From Chaos to Control

This happens to me, too, Paul. I don't have the answers, but I do understand.

{{{{{{Paul}}}}}}

I'll be hoping for you when you really need an inner rally.

I think my "work part" has taken an interest in how my head is put together. This is a shift, but it means I'm not getting my job work done like before. I think everyone is in some amount of flux. Everything inside is being challenged. I'm safe now. But some of the really functional ways of working just don't seem to be working. We are more changed now than ever. This represents a totally new way of working. I'm not sure any of us understands it well. How will we move forward? How can I keep the life I've built together? These are the questions I find myself asking.

Hi Paul,

I know I have gone through times like this as well. For me it helped if I asked someone inside to help take over those work things that someone else was not able to do anymore. But that meant that someone new was there at work, usually a guy and a protector and that caused huge problems at work because co-workers were used to me being meek and mild and being pushed around and the guys stood up for us and co-workers did not like that big time. However it did help through a certain period where previous workers could not cope anymore with work life. They were just too burned out.

Can you ask anyone in the system if they can help with work or if they can ask everyone if they can help with daily tasks, etc? There might be someone who can.

Through that time I did find a great deal of help in the job and found that I was able to be motivated enough to do that because it was so important and making our own money was so important. The structure of work gave me a lot of help to get through things and do things that I wouldn't have normally been able to get done. It was amazing, but still, I only had so much energy and so many reserves until I needed to take a long break from it all.

However I remember how much stress, strain and energy doing memory work was and doing creative healing and talking and doing therapy and going to a support group and some days all I could manage was going home from stuff and laying face down on the bed and that was accomplishing something, cause healing and work took everything out of me that I had to give.

I think that I was really depressed at the time, but didn't really know it cause I was dealing with so many old emotions and they were alive so much in my daily life that I just didn't see that part of it all. And that sapped me of my energy as well.

The separateness feeling may be a part of the memories, triggers, and time of year that you are dealing with. I hope that you can give yourself some time to get through this and to be as gentle with yourself as you can.

Good and healing thoughts to you.

Kate

Just by way of update: I've had a hugely positive day so far and I haven't even had therapy yet. It's been confusing, painful, joyous and insightful, but it certainly hasn't been static. I'm grateful for that. Just when I was lamenting how static things have been, I get "lubricated"! I think I've understood that my work day energy is at such high a level that it's not sustainable, and this is why I crash on the off days. It's basically like manic depression. My highs have been too high and my lows too low. So, I'm going to take some pro-active steps. If I'm going to get up at 4AM, which is fine, then I have to make a commitment about going to bed early. I can't be going to bed after midnight and not take any medication because I think I'll not get up on time, and expect that to go over well. By the way, for those interested, my experience last night with the cacophony of voices and chaos followed by pleading for help and exertion of executive control was almost exactly like how it was portrayed in that short film INSiDE. It was really a bit freaky.

Paul,
I was once greatly offended by Mr.S when he said, "of all the people I've known with DID, I have the most hope for you." It was because I am so blasted "functional". The more stressed (good stress) I am, the better I function. While going thru 2 surgeries, a divorce, family blow up, moving (3x), I took a full load of classes at the local university and, oh, my dad died, too. All this was within 5 months. I got A's in every class.

And now, I'm great at my job - Johnny on the spot and Jack of all trades. BUT...

BUT, at home, I'm a freaking basket case. I can't do anything that I'm not forced to do. Mr.S sometimes tells me I have a right to veg once in a while and not to be beating myself up because I'm not the Ever Ready Bunny at home. I've learned to live with supper dishes in the dirty side of the sink and my laundry thrown all over my bedroom floor.

Hope you find answers to this side of your life, it is miserable to "know" and not be able to "fix" it.

Ivory

For me it was understanding my "work parts" were not as autonomous as I remembered. We were all involved, be it doing hard work and then it was forgotten or staying away until later.

I have dyscalculia I owned a engineering and surveying firm. Never knowing/remembering how I suffered with parts of it.

As I integrate my experiences I am less able to not know I am tired.

As I process the trauma my post traumatic stress is less. Go figure. I work differently now. For a while I thought that I could not work as hard. In part I do not need to hide in part I do not want to work as hard. I can get more done in the same time as the chaos dissipates.

I do less work for money as the work of therapy is time consuming and difficult.

For a bit if felt like "hey you go work and get some money so I can do the real work of healing". Felt like that as I did not understand.

Paul,
Wow, I thought about what I wrote earlier. Good stress is not the things I listed. I was trying to make a comparison. I was trying to say that sometimes, going with the flow is what we need to do, even if our head/awareness tells us we should or want to be doing something else.

I also didn't mention that I interview many people each week and several times a week, I talk to those who are on disability -- for depression, for a slipped disk in their back, for asthma, for panic attacks. They each have only one of those things listed - I have all of them, yet, I am working and somewhat "making it". Don't be so hard on yourself.

G'day!
Ivory

For completeness, I'm not sure how many actually follow these comments, therapy proved to be when this amazing amount of control I had fell apart. Things became very dysfunctional and old ways of coping were evident. I attributed that to my trust of my therapist. I got home and slept and I think I'm okay now. Thanks for all your comments and support.

Take care Paul...
Sending positive thoughts your way.

I've had a very hard time motivating myself to do things around the house or (especially) exercise, even though I used to do so very regularly for years. I wrote it off to being depressed/angry because of all the pretty awful abusive memories that are surfacing.

I decided that maybe this half-way point is not the time to start beating myself up about all that. I would say the same to you, cut yourself some slack.

I definitely fight this. And, for clarity, I have asked "singletons" if they fight this. Don't feel so alone, there are so many examples they bring up about productivity.

NOT to normalize having DID and our personal fight, but to feel so alone in this is a mistake easily made. I have done it myselves :)

In my system, I tried for organization and balance. I have super days (more now than in the past) and it's an exercise of changing habits. Before, I would crumble in panic attacks when faced with fears, because that is what I learned over time, but now I face them with new personalities that are strong and ready to take on things. You don't have to beat the "things" you take on, just "handle" them. It's a day at a time, method, not a permanent fix for all problems.

I have found that journaling the jobs that each personality is expected to do helped me. Mapping out my system with certain desires of how I wanted it to work (I'm the gatekeeper so that helped me with the overview) got me going down the road a bit further.

Overall, don't give up! You survived to live!

Thanks Cat. I try to normalize most all my experiences. It's important for me to know that my experiences aren't unique. Sometimes I have have more exaggerated responses than others, but I know everything is on some continuum. What surprises me, though, are the swings. I am struck by how completely non-functional and distraught I can be one minute and completely functional and almost stoic the next minute. I do have a hard time normalizing this. I explained in an earlier comment here how the experience was very much like that short film INSiDE. The voices and chaos and screaming were unbearable. But somehow there was one who came forward to make it all stop. I don't know that I face things with new personalities. I think not. I think it's that I face things with evolved personalities (or aspects of myself). My therapist is helping me to learn how to do this.

Wow,

Our therapists have often said we are soo strong and yet when we go in and say we are depressed they can't believe it because in their eyes we are too strong to get depressed :P

Just for the record, I think there is only a minimal relationship, at best, between strength and depression.