Talk about your support system(s) or lack of. What are ways you can build up your support system with external people, if this is something you are wanting?
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
Our support system is our faith, it’s God. God is our go to person, always has been. We don’t much know how to relate to others in terms of a go to. We’re pretty independent, actually rigidly independent and don’t much care for relying on people or letting people in. We’re working on that but we only know how to work with and solve our own things within and with God. We interact with people and are blessed to have friends that are just wonderful treasures in our life, but in terms of depending on others, we don’t. We pretty much stay within ourselves and our relationship with God inside when it comes to support of self. We like to support and care for others, though. We do that a lot. We like to help other people a lot. We just don’t much understand the reverse side of the equation. We’re not entirely sure what support from others would really mean. To us, that means dependence and we don’t do that at all. We don’t do the receive thing well at all. We really like the give thing, though. That makes sense to us. We can’t really process a receive thing. We don’t really understand a receive thing. Is anybody else like that or are we just weird?
God is – pretty much why we’re still alive. Well, He’s why we’re alive at all to begin with – and then He’s why we’re STILL alive. I don’t know how anyone gets through this life without Him. I struggle enough to see the point of living at times – let alone if I thought there was no God.
I see good people that are part of my life – as gifts from Him. It is very clear to me that the round-a-bout way in which I met my therapist was one of those “God things”. I often feel/receive something like hugs from good people – as coming straight from God. I believe He uses others’ hands and feet and minds, to touch people, including me. And sometimes, I feel I get to be His hands and feet and words of comfort to others as well.
So – He is my HUGE ‘support system’. And, I am SO thankful for the people I believe He has sent my way, all along the way. There is a risk in letting myself connect with people – but overall to me, it’s worse to have no connections….. to be alone. I’m thankful to have met people along the way, that I’ve known in my gut that I could trust.
I’m still afraid to totally lean on someone – but I don’t know that that is the most terrible thing in the world. I try to be thankful for what I do get from people, and for what I can give. In the end though, I know that it will be God and me/us. No one will be able to go with me when I die, except God.
I know what I’ve written feels incomplete – so maybe I’ll write more later.
Chariots…We don’t think what you have written is incomplete at all. Awesome comments and we agree…if it wasn’t for God, we know we wouldn’t be here either. He was there back in history too and we know that ’cause every part of this system has this really intense relationship with God, even the littlest ones. He’s just always been there and that’s why we’re still here. For us, God has always been our safe space in the world. We kind of call God our pocket pal just cause He goes where we go. Always. We also pester the stew out of Him all the time, 10000000 questions. We can’t really explain it to anyone, but He’s just always, always been there and in that, we find all peace. If we’re a mess inside, we just talk to God and we’re a little bit less of a mess inside and outside. Can’t explain it, but we’ve always done that and we know He hears it all. It’s always kept us going, knowing that. Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts. It meant a lot.
Thanks Michael – for your thoughts too. Maybe one reason I felt ‘incomplete’ in my last post is because I don’t want to discount how important people relationships are to me. I am SO thankful for some of the people who have been in my life, and who are now. Without their choice to care about me – I would be hurtin’ a LOT more than I already do.
Maybe for me, the 2 are inseparable really. …. I believe God comes through other people – but I also believe those people choose to be a certain way – to love, to take action, etc. I don’t think God meant for us to be alone, and that He meant for us to be in relationship with others. Not only that, I believe He created humans to begin with, because HE didn’t want to be alone!
Anyway, I don’t want to discount in any way, people. How important some external people are to me. Honestly, I really do need them (and I hate admitting that I *need*). If I was on a desert island alone with myself(selves) – then it would be me/us and God. But so far, I’m not. I truly do have people around me who care. And I’m so thankful. I think the love of these people along the way and now, has kept me functioning as well as I do!
And to veer off a bit – I don’t think therapy alone would be enough to get me through. Don’t we all need to be loved and cared for? Don’t babies die from not being touched? ….. amazing to think about I think…..
i don’t want this comment to imply that i don’t find the divine–in whatever name–to be a significant support in my life. because i do (click my name above to see the post i mean, since the comments here don’t seem to be set to accept html).
but. for me, if god (in whatever form) is my primary, only, main support… it’s not enough. it’s something that just brings up a lot of hurt and pain for me.
my mother tells a story about when i was a baby. there is a cyst on the back of my head, that apparently, grew in at some point when i was an infant. she didn’t have the money for a doctor, or the doctor brushed off her concerns. she was worried–here is her baby, something that might or might not be horribly wrong, and there was nothing more she could do to help. so she was praying, and holding me. and she heard god saying “don’t worry. don’t you think i could love her far more than you ever could?”
and maybe if my later experiences had included more obvious love and support from people, or if my later formal religious experiences hadn’t been so unsupportive of me as a person, this would be a fully joyful story for me.
but life is what it is. in many ways, that story has always had a dual meaning for me. on the one hand, i *do* believe that god loves me far more than my family is capable of. when all else has failed, i look to the divine for support, and most often, i receive it in some unanticipated way.
on the other hand, often i have felt unable to get support from people other than myself and god (or the goddess, or the powers that be, or whatever divine name you want). i have struggled to find and accept love from real people.
my therapist and i talk about this a lot–the fact that my early experiences taught me it was immeasurably dangerous to ask for and receive support, love, caring. that as a child, i was never able to predict what would happen if i needed support, and so i learned to not allow that need to show. that no matter what i know intellectually about how things are different now, my core beliefs are that people do not, will not, *can* not love me. and that leads me to feel pretty darned suicidal, because let’s face it, if it’s just me and god, then i’d rather go on to the afterlife and only have to deal with me and god, thanks.
if there’s a reason for me to be on this earth, part of that reason is to be able to connect with the other human beings who inhabit it. and so i have fought and struggled and worked my butt off for the past fifteen years, to learn how to genuinely connect to other people.
and chariots–*some* babies die from not being touched. others get DID.
*some* babies – hm – ya, good point.
Jigsaw-Grace…We understand your last sentence but we also want to say we are thankful that YOU are here even though we don’t specifically know you. We have gotten to know you a bit in your comments throughout the blog. We’re sorry you experienced what you have experienced and the only thing we can point to is today for you and say how glad we are you are here. Maybe this is not the appropriate place to say these things, but we’re going to say them anyway…you demonstrate remarkable caring for your peers in this forum and that is a blessing, a tribute to who you are. You demonstrate leadership in this forum, a rocking level of intelligence, care for others and a lot of courage. Frankly, your comments serve to inspire this person in many ways. So we’re just glad you are who you are, you have the courage to share who you are and to care about others in this community. While we cannot speak to your yesterday and it saddens us to know you experienced any level of pain, we can speak to what we see of you in what you share and we shall thank God for you this day and all of the neat things you share and inspire others with in doing so. By the way..Chariots…we think you rock too! Thank you for being a part of this blog and for blessing our life as well.
I was thinking about, what I was thinking about when I wrote the baby sentence – and I was picturing the premature babies in hospitals, that are put into those plastic cases and can’t really be touched for a while. And how they found that lack of touch caused these babies to “fail to thrive” in the least. That they found how important it was for these babies’ survival to be touched/held – even if with gloved hands reaching through the concealed case. I think that is so amazing. That humans truly do NEED this to thrive/live/survive! Fish clearly don’t.
To Michael – thanks!!!
To Jigsaw – I’m so glad to know you(s) as much as I/we do too. I really really am. :o) I love checking out your blog and hearing what you have to say here too.
I’m also really glad to get to connect with everyone here. We don’t all have the same feelings and thoughts and beliefs, but to be able to share and learn and work toward becoming more of who we are, together……. (annoying Mastercard commercial coming)…… “priceless”.