5 hand. I played it very well. I almost thought I was gonna make it for a minute. and I think that's the hardest thing to accept. that hope and dream that kept me going....forever out of reach. and I see that terrible truth reflected in the eyes of every single person I know. its inescapable and I know I have to accept it somehow.

Hi

We have multiple disabilities and health issues. For us our system coped by assigning a new alter, who coped very well for years.

I think as the body got older and the fatigue increased and other stuff happened, family breaking down through divorce, death and people we though who were friends who showed us with their actions they didn't see us as anyone important in their life,everything started to get a bit much for her.

I don't know if 'fractured' is the right term for us, but also triggered by a medical emergency alters who I previously didn't know existed started coming forwards and they all became aware of each other.

Our system suddenly seemed to decide as we all knew each other existed anyway they may as well assign different symptoms to different people to 'spread the load'. so if one day the arthritis was particuarly bad the alter who had been assigned to deal with that was out until those symptoms subsided.

We don't go out much but depending where we're going or who with certain alters will come together and co-host for that period so the person with us 'see's what they're expecting to see'.

I think thats because I was told never to tell anyone about my 'own world' or 'imaginery friends' when I was young, because people wouldn't understand. (we grew up in the 70's/80's) before equal opportunities in the workplace existed and our nearest town still had a 'mental hospital' that many feared ever having to end up in as it held the worst cases. So 'passing off as normal' was essential to survival (fortunately I didn't have any major physical disabilities then) but that intense need to 'hide our secret' has stayed with me my entire life (so far - no-one irl neighbours etc knows I have even have autism).For us we have learned to use physical disability to 'hide behind' when our mental health was struggling, because physical conditions are more 'socially acceptable' eg people can imagine you perhaps can't walk well if you're in a wheelchair/using walking aid or may be more patient if you're struggling to understand them if they can see you are wearing hearing aids,so I find they buy you a bit more of a persons 'time and patience' when having to deal directly with strangers.

Hi BeccaBee,

We really feel for you, and for the little Bees.

We don't have the physical disabilities (yet, body age will start bringing them along I'm sure) but we're only now just starting to accept the realities of our mental situation, with the DID and stuff.

Realizing that some of the skills and abilities previous host had, don't seem to be coming back. Realizing that stuff we remember being able to do easily when she was here, we can barely do at all now.

And it does seem like every one of our separate parts has to come to grips with this stuff, so yeah it does have to happen over and over.

Reading your post sorta helped me realize this - in our system we're at different stages of this. Eg. stuff that me and Melissa struggled with last summer, Arin's going through now.

I think you're a fighter and you're strong. You'll get through this. It sucks, and thats the biggest thing is having to accept the new limitations. We're struggling with that too. Having to give up on what we wanted/hoped/planned for the future, and make new hopes and plans.

It hurts and its not fair but it's what we gotta do.

V2 & other fluxes

I have nothing smart of helpful to say.
I struggle with the realization that our body is never going to be painfree.
the fibro and arthritis and the facial nerve pain are here to stay.
I had plans. I wanted massages and martial arts and intimacy without pain
and I won't have it.
because the reality is that our DID does not come with a happy ending.
I told myself for years that if we just work hard enough we will get our happy end, but our life will be mediocre at best. there will always be pain. we will always be poor. and the only thing we can do is make sure we don't have kids.
we can only do what is humanly possible to take care of ourselves and then we grieve all we can never have and we bury our dreams one after the other and look for new goals and new ways to add meaning to life and we grieve.

Hi BeccaBee,

Thanks for posting this. You explained your situation and your feelings very eloquently, and we too feel for you.

Even though the specifics of our own situation are different in a number of ways, we understand the feelings that come with understanding one's own limitations, and the limitations of one's life situation.

We're here listening.

Charity, Mary, and others

Hello BeccaBee. I cannot say anything and neither give suggestions like I would like to, because I acknowledge that I don't know anything about these kind of situations. We don't have any disabilities, and the only chronic condition we have is autism, which is (for me) nowhere near what you're experiencing. So I won't say anything, apart from the fact that I'm very sad to hear you talk about this like you don't have a way to win.

What I'm going to talk about as briefly as possible is my personal life view in hopes that you or at least someone can find some kind of comfort in it. So if you don't feel like reading much else, the first bit is enough.
My vision of life like it is now, it's that nobody ever wins. There's almost always things you want to do, but can't. Doesn't matter how much money, power you have. It's human nature to always want something more. So you're not going to win, it's true. But you don't have to win. Maybe people have repeated this too many times, but life isn't about winning. I got really angry the first times people told me this, and I got furious when more experienced people told me that even if I wanted to change something in my life or in myself, I couldn't always do it. I cried about this, and got so depressed about this that I just couldn't think about it. But it's true.
It's not about taking the best out of the situation, because sometimes there's no best to take out of situations. But for me it's about aknowledging where you come from and where you are now, and working with what you still have to better yourself a bit more each day. That is the only thing that satisfies me.
It has to do with standards. I always set extremely high standards for myself that I could never reach, and still can''t. Because there are things that I cannot do. Daily stuff that just drives me crazy sometimes and makes me want not to leave my house anymore and just stop living in the world that I know. But the few times I stopped telling myself that I have to be certain way to be accepted, to be seen, to be loved, I found out that I received much more than I expected to receive. Yes, people still don't want to talk to me, and I still don't know how to talk with people, for example. But (always as an example) I know how to help people when they ask. And if that's a thing that I know how to do, I try to get better at it every day.
Like I said, for me, it's not about winning. It's about mastering resources. The few that you have, if you feel like you have a few.
And I personally think that you have loads, loads and loads of them if you came out of the horrible stuff that led you to develop DID. There's infinite strength in that alone. You already mastered a round, even though you're in a no-winning, no-losing game.

TL;DR You are full of strength and resources. You know how to better yourselves, even if that's the only thing you can better in life. Even if there's no winning to it, you can still master all the aspects that you can still control. High standards for yourselves and for your life will always be too difficult to achieve. You can be loved and accepted.

Sorry if this was too personal and didn't really help. We really hope you're well.

it helps to realize that even though every situation is different many of us struggle with the same thing.

thank you everyone. it all helped a lot. birdsong got me in right in the feels. bet that resonated with many. but we should get ######6 happy endings. we are ######6 warriors. it sucks to fight that hard and still end up in a pile of $#%^.

oh well. I guess we carry the ###$ on.

Your right, you deserved a happy ending!! All of us should have one!
Keep your Fire burning

Another thought: surely also the advantage of having a DID system and a brain that can create alters is that a new one could be created to 'rescue' the one that is struggling with life right now?


Our system has created another new alter to specifically fit our situation as we can't just move as we would have done in the past when a new alter emerged with different abilities. As far as I'm aware this is the first time it's happened as our physical options are very limited this time round but our system has 'worked round' real-life physical limitations to create a new alter/front and new reality.

Could this work for you?

thank you for the idea but I dont think so. It's not one of us that's struggling. its pathology in my brain. and there's no getting around it. I have cognitive, motor, and speech impairments no matter who is out. this is my new reality. it's just hard to adjust to it. and knowing I will need care and support. knowing my independence is slipping away. and the certainty that I will not let my daughter get sucked into it. I will send her away to college. no taking care of me with dementia.

so i need to keep my $#%^ together for seven more years. i have decided to disclose at work. I'm too ###$ up. I just want to get my ducks in a row for going on disability when I can no longer work. and get my finances and insurances sorted for the kiddo. I am planning for a different kind of future now. i always felt like my life has been a bit of a sacrifice to save my daughter. and now i am all in on this mission. and we're gonna do this till the end. her future is the only thing that matters and I intend to shield her from this.