#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 5, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Hello all and a happy Sunday evening! Today I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I honestly crave a cup of strong coffee right now, as I’ve only had one cup so far today and it’s past 6PM. Unfortunately, I think all I can get now is decaf. Anyway, how have you been? Grab a cup of decaf, tea or your favorite type of soda and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I would rant about the meeting I had with my nurse practitioner and community psychiatric nurse last Friday. I was very worried about this meeting beforehand. It didn’t go as I expected at all, but that wasn’t a good thing.

The reason we had the meeting was to decide whether I can get trauma treatment, such as EMDR. I voiced my fear that, if I tried EMDR or the like, my parts would come forward and sabotage the therapy. Instead of reassuring me or even asking further questions, my nurse practitioner said he doesn’t believe I have alters because he’s to his knowledge always seen Astrid. He added that everyone has different sides to themself.

For whatever reason, the whole EMDR/trauma therapy thing went out the window too. He wants me to do acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). He recently trained in this and it seems this is more of a reason for him to want a guinea pig than that he genuinely thinks it’d suit my symptoms. My husband joked that it’s almost like, if I go to the hospital with a broken leg and the orthopedic surgeon isn’t on call, they’d send an oncologist to give me chemo.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that after the meeting, my staff and I went to get fries at a snackbar. We also drove by a store to get me a large bag of sweets. I had originally intended to get cold tea too. Oh, I forgot to offer you all some of that. It’s basically herbal tea that you put into cold water and then let sit for ten minutes. It’s good.

If we were having coffee, I would also tell you that I spent a night at my husband’s yesterday. It was good. We had roti delivered for dinner.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that despite the not-so-great weather, I did go for a walk today once I got back to the care facility. There’s a new staff who’s being trained to work on my unit and she took me for a walk. Unfortunately, it seems as though my Fitbit battery won’t charge. Maybe it’s time for a new one.

How have you been?

Not Quite a (Traumagenic) System?

Posted on by Astrid

I feel so awful right now. The visit from my parents went so well and this is actually confusing me. I mean, I consider some of my childhood experiences traumatic. Quite a few, in fact. How can this be the case if I have such loving parents? I mean, yes, they’re still a bit odd. My father just talked about the birds and butterflies and flowers we encountered. He didn’t ask me any questions or share anything about himself. That doesn’t make him a CPTSD-engendering parent though.

I had a dream yesterday about me needing to take the SCID-D assessment for dissociative disorders and it came back showing that I don’t have a dissociative disorder. It was probably triggered by my having read a message in a DID support group about how plurality is now something anyone can claim because of endogenic (born multiple) systems etc. We’re not an endogenic system, but can we claim to be traumagenic? Can we even claim to be a system at all?

I mean, other than online and to a few specific people who know us closely, we don’t share our names. It could just be that I gave names to different emotions or aspects of myself that I find hard to understand. This is what my community psychiatric nurse said on our last appointment. She said the consultant recommending EMDR for my traumatic experiences hadn’t recommended any type of “deep-digging” therapy. Not that I want that, but on some deep level (no pun intended), her claim that my parts are feelings, made me feel invalidated.

I told my CPN that, whichever treatment approach I try, my parts always show up and disrupt the process. She countered that we hadn’t tried EMDR yet. I know, but this approach is known to cause worsening of dissociation in those with dissociative disorders. Can it get me to “split” even more, even if I’m not a genuine multiple in the first place?

When I shared my doubts/denial on an E-mail list for DID, someone replied that I sign my E-mails with lots of different names. Well, that’s as easy as typing on a keyboard. No-one needs to have any special characteristics to be able to do this. It doesn’t prove my multiplicity. Besides, I know there are parts and they have names, but are these parts truly differentiated enough?

In a sense, it doesn’t matter. I’m not planning on seeking a DID/OSDD diagnosis anytime soon and by the time I might have overcome my fear of psychological evaluations, I guess DID has been removed from the DSM. Either that or Onno van der Hart and other scandalous therapists have given it such a bad name that no-one in the whole country will support me. And that’s even assuming that said assessment would show some type of dissociative disorder. Then again, if I’m claiming plurality for the sake of it, am I not contributing to the stigma surrounding DID myself?

In addition to the dream I had yesterday, I have recurring dreams about my parents finding out I’m in childhood trauma survivor support groups. They always confront me and my husband always sides with them. I guess I should leave those groups in case it really happens. I mean, I’m not an adult child of normal parents, maybe, but then again who is?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 27, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Happy late Saturday evening everyone! Welcome to another edition of the #WeekendCoffeeShare. Today is my birthday. I think I still have tompouces in the fridge, so grab a cup of coffee, tea or your favorite cold drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I was stressed out all week about my parents visiting yesterday. As regular readers of my blog may know, my parents are big on independence and in denial of most of my disabilities. They don’t think I should be in a care facility. Like I said yesterday though, they weren’t overly judgmental. My father made a rather bad pun on the facility’s name and my mother asked whether no-one had taught my nonspeaking fellow clients to talk, but that was about it.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about all the lovely presents I got for my birthday. My parents gave me a drinking bottle with fruit infusion filter. I’d had it on my wishlist for years and am now loving making fruit-infused water. They also gave me a spiky or hedgehog ball. My father said it looked like a virus and my husband joked that they’d gifted me corona. Lastly, they gave me some punches, which I can use in cardmaking or other craft projects. They got these as well as the spiky ball at the thrift store.

My husband gave me a sturdy bookcase for my iPhone. It’s supposed to protect your phone against dropping from 2 meters. I’d rather not try it out though.

Lastly, my mother-in-law gifted me this giant teddy bear! It’s 1.60m tall, which is even taller than I am. I love it!

Giant Bear

I’m still not sure what to call it. I initially called it just Giant Bear, because my big panda was called Big Bear and my not even that little bear stuffy was called Little Bear. Or something. I can’t remember, honestly. Then I figured I should be calling it Joenie, which is my nickname for my husband. My husband said to call it Baloo after the bear in Jungle Book. I guess I’ll call it whatever strikes my fancy at that moment. Rainbow/Sofie, the unicorn, also has two names, after all.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I ate some delicious Domino’s pizza this evening. My husband and I had it delivered to the care facility. I had the spicy chicken pizza and so did he, as my husband usually ends up liking my pizza more if we each order something different. I loved it! Then I had some ice cream for dessert. I got a nice present from the care facility too: a Domino’s gift voucher. I already have a reputation for eating lots of yummy food, even though today was the first time I’d ordered Domino’s since coming to the care facility last September.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that next week, I have a meeting with my community psychiatric nurse and nurse practitioner from mental health. We’re going to discuss my possibly getting EMDR treatment for some of my traumatic experiences. Now that my visit with my parents went well, I feel slightly guilty about considering some of my experiences with them traumatic, but well.

If we were having coffee, I would report on my steps as usual. This week so far, I reached just over 60K. I managed 69K last week and am doubtful I’ll reach that this week, as I’m probably going to have a lazy Sunday tomorrow.

How are you all doing?

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.

When I Was Five

Posted on by Astrid

This week it’s 29 years ago that I spent a week in the children’s hospital with a collapsed trachea. It closed up on the night of April 28, 1991, the night after we’d celebrated my mother’s birthday, two months before my own fifth birthday. I was unquiet all night or so I’m told, getting up to go to the bathroom a dozen times. Eventually, my parents discovered what was going on and I was rushed to the hospital.

Thankfully, my trachea opened again within a day or two. I don’t know whether I had to be on a ventilator. In fact, I remember very little of these first few days. Then, on May 3, I had surgery to take out my tonsils and adenoids. That surgery had been scheduled for May 21 at another hospital anyway, but the children’s hospital could fit me in earlier now that I was there anyway.

After surgery, I had to stay in the hospital for another few days because I had a breathing tube inserted. That is, I’m not 100% sure the breathing tube was before or after surgery. I remember trying to talk through my tube, which was pretty much impossible.

This was probably also the time in hospital that my parents brought me their supermarket’s brand of peanut butter to eat, as I wouldn’t eat the premium brand the hospital had. Can you tell I was spoiled or autistic or both?

Finally, I got home on May 7. I was already a calendar freak, so I actually remember this without having been told.

As I write this, my inner five-year-old is trying to speak up, but she can’t. I don’t know whether this hospital stay was particularly traumatic for me, even though the going to the bathroom compulsively became a habit of mine in my teens. I may have made Lisel (that’s my inner five-year-old) up, because after all I remember this particular hospital stay so well.

I do think falling ill in early 1992, was more of an adverse childhood experience for Lisel (or me, if you think Lisel is made up). I remember I had some form of the flu, but in my own memory, it wasn’t entirely medically explained. My parents will probably say I’m trying to find clues that aren’t there so am making them up. I mean, they never talked about this experience when, in my teens, I was trying to remember when my negative mood started. They claim, as did I at the time, that it started when I was seven and having to learn Braille. In other words, I was going blind and I knew it but refused to accept it, so was becoming defiant to show a middle finger to the world. It’s easy to say it doesn’t matter. In a way, it doesn’t, but too often, I feel my parents are hiding the truth from me as a way of denying that I had significant mental health issues before the all-important age of seven. I mean, if my problems started at seven, I cannot possibly be autistic or have a dissociative disorder or anything originating in early childhood, right? Besides, I could have been old enough to be manipulative.

Am I being manipulative indeed? Or am I an early childhood trauma survivor? I don’t know and I’m not sure Lisel knows the answer.

Joining in with V.J.’s Weekly Challenge.

Name Your Negative Voice: Dealing with Your Inner Critic #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to my letter N post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today I want to talk about dealing with negative thoughts coming from your inner critic.

You know what? Just because you think something, doesn’t make it true. Your thoughts and feelings are not fact. See my post on cognitive distortions for some examples of how our thoughts can deceive us.

One way of dealing with negative thoughts, is to engage them in a challenging conversation. It may help, in this case, to name your inner critic. Literally give it a name. Then look at it like you would to a really annoying person you meet, who however has little to no authority over you. It may then be easier to ignore or shut up your inner critic.

For example, let’s assume you call your inner critic Donald. (That’s what Anna Borges suggests and I do wonder whether she bases it on some orange-faced creature currently leading the world’s most powerful nation.) If your inner critic were to say you shouldn’t do something because you presumably can’t, you can then call him out on his bullshit, like this.

Inner critic: You’ll not get the job you want, so don’t bother to apply.
You: Shut up, Donald. You don’t know shit.

In this conversation, you’re purposefully keeping your comebacks to Donald brief. After all, you know he’s ignorant and insensitive and yet he doesn’t have the authority over you that requires you actually listen to him.

Another approach to your inner critic, particularly if it originates in childhood trauma, is to see your inner critic as a punitive parent. Then you can create a nurturing parent in your mind to help you challenge the punitive parent. After all, you most likely do generally feel you need to obey your parents more than you need an annoying acquaintance, even though really as an adult you have no such obligation.

Remember, naming your inner critic still requires you realize it’s part of you. Don’t go about blaming others for your own negative thoughts. Even when your inner critic is a reflection of your parents, it’s still your responsibility to deal with it.

As a side note, having a name for your inner critic can, in my experience, also help you see its function. For example, one of my more critical alters emerged as a named inner critic I thought should just shut up. Later on though, I realized she had a function beyond just being an inner critic or punitive parent. For this reason, I do feel engaging your inner critic can really be more than just telling it to shut up.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 15, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone, how are you? Let’s catch up over a cup of coffee or once again green tea in my case. I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that this week was full of ups and some downs, though the downs weren’t as low as I’d expected. As regular readers of this blog know, I will be moving to the care facility in Raalte in eight days. My staff, my husband and I have been doing some preparation in regards to my leaving my current day activities and going to start up in Raalte.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I finally told my mother I’ll be going to the care facility. I sugarcoated it a little, saying I’d be staying at my care agency in Raalte during the week and going home to my husband on week-ends. As a result, at first she wasn’t sure I’d be actually sleeping at the care facility. After a little “but I thought you were doing so well” and all, she wished me good luck at the place.

I am not 100% sure how to feel about it. In a way, this seemingly supportive attitude contradicts my memories from years before and that is hard to adapt to. However, I’m trying to be grateful for her support. I haven’t talked to my father or sister about it yet.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my sister gave birth to a baby girl, Janneke Sietske, last Tuesday. She is named Janneke after my sister’s and my grandma who died last year and Sietske after one of my brother-in-law’s grandmothers. Janneke had some health issues early on and we haven’t been able to visit yet. We’re planning on visiting her next week though.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that today, my husband and I made some small banana soaps for the staff at day activities. I’ll give them to them on Friday, when I have my leave-taking party.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my last appoitnment with my nurse practitioner went okay. He has referred me to the mental health agency in Raalte. I haven’t seen the referral letter, but he said he’d written about my trauma but that, for now, here and now work is most appropriate for me. I did try to get it through that ultimately, I do want to process my trauma. I’m not sure that will happen, as most likely I can’t get trauma therapy without at least a C-PTSD diagnosis if not DID/OSDD. Precisely getting my trauma-related issues assessed is a huge trigger for me.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I finally finished The Fault in Our Stars, which I started reading already three weeks ago. I will hopefully be able to finish at least one more book before the end of the month.

What’s been up with you lately?

Multiplicity: Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day 13 in the #AtoZChallenge. I had today’s theme in mind for a while, but then I realized I already shared about my experience of being multiple in early March for DID Awareness Day and Plural Pride Day. Several other possible topics floated through my mind, but none felt right. So instead of choosing a topic I don’t know what to write about anyway, I”m choosing multiplicity again. I will try not to repeat myself in this post. As such, I recommend those unfamiliar with dissociative identity disorder read the post I wrote last March first.

We are a system of, last time I counted, 26 alters. Most are female, ranging in age from one month to 42-years-old. Each has a different role in our system (the whole of me). We don’t subscribe to rigid categories of alters. Like, the currently most scientifically proven theory of dissociation distinguishes between apparently normal parts (ANPs) who do the daily living and emotional parts (EPs), who are stuck in trauma time. Though most of us can be put into one of these two categories, we prefer to refer to them by different terms. We for a while tried dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), in which the different states of mind are called rational, emotional and wise mind. We see the ANPs as rational mind, the EPs as emotional mind and wise mind would be if all these parts can constructively cooperate.

Another way of distinguishing alters is by categories such as protector, persecutor (often a perpetrator introject), inner self helper, etc. We do have an inner self helper of sorts. Other than that, our roles are more complex than these. I mean, some of our protectors can be highly destructive relationally.

As you may know, dissociation stems from severe, repeated trauma in early childhood. This used to be thought to only encompass sexual and ritual abuse, but more and more people are realizing that physical and emotional abuse and neglect can also cause DID. There is no evidence that the severity of one’s trauma can predict the extent of dissociation. For example, we didn’t endure major sexual violation at all, but still have a pretty large system. DID is largely seen as an attachment-based disorder now, so insecure attachment early on could predispose one to further dissociation even in the event of relatively “minor” trauma. I, for one, was at a disadvantage already due to being born premature.

I also think that people on the autistic spectrum are more likely to develop DID than neurotypicals, because living in a neurotypical world predisposes us to a lot of trauma. I remember once, when in a Dutch DID community, being told that autism is so pervasive a disorder that it keeps us from developing multiple personalities. There is absolutely zero evidence for this.

I had a nurse practitioner’s appointment last Thursday. At the end of it, we got to debate the end goal of treatment (even though I haven’t even been formally diagnosed with DID yet). The three phases in treatment are stabilization (learning coping skills and internal cooperation), trauma processing and finally integration. There are some DID therapists who believe merging of all alters is a requirement for completing DID treatment. Others mean rehabilitation into society when they say integration. We prefer cooperation to a full-on merger. We wouldn’t mind if alters merged spontaneously, but we have zero interest in forcing it.

Healing From Childhood Trauma: Progress I’ve Made #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to the #AtoZChallenge, day eight. It’s already nearly 9PM as I start writing this post. I wasn’t home from day activities till 5PM, then had dinner and then drove 50 minutes one way with my husband to pick something up he had bought. On our way back, we stopped by McDonald’s, which was fun.

Anyway, today’s theme is healing. I was inspired to choose this theme by yesterday’s post, in which my final goal was to heal from my childhood trauma. Let me share today how far I’ve come on my journey.

My trauma-based symptoms first became fully apparent in 2009 or 2010. I had moved from a locked acute psych unit to a resocialization unit in early 2009. Once I developed trust in my staff, I apparently felt more ready to uncover the trauma-based conditions I’ve been living with all my life. You see, my trauma started early on and is in some respects ongoing.

When I started to open up about my symptoms, it still took a long time for them to be diagnosed as first dissociative identity disorder and PTSD and later borderline personality disorder. Borderline personality disorder shares a ton of symptoms with complex PTSD and I think that’s what I have.

I have never been in formal trauma therapy. The reason is that, first, it was hard to find a therapist with expertise on DID. Once I’d found one, my diagnosis had been changed and I was assumed to be making it up.

As a result, I’ve done most healing on my own. I got the book Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation as soon as it came out in 2011. I worked through some of it on my own, but that wasn’t helping much. Talking a lot about my experiences was.

After I’d been talking through my experiences for a long while with my resocialization unit staff, my classic PTSD symptoms started to fade. Unfortunately, they’ve been back to an extent lately. However, my emotion regulation issues are a lot less pronounced.

I still have dissociative symptoms. Accepting them and validating my alters has helped me manage these symptoms.

Since I experience ongoing stress that reminds me of my trauma, I don’t expect to find the peace to fully heal anytime soon. However, I really hope I can continue to make progress.

Goals: Major Things I Hope to Achieve in Life #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day seven in the A to Z Challenge. I’m finding that, even though ideas spin through my mind to blog about, I’m already less motivated to write and especially so for the #AtoZChallenge. Today’s post is a list, so I’m not sure it fits in with the theme of miscellaneous musings. I am feeling a bit uninspired though and lists are the easiest to write posts. I am sharing my major goals in life.

1. Find myself a satisfactory living situation. When I wrote a list of goals I had for myself on my old blog, buying a house was on it. Not that I’d ever be able to buy a house on my own, but divorcing my husband wasn’t on the list. This (buying a house) was however more my husband’s goal than mine. When I finally decided to try to get into long-term care, I felt much calmer than I did before. Even though the process is now going on for six months and counting, I’m still sure of myself on this part. This is the reason finding a satisfactory living situation tops my list.

2. Write my autobiography. I’ve wanted to be a writer ever since I was a young child. Of course, I am a writer with my blog and I also got a piece published in an anthology in 2015. I would love to publish more pieces, but I’d also love to write a memoir.

3. Find a hobby (other than blogging) that I can do independently. Or almost independently. I’m in a course now at day activities to explore this. We’ve been trying soap making for the last two weeks, because I used to enjoy that, and it’s going okay.

4. Visit the United States. I have a few long-time online friends from there whom I’d love to visit. I’d also love to visit carol anne of Therapy Bits in Ireland.

5. Heal from my childhood trauma. I hope to be able to someday access a qualified therapist able to treat me for my trauma-based symptoms. Even if I can’t do that, I hope to heal.

What are your major goals in life?