Something In My Eye

May and June brought some scary moments as well as deep healing. Mostly it's been quiet inside throughout end of 2011 sinus surgery followed by six weeks of IV antibiotics. Unfortunately the antibiotics which included sulfa drugs may have caused the rapid onset of cataracts. I'd had great vision with my glasses for years with only minor correction except for astigmatism. I was scheduled for cataract surgery for right eye in May and left eye in June. The first surgery went so smoothly. Easiest surgery ever in case anyone is wondering.

Between the surgeries I began to have anxiety and some dangerous things almost happen with my left eye blocking my sight for cars. I realized someone was causing that to happen. My last car accident a couple years ago I only remember being at the stop sign. Next memory is my face in an air bag. Someone had hit me mid-intersection flying from the left. Always wondered if that hadn't been a part of me. I began processing on Polyvore. Over and over I was being shown me at age 3 and images of a teddybear. It took many sets before I realized the teddybear was how the 3-year-old saw herself. Trapped, unable to move. She was being held by an adult male part of me who I initially knew as an internal perp.

Without going through a lot of "clue talk", the story that emerged was the broken 3-year-old had been cared for by the now safe adult male and was keeping her hidden in the corner of my left eye. I know it sounds weird. Obviously something was creating danger but may have been a cry for help I hadn't heard in the last accident. The upcoming cataract surgery on my left eye was causing "fear of destruction". With internal work I was able to safely have her moved from my eye and felt the movement into my ear and then a beautiful healing moment.

The adult male was part of Spencer, my inner wisdom, and the 3-year-old was released to be with my female protector, "Emmie". It felt like freedom...free spirit. Wonderful feeling.

When I first began processing with images, I feared feeling all the hurt and pain the 3-year-old had borne. When I felt nothing but genuine happiness, I knew the adult with her had been helping her heal and preparing her for that moment. The feeling of happiness and even joy has remained with me. It feels like a permanent change in emotional strength. Several times I've received bad news and other things have happened that, in the past, would have knocked down into the depression pit. I have sufficient emotional strength to feel sad about those things but move on in spite of it.

Recently, I joined several girlfriends for a girl's night out...my first truly social event with my friends since 2007. Everyone commented on how happy I seemed and I genuinely felt joy the entire evening. This is not to say I am completely healed, although I wish I were. Yesterday I hit a curb while driving causing my tire to explode and stranding me in a not so safe area. I was able to call AAA and my fiance who, bless his heart, jumped in his car to come to my aid. I was terrified being alone waiting for anyone to arrive. Coping skills, coping skills.

Still have some work to do but am very pleased to be at a new positive emotional place in my life. I do hope it lasts. Being or having this level of happiness feels like what all the pain of healing was meant to do.

P.S. The 3-year-old seems to have transformed into a young adult since my healing sets of late seem to show this part of me feeling the freedom.

DID etiquette

People WITH DID are not people who ARE DID. They are not their diagnosis. It would be paramount to speaking of a person fighting cancer as "she is cancer". I'm more aware of that language since my therapist training. It's okay for a survivor to say "I am DID" because that's where they are in their healing. The rest of the world should be viewing the person first. DID does not define the person. A survivor has a core personality and all of her is working toward becoming the person she was always meant to be without all the internal conflict. A gentle soul born into the world is going to be gentle soul. And since DID generally begins with abuse as an infant or toddler, that personality never had a chance to blossom. Healing is about that beautiful blooming.

If a person subjected to horrendous abuse was going to become a "bad person", it would have been evident long before amnesia began to leak. If a child or a dissociated self-state of an adult was made to commit an undesirable act, it is not the will of the conscious person and, in fact, is unknown by the conscious person. However, if the dissociated self is arrested in the act of doing something at the command of a perpetrator, the DID is not an excuse. Unfortunately, that would be crazy making to the conscious self who honestly is clueless. Hence, the reason this underworld uses people in dissociated states to do their dirty work. Not only would the dissociated person be prosecuted, that person has no conscious knowledge of who the bad guys really are.

"We are a multiple" is correct. Or "I am a multiple" is correct. I've stated before that many theoretical views of personality reflect people as multiple. Years ago (in the 1970s) there was I'm Okay, You're Okay which presented the personality as Parent, Adult, and Child ego states. Ego state therapy (which is different than I'm Okay, You're Okay)views personality as an internal family. Early in the blog I presented the different roles any individual has in life, shifting from one to the other as needed. All the roles define who you are--not any single role. The difference for people with substantially healthy childhoods is there is no amnesia or repression of trauma influencing behaviors or change in roles.

A very high percentage of people, at least in the US, have anxiety and issues with panic attacks. Anxiety is socially acceptable. People tend to understand panic attacks. "What can I do to help?" "Let's get you to a quieter area." "Sit down here and I'll get you a glass of water." But have a startle scream or other PTSD reaction and it's faking or overly dramatic. I recall being in a large store in my early years of healing. I was in an aisle holding a large poster board which was for a collage. It was almost as big as me. So it was awkward to hold. A man walking down the aisle bumped into poster board from behind. You could have heard the startle scream in every corner of that store. The man sarcastically said, "Well, THAT was an overreaction." Well f*** you! Really. How about "I'm sorry I frightened you. I didn't mean to." That would have sufficed.

The most bizarre aspect of DID is the switching. Rarely do multiples noticeably switch in public unless there is a huge trigger. I try to remind people that the movie Sybil was her whole healing life crammed into two hours so she was always switching. I used to be so offended when someone with DID appeared on television and allowed other selves to come forward like it was entertainment. Yet, in my work as advocate for a client to get her help, it was necessary for "helpers" to see the active child who typically needed the aid. Her being able to come out and meet someone and willingly go back inside to allow the adult to remain in charge was a huge success in her therapy. But it was viewed as a "sideshow" of sorts.

Within the past few days, I had a horrid experience online. Someone asked about the new television show My Own Worst Enemy. I responded as someone with knowledge of DID and commented it was not an accurate depiction except for one personality's realization that another part of him had been "out" and active. The person who asked the question immediately cut off communication. When I posed the question to others who had witnessed the exchange about the fear factor, the response I received was that people believe those of us abused for so long must be offenders! OMG. I never knew that to be an issue.

Dear World, if a person is actively working on healing, they are a very wounded and typically withdrawn person. If the person were an offender, they'd never show up in a therapist's office or be openly speaking of the issues. This is also a huge fear on the part of most women who have had children about having harmed their children in an alter state. While that is a possibility, that would only be true if the child had injuries that the parent did not recall inflicting (in which case the children should not be in the person's care). In my personal experience, the women with children had a very strong mom part...lioness protecting her cubs. Yet the guilt was there just in case.

Knowledge is important to change the worldview of DID and its complexities. Being fearful because someone has been horrifically abused is just fear based on misinformation. A very sad commentary on society if that is the case.