Yesterday my boss called me at home, and my mom came over to check on me, because I wasn’t responding to texts/messages like usual, because I was asleep. Tuesday night I missed the first 40 minutes of therapy, because I was asleep. Just tired? No.
I have a Fast-Forward button on life that gets hit when something unpleasant is afoot. There are multiple ways that fast-forward gets accomplished, but the two main ones are sleep and dissociating. Sometimes I hit FF myself. Sometimes my system hits FF on me. Tuesday and Wednesday it was sleep FF (or a combo of sleep FF and total dissociation FF, its hard to tell). Today is was the dissociate FF. I know I’ve been up all day, but I really only remember about 2 hours since this morning. Other than that I’ve kind of been in the trunk of the car while other people drive – aware I was awake, but life was kind of happening in another room and I couldn’t quite piece it all together.
So, why the hard Fast Forward usage all of a sudden? Well, I got majorly triggered earlier this week while reading an autobiography of a DID survivor. Something hit a little to close to home, and I got all PTSDy about it. I’d like to say I dealt with it head on, but it’s more like my system just said NOPE and hit emergency shutdown. I’m super exhausted, and super spacey.
And I’m not sure how to talk about the flashback yet. Maybe its more therapy fodder than blog fodder. I mean, a girl has to have some privacy. Awww, screw it.
It was a sexual abuse flashback. Let’s see, random messages in my head about why I shouldn’t talk about this, in no particular order:
“I don’t want to get in trouble”.
“I don’t want to get anyone else in trouble.”
“I don’t believe it could have happened. It’s a false memory.”
“Something bad will happen to our pet if we tell.” (???)
“Mom will be too ashamed of me if she finds out.”
“It’s OK, I’m too dirty to be loved any other way.”
….
And that dissociate FF button got pushed, and here I am, coming back to this post over an hour later. I’m still pretty out of it. What really has me spooked about the whole thing isn’t even the sexual stuff, but who in our system the last couple of those quotes came from. I ‘met’ a child alter I didn’t know existed. Her name is Susan, I think she’s 9. As much as I should have rolled out the welcome mat and had a introductory parade and celebration, my reaction has pretty much been “Oh SHIT, you mean there are more parts rattling around in there?!” That didn’t go over well. I guess Sharon & Wanderer knew she existed, this was just a news flash for me – she’s been hibernating in the cave system, guarded by the Bear?
So, um, yeah. I minus one’d the alter count when Saoirse & Janet mixed together, but I guess my count is now back up one. And I say my count, because I know of a total of 9 now, but I’m not sure how accurate that is. Wanderer won’t tell me if there are others in the cave system. Oh joy.
I guess in some ways it makes sense this is happening now. There have been three “subsystems” in our system for a long time – each subsystem getting an elected seat at the council. AFAIK, I’m now a subsystem of 1. Maybe now its time for the other two subsystems to get some love and come to light? I’m not even sure if Susan is in Sharon’s subsystem or Wanderer’s. Or, Gods help me, another subsystem altogether.
….
Wanderer here, we switched. Susan has been staying in my domain while hibernating, and is still welcome in my home. She may move in with Sharon eventually, but that’s up to them.