We all agreed to therapy - but it gives us all the feels.
Last Friday we saw a new therapist for the first time. This isn’t her first rodeo with dissociative identity disorder and her expertise is with alternative treatments, which is what we wanted so we had high hopes.
and we were excited - because this was the first time we planned to tell someone everything about our trauma and our multiple personalities.
But it’s proven to be harder than we could have ever imagined. Therapy days are tough. The system is always malfunctioning on the day of our appointment. We’re all at the front and we’ve been pacing up and down the path since the sun started to rise.
Everyone is right by the bench and so close to the driver’s seat that we don’t know who we are unless we are speaking (or choosing a music station) - we all want to make sure our voices are heard in therapy.
And if we’re honest, we all want to protect each other from what might happen there.
It’s scary. Every little bit of it. Admitting that what you experience isn’t “normal,” is a hard thing but lucky for us, MaKayla and Izzy have tons of practice jumping right to acceptance. What was hardest for us was finding the words to say to the people you love. No one ever prepared any of us for telling someone that there is more than one person living in our body. But we were ready and we knew that we had to get help.
We dove right in to asking the voices in our head questions in our journal and were surprised when we started to get answers. Once we started to get answers on paper, it instantly felt like we were aware. All of us.
and that’s when we began to pay attention...
to the buzzing in our head
to the hot wave of energy wash over us
to the sense of self settling in
and to the strengths of that person
and how they can help the system.
We figured that was the only way to be able to negotiate. And honestly, negotiation seems to be our way of life. Which is much better than it used to be.
We used to take over with no warning. We impersonated the host and no one knew. Some of us stuck around for an evening, some for years. It’s what we do to cope and there isn’t a reason for us to stop. It helped us survive.
and all of us agree on one thing - we would be happier if we didn’t have to fight so much to do that.
We trust Izzy and know she and Sarah will look out for the rest of us. Even though we’ve unanimously decided that it’s time to heal from all of our trauma and learn to work together . . .
the anxiety around therapy and leading up to a session will never go away.
Because there will always be more trauma. There will always be more stress. There will always be another reason to cope.
and now we ALL are aware that it is ok to be not ok.
