Dissociative Identity Disorder

I thought it might be wise to go back to a topic I covered almost 2 years ago. The basics of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I have a lot more readers now (YAY!) and new friends whom don’t really understand DID. No criticism here at all. Before I was diagnosed with it, I knew as close to nothing as one could get.

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is portrayed in the media as some sort of wacky, wild, really cool to watch phenomenon. If that isn’t their angle? They are usually discussing the controversy of the diagnoses. I hope that if I share what it means to me, it will take some of the confusion out of it and hopefully inspire some understanding.

Everyone has multiple personalities/identities. Even you.
If you stop to think about it, you are not really the same person when you are out with your friends as you would be if you were out with your children. You are different with your spouse than you would be with your parents. You can become the professional at work then transform to a carefree spirit when you go out for an evening with your best buddy. Even your pets get a different side of you.

If you think of your own life thus far, I am sure that who you were as a child is quite different from who you became as a teenager and then that teen became a young adult. Eventually you grew past the age of being a young adult and perhaps started making some more adult decisions like getting married or having children. You continue even now to mature and change with each passing year. Ask someone who’s in their 60’s and they will tell you that they are very different from who they were at 30 and few 50 somethings that I know are still acting as though they are 20.

The difference between you and all your sides/personalities are that they know each other. Each part knows what the other was up to and went through. Who you are right now knows what you have done good or bad over the course of your lifetime. Not perfect memories of every little thing but you have the big picture. At 40, you can recall being a teenager especially as your own teenagers are now giving you the same hassles you once gave to your parents. There is an easy flow of communication between these parts of you.

When you have Dissociative Identity Disorder, this ability to easily communicate is severed or severely affected. It is like growing up and the 4-year-old you doesn’t know the 5-year-old you. Each one is compartmentalized in a separate box and each box is locked. Usually this is caused when there is trauma so severe and so constant that the host could not have survived psychologically without creating a very handy coping tool. Rather than being totally overwhelmed by what is going on and absorbing all that trauma by oneself, some children unknowingly begin to dissociate. This is a very clever secret door that a traumatized mind is able to create to help survive the fear and pain.

Sadly, if dissociations happen regularly and a total “split” occurs, the child will have very few memories of this age. Good or bad. If the trauma continues for many years, these splits can happen over and over. The biggest difference between a dissociative mind and one that has not needed to develop this skill to survive is the ability to recall life in an orderly fashion.

This issue of segregated memories is used to help diagnose cases of DID. When I am asked to give a family history or a history of even my past week, it can be very confusing for me. I don’t always recall who came in to our lives or who went and and when. I have years of missing time scattered throughout my life so I can occasionally recall moving to a new home but not recall leaving it or I could suddenly be in a new home and not recall leaving the last one. People with DID need to constantly juggle what they know with what they can’t recall.

People with DID, myself included often have very large chunks of their life missing. One dissociative part of me from when I was 4 might not even know about me or any other parts. For 43 years I did not consciously know about any of my other parts but most of them knew me. They did not all know about each other though. Some did, some didn’t, some parts formed groups, some stayed isolated, some even thought that they were the only one. They seemed to not even realize that there was me.

These parts and pieces of my life have a very chaotic order to them and they almost all are still the ages that they were when they came to being. This is where it gets really hard for me. That silent 3-year-old that needs to be held and hugged is always 3 and always needs to be held and hugged long after it is “appropriate” to want this from those around her. I can and I do try to take time to fill those needs if I can but I have a LOT of Helpers and taking care of each one would be 3 full-time jobs at this point.

I really like this graphic as a way to explain what I am trying to share here.

For me this happened 34 times. For a long time I only heard 3 but that was when I was still assuming I was psychotic or just truly bat shit crazy. In time, with a great deal of support and compassion, I allowed myself to begin to hear others and there are 34 in total that have made their presence known. I don’t know them all yet and I don’t have all of their memories.

I work daily on hearing them, finding out what their needs are and trying my best to fulfill those needs. I feel as though when parts of me feel heard and hopefully healed as much as possible, they can get a well deserved break from needing to protect me from what they deem as dangers. This will reduce the “need” for dissociations.

I am not a professional with all this nor do I have all the answers. I am learning day by day and sometimes I get it all very wrong. I’ve been able to help my Helpers at times while hurting them at others. I am working at it though. Every day.
One day I hope that my 4-year-old will know my 6-year-old. My teenagers will know the adults and the adults can allow me to take care of my daily needs without whisking me away. I will not integrate them, I just want us all to communicate more easily with each other rather than living in all these separate locked boxes. My goal is to find peace.

The Human Brain Overrides the Instinct to Discharge Trauma

Do you ever wonder why people with trauma experience pain years after the trauma happened? This pain often has no real cause and it is then called a “somatic illness”. Basically this means that it is pain caused by your trauma with no underlying physical cause (until you are older and years of pain catch up with you). Why does this happen to us and not to other animals that can experience trauma/life and death situations on a regular basis???

It is all because The Human Brain Overrides the Instinct to Discharge Trauma.
Special thanks to my friend who writes “The Healing Arts Therapy” for quite a bit of the research and writing included here. 🙂

Animals in the wild routinely experience life or death situations that stimulate the sympathetic nervous system, dump adrenaline into the bloodstream, and provide the energy or “charge” for a fight, flight, or freeze response. When a zebra is chased by a lion, adrenaline surges and the zebra runs for its life (a flight response). When the zebra knows it has reached safety, it instinctively “discharges” the remaining adrenaline energy by trembling, shaking, twitching, and jumping around. Because the animal completely discharges the excess adrenaline energy after the chase is over, it doesn’t hold the memory or the energy of the trauma in its body.

A zebra doesn’t hold tension in its body from every chase and live in the past thinking, “A lion chased me yesterday and I barely got away.” “A lion chased me last week and I’m still stressed out about it.” “A lion chased me last month and I’m still having nightmares.” (LUCKY ZEBRA!)

Humans have this same discharge instinct available in our hindbrains (reptilian brain), but our frontal lobes overwhelm the hindbrain. Following a traumatic event, we do tremble and shake, but as soon as our frontal lobes engage and become dominant, the discharge process is interrupted, and any remaining excess adrenaline energy is locked into the body.

For example, following a severe car accident, it would be good to shake and tremble until you were done, and you wouldn’t be done until all excess adrenaline energy had been discharged from your system and you felt calm. But you will have to override this shaking and trembling instinct and activate your thinking brain to take down driver’s license and insurance information and answer questions for emergency responders and police reports. Some of the trauma energy may naturally discharge, but the adrenaline energy remaining in your body when your frontal brain becomes dominant will be stuck there.

When the discharge of trauma energy is interrupted and incomplete, the excess adrenaline is still surging around the body trying to do what it is designed to do: provide energy for a fight, flight, or freeze response. When the frontal brain overrides the hindbrain and demands that the body stop trembling and shaking, the body has to do something to contain the adrenaline energy. So it “freezes” it into body tissues with chemical bonds to hold it still. This frozen adrenaline energy remains locked in the muscles and fascia and organs and nervous system until it can be discharged, sometimes for the rest of a person’s life. This held energy can create a multitude of symptoms and compensating behaviours.

Any human behaviour that we can do to release this trapped energy can be very useful to aid in healing.

My story.

It was suggested to me by a long time reader that allowing my story to be told might help reach others. I have hesitated doing this is the past because I just felt the details were not really important. That said? I do agree with this reader and have decided to share some of my story (minus the nitty-gritty) with you today. I do hope it helps you understand me better and I hope it reaches some of you so that you know that you are not alone in this fight for your survival.
I am going to leave my siblings out of this story because I do not feel it is fair to assume how they felt or what they went through personally. If there is a day that the ones still living wish to share with you? I’d happily post it.

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there was a princess.
Scratch that. This is no fairy tale. 😉

I was born at the beginning of 1970 in a winter storm. A fitting beginning for the life that would follow. A winter storm of sorts that lasted decades.
I was born to a family that was quite wealthy and had every available support to raise a child as easily as possible. From other family members, I have been told about how my father was thrilled by my birth but my mother hated me from day one. Probably long before day one in reality. I am sure she viewed her pregnancy as a real inconvenience.

My beginning could have been a good one but right from the very start of my life here on this earth, my mother would begin making choices that would seal my fate and my father would not do anything to stop her.
Their first decision? My name.
Heather was the name of a girl whom my father and mother hated. She’d chased my father around and my mother hated her for it. This is the person whom I was named after. Someone they hated.

I have a few memories of my early childhood but none are good. From 0-4, all I recall is being afraid. Many years ago my grandmothers both told me stories of how I was left in filth and ignored while my father was at work. I was also told that I would scream and beg others to take me with them as they left our house or begged babysitters to keep me. That is just not normal behaviour for a young child. Wanting to leave with anyone rather than staying home with their mother.

Starting at age 4, I was given a gift of new underwear for my birthday. Not the best gift for a 4-year-old but they were a tiny hint as to what that birthday would mean. I would be sold to men who liked little girls and my hair was cut so short that I also looked like a boy and could satisfy men who liked boys as well. This was not a rare occurrence. It was done as often as there was demand and there was ALWAYS a demand.

It was also around this time that I learned to mistrust what people said vs. what they actually did. My mother could be the sweetest, kindest, most gregarious person to anyone on the outside but then a monster behind closed doors. It was her perfect “outside face” that allowed others to believe that she was trying her best but that I was a child with some real issues. She convinced therapists, social workers, a child psychiatrist, doctors, teachers and strangers that the problem was set squarely on my own shoulders. I was the one who hurt myself and then lied with crazy stories to cover it all up. This lasted for my entire life with her. It still goes on to this day! She is perfect while I have mental illnesses.

There was a lot of sexual and physical abuse but even worse than that was the sadistic nature of the emotional abuse. I was made to believe that I was only sold to men (and some women) because I liked it and caused it to happen. If there were bruises or broken bones? I had obviously done something to deserve that. If I got ill. that was my fault too. That woman (my mother) made sure that my self-esteem was now only low but non-existent. I felt less than human and not truly worthy of any kindness. This is the part of her abuse that is the hardest to get over or heal from. I feel like I am worthy and then someone talks about me or doesn’t like me and I am plunged deeply right back in to feeling absolutely worthless. My brain knows that I am a good person, that I give a lot of myself to helping others, that I am smart, and have a lot going for me but my heart still says “You don’t deserve any of it and you are just as worthless as you always were”.

I did try to speak out and I tried to reach for help but these efforts were always met with my mothers wrath. I recall being made to eat a “poop” hot-dog in a bun. If I was going to spread “filthy lies”, I was going to eat filth as well. After a certain number of times where I reached out to ask for help and having that come back at me with a vengeance, I gave up. I still find it hard today to speak up about it because my automatic feeling that accompanies this openness is fear.

There are so many details and situations that I could discuss but I am sure you get the idea by now? It wasn’t just a hard life. It was a life filled with monsters that never hid under my bed. They just stayed out in the open and did as they wished with me as often as they wished it. I many ways this abuse started before I was born and still continues today. 46 years of situations and stories that would make your blood curdle.
If you read my list of Helpers from last week, there are a few more details of which Helpers came in to being and when/why.

I wish I could say that I grew up, moved away and never had to deal with my mother again but I moved 3,500kms to get away from her and 2 months later, she was living 1km down the street from me in her newly purchased home.
I have not spoken to her in over 11 years yet she still speaks about me in public to anyone who will lend her an ear. She tells them lies and makes me look horrible. We live in a very small community and there are many people who have never even met me whom hate me with passion. I’ve been called a liar, a bitch, a whore, a selfish daughter and worse by these people who just believe the words my mother shares. Supposed grownups and mostly “church friends” of my mothers. I really try hard not to let it bother me but she has even gotten to my own children and 2 of my husbands extended family members. The words said under hushed breaths make me want to just run away again and never look back… or just give up and leave this world altogether. It is hard not to taint the good that I have created in my life with that poison. I am only human. It is hard to be hated and even harder to be hated for something you never were.

Sadly it is not only my monster/mother that drags me down like this. My father takes part as well. He is quieter about it but when discussions of how my brother abused me surfaced, it was his voice on the other end of the phone calling me a sociopath. In my heart I know that he believes every word and knows the truth but he is unwilling to face it and it seems that hurting me instead is acceptable to him. I recently cut off all contact with him and I know it was necessary for my future mental health but I feel like a 46 years old orphan who never knew what it was like to have a mom or dad.

I’ve felt very lonely lately. I miss those whom have loved and seen die by suicide due to their PTSD. I ache for my murdered son. My heart has cement poured all over it while my living children find their way home. I really miss the nurse I felt close to while in hospital and the doctor whom I got to know before his sabbatical. Now my current therapist is retiring in a couple of months and I must say goodbye to her as well. I know these supports are not meant to be lifelong friendships and I am good with that but it doesn’t make missing them any easier. These people got me, they understood me, They believed me and truly heard me. They made me a better person. I am just tired and I am trying to find and keep my spark. I will find it again. I have faith in that.

I’ve had some comments about how I do not share negative stories on my blog but I feel that my intentions are perhaps a bit misunderstood. I do not keep things positive because I want people to think life is just all great and I am flying high. I keep it positive because I have dealt with and still deal with more negative in the run of a day that some people experience in a lifetime. By remaining positive myself, I feel like I am adding to the good in the world and that somehow negates some of the bad. It takes a lot of effort on a daily basis to live a good and positive life but I almost always feel that it is worth the effort.

This blog is very important to me. YOU are important to me. When someone says that they heard what they needed to hear or got what they needed to get because of a blog I wrote, it helps me add to the balance of positive in my life. Thank you for that.

If there is more you wish to know, just ask. If it is too personal to be on the blog, I will respond with a private email.
All the best to each of you. ❤

Hand drawn by Heather. For sale. $20
Buy an 8×10 “Be Gentle”

The Trauma Tree

Childhood trauma is often overlooked, greatly misunderstood and one of the most damaging things that can happen to a child. The effects will last a lifetime.

This is the issue that I want to bring up today. I believe this view needs to change in society. Not only for children now but for those of us that were children when we were affected by trauma. I believe that understanding this interrupted brain growth process will help us all be more compassionate to others and most importantly to ourselves.

One of the most maddening things I hear is that I was was too young to really remember the traumas that I experienced as an infant and toddler, therefore I should be fine. While on one hand, this is true. I can not accurately recall the exact details of the abuse, this view is still completely and utterly wrong, in fact it is the complete opposite. This tree is a great graphic to help me explain what I mean.

The roots represent the prenatal stage of growth.
Where the tree touches the ground is birth.
The trunk is infancy and early childhood.
The lower branches are childhood.
The upper branches are your teen years.
Adulthood is at the top branches.

If trauma occurs at any stage, the rest of the tree’s growth (which represents your forming brain) beyond that point is negatively affected. The older you are, the more life experiences and knowledge you have to cope and the brain is not actively forming as quickly. (ie. Abusing a toddler affects the entire tree from the trunk up. You end up with a tree build on a very insecure base. If the abuse happens as an adult, you have a good base and strong branches so you have some ability to cope better than a child would.)
Side note: I said cope “better”, not easier. ❤

Childhood trauma is often complex and can be catastrophic, leaving a lifetime of struggles in almost all facets of life. This is significantly true of trauma exposure during the prenatal and infancy stages (roots and trunk) when the brain is at its most critical and active phases of development. The younger a person is when exposed to trauma, the higher their risk of developing trauma related disorders including learning disorders, developmental disorders, cognitive deficits, attention issues, attachment disorders, and so much more.

Prenatal trauma is hard to understand so I have found some examples of how trauma can happen even while in the womb.

• a toxic or unwelcoming womb
• divorce or a bereaved parent
• a considered or attempted abortion
• being unwanted
• adoption (deep abandonment)
• a lack of resources
• twin loss
• drugs, alcohol and nicotine taken during pregnancy
• violence and other ongoing stresses.

A developing brain needs a healthy chemistry to develop properly. A brain that is developing while flooded with trauma induced chemicals (such as cortisol and adrenaline) fails to form healthy, strong connections.
Trauma at this stage will affect the formation of  the tree (your brain) at the roots. Every single part of that tree with be affected.

Birth trauma examples:

• life/death situations
• being born unusually quickly
• a very long labor
• adoption
• the cord around the neck or getting stuck
• being unwanted
• c-sections

I want to point out that these are examples of birth trauma but it is more about how these events were handled. Having a c-section that was planned will not be a trauma but a mother far in to her labour when an emergency arises and she is whisked off to have an emergency c-section can be if she does not have enough support through this process.
This trauma is like taking the new roots and putting them in unhealthy soil.

There are numerous ways a young child can be affected by trauma. Several examples include:

• sexual or physical abuse
• natural disaster (hurricane, earthquake, flood)
• car or plane crashes
• war
• witnessing a death, murder or suicide
• kidnapping
• rape
• shootings
• incest
• fires
• severe neglect
• violence in the home

This trauma is usually where some memory comes in to play. It is better understood by society how these events can be traumatic but often people will assume that the child is too young to remember. This is absolutely incorrect. The child may not recall details (who, what, when, where, why) but they will forever feel the trauma within their bodies and their minds even if they can not accurately place exactly what happened to them. Details are not needed to have proof of abuse.

I think abuse of teens and adults is more easily understood so I will skip on to the effects of trauma keeping in mind that the earlier the trauma began, the shakier the tree. Abuse of an adult may produce any of these symptoms but the treatment is based on a firmer base which can make it easier to treat or deal with. Having support around you is also incredibly important. An adult woman who is is violated can have no support or lots of support. This usually affects the outcome and persistent symptoms greatly.

Symptoms of trauma can include:

• Anxiety, terror
• Withdrawing from others
• Constantly being alert
• Re-enactment of situation with various objects
• Irritability
• Difficulty sleeping
• Lack of energy
• Inability to concentrate
• Amnesia
• Poor self-image
• Bedwetting (not only a childhood thing)
• Guilty feelings
• Showing signs of obsessive or compulsive behaviors
• Panic attacks
• Recurrent nightmares, flashbacks
• Shyness
• Avoidance of situations similar to the traumatic event
• Pain with or without an obvious cause
• Inability to give or receive proper love and affection
• Trust issues that vary from wariness to an absolute disbelief in anyone or anything

Sadly the list can be much longer but I felt those were the major touching points.

In the end, I hope this blog helps you be a bit more compassionate with yourself and/or with others who have been traumatized. Quite often trauma can stunt/slow/stop a persons emotional maturity at the point where the trauma took place. You might be 35-45-55-65+but trauma can leave you emotionally much younger. One therapist told me that I am about 400 years old intellectually but about 4 emotionally. I am still just learning the ropes. I agree and I do not see this as a putdown. With my background, it is great that I’ve reached 4.

With good therapy, a supportive environment, medications or supplements as needed and a boatload of self compassion, we can continue to find ways to build a more supportive tree. I like to picture building a beautiful stone wall around mine. Stone by stone, it gets taller and stronger. Yours can too.

My tree had DID so the rock wall takes a little longer to encompass my tree but it’s a process/project worth working for.

Blaming the Victim

There has been a huge news story about a town that is about 45 minutes away from me. A woman firefighter was being harassed and even exposed to pornographic video during a training session while surrounded by the otherwise male only fire department. This blog will not be solely about that case but it is where I wanted to start because the reaction of the locals in the area is sadly very normal. They have largely supported the perpetrators! Rallies to support the men, death threats to the female victim… I want to act shocked but I am not. This is the world that we live in.

My experience has been the same. Even as recently as two years ago. After exposing a family member who did me great harm and being totally willing to provide proof, my entire family turned against me. I was called a sociopath, my proof was never looked at or heard, I was accused of trying to ruin people’s lives and relationships… The person who did the harm and continues to do harm still sits at the family table on holidays, has regular contact with everyone including the children (I did call the authorities to try to protect the children). This person has never been called names or been accused of lying.
I don’t tell you this for sympathy. I tell you because this firefighter is not alone in being victimized and then being blamed for it.

As a society, what are we teaching each other when the victim can still be blamed for causing their abuse? I know that many of my readers will understand this blog from the inside out. I know that so many of you have been horribly hurt and then also used as the scapegoat. It is viewed as though YOU are the problem.

Someone gets raped. Society asks “What was she wearing? Was she drinking? What did she expect was going to happen?”.

A child opens up to an adult about being abused. Society is mortified if it is a story in the news about some unknown child but if that child is actually coming to them with that information??? It is with a very heavy heart that I tell you that most of society will not believe the child. They don’t want to get involved. The child must be looking for attention.

As an adult, men and women try to finally break their silence on childhood abuse but since these same people are now also dealing with mental health issued that were very often caused by that abuse? It is easy to look at the abuser and see them doing well in life but here is this mentally ill person saying that they were abused…
Who do you think gets believed more often than not?

I kept my silence for years because whenever I broke my silence, I was blamed. Now that I refuse to stay silent, guess who gets the blame?
“Didn’t you tell anyone?” I tried. I put myself in harm’s way for nothing.
“Why didn’t you run away?” Seriously? It started when I was still an infant. Run to where?
“Didn’t doctors/teachers/social workers find out or try to help you?” Red flags were raised so many times that I am sure a satellite over Ontario can see the red flags with the naked eye but did any of them ever take it far enough to actually help me? No.
“Didn’t you speak out when you were older?” Sure I did! I told a counsellor at school. I spent a whole afternoon with her. I felt heard and cared for. I thought she might actually be my way out… until I left her office and she called my mother to tell her that I’d been in her office weaving wild stories and I needed help.” Yes, I am serious!
I also know that I am not alone. I hear this story in different words time after time after time.

Even when we do take it “all the way”, it is such a waste of time. Several years ago, one of my children pressed charges against someone whom we had accepted in to our family. This abuse went on for almost 2 years and included other girls. At least 35 other girls. The proof was insurmountable and he was found guilty of 9 counts of sexual assault, 1 count of forcible confinement, and another count of uttering a death threat. Know what he got for that? ONE YEAR PROBATION.
… and I got his middle finger and a smile as he left the courthouse.

If a mature, married, well-spoken, respected firefighter gets death threats in 2016 for speaking up and making people face the crap they caused? What do you think women learn from that?  We learn to stay quiet.

I write this blog today because I want to offer another lesson.
Refuse to stay quiet. Refuse to allow others to shame you in to silence. You are not the one at fault here.
If you are in a good and stable place, stand up for yourself and do not back down. Even if no one believes you. There are people who do. They are just too afraid to admit it.
If you are in a vulnerable space but still wish to speak up? Do it anonymously or only to people whom you trust. Just do not allow that silence to smother you.

I no longer care who feels uncomfortable when I speak out. My silence allowed people to put me right back in to where I could be abused over and over again. Perhaps not as obviously but if you call someone a sociopath and refuse to even look at her proof then freeze her out of her family? That is abusive.

I have over 3,000 readers now so if the only thing we do today is refuse to allow others to blame a victim? Just one time? That will be over 3,000 stories that will be heard and believed. That story might even be your own… and I believe you. I will stand beside you. I will refuse to allow others to silence you.

What an amazing footprint we can have on the world if we each just affect one life. Your own or someone you know. Use the most powerful words that I have ever heard in my lifetime.
“I hear you and I believe you.”

Karma

• Karma – An action now becomes a future consequence.
• Karma has no menu. You get served what you deserve.
• “Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.” Eckhart Tolle
• “Karma comes after everyone eventually. You can’t get away with screwing people over your whole life, I don’t care who you are. What goes around comes around. That’s how it works. Sooner or later the universe will serve you the revenge that you deserve.” Jessica Brody
• “Even chance meetings are the result of karma… Things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.” Haruki Murakami

I was having my usual wonderful Sunday morning chat with my good friend D. She asked if I believed that life happened to us as we think it. Remember that book “The Secret”? What you think, you become. That whole thing? I don’t but that led further in to a conversation that spoke of karma and getting what you deserve. I have no idea how most people take this whole idea and perhaps it is not triggering to most people at all. If you’ve had a decent life, is it comforting to think that you are getting back what you put out there?

Both D. and I are trauma survivors. Heavy duty childhood trauma compounded by events in adulthood as well. Karma to us seems horrible.
If the idea is that you get what you deserve, what on this earth did we ever do to deserve the lives we were handed? Lives that will likely never be completely free of PTSD or its affects. We can (and we have) improved A LOT and we keep working hard but the cards we were dealt were impossible to work with.

I remember telling someone many, many years ago a little about my mother and her kind response to me was “Karma’s a bi**h. She’ll get back what she gave one day.” Well… I felt comforted for all of 2 minutes until my mind said, “What did I do to deserve what I got?”. That thought took all the self blame, shame and guilt that already lived inside of me and just nailed the last nail in the coffin that I had been trying to escape from. I shut my mouth that day and never told one person about the total package of my mother again for over 30 years.

You see, as abuse survivors, we are filled with guilt as a way to keep us quiet. We are told that we wanted what we got. We were told that we deserved it and we caused it. In a way, we are being taught that we are being dealt the karma that we greatly deserve. If we were a better child, teenager or adult, who behaved properly and didn’t screw everything up all the time,  we would have had better lives.

For years I heard those messages about karma and allowed them to settle inside my soul. I believed the messages that were taught to me in an evil way then cemented in to me by well meaning people who were directing their words of karma towards the abusers but landed them flat on to me.

It was only 3 years ago that I learned that I did nothing to cause what happened to me. I learned that I could have never asked for it, wanted it, or screwed up enough to justify what was done to me. I was a child who grew in to a young adult that believed I didn’t deserve any better and abusers took advantage of that. If I’d never been blessed with a chance to truly begin to heal and recover, I’d still not know that I deserved better and I woudl still believe I was getting what was deserved. My karma.

And just for a moment, I want to take a look at my beliefs.
If someone did me harm, do I want them to be harmed?
When my mother dies, do I want her to come back in a new life (as some believe) and experienced what she put me through?
Do I really want to spend my life holding out hope that bad things will happen to bad people?
I don’t.

What do I want then if it isn’t karma?
I want the people who hurt me to see the error of their ways and stop what they are doing. I know that many did over the years. It can not take away what they did to me but it can hopefully be one step closer to it not happening to anyone else.
Do I want my mother to come back and live my life? Absolutely not! That would only mean one more generation of pain and hundreds more abusers out there. While I do have some days when she’s hurt me again (I have no contact at all with her but that has not prevented her poison to continuously seep out of her every pore) that I feel very vengeful, but within a day or two I am back to wishing that she would just stop. Just stop. That is all I want. I don’t want her to hurt the way that I have because that only perpetuates the cycle of abuse. I want her to stop torturing me but more than that? I just want the negativity to stop with her and never attach to me. I refuse to be that person. Negative, hateful, wishing karma… I just want it to stop.

If this blog today makes you think about karma, the negative message that it sends to the victims and the negativity that it perpetuates in this world, I hope that perhaps today you can try to find a way to let it stop where it is and never continue on with you.

Now for a more positive quote with a terrific message for all.

Dirty word of the day: Integration

I know this will be a controversial post for some people. Many medical professionals do not agree with my views… which is fine because I do not agree with  theirs. 😉 Joking aside, many doctors, therapists, and even some people within the dissociative identity disorder (DID) community feel that integration is the holy grail of healing persons from DID.
To me? Integration is a dirty word.

If you have not read this blog before, I call my “alters”, my Helpers. Hence the name of the blog. 😉

Even now while writing this, I can feel my inner world starting to freak out. Anxiety, worry, a wish to run away, feeling overwhelmed, getting angry… that is what my Helpers deal with every time this word is said. I feel it too. Big time. I feel totally in control today and I am always out front when writing but I can still feel the weight of inner feelings especially when they are shaken up.

I can not speak for everyone else out there but I can speak for myself and I will express how I personally feel about the issue of integration. If you disagree, I’d love for you to write a blog on it and forward it on to me. I’d love to read other opinions. 🙂

Having DID is not easy. Every situation that happens garners my own emotions but then the Helpers step in with theirs as well. Have you ever been at a big get-together and try to get everyone to stop and listen to you? Can you imagine trying to come to agreements about certain important issues? There will be as many opinions as their are people. DID is a lot like that every day.
That said? Some of the same people who may drive you batty would also rush to your aid if you suddenly collapsed or started having real troubles coping. DID is a lot like that too.

I believe that my Helpers started coming in to existence between the ages of 2 and 4. I know for sure there were several there when I was 4 and 5 but I have a feeling they were there earlier. For me? I’ve never had a life without my Helpers in it. For the purpose of this blog, I will set aside all the confusion and thinking I saw dead people and just discuss my view since being properly diagnosed.

As much as life with DID can get hectic, I am never bored and never lonely. I have company at all times and honestly? I am not sure I’d enjoy life so much without it. I was once on medication that made them almost silent (and made me a zombie) and that was a very sad and lonely time for me. I am also ALWAYS full of ideas for new things and ways to use things that I myself may have never thought of.

I also have a huge issue with integrating these people whom I have come to view as such a big part of my life. Who do I get rid of first? Little “Hannah Banana”? My ever faithful sidekick Rielyn? Old man Oscar? Tilly who helped me birth a baby when I was too young to mentally handle it on my own? I am sorry but full integration is never going to happen because each of these Helpers are important to me as individuals.

I am also very aware that each of them is a part of me. A very compartmentalized part of me but still essentially “me”. While it would be all neat and tidy to roll the Helpers and I in to one person, I honestly feel I would end up completely overwhelmed. At least right now there is separation between all these opinions and emotions.

So what do I want? What do I feel is healthy?
Teamwork.
Rather than working on getting each Helper to integrate, I spend that time trying to work out the kinks in our relationships and certain actions. I will use Jenna as an example. She was always having issues with self harm and quite often these “events” were incredibly scary. I still have many scars. Trying to integrate her causes panic, more dissociation and more self harm. Working out a deal between us was FAR more productive. Jenna admitted in writing and through art that she often used self harm not only as a release but also in trying to fix old scars. A deal was made that if there was no self harm for 6 months, we would get a tattoo to cover one set of scars. 6 months later was another tattoo to cover more. Jenna LOVES her tattoo’s and I love them too. She found a new strength during a year of no self harming that she still possesses today. Integration made her run away and refuse help but making a deal with her stopped the harmful behavior and allowed me to take care of her.

One by one, we work out deals. We make rules that certain age groups MUST follow. No one under 18 drives. No one under 18 signs important documents. Only I (Heather) goes to therapy. If anyone has a concern, they can write it down and I will take care of it or help them with it. There are a few other rules that are for safety, friendship, being creative and so forth. These rules are enough for me to feel good about my team of Helpers.

There will always be mess ups, uncomfortable situations, missing time, forgotten occasions and other issues that persons with DID have but would full integration solve all of these issues? And what about all the PTSD triggers they help me through? How often I would have fled out of a movie theater, ran my car off the road at a fright, been unable to function at social events before I was able to stay more present? My life would have been far worse. I am sure of it. My Helpers came in to being for excellent reasons and I do not wish to thank them by making them null and void.  Also, I am aware of 34 Helpers… integration could or would take FOREVER. I’d rather live my life with my team. They help me and I help them. For me personally? That is enough.

Rules

Stitched in.

This might sound weird but when I think back to my childhood and think about the lessons I was taught, I can picture certain adults sitting inside my body sewing things on to my organs in order to be sure they stay there and are secure. I don’t know why I have this vision but this is what I see.

My adult mind knows who I am and yet when speaking to my therapist this morning, I caught myself using a name for myself that is definitely not mine. I replied to a question about honesty and how I just can not allow even the tiniest of lies to escape my lips because “I don’t want people to ever find out that I am a sociopath”. After all this therapy, that word still comes in to my description of myself! Annoying!
I was only a very young girl when this word was sewn in to me for the first time. 4? 5? Maybe 6? Right at the age when I started noticing that my life wasn’t normal and occasionally said things that I shouldn’t have (according to my monster/mother).

“She can’t tell the difference between the truth and a lie yet. The other adults would nod and throw me a pitying glance.
Stitch here, stitch there. “I don’t know the difference between truth and lies.”

“Heather has a great imagination for sure!!! Hopefully she will eventually join us in reality.”
Stitch here, stitch there. “These things that are happening are not real.”

“Heather seems to have some deep-seated issues. She keeps hurting herself.” And the doctor who was kind to me the first 2 times I had severe bladder infections is now scolding me and telling me that I need to be more careful or I will cause real permanent damage.
Stitch here, stitch there. “Being hurt and in pain is my fault. If I was more careful, it wouldn’t happen. It is MY fault.”

“She just wants attention and will do or say anything to get it.” My tears, my pleading, begging, reaching out is now ignored by any adult who has contact with me.
Stitch here, stitch there. “My fear, my pain, my need for help are just my own crazy attempts to get attention.”

And when I had the courage to tell my father about that janitor at school abusing me? “He’s a family man. You don’t want to ruin his life.”
Stitch here, stitch there. “If I tell on anyone, I am responsible for whatever negative consequences they or their families suffer.”

Then add “She’s been diagnosed as a sociopath” to my teachers. “She’s been diagnosed as a sociopath” to my doctors. “She’s been diagnosed as a sociopath” to my friends and their parents. “She’s been diagnosed as a sociopath” was used to explain away ANYTHING that could not otherwise be blamed on me. Even to those who questioned such a diagnoses in a young child or early teen…. “Oh we’ve been to hell and back with her. We’ve done everything we can think of. This is the only diagnoses that the professionals have been able to state with any clarity.”
Stitch here, stitch there. “I am a sociopath.”

I didn’t even know what a sociopath was when I started telling people (professionals) who  asked me that I was one. Even at the age of 43, I went in to Homewood for in-patient treatment and I gave them my diagnoses of being a sociopath alongside PTSD, depression and anxiety.
It was sewn so deeply in to my core that even I did not know that it wasn’t true.
Stitch here. Stitch there. Sew her up. She’s convinced this is all her fault. A job well done!

Sociopath is not just a word to me. It is not just a diagnoses. I spent my entire life trying to be so honest and so transparent just so that other people would never learn my nasty secret. Honest Heather, kind Heather, thoughtful Heather, good friend Heather, educated/smart Heather, giving Heather… those were just elaborate fronts I made to hide the fact that I was a sociopath. I was more afraid of people finding out my real truth than I was of anything else so I lived my life proving that I was anything but all of that.
I knew the “truth” and was terrified others would see it too.
It affected every part of my life. I was afraid to get too close to people, I was afraid to tell them about anything from my past, I lived in constant fear, I could not trust anyone around me because I knew that if they ever uncovered my truth, they would dump me like a hot potato.

So here I am 3 years later. I understand now that I was brainwashed. I was force-fed the lie that everything that happened to me happened BECAUSE of me.
I’ve begun to really open up to others in a way I could not do before. I am learning to trust and I actually have a few people in my life that I can actually say I trust fully. That is incredible.
I know 100% for sure that I am not and never was a sociopath. My therapist actually says that I am on the total other end of the spectrum. I refuse to lie about anything and I care more about others that I do about myself more often than not.

So then why today does the sentence “I don’t want others to realize that I am a sociopath” still come flying out of my mouth? It was sewn in. Sewn deeply, fully, to many different parts of me. It became more than a word. It became who I was. I am Heather the sociopath.

So why share this? Well, if there is one thing I have learned over these last 3 years and especially in writing this blog? Everything that I have been through has also touched others.
Perhaps you are “the liar, “the attention seeker”, “the drama king/queen”, “the idiot”…
Maybe you are the “waste of space”, “the useless piece of trash”.
Will you ever get anything right? Are you the fat and ugly one? The horrible daughter, wife, mother or the male counterparts?

I have no clue what you were taught and I have no idea what was sewn in to you but there is only one way to work towards ridding it from your system after you are actually able to see that you are, and never were the real problem.
We have to open up those stitches. It might take a long time like it is for me or maybe you can just rip them out and move on but no matter how long it takes? You are NOT what was sewn in to you.
You are you. Amazing, incredible, fantastically human and therefore flawed yet still perfect. JUST THE WAY YOU ARE. I sit here nearly in tears because I just want to know you hear me and try to believe me if only for a moment.

I am Heather, the sociopath, the attention seeker, the idiot, the troublemaker, the cause of all bad events.
I am Heather, the writer, the artist, the good friend and amazing wife (just ask him!), the person others go to when they want the truth. I was told that I listen and offer suggestions with grace. That made my heart sing. I’ve worked hard on the graceful part. I am many things. Some good and some that still need work but I am NOT a sociopath or any of the other words that were sewn in to me.

I have a few stitch removers. Does anyone want to join me in removing a few unnecessary seams?

Have a wonderful weekend!

An alternate reality.

I live between 2 worlds.

In one world, it is December 21st and there is Christmas everywhere. Nice Christmas. Loving Christmas. Peaceful, joyous, and hopeful.
It is not a perfect Christmas. There is too much to do, we miss some of our loved ones a little more than usual, the cookies got burnt and we still haven’t found the perfect gift for Aunt Ellen but all in all, Christmas is beautiful.
All those pretty lights, magical trees, excited children, memories of Christmas past that brings  a smile to our faces.
I see cards, emails and Facebook posts that never seem to end that announce the glorious joy of Christmastime.

Then their is another world.
It is December 21st and the world is filled with loneliness, hurt feelings and sadness. This other world is filled with people who try to be happy and play along with the people who live in the other world but no matter how hard they try, they are not a part of it. Not this year anyways.
Their are good days and moments of joy but overwhelmingly, a sadness has settled in to our hearts.
Those beautiful cards wishing you a joyous season, emails from loving friends who try to be there for you and want your Christmas to be bright, and that friggen Facebook (sorry Facebook) filled with post after post after post about love, joy, pictures of children with Santa or families spending time together are everywhere. Then add in how people from that other world miss their mothers or fathers…

I have always promised to be honest and even though I will be sort of crapping on Christmas here a bit? It is how I feel and I know that I am not at all alone.

For people who live in the first world? I am so happy for you. I really am. I wish you nothing but continued joy and wonderful memories. I hope that the things that go wrong stay small and make you laugh. If you are missing a loved one? I am very sorry for your loss. I really am. I am happy for you though that your memories of that person are good and loving. Missing someone shows that you loved them and I am sure they loved you too . That is a gift.

And for the second world.
Christmas is hard. I know it is. I would never wish even one lonely or triggering moment on anyone but I know that Christmas is filled with them.
It is hard for those who live in world one to understand why Christmas is so hard for us. They try to cheer us with some little thing that we do have in our lives and encourage us to be grateful. I get it. They mean good by it.
Those loving posts about mothers and father who have passed are the most triggering for me. Just as Mothers and Fathers Days are hard, so is Christmas. I read this and try to be happy for the person who feels it but it feels like dagger to my heart. There are no good memories for me and I feel even more lonely than I did before.
I will be honest here. This post just makes me want to cry.
Your Mom… no one can replace her, no one can compare to her, no one can love you more than she can, there is nothing like a mothers love…
This just reminds me that the one person who can never be replaced and should have loved me more than anything else in the world doesn’t exist for me.
There is no love from Mom in my life. In fact? She’s done her very best to hurt me and continue to hurt me in any ways she can for 45 years and counting.

So I am happy for first world people who feel this but I also want people to understand how this can feel like a dagger to other.
Posts about loving mothers, protective fathers, loving families and Christmas joy are beautiful but they are not everyone’s reality.
Plus… it is rude to reply to these loving posts with words like “Bullsh*t!”, “Must be nice!”, “My mother was none of this.”, or “Are you just trying to torture me?”.
No one from world 2 wants to ruin things for those in world 1.

So what do we do?
I was thinking that I may start a new line of cards for different occasions. I can all them “Alternate Reality Cards” and they will go something like this…

That would be a better post for me to see. At least I would feel understood. It would be just as easy to make them for fathers, brothers, sisters, so-called families and family friends. The list is endless.

You all know that I always try to lean on the side of positivity but quite frankly? This week? This is how I feel and if there are others out there that are feeling the same way? I want them to know they are not alone.
Merry It’s Nearly Over Thank Goodness!!!!
Hugs to all!

The Opposite of Love.

The opposite of love is?
Hate?
Until about a week ago, I thought so.

I am asked on a fairly regular basis if I hate my mother. I have a hard time answering that one. I used to. When I was younger, I hated her more than I can even express. Her words were like daggers and her actions sliced me in to pieces. I hated her for the damage she did and continued to do throughout my whole life including even now.

I broke off all contact with her in 2004 and grieved her loss like a death. Why it was so hard to let go of such a monster? I have no idea. The only reasoning I can come up with was that I was grieving what I wanted to have in a mother. Not what I actually had. Breaking off all contact removed that slim hope that one day she would see my worthiness and find a way to love me.
My head was a messed up place back then.

After the first year of true suffering and grief, all that emotion began to fade. I no longer really hated her. I really didn’t expect her to change. I stopped waiting for her to become a human being with feelings. I gave up on waiting for her to see my worth. It has taken me a long time but I am no longer dependent on her or anyone else to tell me that I am a worthwhile person. It feels wonderful. Thank you therapy!

So where does that leave the answer to that question? “Do you hate her?”
The answer is actually no. I don’t have enough energy left in my mind to give her that power. I’ve given up. I feel deflated. I feel sad that things couldn’t have been different. I wish she’d been able to be even a tiny bit of a mother to me beyond giving birth.
So what do I say? That has always left me confused.

Then my friend and I were talking and she said something very profound. Her words were “People think the opposite of love is hate but it’s not. The opposite of love is indifference.”

So how do I feel about my mother? Do I hate her? No.
I am indifferent which is actually far worse than hate.
I think hate still implies that you have feelings for that person. Good or bad, they have some power over you. My mother has lost that power over me. Feeling hurt by how she speaks about me is another topic altogether but that is not her power. That is her weakness.

I still get blown away by her actions which a decade later are still mean and taunting. I am afraid of what she may do one day. I know she is capable of anything at all. She has no moral compass. I just wish she would go away and leave me alone as I have done with her.
I am done. So very done.
I am indifferent.