It’s feels like an age since I blogged even though it’s less than a week, but so much seems to have happened. I haven’t had a busy week in fact it’s probably been a rather lazy one, I’ve tried to self care a great deal as I realised things were going array.

It’s really hard to juggle the demands and needs of life sometimes, recently I had attended a major sporting event here in the UK which took up a few days and entailed long journeys to and from Scotland. Don’t get me wrong I had a great time, but it was exhausting and it pushed me a great deal.

I wasn’t in the quiet countryside that I’m now used to, instead I was in a very busy cosmopolitan city which was extremely noisy. I was attending sports venues with large crowds and lots of activity and whilst I was enjoying myself, there were parts of me that clearly felt uncomfortable.

By the end of the event I came home and was literally exhausted, this didn’t set me up well for therapy and I arrived with feelings of anxiety overwhelming me. I had that overwhelming feeling and tearfulness that seems to be a part of me currently, this is really not normal before therapy so it bothered me a bit. I realised that in my excitement and busyness I hadn’t given much time to my alters and that was probably not helping how I felt. Juggling is a skill you need as someone with D.I.D, it’s like trying to organise a family with competing demands, wants and needs. The only difference now is instead of an actual family made up of separate people, there is just one body and my internal family of parts.

In therapy we discussed the reality that I’m still trying to control my sessions and which of me is there and I’m still in denial, denial of them, of my emotions and of my pain. In order to help with this I was set homework and I was keen to try and do this exercise, I really invested a lot of hope in it and perhaps that was part of my downfall.

The following day when I attempted the piece of homework my psychologist had given me things didn’t go to plan, I’m not quite sure what I was expecting but it wasn’t what I got. I ended up confused and distressed and most of all I knew I had potentially damaged the relationship with my alters.

I’m not sure what I need to make me truly accept I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, that the alters are something that hold my memories. But at one point on Tuesday I felt like I needed a huge concrete wall to hit me full on in my face, and loud sirens shouting ‘wake up these are real’. I needed something to help me stop doubting, doubting what I know logically to be true and yet seem so set on trying to continually convince myself of the opposite.

On Tuesday and the days that have followed I have seriously thought I wasn’t ever going to cope with this, that I’d never be able to not doubt my reality. That I’d never be able to just accept who I am, me and my parts of me.

Worst of all I have seriously thought that therapy wasn’t going to work, I have thought that my psychologist wouldn’t want to work with me. You name it I have thought it this week, so much confusion, doubt and concern. It’s as if a part of me is trying to undermine my sessions, undermine the good that has gone before and yet I don’t fully understand why.

I have spent lots of efforts trying to rebuild the damage I caused with my alters, I am grateful that my teen and I have communicated using the ideomotor signals which we have found helpful. These do work and yet at times I still doubt them, which I think frustrates me as much as my teen part.

Yet now as therapy draws near once again I’m nervous and anxious, how silly is that – I mean I emailed my psychologist the other day and he has told me not to worry. But worry I do, I think partly because I have read and re read the email I sent him and I guess I was angry and exasperated when I wrote him. The language I used in my email was blunt, contained rude words and demonstrates I guess that I felt pretty frustrated when I wrote him. I don’t think I’d have sent that kind of email I mean it not how I normally write, but I know did, I can’t say it was an alter because I know it was my thoughts I wrote down and my feelings that jump from the words.

I guess for once in my life I have allowed my feelings to be shared, to be seen and that is unusual for me. Whenever before I have shown my feelings be that anger or hurt it’s tended to get me in trouble, at times big trouble. Medical professionals especially find emotions difficult, they see an act and they react, rather than think what caused the initial action. It’s led to some really complicated and difficult periods of conflict and of pain, reactions are not always patient led they are punitive and harsh.

Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m anxious about my session tomorrow, maybe I’m worried about any reaction to the outburst of emotions in my email. I doubt I will sleep tonight I’ll probably be replaying in my head all the possible consequences for that lapse in my rigid iron wall that shuts all my feelings deep within to prevent reactions. I know tomorrow is going to be a long day as I wait for my therapy session, I can’t even imagine what state I’ll be in by the time I get there. Hopefully at least I will get there and I won’t bail out of going, believe me that thought has crossed my mind once or twice already.

Copyright DID Dispatches 2014