Wow, that's really interesting. I had never heard of that drug. Also, I've never done bio-feedback so that was really interesting to me, too. Thanks for sharing! I'm very interested to know how it works for you.

Wow, Nonda, I have the same difficulty with expressing my feelings. I can only seem to do it when I'm alone. My T. said because I was never allowed to show emotions normally, I broke those off into separate parts. No matter how hard I try, I can't let those emotions show. But when I leave the office they all come flooding in and I end up dissociating. Bad things happen to me when I do that.

I hope this works for you. I wish my T. was as proactive as yours sounds. We are just starting a little work with EMDR. But I get really nervous and have trouble concentrating. The last time we did it, I dissociated and can't remember any of what happened. Oh,well.

I wish you the very best with this. (((Hugs)))

Thank you so much for sharing! I have this fascination with shock treatments. I'm not totally sure why. I was very captivated by the movie Return to Oz as a child. In it, Dorothy is sent to a psychiatric hospital where they intend to use shock treatments to help "stop her nightmares," but she ends up escaping. And I had read once that Carrie Fisher from Star Wars had had them to help with depression, but I never met anyone who had.

I'm very, very sorry no one believed what you told them about your mother! I think my fear of not being believed is partially what keeps all my memories buried. Not being believed is such an awful, awful, maddening, crazy-making, rage-producing experience. I wish you didn't have to experience that!

"The important stuff will come back." As someone who seems to be missing a lot of memories, I really appreciate hearing that. Thank you.

I actually found a new therapist recently! We just started EMDR a couple weeks ago. And today I switched into a child and started talking about seeing a woman's throat be cut. I don't know what to think about this! I keep saying - maybe it's a memory, maybe it's not, maybe it's literal, maybe it's metaphorical...

I know I need to chill out and just not judge what's coming out and just give it some time. But I'm so tired of being so confused by all these fragments and desperately just want something coherent and straight forward! I mean, this child part today said she was a prisoner in a castle. Then she said she WAS the castle. Then she started crying, but didn't know why. She said there 50 prisoners in the castle. She drew a picture of it - and it looked like a castle. The whole thing is just... a mystery.

Wow, Farah, that sounds pretty intense! I hope you're doing OK now.
I think I would be wondering the same questions - my therapist is always trying to remind me to try to think about it less and try to just "feel" more - more like let my intuition tell me what it is - if it wants to tell me at all. I'm supposed to pay attention to physical sensations - like tightness in the chest - uneasy stomach - whatever - kind of let it be and wonder about it, ask it if it's trying to tell me something or if it wants me noticing it --- it sounds kind of strange - but I really trust my Dr's ability to heal PTSD & I trust that he knows what he's talking about - so I am doing my best to listen to his guidance.

I wish you luck!

Thanks, Jenny. It helps to hear about how you've been able to put your puzzle pieces together and verify a lot of them. That's really what I want.

Thanks for sharing that. It's so strange, but I actually like reading about people's stories. I hope that doesn't sound bad!!! Your mother was such a disturbed and selfish person - and the total antithesis of what a real mother should be - and I'm so, so sorry you had to live that way as a child!! What I meant was that reading other stories of early childhood abuse helps me for some reason. Maybe because somewhere inside I know that if that awful, terrible event happened to you - then awful, terrible events DO happen - and so somewhere deep inside one of my parts comes a little closer to believing that if she tells what happened - she'll be believed.

One thing, that I'm trying to figure out is this tape in my head. A few years ago, while I was driving my car I had this vision in my mind. It was like a tape loop that I could watch over and over, but I could never get the tape to go any earlier than a certain starting point, and I could never get it to go past a certain ending point. And the tape was of a man in a field who walks up to a woman in a white nightgown and slits her throat. She slumps to the ground and then he walks towards a brown, 1970s-ish car. And that was it. The especially strange thing about this "vision" was that I could see the action from two perspectives at the same time. I could see the woman's neck being slit left to right, like I was behind the man and watching him do it. But I could also, at the very same time, see her throat being slit right to left, like I'm facing her and watching it happen. How you can see something happen from two angles at the same time, I can't really explain. But I was able to. Anyway, I've never seen the vision in my mind since that time driving my car several years ago. But I have often wondered what this was... a memory? a past life? a fantasy that belonged to someone else that got transferred into my mind? a dream?...

When I was in my last session with my therapist, the child part that came out said she was standing next to a car in 1982. And suddenly I thought maybe she was standing on the other side of the car when this event happened. But I don't know... I assume more will be revealed?? My therapist tried to guide my little part to look at herself and see what she was wearing. But she couldn't see herself. It's all so strange. I have had thoughts before that my father might be a serial killer. But they were intellectual thoughts, like trying to explain why he has no friends and no emotions...

I tried to get corroberation for one memory that I was POSITIVE was a memory. I have a memory of my dad punching a hole in my bedroom door when I was around 4-6. I don't remember him doing it, but I remember watching him repair it and the process that it took to repair it. And when I asked my older brothers about it (back when I was still communicating with them) and they said they didn't remember it. WHAT??? That was ridiculous to me - how can they not remember that there was a hole punched in my bedroom door. When I asked my mom, she said at first said she didn't remember, but then when I pressed her she just got defensive and said the house we lived in at the time was really crappy, that everything was badly made. Finally, she asked my dad and he admitted he punched my door and said "the kids were roughhousing" and he lost his temper and was "trying to get our attention." Why can't my brother's remember this? Anyway, i've concluded that I can't really rely on their memories (for this and other reasons) and that it's possible they are also dissociative.

Nonda - thanks for your comment! I think I definitely think toooooooo much! I'm always trying to analyze every little bit of info I get. It's exhausting to do that and I'm trying to learn to stop! Your Dr. sounds really great. I trust my therapist too, I think. As much as I trust anyone. Which is hard for me!! :-) I can feel emotions during therapy and cry a lot, but one thing I really, really struggle with is paying attention to my body and physical sensations. It almost makes me panic when someone asks me to do that. But recently I started a little journal so once a day I would note what my body was feeling like that day.

I think that's why I pulled away from my family. You're right!! They don't want to seek out the truth.

I saw my oldest brother briefly two years ago. We both visited my grandmother at the same time. And he couldn't look me in the eye. It was so weird. And he couldn't look my friend in the eye either, who I brought with me. And he kept his hand up and around his face the whole time. A body language expert would describe it as lying behavior. Covering your mouth when you're talking.

When I told this same brother five years ago that I suspected our father had abused me, he - of course - said he didn't think that was possible. But then he did say that he and my other brother did things to me when I was little. Like pull down my pants. I brushed that off because my memory fragments were of an adult not a kid (my older brothers are 2 and 4 years older than me). And I didn't think anything kids would have done would have made me DID. But maybe I should have asked him what he meant. I remember him pulling down my pants and spanking me when I was 11 and he was 14 - and him being slightly titillated by it - but that's all.