**This journal entry from long ago is actually an email I sent to my therapist on that day. I ended up copying and pasting it into my journal. It tells a lot of what it is like battling DID and its effects.
T*,
I spent so much of yesterday convincing myself, “I’m ok.” I spent the whole day acting “as if” hoping “as if” would turn into reality. In the end, I did nothing but switch switch switch. And people that I know asked, “So how are you?”, “Are you ok?”, and I said, “I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.” Trying hard to convince them and also convince myself. When you switch switch switch switch………….you never have to be real. You never have to face things. But it’s all a facade……It’s all smoke and mirrors………..isn’t it? I’m really not ok. I just want to think that I am. I want other people to think that I am. I’m running. I’m afraid. Remember in The Wizard of Oz when the Wicked Witch of the West first appears, and then she leaves?? There’s a puff of smoke and fire…….then she’s gone. I get scared………by the slightest thing. Poof! I throw up my smoke and disappear. Gone, gone, gone, gone. I can’t seem to face anything. When I see how much in reality I do this……..exactly what simple little things trigger me to pull up my smoke and mirrors, it scares me. My whole life is just a chain reaction of this. I’m so afraid inside. Afraid of people, afraid of looking at someone face to face, afraid of looking at myself, afraid of using my real voice. I even throw up my smoke and mirrors when I speak into the little thingy at restaurant drive thrus. I’m so afraid. I hide all day. I even hide behind this stupid computer and text. I’m trapped inside. I’m just switching masks and hats all day. I’m just a facade. I don’t even know where the real me is anymore…………….
Please help me to be real. I don’t want to “run” anymore. I can’t believe I’m saying this………..don’t let me throw up my smoke and mirrors. If I can’t be real between you and me, how can I do it anywhere else? How will I ever get better? I need someone that holds me accountable and doesn’t “buy it” doesn’t let me just “run away”. I feel safe with you. I trust you. I trust you to “call my bluff”.
“In case of emergency, break glass.”
Please…….
Break the glass…………………………………..
~Lothlorien
T* = Therapist
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I am SO glad I am no longer in that place! It was AWFUL!!!! I feel much more "real" now. I do not feel stuck behind some glass, or in some stone fortress. For me, the most healing "break" of the glass I experienced was with EMDR. EMDR somehow got through the glass and allowed all my feelings to come forward and spew out. Yes, it was painful to have all those feelings come forward, but it felt oh so good to cry! I wanted it to keep going and going. It was like I was purging myself of toxins, and truth be told, I am sure I was. I wanted to shoot my tears straight across my therapist's room and have them splatter on the wall. This sounds gross, but it was a lot like throwing up. You know you feel awful, you know you're going to be sick and you don't want to, so you do everything you can think of to ward it off. Then when it happens there's this toss up of it feels bad while at the same time feeling good. It's weird.......Very hard to explain.
Lothlorien
Copyright© 2011 by Lothlorien– All Rights Reserved
I have always wanted to be real, too. I even have a sketch of it "looks like" to NOT be real, that will be in my book - should I ever get it printed. Truth is, I think I've been real all along, just not the kind of real I wanted to be. We are real. We are real. We are real.
Posted by: Ivory | 12/24/2011 at 01:53 AM