WEEKLY HEALTHY LIVING CHECK-IN AUGUST 10TH, 2019

@PoliteOcean

She is okay..not totally forgiven me but she will get there!!

@PoliteOcean

Update: So I am breaking up with her soon! No day set yet to meet. However she will leave with her character intact and that includes leaving my girl tribe. I wish her the best.

@PoliteOcean You are SO encouraging, thank you!!!

@Katz023

Sorry, I wanted to answer but things happened. I'll try to get back to you

@Katz023

Ok, so, how does the parts thing works? In no way I have dissociative identity disorder, since I don't have alters that take control of my body with me having holes in my memory and not recalling what I did when I was one of those alters. This never happens. What I experience is a weird "compartmentalization". I'll try to explain from the start. The environment I grew in was abusive anywhere: at home, at school, and I wasn't allowed to do almost anything besides school, so I didn't have other contexts where I might have experienced a different way of living. So little me had to adapt to the abuse to survive, and learned quickly what made it worse: being happy, standing up for myself, being angry, having wishes, expressing needs, caring for myself, doing things wrong, refusing to do anything someone else wanted... I tried to banish all those things from my life. No being happy or satisfied with myself, no wishes, my needs were the last thing I cared about, no doing things for myself no being angry ecc ecc. But when someone treats you wrong, you can't not be angry. Where did the anger go? And when you succeed, and you have it in front of your eyes, can you absolutely not be positively affected by it? Quite hard. Where did all my pride and self esteem go, if I couldn't feel it anymore? Besides, I had tried not to do anything wrong, but I kept messing up a lot of things, which is normal, since no one is perfect, but I didn't know, and people around me apparently didn't either. So what happened? All the emotions that were blocked out and the positive images of me i should have internalized were there, locked away and separated from me from so much time that they "took a life of their own". Most of my parts are this. Then I have a part that separated from me when I lost hope to ever be a better person who could do things right, and another that consists im crystallized emotions from traumas. Those two are very connected, because they came to be together: the part that detached was angry and fed up with the rest of me that couldn't do anything right, and the part that most holds the feelings of worthlessness is the traumatized part. So the angry part, that's called Vera (name she chose) tried in every way to abuse the rest of me and ultimately kill me, and the part that most responded to the abuse was the traumatized part. I managed to find a way to deal with Vera something like a year ago, and from then, things started going A LOT better.

But how does it feel having parts? I think there might be differences from person to person, I'm not sure it's like that for everyone, but I'll tell my experience. I am sure that Vera is real, because she came out so distinctly, but I often have doubts over the other parts, although signs snd cues that they are not made up are definitely there. With Vera it was super clear, because she talked to me lol I answered and she answered back. I didn't hear her voice, it was like a stream of thoughts, with words clearly coming up into my mind, except that I wasn't thinking those words, I could not control them, and sometimes I couldn't even understand what they meant or what they were referred to. It was like someone else in my head. Her view of things was a lot different from mine, I could feel when she was present with me, watching me, and when she wasn't. If I did, though or said something when she wasn't there, she wouldn't know. I often had flash images of her in my head when she talked to me, and she always looked the same. I recently realized I drew her, years ago, before she came out trying to kill me. I though I drew a random thing, but the image and what I thought it represented were a perfect description ov Vera and her intentions. She also has different tastes in clothing and things in general. A different personality.

The other parts very rarely talked to me, they communicated more through sensations and feelings, I get exactly what they want to tell me, but with no words. 2 of them sent me flashes of how they are physically, another is definitely there and having some serious issues lately, but didn't give itself a face or a name. She's having serious issues because she thought her essential life goals are impossible to reach, and lost the will to live. The interesting thing is that I and all the other parts could very well live without those achievements, apparently she can't. Her tastes and phylosophy of life are very peculiar. Also, I didn't loose the will to live, heck! But I can tell she did, big time, I feel her pain so intensely. And I'm quite hit from this situation, because for so long she's been the only part (she and her dragon, that's another part of me, very connected to her) that tried to get me alive through everything while all the other parts were trying to self destroy and die.

What were the signs that could tell me I had to look for "parts"? Not sure here, because I don't know how much those things are normal but... Sometimes I couldn't really tell what I thought about something, because I thought I had clear I though it in a certain way, but there was also another perspective, and another, and I could try to choose one way of thinking but the others were still there, in the back of my mind. That problem was even more chaotic when I tried to get a hold over question about myself: what kind of person am I? What do I want to be like as a person? Clothing tastes, food tastes, music tastes... There were lots of "top favorites", none could prevail but each one, in the moment I experienced it, seemed like the best choice, to the point I thought "why would I think I like the other more? I don't even like that stuff that much, I could really go without". That's because every different parts of me couldn't go without different things, and sometimes don't even care about things that other parts absolutely love. Also, sometimes I felt like a different person. For example, in situations of great responsibility, I felt a sort of absolute confusion, like a fast mental reorganization, and then the perception I had of the world an of myself was completely changed, old insecure me that never took action because of non existent self efficacy was gone, I knew what to do, I felt a great deal of responsibility, but also that I could be in control of the situation, I often instinctively took the leadership and started giving tasks to people and solving the issue. Then, when danger passed, I turned back to old me, being like WTF just happened?! (that's the part that's having troubles right now btw. She's always been the strong one). Other "switches" I notice are sudden and deep mood swings that also involve my whole mindset and perception of the world and of myself. It can happen in like 5 seconds. I'm fine, then usually some trigger happens and 5 seconds later I am in deep depression, feeling worthless, hopeless, helpless, scared, guilty, anxiety is at unbearable levels and I go hysteric. Depression doesn't come in 5 seconds, especially not that deep. In that state, I often disassociate too, and sometimes I have the clear sensation to feel younger and/or that my appearence is not how it should be, especially the parts of my body that show I'm grown up. I think that's my traumatized part, the crystallized emotions. She's around 10 years old. Dragon instead, he's the part that holds my pride and all the positive emotions about myself. When he comes out I swear, I see my image on the mirror differently. I'm very slim and have no muscles at all, I have a quite sweet and childish face, many think I'm not more than 16, when I'm actually 24. Now explain me how could I see muscles ans a fierce androgynous face looking back at me from the mirror. And I start feeling great over myself. Out of nowhere. It lasts for some minutes or half an hour usually, not much, but I sure notice ahahaha. Dragon likes to appear in all his magnificence. Doesn't care how, as long as it stands out - in a nice way - . He's the one that loves cosplay and feels euphoric with weird outfits on lol I had drew him too, before knowing of him. I drew a little sleeping dragon cub, his scales had shades of red, black and gold. A psychologist asked me what this drawing represented. I had never thought about it, I though I just drew something cute, but I almost immediately answered by instinct: "my pride. I hope it will grow up someday". Well, it did grow up, and started coming out randomly lol

@PoliteOcean it's an awesome and scary feeling, confidence.