first post to both Live Journal and to this group

[skylarksoaring.livejournal.com]

This is my first post to this group, as well as to Live Journal and I must confess to being a little bewildered. I've no clue as to what the protocols are or how people interact here.

I do have a specific question that I need help with, however, and would appreciate any advice or comments.

I have what used to be called polyfragmented high-functioning MPD, though the term these days is DID. Although I've been in therapy since I was 10 (I'm 66) and diagnosed correctly, finally, since 1989, I'm just now reaching the point where I can directly deal with some of what was possibly cult abuse that occurred between the ages of 3.75 and 7.5 years old.

All of the material I've read so far talks in terms of visual memories. I have no visual memories but experience the flashbacks of what happened to me kinesthetically. In fact there are no people at all in my memories before college. Only empty rooms, seen out of the corner of my eye. Are there any resources you suggest that might be helpful in dealing with this? I'm lucky enough to be working with a fabulous therapist - Dr. James Chu - so I do have primary support.

Comments

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the group !

In therapy since you were 10 - that is 56 years
wow ! Long time ;-)

first post to both Live Journal and to this group

[skylarksoaring.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm still here.

first suicide thoughts were in fifth grade and first attempt was at 17. Diagnosed as borderline schizophrenic in college, but have managed to support myself and have never been hospitalized. Assagioli's sub-personality theory was what brought the system to conscious awareness in the early 80s, went looking for help around that and finally found Dr. Chu in 1989. still, its only recently that i've been able to structure my environment to make it safe to do more than just hang on - i'd go for months without seeing Dr. Chu, keeping everything locked down, in order to survive economically. economic survival was key above everything. now we are much more collaborative and cooperative. Mon-Thurs are owned by my job, but Fri-Sun is ours.

Re: first post to both Live Journal and to this group

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

Sounds like you had a hard time of things in your life with incorrect diagnosis
and with a mental health system that was not so sophisticated as it is now.

Many of us here in this group take a non-medical view of multiplicity. Frankly
i credit this group and ksol1460 's website with keeping us on a
positive tack with this stuff. Check out http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/faq.shtml.

My companion realized she was multi around 20 years ago and she told NOONE til
last year when she told us because it was obvious we shared the same experience.
I will say you are brave to come out as well.

Sorry to all if we sound disjointed - should be in bed now - have a nasty chest
cold.

Re: first post to both Live Journal and to this group

[skylarksoaring.livejournal.com]

"Sounds like you had a hard time of things in your life with incorrect diagnosis
and with a mental health system that was not so sophisticated as it is now."

True, but I've also been very lucky in my work with Dr. Chu. Also, as two of my Buddhist teachers have commented, I'm a warrier. Also lucky in my boss and in two very special long-term friends.

Thanks for responding and do get to bed. That's where I'm heading.

Re: first post to both Live Journal and to this group

[catskillmarina.livejournal.com]

Buddhist teachings directly and through DBT helped us a lot.

[comixologist.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid that I can't really help much with suggestions about dealing with non-visual memories. As for myself, I tend to remember things from the outside, and even when I was fronting the body during the event recalled, I rarely remember it from the body's point of view. As for feeling memories, the only suggestion that I can really think of is to perhaps keep a log or journal of what you remember (or what you seem to remember) and how you remember it. By doing that, it may be easier to piece together what happened into a clear and more manageable timeline.

Welcome to the community! Us young guns are happy to do whatever we can to make you feel more welcome.

- Jo.

[skylarksoaring.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the welcome!

Part of the problem is that ALL the memories are kinesthetic, nothing visual, verbal, movie. that may change in this new phase that we've just entered, but it may not. am i the only person who only has kinestheic memories? it feels that way. there's an incredible amount of screaming inside but even that isn't like 'voices'.

[comixologist.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'd go so far as to say that no, you're almost definately not the only person who has only kinesthetic memeories. I have known a few people who have a mixture of both, so I believe that there must be more than one person. I'm also pretty sure you've come to the right place - we're a diverse crowd here, and curious. I highly recommend joining as many forums as you can to seek out others in your unique situation. I've found that Livejournal is a surprisingly solid support group, because of the amount of variation here.

I just wish I could offer more help!

[skylarksoaring.livejournal.com]

comforting to hear, and I'll keep exploring.

Thanks!

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

I doubt you're the only person. Initially (and even now) most of my traumatic memories have had no audio/visual. It's part of what makes them so bad, not having anything else to link them to, to be able to say "that happened there, not here."

[skylarksoaring.livejournal.com]

oh god yes! to not know who they were and what they did exactly. i've experienced being in a tiny cage, being hog-tied, tied down, terror, screaming, crawling on floor trying to get away, trying to disappear - in a workshop once i tried to get behind a radiator - sense that fire is involved, and don't tell don't tell you'll go to hell don't tell. when i write poetry stuff like that comes out.

how did you get access to more than the kinesthetic? are there tools that can help?

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

TBH, a lot of what I have is just what I've managed to put together in my mind. I was plenty old enough to remember the layout of where I lived, and who did it. I don't know that I have any 'memories' of the visual/'movie' kind, more that I know the face and location to put to what I *do* remember.

I've never managed to see a shrink about this. All I've had is supportive friends. They're not really qualified to give me tools to help.

[amethystrse.livejournal.com]

By kinesthetically do you mean somatic memories (aka. body memories) where your body remembers what happened and you feel it physically as if it was just happening? With me, when I would start to remember the trauma I recieved as a child and teen, I would first remember them somatically. Eventually I would get the visual memories too.

I've found that talking with other multiples who have DID (some don't feel that they do...they feel that they're just multiple for no reason) has been a big help. It's a strange feeling, both good and bad, to find that you're not alone. That others have been through the same thing, or something similar, or something different but just as horrid. It's a good feeling because you're not alone. But a bad one because you know others have felt the pain too.

There is a message board that I go to sometimes. I don't know if I should post it here or not. If you want you can e-mail me and I'll send you the link. I found the people on there to be especially helpful. They've all been through horrible things as a child and can often give wonderful advice to help you heal and cope. If you want, my e-mail address is amethystrse@sbcglobal.net

I wish you the very best. Healing isn't easy to do, but it IS possible. And after you've delt with what happened things seem so much easier. Just remember that you're stronger than you realize. And your alters saved you.

*hugs*

[vinik.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm multiple for a reason. It's just not a pathological one. ;)

-Ben

[amethystrse.livejournal.com]

Sorry, the only reasons I've heard for being multiple are a) trauma in early childhood and b) just being born that way. Though, there are a few who I met who said that they had walk-ins (spirits inhabiting their body)...forgot about that.

In my reply I didn't want to get into all of that though. I was just saying that talking with others who have been through trauma has been helpful to me. Sorry if the way I worded it caused any offense.

[vinik.livejournal.com]

None taken. I'm just a smartass. But yeah, most of us are believed to be walk-ins.

[matrexsvigil.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if this is rude, but I don't understand...what do you mean by cult abuse? Don't answer if you don't want to.

-P.C.

--"Off the Pink."--

[drleanne.livejournal.com]

Well on a positive note you can know that you are not the only one in the world who has had x problem. the world is too big, too many people. we all go through times where we expericence memories somatically versus visually. you just well deal with them. at some point they will make sense. if they don't now then there may be a darn good reason, dont push it.

take it easy

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

You are welcome on this community and we're delighted to have older members (our body will be fifty in a few months). However, this particular question seems to be much more about your abuse memories than about issues related to your multiplicity.

We occasionally receive letters similar to your post, and I'm afraid we really don't know of any trauma-survivor resrouces other than sidran.org. You already have a therapist who works well with you, so you don't need to find one. However, you might like to contact Many Voices (http://www.manyvoicespress.com) to see if Lyn can connect you with others who have had similar experiences to yours... maybe one of them can tell you more about how certain types of recovered memories work.

I am not aware at present of what are the best recovered-memory support groups on Livejournal (or anywhere else) at present. I know that a multiple-friendly PTSD community (http://community.livejournal.com/we_thrive/profile) was recently started by clan_vinik, and you might inquire there.

Memory, as I understand it, works differently for everyone. If all the material you and Dr Chu have been able to find on recovered memory speaks of it in terms of visuals, perhaps you could write articles, or even a website, detailing your experiences.

One thing I am certain of is that you are not alone. I can almost guarantee you that there are others who experience no visuals in recovered memory, and possibly even have written about it, but their writing's not been printed or published online, or you haven't yet run across it.

[unicorn-crest.livejournal.com]

Welcome!

We're a non-trauma-generated system (for all we can tell, we've always been here) but we occasionally have touch-only memories. Usually for us they're the most positive ones.... our ickier stuff seems to come with the works, sense-wise. But often our memories of being happy and warm and loved don't have a specific localle or any sounds - just the sense of who it is.

So - just another point of view that such memories are capable of being good.

I think I agree with the person who posted earlier that if you only have one sense in them, it might be for a reason - and that the rest will come when it's ready. But hey, I'm no shrink. :)

- Ten

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's certainly no reason why "recovered" stuff has to be bad-- it can just as easily be neutral, just random information that was out of long-term memory for a long time.

Personally, for us, we have deliberately chosen not to pursue any memories of what might indicate early, forgotten events (although there are plenty of things from our early life, both good and bad, that we remember). We figure if the memories are there and can come back, they will on their own, and if they can't come back, we would do more harm than good by trying to interpose details and possibly coming up with things that didn't happen.

[pthalo]

We have lots of kinesthetic memories. Everything's dark but you feel it in the body as if it's happening again. We also have visual memories and auditory memories, but the body memories suck.

[fireincarnation.livejournal.com]

Welcome!
I represent a multiple system. We were born multiple, but we also split due to trauma. The Pams, who suffered most from the abuse experience what you term "kinesthetic memories." They are quite alarming for her, she seldom has more than two senses involved in any flashback or memory. When you do figure out what works for you, we'd be interested in learning that too. We are still looking for a decent therapist, we've had some real bad ones.

[our-menagerie.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to say hello. We find it amazing that you have been in therapy for 56 years and never been in the hospital. We were in therapy on and off(mostly on one to two times a week) from the time the body was 19 until last year at age 32. We have been hospitalized i think 8 times total. 5 of which were last year and we finally said enough is enough. The first 3 were necessary and somewhat helpful but they were also at a specialized hospital in Massachusetts. The last 5 here in Texas were pretty much useless. I think that is why we kept trying to go back thinking eventually it would help but it was pointless. Were there ever times you felt like you needed or wanted to be hosptialized?

Im not sure what you mean by kinesthetic memories only. I didnt know that was possible to have that as the only kind. Ive had very bad experiences with my visual memories and finding out years later that a lot of what I thought was true wasnt what really happened at all. Consequently we have a really hard time of trusting memories of any kind now. I do have thoughts that seem to come through smells, or auditory but mostly now are passing thoughts.

Sorry we dont have anything to say to help but we would be interested in hearing more if you figure it out.

sj & scarlette