Education And Experience: Suffering Doesn’t Make Me An Expert

“Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” — Elie Wiesel, accepting the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize

Reading Playlist: Suggested Song

I want you to know that I am no expert.  I have experience and education – true academic as well as through years of personal psychoeducation.  But no matter what I may relay, I am no expert.  If that’s what you’re looking for – go find a good therapist (a blog for another day).  All I can offer is my own experience and understandings and through that, perhaps offer you(s) some support and camaraderie through the shared experience of trauma(s).

I avoided hospitalization most of my life.  As a struggling self-mutilator, it was always priority to hide the cuts.  No one could know or see, for fear of being ‘locked away’.  At the time I couldn’t discern whose fear that was, but recognizing my alters, in reflection, I know whose ‘voice’ it is.  Still, at the time, the fear of being labeled crazy and locked away permanently was a tangible and physical experience. As much as I desired for easier bleeding locations on my body, I almost always stuck to spots that no one could ever see.  So, that never sent me to the hospital.  I said in my last post that I tried to kill myself in the most passive of ways.  This is another thing I never had to be hospitalized for, because my alters would sort of outsmart each other.  For example, I had an alter named Misery who wanted to commit suicide.  So as a teenager, I created the most perfect* way to kill myself.  And I promised myself that I would not do it unless it was this meaningful way.  By doing this, I created parameters that I could never achieve.  I had intent and a method, but no means to bring it to fruition.  My ideal suicide took place in a foreign country, in a very emo-esque fashion.  But, although the idea is slightly humorous now, it literally saved my life.  I did not attempt suicide in any fashion that would result in being caught or in succeeding at it. 

So until my very thirties, I did not ever see the inside of a hospital for my mental health.  But when I did, when it was time – I needed intense intervention due to the breakdown of my system’s functioning after discovery of my diagnosis.  No longer were my promises to not cut saving me from the alter that needed to self-mutilate.  No longer were my fantasies of a poetic death enough to protect me from the alter that sought suicide.  No longer could I contain my rage and pain for behind closed doors.  It ravaged me in front of people – family, friends, as well as professionals.  My torture had a voice.  Sometimes it would be the cries of a child, desperate for assurances and security.  Others it would be a tortured soul’s screams of anguish.  Others would sob relentlessly.  A few had issues controlling anger.  They broke things.  Threw things.  Destruction was the remedy to the suffering we all endured.  Some, however, wrote poetry, rap songs, created beautiful works of art.  All reflecting the turmoil.  All screaming for help, in their own ways. 

Ally, my system’s dominant analyzer, required all parts help her by documenting dates, times, and specific events. Because I could not write fast enough to keep up with my brain(s), I used to type notes on my computer. And I had an app on my cell to allow me to do that even when I wasn’t near my computer. This is an excerpt during an episode of hiding and feeling incapable of handling my world.

And a day came when I needed – even wanted – to be hospitalized.  I needed trained professionals in the field, specialized for those with trauma disorders.  For those reading who have DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), you know that there are only a few respected hospitals for the treatment of the disorder.  So, it was to one of these places I found myself choosing to be admitted.  Certain alters hated me for this choice.  But then again, these particular alters hated me no matter what I did.  It was the hardest decision of my life and yet, at the time, the most dire. 

I wrote in my journal about my then psychologist’s first suggestion about a Trauma Disorders Unit. A once created order that I never be sent to or called for evaluation – became a willingly and necessary intervention. I even looked forward to the help, so desperate to be alleviated of the screaming in my head.
Due to the lack of any prior hospitalizations, my insurance company did not want to pay for an expensive and specialized unit at an out-of-state hospital. Uncertain if I would get the help I desperately needed, I accepted the inevitability of The Nothing.

Although I came with some education and experience, it is here that most of my personal education began into different modalities, techniques, and styles.  Into the different diagnoses, the long list of acronyms that would be written on my paperwork.  After hospitalization at the trauma unit, was a brief stint at the same hospital in another unit that did not specialize in trauma disorders.  The horror of that stay still surprises me.  It was followed by a second stay at the trauma disorders unit.  Of course, after hospitalization it is necessary to complete partial hospitalization and outpatient programs.  I went to one for women that focused on DBT (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy).  There I learned all of DBT (on repeat, ad nauseam).  Twice I had to complete a PHP and OP (partial-hospitalization program and outpatient program).  Eventually I attended an emotion-regulation track and a trauma track.  I went to multiple different psychiatrists following the ones in the hospital.  I was heavily medicated.  I learned all about those things too – antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, mood stabilizers, and off-label uses.  After I found a therapist who I thought understood treatment for DID, I attended more DBT lessons on a weekly basis rather than daily.  I also participated in a trauma group.  In all these instances, they taught the neurological and biological impacts of trauma.  About the reptilian brain, fight/flight/freeze, amygdala, hippocampus, etc.  I sat in group settings, surrounded by strangers all suffering in one way or another, discussing the ways our symptoms overlapped with each other.  Tales of not showering in weeks, discussions on the difficulties in getting dressed – about whether we could even get out of bed.  I discovered, much to my surprise, that I could learn something from the other people in these groups.  I could connect with them about trauma – a shared experience regardless of the personal details that fluctuate amongst survivors.  Even those without trauma who were suffering from mental health issues identified with some of my experiences and I with theirs’.  Stigma, disability, struggling to still be a partner and/or a mother, medication side-effects, psychiatrists who simply wouldn’t listen to you even though you know you’re body and responses better than anyone.  We could talk about fear.  The crippling panic caused by walking out in public, being seen, talked to, or engaged with by a stranger.  And I learned the phrases and meanings of all sorts of things: Window of Tolerance, Radical Acceptance, Hyper- and Hypo-arousal, Opposite to Emotion Action, Vagal Nerve, Grounding Exercises, Body Memories, and Behavior Chain Analysis (although the list is almost endless).  Self-improvement, for me, was a full-time job.  I needed to heal from my past.  I wanted too much from my life.  I had a family – I wanted to enjoy it and be happy in the present life that I created with them.  I wanted these things enough to face the inferno and travel through all nine circles.

Excerpt from Misery’s Journal.

In addition to this first-hand experience and education, I also majored in psychology and graduated (after almost ten years) with my B.A.  I helped professors conduct research and even led my own.  I have been employed and worked with traumatized individuals, counseling and running groups.  I had this job before my DID breakdown and then, again, after many years and the beginnings of integration.  It was interesting to go from running group, to attending it, then back to running it.  It provided me an understanding of the process inside and out, from all perspectives and angles.  I went from leading sessions to seeking someone to lead me.  It is the interesting thing (among so many) about DID.  I had alters who were so capable, so stable, and so intelligent.  I relied on them more than I was willing to admit.

I also read so many books about PTSD, Trauma, Loss, Recovery, Sexual Abuse…some by renowned trauma experts likes Bessel Van Der Kolk. (For those who know that name and those who may not, I am referencing The Body Keeps the Score. I read this before my diagnosis and it was how I finally was able to understand that my memories were dissociated.) At different points in my life, scholastic/self-help books were a source of comfort and knowledge or turmoil and provocation. There are some books I never finished reading, and others where I marked pages and remembered certain lines or facts.

My sudden recognition and understanding of my history with dissociation due to my reading of Bessel Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score.

So, whenever I talk about something, it comes from experience and knowledge. I will tell you how I know something and where you can also get the information. But I know and understand based on me, therefore my interpretations will not be universally applicable. Everyone needs an individualized approach with a professional. So no, I am no expert.  I know now what an expert on DID is and sounds like.  I know what real therapy can be.  And I have too much respect for the fine art of trauma therapy to know that I am no expert at guiding others. All I can tell you is that the fight is worth it and healing will impact your life in ways you could not even imagine possible. 

A painting I made in art therapy at the hospital. It was my system’s first attempt at trying to illustrate ourselves. The black and red roots were my two childhood perpetrators. Some of these roots affected branches of alters. I tried to illustrate, even early on, the many subsections of alters. There were always so many that a large tree with lots of branches and offshoots felt closest to a visual representation of my system.