Hospital, Doctors, Traumatic Memories

A part of me called the police a month and a half ago and reported abuse. I was in hospital for 2 weeks. That lead to my normal hospital response of "get the hell out of here before they give me drugs" which I did. I have alters that cope well in incarcerated situations. They just relax.

After I was discharged I did talk to the outpatient psychiatrist about having parts. I told the police officer I have fragmented memory and I don't remember what I said, which I didn't until the last 24 hours.

In the last 24-48 hours I have remembered what I said in the call to the police. I remember the exact incident I called about. That is actually "ok" in a how it's effected me way.

What has happened that I did not expect was that since telling two people I have parts and fragmented memory it's been like a free for all in my brain, it feels like. I have had two child alters come forward in different ways. One was a body memory type alter that makes a pain - I won't go into detail. And the other one said "I got bit by a dog" over and over and eventually took over the body and I remembered, experienced, her experience. It was very disturbing. Not just the memory but the experience of her. I'm unable to block it out.

Directly after I was sobbing how I used to son as a kid and just saying "it's horrible" I can't verbalise what happened past "I got bit by a dog" at the moment and it's going round and round in my head.

I wasn't expecting any of this. What I expected was that I would talk more to a psychiatrist, seek therapy that was preferably with a specialist and then these things might happen or they might not. I was wanting the "not" but prepared to deal with anything that came up in therapy.

Also, which may seem stupid to all of you considering you have this condition, I wasn't actually expecting other alters to show up who are trapped in a singular horrendous event. I was expecting the alters I already know about to say stuff they'd been keeping to themselves. This seems stupid now because now I have experienced what these parts went through and live with it would be impossible for the alters I already knew about to function at all, to live with it, do normal stuff and generally be "ok" which they are except the twins but since they've been writing fiction instead of making up stories in my head they have actually been quite rational and not annoying so possibly they just needed an outlet.

I don't feel like I can function at all now. I don't know how I am supposed to carry on with life with these awful things in my mind, knowing and being aware. If my mind drifts to it then it goes round and round, I feel sick, I want to talk to someone but I don't want to say anything. Then I feel incredibly angry at what happened to parts of me. This anger then makes me feel like I want to hurt myself so instead I tell myself that won't help and my mind turns around to hurting the people that hurt me which wouldn't help either because I'd get locked up. Then I feel frustrated. Then I feel like I can't go on with life because I feel helpless. Then I think I'll explain it to the psychiatrist but then part of me thinks she won't get it anyway. The mental health system has two referal paths and neither include having different identities with fragmented memory and emotion so she can't do anything anyway which sends me back to wondering how I'm gonna get through life and live with just these two horrendous memory experiences knowing there's definitely more.

Then I think how can my brain do this. Then I remind myself of the memory gaps I've had as an adult and how those blanks eventually got filled in and how awful that sometimes was and I managed that. Still it just all seems so much more horrendous because these are really old memories and the parts are just stuck in them. I wasn't expecting anything like this until I was in therapy, I wasn't expecting it to be this bad and like I said I stupidly thought it'd be known parts telling me things they'd kept to themselves.

It's completely not safe to just have this happening and I'm going to get some kind of sedatives. I realised expecting myself to live with all this without drugs is basically cruel. If it was someone else I'd say take something to help you get through the day, to sleep etc so I can afford myself the same kindness. Well I'll try, I plan to ask for meds today but who knows what'll happen when I get there.

There's parts that feel enough is enough and want everything out in the open and they think meds will inhibit that and that we can get through all this pain and anguish without them.

Sarandipity wrote:I don't feel like I can function at all now. I don't know how I am supposed to carry on with life with these awful things in my mind, knowing and being aware. If my mind drifts to it then it goes round and round, I feel sick, I want to talk to someone but I don't want to say anything....

...There's parts that feel enough is enough and want everything out in the open and they think meds will inhibit that and that we can get through all this pain and anguish without them.

Meds might help temporarily, since things are so rough and you and don't have a therapist, but the other thing would be to start learning grounding skills.

Also, what helped me a lot was the concept of needing to go slow. That I needed to let all the parts know that they would be heard, and helped with all of their feelings, but it couldn't be all at once--it would take time. So whenever my mind would go down a path that was making me more and more upset, I would remember that and just tell those parts that they needed to wait--that their feelings were important and would be listened to, just not right now.

It sounds too simple to be effective, but it has helped me so much. Before, I would go down these thought paths (which now I know are the feelings of a part coming forward or leaking through, or whatever), and get immersed in an upsetting memory, or a hopeless worldview, or whatever. That would seem like the way things really were, and all other points of view would be lost.

Recognizing that it was a part, and not "me" (or I guess, not all of me), lets in the possibility of stepping back and finding a way to take care of the feeling at that moment--whether by letting them write out their feeling (which is going into it more), or saying that I'm listening, but for right now they need to wait, so we can go on with whatever comes next in our outside life that day.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:

Sarandipity wrote:I don't feel like I can function at all now. I don't know how I am supposed to carry on with life with these awful things in my mind, knowing and being aware. If my mind drifts to it then it goes round and round, I feel sick, I want to talk to someone but I don't want to say anything....

...There's parts that feel enough is enough and want everything out in the open and they think meds will inhibit that and that we can get through all this pain and anguish without them.

Meds might help temporarily, since things are so rough and you and don't have a therapist, but the other thing would be to start learning grounding skills.

Also, what helped me a lot was the concept of needing to go slow. That I needed to let all the parts know that they would be heard, and helped with all of their feelings, but it couldn't be all at once--it would take time. So whenever my mind would go down a path that was making me more and more upset, I would remember that and just tell those parts that they needed to wait--that their feelings were important and would be listened to, just not right now.

It sounds too simple to be effective, but it has helped me so much. Before, I would go down these thought paths (which now I know are the feelings of a part coming forward or leaking through, or whatever), and get immersed in an upsetting memory, or a hopeless worldview, or whatever. That would seem like the way things really were, and all other points of view would be lost.

Recognizing that it was a part, and not "me" (or I guess, not all of me), lets in the possibility of stepping back and finding a way to take care of the feeling at that moment--whether by letting them write out their feeling (which is going into it more), or saying that I'm listening, but for right now they need to wait, so we can go on with whatever comes next in our outside life that day.

I've been trying this since i read it. Thanks. It works. I had a whole day where memories flooded because I had time and space. It was awful at the time but I feel detached from it now without discounting it, trying to not discount it. It does feel possible to ask them to wait. Preferably until I'm in therapy but at least to points where I have a free day to let it come out a bit.

I have a depressed part who has anxiety. She likes to be at home and I'm trying to make home more cheerful colour wise, with wallpaper etc and more organized so she can do some healing stuff like arts and crafts without having to worry about housework. She only exists indoors so to speak so she can't go to groups and she'd just cry and have an anxiety attack if forced. She's a main part so to speak and getting her feeling better it feels would help when these fragment type parts come with their memories. I think it's normal to be depressed if there's trauma but it's not normal it's sectioned off and just she carries it. Alot of other parts feel sad for her and want to help her but they don't seem to be able to carry the sadness. I think she is the host. I've felt that for a long time but only recently I've started to properly take on board that the part with the attachment to all the childhood trauma who is depressed, pretty much agoraphobic and suffers with anxiety is the host.

Thanks Gang, is simple and very helpful.

Oh, good. I know you've had a really rough time lately, so if I was able to help at all, I'm really glad. I hope things keep gradually getting more manageable.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:Oh, good. I know you've had a really rough time lately, so if I was able to help at all, I'm really glad. I hope things keep gradually getting more manageable.

Thank you. Today could of spiralled, I was alone in the house. Instead I thought, no not now, and I went bto a hobby shop, bought some box frames and I spent the whole day doing decoupage pictures and put them on my kitchen wall. It kept me occupied and I can look at them and feel "I made those and they didn't cost me much money" which was what constantly was therapeutic to me when my children were small because I had no spare income and was indoors every evening.