Western: The Journey's End

Western wrote: If someone asked me about my life and what I've done I would have trouble telling them because if truth be known I feel as though I've slept through it.

I mean in reality I know I've not literally slept through it but it's as if something else has taken control of my body and carried me through it. Dissociative disorder is totally weird when it comes to things like this.

We have felt like this...in fact a few of ours have likened it to Dissociative Fugue as (in the past especially when we were fully mobile) they seemed to 'wake up' and we're living somewhere else and find they're at university or have to go to work... Bobby likened it to the tv program 'Quantum Leap' where Sam kept finding himself in another body with another life that didn't look like him.

We have found the parameters do change though...Teen S did not see anything after age 15 as 'her life', after some other parts and fragments integrated with her to form Yuna she then saw the first 21 years as her life though still struggled to identify with Bobby' (early life) as none of the parts integrated had any memory before age 7.

Now we have integration between Jay and Yuna, Teen S see's parts of later life as it been her too doing that..so the time frame you can see as 'your life' can change as different parts integrate.

Jay

Yeah I mean I wouldn't say it's anything so serious as complete fugue but I do kind of find myself in places and wonder what I'm doing there or how I've got there but at the same time I can remember making the journey physically but it's as if in a dream state. Not sure if that counts as fugue but it's completely normal behaviour for me. I'm probably doing it now with knowing it.

I got to my second year at uni in this state and then one day it was like I came out of my trance and wondered what I was actually doing there. I just had to leave then and I didn't even look back and have taken zero interest in the subjects I was studying at that time and I can barely remember anything I learned.

I don't think it counts as a full-on fugue since you kinda remember the journey but were too dissociated to fully remember it. Especially if it's consistent with your usual level of dissociation.

Do not hesitate to work on grounding techniques often! It helps a lot!

It's too bad you cannot access what you learnt at uni All these efforts locked in a vault of your memory, it must be so frustrating!

I do get frustrated when I know that I should know something but I just can't get to it.

Today I've been thinking of trying to find a way of reconnecting with a younger me. It's so difficult because she is a different person. It almost feels as though the original me died and was replaced with this one who I am now and it's this one who has grown and changed and it's this one who has the dissociative disorder but this one isn't even the original one.

I can remember feeling too big for the body when we was really small and young and over time we have managed to find a way to fit into the body.

It's really complicated to explain actually

It's hard work being a host. It's like I'm getting all this information all the time and I can't make it out most of the time. It feels like such a responsibility for me to be the host and I always feel like a failure because I feel as though I'm not listening properly or I'm saying the wrong things to the others. I mean I do my best but there's no rule book or guide for us hosts because everyones system is different and responds different.

It's like being a parent in many ways. You just have to kind of learn on the job.

HI

I'm a latecomer to our system though I did host in the past...cos of how we used to work I'd be out briefly disappear and next host had no recollection of me..I didn't at the time know of her exactly either...learned many years later when found myself at the front...system works in a very different way now...its kind of nice getting to know everyone but it also feels like a big responsibility!

Jay

It's important to remember that being a host is also like being the front desk clerk at a big business company. You are not the only one working. You are just the one everybody sees first when entering the building or calling the office phone.

Being a system is a collective work. It's ont the work of the host only.

Yeah that's true and thank you.

I'm getting a bit overwhelmed lately because I'm realising a lot of things about the system and I only just realised that I'm actually a host and not the original person.

I'm actually at the point of just letting it all be. I mean I've came this far in my life with this system and nobody including myself has come to no harm because of it so I might as well just let it be.

Went to see my T yesterday. It was a really difficult session and i covered a lot of ground.

There was something I needed to say but sometimes because of the DID it's really complicated and I'm always worried that I will sound psychotic especially when I'm talking about hearing my parts speak to me.

I told him anyway that I have been getting messages and one was telling me about a specific person and what they did to me when I was very young. Personally to me I have no recollection of this memory whatsoever so I was troubled at being given this message from inside me. So I told him what she said.

Anyway I thought no more of it. I didn't even have any emotional attachment to what I was saying because it was someone else telling me what had happened to them (that's how it felt to me).

On my way home I thought about what had happened and it occurred to me what I had said and it was a really weird thing because I still can't remember it happening but I decided to accept what I was being told as true. And I also put myself in my therapists shoes and saw that he would have just witnessed me telling him that I had had this terrible thing happen to me when I was a child. I still can't get my head around all of this.

The weird thing is is that I feel so much better today. It's like I've unburdened myself so I'm thinking that there must be some truth in what the part inside me was telling me about.

It's good that you feel unburdened. Sounds to me like the alter who wanted you to know that it happened now feels heard and was able to let go of some of the pain.
Even if you can't remember it, it's nice for the alter who shared it to feel believed and heard. I think that helps with the general healing process.

I personally am a very sensitive person so whenever I learn about events I can't remember, I feel bad for that person and then I step back and think "but hey, knowing what I know about this disorder, isn't that person technically me?" and it's so weird because if I try to think of it as my own memory, I can't feel anything. Like it didn't happen to me and it's not my pain. When I see it has having happened to an alter, it angers or saddens me. It's the strangest thing, I agree.

You might have this happen more often in the future. Just remember it's good to listen and focus on the positive feelings that result from it. Don't ignore the bad feelings when they arise. Talk them out and heal with every step you take.

Here's for moral support!

~ Grey