Mind Mapping - the NEWS (slowly - work in process)

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

***8-20-12 to 8-21-12 News Items in RED meet Ann's standards as being on the Google Search IGNORANT LIST




    • I’ve been trying to keep politics off my blog. I guess I’m afraid I’d lose readers, people wouldn’t like me anymore, they’d say mean things, and I’d be all alone again.

      • It may seem strange for me to say at this point in my life I would not look back and bemoan any of the abuse of my childhood IF — IF it had not harmed me in my development in such a way that I am a different person in a different body than I would be IF that abuse had never happened to me.
      • There was a time, a very long period of my life, actually, when I was completely oblivious to the truth that I had experienced abuse in the first place.
        • And yet I sit outside this morning writing this in my thriving garden still asking myself two questions:  ”Linda, who are you?  What do you want?”
        • I am re-addressing these concerns as I approach a brink of change that I anticipate as another life-changing difficult time for me.
        • I am not ‘what I do’.  I am not ‘where I am’.  I am not ‘who I love’.  I am not what happens to me.  I am not even what I know.  I am not what I don’t know.

      • I’ve had a lovely vacation so far. Away from my phone, the internet, all of it. Just enjoying the company of family.

        Until I spoke with my parents.
      • To all my readers,

        These past many months that I have been writing here on this blog have seen many things. I’ve shared on here so much of myself, and made many connections. I let myself be seen and I let myself be loved and accepted by all of you. And you all accepted all of me. It is a great gift you have given me, simply your presence here and your continued support and acceptance of me.
        • So this all is my way of saying that the chapter of nothininmynoggin is coming to a close. This therefore will be my last and final blog post.
        • I finally and exasperatingly said, “Can you tell me what the harm is in her getting a second opinion?
        • They were both being just so incredibly negative and pessimistic and unable to understand why I was doing what I am doing.

      • Last night I wrote “the letter“.  In true blog addict style, and the fact that I’ve been documenting my life here for the last year (and because I’m intrigued as to what your feed back would be) I’ll post it up here along with the rest of the story.
      • I’ve experienced a whole range, a roller coaster between fear, abandonment, anger, apathy, self loathing and more.
        • Each time it has happened, I eventually found a light at the end of the tunnel.
        • For someone who said they understood me and would always be there for me, you didn’t understand at all.

      • Whenever we get e-mailed questions (about religion, DID, other mental health issues, etc.) that require a very long answer, we generally choose to respond by writing a blog post.
      • We've been asked, by an alter* of a system* who lives their life with acknowledged DID, advice on suppressing thier core*, specifically theirs. 
        • When someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder talks about their core, if they are able to (core/alter awareness varies among systems), they are talking about the one who makes many of the decisions for the system.
        • There is speculation, even among some professionals, that none of these methods are 100% effective and that there is no true way to eliminate, or integrate, cores or alters. 

      • Photo taken by a woman in her thirties who has major depression, anxiety, and is on the bipolar spectrum. She has been through countless treatments, including tons of medications, an army of doctors, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, and most recently ECT.

      • It takes a lot of coaxing for me to turn to pen and paper instead but that is what I am trying to do because as I found out today- if I feel I need to express chances are it is not just me who has things bottled up inside.
      • I guess I’m Jen – the modified host.  A result of the system reorganisation that our therapist was referring to.
        • I have come to realise that it is especially important that my partner and I can move into a flat with two bedrooms rather than one. Cat has recommended that one of the rooms be a dedicated safe room for the little’s: a room where they can put all their toys, where they can go to hide and get some space.

      • I’ve never really don’t understand poetry.  I don’t understand the hidden meanings, and I get lost very quickly.  But, as I was reading the following poem about hope by Emily Dickinson, the tears came.  I could easily see the bird as a metaphor for hope…
      • I could do with some hope…
        • I’d look at food, and it would morph into something unpalatable and impossible to eat… or, just the thought of food would make me have a panic attack.  Often there would be no context for these previous issues with food, and they seemed like random occurrences.  I could attribute some of them to stress, but not all of them…  Now, things are different, it’s like I’m living in that space all the time. 

      • Victims of “legitimate rape” can’t get pregnant because a woman’s body will shut down and prevent the pregnancy. Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) actually said that—in other words, he’s saying that if a woman does get pregnant, she must not have been raped.

      • (Trigger warning: this entire entry concerns the creation of and main purpose of Charlotte. So…lots of sex talk. Nothing graphic, but be aware please.)
      • I can’t deal with the stress of this.  It’s too much.  Too much switching.  Too much triggering.  No more medicine. No more useless pills or useless tests.  If the hypertension kills us, it kills us. 
        • I’m not one of the illustrious original alters. 
        • I pulled my trusty iPod from my pocket, chose “Charlotte’s mix” and plugged it into the aux jack of the stereo. 

      • I have had this dream before, of sleeping in therapy, and I think for me it must represent some ultimate level of safety.
      • I’m going to put my alarm clock across the room so that I can’t just reach over and hit snooze, and see if that works.

      • At what point do you say to yourself, “I need help”? And how many times do you say it before you actually reach out?
      • I spiraled down to a point where no one could avoid the fact any longer.
        • This was a battle I’d endured for years, a battle I could no longer hide or run from.
        • Going into a clinic for “mental problems” is scary.
        • In order for therapy to be effective (as effective as possible), you have to be ready for the therapeutic process.
        • But it is necessary to find some form of stability, some semblance of a life worth living.

      • I had distanced myself from him in recent years, knowing that his asinine bigotry was a trigger for me.
      • We need to work on setting up some functional boundaries or something because this triggering cycle is getting fucking old.
        • In 2008 I started seeing a Psychologist, something I had feared to do since I was 15 and had an inkling of being a multiple but had shoved it down hard so much I believed it wasn’t real.
        • Secondly, he contacts me only to criticize a post I made days ago, not to check in and see how I am doing, not to see if my kids are ok, or if my husband is home safe or on a deployment somewhere

      • i know i am going to be ok. i know it because i have two moms.
      • But I still feel i am responsible. I feel like I should have seen it coming, I should have known. I didnt, I can honestly say I was blissfuly unaware.

      • My mother used fear to keep me from premarital sex.  She had worked in a children's hospital and told me of the deformed babies and birth defects of babies born of teenage mothers.  (She left out the part the early teenager years or those on drugs or any other qualifier.) 
      • Funny thing is I don't talk to other people about my kids very much.  They are precious to me.  I want to protect them.  I want more than anything to be the best mom in the world. 

      • The two main pages or links that we added on the left sidebar are the Syntopicon and the multiple mythologies called mythology busting.
      • The thing I liked about the Syntopicon is that it allowed me to take (for a couple days work) aggregated information from blogs that was annotated, and then produce a document which seemed to clarify for us anyway where as a moving document each of the above terms/categories were falling into place. Nothing is locked in; it is more of a mental exercise.
        • Each seems to be not only having parts to them, but collectively, we are all parts of something much bigger - though I believe that multiplicity is still just a smaller portion of people within the world. 
        • I don't want to block out the individuality of each of the different people whose work is being represented, but I don't want to disregard either that there are collective thoughts that help to explain the situation as a whole and that a collaboration of people can do more than just one person.

      • Some times we are driven and it is about something almost worked
        • I can not know if i just happen to know how my brain/mind works on a different level or if it is different. It does not matter any more.
        • Repressed memories the way I am using them are the ones that are store in the reptilian brain.
        • The most common staying grounded in the present.
        • An yes the is was written in anger. I am angry at how much work there is left, how hard it will be and that I did not understand sooner.  I was so close so many times then someone got in my way. It is hard is what it is.

      • If my system has no communication, no trust can be built. 
      • If they don’t trust me to keep them safe, no words I ever speak to calm myselves will work.  
        • If they don’t communicate with me, I will have no idea what things are triggering to them until I feel their panic. 
        • This isn’t good for any of us.
        • But if there is communication between alters and myself, between all of us, I can better know how to navigate the triggering things. 
        • I will listen. 

      • As a kid I was used to having nightmares. I had nightmares all the time. I never even knew what a ‘wish fulfillment’ dream was until I was about fourteen and read up on them – part of the psychology training that my dad was giving me.
      • In it we had come back to the ‘hood – the object of my hidden desire: to be once again where my true friends did not change, where the neighborhood and everything in it would remain the same. The same dirt road with the same people living up and down it, pretty much as I had left it . . .
        • “You mean it won’t all be the same?” I could hear my inner child asking me and so I asked.

          “No, of course not,” she replied, turning back to the counter messing with something.
        • In our mind’s eye we started seeing: this was a dream that could come true, this nightmare and ‘stuff’ – meaning the feelings and horrid emotions that went with loss, grief, anguish, loneliness – and this staring-you-in-the-face despair that no matter what you do you will flounder in loss.
        • And yet our inner child held onto that dream – still does; I can see it in his shining face with his memories of sunshine and running into the wind across the white sand, the cloud puffed sky blue, the sun warm on his back, and the excited calling of his friends ahead; bare feet pounding on the road . . .

      • I find that no matter what I do in life, where I go or with whom, I always end up feeling guilty and being responsible for other people; most significantly for their emotions. It’s a strange thing, but I often wonder if one of the reasons we have a hosting team rather than one host, is so that we have enough bases covered to not make anyone miserable and to not hurt anyone.
      • I’m also starting to suspect that that is a large part of why our system is disproportionately large to the abuse – we have just continued to split to cope with relatively minor things.

      • This is Jack, I had a question that Id  been wondering about, if anyone can answer Id appreciate it. Is it possible for  the core to resign from his position as core and hand it to an alter? Basically  making someone else the core from then on.
      • If there's a lull or if we do anything that might involve or interest me, I  take over sort of automatically. But I've been host for decades and the others  just don't have the experience I do, the quick responses to life situations, nor  some of the other skills. And we're pretty sure the job simply necessitates that  I remain. Like it or not, we seem to be stuck with me. And I'll be honest and  say we don't like it. If we had a low-key job somewhere, several of us could  handle the life.
        • If by "core" you mean the original personality, the one that everyone split  from, then no, it is not possible. The core will always be the core, whether  they are in control or not.
        • However, it is possible for systems to change "hosts" and for someone to give up  control to a new "host". This puts someone else in control and has them dealing  with everyday life, switches, time loss, etc. But the "core" will always be the  "core", whether they're in control or not.

      • William Bergen Greene was a troubled man who started with a troubled childhood.   He apparently suffered severe abuse as an early child until he was made a  ward of the state at age eight.
      • His prison sex offender therapist, known to the public only by the initials M.S.  (because she later became another victim of Mr. Greene's many sex offenses), was  the first to diagnose him with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) otherwise  known as multiple personalities.
        • Malingering, of course, is not a disorder that is treatable under Medicaid but  is described as "the intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated  physical or psychological symptoms, motivated by external incentives."   Typically, external incentives have to do with financial gain, or  avoidance of responsibilities or consequences.
        • She met him for therapy on a routine of bi-weekly sessions, but if so, they must  have been extremely long sessions, because by the end, when he finally assaulted  her in 1994, she had racked up over 2000 hours of therapy with this single  patient.
        • Yet more evidence of enmeshment if not outright obsession on the part of the  therapist
        • Greene plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but in his first trial, Judge  Thorpe ruled that DID could not be used in an insanity defense due to lack  scientific consensus on the existence of the disorder.
        • Packard diagnosed the chronic sex offender with antisocial (AKA psychopathic)  personality disorder and a sexual paraphilia disorder.  Packard further  stated his doubt about the veracity of DID as a legitimate disorder.   Packard firmly believed that Greene had simply been faking DID from the  beginning.  

      • Joining Mariah Carey and her Hello Kitties! at the American Idol  judging table will be Nicki Minaj, who  should actually count as 3 people. Because she likes to pretend she has multiple  personality disorder, you see.
      • Nicki Minaj, whose success is owed in part to the studios that created her, and  Randy Jackson, who’s only advice  ever is to stop being pitchy.

      • Let me offer another perspective.
      • MPD and DID are just two more labels that give a shorthand to describing but not  explaining a pattern of behaviors.
        • We were created to be fully dependent on God and we retain part of our primal  personhood when we humbly depend on the Father, (as Christ did every moment),  however, to the extent we attempt to live life apart from dependence on the  Father, we fracture our personality.
        • Only the Gospel can restore this fracture. In prayer we unite with Christ and  express our dependence on the Father.
        • The "clinical" DIDs and MPDs that we see in society are simply more severe  'fracturings' that we have brought on ourselves in response to horrible trauma,  pain and suffering. Finding ourselves in the valley of the shadow of death  without the shepherd is a terrifying experience.
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