Alters who want to be hospitalized?

For a long time now, it seems that a part of me really wants to be hospitalized. I trace this back to when I was hospitalized when I was 16 (in 1979) for a couple of months. It was in many ways the high point of my childhood. In some sense - I feel at home there. I have been hospitalized a few times as an adult - but not since 2006. Since then I have tried (and mostly succeeded) in being a responsible adult.

But everything has been turned upside down the last couple of months. On a couple of occasions I have done this weird thing in which I start a journal, start switching into different forms of very free-flowing, almost violent hand-writing and then at some stage dramatically write "no more writing" and then draw Xs through the rest of the pages, pressing down so hard on the pages that I start shredding the paper. Tonight I was drinking some when I openned a journal that I started a week ago. This is already a journal in which I had talked about suicidal ideation and feelings of hopelessness and had drawn a pictue of a razor blade with black ink and red colored pencil representing blood. Rapidly I got to a very black place. I wrote "I can't take it any more - sometimes I think that I can but I really can't, not really, so ... no more writing" then I destroyed the rest of the journal with a pocket knife, writing on the last page (in red colored pencil) "This is Not a game" and then, for good measure, cutting myself in real life to add some genuine blood to the picture. Then about an hour later I had called my therapist's office (where I had got the answering machine as expected) and said something like "I think I'm ok until Tuesday [when I have a scheduled appointment] but I need to talk to you about something that happened this weekend."

The thing is - just two weels ago we had talked about hospitalization with, at one stage, she even said something like "do you need me to make the decision for you?" I backpedalled at the time - but don't really know if that will be possible on Tuesday. If she isn't an idiot she would almost have to insist on hospitalization if I show her this journal (which I don't think I can avoid doing given the phone call).

But for all that - I don't know if really need hospitalization - just that this part of me who wants it has gotten very clever these past couple of months. Weird.

You mentioned that the hospitalization in '79 was a very good experience. I don't know when/what you were going through; but perhaps this was a reprieve from stress/abuse/etc....a true 'safe' place where you were really cared for, waited on, and perhaps those in your life were on their best behavior and paying attention.... so ... seems to me it would be nice to be back in that place....

I don't mean this to insinuate you want to be 'locked up' but some of the prisoners in the system get out and then do something on purpose to get in BECAUSE they crave the structure and safety.... you mention the last month or so has felt out of control....perhaps that is what it is about. Wanting to be taken care of....

I'm not saying to go one way or the other; just trying to think why you might be feeling this way. So...if you do not want to be in the hospital (as a whole) perhaps at your next apt, your T can help you to develop strategies to bring your world back into a state of 'controlability'... hee..I just made up a word. but really, I think that as you feel more confident/grounded/able to deal with whatever is going on, the feelings about the hospital might fade a bit. Take care!

My apologies if I should have added a "trigger" warning to my original post - I'm not quite sure what the trigger threshold is in this forum.

I have this appointment in about 3 hours now. Trying to figure out what to do. The part of me that likes to do scary/crazy things hasn't really been around since Friday night. I've been in damage-control mode since then. I've notices this in the past - I'll do something self-destructive then almost instanty switch into some sort of adult-self-survival-mode. I sometimes think "typical teenager - makes a mess then doesn't stick around to help clean it up". Even though I am DDNOS rather than DID and my parts probably don't rise to the level of full-fledged alters, it has always been clear to me that this part of me that is attracted to hospitals is a teenager. For one thing - when I am in that mode my memories of those years become pretty vivid while memories from some later years become more dream-like.

In any event, as of right now I really don't like the idea of any hospitaliztion. But if and when I show up to the therapist's office I need to explain why I felt a need to call her office at 11 PM Friday night. I'm not sure if I really want to show her this journal. If I don't then she will probably sense that I am hiding something. But if I show her a violently slashed-up, lighty blood-spattered document which is full of self-destructive and even suicidal thoughts (I was a melodramatic teen - in contrast to my current quiet, conservative, self-effacing dominant personality) it becomes somewhat hard to explain. My personal take on it is that it was no big deal - some part of me was just engaged in some melodramatic but essentially harmless art-therapy (there is a weird aesthetic sensibility in how I make these destroyed journals look). But this is the third time in a month that I have done something like this with each incident being a little more over-the-top than the last. Also, I (or part of me) violated a promise made just last week that I wouldn't hurt myself before the next session. (At the time I said that I had no intention of hurting myself but didn't add what I was thinking at the time - but I can't speak for all parts of me.)

My concerns are two-fold. For one thing, I don't think I can give any assurances with any degree of conviction that something like this won't happen again. For another - this part of me was able to speak openly to the therapist for the first time about a month ago, the first time that anything like that ever happened in therapy (and one of the reasons that I'm starting to suspect that DDNOS is more like covert-DID). If something like this happens today then the results could be unpredicable. I can visualize something like this happening - the first half of the session I might do a certain amount of more or less successful damage/spin control then the second half I undermine that by saying, with a mischevious smile, "what can I say? I like to slash things, including myself" (which is, well, true - but not helpful if I am trying to avoid hospitalization). The struggle to control my life sometimes plays out as a struggle to control my presentation in therapy.

Enough rambling for.

For several months last year I wanted to be hospitalized. I wanted help, a lot of help, and I wanted it right now. I was emotionally unstable and extremely dissociated and I was afraid of losing myself to a huge block of lost time or even a dissociative fugue. I was terrified that like my alter Teen Girl I might wake up one day to discover I have just missed 30 years of my life.

Why not explore the possibility of going into an inpatient program for a few weeks. Which hospital? What work would you go there to do? How would you pay for it? What arrangements would you need to make for your absence from home or work? How about an inpatient day program, where you go home each night? This would be just planning, just what if. You may find that either going inpatient seems like a really good idea, in which case you'll have a plan all worked out to do it, or you may find it really does nothing for you after all. Either way, you have nothing to lose by exploring the idea.

Just thinking of you...hope your session went well....

T seemed harder to scare than I thought. We discussed hospitalization but agreed that it wasn't quite needed at this stage. The bottom line is that I am not suicidal (even though I might find the idea vaguely attractive) and that, so far at least, the self-harm has been relatively mild. She did warn me that if I keep escalating the situation then hospitalization would probably result and that I basically need to make a decision. Do I want to get better or worse? I told her that it was complicated since part of me wants to get better and part of me wants to get worse. I need to find some way to increase internal cooperation and consensus. Easier said than done.

rescattered wrote:I need to find some way to increase internal cooperation and consensus. Easier said than done.

Easier done once said! Try writing something about this and posting it on the fridge or wherever you leave notes to yourself. Here's a possible formal version: Notice to all alters: please read and distribute. I want to increase internal cooperation and consensus. Your active participation is requested. Thank you. (Heh. Someone inside my head says something rude about this stuffy language.)