Sexuality and survivors

Hope by grace2244

Last night I did this collage to represent my past and my wishful future with regard to my ability to express myself sexually freely without the past flowing into it. I was pleased with the collage artistically but it caused me to ponder that middle divide. There is no wall in my mind. I avoid "sex" with all of my being. Am fairly certain one of me had the job of being happy sexual. Not sure where she is since the medical trauma. My pelvic floor fell for heaven's sake. I do believe I will be healed sufficiently soon to add that back into my life.

I'm not sure about other survivors, but my true preference would be celibacy. I love BB with all my heart and soul. Intimacy is still a hurdle for reasons that have nothing to do with him. He has to pay the price for my past. My therapist advised several years ago that often being okay sexually is the last to heal. Possibly the recent fusion will allow that to happen.

Right now (and the impetus for writing this post) The Oprah Show is addressing sexuality issues. I'm in tears. They just welled up out of nowhere and are streaming down my face. How can someone who has had such horrific sexual abuse beginning before or by age 3 embrace loving intimacy? Guess I'm grieving the loss of not having that in my life. I don't want this to be too personal, but wanted to share that larger issue of separating sexual abuse from expressing healthy love sexually with a loving partner.

And I want it to be ME. I don't want another part to move forward to enjoy that part of my life. My pelvic floor is mostly healed. Getting my body to move is going slowly but surely thanks to the Wii Fit. Yet there is one more known issue tied to my past and that area of my body.

For years my mind justified what happened to me as jeans being too tight. I shifted to jeans jumpers and skirts in my 30s to avoid the problem...or so I thought. Since memories began, I realized I had been burned in my genital area with cigarettes, apparently many times. This body memory has recurred since at least my 20s. I never told anyone about it. It was embarrassing. Some physical signs preceded eruption sometimes, but not always. The most recent cigar(?) or cigarette burns began to appear last night. It's painful. It starts as a stinging soreness in a large area and then develops into several blisters on top of red raised areas (like a cigarette burn) that go through the course of breaking and healing at a rapid rate. Nothing helps to alleviate the pain. It takes several days to stop. I was going to work with my therapist on this issue but the fusion took priority.

For now, my therapist is on vacation, my blisters hurt, am feeling sorry for myself. Am feeling sad for BB that he has not had an intimate relationship in nearly two years. That is a goal for me for 2009. Complete healing...to include sexual healing. I know...bitch, bitch, bitch. This is my rant place. Hopefully if you've read to here, it's been a worthwhile topic.

My brain is not a fun place to visit

My thinking processes are not so clear these days but will write and see what comes out. The fusion has caused a feeling of greater multiplicity and increased forgetfulness. I didn't know there was a higher level of forgetfulness. I sort of understand that my being (which was conscious with at least partially processed memories) merged with my core with complete memory. Meaning...I think...that my conscious brain is now more muddled with floating chunks of amnesia. I cannot hold a thought. From the time I get up from the sofa and get into the kitchen, I have no idea why I'm there.

Brian has to remind me many times I have something to inhale or drink but as soon as I click on the computer to save what I was doing, I've forgotten what he just said. Now he stands there until I save my work and put the computer down. It feels like consciously I'm relaxing my brain to take a break so someone sneaks in and takes over for their time. I don't see my therapist for two more weeks. I need to work out an internal schedule, especially with the sleep. Several times this week I've been up till 5 am or later and slept till 1. I love that I was up before 10 today. I love my time in the mornings from about 8 to 10.

I have no focus for doing what needs to be done. Keep forgetting to check email. Forget to turn phone on for most of the day. Forget who I know. New Year's Eve I drove to a restaurant to meet with BB and friends because I was running late getting ready. I don't know who was out but she didn't know how to drive. Very disconcerting. Called for a protector to help with safe driving.

I've been living on Polyvore. As of last night had completed 29 collages in 15 days. The numbers stunned me. Things I have already processed are coming up in a more cohesive way although I still don't understand all they are trying to tell me. I finish a collage then realize I placed something in a very specific position so that it connected to a nearby image in most unusual way...startling actually.

I need to go back to my checklists. I had my daily calendar as a therapist. Somehow I have to make those things a priority before I jump onto the collage site. On the other hand, it feels essential that I be doing these collages now. One thing I learned long ago in my healing is to allow those healing things to happen. Can't imagine how I would manage if I were working while this total lack of focus is going on. I keep thinking the medical trauma must have triggered certain things that allowed for the fusion to take place. Perhaps, as awful as it was and still is, without that medical trauma, I wouldn't have been able to experience fusion. I do hope the internal craziness (lack of a time share schedule) calms down fairly soon.

More and more I would like to be able to counsel online. Until I feel ready to have total focus for my client(s), that is a wish. It would also allow me to write. I have several books in mind and my mission to be part of the healing of our sick underworld of organized pedophilia. Each day I send out thoughts to the Obama administration to see my application as something good and necessary.

Will proofread this entry but please excuse anything I miss! Since I haven't shared a collage on this blog, I'll provide one of my soothing works for you.


Simply Me by grace2244

Brief blogging block

I have much to say but seem to need another week to be in a place where my brain settles down to focus on words rather than images. Sorry for lack of new posts. Will be writing on several topics when I return.

Hope your holidays were okay and your coping skills helped you through!

The backwards world

It's known that organized abusers create great confusion in our subconscious worlds because confusion is one of those emotions that makes it easier for their messages to sink in. Fear, shock, confusion, dizziness, drugged. I've had difficulty for years with simply identification of left and right, forwards and backwards, up and down, among others. Tyler still struggles with the backwards language he was exposed to when he was 4 to 5 years old.

Jane (birth child me) and me (the entity with the healed alters) recently integrated. I have been staying up so late for months now. It dawned on me that maybe Jane has a different schedule. I spoke to her internally about a week ago about my need to get to bed about midnight but maybe we could start with just an hour earlier. She agreed that was a good idea. What happened is I have been staying up until 3 or nearly 4 for several days. Today I realized Jane is from the backwards world so my request for earlier translated to later. I think she understands now. Not sure what is involved for her to undo her language to adjust to current life.

It's been interesting. She is my writer and likely has been since second grade. Had always felt my writing came from another place inside me. That is not unusual for any writer though. We call it being in the flow when words just pour out of us. I'm so tired and must sleep but here I am writing. Think I'll try to take charge or work inside to go to bed before 3 a.m.

Can't wait for the United States of Tara for others to say, "Oh, that's what Grace must have been like!" I didn't change my clothes throughout the day if I happened to switch though. Since I don't know when I switched before September '97, who knows. Interesting life.

I also think Jane's "inner child" littles are a bit terrified of their first Christmas "out". They may need to see that all is safe so next year can be a good holiday. Am really fighting the whole Christmas concept this year. Hope to wake up tomorrow with sufficient spirit and energy to work on gift wrapping. It really needs to be done. Maybe Jane will move back and let me wrap...or allow littles to make sure the gift bags are safe and play with the ribbon.

"The United States of Tara"

A new Showtime series is airing January 18, The United States of Tara. The premise is a family with two teenagers. Mom is a multiple. She has DID. Dissociative Identity Disorder a/k/a dissociative states. Tara, in the previews, has several personalities. Her husband, who I know as the radio guy from Northern Exposure (John Corbett), and both teens (a boy and girl) understand mom has issues and that environmental and internal triggers (out of the family's control) cause her to change to a different identity.

The show acknowledges that Tara has deep seated issues and DID is her coping skill. The family embraces her differences and helps each other. The kids know the alters by name because each has a different voice and facial expression. On the show, Tara also changes clothes when she is someone else. That does happen for some survivors. I recall having wardrobe changes because I felt differently. I guess I never consciously experienced myself feeling like a guy though. I never felt frilly feminine. I don't see the wardrobe change as detracting from the message of the show.

The more I learn about the show, the more I believe there will finally be an accurate representation of the issues of someone having DID and normalizing that difference. Mom is different and interesting to the kids. They love her and all of her personas. I have learned an expert advisor for DID is a consultant. I know the individual to be a highly respected psychiatrist in the field of dissociation. I prefer to wait to see his name in the credits than disclose here.

While I'm sure some sacrifices had to be made for entertainment purposes, the show promises to balance the humorous and possibly exasperating side of loving someone with DID with the serious issues that lie behind anyone with DID. To hear the cast and writers speak of multiplicity and DID with appropriate terms was heartwarming. But not as much as knowing so many will likely watch the show. I wish with all my heart and soul many will finally see and hear the reality of DID. It is not to be feared but to be embraced. More than anything, those with DID desire connection and acceptance.

Hopefully the show will inspire discussion in many forums on the internet and television. Bless you, Steve Spielberg. Click here for a quick preview. If you are a Dexter fan or otherwise have access to Showtime, longer promotional previews of the show are being shown frequently and are excellent.

The "never again" lie

This morning I was watching The Today Show. One of the guests was a star of the movie Valkyrie about the Nazis who plotted to assassinate Hitler. The guest indicated he had not been aware of that piece of history. History tends to portray all Nazis under one banner. Yet some did see the country being ruled by an insane ruler leading the holocaust and "ethnic cleansing" with all in fear of speaking out or acting against him.

All I could think about was how the world of child predators is so similar. The motivation is the perversion of pedophilia as well as control. Secrecy is paramount. Anyone speaking out against the crimes is insane or made to fear for their life. I walk a fine line with my blogs. I need people to hear the reality and not think "conspiracy theory". The powerful people behind the great money earning industry of kiddie porn and child exploitation have much to lose if society truly starts to protect the children at their level. Reputations of some of the country's "finest citizens" would come tumbling down.

Where is the holocaust? Not in terms of death, but in terms of victims, all children born into that world are immediate prey. Foster homes, orphanages, daycare--anyplace where young children come into the world and are raised in a group environment are endangered when the people in charge belong to the underworld of organized pedophilia. If you can allow your mind to go one step further to the young girls trapped in this world who become dissociative by ages 6-9, who become pregnant in their teens, those babies are born directly into the underworld without birth records or hospital records. Unknown numbers.

We've all heard survivor stories of babies or young children being killed in ceremonies which immediately creates disbelief. And while any ceremonial killings can be made to appear as real, one of two things happens. If a child was killed to instill horrific trauma and splitting in a victim, no one misses the child. If the child was spared because it was an illusion to the victim, the underworld still has their "extra" and unaccounted for victims for production of porn and sale for exploitation.

Most survivors I've met online are about my age. We are in our 50s now. Some are in their late 20s and 30s. It shows that evil world lives on for decades while we (the nation) have not bothered to look for the current generation. I'm wanting to call these children with DID "the walking dead". Once they are in the grips of the organization, they are there for decades unless there is intervention. I often cite Tyler's story which has a happy ending thanks to his very aware safe bio-father and now adoptive mother, along with an excellent judge. One commenter of my blogs describes going to court with her children only knowing the double language and, with difficulty, did win custody of her children.

As a therapist, several times I was compelled to report to Children's Services only to have the child returned to the abusive family. Not that the families were involved in organized pedophilia--but the greater world isn't trained to look for symptoms of abuse to the extent that can cause dissociation. Recall that severe emotional abuse is sufficient to cause DID. In fact, well-funded pro-pedophilia groups ensure dissociation is automatically dismissed as a hoax or lie.

We do have a holocaust. Incestuous families with home births have unidentified births as well as the previously mentioned institutional settings. No one knows the number. We do know the hundreds of thousands of young children reported missing by the FBI each year who are never found. And the FBI denies the existence of cults which is how memories first surface for this group of victims.

Safe adults need to be especially aware of a child trying to tell you something odd about another adult; i.e., appearing fearful while reporting his/her hair was washed, or was read a story, or was placed in time out. Several of my adult clients had dissociated memories from a regular babysitter! Do what it takes to ensure your child is in safe hands.

We have an oblivious holocaust. The children with DID who become adults with DID and don't remember for decades along with all the newborns and at all stages in between (prior to memory) are part of this oblivious holocaust. Oblivious to the children because of the amnesia and oblivious to society because it's not a comfortable area to be looking for children and government currently refuses to look for it. Government, law enforcement, the judicial system, child care services and other helping agencies are intentionally oblivious to the world of DID and "cult" abuse to protect what has been in place for generations. Not all in every agency are part of this world, but sufficient numbers exist for anyone getting near their "stuff" to be staved off quite effectively.

I have much support from peers and survivors for educating through my blog. As one person, the powerful people behind the child exploitation world are likely seeing me as "only one person". Yet a huge community stands behind me ready to come forward if it were ever made safe to do so. I've lived in fear subconsciously for four decades. I made the choice to live in spite of death threats for my conscious life. I don't care anymore. I want my life to have made a difference for the lost souls of the children right now enduring what will become a lifetime of horrendous abuse. No one deserves the life that we who survived had to endure. A single dissociated memory is hell to heal. It's impossible for those who have not endured trauma on trauma on trauma to possibly understand what undoing that does to one's spirit.

I feel fortunate to have a life at this point. I no longer fear parts of myself trying to kill me. "They" will have to get their hands dirty to come after me now that I've integrated and survived three phases to get to "100%". It will have been worth it if someone could take this cause and "run with it". I would dearly love to be a part of education and implementation of any program to make headway into this crime. And I have colleagues who are experts in DID as well as understanding of this organized world of child exploitation who, understandably, are not willing to place their careers on the line until safety is assured. Resources exist but are not wanted.

I remain hopeful that change will come with the Obama Administration. That's what keeps me going right now. No one believes because there is no "proof". We survivors are proof. Isn't that enough?

10 things you don't know about me

This topic for blog entries was suggested yesterday on Twitter. There isn't much I haven't shared on my combined blogs, but thought I'd give it a try.

1. Voted Most Likely to Succeed in high school. (Don't think I've shared that before.)
2. Have a very strong psychic connection to my best friend who lives in another state.
3. My book Paperclip Dolls is being considered for a screenplay by an award-winning screenwriter.
4. My favorite color is periwinkle blue.
5. I hate sports.
6. My mind is an incredible place to be. While most of my life it's use was expanded for traumatic purposes, as a healed entity, I have insight into wisdom and the universe that is difficult to explain. I feel blessed to have it. It connects me to Mother Earth and Goddess eras and James Bond. lol
7. The answer is in Paperclip Dolls, but when I asked my inner wisdom (then main protector) to show me what he looked like...since I had pictures of all my other alters at that time, he revealed himself to be Ian Fleming. In other words, he chose Ian Fleming's identity as his own for me to know him. Yet his manner and personality is identical to what is described in his biography which I had not read until after his disclosure. I wasn't even sure who Ian Fleming was. I looked him up on the internet after hearing the name in my head. By then I was used to random "clues" and just jotted the name down to look up later. I had an internal vision and some similar images for him. I used to wonder which actor would play him if my life were a movie but no one ever seemed to be him. When I saw Ian Fleming on my computer screen, I nearly fainted. It was exactly who I saw inside. Pretty neat. He has a different internal name.
8. My vacation to Italy in 2005 with my SO changed my life. Something spiritual happened there...like my soul had been hidden there throughout my traumatic life and I reaquired it during that trip.
9. I only need one sip of alcohol and can feel the impact on my brain. No, I don't drink now.
10. I hate that the world holds so much hate and believe it is about a balance of energy. Good people need to focus on placing their positive energy "out there" to counter the negative/evil energy of the world.
    

Top Ten Favorite Things

I was going to start a new blog today to share happy things when I realized this blog was designed to share healing thoughts too. I shall now integrate a purely happy post into my blog. The inspiration for doing this came from a tweet (on Twitter) referring to a lovely blog. One of the posts listed the author's top ten favorite things. Here are mine (in no particular order):

#1 Philosophy Pure Grace, Baby Grace, and Inner Grace fragrances for bath, shower, body.
#2 My "zen garden" in full bloom (Sunflowers, wisteria, lavendar, roses)
#3 Spa day!!!!
#4 Italy!
#5 decadent chocolate & espresso (a tie but also put Ghirardelli in my espresso)
#6 Laughing
#7 Snuggling
#8 Watching my tortoise Lucy & turtle Nemo w/their funny attitudes
#9 Naps
#10 Something so beautiful it makes me cry

Who am I now?

I've shared that I began to play with my name as early as high school. Hated my birthname and had no middle name. At first I changed the "y" at the end of my nickname to an "i". When I went into the Air Force at age 19, everyone called each other by last names. I was automatically called a shortened version of my last name and became the same nickname my father had since he was 19....only with an "i" at the end. I liked it because I no longer was tied to my birthname.

I legalized my Air Force nickname when I married in 1980. I was a feminized version of a male name from 1972 until about 1997 when memories surfaced. The second legal name change was to get rid of the association to my father but chose another feminized male name. I also gave myself a neutral middle name that was actually a letter spelled out. Jaye.

By the time I was ready to graduate with my M.A., my marriage was long over although we were not divorced. I wanted a professional name that was entirely my own--not a husband's or a father's. Mine. The original plan was to keep the same feminized male name plus Jaye plus my new last name which I was so thrilled about for reasons difficult to explain. Just prior to filing the papers, I had an epiphany (internal message) that my middle name was to be Grace. I thought about it for several days and came to love my soon to be middle name. It was the first fully feminine name of my own choosing. I never related to the external birth name. She was the hurt little girl. Her name from the inside was Janie. I had no connection whatsoever especially since I was called other names in my world of abuse.

I've been very happy with my completely new name since 2003. However, since Jane emerged in September to do the blogs and became a permanent part of my external being, I've became more connected to Grace than my first name. Now that the integration is complete, the internal message is all the alters who integrated into the gender confused name merged with my reunited core who was Grace. We became Grace. The Divine Feminine. Grace was also chosen as the healed entity with no trauma ties to the name, while Janie and Jane were part of that cruel world.

Does the identity confusion ever end? I now feel totally disconnected from the first name I've been known by in the real world since 2000. It's empty. I really don't want to do a legal name change. My online world knows me as Grace. My SO's family has a nickname for me that I love and is also feminine and a main name in my internal world. I'm not going to ask those who know me by my first name to stop calling me that. I know what a hardship that is. But I've already begun asking the banks to issue credit cards as Grace so I can sign that name.

I'm not sure it's a compulsion. I also wouldn't call it a disorder (identity disorder). To me it's identity confusion or identity shifting. I was a culmination of many alters with many names. I was led to the name that would be my final name (Grace) before I would ever understand it's true meaning. Changing names as a symptom of DID makes sense since, over the course of life, a new alter may take over in the outside world one or more times. But it's not disorderly. It's a very orderly system. It may seem odd. But as a matter of coping from the level of trauma that created so many identities, it makes perfect sense.

Grace. The meaning is beautiful. Healing into that name has been an incredible journey. I know there is more to come, but it is more about adjusting to sharing my life as an alter now combined with the mind of the child originally born into a cruel world. Maybe Grace will be my literally "saving" Grace to help me achieve my goals to tell the world about the evil that lurks under our noses. Since understanding what happened to me as a result of DID, my goal has been for my core to have her life back. It's lovely that she came out with similar goals to my life as a psychotherapist.

The days of gender confused parts of me is over. All are settled. All are safe. We have achieved our oneness with the universe.

Photo: I used to joke that this was me in the Air Force. I'm two years old at the airport on the way to Germany. My father put his military hat on me. It's a good representation of my internal identity matching my external garb.

DID weirdness

Having DID is weird. And the dissociation that remains even after major healing keeps life interesting, to say the least. I'm just understanding today about my eating cycles. For example, for months I was on a yogurt for lunch kick and snacking on healthy dried apricots daily. Suddenly I stopped and forgot they were even in the house. Throughout my life this has happened, usually noticed by an SO at the time.

This morning I was staring at the untouched apricots and realized I stopped eating them around September...when Jane came out rather prominently. Okay...Jane doesn't like apricots or yogurt. I started eating yogurt again since the integration but apparently there is no negotiation with the apricots. lol.

I rarely change what I eat and only eat certain foods. In grade school (one of those odd things to remember from a dissociated life), I used to eat bologna sandwiches every day. I've been repulsed by the thought of bologna since at least high school. Before I moved into my townhome a few years ago, I had delicious organic peanutbutter daily on toast. A huge treat. I brought two jars of it with me to the new home but it's not been touched. Change in home, change in dominant personality with different tastes? Thank goodness chocolate was never an issue.

After nearly two years of not moving, since I-day (integration) on Tuesday, I've been able to do healing energy work each day and stay off the extra calorie snacks. I have really good tasting snack bars with chocolate, high protein, and low calorie. As long as I remember to take one with me if I go out, I don't have the spontaneous chocolate bar craving. Or worse, the Starbucks double chocolate fudge espresso brownie and a truffle espresso. Guess it's just me having to be "on the same page" now. Although it is a melding of Jane's preferences and mine. Guess that will work out over time.

Even when integrated, initially it usually still feels like separateness until the smooth thoughts and actions become habit. I recall when a feisty little was in the process of integrating with adult me about 10 years ago. I'd have simultaneous double reactions which was beyond weird. Adult me would say, "Okay, fine." while my right hand would fly up and give the finger. Fortunately that was when I was a full-time healing survivor and not working or going to school. DID can be humorous and surprising. Kind of goes with comedians with unhappy childhoods having the best material, I guess.

In all the pain of healing, there were wonderful and even awesome moments. Am not feeling much internal anything since Tuesday...just lack of resistance to proceeding with my goals for healing my body. I do feel like my mind has put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I notice longer pauses for accessing information in my brain. That will pass though. And even though the external adult is one, the internal littles comprising the concept of inner child are happy and active and sometimes a little too spunky as I see sometimes on Twitter. Gotta watch that stuff.

While I've made this point before, and survivors have commented on this and other blogs, those with DID rarely appear out of the ordinary to the public. Their coping skills still work to get them through daily life. For most, there's only a brief time when memories begin that changes in mood or voice or personality may be noticed by others. We are fine (generally speaking) with the proper help. Society makes it so difficult for us to be ourselves. To say "We have DID" should not send the masses shrieking into the nearest shelter.

There is a generalized media-induced fear that anyone with DID has homicidal tendencies. This is so untrue and very unfair. If a person is telling you s/he has DID, it's known and being worked on. For women particularly, if there is a part prone to harm, it is towards the abusers only and understandable. I've stated before that women are more likely to harm themselves than ever harm another individual.

Men have a media-induced reputation of being dangerous and homicidal. If a man is in therapy and knows he has DID, he is not a danger. DID is often used as an attempted legal defense for someone who has committed a homicide but rarely was DID known or even validated prior to the crime. Just something to think about.

Being weird is not dangerous. In fact, it can be fun. Littles love to play games and color and watch Disney-like movies. I doubt you will be stabbed with a Crayola.