How well do you truly accept yourself as you are NOW? (accepting yourself now doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t want to change though)
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
this one is really mixed for me.
there are major ways that i do accept myself. like, i am very comfortable about being a lesbian, or even about being multiple. i’m even pretty comfortable about saying i’m an abuse survivor.
but in some ways that’s a front. because even though i think it’s okay to be those things, i hate the messiness of what it’s really like. ok, not about being a lesbian, except that i guess i don’t do public displays of affection with my partner because i’m afraid of the risk of it.
i think it’s like i want to be the perfect whatever it is that i am. if i’m going to be multiple, then i want to do it really well. i want to communicate, and solve my problems, and have it be a strength all the time.
or i want the fact that i was abused as a kid not to make me less able to live as an adult. i want to have healed from it and be all like, “it was bad, and i worked on it and now i am healed.”
what i hate about being disabled with stuff (fibro, depression, DID) is that the disabilities really do stop me from doing things i want to do or think i ought to do. you know all of those movies about people who have all kinds of disabilities but they have overcome them and gone on to be successful in all kinds of ways? yeah, that’s how i think i should be. i should be able to be all proud of who i am and accomplish all kinds of things so people see me as a role model.
instead there is a whole heck of a lot of time when i can’t get out of bed or when the fighting inside is so bad that i can’t focus my eyes let alone found a company and run it and be a big shot in the world and have kids and be a college professor and a great hostess and just have time to do everything.
but at the same time i know that isn’t realistic and i have worked really hard to accept that i have limitations. i know it made a big difference with fibro–the more i accept that i have limitations the more i am able to do with what little energy i have.
i guess for me a lot of the lack of self acceptance is either things other people actually do say, or things i expect them to say. it’s like with fibro: people see someone who is apparently young and healthy, so they make comments about “why do *you* need a cane?” or why do i take the elevator when i should walk up stairs?
or with the combination of fibro depression and DID which has pretty much meant i can’t manage work. and it feels like a cop out when there are people in the world who can deal with all sorts of stuff.
that’s one thing i got from my mother. she would always say, “if people could survive [some horrible thing that most people didn’t survive, actually], then surely YOU can survive this.” i can see where she was coming from. she wanted me to be resilient and able to handle problems in life. but it means that i had unrealistic standards about what i should be able to handle.
i guess i’m fine at accepting myself when i can be in tune with me, but not so good when i start listening to the people who think what i’m doing is not ok, or that if i would just do _______________ then i would be ok. and it’s really hard for me to tune out those voices, even when there are a lot of other people saying that what i’m doing is the right thing. it’s easier for me to believe people who put me down than it is to believe people who praise me.
Accept myself NOW?…. hmmmm….. YA – what a great idea!
I think I’m working on it – no, I am. I mean, it seems like MOST of the battle really. It’s not about being perfect or doing it all right or being dissociation free. So much seems to be about acceptance – of myself, my circumstance, the realities of life…..
Accept. Acceptance. Ya…. I like that idea…. I want that. It seems like peace would follow close behind.