For First Time Visitors

If you are a first time visitor to this blog, I invite you to start from the beginning, especially if you are unfamiliar with the potential emotional impact of long-term child abuse.

Trigger caution to unhealed survivors!

Understanding the Incomprehensible

Children of incest or long-term sexual abuse grow up to be wounded adults with complicated emotional issues. Unfortunately, some symptoms are misinterpreted or often dismissed as "crazy", only serving to maintain a tormented victim status. We, as a society, have the power to change this dynamic. Each of us can make a difference.

May 16, 2011

Doll Therapy

I may have mentioned this before but in addition to collaging long before I had internet access, I began to collect stuffed animals...just the ones that "spoke to me". If you have DID, you understand how an inanimate object such as a doll or stuffed animal can seem to be wanting to say something. Those are the ones I bought. Eventually I came to know each as connecting to an alter.

My favorite example is my first acquisition...an alligator with very sad eyes. I first came to know his name: Howard. Eventually I found humanized images of the little boy known as Howard. He told me his name meant "hospital ward" and he had tough skin like an alligator so needles wouldn't hurt.

As a child, I hated dolls. I was overly attached to a teddybear I had gotten at age 3 in Germany. I had it still at age 44 when it became known I had DID. I trashed it immediately after I'd read that children with DID often have an object from childhood that is a reminder of their silencing programming. The bear was very worn and I had stitched up part of its mouth at one time. That's when I began to look for a replacement and many replacements came in the form of many stuffed animals.

It wasn't until I was a therapist that I purchased my first Ashton Drake "So Truly Real" doll, Baby Grace. I now have a collection of seven and had given an eighth away to a relative who loved her. I kept thinking the doll looked like my younger sister as a baby and never "bonded" with her.

My most recent and hopefully final acquisition was Emily Rose who I immediately turned into Tinkerbelle but didn't realize that until the last few weeks. I'd wake up each morning and see her and wonder what she was trying to tell me. I didn't coddle her like I had the other dolls. She's also a bit awkward and rather heavy to carry, unlike the others. She wears full size infant clothes instead of preemie clothes. This is my first picture of her when I had named her a safe name: Kaylee.


Tink is in the highchair on the right. She has a small bear also with a pink tutu. I have since placed a pink ribbon-like hairband in her hand. She is holding her white blanket in her left hand. After returning home from my trauma center stay and processing the milkweed pods that appeared in so many sets, I realized Tink was holding her discarded "veil" which enclosed her in the seed pod.

When the programming broke at the trauma center, the sisters had been connected but the other sister broke the chain leaving Tink holding the connecting end...the ribbon I placed in her hand.

This morning I received the answers I needed to understand many sets I've done of an underwater "see" world. I had a map of my system as layers back in 1998 showing See World as a place I thought had been healed. The surprising answers today were that Tink resides in my tear ducts...or a tear duct...which lead from the eye to the nasal sinus. My recent Polyvore sets can be viewed showing how I came to these answers. This set will get you to the explanation:




After understanding where she is trapped, I realized I have no idea how to help her until I see my therapist. Since my fall leading to the concussion at the trauma center, my eyes have been a main source of aching and pain which I treat with heat. I also realize Tink has been very unloved. I've dressed her and held her a few times, but mostly she sits in that high chair...almost like a prison.

This morning I have her with me. I removed the ribbon that keeps her tied to the programming from her hand and placed my spa pad on her head. Bizarre? Silly? Who knows. I just know what I do externally with regard to loving the stuffed animals and dolls has an internal impact so am hoping I'm helping her in some way.


Healing can happen in many ways. Follow your instincts and listen inside. You never know what can be a healing tool. Am hoping Tink can be safely moved to a different area of my body where she is free to heal with the others. And perhaps her surfacing last night with strong suicidal thoughts was her cry for help rather than trying to frighten me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hope you will be able to help Tink move and heal.

Ravin