What happens when you live with violence for years of time? When violence happens every day, or every other day, or every week? How do you cope with that much fear and chaos? How do save yourself from falling into a deep, dark depression? What happens to your sense of trust? What do you do with your own huge feelings? What if you are trapped in that situation and don’t know how to remove … [Read more...]
The Emotional Container of Abuse
Emotional abuse. This is a complicated topic. It's a topic I've tried to explain to many dissociative trauma survivors many many times. The concept of emotional abuse can be hard to grasp. This is because the trauma survivor often internalizes the perpetrator's offensive verbage, believing it to be true. But it's not true. Not at all. In this article, I will describe one example of the dynamic of a … [Read more...]
Is THIS Abuse? Yes or No?
Many times I get asked what abuse is. I understand this question, and the need for that question because many of the dissociative survivors who I speak with grew up in such chronically abusive homes that abuse was normal. Normal is just normal to them. What I would define as abuse was their norm, their everyday, their usual, their expected. And once abuse is “just how it is”, it becomes tricky and confusing to … [Read more...]
Believing a Lie – the Foundation of Dissociation
What makes it difficult for trauma survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder to know the truth? How easy is it to trick someone with DID with a lie? When are survivors lying to themselves? When does dissociation block out information to know the difference? When does pain, especially emotional pain, become the deciding factor in what survivors believe, regardless of truth? When does the viciousness … [Read more...]
50 Treatment Issues for Dissociative Identity Disorder
"I have DID. How long will it take for someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder to feel better?" As a clinical therapist, I hear that question frequently. It's a reasonable question. I certainly understand that when dissociative trauma survivors are deeply hurting and struggling in their life, they want to feel better as quickly as possible. However, the clinical treatment for someone with Dissociative … [Read more...]