I bet you can´t! Imagine a room, full of half eaten sandwiches, empty plastic packs of youghurt or quark, chocolate bar wrappings, tons of sheets of paper, cut and torn clothes…

This was the state in which Susan´s room was in. And this was not the work of a week or even days. Susan could create a mess like this in a matter of two hours.

But how did she do that? Where did she get all the things from? For months now, we have been locking the kitchen the copying paper has been locked away in my study, we supplied her with sweets of all kind for a case of emergency – and still, she found ways to access our supplies, partly stored in the fridge in the cellar. Shopping for the week has become an incalculable adventure, not knowing how much there would be left of anything.

The same, Susan is unwilling to put her clothes into the wardrobe or take worn clothes to the washing machine in the cellar. It was all spread out on the floor of her room.

And you better don´t criticise her behaviour, unless you are prepared to get an aggessive outbreak and slammed doors.

We ask ourselves constantly what might go on in her mind that makes her do the things she does. We know that because of neglect in her early years of childhood, she was storing food and drinks in her room. We know that cutting and tearing her clothes derives from her urge to destroy what she likes, and the same goes for enjoyable situations. But why does she tear sheets of paper and spread them out on the floor?

Many times, I helped her with tidying up her room, or at least part of it. As a result, one hour later, the state was as before. Some people say that her room was a sort of mirror of her inner self: chaotic, unstructured, messy.

We decided that we couldn´t go on with Susan like that, and bear her behaviour that was destroying our family. An immediate solution of the problem had to be found. This would definitely mean an admission in a mental institution where we could rely on a special trauma treatment. It would mean that we would be integrated in the therapeutical process, so that Susan could return to our family and would be able to go on with a trauma therapy to bring relief to us all.

There is no question of why we are doing all that. We´re in too deep. Can we really manage all that and find an acceptable solution?

The day couldn´t be more controversial. In the morning the assistance conference for Susan took place. Our welfare official was present, together with another official who is in charge of children who are in danger of mental handicap. Both of our foster daughters have been classed in this category. As Susan is in the custody of the youth welfare, there is a change in responsibilities. Not to our best, as will be proven.

Furthermore, the biological father and family case manager were taking part. No idea why the co-ordinator of the family case manager was present, as well. Does she mistrust her own employee?

In the beginning, I gave a detailed description of the reasons for giving Susan into the youth welfare office custody. It is a strange situation. Why couldn´t I get rid of the feeling that we have failed? Nobody said so, and the atmoshere is professional. Maybe that´s the reason. A mention like “Don´t worry, you have done all that there was to be done” would have shown some appreciation for us.

In fact, the decision-making of the authorities played an important part in the coming up of the present situation as we see it. The authorities argue rather blodly that the trauma therapy which we applied for during a year´s period was not sufficient any more. No word about the fact that it was them who refused a special therapy, without having an idea of how it works. No word about the fact that in my position as foster parent had tried to find an appropriate institution, writing letters and making telephone calls. Is this my competence, anyway, or isn´t it rather the responsibility of the professionals to get this under way?

The educator in charge of Susan is looking at the problem from another position. We believe her report to be trustworthy, as she leaves an impression of dedication with us. Her report gives a totally different picture than we had of Susan before she had left us. She is easy to be integrated, keeps to the rules. She is amazed about how calm and relaxed the reaction to her situation was.

The biological father came up with what he probably thought to be a brilliant idea. Susan should be accommodated in an institution near his place of residence, so that he could visit her more often. Was this the start of returning her to the person who had abused and neglected this girl for such a long time? Was it going to start all over again? Is the fact that he had served his sentence enough of a reason to give it another try? Just the idea of that gives me the creeps.

Fortunately, this suggestion isn´t acceptable even for the youth office officials. Most of all, the intention to keep up Susan´s relation to Janet was reason enough not to follow this proposal.

It is evident to everybody present that Susan needs a therapeutical housing group. A suggestion for such a group near our residence is turned down because it is supposed to be unsuitable.

At least, everybody agreed on the procedure to visit any chosen institution beforehand and also escort the removal. I agreed because it gave me the chance to keep up some influence at least on the choice – as things will develop, I won´t be very successful with putting through this intention.

Change of location and situation. Emergency unit in the emergency housing group. Susan was already attending my arrival. We were spending ten minutes outside on the playground. I observed that the present situation is of utmost importance for her. She left the impression of being distractable and nervous, always moving about and avoiding eye contact. She is not able to concentrate on any conversation, all the time looking around as if she was searching for something. It gave me the impression of a typical lack of concentration syndrome, like when she lived with us, only more intense. She spoke in confusion about clashes amongst members of the housing group. Maybe it is only my perception from a more distant position that made me feel uncomfortable. Anyway, soon Susan had enough of my presence and decided to leae.

Ruth and Janet were already attending my return when I arrived. What was it like? I told them of my impressions. All of us felt distressed. Still, it will be me to keep up contact. Both of them wouldn´t be able to bear this sort of situation, and I don´t like it, either.

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Externalizing Responsibility

What an interesting phrase.

Externalizing responsibility is when someone fails to accept responsibility for the messes they make or for the problems they cause.  It is also failing to accept responsibility for the situations they find themselves in.

Internalizing responsibility is personally taking on the responsibility for what happens (in the past, present, or future).  It is accepting the responsibility for personal welfare or for consequences of actions instead of dumping the blame on others.

Do you externalize responsibility?

Do you internalize responsibility?

For dissociative trauma survivors, the issue of when to accept responsibility versus when to deflect responsibility is a very complicated topic.

Most DID survivors have had years of experience internalizing responsibility for the actions of their perpetrators, family members, abusers, etc.  Abusive offenders are some of the world’s best at externalizing blame onto someone else, and most trauma survivors internalize that blame, guilt, shame within themselves.  Purposeful and direct blaming of the victim, especially child victims, typically ends up with the victim feeling responsible for the abuse.

Having this convoluted, complicated history of who is or isn’t responsible makes “accepting responsibility” a very difficult topic for trauma survivors.
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Self Blame

Survivors spend years of time blaming themselves for the abuse (internalizing responsibility).  Survivors typically end up feeling like they were bad, or they did something to cause it, or it was because they were too pretty, or too available, or too easy, etc.  Survivors were usually told by their abusers that they deserved the abuse, or they liked the abuse, or they wanted the abuse, or some variation of the sort.

Perpetrators know that if they verbally blame the victim, that victim will be more likely to internalize the responsibility for what happened. Perpetrators typically do not accept responsibility for their actions.  The more the perpetrators push blame and responsibility onto the victim, the more the victim will internalize that responsibility and blame.
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Blaming Perpetrators

But typically, survivors are not responsible for being abused.  At least, they are not responsible for what the abuser does.  The abuser is responsible for what the abuser does.

However, it is very difficult for many trauma survivors to put the blame of their abuse back onto their perpetrator.  Trauma survivors will argue with their therapists that their abusive loved ones were not at fault – that they cannot be considered a perpetrator – that they are not to be blamed.

How many of you refuse to believe that your father (or mother) sexually abused you even if other parts in your system have said this clearly?

How many of you refuse to blame your perpetrator, and instead will run in circles protecting your family member from being called a perpetrator?

How many of you will argue that you have no right to be angry with your father – perpetrator?  How many of you will define criminal actions as “not a problem” in order to not assign responsibility to your loved one?
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Abuse

Children are not responsible for being abused.  Adults are responsible anytime they have abused children.  Children will internalize the blame, but they are not responsible for being abused.

What about when the trauma survivor is an adult?  What if the adult survivor is being abused as an adult?  Who’s responsible then?

Adult trauma survivors do get abused.  There are thousands of domestic violence situations where adults are being abused on a regular basis.  Rapes and date rape situations can happen to adult trauma survivors.  Dissociative survivors can still be involved in the sex slave industry or other ongoing abuses even as an adult.  Abuse certainly can happen into adult-hood.

Who is responsible in these situations?

Of course, the abusers are still responsible for their own abusive behavior.  (The topic of recognizing who abusers are will be discussed in a different blog article.)

However, these issues are not simple once the victim is an adult who has to be responsible for their own selves and any dependents. If you are an adult trauma survivor caught in abuse, it is not your fault you are being abused, but it is your responsibility to get yourself out and away from this abuse.

These adult survivor victims are responsible to get the help they need to get out of their abusive situations.  They do not cause the abuser to abuse, but they are responsible to learn how to protect themselves and to protect any children that may be involved in the situation.  It is important to build and utilize enough resources for safety and protection that will make the abuse come to an end as quickly as possible.
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Finding the Balance

The difficult part is internalizing the correct portion of the responsibility.  Even adult trauma survivors well experienced in therapy will internalize responsibility that genuinely belongs to the abuser.  Other adult trauma survivors will stay stuck completely in the victim role, refusing to accept responsibility for getting out of the mess they are in.  Sometimes survivors will cause-create-instigate-perpetuate emotional conflicts that are of their own making, and yet, claim to be the victim of their circumstances (more on that topic another time…).

So think about it…

Internalizing responsibility vs. externalizing responsibility.

What really does belong to you?

What really does belong to someone else?

Are you taking on too much?

Are you acting like a victim in situations where you are actually responsible?

———-

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

Searching is one of my main activities these days. Today I am searching the virtual world of the Internet for a pulmonologist. Ruth has fallen ill with an asthmatic cough. The excitement during the last days finally shows also in her physical health. All doctors we are calling, however, have a waiting list of three months or more. How can it be that in a civilised country like ours, you have to wait for an appointment with a medical speciaist for months?

Finally we succeeded. The diagnosis is evident. Asthma. Ruth now has to stay under constant surveillance. All exciting situations are problematic for her health.

Second search. We decided to finally tackle the problem from the very basics. Janet is refusing to begin with a therapy. She needs our help and support when being confronted with a therapist; no chance for a male therapist. So I am trying to find a family therapist.

An enquiry at the health insurance turned out that systemic family therapies wouldn´t be paid for for what reason whatever. No chance to get costs reimbursed by the youth welfare office.

So I looked for welfare organisations who offer this sort of coaching for free. After a while I found out that again, there are responsibilities according to areas of service. Finally, I found a social welfare organsiation which was willing to make an appointment.

Unfortunately, we had to discover that this sort of assistance was not sufficient. Ruth and Janet were calling it a “tea-time small talk”. Both ladies really did their very best, but we had to notice that they hardly had an insight into our problems.

Many specialists had already told us that our situation was extremely difficult and complicated. Still, what´s that good for if we don´t get any assistance?

Besides, there are lots of foster families fighting just the same as we do to obtain the best results for the kids for whom they are responsible. We know some of them. It is only that far to few people know what ist means to bear responsibility for children who had to endure such a lot during their shot lives.

I still remember the quote of a well-known psychiatrist during a coaching for foster parents:

Foster parents are obliged to stand for the interests of their traumatised foster children. Who else will do that if not them? They have to show their foster children full solidarity by unconditionally taking their part.

When will authorities, therapists and clinics finally accept this fact and begin helping foster parents and their traumatised foster children, regardless of specialist discussions and responsibilities?

If you are in need for help in case of mental distress, don´t count on assistance of medicl institutions if you live in Germany.

This is a letter I wrote to the head psychiatrist of a mental clinic for juveniles in the atempt to organise help for our foster daughter Susan and the result that came from it.

Dear Mr XXXXXXXx,

We are turning to you because we are in urgent need of help for our 12-year old foster daughter who has been living in our family for more than five years together with her older sister.

For one year, the symptoms of a post-traumatic stress disease caused by a crime in her family. She is transferring her traumatic experience inflicted by her biological mother to my wife, is over-reacting aggressively to her, is restaging in our family the situations she had experienced and is putting herself into isolation in our family because of her uncontrolled behaviour. Beginning puberty is causing aggressive outbreaks. Dyscalculia has been diagnosed, and is leading to problems at school.

In cooperation with the local youth welfare office in charge, we see the necessity of helping Susan in a fast and competent way. For us, the precondition for a diagnosis and therapy is being treated and cared for by a multiprofessional team specialised on traumatology, as well as the inclusion of the foster parents and psychological parents into decision-making and therapeutical processes. We class your institution according to the description of your therapeutical methods and treatment plans in your Internet presence as most suitable and would like to discuss the futher steps with you in a personal contact.

The present crisis in the development of our foster daughter is calling for immediate action. On the other hand, we refrain from putting Susan into an institution which does not ensure our taking part in the therapeutical process and the use of appropriate therapeutical methods.

…

We would like to urge you to assist us in this situation of distress which we are not able to bear much longer. We are available by e-mail or the above-mentioned mobile number at any time. I would try to contact you during the next days, at any time which will be convenient for you.

Yours sincerely

P.S.:

The reply reached us in form of a call by the secretary of the head psychiatrist who let us know that Susan could not be admitted because we weren´t living inside the clinic´s service area.

P.P.S.:

This is horrifying. There is no way to choose the best treatment for our foster daughter. You have to take what you get, no matter if it is first or second best or not suitable at all. In our country, for those who have to suffer the most terrible fate there is the least help. Fates and experience are administered, there is somebody in charge for every problem, everything is socially balanced. Who does really care for the psychic state of these traumatised people? Why is it left to circumstance which treatment they are entitled to and if the clinic in charge for the service area really fits the needs of the individual person? Why is the traumatised kid not entitled to the latest, best, most efficient methods of treatment? Why are there so few trauma therapists wh are fully booked for years? Why are some therapists still allowed to class EMDR and other trauma therapies as ineffective? And why do youth welfare offices still trust in those who are discrediting trauma therapies?

The most important of all questions is why those who are in need of a special therapy but are not able o meet the costs to get the best of all therapies are denied financial support. Why may biolgical parents in custody of the kids they have mistreated so often prevent such a therapy by refusing ther consent, and thereby provoke a legal conflict in court the outcome of which is more than uncertain?

This is the end of my efforts. So much for the search for a suitable mental institution for Susan.

Compulsive Hoarding is a cluttery mess!!

What makes this happen?

Have you seen homes that look like this?

Does your home look like this?

Compulsive hoarding, or disposophobia, is a psychiatric condition that affects millions of people.

Compulsive hoarding is an obsessive need to acquire and keep possessions, even if these items have little value, are unsanitary, or broken, or unusable.  Numerous items are kept and not discarded.  Instead of using the items already owned, or looking for items that are lost in the piles, new items are acquired repeatedly to the point that the clutter creates significant dysfunction in a variety of areas of the person’s life.

Compulsive hoarding is far more complex than it first appears.  It is connected to a variety of disorganized chaotic behavioral patterns and disorganized thinking patterns.  It typically occurs in combination with other psychiatric issues, such as depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), eating disorders, attention deficit disorders, addiction issues, trauma disorders, attachment disorders, etc.

There appears to be a biological base to this behavior as research is beginning to explore a genetic link to compulsive hoarding in generations of families.  As children, many hoarders were raised by parents who were hoarders, so not only is it a learned behavior, but it could also be  biologically connected. The area of the brain most significantly different for hoarders is the part of the brain that is responsible for focus, attention, and decision-making.  According to research done at the University of Iowa, damage done to the to the right medial prefrontal cortex of the brain tends to cause compulsive hoarding.

Hoarders have a great deal of anxiety when pressured to let go of their possessions.  They typically require external assistance, including professional assistance, to help with the cleaning and organizing tasks.  Feelings of emotional overwhelm, intense anxiety, and panic attacks can be paralyzing for the hoarder.  These increased anxiety symptoms create an inability to make decisions, stir up friction and emotional outbursts, lead to fatigue and exhaustion, and repeatedly interrupt the cleaning process.  Letting the hoarder have control of the cleaning process and allowing time for the harder to build trust with the cleaning crew is particularly important to successful organizational efforts.

The clean-up process is intense and slow.  Forcing a hoarder to clean too quickly will not result in long-term resolution of the problem.  The problem is not just “clean up your house” or “throw this away”.  The problem lies deeper within the person, and the struggles will manifest again in just a short-time.

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How does compulsive hoarding relate to Dissociative Identity Disorder?

Compulsive hoarding is an issue separate from DID / MPD, but many dissociative survivors struggle with hoarding issues.

DID survivors have a variety of issues that overlap with hoarding behaviors: intense anxiety, deep feelings of hopelessness, fear of being out of control, problems with focus and decision-making, attachment issues, loss and grief, depression, the need for memory reminders, disorganized thought processes, disorganized behaviors, etc.

How many trauma survivors do you know that did not have safe people to attach to?  And how many survivors of neglect were left alone, isolated with no one to attach to?  When children spend too much time alone, they tend to attach to items, toys, books, stuffies, etc.  Attaching to stuff is better than attaching to nothing.  It is an adaptive behavior in a painfully difficult environment.  However, when this continues over time, the potential for these behaviors to develop into a compulsive hoarding situation increases.

The emotional pain from not having deep personal relationships or the fear of being near people can add to the need to connect with physical possessions or animals instead of people.  Building a personal relationship with stuff, and with animals can add to a compulsive hoarding situation.  Attaching to stuff can feel much safer than attaching to people.

With all the switching and amnesia that can happen with dissociative identity disorder, DID survivors can experience a lot of chaotic thinking and chaotic behaviors.  It can be difficult to complete a task – you can be there, and then suddenly find yourself somewhere else five hours later, having never finished the task you started in the first place.  These kinds of disorganized behaviors can leave unattended messes and growing clutter all around your house.  Do your child parts pick up the messes they leave behind?  Do your teenage parts pick up their clothes?  Did anyone remember to finish the dishes?  What about the mess those angry parts made?  Who wants to clean that up?

The “I didn’t do that, so I’m not cleaning that up” concept can get very difficult for dissociative survivors.  You might not know who made the mess in the first place, or the part that did it might not be around anymore, you might not know how to call them back, etc.  You might not know who to assign to completing basic household chores.  Developing system work and system cooperation can help, but in the meantime, there can be a lot of “that’s not mine” / “I’m not doing that” arguments.  Clutter and external disorganization can build while you are sorting out these internal system issues.

How many dissociative survivors have trouble remembering if they have something?  Do you own one of those things?  Did you buy that, or just think about buying that?  Or was that last year?  Do you still have that?  Or was that way back then?  Where did you live when you had that? Or if you know you have it, do you know where it is?

Sometimes it is easier to buy the item again than find it or remember if you have it.  While this can be a dissociative symptom, this also contributes to the “Shop and Drop” behaviors found in compulsive hoarding.   Shop and Drop refers to a pattern of behavior where the compulsive shopper drops their packages and purchases in some unspecified place.  Over time, the packages and purchases get lost in the piles of other clutter, and then when it is time to use the items that were purchased, the location of the dropped items cannot be found.  It becomes easier to buy those items again, instead of finding the ones you had.

There is also the complication of accumulation by repetition. Compulsive hoarders will acquire and stash away numerous items that are basically the same.  What if you buy everyone in your DID system a stuffie?  How many stuffies will that be?  What if everyone wants their own books?   And of course, many of the different insiders will have their own shirts, their own pants, their own shoes, their own socks, etc.  While it is extremely important that the insiders have their own things, the sheer volume of each of the parts keeping their own stuff can add to the size of an ever-growing clutter problem.

The same as with compulsive hoarding, things / possessions / items can represent memories.  For DID survivors, memory is a very complicated subject.  Having items that trigger memories, or remind you of certain things can be a significant part of a growing clutter issue.  Loss and grief are hard emotions to process, and holding on tightly to the items that help you to remember certain people or events can be significant.  It is particularly difficult to let go of an item that has emotional significance to you, especially if it feels like you won’t remember someone or something if you don’t have those correlating things.

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Here are a few ideas for addressing compulsive hoarding issues:

• Decide your current life goals, and keep only items that match with those life goals
• Explore the various meanings that possessions have for you
• Consider appropriate medications for anxiety, OCD, depression, etc.
• Work hard in therapy to address your emotional pain and other emotional issues
• For DID survivors, work hard on developing better internal communication and cooperation so clutter issues can be prevented or addressed
• Address your fears of letting go, or letting go of control – what is that about for you?
• Be honest with yourself about what you really need, what you will really use, what actually works, what you can actually fit into, etc.  Challenge delusional thinking.
• Get professional help if necessary, especially if clutter is affecting your life
• Consider taking pictures of emotionally important but logically unnecessary items.  Photo albums can be less cluttering than keeping all the actual items.
• Donate your excess to those less fortunate than you.
• Consider new rules to live by:  If you get something new, get rid of something old.
• Address your deep feelings of shame, embarrassment, humiliation, fear, sadness, etc.
• Work on building deeper and longer-lasting attachments instead of repeatedly discarding and replacing things (but keeping it just over there in case you want it again)
• Work on building meaningful attachments to people, learning to trust, and finding ways to connect
• Find healthy, meaningful ways to fill the voids in your life by doing more, and keeping less

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———-

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

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It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in the US, and besides the wonderful traditional family meal and pleasant times with my kids, this time frame reminds me of something else.

Discussing Dissociation has been up and visible for nearly one year now.  Yep, in a few days, it will be a year already!

Wow.  Where has the time gone??!!!

There is truth to the saying that time flies, or is it because time flies when you’re having fun … or maybe I’m just getting older, lol.

Anyway, I’m being silly, but I do want to say today how much I appreciate all of you that have been readers here at this blog.  The number of faithful, returning readers has been utterly amazing to me. If you look back through all the pages, you’ll see well over a thousand excellent comments from a wide variety of the readers.  Wow!  The input you all have made in this blog has brought it to life and given it a life-filled energy that I certainly couldn’t create on my own.

For the way each and every one of you have contributed to the positive, educational nature of this blog, I sincerely thank you.  I truly appreciate your involvement, your thoughts, your comments, your questions.  You’ve helped to make this little site a safe, comfortable community for dissociative trauma survivors. I think it’s a job well done, and once again, I do sincerely thank you for your part in this process.  Writing a blog wouldn’t be nearly so fun without hearing comments from the readers!  You all rock!

Many of you have questioned why I started this blog in the first place.  The original reason is not as mysterious or worrisome as some of you may have thought.  It’s a widely stated and highly recommended common practice for therapists to use blogs for marketing purposes.  Marketing experts recommend to write what you know about, and to respond to the comments you receive.  Blogs get quickly listed in search engines, and they are an easy, economical way for your target audience to get to know you, and to see what you do, and to become more familiar with the work that you do.  It’s a simple as that.  Check the blogosphere for blogs by therapists.  You’ll see that most therapists write about their fields of work the same as I do.

I just happen to know about a very specialized topic – dissociative identity disorder.  And my readers are a very distinct but wonderful population – dissociative trauma survivors or trauma therapists.  (There aren’t very many of us out here — it’s no wonder that we are congregating together!)  And yes, practically all of my blog articles have been very specific to DID, not that the topics couldn’t also apply to other populations, but the point of this blog is to “discuss dissociation” so I do tailor my articles to being about dissociative disorders, and the DID population.  There’s no mystery there, lol.  I think I’ve said that pretty upfront.

But something much bigger has been happening besides my having found a very effective marketing tool.

With all the positive sharing and support that has been created here, this blog has provided a deep sense of hope and healing for so many people.  Having that absolute knowing that others are progressing along their healing journey as well, many survivors don’t have to feel so very alone.  You might learn things from my articles, but you can also learn from each other, the same as I learn from you as well.  It’s a wonderful circle of positive, helpful information, and that in itself is priceless.

Building a sense of safety, knowing you are not alone in your struggles, and learning from others who have been there too provide emotional foundations that so very crucial to healing and can augment your therapeutic process.  Please remember, this blog is in no means a substitute for actual therapy, but it does provide a lot of educational support for survivors working on their own healing, or for therapists learning about working DID / MPD.

Again, you all have immensely helped to create that healing, informative atmosphere, and I am grateful for that.

We have to create and protect places of healing.

Even survivor-led blogs such as the truly incredible BTC blog have become targets for destruction by the “hazing / flaming / insaniacs” of the world.  Do we really want the haters and gossipers to take over and ruin all the places of healing and support?  How sad is this?!!

I know that you know there are predators and perpetrators out there in the world.  For some of you, your abuse stopped years ago.  For some of you, you are still smack dab in the middle of fighting your abusers.  Some of you are being hassled and manipulated by internet predators (whether you know it or not), and some of you are safely away from any direct attack from anyone.  No matter where you are in your life, there are abusers and predators out there in the world, (including those wolves in sheep’s clothing hiding within the dissociative population itself), so the importance of having safe retreats amongst all the danger and destruction is more important than you might realize.

Those of you that feel the loss of BTC’s blog can understand what I’m talking about.  It’s a real shame that abusive people continue to ruin the good places and run off the good people.  I think that is a tragedy.  But it happens.

• Are you one that sits back quietly, doing nothing even though you see others destroying places of support?
• Do you believe the lies and negative gossip spread about helpers and healers?
• Are you so angry from your own abuse that you are willing to take that out on people who have helped you?

Surely the survivor population can see through the manipulations of abusers.  You are adults now – you can start seeing through the tricks that are being played out there.  Please remember to think for yourself the next time you hear some negative hogwash about someone who has dared to be a helper / healer.  You can take a stand against that.

Complacency only allows abuse to continue.

Trauma survivors, I encourage you to ban together in protection of your valued and positive healing resources.

So many of you grew up without any safety or comfort or support.  You learned to pull deep within yourself or to block out the world entirely.  You survived it alone.

But it doesn’t have to be that way anymore.

Most of you are still learning about how important and helpful it is to have places of safe connection, genuine relationship, and gentle bonding.   It may be scary to be around people, but building a positive, healing, trustworthy community is a way of overcoming the need to be isolated in order to avoid abuse.

Again, I challenge you to protect your places of healing.  Protect those that are your helpers.  Stand firm around your leaders that fight against abuse.

Don’t fall into the trap of complacency or destructive participation.

Your healing resources are depending on that.

———-

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

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There have been some interesting discussions and comments from various trauma survivors about how much their therapists have meant to them.  These readers have shared some very tender moments with their therapists and have talked openly about the depths of their heart-warming connections and healing moments.

Clearly, these survivors have found their therapists to be important and significant people in their lives.  The work and the effort of developing these therapeutic relationships have clearly been worth it to them.

But why?

Why is their therapist important?

On the flip-side, other commenters in this blog have written about horror stories they have had with former trauma therapists.  It seems there is an endless supply of the “bad t” stories that get passed around and shared over and over.  I can’t tell you how many of those stories I’ve heard.  I’m sure each of you have already been told about at least a dozen bad therapists.  In these stories, the clients are angry with their therapist, they accuse the therapist of causing all kinds of harm, and they speak of these therapeutic relationships as traumatic or disturbing or exploitive.

Who are these bad therapists?!

Is there any trauma therapist that has not been considered to be a “bad t” by someone or another?  Honestly, most therapists get targeted sooner or later by someone. It happens frequently.  (Please remember the blogs about love/hate relationships and protecting your therapeutic relationship.)

So if there are allegedly so many bad therapists, or perceived bad therapists, why do trauma survivors repeatedly risk having a therapist in the first place?

Why does a therapist matter to you?

Why bother with the hassle of developing and maintaining a therapeutic relationship?

Why does a therapist warrant your business, your time, your respect, or any caring connection from you?

What does a therapist do anyway?

There are a variety of reasons why dissociative trauma survivors might find therapists to be important.  I’ve listed 50 benefits of having a therapist. This is not an exhaustive list. If you have an idea to add, please comment.
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50 Benefits of Having a Therapist

1.   To have someone encourage you to love and accept yourself to the point that you can truly live, without focusing on death and needing to die
2.   To have someone in your life that will make it ok to not have to dissociate away from your real life
3.   To have someone to bounce ideas on, to problem solve, to explore new behaviors
4.   To have someone to talk to about deeply private and personal things
5.   To have someone who can genuinely hear your pain, and sit with you when you are hurting
6.   To have someone who can give you their undivided attention, their best listening ear, even if for a specified period of time
7.   To have someone who gives you courage and hope to keep going, even in the darkest moments
8.   To have someone who provides a gentle, safe environment for the healing of your deepest wounds and painful memories
9.   To have someone who repeatedly offers positive emotional support and encouragement
10.  To have someone who sincerely believes in you and your abilities, talents, and accomplishments
11.  To have someone who truly sees you as a good person, a worthwhile person, a valuable person
12.  To have someone who will address the variety of issues that underlies the mental health difficulties in your life.
13.  To have someone who will build a relationship with you, willingly connecting with you, no matter how badly you feel about yourself
14.  To have someone who will challenge your thinking and cognitive distortions
15.  To have someone who will connect the dots of your dissociated life experiences
16.  To have someone who will encourage you to be comfortable becoming your very own self
17.  To have someone who will encourage you to build a life based on your strengths instead of the life your abusers may have designed for you
18.  To have someone who will encourage you to try new things and to stretch your horizons
19.  To have someone who will expect you to honestly work on your issues instead of blaming others
20.  To have someone who will foster your leadership skills, job skill development, educational opportunities, etc.
21.  To have someone who will genuinely accept you, warts and all
22.  To have someone who will have the courage and ability to tell you “no”
23.  To have someone who will hear your heart and the depths of your soul
24.  To have someone who will help to remove the jagged edges from your life
25.  To have someone who will help you build a tolerance and acceptance of others
26.  To have someone who will help you create personal safety, both inside and out
27.  To have someone who will help you find and connect with your very best self
28.  To have someone who will help you to build the ability to tolerate and sit with intense emotions in yourself and in others
29.  To have someone who will help you to contain the extremes of your behavior and feelings
30.  To have someone who will help you to emotionally grow, develop, mature
31.  To have someone who will help you to move past the blocks, walls, and black holes
32.  To have someone who will help you transform self destruction into self acceptance
33.  To have someone who will hold you accountable and responsible for troublesome areas
34.  To have someone who will hold your secrets with you
35.  To have someone who will listen to you, and understand your point of view
36.  To have someone who will look for the positive in each and every one of your insiders
37.  To have someone who will make it safe enough for you to express your true feelings
38.  To have someone who will offer encouragement and support, even when its tough
39.  To have someone who will offer guidance as needed
40.  To have someone who will offer opportunities to explore trust, acceptance, compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience
41.  To have someone who will push you to move forward, instead of sitting complacently
42.  To have someone who will recognize family dynamics and their impact on you
43.  To have someone who will remember what your insiders say, especially when it is too difficult for you to retain it
44.  To have someone who will set appropriate limits and boundaries
45.  To have someone who will sit with you while you face your deepest fear, shame, guilt, horror
46.  To have someone who will sort out conflict and disagreement
47.  To have someone who will stay with you, even when you expose your worst self
48.  To have someone who will talk to your inner parts, even the ones you are afraid to speak to or unable to speak to
49.  To have someone who will teach and model new behaviors, and healthy emotions
50.  To have someone who will team up with you in your healing journey

True therapy is so much more than a sequence of techniques to address trauma, or emotional containment, or cognitive distortions, or dissociative separation, or destructive behaviors.

Therapy happens with real people, between real people.  Therapy is a healing process.  It touches many levels of life. The emotional depth of true healing is founded in the solidity of the therapeutic relationship.

Unfortunately, your trauma and abuse happened at the hands of violent, hateful, destructive people.

Fortunately, your healing will happen within a caring, accepting, compassionate relationship.

———-

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

Last night, I saw another television documentary on Jaycee Lee Dugard – the young woman who was kidnapped at age 11, held captive for 18 years, and found alive, along with her two daughters on August 26, 2009.

Jaycee is now 29 years old.

Jaycee spent the past 18 years held captive in the backyard of a registered, violent sex offender, Phillip Garrido.  Garrido fathered Jaycee’s two daughters, and has been charged with numerous criminal offenses.

While most of the world was thrilled to see Garrido arrested and locked away into police custody, Jaycee and her girls had different emotional reactions.  Initially, when questioned by the authorities, Jaycee was supportive of Garrido, she refused to admit her real identity, and when the facts weren’t adding up, she claimed to be hiding from a fictitious abusive husband that lived in another state.  She had chances to tell about her perpetrator, but her first responses were to protect him.  Her two daughters cried when they heard Garrido was arrested.

Garrido spent years torturing these young women, but yet they were clearly connected to him.

How can this be?

This dynamic is called Stockholm Syndrome.  It is when victims form positive, caring attachments with their violent perpetrators.  The more victims have to depend on their perpetrators for their very survival, the more likely the victim will form an attachment to their perpetrator.

The world has been appalled as they heard this story.

But this story is not a new story.

This story happens to many children every day of the year.

Many dissociative trauma survivors have lived a life all too similar to the life that Jaycee lived while with Garrido.  As children, most dissociative trauma survivors lived – day after day, year after year – under the strict sadistic control of a sex offender.  They were repeatedly sexually abused, many became pregnant, they were given hidden identities and new names, and they were taught bizarre religious beliefs.  Many DID survivors were locked and confined in unhealthy places, made to be completely dependent upon their abusers, and the reality of their daily abuse was hidden from the neighbors.  It is not at all uncommon for DID survivors to have been sexually involved and sexually controlled by their perpetrators well into their adulthood.

The main difference between most DID Survivors and Jaycee Dugard is that most DID survivors were not kidnapped by a stranger.  Most DID survivors who have lived this kind of ongoing abuse were simply living in their family homes.

These DID survivors were being raised by their father and mother.  They didn’t have the hope that someday they would be rescued and returned to their “real family”.  They were with their real family.

In either situation, the child-victims learned to adapt to the sadistic behaviors of the abusive parental figures in order to survive.  Despite the extreme abuse, they learned to depend on the abusers.  Everything from breathing, food, clothing, water, shelter, warmth, education, medical attention, etc. was controlled and monitored by their abusers.  There was no personal space.  There was no way to get away.  There was no known place to run to even if they had gotten away.

The child-victims knew they were stuck there.

They knew that their life and basic survival needs were completely dependent upon keeping the perpetrator happy.  They learned to base their own survival on effectively meeting the needs of the perpetrator, and the perpetrator had the power to decide if they would live or die.  To survive, they became loyal to the perpetrator.

Perpetrators purposefully create this kind of dependence in their victims.  They want their victims to feel trapped, and to lose hope, and to be stuck in their abuse.  They do not want their victims to know there is a way out, or to find a way out.  Perpetrators want to be in control of absolutely everything, barely leaving their victims room to breathe on their own.

In keeping the required secrets, the surviving children often  learned that the ONLY person to turn to in time of trouble or need is the perpetrator.  To get their daily survival needs met, the child learned they had to placate, please, and depend upon the abuser.

In these long-term abusive situations, the perpetrator is both the caretaker and the abuser.  The child learns to love and hate this parent.  The child feels either trapped in the abuse, or feels tied to them in order to get their needs met.

Consequently, the child-victims have to depend on their abusers for their care.  Who else will feed them?  Who else will get their books for school?  Who else will provide clothing and a place to sleep? These children have no where else to turn, so they form a variety of trauma bonds with their perpetrator.

Since the child-victim’s life depends on their perpetrator, the victim develops a loyalty to the perpetrator.  They experience a positive loyalty when the perpetrator meets their daily needs.  They experience a fear-based loyalty when their life depends on it.

Whether the offender parent is being appropriate or violent, the dissociative child is drawn into the relationship, and feels emotionally connected to the perpetrator.

Child-victims might split off parts that keep the abuse separate from their feelings of love and appreciation.  It’s hard to genuinely care about someone who is hurting and abusing you, but child victims often have to manage both of these scenarios. They might split off parts to deny the abuse, so they don’t have to remember the violence.

And after living that dynamic for years of time, survivors lose the ability to recognize who or what a perpetrator is.  They grow up feeling responsible for pleasing perpetrators, learning how to tolerate abusers instead of learning how to leave perpetrators. They grow up believing that attaching and bonding to a dangerous person is critical for their own life.

Attachment to the perpetrator creates many layers of confusion for many years to come.  It is a critical area of healing that requires a great deal of work in the therapy setting.

Do they love their abuser?  Do they hate their abuser?  Do they recognize their abuser as an abuser? Can they recognize who in the world is or isn’t an abuser?  Can they leave their abuser?  Can they bond with a non-abuser?

Even as adults, far too many DID survivors can no longer separate who is who.  They will live a life connecting to one abuser after another, yet they won’t be able to recognize a safe person when they meet one.  DID survivors may feel more comfort in the victim role, and they may prefer the familiarity of abusive relationships over the strange unknown of safe relationships.  Or, they may assume that all people are abusers, and thus miss out on the opportunity to learn the difference between a safe person and a perpetrator.

Every DID survivor has attached to at least one perpetrator in their lifetime, and probably more than one.

It is critical to work on this trauma dynamic in therapy.  This work is essential for healing.  Otherwise, DID survivors will feel a high degree of comfort with perpetrators, and will not be able to stay connected to a safe person when they meet one.  Or, they’ll accuse a safe person of becoming a perpetrator.

There are a lot of different possibilities, most of them ending up as relationship disasters.

In order to have any chance at having successful social relationships, dissociative trauma survivors absolutely must address the attachment they feel to their perpetrators.

The health of your future relationships depend on it.

———-

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

Sunday. Like most sundays with a nice breakfast at the kitchen table with Susan and Janet. The plan for next week had been done. We hoped for the weekend to be finished without stress and hecticness, after yesterday was calm. All the same, all was prepared. Susan´s clothes were mostly packed into boxes in order to prevent her to spread them out on the floor of her room or cut or tear them. It will have to happen next week. Only I didn´t know what really was going to happen. All my efforts had failed. There was literally no more chance to help her. I had called two mental institutions for children which are able to treat traumatised children. They couldn´t accept her firstly because of lack of capacity and second because we live outside the area for which they are responsible. The responsible institution only offers general therapeutic treatment; not a word about special trauma therapy. This, however, was out of question.

Another possibility would be to accommodate Susan in a housing group offering therapies and could assist Susan in becoming more confident and coping with her multiple traumas. Years of depth psychology treatment had not brought about any visible results. Susann is twelve and at the beginning of puberty. Still no chance. All local housing groups are lacking capacities. Furthermore, they don´t take me serious as a foster father; some institutions insist on an application by the youth welfare office in charge.

Then it all happened at once. We asked Susan to clear the table. “No, I won´t. Why me?” Another attempt to convince her. Then it was all happening. Susan was shouting and rampaging. “You are so mean, so nasty.” Then she fell silent, sitting at the table without listening. My wife Ruth and Janet, Susan´s sister, were trembling and weeping. My heart was beating. I knew all of Susan´s problems, her multiple personality, and I knew that half an hour later she would be the dearest, most affectionate girl. The time between her aggressive outbreaks, however, was decreasing constantly and was ruining our family. All explanations of Susan´s behaviour wouldn´t do any more. We felt left alone amongst all this chaos. Something had to happen.

After Susan had disappeared in her room, shouting and crying, slamming the door like mad, I took the chance to gather Ruth and Janet around the kitchen table. Janet was all in tears. “If she won´t go, I´ll go.”, she was wispering.

We knew that we had to take Janet´s intention very serious. Janet had concluded to take her life into her own hands and to cooperate with us. Since I had managed to convince the headmaster of one of the last comprehensive schools in the region with a very good reputation to accept her into the beginners´class, she showed commitment and changed to be most sensible and grown-up, maybe even a bit too much. Traumatised children tend to take their lives and fate into their own hands, and seem very much like an adult. This goes especially for children like Janet, who had to care for their siblings for years, when their parents were unable to care for them and neglected them.

Something had to happen now. We decided to part from Susan to make our own situation endurable. We consented to take Susan to the emergency ward of the local children´s home. We needed some relief to be able to cope and go on. So I called the children´s emergency hotline. This is a switchboard of the fire department who pass on the caller to the local authority emergency service. We talked to the official on duty, and he took up contact to the emergency unit of the children´s home. The person in charge called us back and we notitied her that we would arrive with Susan during the next two hours.

It was all up to us, now. Susan had calmed down, as expected. We invited her to join us at the kitchen table. I started to explain the situation very calmly.

“Susan, you know what has happened today, and that this cannot go on as it is. Janet is suffering from the situation, and so do Ruth and I, and you do, as well. What we need, first of all, is some distance from each other. So we have concluded that it is best for all of us to take you to the emergency unit of the children´s home.

She nodded her head in silence.

“We will now put together the things you need and set off after that.”

Nodding, the head bowed. Ruth and Janet exchanged expecting, curius glances. Nothing happened.

“So let´s begin.”

Ruth and Janet gathered together the packed clothes. Boxes were filled. Susan got together the things that are important to her, while I collected those things which are necessary like the passport, the health insurance card and her spray against asthma.

Then, Susan entered my office in the basement. “Can you print out some of the photos of our holidays, Dad? I would like to take them with me so much.”

I was fighting my tears while the printer was working. There was no way back. Still, was this the right decision? Had we tried hard enough? Why did we only get refusal instead of support from the authorities? On the other hand, we had to protect Janet. It was all so very sad.

Finally, we had managed. We loaded everything into the car and drove off. Janet had filled a pencilcase with pens and given it to Susan, together with some things for her to remember. The situation unwinded during the ride, just as if a heavy burden had been taken from all of us.

The lady in charge was very nice and understanding. Ruth, Janet and I explained the situation and Susan´s problems first.Then, Susan joined us after having inspected her new room. She now had to sign an application for being accepted in the institution. She did so without batting an eye. A short, cordial farewell, and we were off. The three of us.

The evening passed in haunting quietness. Nobody talked about the day. That day had changed it all. Legally spoken, we had done now what we always had tried to prevent. We had given Susan into the custody of the youth welfare office. We would notice only later, what that meant. We had to give Susan into the custody of professionals, hoping that she would get the assistance she needed. So from now on, we would only have only few influence on how decisions would be made in regard to Susan. We would be referred to that fact many times in future.

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Several people that have been reading Discussing Dissociation have made posts and comments about how enormously painful and difficult it is to lose a therapist.

There are several different ways to “lose a therapist” but for the purposes of this particular blog entry, I’d like to focus on situations where there was sudden loss.

In my years of experience, I have seen a variety of circumstances that have led to clients suddenly losing their therapist.  When this happened during a long-term therapeutic relationship, the sudden loss is enormously difficult for dissociative trauma survivors.

DID survivors typically trust so few people, and there are usually very few people who are allowed to know the internal system in the way that the therapist gets to meet and know the insiders.  It often takes months of regular, frequent sessions for DID survivors to start feeling the teensiest bits of trust with their therapist in the first place. It may also take years of time before some of the more vulnerable insiders experience any feelings of trust at all.

When you find a good therapist that you connect with, it’s usually pretty important to keep that therapist.

But what if something happens and you suddenly lose your therapist?

What if you lose your therapist due to

• An automobile wreck
• An assault of some kind
• An illness of some version
• An unexpected pregnancy issue
• A family member of the therapist is ill
• An unexpected “personal leave” of any kind
• An unexpected “medical leave” of any kind
• The family of your therapist has required a move to another location

In these situations, it is very difficult, but the adult parts of the survivor can often understand the need for their therapist to have stepped out of the office, even for an extended period of time.  The loss is still there – and most of the internal system will likely still have enormous grief and struggles and emotional pain. The child parts and traumatized parts might blame themselves, but there will probably be someone in the system that can intellectually grasp that the sudden absence was related to an external issue, and not their fault.

But what about if you lose a therapist to one of these reasons:

• Your therapist terminates with you, even if that is not your preference
• Your therapist quits their job for any number of reasons
• Your therapist takes a new job and can’t take you with them
• Your spouse demands that you stop seeing your therapist
• Another person tells you that your therapist is “bad for you”
• Your therapist gets fired and can no longer work with you
• Your therapist decides they are no longer working with DID

What about situations where it is less externally based and more connected to you?

What does it do to the survivor to lose a therapist?

In my experience, when a DID survivor loses their therapist, especially when there is very little time for a termination or goodbye process, there is a huge emotional fall-out from the sudden loss.  The therapeutic relationship is far too important to have a sudden ending, and the emotional overflow will be huge.

The DID survivor tends to:
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• Act out their pain, anger, and fear in various forms of self-injury
• Be unable to move forward in other areas of healing
• Begin to either devalue or overly-pedestal the therapist (the love-hate response)
• Blame themselves or other insiders for the loss
• Cry, cry, and cry
• Experience internal system chaos, increased internal fighting, decreased internal cooperation
• Experience their internal landscapes and internal structures collapsing and the internal world may go dark, or feel unsafe and unfriendly
• Express an ongoing ambivalence towards the therapist
• Feel suicidal
• Go into a long, deep, dark, devastating depression
• Go into hiding – some of the internal parts may refuse to come back out
• Go numb – become more detached or dissociated
• Have a sudden regression in overall skills, abilities, and social interactions
• Have lots of dreams or nightmares about the therapist
• Hibernate within their own home, refusing to go out or interact with other people
• Lash out with inappropriate or excessive anger at innocent people
• Last out with inappropriate or excessive anger at the therapist
• Leave therapy, refusing to trust another therapist
• Lose hold of the positive gains they made with that therapist
• Pretend that the therapist never existed anyway
• Re-create history by remembering only the good events, making the therapist too perfect
• Re-create history by twisting events into something negative, taking comfort by believing the therapist was “a bad guy anyway”
• Refuse to truly leave the therapist alone (following from afar, maintaining contact, calling their phone, sending emails, etc)
• Spend a lot more time sitting, staring, spacing out, etc.
• Stay focused on the therapist, and their feelings about the therapist as their primary issue for an extended period of time

The termination process is as critical to the long-term health and well-being of the client as any other stage of therapy, if not more so.  In fact, a very positive therapeutic relationship can become completely tainted and twisted if the termination process is not handled properly.

Cold-turkey terminations are dangerous.

I cannot stress that enough – sudden terminations are not good.!!

They are not helpful.

They are harmful and emotionally devastating for the clients, and they set up the therapists for future problems.

If your treasured therapist has to leave for any reason, take the time to have as many termination sessions as possible.  The process of saying goodbye is complicated, but it is crucial to leave your therapist from a positive point of view.  Otherwise, you will experience an ongoing emotional fall-out that will extend much further into the future than you would expect.

———-
By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

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It’s Halloween weekend.

This is a difficult, heavy weekend for a lot of dissociative trauma survivors.

I’ll say right upfront – and please hear this clearly — that it is NOT a difficult or triggery weekend for every DID trauma survivor.  To assume that every dissociative survivor has experienced the same kinds of abuse is completely wrong, and I will be the first trauma therapist to say that not everyone has gone through the dark sadistic abuses associated with the days most commonly known as Halloween.

If you can enjoy the fun sides of Halloween – bags of candy, apple-bobbing parties, carving pumpkins, or trick or treating in silly costumes — that is great news for you.  Halloween is a non-abusive, non-holiday, safe-on-the-surface level social event for most people.  For these folks, it is not intended to be anything more traumatic than seeing the pretense of gross plastic items stocked in the party aisles of a store.  For the more courageous and daring, they will spend $20 at the locally created “Haunted House” – something quickly assembled much like a traveling carnival booth.

But for some dissociative trauma survivors, these days surrounding Halloween are very dark, and very scary, and filled with deep historical meaning.  There are far too many triggers everywhere, and the hidden, layered symbols feel anything but safe.

For anyone who has experienced the horrors of organized ritual abuse, the days surrounding Halloween are very truly difficult.  The nights are worse.  The heaviness, the darkness, the pulls toward things not comfortable feels very disturbing and over-powering.

Many survivors feel scattered or disorganized within their system.  Or they might feel like the internal dark ones are enveloping or surrounding them.  Or they feel pulled to gory pictures, or negative thoughts, or self-injury.  Images of gorging on food, or death and violence, or various sexual abuses might flood their mind.  These snippets can be indicators of memory flashbacks, or pulls to participate in current day nightmares.

Even if you went there in the past, you don’t have to go there anymore.

Even if your insiders are remembering their past, remembering then is not the same as being there now.

DID survivors with an RA history might not feel like their usual selves during the time around Halloween.  They might feel like isolating from their safe support people, and feel more drawn towards their abusers.  They might feel pulls to go out, or to go to some unknown somewhere…

However, on days like this, staying home – literally staying indoors and refusing to leave the safety of your home – is often the very best thing you can do.  Reassure your insiders that they do not have to participate in anything scary, and that they are allowed to be safe.  They do not have to be hurt anymore. They do not have to be handed over to danger.

They can stay home in the safety of your home.

It might be a battle.

If you been ritually abused, it probably will be a battle.

You might have parts in your system who have experienced unspeakable horrors during this week of time.  But the more you can protect them from ongoing abuse, and gently comfort them in regards to their past abuse, the better.

The days surrounding Halloween can be some of the most difficult, triggery days of the year.

However, I encourage you to use this time to get to know those parts of your system that have managed this for you.  Listen to them, and let them tell you some of their life experiences.  They will need the opportunity to heal from their trauma history as well.  And yes, it will be very hard for you to hear their life stories, but they have the same right to begin having safety, comforts, healing, and protection just like the rest of you.

Even if you feel afraid – don’t leave your most traumatized parts stuck in their abuse because you are too afraid to work with them.

Even if you feel horrified – don’t turn your back on helping these parts simply because you are horrified about what they had to go through.

Ignoring their pain, or refusing to teach them about the lighter sides of life means that they are left neglected and stuck in the darkness.

That’s not ok.

They need your help, even if that is not how they are first saying it.

Be brave.  Allow your whole system to heal and to experience safety.  Don’t leave any of your insiders stuck in the darkness.  It is not their fault they were abused in the darkness.  They are there because they were forced to be there.  It’s not their fault they were split off in that dark place.  But they originally came from you, so they belong to you.  Don’t let the darkness keep those parts, not even one of them.  They need you and your help to get them out of that darkness.

They need you to have enough courage and willingness and compassion to allow them the same chance at healing that you are having.

So be kind to your insiders.  Be willing to help the ones that have experienced the worst of the worst.  Let everyone within your system find freedom – healing – safety – gentleness – acceptance.

Help them find the way out.

__________

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

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There is a young woman who will always be precious to me.  I haven’t spoken to her in years, but she forever changed my life.

This date – October 23rd — had specific meaning for her.

And every year on this date, I specifically think of her.
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Back in the 80’s…

Annemaria was a 13 yr old wildly aggressive but enormously quiet girl that kept setting fires in the residential treatment center and starting fist fights with grown men.  She was a complicated child, and was court-ordered to have an assessment by a psychologist.  Fortunately for Annemaria, the psychologist had just attended a presentation about multiple personality disorder (MPD), learning about the symptoms of dissociation and trauma.  Annemaria was quickly diagnosed with MPD and due to the variety of extreme acting out behaviors she demonstrated within the custody setting, she was given an unusual opportunity.

It was clear that Annemaria was acting out her child abuse history.  She openly admitted to purposefully committing violent crimes so she would be taken out of her abusive home.  It was a brilliant plan for finding safety from her offender-parents.  Unconcerned about the long list of legal charges against her, she knew she would be safer living in residential treatment centers, and she was glad to be there.  No one doubted her abusive past, and a long string of child protection workers advocated for her safety.

As requested, the Court agreed to give Annemaria the longest sentence possible so she could remain in the residential treatment center instead of being forced to go home.  They did this for the preventive safety of the people she would be willing to assault in the future, but also for her own current-day safety and protection.  The Court also ordered that she be given specialized treatment and intensive therapy.

Since she was so violent towards men, she was to be assigned a female staff member, and this staff member was to devote the vast majority of her time to working individually with Annemaria.

This is when Annemaria changed my life.

I was assigned to be Annemaria’s personal staff member.

I knew about sexual abuse, but I didn’t know a thing about MPD.  I had been trained to work with family systems, but I didn’t know anything about internal systems.  But I was thoroughly pleased to have been given the assignment of working with Annemaria.  I knew it would be fascinating work, and frankly, Annemaria and I already had a little bit of a connection.  Afterall, I was the only person in the entire treatment center that she would speak to.

I had two years to work with Annemaria.  We did hours and hours of therapy every week, and even more hours of everyday life-skills work.  She blossomed in that safe, healing environment but for such a young child, her stories of abuse were more than any of the treatment staff could fathom.  Eventually, a non-threatening but strong young man was assigned to assist me during Annemaria’s acting out or heavy-duty memory flashbacks.  She bounced a lot of male anger in his direction, but he handled that like a pro.  The work was tough, and we leaned on each other a lot.  Even so, I developed secondary PTSD, and experienced numerous nightmares after listening to Annemaria’s stories of trauma.  I really hadn’t known such horrors existed.  Talk about a learning curve…  They hadn’t explained ANY of that in grad school!

I had so much to learn.  I had no idea anyone could be abused in the ways that Annemarie described in such vivid detail.  She was only 13.  It had just happened.  She had been abused her whole life, but still… it had just happened!  Even though she was dissociative, she knew a lot about it.

She and I taught each other about two very different worlds.  She taught me about her world, and I taught her about mine.  We both ended those two years in a very different place.

I was truly never the same.

I hope that I impacted her life in the same way.

I also wish I could re-do those two years with Annemaria.  Now that I have had 20 years experience working with MPD – currently called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) — I would do those first two years very differently.  I’ve learned more about self-injury and how to manage those behaviors effectively.  I’ve learned about depression, anxiety, PTSD and vicarious traumatization.  I’ve learned about flashbacks, amnesia, body memories, and internal system communication.  I’ve learned about organized abuse, the sex slave industry, pornography, and ritual abuse.  NOW I am properly prepared to address the issues that Annemaria was speaking about.

But then?

I just didn’t have a clue.

And how sad was that.
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Today is Annemaria’s day.

And today, while I was recording my BlogTalkRadio show on Internal Communication, I thought of Annemaria.

While I felt confident in explaining how so many things work for DID / MPD, I thought of Annemaria.

I just wish I knew then what I know now.

I could accomplish so much more with Annemaria in two years at this point in time than I could have back in the 80’s when I was new to the field.  It saddens, me in that respect, because I didn’t give to her then what I could give to her now.

But she changed my life.

In fact, she changed the entire course of my life.

I would not be where I am if it were not for Annemaria.

And for that, I owe her a few years of decent therapy.

Annemaria, if you ever find me again, you’ve got yourself a therapist for as long as you need one!

And thank you, Annemaria.

Thank you.

———-

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

There are thousands of clinical therapists in the world.

However, of all the therapists in the world, only a few work with trauma and PTSD.

Of all the trauma therapists, only a few work with the areas of sexual abuse and severe trauma.

Of those therapists, only a few work with dissociative disorders, DID/MPD and DDNOS.

Of the DID therapists, only a very few work with issues relating to organized perpetrator groups.

And in that small subset of therapists, only a few work with more than two or three dissociative survivors at any one time.

And it is the rare therapist among that already vanishingly small number who stay in the field for more than a few years… or long enough to gain the experience they would need in order to be most helpful to the population of clients they serve,

So of all the thousands and thousands of therapists in the world, there are relatively very few who will have the kind of knowledge and experience that you are looking for when you need a specialist in the areas of trauma and dissociation.

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Why do so many therapists refuse to work in this area when there is so much need?

And why do so many therapists leave the field after committing years of dedication to dissociative survivors?

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It’s time to be honest.

First – please remember, I am one of the rare few who has stayed loyal and passionately dedicated to the fields of trauma and dissociation for more than 20 years.  It is hard to find trauma therapists with that much commitment to the dissociative population.  I am on your side – I will prove that over and over – but I am going to be honest.

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DID’ers are a very difficult population of people for a therapist to work with !!!!

Now don’t get me wrong.  Some of you are absolutely wonderful – without question, the most incredible heroes and the very most courageous people I have ever met.  Those of you in this category are absolute diamonds, and I really cannot say enough positive things about you.  You all are truly inspirational, and I am honored to work beside you.

Unfortunately, those who are genuinely dedicated to their therapy and who work hard to achieve their deepest healing are all too often undermined by the few survivors who are willing to do anything but work on their healing.

Oh, these survivors will SAY they are working in therapy…. They will CLAIM they are dedicated to their healing…. They go through the motions, and they spout all the right words.  To a point.  And then they don’t anymore.

Because in reality, this small number of survivors is more interested in hurting other people than they are in healing their own pain.  They are more interested in destroying others than they are in helping themselves.  They are willing to lie about anything or anyone just to get attention drawn to themselves.  They are very destructive and they are very sick.

And these destructive survivors could be costing you a lot more than you realize.

Ouch.

I am sure as a population, this is not pleasant to hear.  Please know that I am not saying this to all of you.

Those of you that are genuinely dedicated to your healing know exactly what I am talking about – I’m sure – because you have most likely already witnessed your healing resources being used up, beat up, and exhausted by fellow survivors whose intentions were far from honorable.  The survivors that do this are sabotaging those of you that are truly trying to heal, because the therapeutic field gets completely burnt out by “them” and ends up not having the time or energy or interest to work with you.  Many good therapists simply will not be willing to risk working with other survivors after they have had some bad experiences with these destructive survivors.

So… the survivors that are undermining your therapists are doing harm to themselves, to the therapists, and to you.  They are attacking, abusing, and destroying your therapeutic resources, leaving  you with less.  These “bad apples” are giving the whole dissociative population a bad name, and frankly, this kind of behavior should not be tolerated by any of us.

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Now what?

If you all want mental health professionals to stay working in the fields of trauma and dissociation, it is important to make that work worth it to them, and not a “nightmare” for them.

I am not saying that you have to feed the egos of the therapists, or provide support for them, or do any freaky weird boundary violations.  Therapists became therapists for intrinsic reasons of their own.  We don’t need y’all to “make it worth it” to us by what you give to us.

Therapists want you to make their work worth it by allowing them to genuinely do their job.  We want you to address your issues, work on your healing, stay focused on your system, be honest with your feelings, etc.  If you will do your job of focusing completely on your own healing, we as therapists will be thrilled with that.  Your genuine progress will be our reward.

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That being said, what can you do to protect the relationship you have with your therapist in particular? And how can you do your part to protect the resources available in the therapeutic community, so that therapists are more motivated to enter and remain in the field, and more survivors have the opportunity to work with truly skilled professionals?

How can you separate yourself from those survivors that are destructive?

How can you make sure you are helping the problem, and not creating the problem?

Here are some ideas of what NOT to do:

• Don’t lie to yourself and expect others to believe you.
• Don’t lie to your therapist.  How can you heal if you are not honest in your sessions?
• Don’t lie about a therapist.  Don’t believe lies about a therapist.
• Don’t gossip about a therapist. Don’t believe gossip about a therapist.  Don’t spread unfounded false allegations.  Don’t chase off or destroy therapeutic resources with false accusations.
• Don’t forget to examine your transference feelings, and recognize them as transference issues.  Don’t forget how projection, transference, displacement, and amnesia can affect your thinking. Work openly and genuinely on these issues instead of blaming the therapist.
• Don’t attack a therapist because you are too afraid to address the real source of your anger.
• Don’t let therapists become the “bad guys” in your definition.  Therapists are your helpers. They are there to help with your healing.  Learn quickly how to define the helpers from the hurters, and address that confusion as often as necessary.
• Don’t assume that all “survivors” are automatically being honest with you (or themselves) when they are trashing a therapist.  Remember, they may be in the “hate” cycle of the love-hate dynamic.
• Don’t assume that all “survivors” are working for the betterment of the survivor community.  Some so-called survivors are truly moles from the dark sides of the world, and are here to cause trouble in any way they can.
• Don’t let your jealousies and insecurities consume you and destroy your focus.  If you want your therapist all to yourself, hire them to work 40 hrs per week at their full hourly rates.  If that is not an option, be mature enough to know your therapist is going to have other clients.

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Here are some ideas about what TO do:

• Be genuinely honest with your yourself. The more honest you are, the more healing you will accomplish.
• Be genuinely honest with your therapist. Your therapist can help best when they genuinely understand the issues.
• Remember that your healing is to be focused on you, your behavior, your feelings, your mistakes, your strengths, your weaknesses, etc.  Your therapy is about you, so keep the topics focused on you, even when it is hard to look at yourself.
• Do your own internal system homework in between sessions.  Your healing will progress as you put your own time and effort into it.
• Be kind, appreciative, thankful, and polite.  This doesn’t mean to grovel or do penance.  Just use normal social manners and social politeness.
• Remember that your therapist does not have to be your emotional (or physical) punching bag. If you are hitting too hard, redirect your anger towards your abusers, where it belongs.
• Give yourself adequate time to work through the complexities of your healing process. An experienced therapist will not rush you, and it is truly ok for you to take as much time to heal as you need.
• Separate yourself from other survivors that are troublemakers and instigators of negative drama.  Just like school days, if you hang out with people causing harm, you’ll end up doing the same, or being tangled in their web. Their poor behavior will cost you.  You can decide if that is worth it to you or not.
• Ignore the drama queens determined to cause trouble in front of you.  If you refuse to buy into their antics, they will move on to other pastures.  If you give drama precedence over your own healing, you will not be progressing in your own healing.  Protect the entire dissociative community by supporting your therapeutic resources.
• Remember to think for yourself.  All too often, survivors listen to any strong, authoritative voice that tells them what to do.  If someone is telling you negative things about your therapist, set a boundary, stop, and re-evaluate all sides of your situation.
• Talk openly with your therapist about any concerns you have.  Give yourself the chance to problem-solve any difficulties or conflicts that arise.  Working through conflicts is an important part of your healing process, and it does not necessarily require a therapeutic rupture.

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If you can truly apply these guidelines, you will be honoring your own healing. You will also be showing respect to your individual therapist, protecting other ongoing therapeutic relationships, supporting the greater survivor community, and enhancing the larger therapeutic community.

Maybe most of you think that you are not actively involved in the destruction of the therapeutic resources, but if you support it, believe it, allow it to go on by your “friends”, etc, then you could be more involved than you realize. You can either help to maintain effective therapeutic resources, or you can allow their destruction.

It’s a conscious decision that each one of you has to make.

Everyone has to do their part in protecting the few therapeutic resources available for dissociative survivors.  You can choose to support the destructive people, or you can choose to kick them to the curb, and get along with your own healing.

Remember, if you genuinely focus on yourself and your own healing, then you are doing all you need to do.

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By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

Welcome to the second half of “Depression and Dissociative Identity Disorder”.  The first seven tips have been previously posted.  At this point in time, I will continue with the list of tips for how to specifically address chronic depression for trauma survivors with DID:

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8. As the memories surface, feelings will also surface.  Expressing genuine emotion is key to working through depression.  Crying tears of grief, screaming out in anger, quivering in fear may not feel comfortable, but holding these very real and intense emotions deep within will create long-term depression.  Allowing these emotions to come out safely and appropriately – even if years after the original point of acquiring these emotions – will help.

9. In the appropriate time, let other parts of your dissociative system know about the information that was held by the depressed parts.  Overcoming the dissociative barriers by sharing that information between the system parts is critical in your long-term healing.  The more that your internal system shares with each other, the more you all can work together towards healing.   The full story line does not have to be shared immediately with everyone. However, keeping pockets of dissociated information will continue to create an underlying cause for chronic depression.

10. Your feelings will need lots and lots of processing time.  Talk, cry, draw, write, vocalize what you are feeling as many hours and hours over time as you feel these feelings.  If you have been holding your emotions in for years of time, it will take oodles of time for these feelings to be worked through.  Talking about it once or twice won’t be enough.  Pushing feelings back down into non-expression will create more depression.  While it will be very new territory to learn how to express your feelings, it is a necessary step.

11. Learn new rules about the expression of feelings.  For example, in the past, when you were at risk of being hurt by your perpetrators, you most likely learned that it was not safe to express anger towards those that violently abused you.  And yes, in that time frame, when you were likely to express direct injury from your perpetrators, it was safest for you to push those angry feelings deep within.  At that time, that was a good decision.  However, once you are away from your perpetrators, and the risk of ongoing abuse is no longer prominent, it is both essential and ok to express anger at your perpetrators’ atrocious, criminal behavior.  Your healing will require that you remember to adjust with your changing circumstances, including creating new rules for expression

12. Learn to direct your anger at an appropriate target, even if that means starting with a “generic” unnamed target.  Talk with your therapist about the variety of anger-expression techniques that allow your anger to be vocalized without creating harm to anyone else.  Learning to express your feelings does not give you permission to take it out on whoever is there.  The more you can express your anger directly towards the perpetrators that harmed you, the more effective it will be.  Likewise, misdirecting your anger towards the wrong target (ie: someone who was not responsible for your abuse or injuries), will only create more problems for you, and will harm a lot of innocent people in the process.  For example, getting angry with your children or your therapist will not resolve the anger you feel towards your parents.

13.  As a continuation of tip #12, be willing to learn specifically about transference, projection, displacement of emotion, etc.  Survivors who have had years of repressed emotion due to duress and abuse will truly need to practice expressing their emotions properly, and will need to learn when they are misdirecting their emotions. All survivors that were not allowed to express anger directly naturally learned to displace any display of anger in sideward ways.  Realize that you will continue to get this mixed up for awhile.  Be very aware that you might first take your anger out on safer targets. These mistakes are to be expected, and not a “fault” of yours, but it is still your responsibility to learn more accurate skills.  Making the mistake of blaming the wrong person will only add to your depression.  It will leave the deeper feelings unprocessed, unaddressed, and unhealed, thereby creating the foundation for ongoing depression and pain.

14. Replace the years of trauma and abuse with your own preferred people and activities that you enjoy. Once your life is full of happier, more meaningful things, you won’t feel as depressed.  This probably will not happen quickly or easily, and you might have to learn how to live again.  It might feel like you are learning to live for the very first time.  You might have to learn how to love, or how to experience joy, or how to play, or how to forgive, or how to explore, etc.  The more you can fill your life with activities of your own choosing, the less depressed you will feel.

15.  Be sure to encourage all of your insiders to have their own individual healing process.  Let each of them work through their own traumas, their own feelings, and let each of them find new and more positive interests in life.  As each individual part of you experiences less depression, the whole of you will experience less depression.  If you let only some parts heal, the whole of you will still be affected by the parts that were not given the chance to work through their healing.  Remember, as split and divided as you might feel, you are still all connected within the same one body and the same one brain.  To truly overcome depression, all of your insiders need the chance to overcome their pain.

Depression can be very debilitating.

Healing your trauma issues will be fundamental to overcoming the effects of the chronic depression.

In other words, in my opinion, you will continue to struggle with depression if you have unresolved trauma issues.  If your dissociative symptoms have a significant negative impact on your ability to function, the liklihood of your having a significant level of major depression (MDD) is also present.

It is true that there may be other reasons for your depression in addition to trauma. (Please note: those topics were not addressed in this blog).

However, it is safe to assume that if you have unresolved trauma issues, you will most likely have chronic depression.  And, the less unresolved trauma in your life, the less depression you’ll experience.

So….. get to work on addressing your DID / trauma issues.  You’ll feel better for it!!

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By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

So you’re depressed, and you’re DID.  That feels like a double whammy already, so what do you do now?

Depression and DID go hand in hand for many trauma survivors.  They are not the same diagnosis, but can be closely knitted together.

When you are DID, you might have some parts that are depressed, while simultaneously having other parts that are not depressed.  Dissociative walls and amnesiac barriers can separate the feelings / emotions / information that the depressed parts have, so that is different from what is known or felt by the non-depressed parts.

Survivors with DID can feel nearly crippled by the intensity of their depression.  It follows them around like a warm blanket and a lifelong friend.  Sometimes it’s hard for survivors to imagine life not depressed.  The idea of being genuinely happy is a foreign concept that seems out of reach.

All too many survivors struggle with self-injury, suicidal feelings, suicidal thoughts, and suicidal behavior on a regular basis.  The desire to die, or go away, or cease to exist, or quit, or sleep forever are common feelings for those that are depressed.

What to Do

Many depressive symptoms can be alleviated, or at least helped, with proper medication.  If your depression feels too huge for you to manage on your own, or if your life is at risk by the severity of your depression, please make a doctor appointment at your very earliest convenience to discuss this option.  At times, inpatient treatment may be warranted.

Various versions of talk therapy can be immensely helpful as well.  Talking about your problems and expressing your feelings are important steps in healing, especially since depression is synonymous with emotions being pushed down and numbed into near non-existence.  Addressing the traps in your life by problem-solving the double binds (where something looks like a lose-lose situation) and the things that feel impossible will help.  Feeling stuck and helpless will only exacerbate your depression.

One of the key feelings to explore during depression therapy is anger.  It’s commonly said that depression is anger turned inwards.  Learning how to safely express your anger is essential to moving through the overwhelm of depression.

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How This Applies to Those with DID / MPD

Many DID survivors have been depressed more years of their life than not.  The overwhelming pain of severe trauma and the years of crushing family abuse create fertile breeding grounds for chronic depression.

There are a variety of specific tasks in treating depression for survivors with DID:

1. Find the parts in your system that hold the most intense depression feelings.  You may or may not already know these parts.  Some of the parts who hold the deepest depression may be tucked away deeply within your system.

2. Check about current day plans for self-injury and/or suicidal ideation.  Be sure to know if you are at risk.  It is important to have a solid awareness of how volatile these parts will be in acting out their feelings of depression and self-hatred.  Create safety plans as necessary.

3. Ask questions about the preferred method of self-injury being used by these parts.  There are hundreds of different ways to cause self-injury.  The preferred methods used by various internal parts will very likely hold pertinent information about the life stories of these parts.

4. Pay attention to the patterns of increased depression through time.  Are there certain times of year or certain days that are trigger points?  What significance do these periods of time have?  Are these dates or times anniversaries of particular traumas or difficult events?  Explore these timeframes until you thoroughly understand what happened.

5. Learn more about the time when these depressed parts were originally split off and created.  Ask about the starting point of these parts.  Chances are, they were created during a very difficult time.  The creation point will provide a great amount of information about who these parts are and why they are like they are.

6. Addressing the underlying trauma issues will be crucial in healing the depression.  These parts will need to talk about what happened to them, what they saw, what they experienced, what they felt, what they believed, etc.  Holding this kind of intense information deep within most certainly adds to and creates more depression.  Find the courage to talk about your trauma.  While it is enormously painful to address the cruelty you experienced during those traumatic times, letting this material surface and processing it effectively will help to alleviate your depression in the long run.

7. As these parts begin talking about what has been kept frozen and tucked inside, that will create movement, life, and energy.  As painful as it is to address the trauma issues, it will also allow for new experiences to begin.   With that comes the opportunity for something positive and healing to replace what has been stuck for years of time as traumatic and devastating.

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*** Due to the length of this article, the second half of this list will be continued in my next blog post.  Please come back soon to see the rest!

Do you have any comments or questions so far?

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By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com