A $45 bottle of ketamine got me out of a suicidal crisis & stabilized my DID in just a few hours

I have become super-annoyed by any mention of the 3 phase approach to treating Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). As put forth in the DID treatment guidelines by the International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), these are considered the gold-standard recommended steps for therapists who are treating someone with DID:

1. Establishing safety, stabilization, and symptom reduction.

2. Confronting, working through, and integrating traumatic memories; and

3. Identity integration and rehabilitation.

It sounds like an easy formula for assisting those with DID, but like previous treatment recommendations for DID, this 3-step phased approach is seriously flawed and needs updating (it’s been 10 years of minimal success).

Unfortunately, the vast majority of DID patients get stuck in stage 1, or if they manage to get out of stage 1, it is too easy for them to get knocked back into the stage 1 need for safety and stabilization by triggers in life and therapy.

Talk therapy and learning new skills is not effective enough in helping people with DID to successfully master the phase 1 goal of safety and stability because it is too easy for them to fall back into deeply rooted familiar neural pathways that make them unstable again.

The deeply-rooted neural pathways of someone who has DID is what keeps them stuck in a dissociative reaction to stress, which is why it is critical to address rewiring the brain of a DID person in stage 1.

Instead of therapists challenging themselves to figure out how to successfully help their clients master phase 1, they are actually told by these same guidelines that some people just don’t have the capacity to get out of stage 1, and so they can therefore feel ok when their clients stay stuck in phase 1 and a life of misery. This is completely wrong and cruel to those suffering with DID.

It is quite frustrating that the majority of trauma therapists will identify Bessel van der Kolk’s “The Body Keeps the Score” as the book that has most influenced them, but strangely, almost every trauma therapist has little to no expertise in helping with the neurobiological effects of trauma, which is kind of the point of this book.

I believe there is a small percentage of people who can successfully manage this 3-phase approach as it is, but what I see from the vast majority of people I know who have DID, people get stuck in the phase 1 need for safety and stabilization. They may get stabilized, but either by working on trauma or some other life trigger, they slide right back into the need for safety and stabilization, which leads the person with DID to feel like they are failing therapy because it seems impossible to maintain enough forward momentum to make progress in therapy.

When your brain is wired for dissociation and PTSD, you can’t simply rewrite the way the brain functions through talk therapy and skills.

What if the very first step is impossibly flawed because therapists have been giving their clients the wrong advice on how to reach stabilization (DBT skills, mindfulness, CBT therapy, corrective therapeutic relationship, blah, blah). These methods can be helpful, but they don’t help the client achieve a strong enough mastery of safety and stability.

The type of stabilization achieved by talk-therapy and skill building is too weak to endure the triggers faced by the highly traumatized person.

Is it possible the answer to phase one stabilization is outside the traditional therapist’s wheelhouse, and involves neurobiology instead? Something that will rewrite the neural pathways?

Is it also possible that stabilization can occur in days-to-weeks instead of the years therapists typically spend on this with desperate clients?

I believe it is possible there is a much more effective and efficient way for traumatized individuals to get stabilized quickly.

An open mind and a belief in miracles is required at this point.

My Experience

As the pandemic was nearing an end, I found myself loosening up on my fight-or-flight mode of survival that served me extremely well during those stressful months. As good as that might sound, what followed for me was a quick dump into the gutter of mental health hell. Apparently, my mind needed to do something with the build up of 14 months of limited parts activity I experienced to hold it together. If you are confused by this, try to understand that I was in the trauma of the pandemic, and to survive, I could only have around parts who were strong and didn’t feel, just like most of my childhood. The emotional and vulnerable parts were tucked away. The parts of me that had been frozen during the pandemic crisis were starting to rapidly thaw. Their emotions were overwhelming.

I rather quickly became depressed, suicidal, anxious, dissociative, and unable to deal with the stress of my children. Each day, I was becoming more unstable. I had reached a point where I had decided I was going to kill myself or go into a hospital (note, there are no hospitals that treat or believe in DID within my state, or even several states away, which makes this option less likely).

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the worst), I was a 10 on the suicide scale. I couldn’t even hold onto the love for my children and what my suicide would do to them to prevent me from doing it. I was too far gone, and my suicide was becoming imminent.

How I stumbled upon Ketamine, stopped a serious suicide attempt, and saved my insurance company $30,000

In a complete fluke, a holistic doctor I work with for health issues had just prescribed generic ketamine nasal spray for depression and anxiety, and had no idea of the severity of what I was suffering because I hid it from them like I do most people outside a therapist’s office. I made the decision that I was going to try it as my last ditch effort before I checked out. The imminent risk and permanency of suicide outweighed any reservations I might have had.

The Ketamine Experience

I simply took one small spray of the ketamine in one nostril. I could immediately feel it coming down my throat as there was a slight burning feeling that lasted for a few minutes. After the burning sensation, I could quickly notice I was starting to feel what I would call a manufactured dissociation as it didn’t feel how I normally feel when I dissociate.

The dissociation lasted for 30-45 minutes, and then I felt kind of high. I was feeling emotions like funny, happy, and curious —funny and happy are definitely not normal feelings for me. I knew not to drive my car or make any big decisions. Though I did shoot off one very wordy email I kind of later regretted 😎.

The dissociation and high were gone within 2 hours of the nasal spray. I was left with a sense that my mind had been cleared of cobwebs I didn’t even know were there. I very dramatically had a mental clarity I wasn’t used to. I was much more aware of everything happening in my environment.

By the 3rd hour, I began to evaluate my thoughts and feelings because I knew this was a test to help me figure out what to do with my suicidality and depression. I scanned my brain for thoughts, emotions, or voices of parts, and to my amazement, my suicidal feelings were completely gone, and I had no sense of any depression, anxiety, or even dissociation. I was completely grounded in the present with a strangely crystal clear mind. I was actually worried I was going to have a manic episode because I was feeling so oddly good.

My suicidality went from 10 to 0 in just a few hours.

Later, when my kids each did their behaviors that had been over-stressing me these past few weeks, I felt like a super-parent who was not the least bit phased by their antics.

As it was approaching bedtime, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to go to sleep because: 1. I always struggle with insomnia (and sleep meds don’t always work for me), and 2. I was worried the feeling good and crystal-clear thinking was going to make me want to stay up all night being productive at some random thing. Surprisingly, I took my normal low-dose sleeping pill and easily fell asleep. Even more surprising, I was able to sleep-in the next morning, something my anxiety hadn’t allowed me to do for years.

When the day of my first ketamine dose began, I was looking at either a $30,000+ psychiatric hospitalization, or ending my life and traumatizing my family and friends.

Instead, one spray from a $45 bottle of compounded generic ketamine completely removed me from that suicidal crisis and stabilized me.

My mind has stayed clear, like really sharp, and my emotions have been extremely easy to regulate.

My ability to emotionally regulate was put to the test almost immediately. The day following my first ketamine dose, I was scheduled for a therapy session with my therapist who I was having some serious attachment conflict. The session was indeed volatile, and one that would have normally sent me into a suicidal tailspin. Instead, I noticed I had a few fleeting suicidal feelings during the session, and I moved on, and they didn’t stick with me post session. A highly stressful situation was completely manageable, which is unheard of when it comes to me having attachment conflict in therapy.

Maybe some of you don’t see how big of a deal this is. Before ketamine, I was emotionally wobbly every day. I never knew what little thing might send me off into depression, suicidality, overwhelming anxiety, or into my constant dissociative response pattern that creates quite a bit of amnesia in my life.

My use of ketamine is like someone handed me a brand new life. A life that has been missing for over 30 years. I was finally free of the debilitating existence I had known almost my entire life.

I am finding the experience of my new brain extremely foreign. I don’t feel emotionally overwhelmed. I don’t feel depressed, suicidal, or even dependent on a therapist at this point (I have struggled with severe disorganized attachment, so this is kind of a big deal for me). My mind just feels clear and calm, which I really am not used to.

I waited a couple of days and did a second nasal spray of the ketamine. I was still feeling completely stable before this dose, but I wanted to do what was recommended by the doctor who prescribed it. With the second dose, it was barely noticeable and I didn’t experience the dissociative and feeling high side effects.

I have researched ketamine a lot since then, and I know others typically don’t respond for a week. There are several ways to take in ketamine, and an array of different dosing strategies. The doctor that prescribed the ketamine I used was a believer that low-dose and through the nose to get closest to the brain was the best method.

Ketamine seems to be a miracle for me. Although I live near a big research center that has all sorts of clinical trials going on for ketamine, I know I would be excluded from those studies because of my dissociative disorder (a familiar narrative for those of us with DID). We are just too much with our diagnosis for a lot of things..

Alternatively, there are many ketamine clinics that have set up shop in my state so that they can make a lot of money off this new treatment. Typical treatment prices seem to be around $400 a session, and insurance rarely covers it according to their websites.

For once, the compounding pharmacies seem to be the most economical place to get it, but finding a doctor who will prescribe it this way may be the challenge.

If you are a long-time sufferer who has given up on treatment for DID/CPTSD, or someone who suffers from chronic depression and/or anxiety, I would give ketamine a try if you can get your hands on a legitimate form of the medication. I am not recommending the street drug that is a higher dose of ketamine and will do who knows what to you. Try Googling ketamine near you and see what comes up. There’s lots of research, books, and articles about the way it works and what it has been used for.

There is a fascinating article about using ketamine with complex PTSD trauma survivors here.

I have to believe an angel dropped ketamine in my lap when I was at one of my lowest points. It clearly saved my life, and it just may be offering me the chance at living with a non-traumatized brain. As each day ticks by, I am still amazed at the calm and clarity I feel.

As a takeaway, I hope that each of you who reads this will consider that maybe people with DID aren’t succeeding not because they aren’t working hard-enough, committed enough, smart enough, or don’t have the ego strength or attachment stability to succeed in therapy. Maybe it really has more to do with how their brain is wired, and maybe there are easy fixes such a ketamine that will address the neurobiological effects of developmental trauma.

Just maybe, the most difficult repair is easier than everyone thinks.

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Therapists, we need you to be courageous

It is hard for my brain to push forward with my usual coherent thoughts. Each day during the pandemic, I just keep moving forward in crisis mode and it never seems to end. If I slow down, I get consumed by depression and lack of energy, so I have to keep moving to survive.

I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself because I know just about everyone is struggling with the way we must live during the pandemic. Maybe this is why it is hard for me to put my thoughts or even words together on paper.

I am so tired. Probably because I am surging in cortisol and burning out my adrenals. I also recognize every day is like Groundhog Day. Nothing really changes. It’s stressful as hell, but I know the stress keeps me moving, and to not move will allow feelings of depression and suicide to creep in.

I am mad at my therapist, but not really mad because I don’t even have the energy to experience or express that feeling too much. I also know she is struggling through this pandemic too, but my irrational child parts feel so abandoned.

It is a fight not to quit therapy again. I don’t have the money to have wasted sessions with her, but I continue to do so because I am scared not to. I hate that she will only do phone sessions with me. I am also triggered by her feelings that I might be contaminated with COVID, although she has never directly said so. Still, it brings up childhood feelings that there is something bad about me.

Of course the big one is that I don’t matter enough to her when the chips are down and she needs to prioritize her own health. My adult brain understands what she is doing, but my child selves feel painfully abandoned.

Having DID and not being able to get in-person support is so hurtful. It’s as if the therapy world suddenly decided we are all doing much better than many of us are (I am happy for those of you who are doing well). Suddenly, our survival is not as important, perhaps we are just collateral damage to this pandemic.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a healthy fear of the coronavirus. It is not something to play with, but I also feel like I have learned how to function safely in the world with my mask, hand sanitizer, and social distancing.

This brings up the “if my therapist really cared about me, she would see me in person.”

I am struggling. Struggling with just about everything. So conflicted inside about whether I should just quit therapy or that is the dumbest idea in the world.

I hate that I can’t get the support I need. I hate that my therapist is so caught up in this stupid pandemic that I barely matter to her.

I know I have returned to trauma time almost 24/7. I can’t make decisions which is usually a pretty good indicator I am frozen in trauma time.

I just love how everyone pretends like those of us with DID and are in need of support don’t really exist anymore.

I guess it is our own fault for not screaming loud enough, or maybe it’s just because the whole world is fighting us for scream time.

Let’s stop pretending that those of us with serious mental illnesses are doing ok, and that the fact that our therapists have abandoned us is going just fine. I do understand their desire for self-preservation, but enough is enough.

Psychotherapy can be done safely with masks, social distance, and hand sanitizer. The restaurants and stores are making it work. It’s time for the therapists to get off their home couches and their teletherapy.

Some of us are dying out here for reasons outside the Coronavirus. Staying at home indefinitely hiding from the coronavirus is not the answer for anyone. The mental and physical cost is severe.

Therapists, it is time to start doing your job again, and not just for the people who get enough out of teletherapy.

It can be done safely. Be creative. Let go of your irrational fear that we can’t meet in person with appropriate safety measures to protect us all. Heck, have therapy outside if you need to, but stop ignoring those of us who don’t find help with teletherapy.

Model strength, creativity, and courage. We need you to do that as much as you need it for yourself.

The True Trauma Wound

Though I have been brutally abused both sexually and physically as a child, the pain of those instances is not what keeps me sick.

Those injuries play through my mind daily in one detrimental way or another for sure, but they are not what ruined me.

The psychological warfare done to me as a child has definitely left its mark, but still, it is not this that leaves me broken.

Abandonment.

I am sick, broken, and less than human because of abandonment.

My pain from, and fear of new abandonment, is what rules my days. It keeps me paralyzed, scared, and sad all rolled up into one messed up package.

I would like to think the blatant abuse by my parents and other adults is what has ruined me, but it is not.

The well of my pain stems from people turning their backs on me. People treating me as expendable. Instilling in me that I don’t matter, and that others are always more important.

This.

Recovering from humanity’s deep abandonment of my soul.

Surviving as either the walking dead or the walking wounded.

There is no beating it. It’s encoded in my DNA. Each and every subsequent betrayal reinforces the idea that I am only worthy of abandonment.

No matter how hard I try, I always find myself getting abandoned by those I need the most.

I try so hard to be “good enough” or “nice enough ” or “smart enough,” but I always land back in abandonment purgatory.

The therapists and spiritual philosophers always try to convince me I am not a bad person, and somehow this repetitive abandonment has nothing to do with me.

Of course, that’s not true.

It has everything to do with me, which is why it repeats over and over in my life.

If this is my final destiny, I am confused as to why I keep carrying on trying to prove it won’t happen again.

It always does, though.

Sometimes I see it clearly and try my best to stop the inevitable, and other times I am blindsided and never fully understand what happened.

Ah, back to my parents, and the others who created the permanent scarring of my brain. The deep state of confusion I am always meant to live in.

That’s it, you know. The deep abandonment wounds that can never be understood.

Healing. No. That doesn’t exist for me.

Only the slow drip of confusion and pain serves as the morphine of my life.

Mother’s Day When Your Mother Doesn’t Love You

Growing up, I don’t have a single memory of my mom holding me or saying she loved me. No photos of me in her lap, or her holding my hand as we walked down the sidewalk. In fact, there are no photos of me with her period.

I wish I had kind memories, even if only a couple, but absolutely none.

Mother’s Day sucks for me. I try to dissociate its existence so much that I am barely present for my own kids’ desire to celebrate the day. Sadly, I would prefer to stay in bed and not recognize the day.

I do try to just focus on my present day, but all the messages coming from seemingly everywhere about what great moms everyone says they had/have, puts it right back in my face of what I didn’t have.

It is a day I feel shaky inside, trying not to let my thoughts wander to why my mom did what she did to me. Trying not to have the rapid flashbacks of what she did give me.

Logically, it doesn’t make sense that a mother would do what she did to me. She was the opposite of what we would call maternal. So, it is dismissed as she is just a sick, twisted, sadistic, narcissist.

I can’t remember a time in my childhood when my mom did not hate me. When I go back to my earliest memories with her, my body tenses up with fear, shame, and confusion.

When I think of my mom’s body, I am repulsed and frightened. I think about my very young self laying in her bed in my father’s absence. I am trying not to be tense for fear she will get angry at me. She scratches my back for a few minutes, and it feels good. Then she pulls me toward her naked body. This becomes a regular thing for us. My father is absent a lot, and she scratches my back before she sexually abuses me.

This is as close to love as my mother ever came. She didn’t even bother to pretend that she cared about me in public.

My mom, though functioning as an alcoholic, always knew how to get what she wanted. She was powerful in her social circles and our community.

My mom sex-trafficked me from as far back as I can remember to get what she wanted. It didn’t matter the who or for what. If she could benefit from turning my body over to someone, she did. Sadly, sometimes it was only for her sick, sadistic pleasure.

It is hard to survive a sadistic, narcissistic mom. Most days I wish I didn’t.

I am still here, and honestly don’t know why, except to raise my own kids. I don’t know why I am not a person who would do to my children what was done to me. I imagine my mom’s parents did really awful stuff to her.

It is strange or lucky to not be part of the generational abuse that goes on. I don’t know why I didn’t become her, but I do thank God I did not.

My mom is still alive this Mother’s Day, and it feels like she is never going to die. I stay away from her as much as I can. When we are together, I become this numb person who does her best to not think of her mom for who she truly is.

As a family, at some point it was decided that we would not speak of the past, ever. I can’t say this made my mom become a loving mom, or even an ok mom. We just pretend like it didn’t happen, and God forbid if I let my guard down.

I didn’t escape “ok” from childhood. It left me saddled with complex PTSD and Dissociative Identity Disorder. Not to mention my severe attachment problems. These 3 things affect my everyday life.

So, it’s Mother’s Day, the day I am supposed to celebrate my mother. I wish I could fool myself into believing she wasn’t that bad, or that she really does love me.

Unfortunately, when I was in my early 30s, I had just driven 4 hours to see my parents with my own family. I don’t really know what happened, but within 10 minutes of being there, I found myself confronting both of my parents about never loving me, and only loving my siblings. I can remember so clearly both of my parents just sitting there silently, neither of them willing to deny they didn’t love me, no matter the cost to me. I put my family back in the car and left after that conversation, never to speak of it again.

But in case I forgot, fast-forward another 15 years when my father is dying and I am the only one in the family willing to take care of him. I watch as my father shares his love for my mother and siblings when they would be willing to be in the room with him (because watching him die was just something they didn’t want to deal with). Me. By his side, everyday for months. Not once did he say he loved me. Not once. Of course, like the trained dog I had become, I would tell him how much I loved him.

My mother did not thank me for the severe trauma I went through during this experience of taking care of my dad (another story for another day). Instead, when I begged her to come out of her bedroom to the living room to see my father on his deathbed, she slapped me across the face with as much ferociousness as she could muster, and I just stood there as the wounded adult child.

This woman, whom I twice saved her life as an adult, just never let go of her hatred of me.

This woman. My mother. She will not be celebrated. But this trained dog will call her still to wish her a happy Mother’s Day.

Suffering with DID

I went back to therapy 4 years ago to deal with some new trauma, and some old trauma that was awakened by the new trauma.

I stayed in therapy because I had developed a lot of clarity about how inauthentic my life had become.

Honestly, I have never had an authentic life, as my family of origin and the community I grew up in robbed me of my life since as far back as I can remember.

My cup is currently overflowing with the amount of child abuse I experienced growing up. That may not make sense. Normally, my mind can only hold little pieces, but right now, it is in the unusual place of holding a lot of the abuse in awareness instead of dissociating it all.

It seems like the memories are never-ending, and they are not like memories I can deny or question the validity. They are memories I know to be true, but had somehow managed through my dissociation to forget.

Other people I know with dissociative identity disorder (DID), seem to be surprised by their memories when they get them. For me, that is typically not the case. For me, it is like remembering a horrible old friend you tried to never think of again.

I dunno, maybe I am just worn down with the shitty cards I have been dealt. The never-ending shame and depression I feel about the facts of my life. It has taken its toll.

I have lost all hope of living an authentic life. I have been staying alive these past 4 years for my children. I haven’t wanted to hurt them or ruin their lives by me ending mine.

Always the martyr.

I am suffering. I suffer every day trying to hold onto my life for my children. Jeez, I sound like a cry baby. But it is so fucking hard to hold on all the time.

I just want some peace, love, and understanding based on who I really am, not the imaginary many versions of myself that the world knows.

Almost no one knows me. Not even my kids, which especially breaks my heart. I never set out to be a fake parent. It is just what is best for them. 🙁

I don’t hurt people or do any awful things to deserve the horrible treatment I receive when others find out any of my truth, but I am rejected and tossed into the garbage or worse, just for being my authentic self. That is how we treat victims in our world.

Who is my authentic self?

I am a wounded survivor of horrific child abuse who developed dissociative identity disorder as a result.

That in itself is apparently enough to know about me to warrant the rejection of me.

My ex-minister and supposed friends tried to take my children from me when they discovered diagnosis alone. I hadn’t done anything. My kids don’t know I have it. In fact, out of both their parents, I am confident they would identify me as the saner one.

It doesn’t matter. People can’t tolerate the idea that my mind is what it is. They can’t tolerate believing I endured the level of abuse I have experienced.

So, they get fake me. The me that is probably copied from characters off television shows and people I have observed. And fake me, I really hate.

I don’t really know any other me than fake me, so that leaves me with hating the only me I know.

I hate me.

The world is an awful place, where perpetrators are protected, and victims are the bad guys.

I know I am a victim. I did not deserve the cruelty, extreme abuse, and lack of love I received.

It doesn’t matter, though.

My life is a shit show and I work hard to hide authentic me from everyone but my therapist.

This is no way to live. It doesn’t get better, but the cruelty remains because I am not allowed to leave. If I leave this shitty world, then I abandon my kids and hurt them in ways I don’t even understand, but know to be true.

Stuck.

My abusers. My family of origin. All the fuckers from my community. You have successfully robbed me of my life. I hate you all, and hope you burn in hell.

I will do my best to push through another day. It is getting harder. I won’t make any promises, but I will try with all my might to hold on another day for my kids.

Cruelty. My whole life. Nothing but cruelty.

That’s just the way it goes.

Guilty of hating my mom my entire life

I have hated my mom for as long as I can remember. For me, this memory starts around 3 years old, but when I try to think about what it must have been like as a baby, I am consumed with fear, and the “freeze response.”

I do understand that my mom was an unusually cruel mom, and probably comes from a very abusive upbringing by her own family.

I want so badly to just leave it at my mom was a horrible, sick person who abused me in more ways than imaginable, and lay the blame and everything at her feet.

I want to accept this and move on.

I can’t.

I am still stuck with the feeling that I was born as “garbage” and that somehow this makes it my fault.

My therapist wants me to accept that I did not have any control over the abuse that happened to me. I do accept that. I have no illusion that I had any control over what happened to me.

Though, I have to wonder if I made things worse for myself because I didn’t hide my hatred for my mother from her. I don’t mean I outright told her what an awful person I thought she was. No, I mean, I didn’t hide it in my eyes.

My eyes. They looked at her with bewilderment and sometimes disgust, though I knew to not let her really see the disgust part.

I never understood why this woman chose to have a baby girl who she would choose to hate, torture, and wreck in every way possible. Boy babies were not treated this way.

Then I think to my parenting, and I realize you never know what parenting is going to be like for you until you do it.

Maybe there is a tiny bit of decency in her that had she known what a girl baby would mean to her, she wouldn’t have done it. Probably giving her too much credit there.

As you can see, part of trying to understand what I have been through is involving what has my mother been through. Though honestly, she doesn’t deserve that kind of compassion from me. Only God can decide whether she deserves any compassion.

When you grow up with severe trauma mostly orchestrated by a mom you hate, life would probably seem chaotic to the outside world, but it is actually very quiet to experience. The noise of the terror is boxed away as the knowledge of the terror is all that can be held at this point.

Why does a mom start off hating her baby? The easy answer is mental illness, but that doesn’t really do it justice in trying to understand it. Besides, it is not like she has a diagnosis like schizophrenia or bipolar that would make it more understandable.

What is true about this woman? She is an extreme narcissist. She is an alcoholic. She is sadistic. She is grandiose. She comes from a bizarrely religious family –meaning not your ordinary religious beliefs. I believe she was the chosen daughter in her family to be sexually abused by her father and maybe others. Others consider her very attractive. To the world, she is powerful, although I have seen her when she is weak.

Growing up with her, strangely I can’t think of a single kind thing she has ever done for me. Not one.

My father, who was completely controlled by my mother, had moments of kindness toward me and my siblings. Though, he is no saint in the choices he made in our family. I remember one Christmas when I was 4 or 5, my dad actually shocked us because when we woke Christmas morning, he had bought presents for us. Our mother was furious with him. I don’t remember what happened after receiving those presents, but I know it happened as there is a picture of me opening a present on that morning (a rare photograph of me).

We had normalcy for one moment. A brief happy moment for me.

But back to the woman I hated. When I was 3 years old, I can remember how my mom would pull me next to her in front of her large bathroom mirror, both of us naked, and she would tell me how fat and disgusting I was. In case there was any doubt, she would spend a great deal of time showing me how ugly I was, and how beautiful she was. She explained that I needed to become like her or I would be nothing. Yet, no matter how emaciated I became, I was still fat and ugly in her eyes.

Today, my expression of my hatred for her doing this is to be extremely asexual, unattractive, and to wear boy clothing as much as possible. This really makes her angry.

Maybe it as simple as this. Maybe babies are like animals, and they can sense danger. Though I can’t remember my life as a baby, my body remembers the terror I felt. My mind wants to die as I think back to being a baby so helpless and terrorized at the same time.

I couldn’t fight her, I couldn’t run from her, so my mind froze, wishing I could not exist. And there goes the chronic suicidal feelings I experience.

Stuck with a woman who hated me, and the only power I had was to hate her back.

What it is like to have repressed memories resurface

A message from the Universe, I suppose. Everywhere I turn I am seeing videos and stories about repressed memories.

To some, using the words “repressed memories” brings up the idea they are not true memories.

I have to admit, I don’t even use the words “repressed memories” when I often think about or fight to remember all that has been forgotten from my childhood.

For me, I have always known I was the victim of a lot of child abuse. I just did my best to not think about it, and to try to move on with my life as if that didn’t happen.

There have been moments in my life when I was able to get away with not feeling like an abused person. It isn’t hard to pull off looking normal when people really don’t look that closely at you.

For instance, when I was in high school, my behavior was full of contradictions, but nobody really cared enough to pay attention or say anything to me.

In high school, I was the nerd who excelled in ROTC. I also skipped school and hung out with the druggies. I was a nervous wreck when it came to dating boys, and I was also spending a lot of time having sex with boys and men in dangerous situations. I was both super responsible, and super reckless.

I later learned this was my Dissociative Identity Disorder playing out without me realizing it was doing so.

Even with all those contradictions in my behavior, I didn’t try to figure it out. I was hell-bent on repressing my past and trying to pretend I was alright.

I could remember plenty of abuse if I wanted to. When I was in college and got raped, that stirred the pot for sure. After that, I fell in love with a man, which I later learned didn’t work so well with the idea of keeping my past repressed.

I had plenty of meaningless sex in high school, but now in college, having fallen in love for the first time, sex was extremely difficult, and becoming more difficult with each day that passed. My past was really coming back to haunt me as I experienced flash backs and younger parts while trying to have sex with a man I loved.

Being the martyr most CSA survivors are, I told this man to leave me enough times that he finally did. I was heart broken, which is probably what led to my first psychiatric demise and hospitalization.

Fast forward 30 years, and I can still remember countless episodes of me being sexually abused as a young child. What’s missing is that I often don’t remember right before, some of the during, and definitely not afterward. It’s like I don’t have complete memories of anything, but I know with certainty these incidents I do remember are true.

Nowadays, I am finally working to try to process these memories, and for me, I honestly have no idea when new pieces of the memories are coming.

Yesterday, I was sitting in my car after therapy thinking about a specific abuse situation I had mentioned to my therapist, and I described it in session as a random occurrence that happened to me. Not 45 seconds in my car I was consumed with flashbacks and voices of my mom telling me to get out of the car right before I walked toward the man in the parking garage. I must have been refusing which is a little surprising to me as I normally did what my mom said, but she wanted me to get out into a darkened parking garage by myself when I was around 5. I was terrified and knew no good was coming from me getting out of the car. But the flood of memories could feel her anger and her demands and her pushing me out of the car.

“Get out!”

This little piece of repressed memory has left me intensely suicidal for days. Somehow it was better to think I randomly encountered the creepy man in the parking garage than to know this was yet another man my mom had set me up for.

Another betrayal.

It is not like this is news to me that my mom was a disgusting, narcissistic, psychopath. I have known that for a long time.

But, this little piece of the memory still hurts so much. I guess it is hard to come to terms with someone’s evilness when you keep getting new pieces of evilness tossed your way.

It is not that I forgive, I don’t. It is not that I love her, I don’t. She deserves my hatred and worse, but I am limp with weakness when it comes to having any appropriate or real feelings toward her.

Incidentally, I ask my parts to tell me more, and I am often frustrated when they don’t. I feel like I can handle it, but now I realize each new fact brings new pain.

So what is it like to receive repressed memories. It is fucking awful, and there is nothing you can do to prepare for it. The best I can hope to do is to ride it out without killing myself.

Staying alive has been really hard with this stupid new piece of a memory. The worst part of a memory is not always what seems like the obvious worst part.

I do believe it is important work to work through memories to move toward recovery. I disagree with those who avoid it and say it is not necessary.

For me, I may not heal, or integrate, or even find happiness, but I will at least know who I really am before I die. And that has to be enough.

My journey has changed

Some of you may have noticed that I have been missing in action for the past month or so.

I was really not doing well and needed intensive inpatient help with managing the symptoms of my DID and PTSD, particularly the level of suicidality I was experiencing.

I decided to go inpatient and it lasted longer than I expected. If I wouldn’t have really pushed to get out, I still easily met the criteria of someone who needed to be inpatient. But alas, I always feel terribly restless and triggered when I am inpatient, so a month was as much as I could do.

I am now happily home with my family and working to transition back into my real life. Still figuring this out and hope to share it with you as I uncover the new path of my journey.

I experienced incredible levels of amnesia and confusion while inpatient, but I was still able to gain some important insights into a new direction for my life.

I plan to share these new plans with you as I unpack myself back into the real world and my real life.

For now, I can say I realize I do have a life to live while doing this work, and I don’t have to “fix” my life before I can start living it.

I am also happy to say I am not currently feeling suicidal, which is remarkable because that is my typical normal. I know better than to get overly excited about this as I know it can change on a dime, but I do feel a sliver of hope that it is currently absent.

Speaking of hope, I did manage to gain some hope despite the incredible amnesia, confusion, transference, and uncomfortableness I experienced staying in this inpatient unit. Nothing like being locked up and power taken from you as a survivor that is seemingly required for inpatient treatment.

I am feeling well today and I am looking forward to sharing my new journey with you, and my experience during my inpatient stay.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the support I received from you all.

With love and hope to you all,

Kathy

Lost and alone

I have been quiet lately, feeding off my mom’s voice in my head that if I don’t have anything nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all. So, I am breaking the rules.

Lost would probably best describe how I have felt most of the time lately. I can’t remember things, much more so than usual. My sense of “time” is completely off. Can’t tell you if it has been one week or 2 months since things have happened.

I am living day-by-day, not knowing if I will make it through the day.

I plan for my future and my demise all in the same hour.

I am suffering from wicked thoughts of suicide that are in my brain but don’t feel like my thoughts. It’s confusing.

I try not to act on any of the suicidal plans, yet at times I find myself getting up to go do whatever is my demise of the hour. Most times I catch myself when I am getting up and am able to stop myself. Sometimes I haven’t been completely lucky with that strategy.

Some days I feel morbidly depressed. I have resorted back to hiding in my bedroom as much as possible. I spend countless hours staring out the window, and suddenly I have an extreme depressive feeling, which follows with a graphic idea of killing myself.

I don’t know where these graphic suicidal ideas are coming from as I am much more practical than to think of these ways if I was suicidal.

I imagine there is extreme anger and pain behind the graphic ideas about my demise.

As I said, it gets so confusing. I think parts of me are “leaking” into me in a way that I cannot distinguish me from them. As such, their thoughts seem to make perfect sense to me.

Yes, I should stab myself with a butcher knife and lie down in my bed to bleed to death over night.

That is so not me, but yet it is me.

I would never do that to my children, but in my head it feels as though I will.

The world is so lonely for me right now. I am fortunate to have a spouse, therapist, and friend who know about some of this and are trying to get me help.

But, I worry no help exists.

In my life in the mental health system, there have been times when I know if I just went and worked on “x” I would stabilize or feel better. Honestly, I have no idea what x is for me this time.

Lost, pushing through each day hoping to gain some clarity the next day. It doesn’t come.

I am wasting my life, lost, never feeling grounded to this earth and my life.

The clock ticks, and ticks, and ticks. My dilemma stays the same. My fragility about my life continues.

I must have some hope hiding in me somewhere, but it is well hidden. The confusion in my mind keeps it from coming to surface. It is amazing to see the mind work so intensely against itself.

I plan for the future. I plan my demise. I don’t know how this will play out. I hope for the best, whatever that turns out to be.

How DID creates uncertainty

This topic is laughable for me, but I am going to try to write about it anyway.

I feel uncertain, unclear, unsure, and confused throughout each of my every days. Those terms might all be synonymous, but I actually don’t know at this moment.

I am married, and I don’t know how my spouse has tolerated me for 20 years. She asks me what I want for dinner, and I don’t know. She wants to know if I want to go to such and such happening this weekend, and I don’t know. Do I need anything from the grocery store? I don’t know. What did I do today? Not really sure. How are you feeling? I don’t know.

The list is endless, and something she has to deal with everyday. Needless to say, it causes her a lot of stress.

Internally, it causes me a lot of stress, too. I try so hard to answer my own questions of myself, and I can’t come to an answer that sticks longer than 30 minutes.

As someone who experiences Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), my brain operates very differently than a person who is what we call a “singleton.”

My life is like living in a giant high-rise apartment building. Lots of people live in my brain, and sometimes they stay holed up in their apartment, and other times they are out and about giving me advice or commenting on my life. These residents have the ability to influence my thoughts and behavior, and frequently I don’t even realize they are doing it.

Probably most difficult of all, my fellow residents have the ability to take my brain and body out for a spin, and they get to have their say with what happens in our life at those times.

My wife doesn’t always notice when this happens. Sometimes she just thinks I am in a different mood. She does catch me when one of the other residents acts very differently than me, like if they act like they are 8 and don’t know how to get food from our kitchen. She also catches me in an amnesia mess when I am under a lot of stress.

Recently I have been under a lot of stress dealing with suicidal feelings, loss, and trying to figure out if I need to go into a hospital for my own safety.

My feelings about all these topics change from hour to hour. Parts of me (other residents) can have really strong opinions about things, so my wife is rightfully stressed and confused when I tell her I am fine and not going into any damn hospital and ask her to stop talking to these places she has been trying to arrange care. The next day, I will often wake up feeling complete opposite, and lately haven’t had the memory for these conversations I am having with her when I am completely overwhelmed.

I get her frustration as I experience it with myself.

My brain is inconsistent and all over the place with things. I have a hard time distinguishing my thoughts and feelings from the others residing in our residence.

I can have a moment where I feel certain that killing myself is the answer to the situation I am in. Then later, I think of my kids and how I can’t do that to them no matter how much pain I am in. Other times, it feels like my kids are so far away from me that the voices in my head make sense when they convince me my children will be better off without me.

It’s a lot of daily confusion that my brain and body has become accustomed to.

I try really hard to know what I want or what is best for me, but the reality is I can’t figure it out.

This latest bout of intense suicidal feelings has been especially hard. Right now I am having a rational moment and am concerned by the thoughts and behaviors around suicide coming from me.

On one hand I know I should be in a hospital for my own safety, but the confusion starts when I begin thinking how oppressive, dangerous, and uncomfortable (they are cold, exhausting, you have to eat unhealthy food, they won’t let me take supplements, they won’t let my younger parts have a stuffed animal to comfort them, they have abused me in the past, they won’t let you leave, and they often want to heavily drug you). And these are only a few of the negative trade offs you get for staying “safe” by going to a hospital.

Days go by, and I have no idea what to do. This is how I operate. Heck, I scare myself when I realize my life is going by quickly while I am in this haze.

I struggle with whether I should make plans for later in the week because I have no idea if I will be home or in a hospital. I usually don’t make any plans, then I have missed out on more living.

In the meantime, I have engaged in suicidal behavior that I have kept completely secret because I don’t want others making this decision for me.

I know, it makes no sense. I can’t make decisions and don’t want others to make decisions for me either. It seems like my lack of decisions are safer than others making them for me.

Welcome to my world.