Surviving Psych Meds

Today I was with a friend that I haven’t seen in about 2 years. Her and I were in the same program when I was at my worst- I now realized the terribleness that my first 2 years of stabilization. I was mistreated and over medicated and mental health professionals made a ton of mistakes in those few years.

I found it so interesting that after surviving my childhood, in many ways my first 2 years in a trauma program was somewhat similarly abusive. I was given injections everyday because it was easier to chemically restrain me than it was to talk to me. I was on so many different psych meds and my head was just so cloudy. I was treated like I was psychotic when I wasn’t.

I didn’t need to be restrained chemically or physically- I just needed someone to give me a chance. I needed someone to not be afraid of me because I was so scared of myself. I needed someone to have confidence in me until I could have it for myself. I think that the mental health system failed me because because DID isn’t considered a biological based disorder. I think that the psychopharmacology movement of psychology helps some people but not all.

I was one of the exceptions. I didn’t need medication or restraints- I needed someone to listen to me. I needed a chance to heal in a respectful way. In many of the different psych hospitals I spent time in, I was treated like a second class citizen. But, the truth is I survived more in my first years of life than most people in their entire lifetime. I am not “disordered” in any way, I’m adaptive- I survived and now I’m thriving.

So tonight when I saw my friend, she said she didn’t know how I made I through that terrible time. She also didn’t know if she would have been able to. I agreed with her, to this day I’m not sure how I made it to this point in my journey. I would have never realized that almost 5 years later that I would be where I am today. Non medicated, 3 years inpatient free and truly experiencing the life I was intended to live.

The interconnected journey

I realized that I have negative thought patterns. I actually realized this when I was running the other day. It was my favorite weather outside- pouring rain and I decided to take note of my thoughts during my 90 minutes of running. I tell myself things that are in no way my own thoughts.

Most of the thought patterns I have are rooted back to my childhood. After I came back home I noticed myself doing it again but this time it was because my sister wasn’t texting me back. I have this automatic thought of – she doesn’t ever want to talk to you anymore. I do this with my friends as well. All of them actually like me and I know if they had a problem with me they would tell me.

Today when I was working with my alter and my T. My new alter said many of my negative thought patterns in the form of sentences. In that moment it all clicked and everything made sense. It was an aha moment and I could feel a light bulb turn on in my head.

My new alter (which I am going to refer to as P from now on because writing new alter takes too long.) is the holder of my healing. She’s the deepest because shes all of my insecurities that I have lived with for so long. I was thinking that it is very possible for entire style of clothing to change once I work with P for a few years. It is fascinating the interconnectedness of my alters with my thoughts and fears. Since I started accepted my alters and working with them I have gone through such a personal transformation. Even though this isn’t the ideal situation it’s truly a gift that I am getting this opportunity to truly heal with the support of my friends, supportive family members and my really amazing T. I know that not everyone in my situation is able to make it out alive or even to get to the level of functioning that I am doing even on the not so great days. So I need to take advantage of everything right now and from now on because I can’t change my past but I can create my own healthy future.

Internal work, works

I am in this interesting place right now on this journey. If I had to give a name to this chapter in my life I would call it an adjustment season. I am adjusting in many different areas of my life. I am having a difficult time being thankful for this place I am in right now.

But the other night when I couldn’t sleep I read my entire blog and I noticed a pattern that I have missed. I am not sure how this may have occurred because I am a super observant person which at times may get a little creepy but in comes in handy most of the time.

So back to this pattern- whenever I experience a particularly difficult few weeks I get really down on my self. I think that my feelings come from being discouraged because I know what feeling good and happy feels like now. After I have my couple weeks of discouragement I get into this place where I am sort of standing still- I attribute this to the fear or moving forward because getting better doesn’t always mean feeling better. Feeling in general is difficult but needed in order to be a human being. After the fear subsides I get into this mode of where I question. I ask myself and my alters a shit ton of questions because I need to make sure they are still all in this thing. After that part is over I get to the place of where I am right now- doing the work by doing a ton of internal work. Internal work- it works because my people inside my head want to be heard. But sometimes I silence them because I’m not ready to hear what they have to say because I myself need to adapt.

I feel that every alter and I have a different relationship. All people communicate differently so I think communicating with alters amplifies this principal idea of mine. I am finding each alter teaching me patience because I know that it would be much easier to just push them down. Doing the work is the more difficult path but I know that internal work-works.

Yesterday my little buddy C shocked me because “he” decided that he wants to be a girl. He has been trying to figure out why we are in a female and he has wanted nothing more than to be in a male body. But yesterday C said he wants to be in a girl body because C said he wants to be closer to me. 3 years ago C was the programmed alter who wanted to end our lives because that was all he knew but today C chose to be closer to me because I accepted him as a cereal eating, electronic licking, professional dinosaur person. And now C understands why this world is better than the past. So yeh, internal work, works.

Present Learning

There are things that I’m still learning and figuring out everyday. I get frustrated with myself sometimes because I have a taste of healing and living well. That’s one thing that I don’t need to learn and its something that is just amazing. I have this amazing opportunity right now and I have tons of people on my side.I get afraid that others are going to judge me that I am so overly critical of myself and I over think a ton. But really no one is judging me or stalking me. It’s in my mind and it was once my presence which is now in the past.

I spend unneeded energy on those things instead of focusing on the now. My present is good and healthy and its actually fun at times. I have become so consumed with my past lately that I forgot to acknowledge the present.

I feel that this new alter has caused me to feel a little discouraged because I haven’t work with a new alter in quite some time. The last new alter that I work with was my silly little buddy C- he was actually quite difficult because he had so many strong unsafe behavioral urges. He used to hit his head against the wall. But now when I think of him I think about him I don’t think about the difficult part instead I think about his silly songs, strange cereal eating habits and his random yet humorous requests of bribery.

So I know that its possible for this alter to get to C status. I realize that when you do the work with new alters its all about teaching them about the world that I live in which is very similar to the life that I live everyday. However, I think it’s a life that many people live even only’s-  someone on facebook posted this quote and I really think it captures the point in which I am trying to learn. “When you look at a person, any person, remember that everyone has a story. Everyone has gone through something that has changed them”. Change happens but I think while its occurring I forget that I need to be patient with myself and to just appreciate everything that I have right in front of me in the present.

“The Process”

I wish I could say that this journey was getting easier and that my alters were beginning to cooperate. I wish I could say that I wasn’t sabotaging myself from getting close to others.

I wish I could say a ton of things- but thats not my reality right now. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing with this new programmed alter right now. She made strides recently but ever since going to my parents house things changed. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because this is “the process” progressing but I’m just tried of living my life through “the process”.

I’m tired of vomiting, intrusive memories, sounds in my ears and just the continual work that I am sure is endless. I need a break from this life and there is no way out. Even if I do eventually make it long enough to integrate I still have so much more to do and I know that I can’t. I’m frustrated with myself and my alters because there’s nothing more anyone can do to push this alter to listen. She is way stronger than I realized and I’m so very tired of this process.

Momma Drama

I didn’t think I was going to be affected by mothers day this year but it happened. I was at my parents house for a few hours on Saturday and I could just feel myself dissociating because my body felt like it was in danger.

I wasn’t in any real danger but there’s something about going to my parents house that causes a reaction in my body. I feel this feeling every time that I return to their house. The minute that I turn off of the highway, I begin to feel trapped, backed into a corner and alone.

When I’m at my parents house my alters are very afraid because it was there that we tried to end out life many times. Whenever I walking into the “suicide spot” I cringe because I remember being close to the end many times. I remember not being able to feel, the world was going in slow motion. The moment that felt like hours continues to replay inside of my head because at that time I was so out of touch with my alters. I extremely disliked their exsistance because I didn’t want to believe that my memories were once our reality.

I remember standing on the steps to the 2nd level of my parents house the first time my mother told me that she didn’t believe her mother abused me. Her words felt like knives slicing me in one million pieces. I don’t think I will ever understand why she doesn’t want to believe me. The work that I do with my T is difficult and I don’t get any positive from processing these memories. I guess the only positive I have, if any would be that I don’t have to be all alone with my memories. But the truth is that I am very afraid of being alone with all of this stuff.

Where I am in my journey right now, I’m realizing the magnitude of all of this stuff. Sometimes I just feel like such a terrible person. I’m confused about how I made it out and I have this guilt about surviving. I really like my life right now but it sometimes feels like I’m living someone else’s life. My brain allows me to rewind and replay daily life and sometime I watch it in awe because now I realize that only’s can’t but at the same time this makes perfect terrible sense. I now understand how my memories became so clear.

So many different parts of my life make sense and yes, I was sadistically abused. I think the problem that I have with my mom is that, I’m okay with my truth and I have accepted that things that shouldn’t happened did. I’m really not okay with being around her because I know she doesn’t believe my truth and that can make me sick.

I was trying to buy a mothers day card last week and I was having a real difficult time because none of the cards fit the relationship I have with her. I thought about my card situation for a few days and I realized something. Just because my mother had children it doesn’t make her a mom. Mom’s believe and defend their children and even if they can’t protect their kids from abuse they do whatever they can to make sure it won’t ever happen again.

Taking my thoughts into consideration I decided to opt out of my families mothers day festivities. Today I went to the beach with my young cousins and just reflected on how far I have come since I decided to accept my truth.

Innocents is not lost

I have written over 200 posts on this blog and I feel that my blog has helped me so much along my journey of life and healing. When I write I learn to express myself a little more. I have a place to write and document both the horrors and triumphs of this life that I live every day.

But more importantly I write for those who cannot, many were not as lucky as I to escape the sadistic life. And many who did escape are silenced because of fear that has been built inside of them. Many had their innocents stolen from them even before they had the chance to experience it.

I have always thought that my innocents was stolen and lost forever -but I was wrong. Recently my friend (who knows that I am a multiple) and I were talking about something unrelated and she said that many of my mannerisms are very innocent and genuine. I do consider myself very childlike at times which I attributed to my 20+ childparts but at the moment I realized that my innocents was not lost, it was preserved and has been right in front of my the entire time.

In the past year, I have been able to reach to an entirely different level of healing. I have been accepted in ways from other people in ways that I have never imagined. When I started to realize that people accept and even like me for who I am, I was able to like myself a little more.

I spent my entire life trying to escape from myself. In a way, becoming a multiple was my way to escape from my body and my current situation that I was forced into. I often have a difficult time accepting and liking myself so I have a hard time believing that others do. I am trying to forgive myself  because in my head I know that the past couldn’t have been any different because I was so very young and people didn’t protect me. Adults are supposed to protect children and when they don’t kids get hurt and the damage changes their entire lives.

But this story can have a happy ending- with work and dedication to healing. I find myself at times so overwhelmed by the healing process both the good and the not so good but even though all it all I am realizing that I wouldn’t want my life to be any other way. My experiences make me who I am and even though abuse is not the ideal situation, it happened and I can only move forward from here at least now I know my innocents was not lost forever- its here, I’m here continuing on this journey.