Photo: mine
This week has been a little weird, but not bad. My incisions from the scalp surgery are healing, and I’ll get the stitches out in a few days. It’s been pretty amazing how little pain I’ve had. I was skeptical of not getting pain meds, and being told to take Tylenol, but it’s been fine. I haven’t even taken Tylenol past the 2nd or 3rd day post-op. I slept a LOT the first few days, and waited to resume the THC for sleep for 4-5 nights, but definitely needed it to help me get back into my ‘normal’ sleep schedule. It’s not ‘normal’ to most people, but I sleep better at during the day (avoids the heat of the day- and it’s been HOT, in the 90sF/33+C), and being awake at night (cooler, can get more done). So, that is all getting back to baseline. I took out the trash at 4:40 a.m. because the temp at the time was 70F, and that was the coolest part of the day. The sun was just starting to come up, so it wasn’t totally dark outside, and very peaceful.
There was some email contact with my former therapist. She wanted to know how the surgery went. The exchanges were nice. I still don’t want to speak to her, but there’s no lingering bitterness so that is good. Moving on.
I took out the NG tube last Monday- this is the longest I’ve gone without it since the summer of 2022 when I put it in. I hope I can keep it out. So far, I’ve been able to drink enough, which can mean I’m too full on fluids to have room for much food. I do better with fairly small portions of nutritionally dense foods. I still don’t care much about protein, but get some in. It’s better to just do what is comfortable, and not have food be so much more demanding of mental energy. There are some really good sparkling waters out there. My current favorite is Spindrift Tropical Punch- very noticeable guava, which I like.
Food is still problematic for my ‘head’, though I’ve been trying some new things that don’t have ‘scary numbers’. I’m learning that I need to do the most ‘complicated’ foods early in the day when I have more energy. They’re still fairly simple, but food that has to be cooked or ‘babysat’ takes up energy I often don’t have. If I get a spurt of energy, I’ll do some veggie prep to make the next meals easier. The new things have been really good. I’ve heard of many of them, but just never had the chance to eat them before. They’ve been a pleasant surprise, and part of my ‘stash pantry’. They still have to ‘fit’ into the ‘numbers’ or my head freaks out and I end up immobilized mentally. Juggling ‘keeping the peace’ with my head, and getting enough in to avoid further organ damage is exhausting. Freeing up when I eat specific things is helpful. The fewer rules the better, though I still feel like there are many more rules than not.
I still watch different kinds of ‘normal eaters’ on YouTube when I eat, for distraction and to see how people without eating disorders manage food. Many also give me ideas of things to try. Tonight I watched an episode of “Sorted Food” where they ate ( many) and made lobster rolls. Lobster is way outside of my budget, but surimi lobster is very doable and I like it, so I am going to try that soon as a lobster roll. The biggest fear with that is the bread. But I’ve got to get carbs in some way, so for a lobster roll bread is the most logical option. I found a brioche hotdog bun that is sliced on the top, and I think that will work; numbers aren’t terrifying. I’ve had real lobster rolls in the past, and like them, so I hope that carries over to the faux version. YouTube content creators that aren’t ED recovery focused likely have no idea how their videos are used to help reframe how food is viewed. It’s a very slow process, but it is helpful. I still watch a couple of ED focused channels, but for the most part, I’ve opted to watch more of the non-ED folks.
It’s hard to believe that the year is half over. Time goes too quickly, and I’m working on some kind of ‘schedule’ to get some things done, at a doable pace. Even 30 minutes a day would be useful, and not super overwhelming. I might have to split that into 2 parts, but that’s OK. It still gets things done.
Tag: ptsd
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Back To Regular Programming
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Random Thoughts
Photo: mine
It’s been an odd week. Nothing dreadful, just a lot of fatigue and no appetite at all. In some ways that’s good because I didn’t have money this week to get fresh fruit and veg after one shop on pay day almost a month ago. I’ve got some military rations that I’ve been checking out, and wow- France takes top billing on military rations. Of course, they’re used to good stuff. I’ve tried them from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the UK, Poland, Spain (great biscuits), Italy (too much canned stuff), Russia (not good), Germany (uh, those entrees are scary), South Korea (rice & spice), Lithuania (very good one meal rations), France, and somewhere I’m forgetting besides the US (pretty good). The US has crap food standards, and has for years, which benefits the medical industrial complex, but the MREs are improving, and some components are quite good. But France wins hands down. Lithuania has some really good dark chocolate (as do other EU countries). But I’m losing weight, so no complaints on being broke or the military food. This week, I get paid, so will be getting groceries that will be compatible with recovery after surgery next week.
I’ve noticed over the past couple of months that Canada seems to be the folks who are reading these blog posts the most (or have their VPNs set to Canada). Like by a huge margin over the 2nd place country (which varies). For a while, Indonesia was reading a lot of posts. I have no idea who reblogs my posts, but I’ll be putting those into spam and hopefully eliminating the auto-reblog thing.
The weather has been more steady, which my autonomic nervous system appreciates. It was near 90F for a couple of days, but now dipping into the 70sF during the day (cool for this time of year here), and 40sF at night. I was watching some storm chasers on YouTube, and one watched a tornado heading to his hometown (he was chasing elsewhere), but his dad had his car rigged up to film, so it was all shown live. The town got a lot of damage to property, which is always sad. I think they said it was an EF-3, so very damaging.
I was trying to find a new cover photo for Facebook, and went through that ‘album’, getting rid of some old photos, taking ‘public’ off of ones not being used, and ditching a few idiotic avatar backgrounds. There are more of those that need to go. I also ran across some old posts that are meaningless now, so those got deleted. General housekeeping. I need to do that with photos as well. The thought of going through over 3000 photos isn’t terribly enticing, but I need to get around to that, though also have stuff here in the apartment that I need to work on.There was one very odd FB ‘thing’ with someone I don’t know who was making some very disturbing posts about someone I do know, but no longer have contact with, so those got reported to FB, and I blocked the freaky poster. I’m no longer in contact, but those posts crossed a threat line that I didn’t want to make any assumptions about…. lots of lunacy, and very specific homicidal stuff that is never OK, no matter why there’s no contact. Came up on that always unwanted “people you may know” line-up that I hate. I always delete them, but hit the wrong part of the thumbnail, and was taken to their page for some seriously disturbed crap and a name that is very close to someone else’s name who knows the same person I seemingly never did know. I’m so glad I’m not their target !! It’s also annoying that the person I’m no longer in contact with still has their groupies showing up on the “may know” line-up. Humans make me miss my dog so much more. No agenda. No lies. No betrayal.
About that surgery… I’ve had the same one done 3 times before in the hospital, and at least a dozen ‘one offs’ in a MD office, ER, or urgent care. I don’t anticipate any surprises. I do have a history of blood loss with these (had to stay overnight for the last 2 ‘mass’ removals ages ago), which tanks my blood pressure, and that messes with my kidneys. Scalps always bleed like crazy, so that’s part of it. A friend is taking me and bringing me home, as long as I do OK with anesthesia and bleeding. I don’t know yet if it will be with or without being intubated and on a vent for the procedure, but at least it will be over and done. It’s not a fun surgery to recover from since I’ll have incisions all over my head. I still have some of my dog’s pee pads that I’ll use as pillow protectors for any bleeding that continues a bit, and hoping I can sleep with where the biggest incision will be. I’m not sure how the CPAP headgear will work with a wrapped up head. I’ll figure something out.
OK. Enough drivel. -
Fundamentals of Disassociation: DID
Photo: mine
There are few good examples of disassociation in TV or movies, and most of those involve people who are sociopathic and homicidal. Those are the very much exceptions to those who have the more extreme form of disassociation, DID, or dissociative identity disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder) which will be the focus of this post. The statistics show that between %0.5 – 3 of the population is impacted by DID- which means you probably know someone with DID. Not all presentations of the disorder are the same, just like the reasons behind DID vary somewhat, mostly by degree. It’s widely accepted that severe and ongoing trauma cause DID.
https://www.mind-diagnostics.org/blog/dissociative-identity-disorder/6-must-know-dissociative-identity-disorder-statistics
To break it down, I’m going to use the example of a bank. The vault is the mind. In a ‘normal’ person (who frequently disassociates on a mundane drive home from work), memory is stored in the main body of the vault. There is nothing to keep the person from remembering things as they occur, as well as being able to recall things at will. For someone with dissociative identity disorder, the mind is more like the safety deposit boxes. They are secure and separated from the rest of the vault by a locked gate of some type, though still part of the entire vault and bank. When abuse or neglect is so severe that a young child can’t process what is happening, the mind breaks into pieces- as many as are needed- to cope with the abuse that has no sign of ending. There is generally no external support system, as most people with DID were traumatized by caregivers. There’s nowhere to go but inside. For a young child, the caretakers and people most often in their life are supposed to provide safety and security. When that is broken down by repeated and severe abuse/neglect, the child goes ‘inside’ to feel safe, creating an ‘alternate’ (or alter) who holds that pain and trauma so the ‘outside’ (or host) personality doesn’t have to remember or deal with the impact of the trauma.
The number of alters isn’t necessarily relative to the severity of the trauma. Each person is a bit different with how their system of alters works, and the biggest thing to remember is that it was a survival mechanism to help the child cope with something it didn’t really understand, and to spread out the trauma so that the mind doesn’t break. Most of the time, the host isn’t aware of the others, and there are varying degrees of awareness of others inside and how they work in the ‘system’ as a whole. The alters are consistent in their behavior, speech, preferences, etc- just like a ‘normal’ person, but with many contained in one body, and the host is clueless about the ones inside until something breaks down the barriers keeping the host unaware of the alters. Memory can be an issue for the host and the alters, depending on the communication between them and the specific purpose for the alter. Over time with therapy, there is a better understanding of both the trauma, and how each alter works, as well as the cooperation between them. The core function is self-preservation and protection- not to strike out at external people.
Most people with DID aren’t obvious. That’s also a survival mechanism. In a world that dislikes things it doesn’t relate to or understand, being ‘outed’ can be a death sentence for various relationships. It’s an invitation to be discredited or have assumptions made that simply aren’t true. The alters can also be exploited (especially younger ones). They can behave in ways that are abhorrent to the host (the one most people know publicly). They can behave in ways that aren’t developmentally in sync with the chronological age of the ‘body’, but not necessarily overtly so. Most have jobs that they are good at (and the employer gets multiple ‘minds’ for the price of one !!). Many have raised healthy kids. On the surface, and with superficial relationships, they are undetectable by design. Some may seem a bit quirky, but nothing that indicates the trauma that they had to survive by any means necessary and available to a young child who has no other ‘out’.
This is very basic information. Do you have any questions about DID ? -
Trauma and Eating Disorders
Photo: mine- it was the only footprint in the dry river bed… where did it come from?
There are plenty of articles and videos about the impact of trauma on the development of eating disorders. The attack on self-worth goes deep. For some, ‘disappearing’ is a response to unwanted contact with people. For others, it’s about misplaced shame. When someone is emotionally, sexually, or physically abused, or neglected, there is a major disruption to the foundation of a healthy view of themselves.
I don’t like ‘blame’ for how I view my mom who was one of my primary abusers. She did horrible things, but I think it was more that she was broken than deliberately malicious most of the time. My maternal grandmother also did some sketchy things when I was very young, but I still preferred being there than at home… at least with my grandparents, I wasn’t invisible.
There were traumatic events at the hands of those outside of my family, and one particularly horrific example is with my skating coach. Her husband bludgeoned their six children because he was mad she wanted a divorce. I was 14 at the time, and in another blog I wrote, the comments included many who felt the same way I did… if parents get mad, kids can get killed. I knew the oldest kid from the rink, though not well. My parents also didn’t handle it well, and told me to get over it, it had nothing to do with me. My coach was someone I could just be myself with, and she was very kind to me. I still think about that event every day.
As a young adult, I was raped, beaten, and sodomized for 6 hours before I was able to escape (he finally passed out), and police came. One of them shot the rapist in my bedroom. He didn’t die and I had to testify at the trial. He changed his plea mid-trial and accepted a 60 year sentence. He’s out on parole now for ‘good behavior’ and the stupid Texas law at the time of the crime, but he’s still my bitch until 2048. He planned to dismember me alive with one of my kitchen knives.
There were other less intense sexual assaults… one of the students at the U of IL wanted me to go out with him, and he pinned me to the dorm lobby floor, forcibly kissing me, as if that was some kind of lure. I was as disgusted with him as I was the other students in the lobby who just walked by and did/said nothing. A high school classmate groped me in the hall at school.
Having leukemia was traumatic. The intensity and duration of 20 months of daily chemo of some kind was exhausting, and the stress of the initial weeks when it was possible to die from sneezing and a brain bleed from the increased vascular pressure from a sneeze (or cough, etc) was hard. Being in the hospital for 6 weeks was also difficult, on reverse isolation. I’m fortunate in that the kind of leukemia I had (APL) is curable- not just in remission, and I’m 15 years out from the diagnosis with no sign of it being in my body for the last 15 years (first negative bone marrow test was after 3 weeks of induction chemo).
I didn’t used to think that trauma had anything to do with why I developed an eating disorder because of the way I was groomed for starvation at home, and the ongoing abuse when I was a toddler normalized it for decades- it wasn’t until after the rape that I was taught about types of abuse. Now I can see that the impact of each trauma/abuse did gut any self-worth, and that has a huge impact on who does or doesn’t engage in eating disorder behaviors. Food = staying alive. When being alive becomes too painful, there is an urge not to support its continuation. It’s not a conscious self-harm/suicidal mentality, but that’s what it becomes even if not acknowledged. I have no interest in dying, but I’m also not really living. I hope that changes.