Divided But Not Conquered

Catholic living with dissociative identity disorder. Dedicated to following God one day at a time. Prayer requests always welcome!

[attainablerecovery]

Free Trauma and Dissociation Books

This is the link to Google Drive folder containing these books. There is a list below of what is in the folder. Please consider reblogging so these resources are available.

Disclaimer: I have not read all of these to completion. I have not researched all the authors. Please do your own research if you have concerns.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk MD

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker (edit: ableist views expressed about cluster Bs)

Complex PTSD Recovery Workbook by Kimberly Callis

Complex PTSD Workbook by Arielle Schwartz

Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation by Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, Onno van der Hart

EMDR Toolbox: Theory and Treatment of Complex PTSD and Dissociation by James Knipe

Emotional Incest Syndrome: What to Do When a Parent’s Love Rules Your Life by Patricia Love, Jo Robinson

Got Parts? An Insider’s Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder by ATW

The Haunted Self by Onno Hart

Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self Alienation by Janina Fisher

In an Unspoken Voice How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness by Peter A. Levine

Life After Trauma: A Workbook for Healing by Dena Rosenbloom, Mary Beth Williams, Barbara E. Watkins

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook: A Guide to Healing, Recovery, and Growth by Glenn R. Schiraldi

The PTSD Workbook: Simple, Effective Techniques for Overcoming Traumatic Stress Symptoms by Mary Beth Williams, Soili Poijula

Rebuilding Shattered Lives: Treating Complex PTSD and Dissociative Disorders by James A. Chu

Running on Empty: Overcome Your Childhood Emotional Neglect by Jonice Webb, Christine Musello

Stoning Demons Book 1: Childhood Trauma is a Primer for Complex PTSD by Kimberly Callis

Stoning Demons Book 3: Physical Health and Complex PTSD by Kimberly Callis

The Stranger in the Mirror by Marlene Steinberg

Toxic Parents by Susan Forward, Craig Buck

Trauma and Recovery by Judith L. Herman

Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy by Pat Ogden

Waking the Tiger Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Martha of Bethany

Feast Day: July 29

Patronage: butlers; cooks; dietitians; domestic servants; homemakers; hotel-keepers; housemaids; housewives; innkeepers; laundry workers; maids; manservant; servants; servers; single laywomen

St. Martha of Bethany is a biblical figure described in the Gospels of Luke and John. Together with her siblings Lazarus and Mary, she is described as living in the village of Bethany near Jerusalem. She was witness to Jesus' resurrection and of her brother, Lazarus.

Luke 10:41   And the Lord answering, said to her: Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

[dissociated-disciple]

Dealing with denial is infuriating when you say to yourself, "I don't have amnesia, I remember everything" and then look at a diary entry you clearly don't remember in different handwriting and write it off with "Oh I must've written it and don't remember now :)" like GIRL, THAT'S WHAT AMNESIA IS—

[dissociated-disciple]

Currently living that meme of "__ save me, save me __" with the alter who can eat spicy foods, I'm fighting for my life while on lunch break.

[orthodoxadventure]

Before Christ came, God had promised Him to man. He had done so in major fashion, speaking through the prophets of Israel, but also in those many other ways in which He communicates with man. As Christians we believe that He, who is the truth about both God and man, gives foretastes of His incarnation in all more fragmentary truths. We believe as well that Christ is present in any seeker after truth. Simone Weil has said that though a person may run as fast as he can away from Christ, if it is toward what he considers true, he runs in fact straight into the arms of Christ.

--Rev. Dr. Alexander Schmemann: For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy

[orthodoxadventure]

“Dearly Beloved, each word and deed of Our Saviour Jesus Christ is for us a lesson in virtue and piety. For this end also did He assumed our nature, so that every man and every woman, contemplating as in a picture the practice of all virtue and piety, might strive with all their hearts to imitate His example. For this He bore our body, so that as far as we could, we might repeat within us, the manner of His life. And so, therefore, when you hear mention of some word or deed of His, take care not to receive it simply as something that incidentally happened but raise your mind upwards towards the sublimity of what He is teaching and strive to see what has been mystically handed down to us”

St Basil the Great

[flirts-with-dragons]

One of the less noticeable but very annoying signs of DID in us is the Sudden Opinion Change.

In minor instances I can go from loving a video game and then having no interest in it and often no memory of how I felt playing it the next day.

In more common and problematic instances, it's yearning for a person and then absolutely despising them 3 hours later without interacting with them at all.

[willow-schmillow]

Getting functional with DID can feel like...

- I probably have a subsystem, but I'm applying for jobs so I don't really care about that right now

- Some of us have never experienced a long-term psychotic episode before because they were inactive before our symptoms started manifesting. It's alright, we'll give them the spark notes now and the full rundown when we feel better.

- "THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE WORLD."

- I'm not quite sure who I am, but we're *all* [name] and that's enough to pick up our prescriptions

- Someone's co-conscious and IDK who, but let's go get coffee together because we're *going* to get along, god damn it

- All of the scariest parts look like adults (or monsters), but they're kids. We have to talk to them like they're scared children, and they scream a little quieter.

- "THE WORST THINGS THAT COULD'VE HAPPENED TO US HAVE ALREADY HAPPENED. WE CAN DO THIS."

- I don't need to know how everything works. We're all strong and smart: we can figure it out as we go and be ok.

[dissociated-disciple]

Good to see you back! I always like seeing you on my dash :)

Hello friend!! I'm so sorry for how long it took for me to respond to your kind ask, life has been a bit hectic around here. But your ask brightened my day, thank you for the kind words! :)

[portraitsofsaints]

Saint Margaret of Scotland

1045 - 1093

Feast Day: November 16 (New), June 10 (Trad)

Patronage: Scotland; parents of large families; against the death of children

St. Margaret of Scotland was an English princess of the House of Wessex. Margaret was born in exile in Hungary. Around 1070 she married Malcolm III of Scotland, becoming his queen consort. In her position as queen, all Margaret's great influence was thrown into the cause of religion. Her private life was given up to constant prayer and practices of piety. Margaret was the mother of three kings of Scotland and a queen consort of England.

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

[theoneobserving]

“My daughter, do not omit Holy Communion unless you know well that your fall was serious; apart from this, no doubt must stop you from uniting yourself with Me in the mystery of My love. Your minor faults will disappear in My love like a piece of straw thrown into a great furnace. Know that you grieve Me much when you fail to receive Me in Holy Communion.” Jesus to Saint Faustina Kowalska

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Ilya Yefimovich Repin (Ukrainian-born Russian) Resurrection of Jairus' daughter, 1871 State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg The raising of Jairus' daughter is a reported miracle of Jesus that occurs in the synoptic Gospels, where it is interwoven with the account of the healing of a bleeding woman. The narratives can be found in Mark 5:21–43, Matthew 9:18–26 and Luke 8:40–56.

[warismenstrualenvy]

Archangel Gabriel and The Virgin Mary by Mikhail Nesterov (early 1900s, lead and colour pencil on paper)

[portraitsofsaints]

Guardian Angel

Feast of Guardian Angels. 

Feast day: October 2

The Feast of the Guardian Angels is a Catholic festival celebrated annually on October 2.  Paul V was the first Pope, in 1608, to authorize a feast day in honor of guardian angels. Pope Clement X changed the date to October 2 and Leo XIII, in 1883, upgraded the date to a double major feast.

According to Christian tradition, every one of us has a guardian angel who accompanies us from the moment we’re born until the moment of our death, and the mission of these angels is to protect us throughout our lives and guide us to heaven.

 "Angels cannot act directly upon our will or intellect, so they can only guide us to heaven if we want to go there. They can act on our senses and imaginations, encouraging us to make the right choices and live as Jesus wants us to." -St. Thomas Aquinas

Prints, plaques & holy cards available for purchase here: (website)

[mentoillnessposting]

I think a lot of people tend to think that blackout amnesia is super obvious, and that the experience is like cutting from one movie scene to another and being completely disoriented.

Blackout amnesia can be very deceptive, especially if you've had it nearly your entire life, because your brain starts getting really good at coping with it in basically any way it can. My brain often does this thing where I can remember remembering an event, but when I actually try to think about the event, I realise I don't actually know what happened. But the thing with memories is you're not constantly re-reviewing them to make sure you actually remember every single one- it was only when I started asking other people what happened during these events that I realised how little I truly remembered.

Coming to the front isn't always super obvious, because if we end up somewhere, it's fairly easy to orient ourselves just from virtue of having to do it all the time. You can get very good at spotting what type of building you're in, the people you're with, and how you most likely got there. The vast majority of the time, we're in places where we go to a lot anyways, so questions like "Where am I? Who am I with? How did I get here?" aren't even questions that would pop up. It can make it feel very much like you had a consistent string of memories, even if you really didn't. If you're wearing clothes you know you own, you'll probably think "Oh, I changed and forgot" or if you end up with food you like, you'll probably think "Oh, I must have gotten food and forgotten." It's natural to conclude normal forgetfulness over blackout amnesia.

Blackout amnesia isn't always as simple as ending up somewhere you don't recognize. It's not always as simple as ending up with things you don't own. Spotting blackout amnesia is extremely difficult- it's not as simple as just knowing what blackout amnesia is, but spotting the ways your brain has coped with it and what you could be missing these gaps. This isn't to say I've never been disoriented by my memory gaps. My memory gaps were pointed out by other people and had been aware of them long before I knew I had DID, but I had no idea I had blackout amnesia until I started looking more at what was going on. It can be easy to miss!

[acatholicrose]

[granolagaeilgeoir]

Totus Tuus

[portraitsofsaints]

Happy Feast Day Saint Agnes of Rome 291 - 304 Feast Day: January 21 Patronage: Betrothed couples, chastity

St. Agnes was a Roman girl who was only twelve or thirteen years old when she suffered martyrdom for her Faith. Agnes made a promise to God never to stain her purity. When the Prefect Sempronius wished Agnes to marry his son and she refused, he condemned her to death. She is one of seven women, excluding the Blessed Virgin, commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass. She is the patron saint of chastity, gardeners, girls, engaged couples, rape victims, and virgins. {website}