Therapist #30869054

Well, I did make it to see the new therapist today. It's so frustrating seeing someone at the school counselling center, though... I can't develop any sort of rapport before they move on to a new internship! I'll only be seeing this one for four weeks, when the semester ends and she goes off to somewhere.

Actually, I'm rather peeved with them in the first place... The head of the counselling center told me that I'd be seeing a practicing clinician, not an intern, since I really need more intensive help than a grad could offer me. That and I have a tendency to intimidate interns. I mean, think about it: I've probably been in therapy far longer than they've been studying it! And of course there's also the little factor that I'm quite a bit crazier than the finals stress, break-up grief, homesickness, that most of the students at the school come in for.

The biggest problem I have with new therapists is called ACTIVE LISTENING. It's the therapy practice in vogue (I thought Jung started it but Crystal tells me it's way more recent) and it's a load of crap. No other way to put it. Basically, active listening looks something like this:

Me: Basically, I'm just having a really hard time adjusting back to real life. I feel guilty when I eat because I feel like I'm betraying an old friend but I feel guilty if I don't eat because then I'm betraying myself and everyone who's been supporting me.
Carol (therapist): I'm hearing that you're dealing with a lot of conflicting thoughts... That must be a very stressful thing for you.
Me: Yeah... It's like either way I can't win. It's so much easier to fall back on ED patterns because they're so familiar and simpler. I don't have to think about it to act on my anorexia but it takes constant effort to pursue health.
Carol: It sounds like you're pretty discouraged. I can see how it would be tempting to revert to the old, familiar habits.
Me: ....Yeah.

Me: Blah blah blah, something about the work I've already done in therapy.
Carol: I just wanted to say how very impressed I am by the amount of work you've done... You have so much insight into your thought processes and struggles! It seems like you have been working really hard to be serious about recovery.
Me: OH MY GOD WHAT I'VE ALREADY DONE IS NOT THE POINT. IF IT WAS, I WOULDN'T BE HERE BECAUSE I'D BE HANDLING LIFE ADEQUATELY BY NOW.

Sigh. Active listening just pisses me right the hell off. If that was what I was needing from a therapist, I could just go talk to one of the empathetic robots that AI scientists are working on now... Active listening is easy enough that ROBOTS CAN AND DO PRACTICE IT.

If I'm paying a therapist to help me, I'd like a little more participation than an echo plzkthx.

That said, tune in next time for a discussion of my latest trip to the sex store and why I feel American society is hypocritical, prudish, and operating on out-moded Puritanical ideals! (Because I'm never on a high horse or anything.)

Does... not... compute...

As I mentioned recently, I've gotten to a place that I'm seriously pursuing recovery. For myself, no one else, I want to be healthy and experience what life healthy looks like. To this end, I did some research into area treatment centers and finally contacted the Eating Disorders Center at Denver, since its programs seemed to offer best what I was looking for. Yesterday, I got my first call back from them. I spoke with one of the doctors over the phone, doing a basic clinical assessment thingy, then discussing the extended intensive outpatient program they offer.

My biggest concern was that they'd say I was too healthy for the program and should probably look into just weekly outpatient therapy or perhaps some of the group programs. After all, I've been maintaining pretty well, I eat on a daily basis, I don't really count calories at all anymore, and on and on and on. From my perspective (and historically speaking, given my case), I feel like I'm pretty much recovered. I just need help to get there all the way.

About an hour ago I had another call from them, this time a conference call between the assessment clinician and the EIOP program head. My initial response was a sinking, oh crap, feeling. They said they'd been discussing my case and given what Dr. Roberts and I had talked about yesterday, they didn't feel the EIOP program is going to be appropriate for me. Damnit. I knew that was going to happen. Crap.

What I didn't in a thousand years see coming was that they said the EIOP won't be enough for me.

They think I need to do the partial hospitalization program. Sdsogiherh?? Geh?? The program is seven days a week, eleven hours a day. I'm not sure how many weeks long it is.

How the hell do they think I need that level of care? Crystal agrees. Wtf?? I can't even get this to enter my schema. I really, honestly, truly, cannot understand what they are saying. I was sure I'd get turned away for being too healthy, not get told I needed partial inpatient!

Reasons I think I'm healthy:
-I've got a good fifteen, twenty pounds on my low weight. I've been maintaining this pretty well for the last year or so.
-I eat every day, usually twice, sometimes with a snack. When I'm hungry, I detect that, respond to it, and don't ignore it.
-I drink regular soda now. I drink 2% milk. I even eat red meat again! I eat butter, cheese, pasta, all those horrible horrible evils I wouldn't allow to enter my lips.
-I've even eaten McDonald's more than once in the past year. For the longest time I wouldn't even set foot on the premises of a McD's for fear that I'd somehow breathe in the calories. And now I've eaten it! Willingly!
-I eat Chipotle. On a regular basis. (And I always get extra sour cream on my burrito, and I like it!)
-I don't visit pro-ana trigger sites nearly as frequently as I used to. I'm no longer a member of the ana elitist comms. I'm not a member of any pro-ED comms, for that matter.
-Did I mention I eat pasta? And cheesecake? And butter? And that I can enjoy them?
-And that I don't calorie count? (Usually..)

What is health supposed to look like that I'm so far from it? I haven't been amennhorhaeic in a good year and a half, and even then my menses were only irregular, even when I was clinically emaciated. I don't exercise obsessively, I don't purge, I don't abuse laxatives anymore, I eat salad dressing... I cannot understand this. I seriously cannot get it to enter my head. I can't wrap my mind around it.

Am I really still so crazy?

Aside from that whole level of cognitive dissonance, let's just stop to look at some logistics right now.

HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO AFFORD A PARTIAL HOSPITALIZATION PROGRAM.

I've talked to my family and my dad has said he will help pay for the EIOP, which is incredible and the only way I'd be able to afford to do that in the first place. And with that, I'd still be working full-time so that I could afford rent and loans and bills and crap. I wouldn't be able to work if I was in the hospital eleven hours a day! And I wouldn't be able to afford to live if I wasn't working!

I'm really in an effing pickle here, bitches. First, do I really need this? And second, if I do, how the hell can I pull it off?!?

All I want for Christmas

The title of course is misleading: the following subject is not the only thing I want for Christmas. In fact, there are quite a few things that I'd love to get for Christmas (not the least of which is financial stability, but that's a whole different kettle of fish). However, this next item is something which I've been thinking about increasingly over the last month or two and am now trying earnestly to obtain.

If you're reading this entry chances are you've read some of those preceeding it as well. This being the assumed case, you've probably caught on to the fact that my eating has not been nearly as good as it could be lately. A big thing I've been noticing is that even though I'm eating at least a meal a day and am trying to at least eat something when I'm hungry, I may be doing the actions but mentally I'm deteriorating again. Distorted body image has been again growing more distorted, obsessive thoughts more obsessive, calorie counting once again almost an unconscious act.

And all that makes it sound like it had ever totally gone away in the first place.

I've never once willingly addressed my eating issues in therapy. This may sound surprising, considering I've been in and out of therapy since I was seventeen, but if you think about all the other issues I've got to deal with (depression, DID, etc) and then take into account that I haven't wanted to talk about my eating... Well, it's been easy enough to steer conversation into other areas that I'd rather deal with. Perhaps that's one fault with the therapy styles so far used with me: it's been way too easy to just change the subject when I don't want to talk about or address something. But now I'm really sick of it.

The therapist I've seen recently (Chris) has next to no experience treating eating disorders. Aside from that, she only sees clients once every other week. Out of all the therapy I've done, the only time that was really intensely helpful was when I saw someone twice a week. Once a week was pretty much just enough to keep me from getting worse, but I didn't see a whole lot of improvement.

All these considerations in mind, I've decided (and have talked this over with my psychiatrist, who agrees) that intensive outpatient would probably be a really good idea for me at this point. After looking into it some, I've found a treatment center in Denver which appears to have a really good program, great treatment team, and should hopefully be able to work with my insurance. It's through the Eating Disorder Center of Denver. (Fitting name?)

The program I'm most interested in is their Extended Intensive Outpatient Program. It's twelve weeks, three nights a week, four hours a night. You work with a nutritionist, psychiatrist, therapists, etc... Dinner is eaten together with group therapy immediately following. There are a lot of the things you'd pretty much expect with an outpatient program... Group, one-on-ones, body image workshops, art therapy, etc. But, from what I've read on the site, it sounds like they've got a really solid program set up.

The center offers three different levels of care: inpatient, EIOP, and a weekly group follow-up thing. I'm sure that I don't need inpatient care (for one, I'm not in a serious enough place medically) and the last sounds like it really wouldn't offer enough. Sooo I've sent an e-mail asking for more information about the program and admissions procedure. Mostly I need to know about the cost and how much my insurance would cover...

...Well, I think that's actually about all I meant to discuss. At least, I can't really think of anything else... I'll keep you informed as I find out more and if/when there's anything else major to report about this. Cross your fingers!

Options

The reason for the persistent lack of blogging boils down to my freaking depression. To put it simply. Lately especially I've felt like a completely boring person whose words are all mundane, trite, repetitive, and generally not worth reading. This sort of sentiment plays very badly into the inspiring-Tina-to-write-ness.

I've thought, perhaps I should write about the medication situation. Perhaps I should blog about my frustration with the search for a therapist. Maybe about my worries for my little brother's mental health needs. Maybe about the flash in the pan interests I get every so often (see currently: transgender rights and queer theory). Certainly all of these could be turned into interesting topics. I could write about my 'plans' to tour Europe, or my literary ambitions, or even the obsessive knitting I've been doing lately. I could talk about new people at work and the latest restaurant drama/gossip. My life isn't boring.

The problem is that depression warps the most exciting events until they feel totally lifeless and dull. I'm in one of those episodes where on many occasions I feel nearly catatonic.

It doesn't help that when depressed I obsess over all the minor details in everything. Pertinent to this blog would be the way in which I analyze each entry and come to the conclusion that this blog has lost any sense of direction and is possibly beyond repair. I further pursue this train of thought to examine whether I should redirect it toward eating disorder related topics and current events which relate to the subject, or narrow it into a recovery journal encompassing any of the many things from which I'm trying to recover. Then I worry this would result in a journal blog, and I decide that I've had far, far too many of those since I first discovered the internet.

For now, I'm thinking the best decision might be to allow the blog to continue without a precise goal and hope that something congeals in time.

Shifting topics back to more recently visited waters, I'd like now to discuss the Abilify situation. To put it bluntly, I've stopped taking it. While on it I noticed absolutely no benefit; in fact, it seemed to be giving me more of an opposite effect. While I've not been suicidal in quite some time, while on Abilify my feelings of hopelessness increased significantly. I'm not sure if Abilify has any sort of extended release, but around six to nine hours after taking it I invariably experienced a major mood crash which left me surly and miserably depressed without any apparent triggers. The final kicker was that around the start of week three I started getting major nightmares which pretty much zapped my sleep of any value. I got some pretty ridiculous nightmares on Zoloft, and these reminded me a lot of them. (The fact that I almost never get nightmares normally but was experiencing them even during brief naps on Abilify was an indicator to me that the medication was causing them.)

So that's that.

I see the psychiatrist again on the 25th and am staking quite a few of my hopes on the appointment. Granted, I'm under no delusions thinking a trip to the doctor will cure everything ba-boom! but I'd still like to hope maybe some sort of progress will be made. The last time I saw her (and also the first time I met with this one, actually) we discussed the various medications I've been on and she basically said we may want to try trycyclics or even MAOIs if we can't find an effective alternative. MAOIs scare the crap out of me and, as such, I'm only going to try them if all other options have been exhausted... But honestly, to be reminded that there are still so many options yet untried is really encouraging to me. Watching so many SSRIs get scratched off the 'possibles' list is more of a depressant than whatever is causing the depression to begin with. Lol.

...I'm tired. I shouldn't blog tired. It makes me say inane things like 'lol'.

I'll end here, I suppose. Sleeeep. It sounds so nice.

Rambling status report

I'm having one of those days where I have absolutely no clue how to begin an entry. Everything seems trite, cliched, or simply like a lame hook to grab the reader and keep you interested. I hate it when even my writing, the thing which keeps me getting out of bed in the morning, manages to feel like so much work.

Yesterday I met with a new psychiatrist at Aurora Mental Health. About a month and a half ago I'd gotten prescriptions for Effexor XR and Welbutrin XL through my Md, once I explained to her that I'd been on them before and had been forced to stop taking them because of insurance and financial troubles a few months ago. However, with how complicated my depression's been proving to treat, the Md made me promise to find a psychiatrist to take care of any further prescriptions. I had an intake with a therapist at Aurora a couple weeks ago and she referred me to a psych within the practice.

God, that all sounds so complicated. Seriously, the referrals and phone calls and rescheduled appointments and intakes and continued appointments and referrals and referrals and referrals are freaking exhausting, especially to someone in the midst of a major depressive episode. Funny how my depression truly has gotten WORSE since I started on the meds this time. It will be such a total relief to finally find a treatment team I can work with so that this ridiculous searching will be over. If I have to keep hopping from doctor to doctor as I've been doing for the last ten months I will not last much longer.

Things with Chris, the new therapist, have not been going well. After the intake I realized her definite lack of experience with the areas in which I'm in need of expertise. After the second session it became clear that there was no way we'd be able to work with her... She's never worked with DID before and took a very Jungian approach to the whole matter, addressing 'personality parts' and stressing that each alter is not really an alter but just an aspect of our person as a whole. Perhaps needless to say, but this did not go over well.

Fortunately, the meeting with the new psych did not go nearly as badly. I was happily surprised to find a female doc (my last psychiatrist was male and I had an unexpectedly difficult time with it) and more pleased to find that she really thoroughly knows her stuff. She was not even surprised when I mentioned having been on Lamictal for antidepressant purposes (a relatively newly found use for the drug) or Provigil, or when I asked about other meds or used terms obscure even to the psychiatric community. Dr Sharpe seemed not much more familiar with DID than anyone out in Colorado has been so far, but at least she seemed to take me seriously and didn't act all condescending or disbelieving.

Dr Sharpe and I decided some med tweaking is very much needed. I've been medicated for nearly eight weeks now but have noticed absolutely no positive effects. In fact, the effexor has been making me so absolutely exhausted that I'm barely functioning anymore for how sleepy it makes me. I slept fourteen hours straight the other night and after being awake for just a few I was ready for a nap. Considering these factors, Dr Sharpe's view was that I should wean off it. Discouraging to think that I've only been on it eight weeks and now I'm going off it again...

For now the Wellbutrin's staying as it is. Dr Sharpe was rather irritated to learn that someone had prescribed Wellbutrin to a recovering anorectic, but...eh... Be that as it may, and inadvisable as it is, I'm staying on it for now. Historically it's been the drug which has given me more benefit than any other. At the same time, though, the doc did point out that it could be a huge part of why my appetite has been so seriously reduced lately.

Last but not least, she's having me start a new drug: Abilify. (LAMEST NAME FOR A DRUG EVER.) It's primarily listed as an antipsychotic and mood stabilizer but says that it may be used for alternate purposes as well. Yes, sounds kinda weird and dirty, but whatever. It's a pretty new drug, only FDA approved five years ago, so the full array of uses hasn't yet been determined. We'll see how it goes... It seems there's about a fifty fifty chance it'll make me completely somnolent or a total insomniac. Huh. Not sure why it has those two opposite affects on random people.

I'm starting it at 2mgs a day for a week then upping it to 5mgs. This actually seems to be a really low dosage in general.... A lot of people start at 15mgs and then move to 20 or 30. More than that sets most people stuporous, from what I've read on the forums. I guess time will tell how it affects me... I'm really just hoping for something positive this time. I need a break.

Dr Sharpe also said she'll try to help me find a therapist who'll actually be helpful... Right now I just can't manage to keep searching. I'm worn out and depressed and the meds are making it worse.

This is also just about the worst effing entry I may ever have written. It's got about the same profundity as the things I write when stoned... Only I'm experiencing much less enjoyment at present. It appears anti-depressants are not as tasty as good pot. :-P

So where do we go from here?

The more I've been thinking about it, the more I've come to the conclusion that it might be best for me to answer some common misconceptions about DID. It feels lame, but there ya go. It's sometimes hard to realize that most people really don't have a clue about what DID is, and those who do probably don't understand it at all beyond a confused sort of basic concept. I hate Q&As, though, so I'm going to kind of do this as a cohesive entry, just sort of answering unasked questions.

I'm not demon possessed. For one thing, my alters aren't tormentors - at least, no more than any people can be when they feel like being irritating, and that's only some of the time. They don't suggest that I do things, they don't make me miserable, they don't urge me to behave badly or whatever. One important thing to note, too, is that I don't perceive my alters as coming from somewhere else, some outside source - they're as much a part of my body and mind as I am, and have been for pretty much as long as I can remember. For me, being alone in my head, having only one set of thoughts, is as weird a concept as the idea of having more than one person is to you.

Also, to say that DID is a therapy-induced phenomena is just bullshit. Pardon my French, but there it is. If nothing else, I've known about my alters long before I had a term for what they were called, years and years before I ever started therapy or took a psychology course or in any way knew what DID even was. The best way I've thought to describe it is that when I talk to myself, my selves talk back. It's always been that way. I don't even have to be a part of the conversation; there have always been other people there chatting away. (Yes. It can be extremely distracting.) I guess it's like being in a chat room, to a certain extent.

I first remember being distinctly aware of alters when I was about thirteen. Still though, as with most people with DID, thirteen is about when I first start having any memories of my childhood... I know that the whole reason I started keeping a daily journal when I was eleven was because I was so freaked out that I often couldn't remember what had happened to me the day before. (This is called dissociative amnesia - the reason I don't have memories of some things is that other alters were 'fronting' and therefore are the ones who experienced the events. Those times when I've been blanked out and unaware of what was going on because someone else was fronting are called dissociative fugues.) It's incredibly interesting to look over some of my earliest journals, especially... There are several very distinct handwriting patterns, one for each person who was writing. We're not even all right-handed.

Contrary to media portrayals, very few multiples have just two personalities. I certainly don't. If you want to get technical and statistical, the average number you'll see in most authoritative sources is actually sixteen alters; or seventeen people, altogether. The main person is usually called the 'host'. We have all agreed that every single one of us HATES that term. It makes it sound like we're freaking parasites or something, perpetuating that idea that DID is demon possession. We've had a hard time thinking of some better term, though. We tossed around the idea of saying the 'original' for a while, but that's not accurate, either... Often the person who is out most in adult life was NOT the original person. We've loosely decided to call Tina the front-runner, but Crystal doesn't like that term and not everyone agrees... For lack of a better one, it works.

Everybody has a name. Probably you'll know most, maybe all of them, eventually... Some of us are really shy. Most are younger than Tina, a couple are older, a couple are the same age. Some get older as the body does, some don't; some have ages that fluctuate depending on the day and how they're feeling. Everybody picked their own names, but we kinda more just felt like they were supposed to be our names... They were just the names that felt most right. They fit best.

The alters DON'T all have specific 'jobs'. Nobody's specifically the angry alter, the sad alter, the dangerous alter, the sex alter. Yes, some could sort of be classed into things... But no more than you, based on your personality, could be classified an angry person or a happy person or a playful person. You're not always happy all the time and it isn't your JOB to be happy. Make sense?

Sometimes, when the system is having a really really hard time functioning because of depression or whatever, we do have specific alters with specific tasks. They come and go, though, and don't have names. They're not full-fledged people, just jobs. That's all they exist for - somebody to make sure the laundry gets done or the bills get paid or whatever, like robots. They're called fragments, or splinter personalities: we just call them frags. Like I said, though, they don't always exist. In an ideal world, we're able to function well enough that we can be responsible for our own things. When times get really tough, though, they are certainly helpful. Wouldn't everybody like a robot who always made sure the dishes got done? :-P

The reason DID is still a disorder is that it can be pretty damned hard to get everyone to cooperate and function well together. You've seen reality TV shows, where a bunch of people get tossed into a house, told to live together, share common goals, whatever... Imagine they were all tossed into the same body. And that they all had some sort of psychological disorder before that happened.

In particular, DID can be dangerous when one or more alters are suicidal. One of ours in particular has had lots of serious bouts of suicidality. She understands that killing herself kills everybody, but when she is really depressed she tends to be convinced that it would be something of a mercy killing. That even though not all the alters want to die, they'd still be better off in the long run if they did. Similarly, when one of the non-recovery oriented anorexic alters wants to fast, or an alter wants to cut, or one of the young ones gets frightened and hides somewhere without warning, that can put everyone in jeopardy.

Some people believe the goal of therapy should be integration; all alters merging into one cohesive person. We solidly disagree. To us, that feels like murder. A lot of multiples feel that way about integration... Why sacrifice the lives of beautiful and unique people because some cultural idea of normal says there should only be one mind in one brain? Having more than one person in a body is not necessarily harmful. Often, it can be beneficial. Our goal in therapy is to have a working, cooperating sort of family system.

I think that's about all for now? It seems like we're running out of things to say, so I guess it'll have to do. If you haven't yet, I encourage you to look at some of the links we posted... They really are good. The Significant Other's Guide is helpful for anyone who knows an alter, not just SOs.

Multiple Confessions

It's so hard to write when your hands are shaking...

Perhaps as long as the science of psychology has been around, people have prescribed art and writing assignments as ways of healing damaged minds. I've always used my writing to help me cope with painful emotional and mental difficulties that have come up throughout my life. Especially lately, as I've been preparing to re-enter therapy for real and seriously this time, I've been increasingly aware of the fact that I can neither be fair to you, as readers, nor fair to myself without being completely honest in this blog.

It isn't fair to YOU because you've come to read a truthful, raw, sincere blog. It isn't fair not to give you the complete picture, to skate over aspects of my life which I'm too frightened to discuss. For one thing, it may well leave you lost since you'll only be getting fractured glimpses. Beyond that this incomplete, bullet-style relation is boring, if nothing else. It's all the reasons for which I hate abridged books... and yet that's what I'm doing to my blog, for fear of the consequences of honesty.

Granted, whoever first said honesty was the best policy must have led a pretty damned sheltered existence at best. Complete honesty is only an occasionally wise move, subject to factors variable and diverse as the audience and the weather. I'm not endorsing a life lived entirely in lies, but discretionary disclosure and carefully tainted perspectives can still get you out of a hell of a lot of trouble. How many thousands of people would have survived over the years had they only told a small lie when pressed by the man with the sword?

So now you see a bit of the dilemma I face. Honesty for the sake of true, quality writing? Honesty for the sake of my recovery?

Lies for the sake of face, humiliation, security, friends...family?

As I've known since the first of my livejournals to this, my most recent and current blog, there are more than faceless strangers reading the words I type. Even through those periods in my life when I've tried to hide my words, I knew that if someone really wanted to, they'd find a way to read them (and often did). I'm sure of many who read this and suspect many more, ranging from lovers to best friends to siblings and parents, uncles and aunts and therapists, cousins, former teachers, coworkers, casual acquaintances, schoolmates, god knows whom else. That's a whole lot of an audience. I've now way of knowing if they read daily or when the fancy hits them, if they care about me as a person or find this an interesting read. I've had people find my blog by googling random subjects or being referred from and recommended by well-known sites.

...All that makes this blog seem a lot more impressive than it is, and the stakes much higher than they are.

In the end it boils down to me being aware that the confession I want to make is controversial even in some of the best of academic and psychiatric circles. Media portrayals, which adore any slightly comical, novel idea, love to misconstrue the realities of it to fit into their needs, to the detriment of anyone trying to come out about their situation. Popular opinion loves to snatch quickly at what they understand, add a liberal helping of speculation, a portion of doubt and ridicule, and a heaping of false facts and gossip to everything they hear and see.

All these things said, I wish to discuss a couple more disclaimers before continuing.

To my friends: please comment with your support, but don't do so without being informed. While this is an entry about something I'm frightened to reveal, I'm actually quite happy with it in many ways. It's not nearly as shameful as outsiders think. It's complicated, yes, and can be quite embarrassing, awkward, even dangerous, but this is neither a death sentence nor a mark of disability. Just an aspect of who I am.

To my family: you are the biggest reason I've hesitated; not gonna lie. Your religious views in particular make this an especially complicated thing to discuss because as much as you learn and are willing to research, many churches remain way behind the times on psychiatric issues, leaving you in an unfortunate position of being subtly or blatantly misinformed and not aware of it. I ask you now to show me the respect of not talking to me about this until I give you the okay. I encourage you to learn more; if you want, I'm happy to recommend books and websites and Crystal probably can show you even more resources than I can. But please, don't send me a long letter/email/phone call telling me you're praying for me and recommending resources of your own and encouraging me to talk to a pastor and that you understand/have answers etc, etc. Please don't be offended, but I don't want your resources. This is something I've been aware of for years, and I've done tons of research on my own. I've talked to doctors with specialties and degrees you probably don't know exist. Especially when I lived in DC I went to institutes with 'National' in front of the title to make sure I could get the best care possible.

...God, that makes it sound like I'm dying! Okay. Before I go any farther and make you think I've got some rare, bizarre brain dementia or fungus or am infested by sentient, parasitic slugs (Animorphs, anyone?), let me state first and foremost that aside from any previously mentioned health issues, I am fine. There is NOTHING organically or physiologically or otherwise physically wrong with me. This is completely mental, and even then I hesitate to use the common nomenclature 'disorder'.

My name is Tina Malament. I'm twenty-almost-one years old. I'm a waitress. I have major depressive disorder, anorexia nervosa, obsessive compulsive tendencies, various other diagnoses....

And dissociative identity disorder.

Commonly misinformed, many people call it multiple personality disorder (which is an outdated term).

I don't have a good side and an evil side. (Please do me the courtesy of not relegating me to a coin or a comic book villain!) I'm not demon possessed. I'm not bipolar, I don't alternate between highs and lows born from a chemical imballance.

To clarify on my pet peeve, I DON'T HAVE F-ING SCHIZOPHRENIA! I don't hear voices the way you might think; I don't have a false perception of reality or hallucinations or a savior complex. Dissociative Identity Disorder (hereby: DID) is often portrayed/labelled in mass media events as schizophrenia. See also: Heroes, Me, Myself, and Irene, Fight Club, etc. Some of those have elements of DID which are pretty accurate.... Others are completely bullshit off the mark. (Actually, I really liked a lot of the way it was portrayed in Heroes, beyond the artistic licenses taken... The way she looked when switching personalities and the way she described the amnesia are pretty good. Fight Club, on the other hand, sucked. Great movie, but sucked.)

If you've seen/read Sybill, you should know that I have no desire to be hypnotized and integrated. It would probably not help, for one thing. That book, while seen as a sort of media authority on DID, is roughly fifty years out of date when it comes to the actual assessment and treatment of the disorder.

Yes, I have more than one 'personality part'. They're called alters. Yes, they have names, genders, age ranges, complete memories and life histories and very diverse opinions on life, the universe, and everything. Some of them often appear more harmful than others; some are sweet, some tend to be very angry, some exist for very specific purposes and can seem simplistic because of this. Many are good at things which I'm bad at, or vice versa. We have different opinions about freaking everything, speak differently, have different typing and spelling errors, different tastes in foods, even different health problems. We hold our body differently depending on who's out. We like different clothes and colors and activities.

Probably you'll get introduced to everybody as they see fit. Several have already written the entries in this blog; you may or may not have noticed when writing styles shift, vocabularies and sentence styles vary. Maybe you'll notice now that you're looking for it; who knows. Maybe when you expect someone to be a single, cohesive person it's harder to realize when they aren't.

I think we're going to cut it off now. That's probably enough to think about for one day, right?

Here are a couple of websites for you to look at since we barely covered the basics of what DID is... We've been over it so many times with so many people that it gets really tiresome to discuss after a while, particularly when there are so many valuable resources on the internet!
--->Merck - fairly awesome for overview purposes, except for the treatment goals part.
--->Religious perspectives and misperceptions answered. Sort of.
--->Surprisingly good FAQ section on a random AOL-sponsored information site.
--->The Significant Others' Guide to coping with DID

Oh yeah, one final thing... Please, please, do me a personal favor and DO NOT go to wikipedia for information about this. Their entry on the subject was so inflammatory and ill-informed that it made me write a nasty letter to wikipedia about it and create an account so that I could try to go in and edit the entry. (Which I never got done, but still, I worked on it. The entry is so riddled with error that it needs to be completely rewritten and we haven't had the energy for it.)

Shannon, thank you for all the support you've given us since we told you. Probably if you hadn't taken the news so well we wouldn't be able to come out here and now... (Are you proud?)

Readers... We now humbly await your thoughts.

Status overview

Well, at long last, we have internet in the apartment. Hooray! Commence celebrating!

Essentially what happened is that the modem arrived Monday but, when we tried to set it up, it quickly became apparent that the little plastic bundle of wires and microchips was completely worthless. (When all lights stand solid red it's never a good sign.) I called Qwest and scheduled for a technician to come over today, on the first day off I've had in a week. Quickly, painlessly, in the course of half an hour, a new modem was slipped in and set up and now all is well.

Otherwise, there's little to report from Colorado. I've been working close to constantly and fighting off a cold/sinus infection/thing with about as much of a respite. Today being the first day I've had off since last Saturday, I plan on parking my ass on the couch with South Park, movies, what-have-you, trying to find something to eat in the bare-bones kitchen, and otherwise resting and allowing my respiratory system to heal. Ideally I should be picking up shifts and trying to bulk up my hours and income, but at the moment I think healing needs to take priority to allow for the rest.

Money, money, money. Cursed money. It feels as though we live in a perpetually broke state of existence though, in reality, it's probably not as bad as it seems. Granted, things are tight. Nevertheless, we are meeting our bills, paying for our groceries, and even affording some nice perk now and then (see also: internet access). Funds will undoubtedly be getting tighter as we come upon the hurdles of Crystal's books for the semester and the newly acquired doctor's bills...

I saw a doctor last week and now have prescriptions for both Effexor and Welbutrin. Started on the Effexor starter pack several days ago - as such, have yet to see any effects or benefits, really. Plan on starting the Wellbutrin after reaching a maintenance dosage for the Effexor so as to pre-empt any conflict between the two while upping the levels. I figure that if there will be negative side effects from one or both, it'd be best to watch them one at a time so I know which medication is causing the detriment.

In addition to the prescriptions, I got a couple of referrals. I suppose I'll be honest about what the one is for: my breasts have lumps.

Dr. Schimke gave me a referral for a women's health clinic to do an ultrasound... There's a large one in the left breast which I noticed about a month ago, and a smaller one in the right, about the size of a marble. They vary in size depending on the day (and, I'm guessing, my cycle) and are also very tender - the doctor thinks they are cystic. Still, though, she's referred me out to a specialist to have them checked out and make sure there's nothing seriously wrong. I'm trying not to grow alarmed. As she said, I'm twenty years old, relatively healthy, there's not a history of breast cancer in my family... Everything ought to be fine... The appointment is September 4th, and I'll let you know as soon as I know anything else.

I'll also update you on the therapist situation as soon as I've met with her... When I called Aurora Mental Health, they told me it would likely be forty-five to sixty days before I received a call back to schedule an intake. Instead, they called me two days later. I've got an intake scheduled on September 5th. I'm rather apprehensive about it, as the therapist they've got me slated to see doesn't have the specialties I'm looking for, exactly. She's experienced in trauma and dissociative disorders but not eating disorders... Still, though, she's been in practice for many many years so I'm sure she's come across them before. Her main areas of expertise are couples counseling and drug/alcohol addiction - I'm really not sure how d.ds and trauma counseling fit in there. We'll see.

With that little overview complete, I'm off to rest more and read more. I finally finished Atlas Shrugged last week and started on Les Miserables. I'm already three hundred pages in to the unabridged version, surprising no one more than myself. Who would have thought I'd charge through Les Mis with such voracity? It's comforting at least to read great works when I'm out of school... I feel less lazy and ignorant.

I wish all of you the best as you start back in to school for the fall. Remember to take care of yourselves in the midst of the chaos.

The search for a cure

My fingers can barely lift themselves from one key to the next tonight. Washing my hair seemed like too much effort, with all the lifting of the arms and the scrubbing of the fingers. My entire body is dead weight.

After a couple phone calls from the new therapist, Patti, last week, I've begun again the search for a new therapist. She felt that it would be good for me to look more for someone who could provide better continuity of care since the CU Denver counselling center takes frequent, long breaks during the semester periods, as well as the fact that since the therapists there are interns they switch out regularly.

Another factor is that they ARE interns there... To be honest, I got the feeling that she was a bit overwhelmed by my needy crazyness (as therapists so often have been when dealing with me). She mentioned that it'd probably be best to find someone more experienced. To me, this means, "Holy hell, kid. You're a nutjob. Go find someone with a doctorate and roughly twenty-five years dealing with clinical crazies and maybe they can handle you." I'm sure that's not the exact translation, but it's close.

All that said, yesterday was intake number one of god knows how many. I really liked this therapist, though I don't think she's the right one, either, unfortunately. Her name is Shelley, she's an LCSW (licensed clinical social worker), been in practice since 1989.

That last bit is a big plus for her - many of the docs I've seen in the past haven't been in practice all that long. I like that she's experienced. On the other hand, though, (and this is a big reason I think it may not be the right fit) her experience does not lie where I need it to. I forgot to ask exactly what her areas of expertise are, but I gathered enough to know that she has not dealt much at all with dissociative disorders and has only had a couple of cases of eating disorders. Both these are rather major issues. In the case of eating disorders, the clients she did have were both well in to their recovery stages. While I think I'm well on my way, Crystal isn't so sure - and I've learned that she frequently has better judgment about my mental status than I do. Particularly lately it's been rather clear that I'm not as recovered as I seem to think I am, as I've been losing weight and eating less and caring less about the fact that I'm eating less.

Really, as much as I liked her as a person, appreciated her method and felt comfortable with her, she did not have enough qualifications treatment-wise, I think. The biggest positive things about meeting with her were things like feeling comfortable talking to her, not feeling threatened by her or condescended to, feeling like I was truly listened to and taken seriously. These indicate that she's definitely a good therapist but don't necessarily say anything about whether she's the right therapist. Follow?

She, like every other brain doctor who spends five minutes talking to me, seemed deeply concerned and quite adamant that I get back on meds as soon as humanly possible. Ironically enough, only when I'm having a saner day can I see the logic behind this. I still struggle with the concept of medication. It feels like a crutch, a fake cure, a symptoms-masking treatment that does nothing to actually cure. It feels somehow, in some not-easily-explained fashion, like the easy way out when I should be able to work my way out. Do not pass Go! Do not collect that two hundred dollars, hippie! You march your ass through each of those spaces and figure it out the HARD way. ....Aand the reasoning itself makes only about as much sense as that poorly planned metaphor.

There's an organization called Aurora Mental Health which I've thought about trying and which Shelley strongly recommends. She used to be on the board there and says they could find a way to help hook me up with medication until my insurance coverage resumes in August. Additionally, they've got a broad base of experience and knowledge for all things crazy, so chances are good that they could match me up with the right doc. So they're my next stop on the mental health errands...

Haha, don't you love how my coherence dissipates the longer I write and the tireder I get? Yes, tireder, you heard me punks. I've got to be at work again in less than twelve hours now. Perhaps next entry will come sooner than the ridiculous break this last has been... Sorry, readers.

This is Frasier Crane, wishing you all a good day and good mental health.

Motivation? Anyone? Anywhere?

There's nothing like hacking your lungs out on a beautiful, breezy, sunny day off work. I mean seriously. You should try it sometime. Because wow.

Actually, today's been anything but exciting. I tried to get downtown first thing today for my second appointment with the new therapist but it didn't work out so well... Crystal and I forgot to set the alarm and as such were out the door about ten minutes later than we should have been. By the time we reached the LightRail station (in a breathtaking eight minutes instead of fifteen...yay sports car!) the lots were all full. At this point in time I was feverish and sneezing and completely out of it. I vaguely remember giving Crystal a tearful "I GIVE UP THERE IS NO POINT LET ME DIIIIE!" speech, but it's hard to say what really happened, given the fevered memory.

Although it was only around 9:30, it's at least a forty-five minute trip downtown from the station and that is assuming you can find a place to park. My appointment was for 10, meaning the soonest I could arrive would have been about 10:20, and since it's a training facility they're really strict on the fifty minute session rule - i.e. I'd be lucky to get thirty. I tootled around the parking lot for a while, determining to call the therapist and let her know I'd be missing today's session. Considering I am still pretty sick I figured it wouldn't be that far a stretch to cough a little more than necessary and play up the hoarse, croaking quality my voice has adopted.

Next stop was the bank. I found out Friday that some lame-ass company has been trying to make fraudulent charges to our checking account, so we needed to close it out and transfer the funds to a different one. This, my friends, is a major pain. (To be fair, I am really glad the bank caught it early and we didn't have a whole bunch of disputed charges to deal with.) Sooo we had to do that, closing out our barely three months old account in favor of an even newer one. (And then I had to come home and figure out on just how many different sites I had to change my account info.)

I've been sick with this cold thing since Sunday, I guess it was, and it's zapping what few mental faculties I had left me. I was trying to reflect about this in my journal yesterday, but the thing I hate most about major depressive episodes is that I get really, really, really damn boring. I can't think. I have no energy. I can't write worth a load of monkey dung. I honestly lose whatever it is that makes me feel like a mildly interesting, or at least not totally dull, human being. Damn cyclothymia or disthymia or bipolar whateveryouare! Give me back a little hypomanic spark, why don't ya? I need to be productive again!

What's better? Monochromatic depressive episode or frenetic, sporadic mania?

...God, this is depressing. My train of thought has already fizzled out in spite of all the grand plans I had for an entry. I apologize to all my readers, or what few of you remain in spite this insipid progression of words. Blah blah blah blah!

Latest and Greatest

I am delighted to unveil the following two things.

1. My new haircut!

And beyond that, the thing I am most super excited about and have been working on for weeks and months and aaaages. At long last, Tshirt Design Number Two is revealed!

Front:

Back:

This design will be available on Etsy tonight, once I'm more awake from my nap. ^.^ Also, shirts are still customisable (to a point)... Should you want to, say, have the back of this design and the front of the other (the 20% Will die from their eating disorder) please just be sure to specify as such in your order. (And because I don't have enough parentheses in this paragraph, the stencil for 'Bulimia is a disorder, not a lifestyle' is on its way and almost finished.)

In other news, I saw my new therapist today for the first appointment after the intake exam. She's arright, I guess... Interning and I'm not totally sure she knows what she's doing, to be honest, but for ten dollars a session (THANK GOD SLIDING SCALE) I think it may be worth it to give her some time.

One other thing I don't like so much is that because she is working under the UCDenver counselling center, she'll be moving on to some other location/assignment after the end of the summer. This means yet another therapeautic alliance which will just have time to be created before it ends. Which, for some of the things I'm trying to address, is really not the most helpful, nurturing environment. I suppose it may not be the best thing that my first response was, eh, I'm used to it. :-P Well... We'll see how it goes.

Um, um, um. Hm...

C'est tout!