This might be long. I've been trying to go it alone for too long and it's not working, I need to reach out for help cuz I'm in over my head. Thanks for reading, I would love to find people to chat with about this and maybe try to process and work through some of this with peers ( I have a therapist)
Backstory: I was doing well healing and being a good leader for my system about 4 years ago, then we had an absolutely catastrophic health disaster that left us bedridden and in acute care in the hospital for 1 1/2 years. I was discharged two years ago and have been struggling ever since: I went from being, in my doctor's words, health as an olympic athlete to being a full-time power wheelchair user with chronic pain, conversion disorder, and a whole new level of medical trauma on top of my CPTSD/DID.
It's been two years since I was well enough to leave the hospital and I still haven't been able to come to terms with what happened to me. I had done a lot of work to make my body feel like a very safe place and that was a powerful tool in healing, I was being a good host and working hard every day to help every part heal on their own terms. Then it all fell apart and there was nothing I could do :~(. I miss the person I used to be, I used to be so physical and strong and graceful and my physicality very much defined me. Now my body often feels painful, scary, and confusing, and trying to be present connects me with all this overwhelming grief.
The last two months were very bad. I got overwhelmed for too long and when that happens it's like I lose my grip and fall out of the front, then someone else HAS to step up. That's usually Emily, she was stuck out front a lot while we were bedridden and she HATES it. She's good at hunkering down and keeping things from getting worse, but she doesn't have the skills or resilience or perspective I have and she just wants me to come back so she doesn't have to be out front. Two months is a horrendously long time for her to be stuck out... I feel so bad for her but I could not find my way back even though I wanted to.
My therapist is doing his best but my $#%^ is SUPER complex, obviously, and he tries to be open-minded and affirming but he's kinda in over his head tbh. I'm on full-time disability and he's all I've got access to for the foreseeable future, and he's an expert in conversion disorder, sooooo... gotta make it work. He didn't know I was switched out for the last two months and Emily was often not self-aware enough to tell him (plus she gets triggered in therapy, it reminds her of when we were in a religious cult so it's very hard for her to open up to him). Stress makes conversion symptoms worse which is emotionally distressing, which causes more pain and weird neuro symptoms... you can see how that could spiral really easily. I NEED to stay out front unless someone else wants switch it up intentionally (that's fine cuz I'm still around and came come back ASAP), but I can't afford to get overwhelmed and lose control of being able to front.
It's my responsibility to be out front but I don't have access to my best tools anymore: helping my system experience our body as a place of safety and power. I've lost that and don't know how to keep them all safe and on stable ground cuz I'm overwhelmed and in over my head. I just want everyone to have the safety and control and whatever they need so we can pick up our healing work again, but ...I just feel completely broken and even though I have a great doctor, therapist, physio, pain specialist, lots of meds & pain control, social workers, a very supportive living enviroment- honestly I can't handle this and I'm reaching out for help cuz I'm finally willing to admit I can't do it alone. If I get pushed out of front again things could get real bad and I'm very worried for our safety if that happens (we have a suicidal part who has an extremely well researched plan).
I would love to talk to folks more about this- I think the hardest thing for me is my grief over who I used to be before I got disabled feels too much to bear so that's the thing I need to work on. I bet lots of parts also have feelings about it, like how being so fragile now means we're not able to keep ourselves safe etc.
It's a lot. Thanks for reading this <3