Lived Experience Forum

[Maggie]

I hope you had a cry on your girlfriends shoulder @Faith-and-Hope. Please do something for you tonight, you deserve it.💗💗

[Faith-and-Hope]

I did @Maggie.

Hard to do anything for myself at home .... WH's regimen is still all over our life there, and I can't even go and tuck myself up in my room if I want to ..... but I will have to work something out.

💜

[Maggie]

@Faith-and-Hope It's not fair, but you know that, sometimes we are still caught up in the male first ego, but you are equal, important, valued, cared for, I deliberately don't use the love word as I know nothing about it, but care really sits well with me. A tick is fine as I know you are scarce atm. Sending warm thoughts.💕

[Faith-and-Hope]

Hi @Maggie .... 💕

My story is on a thread in C-forum, but makes for a marathon read by now. I have been in the forums for 18months, and have spent that time trying to find which way is up with what has happened to my husband. An mi has triggered in him ...... well one that rolled over from one eating disorder form to a new one that is far more rigid and aggressive. Along with it have come massive personality and values changes. I previously felt respected, appreciated, honoured and cared for / about. As the e.d. took hold and I tried to flag him to the problem, I became "the adversary" and someone who needed to be controlled, bound, and kept out of his way as the illness has continued to develop. It appears now that there is something co-existing with the e.d. that is hostile, like a body-guard over the new lifestyle he has carved out for himself.

It's not like that all the time. He is switching to an alternative identity that is charming, and another that is vulnerable and trying to be the best parent to our kids that he can. E, but treating them as though they are much younger than they are, and preventing their independence and maturation, switching to the extremely controlling mode if they look like breaking bounds.

It has crept up into the form it is now, and our defences have been worn down progressively.

I think you can see why I was trying to find out what I could about DID. I won't be able to work out what it is I think ..... this requires professional intervention.

Leaving, while and option, is anything but straight-forward, and the risks / potential ck sequences substantial.

Have to try this new path that has opened up, with a safety plan in the background.

Yes, the male-first ego is giant on this landscape at the moment ......

💜😔

[Maggie]

@Faith-and-Hope Probably stating the obvious here, but have you read ' The dissociative identity disorder sourcebook, by Deborah Bray Haddock?  One of the best in my own opinion. My counsellor has taken a VERY gentle approach allowing communication if the kids want to talk. It's never been forced or coerced, just happened. It took months to trust as everyone else gave up and a very strange happening really that made us realise she was different. She mentioned the word anger once and I/we smashed her windows in. I'm not a violent aggressive person at all, quite the opposite but this set the scent for acceptance. We expected her to call the police and have us admitted, instead kindness gentleness and a drive home were what we received. We knew we had found someone who cared. For us someone who would stand with us, not walk away was just as important as being heard and believed. I hope I'm not rambling and wasting your time here, but sometimes someone inside might have every reason for feeling the anger. I had NO childhood memories at all, even now it's fragments, but I'm on the extrem end of the illness/disorder or whatever people choose to call it. I'll leave it here just in case I'm off track. 💕💕

[Faith-and-Hope]

@Maggie ..... you have just said something highly pertinent .....

WH struggles to remember anything much at all about his childhood, and has major anger issues regarding his father.

I don't know whether it supports DID, and can't presume, but I believe Internal Family Systems runs a close example of how our personalities are made up of sub-personalities, and there is clearly something terribly wrong, but not obvious enough to the outside world (yet ?) to be able to call him out on it. To family and friends he is coming across as driven and eccentric I think, but relatively harmless to anyone other than himself.

Anyway ..... have to see what happens with the therapist we are seeing, one step at a time. It's clear to the team that is growing around our family that there is something fundamentally wrong.

[Faith-and-Hope]

I will try to find that handbook @Maggie.

I am so, so glad you found your counsellor ..... she sounds like a wonderful and very understanding (empathetic to your situation) person.

I have found in my searches people saying that keeping a communal diary that "everybody" can write in really helps. For young ones that can mean using a scrapbook andctextas / crayons available, and for older ones, perhaps a communal wall on the computer, or white-board .... whatever works best .... perhaps choices left open to suggestion. Written communications in any case.

💜

[Maggie]

@Faith-and-Hope My counsellor and I have always kept two journals. We exchange each week. The older ones sometimes write there, the younger ones have done collages, as you can see, spelling is an issue.lol. They cut out stick and past, and amazing communication comes through. Also reading children's books, kicking leaves, jumping in puddles. Small seems strange, but the simple things seem to work for us. I little one loves parties, so my counsellor brings a mobile party. A snake, Freddie chocolate frog fizzy drink. I'm letting it all hang out here, just trying to help. It's not as complicated as most make out, they are usually traumatised kids, pushing you away but hoping you'll stay. Do something for you @Faith-and-Hope Counsellors can go home, you are home.💓💓💓

[Faith-and-Hope]

Thanks @Maggie ......

Something else WH is doing actually is creating "parties" in the house. He is trying to fee the kids the sort of food he finds comforting and has taken over three meals across the week ....... on repeat which is driving me a bit crazy ..... and high-cal which is contributing to weight-gain in the kids, but it's like he is trying to feed somebody's inner child. Of course he won't touch the party food, f&c, pizza, or big breakfast fry-up, cos for him that is very naughty, but then he feeds himself chocolate treats to go to bed at night ......

All very hard to put together ...... so maybe we are looking at parts in some sense ......

Anyway, I have thrown myself back into the self-care basket, which is translating to him as "naughty, absent mother" even though our kids are all adult now ..... ?! And I am staying there for now while he is back on the war-path.

That's just it ..... the counsellors aren't at home with us.

[Faith-and-Hope]

Can I ask you something @Maggie ?