I was completely dissociated when I was 3. Most born into that underground world have intentional trauma in utero to begin the process. Creating anxiety and fear in a baby is simple. Irregular feedings make the baby wonder when and if they will be fed next. Prolonged periods of isolation without light, touch, and food induce fear of abandonment, starvation, and death. All innate survival skills are activated causing the child to be more likely to dissociate before they are able to speak and tell.
We grow up thinking food or death, love or death, helplessness and death. All roads lead to death. That thinking is constantly reinforced as we are raised into adulthood in that environment. Our mind's ability to maintain the abuse in a bubble of amnesia keeps part of our present and all of our past abuse out of our awareness. We are clueless about our double lives (for most of us, at least into our twenties and many a decade or two beyond).
The healing process of DID is to help us control what has been our mind's automatic response to pain, fear, and even feelings. I was fortunate to be in therapy prior to known DID to identify feelings and learn some good communication and coping skills. Most who learn they have DID haven't had help prior that point. Feeling pain, feeling emotions that are unidentifiable initially, and extreme thinking dominate in the beginning.
I've been healing for 14 years and still have automatic extreme thinking: if not this, then death. Except now it is death at my own hands. Suicide was also a huge part of growing up designer DID. Sharing this is preparation to explain how I analyzed an issue that was feeding into suicidal thoughts I've been struggling with recently.
I've been plagued with suicidal thoughts and vivid imagery since shortly after news of my abuser father's death and got the help needed to stop programming associated with that triggering event. I've written about programming that began once I had stopped the first program. A third round popped up which I believe was shut down. But the vivid images remained in my head. I used my coping skills to get out of my head but was becoming exhausted.
When I connected the worst of the thoughts to the pain that went with my body, I became very proactive. Last week I got in to see my psychiatrist earlier, I saw my family doctor about the lack of relief from concussion headaches, and made an appointment with the specialist who works with part of my body that is a huge trigger in every possible respect. That helped settle my mind about all issues going on in my life except relationship issues...that I didn't know were feeding into the suicidal thoughts.
When I saw my therapist a few days ago, she tried to focus on suicidal thoughts with me but my brain blocked her and I ended up rambling about things going on in my relationship. I thought initially someone inside just wasn't letting me have a good therapy session. But when I got home, I communicated to my partner all that was on my mind. In doing so, I realized not feeling I could do anything about his issues led me to feeling helpless. Helplessness leads to death. Old pattern. But communicating my feelings of helplessness to him really helped make that connection. I doubt that would have happened if I hadn't taken positive action about every other issue I was facing. A breakthrough for me.
As an extreme abuse survivor, stopping the mind from going to "death" as the answer is difficult. But we can remind ourselves there are choices between all and nothing.
Another component that inhibits self-awareness is our training to dissociate pain. I've healed to where I know I have pain and no longer have an automatic dissociative response. I hate pain. However, we multiples tend to grossly underrate the level of pain we do experience. We also have messages about deserving pain which keeps some from seeking medical help until an issue has progressed far beyond a simple intervention.
Having awareness is only the true beginning of healing. After becoming more whole and learning to stay present, only then can we see what we've been missing or feel what we've been missing. Rather than all roads leading to suicide, learning the shades of gray...healthy options...is crucial, although certainly not easy.
I have been dealing with the unmentionable body issue since 2008 not thinking beyond just tolerating it and limiting my activities to accommodate it. Realizing that it was something I could choose to have treated was a very recent thought.
Learning things like yoga and qi gong, meditation and relaxation help all people to find calm and balance in the world. But such things are necessary to multiples. It's also helpful for support people of multiples to know that suicidal thoughts are the "norm" and we have to be reminded there are other ways to think.
I am happy to say the slight medication change made by my psychiatrist helped get those vivid images out of my head that were constantly plaguing me. Am grateful to be able to think a bit more clearly not being focused on ending my life.
Programming is such a complicated issue for support people to grasp. Just know it is something we struggle with for years. And even though I thought I was healed and had unraveled all programming, my father's death was able to trigger something hidden deep inside me just waiting to go off. We truly have no control except to scramble for help when it happens.
Sometimes I wish I had the ability to dissociate at will to get myself out of any uncomfortable or painful feelings. Since that is no longer an option, following the thoughts, self-analysis, and help from my therapist are still going to need to happen to take my life further away from that rabbit hole where I used to be perpetually stuck.
Having said that, sometimes self-awareness truly sucks.
May 29, 2011
May 20, 2011
Dissociation: There's An App for That!
My iPhone has become critical to my functioning in the world and in daily life. I'm going to share several applications that I use to help me. Am sure there are other comparable apps to what I use. And I encourage you to search for your own apps for things to help you with specific tasks.
WAZE
WAZE is a GPS guided speaking application. If you are prone to fugue states while driving or panic when you are lost, this app will show you exactly where you are and find your way back home or wherever you need to go by speaking the directions. No need to be looking at the phone.
The application also "learns" your local routes. For instance, I take my own personal route home to avoid certain roads and highways. Where you know your way around, have WAZE on and ignore the directions it tries to give you. It will adapt as you drive your own route.
I personally like having the voice tell me an exit is coming up or to turn because it takes away the semi-panic if I'm at the correct light to turn each time I go certain places and keeps me from zoning out and passing a turn.
CLOCK
I believe the iPhone clock already on the phone has the alarm, stopwatch, and timer settings. I have all my pill reminder times in there. I often use the timer if I'm taking tylenol and can take the next dose in 4 hours. Or in the morning when I have to wait an hour before eating.
CALENDAR
All appointments go on my calendar. It allows me to select two reminders. Usually I remind myself two hours before and one hour before. I also put recurring events on the calendar instead of using the alarm clock. Change estrogen patch every Wednesday and Saturday, for instance.
SHAZAM
Music is a main component of my soothing world. Shazam is an incredible app that allows you to identify music playing in the background of a movie or television show. The technology blows my mind. Once identified, you can press a button to download the song from iTunes.
iPOD on iPhone
I keep a list of favorite songs so I no longer have to carry my iPod with me as relaxation or tuning out unwanted noises in my environment. Recently I added a playlist of soothing songs for when I just need calming music rather than a mix of music. My ears are extra sensitive to noise so the iPod feature is a great coping skill for me.
iTRANSLATE
If you have insiders who speak different languages, this app is only a couple dollars and will translate five different languages. It also has a button to hear the word or phrase pronounced correctly. I do have German, French, and Russian dictionaries from clues I used to get. Now I can use the app unless I need to see how to spell the word first.
HEALTH APPS
I don't have any yet, but I have friends who have apps to help track calories, daily walking, and other health-related activities. Just search and see the ratings.
I definitely feel more self-sufficient with my iPhone. I have made wrong turns at night coming home from doctor appointments in the winter and was able to use my app to get back on the right road. While not an app, the ability to text my friends in my support network has helped me through a number of panicky times. I love my iPhone.
WAZE
WAZE is a GPS guided speaking application. If you are prone to fugue states while driving or panic when you are lost, this app will show you exactly where you are and find your way back home or wherever you need to go by speaking the directions. No need to be looking at the phone.
The application also "learns" your local routes. For instance, I take my own personal route home to avoid certain roads and highways. Where you know your way around, have WAZE on and ignore the directions it tries to give you. It will adapt as you drive your own route.
I personally like having the voice tell me an exit is coming up or to turn because it takes away the semi-panic if I'm at the correct light to turn each time I go certain places and keeps me from zoning out and passing a turn.
CLOCK
I believe the iPhone clock already on the phone has the alarm, stopwatch, and timer settings. I have all my pill reminder times in there. I often use the timer if I'm taking tylenol and can take the next dose in 4 hours. Or in the morning when I have to wait an hour before eating.
CALENDAR
All appointments go on my calendar. It allows me to select two reminders. Usually I remind myself two hours before and one hour before. I also put recurring events on the calendar instead of using the alarm clock. Change estrogen patch every Wednesday and Saturday, for instance.
SHAZAM
Music is a main component of my soothing world. Shazam is an incredible app that allows you to identify music playing in the background of a movie or television show. The technology blows my mind. Once identified, you can press a button to download the song from iTunes.
iPOD on iPhone
I keep a list of favorite songs so I no longer have to carry my iPod with me as relaxation or tuning out unwanted noises in my environment. Recently I added a playlist of soothing songs for when I just need calming music rather than a mix of music. My ears are extra sensitive to noise so the iPod feature is a great coping skill for me.
iTRANSLATE
If you have insiders who speak different languages, this app is only a couple dollars and will translate five different languages. It also has a button to hear the word or phrase pronounced correctly. I do have German, French, and Russian dictionaries from clues I used to get. Now I can use the app unless I need to see how to spell the word first.
HEALTH APPS
I don't have any yet, but I have friends who have apps to help track calories, daily walking, and other health-related activities. Just search and see the ratings.
I definitely feel more self-sufficient with my iPhone. I have made wrong turns at night coming home from doctor appointments in the winter and was able to use my app to get back on the right road. While not an app, the ability to text my friends in my support network has helped me through a number of panicky times. I love my iPhone.
New Blog Name
The blog Forbidden Topic has been renamed to better reflect the topic evolution. I use the term "Designer Dissociation" to mean intentionally induced dissociation in children for nefarious purposes by sophisticated abusers and programmers.
This blog begins with education about DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) and evolves to include the elements of ritual abuse and government or government-related programs that have and continue to create dissociation in covert programs. While our own government denies the existence of "satanic cults", that is exactly where the sophisticated abusers hide. If a survivor mentions robes or satanic circles, their memories are unilaterally dismissed except by those who have seen the life long damage caused by the horrific trauma inflicted on those who manage to survive.
Within this blog is information explaining the documented history of mind control specifically with regard to the United States ushering in Nazis to our country under Operation Paperclip shortly following WWII. The Cold War government warriors went to extremes to find the perfect agents. Declassified documents reveal the experiments of MK-Ultra. (The Senate Hearings of MK-Ultra can be found online.) However, the program I survived was already in full motion by 1952 headed up by an underground CIA alongside the Paperclip Nazis.
I know there are thousands of survivors. I don't know about tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of survivors. Whatever the number, we need help untangling ourselves from the webs woven around our identities and missions and even ability to heal.
I've been sharing my journey on this blog for several years. I hope followers will continue following under the new, more appropriate, name. I no longer feel this is a forbidden topic. It is an essential topic that survivors must be able to discuss and learn to heal from one another in a supportive environment.
This blog begins with education about DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) and evolves to include the elements of ritual abuse and government or government-related programs that have and continue to create dissociation in covert programs. While our own government denies the existence of "satanic cults", that is exactly where the sophisticated abusers hide. If a survivor mentions robes or satanic circles, their memories are unilaterally dismissed except by those who have seen the life long damage caused by the horrific trauma inflicted on those who manage to survive.
Within this blog is information explaining the documented history of mind control specifically with regard to the United States ushering in Nazis to our country under Operation Paperclip shortly following WWII. The Cold War government warriors went to extremes to find the perfect agents. Declassified documents reveal the experiments of MK-Ultra. (The Senate Hearings of MK-Ultra can be found online.) However, the program I survived was already in full motion by 1952 headed up by an underground CIA alongside the Paperclip Nazis.
I know there are thousands of survivors. I don't know about tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of survivors. Whatever the number, we need help untangling ourselves from the webs woven around our identities and missions and even ability to heal.
I've been sharing my journey on this blog for several years. I hope followers will continue following under the new, more appropriate, name. I no longer feel this is a forbidden topic. It is an essential topic that survivors must be able to discuss and learn to heal from one another in a supportive environment.
May 19, 2011
The Last of Tinkerbelle (?)
After the scare of the flooding of suicidal thoughts followed by messages that it was an adult Tinkerbelle and her child "pod" trapped, I was able to see my therapist. This mission was to rescue Tink and her little self. Once I was guided inside, all I had to do was watch what was happening and narrate what was unfolding.
Spencer who is both internal and external to the body rescued Tink as she clutched the jar holding her child likeness tightly to her chest. Her exits were either the tear duct by the eye or the nasal passage. As the session began, pain in my left nasal cavity began to pulsate. It stopped as soon as Spencer safely removed her.
Next I saw Spencer gently set her down at the entrance to the heart...where many of my alters have crossed through to heal. Tink was given a choice and she frantically ran into the entrance to reach the other side. Spencer followed her so she would have someone safe behind her. Oddly, as she emerged on the other side, the area of my head that hit the floor when I fell and got my concussion began to feel like it was radiating with healing energy. My head has felt better since then.
After noticing the good feeling where my head had hit the floor, I almost simultaneously felt a sharp pain near the upper back of my right ear. I sensed it was the Delgado part who was in a containment area angry that the Tinkerbelle program was finally dismantled to include the pod regeneration. My therapist was so ingenious in addressing the pain and that part of me. She told me Delgado himself was not inside me but his teachings were. His training and philosophies and programming that had been inflicted on Tinkerbelle and the sister introjects. As the therapist spoke, the fear of Delgado collapsed into a book of his messages. We filed the book in the internal library in the research section. He was a part of my history and his words no longer would control me.
I've felt calm and huge relief since the session. When I got home, I immediately did an art set showing Tink and her little self in their internal safe world. I realized today that they were now able to enjoy the view of the water from above it instead of feeling trapped below it. I have faith that she and the little will heal from the unhealthy attachment to Delgado and the lies and messages they were given. I'm also relieved she wanted very much to be rescued.
As for any physical benefit, that remains to be seen. But it's my left sinus that has been cause of constant sinus infections for years. I can only hope it's not too late for healing to happen now that the trauma has been removed. At least I'm hoping it's the last trauma connected to my sinuses...and the last Tinkerbelles who needed to be rescued.
Spencer who is both internal and external to the body rescued Tink as she clutched the jar holding her child likeness tightly to her chest. Her exits were either the tear duct by the eye or the nasal passage. As the session began, pain in my left nasal cavity began to pulsate. It stopped as soon as Spencer safely removed her.
Next I saw Spencer gently set her down at the entrance to the heart...where many of my alters have crossed through to heal. Tink was given a choice and she frantically ran into the entrance to reach the other side. Spencer followed her so she would have someone safe behind her. Oddly, as she emerged on the other side, the area of my head that hit the floor when I fell and got my concussion began to feel like it was radiating with healing energy. My head has felt better since then.
After noticing the good feeling where my head had hit the floor, I almost simultaneously felt a sharp pain near the upper back of my right ear. I sensed it was the Delgado part who was in a containment area angry that the Tinkerbelle program was finally dismantled to include the pod regeneration. My therapist was so ingenious in addressing the pain and that part of me. She told me Delgado himself was not inside me but his teachings were. His training and philosophies and programming that had been inflicted on Tinkerbelle and the sister introjects. As the therapist spoke, the fear of Delgado collapsed into a book of his messages. We filed the book in the internal library in the research section. He was a part of my history and his words no longer would control me.
I've felt calm and huge relief since the session. When I got home, I immediately did an art set showing Tink and her little self in their internal safe world. I realized today that they were now able to enjoy the view of the water from above it instead of feeling trapped below it. I have faith that she and the little will heal from the unhealthy attachment to Delgado and the lies and messages they were given. I'm also relieved she wanted very much to be rescued.
As for any physical benefit, that remains to be seen. But it's my left sinus that has been cause of constant sinus infections for years. I can only hope it's not too late for healing to happen now that the trauma has been removed. At least I'm hoping it's the last trauma connected to my sinuses...and the last Tinkerbelles who needed to be rescued.
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.
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.
May 11, 2011
Mindfulness for Trauma
Yesterday I was fortunate to see an article posted on Facebook regarding mindfulness. What really caught my attention was the last sentence: "What makes life so frightening is that we let ourselves be carried away in the garbage of our whirling minds. We don't have to do that."
In my life as a therapist I had learned and taught mindfulness. I still practice it to some extent by listening to guided imagery to help my body relax to fall asleep. But I’d never seen mindfulness explained so succinctly. I now understand how to use it to get myself out of my head when it is circling with unpleasant memories, the aftermath of nightmares, or, most recently, a barrage of suicidal thoughts.
Without realizing I was practicing mindfulness, one morning after being discharged from the trauma center, I awoke from a horrid nightmare/memory. I can see in retrospect I engaged every one of my senses to keep me out of my head. I turned on my aromatherapy to have the aroma of fresh cotton and have a pleasant and different smell; I grabbed the rosary-like grounding beads I’d made at the Center to have a tactile distraction; I turned on my favorite music to provide soothing sound, and I placed a heated lavender spa pad over my eyes for soothing warmth. It took me nearly three hours to shake the nightmare but it worked.
I had forgotten about the full benefits of mindfulness and hadn’t thought about how it might be used to get me out of my head filled with suicidal images and only tended to make me tense and frightened. The other aspect of mindfulness that I apparently hadn’t grasped initially but hit me between the eyes yesterday was that I was keeping myself stuck by wanting to be the person I was in 2005…happy and healthy. My reality is my body has undergone surgeries and trauma in the past four years that likely will not allow it to be ever be quite the same. Mindfulness is being in the present…not the past or future.
For me, it meant accepting me and my body for where it is today and moving on from now. Wishing for a point in the past is fruitless, frustrating, and stressful. Wishing for me to be healed when I’m not is also not productive. But I can start from today and move in the direction of acknowledging where I am today in terms of mind and body pain to finding ways to move forward as well as handling the days with what is going on NOW.
This morning, in trying to focus on my breathing to get out of my head and the nightmares, I found myself back up in my head. This is why it Is called the practice of mindfulness. As the article states, it takes practice. When focusing on just my breath didn’t work, I turned on music and focused on listening to every word and musical instrument while keeping my hand(s) on the grounding beads. I also had heat on the areas of the body experiencing pain. It is now an hour later and I am up writing this blog post.
We trauma survivors get stuck in our heads a lot and many of us do suffer from chronic pain. Mindfulness is one coping tool. I also use Belleruth Naparstek’s guided imagery for depression, alleviating pain, and IBS. Her voice is so easy to listen to and, for me, she works. Sometimes curling up with a soft stuffie, crying, and listening to sad music is also being in the moment with my feelings. We don’t have to distract from them. Suicidality is one we definitely don’t want to “be in”, but experiencing unpleasant emotions is healthy when done safely. The key is being mindful of how we choose to experience our own pain.
Most in my group on Polyvore use art to get stuck images out of the head. Some might view that as focusing on the thoughts; however the focus is actually on the art: what elements to use to create the set, the colors, the effects, which images best represent the feeling. It is a healthy distraction and release at the same time.
Having read the article yesterday and having an “aha” moment, I do feel unstuck from 2005 and have moved my mind to where I am right now with my concussion and body pain from the fall along with frequent suicidal thoughts. And I’m DID. lol. Could there possibly be more? Am sure those reading this do have more. Likely we all feel we are at our maximum tolerance level. Even more reason to find that which helps us cope and live our lives as best we can with what we have day by day. Is it okay to dream? Yes. It’s the wishing we were already there that gets us stuck in a place away from where we need to be…in the moment.
In my life as a therapist I had learned and taught mindfulness. I still practice it to some extent by listening to guided imagery to help my body relax to fall asleep. But I’d never seen mindfulness explained so succinctly. I now understand how to use it to get myself out of my head when it is circling with unpleasant memories, the aftermath of nightmares, or, most recently, a barrage of suicidal thoughts.
Without realizing I was practicing mindfulness, one morning after being discharged from the trauma center, I awoke from a horrid nightmare/memory. I can see in retrospect I engaged every one of my senses to keep me out of my head. I turned on my aromatherapy to have the aroma of fresh cotton and have a pleasant and different smell; I grabbed the rosary-like grounding beads I’d made at the Center to have a tactile distraction; I turned on my favorite music to provide soothing sound, and I placed a heated lavender spa pad over my eyes for soothing warmth. It took me nearly three hours to shake the nightmare but it worked.
I had forgotten about the full benefits of mindfulness and hadn’t thought about how it might be used to get me out of my head filled with suicidal images and only tended to make me tense and frightened. The other aspect of mindfulness that I apparently hadn’t grasped initially but hit me between the eyes yesterday was that I was keeping myself stuck by wanting to be the person I was in 2005…happy and healthy. My reality is my body has undergone surgeries and trauma in the past four years that likely will not allow it to be ever be quite the same. Mindfulness is being in the present…not the past or future.
For me, it meant accepting me and my body for where it is today and moving on from now. Wishing for a point in the past is fruitless, frustrating, and stressful. Wishing for me to be healed when I’m not is also not productive. But I can start from today and move in the direction of acknowledging where I am today in terms of mind and body pain to finding ways to move forward as well as handling the days with what is going on NOW.
This morning, in trying to focus on my breathing to get out of my head and the nightmares, I found myself back up in my head. This is why it Is called the practice of mindfulness. As the article states, it takes practice. When focusing on just my breath didn’t work, I turned on music and focused on listening to every word and musical instrument while keeping my hand(s) on the grounding beads. I also had heat on the areas of the body experiencing pain. It is now an hour later and I am up writing this blog post.
We trauma survivors get stuck in our heads a lot and many of us do suffer from chronic pain. Mindfulness is one coping tool. I also use Belleruth Naparstek’s guided imagery for depression, alleviating pain, and IBS. Her voice is so easy to listen to and, for me, she works. Sometimes curling up with a soft stuffie, crying, and listening to sad music is also being in the moment with my feelings. We don’t have to distract from them. Suicidality is one we definitely don’t want to “be in”, but experiencing unpleasant emotions is healthy when done safely. The key is being mindful of how we choose to experience our own pain.
Most in my group on Polyvore use art to get stuck images out of the head. Some might view that as focusing on the thoughts; however the focus is actually on the art: what elements to use to create the set, the colors, the effects, which images best represent the feeling. It is a healthy distraction and release at the same time.
Having read the article yesterday and having an “aha” moment, I do feel unstuck from 2005 and have moved my mind to where I am right now with my concussion and body pain from the fall along with frequent suicidal thoughts. And I’m DID. lol. Could there possibly be more? Am sure those reading this do have more. Likely we all feel we are at our maximum tolerance level. Even more reason to find that which helps us cope and live our lives as best we can with what we have day by day. Is it okay to dream? Yes. It’s the wishing we were already there that gets us stuck in a place away from where we need to be…in the moment.
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