Survivors Can Thrive!

Today is March 1st and it's Self-Injury Awareness Day (SIAD).

Trigger Warning: Please be careful when reading this post. Self-injury topics can be very triggering and/or re-traumatizing for self-harmers, abuse survivors or not.

I notice that I haven't written about self-injury for a while. I used to be active in some self-injury forums, and I haven't visited them for a while either.

I have to be honest: I thought I had self-injury licked. I felt so good about the accomplishment when I wrote about my past personal experiences with self-injury on the "Strange Trip" page of the "My Story" section of my website, Survivors Can Thrive! I went for a couple of years, at least, without harming myself. This was during the period of time when I was getting a lot of trauma processing done with a therapist who's an expert in traumatic stress. Then the dissociative sh*t hit the fan, I got a new therapist, I discovered "splintering" from my dissociative disorder, and...I noticed self-injury creeping back into my life.

Since I have never cut, I think it took me a long time to be honest with myself that I was still a self-injurer. But, self-injury can take many forms. For me, it is usually scratching. I thought I knew why I did it and wrote about that on my dot com site and also on a March 1 post back in 2006 here.

But, since I've been more aware of my dissociative "episodes," I notice that there seem to be some times when I self injure as a way of self-punishment of some sort. In addition to the scratching, I sometimes bang myself in the head with the heal of my hand. This is usually accompanied by some verbally self-abusive statements such as, "I am so stupid!" or "I'm an idiot!" It makes me so angry now--thinking about it--that I identified with my abusive father and repeat the same insults that he used to rain down on me as a child. They are almost word-for-word, for crying out loud! Aaaacckkkk!

I feel very ashamed after I indulge in any self-injury behaviors. I still feel shame admitting these things now. It feels like a failing, when I've been so determined to break the cycle of abuse. I've been successful at doing this with my own precious child, but I don't consistently offer the same unconditional love to myself.

Well, as I find myself saying, again and again, awareness is the key to change. So, let's all do our part to raise awareness about self-injury, today and beyond. Here are a few links to other bloggers who are also raising awareness on this SIAD day:

• Ramblings of The Differently Sane
• Clinically Clueless
  
• A Frank Review
• BPD in OKC
  

Also, you can find some self-injury support, forums and other resources on my "Survivor Issues" page of my dot com site, which I just updated at the beginning of January. If you are dealing with self-injury, please know that you are not alone. So, please, don't try to go it alone. There is help and there is support. I'm glad that SIAD--Self-Injury Awareness Day--helped me gain awareness on a survivor issue that I need to work on some more with my therapist. And I'm grateful to be reminded again that I am not alone in this struggle.

Labels: aftermath, breaking the cycle, chid abuse, childhood sexual abuse, dissociation, links, part activity, self-injury, self-love, triggers

Well, here I am trying to drag my butt out of the Dissociative Twilight Zone again. I've got the Holiday edition of The Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse to get up for tomorrow. When thinking about the holidays (and my son's birthday on New Year's Day) I've been thinking I should hold up on the therapy a little these days. I guess I don't want to get into anything too prone to wig me out, just before Christmas and my therapist's upcoming vacation when she will be unavailable.

But, then something happened that really freaked me out and reminded me that I need to stick with the therapy, or dissociative "incidents" tend to sneak up and bite me in the butt. So, I was working on the Blog Carnival and I had three or four entries that did not come through the standard submission form at Blog Carnival dot com. One of them I really wanted to include but it was given to me as a "read-only" file.

Now, if you know me at all you know that I refer to myself as a "Cyber Klutz." But, I thought I was being really slick by putting said "read-only" file into Microsoft Word and attaching it to an e-mail from my home account (Hotmail), which I then sent on to my Survivors Can Thrive! e-mail account.

Almost immediately after pressing the "send" button, I got a reply. It was from my Survivors Can Thrive! account. Some sort of automatically-generated response thingy. Here's what it said:

I'm on Hiatus for the SCT Blog.  Be back soon!  ;)




What the hell?

I showed it to my husband.  He's a cyber klutz too, so I don't know why I bothered.   He had no clue.

I had an idea that this was some sort of auto-reply thing, but that was it.

I didn't think I knew how to set something like that up.

And I have never recalled referring to Survivors Can Thrive! as "SCT."

As I'm trying to figure this out, in my horror, freaked-outness and confusion, I'm hoping and praying that every e-mail that ever attempts to come into my inbox hasn't been getting this reply ever since my blog was on hiatus back in the summer. That was back in July for crying out loud!

Oh yeah, at the time I "felt so good" and I actually wrote this in that "Hi and Hiatus" July post: "To be honest, I've got a lot going on and am not focusing on the "Surviving-to-Thriving" or therapy issues much right now. I think I'm going to take a bloggy/therapy/"Survivors Can Thrive" break for three or four weeks. I'm doing well and accomplishing other things...and that feels good, really."

Uh huh. That's right before the dissociative sh*t hit the fan big time. Or was it way before that? No wonder I always used to run away in a dissociatve fugue when I'd be this out of it in the past. This is sooo embarrassing.

So, anyway, I'm hoping and praying that nobody else has seen this crazy reply, and then--literally, moments later--I get this e-mail from JIP:

wouldnt have a clue what the hell that means but ok LOL

> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 19:42:02 -0800
> From: thriver@survivorscanthrive.com
> To: xxx@hotmail.com
> Subject: Re: from JIP
>
> I'm on Hiatus for the SCT Blog. Be back soon! ;)




Doh! At least JIP had a good sense of humor about it. I e-mailed her right back and apologized, telling her that there wasn't anything personal meant by the auto-reply e-mail. I hope that all of you out there who also may have received such an auto-reply can just laugh at me and also not take it personally.

Well, long story somewhat shorter: I finally searched around my e-mail homepage and found something called "Edit your Options" which I hadn't remembered ever visiting before, and I deselected the "Away Message Enabled" and the away message that I don't remember ever typing.

Aaacccckkkk! My therapist said, after all the very intense work we've been doing since August--sometimes as much as five hours per week--that we were doing some integration. This doesn't feel very integrated. Please send up a quick prayer or hope into the universe for me that no major nonintegrated, dissociative stuff happens during the holidays of the next few weeks. I hate to be walking on eggshells with myself, wondering what other social faux pas I have or will have committed and "Doh!" dissociative little treats I'll find.

*Sigh* I guess it's a good thing I'm off to another therapy appointment at 11 o'clock. Better get ready to go.

Labels: aftermath, alters, Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, blog carnivals, DID, dissociation, embarrassment, hiatus, holidays, part activity, parts, shame

Holy blog carnival, Bat Man! Is it the last day of January already?! I just went to my e-mail and realized that I haven't visited my blog or e-mail since Saturday.

I guess we missed the January Blog Carnival. I'm so sorry. I swore to myself I would never let a month go by like that without a carnival.

I guess I've fallen down on the job. I certainly feel I've done the same with living up to the name "Thriver." That feels like a big, hideous joke to me right now. I think a name like "reeling, floundering basketcase" would be more descriptive at this point.

I think I've started to identify at least nine parts within me so far--14 if you count the original five "inner children" I started with almost a decade ago. Only a few are talking to me. Mostly, they wake me up at night with all the chatter. Sometimes it's like a town meeting with everyone yelling and trying to speak their piece at once. Sometimes it's two teenagers/young adults having a huge, loud gab fest. Other times it's like a negotiation or counseling session that I wake up and eavesdrop on. Sometimes they quiet down immediately when they realize I'm awake and aware. "Ssshhhh! She's listening!" Other times, I have to speak up, "Hhmmm hum...I'm trying to sleep here!"

The thing that's frustrating as hell is that it seems I'm almost always aware, at some level--I have very little complete amnesia--but I just don't seem to have any control! Aaarrggghh! My new therapist seems to think it is possible to have "parts" or "splits" but not have full-blown DID. Has anyone ever heard of that? I'm confused! I've never heard or read anything like that before! Excuse the swearing--but, Jesus Christ! I can't even do DID right! Not that I especially want to have DID. But, at least I know a little bit about that. And I know some people who are DID folks. At least then, I wouldn't feel so all alone.

At first I felt much calmer when I saw my new therapist. And, it was so refreshing to be with someone who seemed to know about this stuff and not be intimidated by it. I finally found someone who I didn't feel like a freak around. But, now...I just don't know. Does she really know what she's talking about?

I got so frustrated, nervous, desperate, doubtful and scared after my session on Monday and ended up having a huge fight with my husband. Some part--I believe--came out and got completely hysterical and then hateful and rageful with him. She ranted and raved for hours after he left. It was a miracle that I didn't self-harm, think of killing myself or run away again.

Then, what happened next was really out of this world--I spent the next two days being a man! This guy, who we are all dubbing, "Tough Guy" stepped in and decided to take control to keep everything quiet and everyone "in line."

Holy crap! That was bizarre! I woke up this morning and he was gone (or quiet, whatever). Even though he was a tyrant and scared everybody, I had kinda hoped he would stick around until my T session tomorrow so that she could meet him. Then, maybe, I could kinda get over this feeling that I continue to have: that I'm making all of this up.

My T wants me to sit down with each part and have scheduled times for interaction (so they don't keep waking me up instead) and she wants me to set certain ground rules with them. How the hell am I supposed to do that? These "people" just shove me aside like the guy who was out yesterday. My husband felt so rejected because this guy wouldn't hug him. It was like I was in the background--if that makes any sense--and I could see my husband through the fog. I just couldn't get to him to reassure him. Aaaahh! I feel more crazy and freakish than ever!

Anyway. Back to the blog carnival. I've had several people ask me about it. The problem is, I don't really know who's turn it is to host it next. At first, when I started the carnival, I wrote down everyone who offered to host, in the order that they came to me. Most of them have been hosts so far (except for one blogger who had some health issues to attend to): Scarlet Demon, ww, Mike and Lisa. But, I know there were at least two or three others. I have someone new who wants to host February's carnival, but I don't want to step on any toes. Is there anybody out there who really wants to host, who I seem to be forgetting? Let me know. Otherwise I'll let the blogger who e-mailed me go ahead and host in Feb. Thanks! And thanks for hanging in there with my reeling, blubbering self (selves). ;)

Labels: Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse, child abuse, child parts, DID, dissociation, mapping, part activity, parts, system, therapy