Talk about ways you handle excess tension or anger or overwhelming feelings – whether your methods are considered healthy or unhealthy.
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
We do lots of unhealthy things but we’re trying not to do that.
There is this emotional reaction if there is a memory trying to come through. Like…we’ll start getting very angry and annoyed with everything and everyone, we’ll cry about every little thing, can’t concentrate on work or school, can’t think, eat, sleep….and then once the memory comes through and we go through it, we can go back to normal for a bit.
As for coping.T has taught us some things….but we learned grounding skills in the DID hospital and they help. Anything from using grounding beads to stomping our feet, to putting cold water on our hands and face, to going into the cold wind. Touching things that have unique textures, etc…
I don’t know what to do with the feelings I’ve been having. And I don’t know how much longer I can try to keep handling them.
hm. my captcha phrase? “the survivors” good one for all of us.
i often run through the standard things therapists suggest (or i came up with myself) when i’m having intense feelings: writing, throwing things, exercise, grounding techniques, coloring or painting with large motions on big paper, stimulating the senses, listening to loud music, screaming into a pillow, ripping up paper or other things, telling someone what i am feeling, visualizing the things i’m angry about, etc.
and there are the “unhealthy” coping strategies like cutting, or smoking. not eating. blocking myself away from the feelings as much as possible. telling myself to just shape up, suck it up, and behave like things are ok. i shy away from drinking, even though it really does take the edge off, because i know too many alcoholics, and i just don’t want to go there.
for me, there are also numbing strategies, when other things have failed: reading, playing games online, coloring (things like quilt patterns are good–nothing to think about, just shapes to fill in), doing word puzzles or crosswords or sudoku. rocking back and forth. sleeping.
but sometimes, the feelings are too intense to be managed that way. then, sometimes it’s oddly soothing to make a plan for suicide, and set a date (as far in the future as we can manage) after which it will be permissible, if there hasn’t been a sign that things will improve. this helps the part who wants to kill themselves to feel like they’re being listened to, but also gives the other parts a chance to get help.
over the past year or so, we’ve learned several things:
one, none of us actually wants to die, so long as there is the least chance that we might feel better. we don’t always remember that at the moment, but if we can hold onto it, it helps.
two, despite how it *feels* as though the rage is intolerable, and that we will do absolutely unforgivable things if we express it, we actually don’t. we do things that are uncaring, inconsiderate, even hurtful. but we don’t actually do things that are as horrible as it feels like they will be. and that’s an important one for us to hold onto.
Plans for suicide – ya – that is the only semi-comforting thing when my feelings are really intense. I think I have a circuit breaker in my system though. When I get really overwhelmed, it’s like the circuits totally overload – and everything shuts down and blacks out. I feel paralyzed and get ‘stuck’ and if there were any ideas of stabbing myself or doing something, I can’t because I can’t even move really, or get up off the floor. It’s like I weigh 1000 pounds, or like I’m drugged, or….. I dunno….. but it’s incapacitating.
yeah. i found that was a problem with antidepressants, at least when i was actively suicidal. because at least twice, when i was scared that suicide was really far closer than felt safe, and they put me on antidepressants, and then the antidepressants didn’t alleviate the depression… but they *did* alleviate that circuit breaker effect, where i couldn’t do anything. and what happens when you are suicidal, but no longer have that lethargy? right. not so good.