Health Diaries > Dissociative Identity Disorder > Butterflyteam

June 19, 2008

I know I haven't written here in a very long time. I have been very busy but since tomorrow is the last day of school I will have a lot more time and it is my intention to write much more in the upcoming weeks. However, I didn't want to let this day go by without writing this.....

Today, June 19, 2008, I have been sober for 5 years. It's hard not to reflect back to where I was 5 years ago. It certainly wasn't a good place. It's amazing how much my life has changed. I still struggle and have difficult days, but the hard work that I have put into my recovery and healing has really been worth it.

Today I believe there is hope........that life can be what I make it and not the hell that someone else imposes on me.

Posted by Butterflyteam at 4:07 PM | Comments (0)

August 15, 2007

i saw judi this afternoon and i think something might have clicked. i've been doing horrible the last few days with food - not binging, but cookies for breakfast.....ice cream for lunch.... i've felt out of control and so overwhelmed and frustrated. today, i somehow got back on track a little - ate healthier for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and went to the gym. judi asked me what i thought the reasons were for both the poor choices over the last few days and then the better choices today. i kept referring to the fact that i felt out of control with all of it and that there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. i do know that i haven't felt present and that the "out of control" eating was a distraction i was using not to feel the panic that is coming up for me recently and i do know that i DID make the choices to eat what i did.......but it still did feel like something beyond me that i couldn't control and the same with making the better choices today. i couldn't give myself credit for that. judi then kept going back to the word responsibility......not wanting to take responsibility for either taking care of myself or not taking care of myself. at first i felt defensive.........nobody is going to tell me i'm not taking responsibility...........i'm the most freaking responsible person.......... to the point where i feel so much pressure to be responsible for everything and everyone; i'm so consumed with feeling responsible for EVERYTHING (including work, school, friends, family, keeping my nieces safe, holding onto what happened to me when i was little - that i was responsible for it) that i can't possibly take in one more thing to be responsible for. i just can't. and then i got it......sort of...... why am i responsible for everything and everyone except myself......... when it comes to taking care of myself?

talking about this for a little while helped make a connection to a recent memory. when D brought me to the cult, he would always go off somewhere else and i wouldn't see him again until it was time to go. he would come and get me and i always associated him with being the person that "saved" me from the horrible things happening there. recently i remembered what he used to tell me when he would come "save" me.........he would say to me "where have you been? i have been looking all over for you." as if it was my fault. i was responsible for what happened to me because i somehow "wandered off" and since i wasn't wherever he was looking for me, what happened to me was my fault.

judi suggested maybe i don't want to take responsibility for myself (my food choices, taking care of myself) because i think something bad might happen. i think she said other things but i can't remember everything. i asked her if i wrote some things out in a journal tonight and emailed it to her, would she fill in the gaps and let me know what else we talked about so that i could bring it all to donna when i see her tomorrow. she said she would.

i felt like some pieces came together today but i still feel trapped in it, not knowing exactly how to get out of it. i guess it's that word i'm not too fond of..........process.

Posted by Butterflyteam at 5:04 PM | Comments (5)

August 12, 2007

the last few weeks have been........unusual. i'm just not used to having all this time on my hands and it's just been a roller coaster of emotions. there have been plenty of times that it may have been helpful to stop and write about what i was feeling in the moment.......but for whatever reason, i didn't. now that i'm sitting here.....sort of removed from the emotions....it's hard to write about them. when i went to see judi on saturday morning, i thought i was separate from my feelings because i went in not knowing what to talk about and was quiet and felt a wall up for the first few minutes but then she asked me certain questions and i was just flooded with emotions. i cried the whole hour because i was just feeling so much. we talked about my friend jackie from high school (i had just spent the day with her and her sons earlier in the week) and we talked about how i was feeling moments of despair and even suicidal. i explained how it was different than when i used to feel suicidal years ago (which was almost a non-stop feeling). i explained how i thought, but wasn't 100% positive, that it had more to do with the panic that has started about going back to work/school/internship in a few weeks. i feel pressure starting and..... i feel like i'm being backed up into a corner......trapped.....no way out. i know it's how i felt often from the abuse and i'm assuming that when i felt that when i was little, i thought the only way out was to die.....and that became my only wish once i realized the abuse would never stop. "if it won't stop, then please let me die." i guess when i feel panic and uncertainty and like i'm being backed up into a corner now as an adult.......my thoughts and emotions go to the only place i ever knew.......to wanting to die. i guess i still haven't completely realized or accepted that to die isn't the only way out.

as i write it all now, it makes sense and logically i can see all the connections. but when i'm FEELING it......forget about it. i can't connect to these realizations and the feelings overwhelm me and i feel like i'm drowning.

judi said these are important things for me to tell donna tomorrow when i see her. i know that. but i'm afraid. i'm afraid i'll walk into donna's tomorrow with a wall up because that's what i've been doing lately......shutting down between sessions. i'm afraid the wall will be up and i just won't be able to talk or access the emotions that i felt so strongly on saturday morning.

maybe if donna reads this before i see her tomorrow.....she can help me figure out how to get the wall down quick enough in order to talk about these things.

Posted by Butterflyteam at 7:31 PM | Comments (2)