I promised to tell you a bit about the dissociative disorder that I was diagnosed with earlier. And remember this - I can only try to explain how it was for me, what happened in my body, mind and emotionally. So this is my personal experience of this diagnosis.
I never really had several different personalities. I had more like different kind of moods, and acted on those without further reflections. Much of this, I (yes, I say it again) came aware of in therapy.
In the first months with my therapist, she often pointed out that I was "double". At first, I was terribly affraid that she would diagnose me with schizophrenia, oh the horror! Was I getting convicted as a mentally sick woman now?
But along the hours at her clinic, I relaxed more and more. She still hadn't really gotten a hold of all pieces, but then suddenly one day it happened. She is really talanted, this one. Instead of just bringing me this diagnosis and dump it my lap, she made me come to the conclusion by my self (still don't know how she made it, skillfull lady...) I remember shivering all over, deadly scared. She calmed me down, gave me a couple of texts to read through, and that whas an eyeopener in many ways for me (as soon as it had sunken into my mind that I wasn't all buttcrackin' crazy.....).
So. What was this new thing? How did it affect me? And, most inportantly - How was I going to get rid of it?
It soon what obvious to me that all my defenses were on red alert... Let's say.... Always. I never let the guard down, always preparing for battle. And there I really mean always. Although I felt calm, I had an underlying feeling of anxiety, of crisis preparation. Didn't know how and why, still had no thoughts about that my childhood had caused me this unpleasantness.
It became clear that the chapter "dissociative amnesia" was my biggest problem. That, and the fact that I'd completely cut of most of my feelings.
Regarding the non-feeling-thing, I was fully aware. When I first came to the clinic, I thought for real that I was a psycopath, because I couldn't feel just about anything. The exeption was my children, there I felt a lot.... But I remember saying to my therapist "I think I am numb, inside and out, and I am terrified of who I might be, please lock me up!" Need I tell you that she had a hard time not laughing at my worries? She just answered "No, you're completely healthy and normal, otherwise you would not have seeken help dear, trust me on this one".
And I trusted her. And I read my material. And I searched through our local library for more information. And I read that too. And I purchased books. And I read them.
Then I calmed down, as the months went by. Now I know that this disocciative thing can be healed if given the correct treatment. I know because I now have access to my feelings (overwhelming but oh so good!), and I feel pretty normal for the first time in years.
The months went by, and the more we dove into this, the more I understood about defence mechanisms and human ways of handeling traumas. Imagine when I fully understood that I was pretty normal? That I had survived because of my strong, well functioning senses? Freedom is one of the words. But.... Rage towards my mother is another.
Repeated traumas in my entire childhood had caused me to become another than who I was in order to survive. Crazy. Sick. Appalling. But more about that later on, let's focus on this diagnosis.
I chose to link to wikipedia for further information for those of you that want to learn a bit more. It might not be the happiest, cheerful reading in your life, but it is truly really interesting I think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_disorder
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