A Tale of A Host. The Beginning Work of a Multiple.
When I was first diagnosed with D.I.D. I didn’t know what was going on. There seemed to be a sudden massive breakthrough in my psyche and the way I experienced life and reality had changed in ways I never could have imagined. I never expected that returning to therapy for “life management” issues was going to turn my world inside out and upside down. It’s been a year and a half now. I’m still working with my therapist twice a week for about an hour and fifteen minutes or so each session and still keep in supportive contact via email in between sessions.
When I first returned to therapy my spouse, our child, and I had just moved into a new duplex around the corner from our old one. I was working about 28-30 hours a week in special education at school for undersexed junior high kids. I was in my second graduate program and had actually been in grad school for about 4 years because I immediately enrolled in a second graduate program after completing the first. It was one of those major life changes that tends to come on suddenly and unexpectedly. It all seemed quite rational at the time but also left me feeling bewildered as to what it was that compelled me to make such drastic changes. In addition my mom had been really sick and nearly died, had it not been for me insisting that she be transferred to a different hospital after she had surgery and was clearly suffering from congestive heart failure at a surgery center who had no cardiological staff on board.
Shortly after I began having frightening complications and pain in and around my heart that landed me in the ER twice. The second time they did a procedure and determined that I do have plaque in my arteries but the plaque was not the source of my pain. I was relieved and at the same time, after receiving this “good news” I broke down and couldn’t stop crying. The staff was just as bewildered as I was. After doing a little work in therapy I realized that the procedure itself was highly traumatic and a trigger. While all of this was going on, I was in the very beginning stages of D.I.D. work.
Then in May, I lost my job because they dissolved the position, my cat of 16 years died and a few months later my sister died. This was in late July or early August of 2014. The very next day, after receiving the news about my sister, my spouse and I got into yet another heated and destructive argument and he was told that we were over and he was to move out in January (and he did). I had been in the hamster wheel of trial and error with medications for about the last year and half (after having been completely med free for 6 years). A week or so after my spouse and I broke up (yet were still living in the same house), I went into the hospital in order to receive daily supervision regarding how the meds were affecting me. It was around this time that my therapist realized I had not had more than 3 or 4 hours of sleep per night for about 5 months. The hospital staff determined that I was in a sever manic state (which I was) stripped me of all other meds and put me on a mood stabilizer. It was helpful but just like all of the other mood stabilizers and antipsychotics (for the mania), I had severe physical side effects that did not out weight the benefits of the meds. After returning home I returned to school, completed my degree, and an internship. Four months later, over New Years, my spouse moved out.
I am very grateful to all of the ones in and of me who helped to manage life and also get me and us through the last year and half to where I now finally feel like I am turned right side out and am no longer lost and stuck in the far recesses of my mind. I still have many challenges and blessings regarding D.I.D. and other psychiatric issues my systems holds (primarily Bi-polar I and ADHD). Shortly before I graduated I had a session with my student disables counselor at my school regarding how even though I looked really good on paper and had been successful in school, internship, and at work, I feared I would not be able to successfully make it through a single interview, let alone start a new job anywhere or anytime soon. She recommended that I apply for Social Security Disability Insurance. I did and within about 6 months I was awarded SSDI. I have taken this time allow space for a return to the arts. Over 100 paintings and drawings have been created through this last year and half. Hopefully soon we will be able to get the work out there and have some shows.
For me, finding out and beginning the work of D.I.D. was as much a relief as it was an explosion and implosion of consciousness. As the one who functioned most in the world and merely noticed some oddities in my life that interfered with my overall emotional well being and life management, I was initially devastated when I realized I was only a piece of the bigger picture. It is still hard for me to accept. For the aspects inside who have suffered and had their lives cut off due to my take over, they are finally getting the help they need and through our work in therapy all of us are beginning to heal. Conceptualizing D.I.D. is as complex as conceptualizing String Theory.
On September 9rd 2003, my doctor diagnosed me with Bipolar Disorder I . (Bipolar II is mostly depression with some manic episodes. Bipolar I is full blown mania with little depression.