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I always have a great time talking with her on line. We usually start out talking about not being able to sleep and end up talking about all kinds of things. Last night our conversation ended up centering on the kinds of things we do in therapy and she asked me if I knew what "jounaling" was. Boy was she surprised when I wrote back -"yea it used to be called - keeping a diary" kind of like janitors are now called "costodians" diary writing is now called journal writing."

She LOL’ed a message and then we talked all the things we write in our notebooks of "journal" writing. Then we finally centered on the specific request of her therapist - keeping a journal of her Dissociative Identity Identity Disorder and therapy for it.

One of the things both of us found funny last night is that alot of non DID people think therapy journaling and journals by people with DID are these journals loaded with secrets about the disorder and that if they can locate a DID persons journal on line then they will know what to write because their therapist has asked them to keep a "DID journal". Because they are not DID they run around like mad trying to search on the internet for poems and journals written by DID people so they will know what their therapist is asking them to do.

The truth of the situation though is that journaling for therapy purposes including DID is the same as normal journaling - someone writing their own feelings and thoughts down on paper or on their computer to saved on a disk or their computer.

Journals are private so most people who journal do so in notebooks, journals and on private computer disks.

Sure there is such a thing as journaling on line but those people who journal on line know that others are going to be able to read the entries so they change the situation, change the names and places and they don’t write down the truth but instead write down what they think will get people to read them.

I do my journal entries on my microsoft word program and I don’t save it to my computer but instead save the entries on my floppy disks. I also journal by buying notebooks at my local store and with pen and paper in hand I start writing.

What do I write about? That depends.

Just like normal people I write down my thoughts and feelings about the things I do that a normal person does - housework, people I have talked to that day and so on.

I also write down what I remember about my therapy sessions and any questions that my therapist and I talked about. I look at those questions and challenge myself to write more details about my thoughts on those questions.

I also write down comments made during my therapy sessions by me or my therapist and try to write more about that then what I said during therapy on it.

I write down any problems that I am having and challenge myself to come up with my own solutions to those problems. The problems can be anything from some ordinary thing like my vacuum cleaner being returned to me broken after a friend used it to clean her place out for moving purposes straight on through to more complex problems associated with my physical or mental health or with my treatment professionals, about my child and the DHS system…

I write about al kinds of things. My journal writing is not limited to just my being a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder. My journal writing does include my having DID but that is scattered here there and everywhere in my journal entries depending on how it effects what I happen to be writing about. I do have certain disks that I copy and paste my entries that contain my problems with DID and my solutions and projects around my DID. That way I don’t have to sit here at night going through about 80-100 floppy disks trying to locate this project or that one to do more work on it, or this problem or that one to find out what I have already tried and what worked and what didn’t and what needs to be changed to make what did not work into something that will work for me.

Sometimes my journaling turns into writing directy to my therapist about questions she has asked and how I feel about something that happened during therapy. When that happens I cut and paste that entry and save it to a different disk and turn it into a letter to my therapist. Sometimes I print them out and give them to LL. Other times I dont.

As for my journaling on specific DID therapy assignments and so on - I make up my own therapy projects and assignments so what I do a person cannot just google and do a seach for and locate what a DID person does in therapy other than the basic talk therapy, medication therapys and so on. For example the diarams that I do. A person can find out how to do a basic diarama - get a shoe box and start making it. but what to put into it depends on the person who is making it and what the purpose of it is.

Most of my therapy and projects that I journal about is that I have taken this idea from this professional and that idea from that professional and added this of my own and this is how it worked or this is how it didn’t work for me and If it didn’t work - ok here is what I am going to try next and we’ll see if the problem is solved.

]]> http://psychcentral.net/2006/05/14/journal-writing-for-did/feed/ http://psychcentral.net/2006/05/13/how-do-you-get-past-your-shame/ http://psychcentral.net/2006/05/13/how-do-you-get-past-your-shame/#comments Sat, 13 May 2006 14:22:00 +0000 Administrator http://psychcentral.net/wp/2006/05/13/how-do-you-get-past-your-shame/ I’ve always been ashamed of my issues, and myself in general.

As you may have gathered from my previous comments, I grew up being belittled by the ones you think should lift you up the most. How do you find a way past that and over that when you already lacked self-confidence and a strong sense of self-worth?

I don’t WANT to feel like I have to do crazy things to gain attention. Its counter-productive. I just lost a woman I planned to marry because I went a little nuts and did something that cannot be undone. She says she forgives me but she will never trust me again not to have another breakdown. I believe IF I continue with counselling and my anti-depressants, and learn to modify my behavior so that when I have a bout of insecurity instead of sulking and letting my imagination run amok, I instead go to her, that it will not happen again. Right now I feel very lost, she was the rock in my life. I never told her that I guess, but she was. She told me I was hers, but I didn’t do a good job of it.

In any event, I just wonder… how do you learn to be proud of who you are no matter WHO you are?

]]> http://psychcentral.net/2006/05/13/how-do-you-get-past-your-shame/feed/ http://psychcentral.net/2006/05/12/am-i-crazy/ http://psychcentral.net/2006/05/12/am-i-crazy/#comments Fri, 12 May 2006 16:17:38 +0000 Administrator http://psychcentral.net/wp/2006/05/12/am-i-crazy/ Where do I begin? I am 47 years old, a male with a lot of issues that I don’t seem to ever get any warning before they explode on me that serve to wreck my life and the lives of those around me. I had a lot of emotional issues as a youth and teen, my parents - especially my father as I was growing up - placed incredible expectations on me because I allegedly scored some amazingly high number on an IQ test. Nothing I did was good enough - if I made a B in a class there was obvious disappointment, if I did something that didn’t make "sense" I was a damn dummy or something of the sort. I progressed through school without making many friends, because we moved a lot. From the 5th grade to the 9th grade I attended 7 different schools. I didn’t date, because I was shy and rather awkward, and girls didn’t take to me.

I left high school after my junior year because my father took a job somewhere else and rather than I getting a senior year of high school, I went on to college. Not my choice. My father’s. I took a lot of tests before college and essentially entered my senior year of high school as a college sophomore. With no maturity and never having been away from home before, I flunked out. My dad was so angry. And i was so hurt because there was no comprehension on his part of what he had done to me. I had failed.

I got married when I was 22. We had dated from the time I started college as an imature kid. She was my first everything, really. First love first kiss…. but she was a woman who grew up in a house dominated by her mother, while I grew up in the more traditional male-headed household. We managed to stay married for almost 9 years. We had one daughter together. She told me I was a loser, because I was not motivated by money in what I chose to do to earn a living. Even though I made a good salary, I wanted to enjoy my job and enjoy my life. She wanted to hoard money.

I drufted into a relationship with a functional alcoholic woman who was physically and verbally abusive. I had a very very difficult time coping with that, but still we dated off and on for three years or so. Ultimately I took a job in St. Louis, MO to try to start over. I seemed always stressed out and anxious, and took to drinking to deal with it. I met a woman, and fell head over heels for her. I thought. But she was headstrong, and a lot younger than I was, and my anxieties and insecurities surfaced and I had a mental reakdown of sorts. I was put on Paxil. I took 20mg of it for about 4 years.

In 2000 I took a job in Virginia, where I am now. I stayed out of relationships for a couple years, til I met a young nursing student named Jay Jay. Somehow I got embroiled into this relationship with her that was nothing but turmoil and anytime I broke it off with her, she was miraculously pregnant. Or mystery people would call her on the phone threatening her if she didn’t leave me alone. After 2 years, I finally more or less broke free of her. I lost my job because my boss went crazy and fired everyone accusing us all of stealing from him and whatnot. So I ended a very difficult relationship and lost my job in a 60 day time period, and then had to regroup. i started working for myself, and in the summer of 2004 i met a really interesting woman. online. At the time I knew little about her. She would talk to me for little 5 or 10 minute spurts. Over a period of months I got very fond of her. She was interesting. Talented. I bought one of her paintings. She disappeared. I felt that again something was wrong with me. Her husband appeared on her online IM program and told me a few things. I closed down. She came back in 3 months or so. We struck back up our friendship. We fell in love. We moved in together. My business took a BAD turn with one too many employees to pay my bills in the office. I got stressed. She didn’t want to hear too much about my work stress because it stressed her out from worrying over me. I wanted to tell her about my mental issues but I was afraid she would walk away from me, if my work stresses caused her that much grief. One day in February or March I just… broke. She had moved into her own house about an hour from me, which had been part of our long-range relationship plan. But then she never came to visit me. I would go to her house. She said she did not feel welcome in my house. I was hurt. The more I tried to get her to come see me the more hurt I got that she wouldn’t. I Started to slowly slip out of rational behavior. First off, just not going to see her because I had work in the other direction. Arguing with her over things. Trying to find a way to get her attention I guess. She doesn’t do needy or clingy. I thought our relationship was dying and did not know how to save it. I called her, I fought, we traded mean emails. Txt msg arguments. Then one day I just… broke. Typed up a brief note and put my house key in it, and put my cell phone number and her cell phone number on it and mailed it all to her ex-husband. I don’t know now why. I was angry and hurt and weird things would happen and she would accuse me of them. Some I may have done. many I did not. For about a month I lived in a cloud of denial, realizing what I had done and not being able to admit it to her. Finally I told her I had done it, and she was understandably angry. I still don’t understand why I broke down like I did. I am still broke down. Anxiety over everything. Massive depression. I am presently on 100mg of prozac, up from 10mg of lexapro. I miss her terribly. We had a brief, beautiful reconcilliation last week that lasted from Wednesday til Sunday. It reminded me of how much I love her and how much I want to get well so we could try to find ourselves again. It reminded her of how it was before I went crazy and made her angry and we basically are not talking anymore. Other than flurries of angry emails. I deleted my IM account, and my old one was commandeered by someone who just logs on it and doesn’t talk to anyone, I have not had access to it for probably 6 months. She thinks its me using it but its not. I lied about things to make myself feel better about who I am, and she doesn’t believe anything I say anymore. I guess I can understand that but I keep trying to tell her, I have no reason to lie anymore.

In a nutshell, I think I have gone crazy. The anxiety and stress has pushed me to the point where I an suicidal and manically depressed. I am trying to get help through counselling and medication but its not going to help heal the hurt I did to her, which killed me.