Don’t Leave Me Alone! #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

I am one of those autistic people who doesn’t like to be left alone. That is, I do need a significant amount of alone time, but it has to be on my terms. That might seem weird or normal, I don’t even know. I mean, I’m used to it being seen as weird here at the care home. Staff see it as a sign that I crave attention somehow. Which, even if it were true, well, attention is a normal human need.

I am not sure where I’m headed with this post, but I often feel like a fake autistic for feeling like I don’t want or need to be left alone when I’m in distress. Probably because my former psychologist at the psychiatric hospital used it as a reason to diagnose me with dependent personality disorder. Which I might have after all, I’m not sure. Then again, the treatment for that isn’t to leave someone to their own resources just like that.

I often have this statement in my head: “Don’t leave me alone!” It is cried out, in my head, by a child’s voice. I am pretty sure it is from a book and in Dutch, it sounds different, but I’m writing it like this here for the purposes of this post. Don’t leave me alone. Never leave me alone. Well, people always will. That’s life.

This post was written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday for this week. The prompt is “left alone”.

Listening to My Inner Voice(s)

Posted on by Astrid

The day two prompt in The Goddess Journaling Workbook is about listening to your inner voice. This is incredibly hard. Not just because I have multiple inner voices, but because a lot of them carry shame.

Today I found out Onno van der Hart, one of the world-s top experts on dissociation, had his psychotherapy license revoked indefinitely for violating a patient’s boundaries. He was the main proponent of the structural dissociation theory. This theory is controversial in its own right, as it dehumanizes alters. For example, therapists are supposed to only talk to the host or apparently normal part, who is then supposed to relay messages from the other alters or emotional parts. One of the main problems with this is shame. The host often feels uncomfortable sharing the other alters’ thoughts because they are painful.

So, as an act of radical rebellion, I am going to now let each alter who’s willing to speak on this issue share their thoughts.

I knew this. DID is bullshit. It’s not real, at least in my case. I’m so happy I am not diagnosed, as this Onno van der Hart, a so-called expert, took twenty years therapying with a client only to make her dependent and then dump her like a pile of poo.

I’m scared. I wish I still had the diagnosis so I could get trauma therapy. I want my therapist to comfort me. I don’t want to integrate, but I do want to process stuff. I’m not sure. I’m scared that no-one will believe me now that the Netherlands’ top expert on DID lost his license.

I don’t want no fucking therapy. I don’t want to be forced to be anything I’m not. I just want to be me and be myself and be accepted.

Fuck. I’m manipulative. The whole trauma thing is made up.

Well, I realize I’m not really even capable of letting each of us share their honest thoughts. I still find that I was going to redact out the four-letter words. I feel tons of shame surrounding this whole controversy and the DID thing as well.

As a side note, Onno van der Hart wasn’t sued for his theory of structural dissociation. I think it will continue to guide psychotherapists and the multidisciplinary guideline for treating DID. Van der Hart lost his license for boundary-violation, including unloading his own personal problems onto the patient, sending her unsolicited, emotionally laden E-mails, etc. My husband said he was just trying to cash on her and if no-one saw it, something’s wrong with psychotherapists in general. I’m not sure how I feel about that.