It is here [Trigger Warning]

[Trigger Warning: Mentions of abuse and potentially triggering imagery below]

I am struggling so hard to type this out because my brain is going so fast, but I'm trying my best to slow it down long enough for me to say what's happening.

For years I have had the sense that a time would come when crucial stuff would start happening with regards to my life journey. Everything, one could argue, is crucial, but this is different. I have no word or name for what I was expecting. All I could say and feel was that "it" was coming, and it didn't feel good at all, whatever that meant. This dreaded sense of me losing control always loomed over my head, but with every year it seemed to get worse and worse. Then at the beginning of this year, I think my mind couldn't take it anymore. I had to leave where I was living and move somewhere else because "it" was almost here and I couldn't let "it" come out while living with my grandparents who couldn't understand even if they tried. So I left and moved somewhere else. This was probably my only option at that point, but I was scared to see what "it" meant. What "it" was going to do to me.

I had a few theories growing up about what "it" would turn me into. All I had to go off of was the sense that something terrible was going to happen, so these were only guesses. My biggest fear was that "it" was going to take me, push me away from my own consciousness (making complete blackout-switches happen) and start running the controls for everything while I would be completely powerless to stop it. I tried my hardest to keep "it" away from my mind for as long as I could, but it was only a matter of time before I couldn't run away from "it" anymore. And now it's here...

When I look at "it", I see a version of me that has completely lost all of her ability to come across to the world as "normal". She is a girl who has been mentally broken thousands of times over and can't fight it anymore. It makes me sick to even describe it, but I have to keep going. This post is me trying to process whatever "it" is in written language. Please bear with me.




[Trigger Warning:] When I look at this woman, I see a woman staring back at me who is drowning in "sickness". She has my abuser's eyes... That sort of heavy-lidded look that people get when they really want to do sex stuff. And something is wrong with her body too. Normal people couldn't see it, but I can see it. There is a sort of heat coming from her body and it's moving in a "sick" sort of way... I keep saying "sick" and that's the word I've used ever since I was little to refer to the invasive and violating feelings of sexual arousal that I felt back then. That's what I'm seeing in this thing I've been running from for so long. But there's more to her than just that.

Along with her appearance, it feels like there's something incredibly wrong with her, like there's a sickness or poison that courses through her blood-veins. It's the blood that there is something wrong with. It makes her act like she's constantly wanting sex, and it has poisoned her body so badly that she is now filled with so much evil. I've heard her thoughts before, and every time I get too close to them, it makes me feel like my consciousness is starting to separate from my body, but in a heavily dissociating sort of way, not a "pass out" sort of way. They are thoughts of her imagining us doing heinous and atrocious acts, being as evil as we possibly could before someone would inevitably kill us. And it all comes back to our abuser; the one she feels a solid loyalty to. I have to keep going. I'm sorry for all of this.

This thing is loyal to our abuser in the worst ways. She wants power from him, but at the same time, she acts as his sort of "lap dog", doing whatever he says and enjoying it, no matter how dehumanizing it is to us. And if I look at this mental image long enough, I can feel the poison in his voice telling us that we belong to him and that he owns us... Or, rather, he owns me. It runs through my blood and there is no escape. That's why I've been running like fire is snapping at my heels for almost my whole life. [/Trigger Over]




So that's what "it" is, and I think it's finally bubbled its way to the surface... But somehow I am still alive and well, and so is everyone else. If I look at everything right now, there is no more abuser, I am still in control of my consciousness, I have not done anything crazy to harm anyone or even myself, and I am not impulsively trying to get myself trafficked or involved in sex work. The only threatening thing about "it" are the thoughts she carries. Nothing more. And thoughts are just thoughts. They cannot actually hurt you like I was fearing that they would...

I have been so afraid to hear what "it" has to tell me because she would frequently terrorize me with awful thoughts of hurting myself or others in sadistic or mind-game sorts of ways. Because I was so scared, I would start to feel myself separating somehow from the body, but maybe the time is here where I can listen to "it" tell me what it knows and feels on the inside. It's going to be the worst experience ever, I assume, but I think I'll live... But I'm gonna be super mad if a full-switch or a seizure of some kind somehow ended up happening (which, to date, I cannot recall ever having done either).

[Side note about seizure fear: My mom has epilepsy, and both my brother and I have been fearful of having seizures since forever. We both feel like we know and experience what the onset of a seizure feels like, but neither of us have ever actually had an actual seizure. It's weird and I don't like the feeling. It scares me.]


I feel like we gotta treat this "it" thing like a ghost. The ghost is a manifestation of memory stuff, and needs to be treated as such. We need to find some ways of helping her get from where she's currently at to where she needs to be; that being "The Great Beyond". I think I just did part of step one: Listening to the ghost communicate what it needs to get across. Further processing will likely be required. Step two may include me facing my fears by having her express the things she needs to express in safe and controlled environments. Step three might include releasing ceremonies, but it's likely that this path would not be linear and would be unevenly cycled through, like a person would do for the stages of grief.

If you made it this far into the post, I want to thank you so much for reading. This memory work stuff isn't easy, and I'm glad I have places where I can talk about it. That's gonna be my one saving grace during all of this, I think.

It's okay if it takes time to deal with trauma.

It sounds to us like "it" is a bundle of trauma who does not know how to protect "itself" appart from fawning to the abuser's will.

If "it" was within our system we would try to put "it" in containment first, then try to communicate with "it" to gradually understand what "it" thinks, what "it" wants, what "it" needs, how "it" feels, and gradually bring "it" into here and now. Show "it" that there are other ways to gain power. That abuse is wrong, and thank you for doing your best to spare the system the ache of being abused, but there are other ways to deal with abuse. More powerful and assertive ways. Boundaries setting.

Then we would work with "it" to teach "it" how to set boundaries, how to get what "it" wants in a way that is respectful for the system and for the people outside of the system, and so on until "it" has grown into a functional member of the system.

But we understand that not every system works the same and sometimes, it's better to put difficult things and alters and memories aside until it's a better time to work with them.

Good luck!

__
Pride and Wrath

Thank you @ArbreMonde for the response! The outline you gave is definitely helpful. We will consider that as we move forward with this "it" thing.


Today is a hard day. It was good at first, but about a half hour ago, I started feeling really bad again. I am feeling very uncomfortable being inside of this body and it makes me want to start biting and scratching at myself again. But doing that doesn't make me feel any better. The only thing that seems to help is talking about what is wrong, so I'm going to try that again.

I took a pause from typing right now to get some muffins out of the oven, and some of the thoughts I was thinking at that moment made me feel like I was separating from my body again as I was moving to set my plate down in front of me. I thought that was interesting, so I will see where that takes me.

I was thinking about how it feels bad that only I can help myself in this whole situation I'm in right now with "it" presenting herself in all the ways that she is. Her being here does not feel safe!! But running from her will only make us feel really sick because she will keep bothering us until we pay attention to her. But I don't like the way it feels when she is around. When she is around, it feels like our abuser is still bothering us. And I hate that her presence makes me feel sick and like I am a crazy person for thinking things that aren't happening right now. I feel like I'm making everything up either because I am crazy or because I want attention. But if anybody knew about "it" and the scary thoughts it has, I would be shamed and maybe punished for it. Even just me (Daisy) existing feels like I am doing something wrong or being bad. Family got mad at us for talking in a child voice because of me when we were 22, and they threatened to call us out in public if we kept it up. So I hid for a long time and just cried so much. I wanted to die.

Thinking about that makes me want to pinch my arms. I hate that my existing is supposed to be a bad thing. Just because it isn't normal, that doesn't mean I should go away. People that say that make me want to fight them and hurt myself. It just makes me so mad and upset.

I hate being here and I hate feeling all of these feelings. But feeling nothing makes me feel even worse, so there is no relief from the discomfort, except when I feel happy. Being here hurts so much. I hate always feeling so angry or like I need to scream, hit, kick, and scratch on the inside. It makes me feel hurting and it hurts everyone else on the inside too.

We are going to see our therapist tomorrow, and I hope that maybe he can help, but I also feel like he does not know enough to help us. I feel like he only knows textbook stuff, but he has worked with other DID patients before... still, I do not know if he can help us. And I do not like how he uses certain words in therapy. He uses a gross slang term to refer to sexual arousal, and last time we saw him, he said that Butterfly is living in her own imaginary world, referring to her having to work with us so much! That made me so upset that after I got home, I wanted to scream and rage really badly. It was SO RUDE! And I don't like how he talked about separating us from the most important parts to parts that are less important. I can't remember the exact words he used for that, but it made me want to hit something.

And he almost self-disclosed about his own un-requited love when we brought one up of our own. He said that he thought it could help us, but we had to stop him from doing that because any breach of therapist/patient relationships is BAD!! I had a male therapist before who self-disclosed too much, and we ended up picking up that he might have had a crush on us. It felt like that other therapist was giving us some special treatment too (he got us our own drawing pad to use in therapy), and when we confronted him about possibly liking us, he said there was nothing wrong with a patient or therapist having feelings for the other as long as nothing was acted out upon. I don't want to think badly of him or our current therapist, but people being like that makes me want to scream and fight!! And lady therapists aren't any better because they don't get it either. I just hate people in general. They are all awful and probably cannot help us. I have to do everything all alone no matter what, because it feels like nobody understands what is happening in my head or what happened in my life.

If this therapist does not work out, there are no others we can see because they are not accepting patients or they are too expensive. I hate being here so much, and one day I feel that we are going to die alone poor and homeless or something. We are fine now, but maybe one day we will not be able to make it. Surviving on your own is so hard. I hate being here, and I want to hide away from everybody forever. I just hate everybody because they make everything worse and make me want to die. And thinking this stuff makes me feel even more lonely, but it's true.

I am very sad, but I do not know if anyone could help me with feeling better or feeling like everything will actually end up being okay. I still wish people would try, though, because that would mean that maybe they still care... or maybe it means that they are trying to get me to talk so they can use it against me later to hurt me. I hate it when people do that. And I don't want to stop typing because if I stop typing then that means I am alone again inside of myself. But I think I have to stop typing now because I have already said so much, and I can't keep typing forever.

I'm sorry for crying online and I'm sorry for making a scene by existing.

-- Daisy

When she is around, it feels like our abuser is still bothering us.

This is a sign that "it" contains a lot of traumatic memories. "It" is still emotionally trapped in the time and mindset of the abuse. We have similar fragments inside, as well as past hosts, and they do feel uncomfortable at first when they emerge. Anchoring them to the present helped get rid of the uncomfortable feelings of being sent back in the time of the abuse.

I feel like I'm making everything up either because I am crazy or because I want attention.

Emotions never lie. They might build up stories to explain why they exist, but the emotions never lie. You are not crazy. Confused maybe, but not crazy. Moreover, "wanting attention" is never a bad thing. In fact, it is best to call it "care seeking" rather than "attention seeking". Seeking care is never a bad thing. In fact, it is a very good thing, because it shows that you are looking to get your needs met. It is normal to need attention and care and support from our peers. And it is normal to say "I need attention, hugs, cookies, and emotional support".

But if anybody knew about "it" and the scary thoughts it has, I would be shamed and maybe punished for it. Even just me (Daisy) existing feels like I am doing something wrong or being bad.

Dissociative disorders, including DID, are normal brain reactions to an abnormal situation. The fact that you exist is GOOD. It means that you were able to adapt to an abnormal situation in order to keep functionning instead of melting down on the spot due to trauma. It means you were able to survive through the trauma in order to, later, reach a point in time and space where you will be safe enough to start looking back and healing the wounds.

Family got mad at us for talking in a child voice because of me when we were 22, and they threatened to call us out in public if we kept it up.

This is merely proof that you cannot heal in the environment that wounded you. Sending lots of support regarding this.

I hate being here and I hate feeling all of these feelings.

There are anchoring and mindfulness techniques that help dealing with painful emotions. You might want to look them up.

And I do not like how he uses certain words in therapy.

It might be useful to write down all the things that the T does that upset you all, and write down too how the T could make it better. Such as : "This word is painful for us, use this one instead." or "We do not like when you talk about this, please avoid this subject for now."

Your strong emotions are proof that the T crossed boundaries. Your anger is legitimate. And there are constructive ways that can be used to face the issue causing your anger. Of course it's natural to want to lash out. Yet, this will not make the T change their ways. But, pointing at the painful words and telling the T what to use instead, will help the T change their ways.

Good luck.

but we had to stop him from doing that because any breach of therapist/patient relationships is BAD!

It is a very nice example on how you are able to point at boundary violations and making assertive statements. Good job!

I have to do everything all alone no matter what, because it feels like nobody understands what is happening in my head or what happened in my life.

You are right. You are the only one who can understand what you feel, what you remember, what you hae been through. Yet, some people can give you hints and tools about how to deal with it. It is even more efficient if you list your issues and point them out and ask for specific tools about how to deal with them. Which is frustrating since we do not always know it is an issue (because of habit and desensitization) and the T sometimes wait for us to realize it's an issue before giving out the tools.

Do not hesitate to have a look at the Guidelines for the treatment of DID adults, look up the tooks they list, try to find self-help and therapy books about said tools. It is not as efficiant as a good T, but it is better than nothing. And remember : baby steps.

I just hate everybody because they make everything worse and make me want to die. And thinking this stuff makes me feel even more lonely, but it's true.

May I suggest another reading of the situation?

You are angry that nobody around you is able to help you or care for your needs. You want the pain of being not cared for, to stop. It feels lonely to have nobody around that is able to care for your needs.

This is where being a system can be awesome sometimes. Once the system manages to communicate and work together enough, we can care for each-others inside, give each-others the care we need that outsiders cannot give us. It is not the ideal situation, it feels lonely, but it is better than nothing. And sometimes it gives us the little nudge in the right direction, the little baby step, that helps us move forwards and get better.

There is no miracle solution. But there are a lot of tiny, temporary solutions that, used together, again and again, give enough relief to keep going.

You can do it. Baby steps. And remember to give yourself rest when you need too.

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Solomon.