June 17, 2012

Three Difficult Scenarios involving Fathers

Posted in Child Alters, Depression, DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, emotional pain, Family Members of Trauma Survivors, Physical Abuse, Self Injury, sexual abuse, Trauma tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 10:44 am by Kathy Broady


It’s Father’s Day, 2012.

Fathers.  Fathers are as difficult a topic for dissociative trauma survivors as mothers.

I decided I would recognize this day by writing briefly about a few of the common but complicated topics connected to fathers.

I can feel the shuddering going on already.

How difficult are these situations for you?
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A.  Saying no to your father

According to childhood rules, it’s really not allowed, typically, for DID survivors to even consider saying no to their father.  It’s a scary topic.  This is a “rule” that gets taught very early on, and takes years of time to challenge.  All too often, this very idea is tied to trauma, and abuse, and a whole lot of fear.

And yet, it really is okay, especially as you become an adult yourself, to make your own decisions about your life, and about what you’ll do (or not do).  The older you are, the less say-so that your father should have in terms of making the rules for your life.  Easily said, but oh so very difficult to do, especially if you have the type of father that doesn’t want to relinquish that position of power and authority.

But still, your life belongs to you, and at some point, it really is okay to claim that for yourself.  You don’t have to believe what your father believed.  You don’t have to spend your life following his rules or his directions.  You don’t have to put his teachings above what you want to decide for yourself.  It is okay, and important, for you to become your own person, and to establish your own sense of self separate from your father.  To do this, means that at some point in time, you will likely have to say “No” to your father and his preferences.

For many trauma survivors, the healing process is very dependent on you gaining more separation from your father, and being able to make decisions about your life based on what you think, not on what your father thinks.

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B. Having an Abusive Father

What about the trauma survivors whose fathers were their perpetrators?

What is your father is still one of your perpetrators?

Boy oh boy, it’s very difficult to think anything positive about Father’s Day when your father was (or is) one of your abusers.  It becomes a day of pain, heartache, body memories, flashbacks, fear, and anxiety.  Trauma city!

Being hurt, betrayed, and abused by either of your parents creates some of the deepest wounds, and some of the deepest splits within the dissociative system.  There will often be parts in your system that completely agreed with and supported and even helped the father carry out abuse to various people in your system.  There will be others in your system that were and probably still are terrified of the father.  There will be others in your system that have absolutely no awareness of any abuse done by the father, and will defend his innocence with a vengeance.  There could be others in your system that don’t even know that the father was their father – they will see him as some generic “man” that hurt them.  There could also be others in your system that only remember the father as a good man, a decent person, a fun and caring person, a good man in the community, and any other variety of being good, just, and kind.

Having such extreme and varied views and experiences with the father creates a ton of internal conflict, making the necessity of splitting into different selves much more understandable.  Having different parts, each containing their own experiences, and then keeping these parts separated from each other, is often an effort to minimize the turmoil caused by loving / hating / fearing / admiring the same person.  It makes sense.  How else would someone manage all the extremes?
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C. Being Abandoned by your Father

What about the fathers that simply abandoned their children?

This is a painful topic as well.  It leads to feelings of nothingness, low self-esteem, anger, self-destruction, and confusion.  Not having a father creates a hole in the heart – an emptiness that just doesn’t go away.  To become used to this emptiness can create a type of apathy towards people that can lead to other types of problems in life and relationships.  It can lead to addictive behaviors – drinking, drugging, sexual promiscuity – and any other behavior that tries to mask pain with impulsive “I want to feel good” options.

It’s almost impossible to understand how a father could leave you without struggling with thoughts about “am I bad?” or “it must be my fault” or “I made him go away”.  Children internalize blame onto themselves, and many dissociative survivors grow far into adulthood before becoming able to shift this responsibility back onto the father instead of absorbing it into themselves.  Not taking the blame for your father’s poor behavior is an important task in the healing journey.
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Father issues are not simple, and yet, very often, for trauma survivors, sorting out your father issues are very central to your healing.  It’s difficult to understand or choose or create healthy family relationships when your whole life experience has been with a dysfunctional or abusive father.  Fathers, even the absentee fathers, are very prominent in shaping your very sense of yourself.  Your father isn’t nobody.  He has had some very significant impact on your life.

When you were a child, you had very little say so about that.

Now, when you are older, and more adult, and more resourceful for yourself, now you can make new decisions that can redefine that relationship and its impact on you and your life, and the lives of your insiders.

Even if it is scary to address these topics, for your own healing, your health, and your well-being, it’s essential that you do.

I wish you the best in your healing journey.

Warmly,

Kathy

Copyright © 2008-2012 Kathy Broady and Discussing Dissociation

January 29, 2012

I Just don’t Understand Perpetrators!

Posted in DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Domestic Violence, Maggies, Mind Control, Physical Abuse, Prevention of Sexual Abuse, Ritual Abuse, sexual abuse, Trauma tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 4:44 am by Kathy Broady


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*** This is a difficult post and it is meant for your older parts.  Please note — it could be triggering to many within your system.  Please check this article with your internal leaders before letting your littles or sensitive ones read any further.  Thanks, Kathy. ***

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Recently, I witnessed a fight between some wild animals that was particularly upsetting to see.  There is no need to go into great detail about the actual situation.  I can speak about it in sweeping statements and you will get more than enough picture of the situation from there.

The long and the short of it was that a rather large group of critters (yes, they were birds) were picking on one particular bird to the point that it appeared that it could be a fatal situation for the one very unfortunate bird.  Talk about outnumbered!  It was just really really not ok to hear or see.  It was particularly disturbing and very upsetting.

At first I wondered about what to do – somewhat fearing for my own safety if I got involved – but I really was not comfortable not interrupting the attack in some way, somehow.  I hesitated for a brief while, knowing that Mother Nature and wild animals do what they do and wondering if maybe I should just respect that.  But I could hear it and I could see it, and I just couldn’t not do anything.  It was just too upsetting to not act somehow.

So I darted across the street, running in the direction of the mob of birds.  I didn’t know what I would do when I got there, I just knew I had to do something.

Lucky for me, my running at them was more than enough to disturb the birds and interrupt their horrible attack.  All the birds, including the one being picked on, flew away and left the area in a big hurry.

Thank goodness.

I mean really, thank goodness.

I was so relieved that the ordeal was at least over for that moment.  I knew the group of birds could attack the injured bird again, another time, and in another place, but I was so very thankful that it had at least been stopped at that time.  I could at least hope that I had stopped it completely.

There was no way of me knowing how injured the victim bird was since he flew off and away when everyone else did.  I can only hope that I interfered quickly enough that he didn’t get very badly hurt.

I’ve been watching for an injured bird, but I haven’t seen one.  I don’t know if that is good news or not.  And I don’t know what injured birds do when they are hurt, so I don’t know if I would see one or not.  I don’t know whether to be relieved, or whether to worry more.  I just don’t have the answers to this situation.

But boy, oh boy, was this an emotional situation for me.  I found the whole experience to be incredibly upsetting.  I was tearful.  I was afraid.  I was worried.  I was brave.  I had all kinds of emotions going on throughout the whole day.

And again, the parallels of this situation to the lives of dissociative trauma survivors are many and layered.

First of all, I think that nearly every DID survivor that I have spoken to has told me of horrific situations where they were the one targeted victim being attacked by a group of perpetrators.  Even if there was only one main perpetrator, there were other people around, watching and / or supporting the perpetrator and not helping the person being hurt.

This is just soooooo not ok.

It is just so wrong for groups of anyone to gang up against one person, purposefully hurting them, doing terrible things to them.

It can be just as wrong for anyone to witness such crimes and to not step in and help the person(s) being hurt.  Granted, this is very much a gray area since there are a number of complicated factors involved when it comes to interrupting and stopping violence.  At this point, my comments are directed specifically towards those who really could have the ability to stop or interfere with the abuse, and simply choose not to.

I can’t even come up with enough words to describe how wrong these things are.

I couldn’t tolerate watching a bird being injured.  How on earth do perpetrators tolerate watching a person getting hurt, especially a little person?

I just don’t understand that.

Not one tiny bit do I understand that.

*** Please note – in these comments, I am not referring to the situations where someone is forced to perpetrate when they don’t want to.  There is a kind of victimization / abuse where dominant perpetrator abusers force others in a less powerful position to do abusive acts to others.  I call this situation victimization by perpetration.  Most DID survivors have experienced this situation too, and please know, that my comments today are not in reference to those very difficult and equally horrible situations. ***

I am talking about the abuser types that are truly sadistic and hurtful, completely by choice.  I’m referring to situations where the perpetrator does not have to hurt anyone, but they simply want to and choose to because they like it and enjoy it.

THAT is what I don’t understand.

What does it take in someone to be truly sadistic?  How does this happen?  How can those abusive violent people live with themselves?  Where is their compassion?  Why do they have no compassion or kindness?

I know there are intellectual answers to those questions, but my thoughts are based on more of an emotional and spiritual level.

I just don’t get it.

Do you?

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Copyright © 2008-2012 Kathy Broady and Discussing Dissociation

June 20, 2010

Doubly Difficult Days for DID Survivors

Posted in Child Alters, Depression, DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, emotional pain, Family Members of Trauma Survivors, Introjects, Ritual Abuse, Self Injury, sexual abuse, therapy, Therapy and Counseling, Transference Issues, Trauma tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 2:19 pm by Kathy Broady


This weekend is often a difficult weekend for trauma survivors with dissociative identity disorder.  First, there is Father’s Day (for those of us living in the USA), and secondly, it’s the Summer Solstice.  Anytime the difficult days get stacked on top of each other, it’s going to make for a complicated time.

On days when the issues seem to surface in layers, what do you do to cope?
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(**This blog article is about difficult topics so it could be triggering – please pace yourself carefully and keep yourself safe.)
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Father’s Day has many of the same emotional complications as was written about on Mother’s Day.  The days proceeding are often full of painful memories, heartbreaking loss, fear, conflict, and upset.  The vast majority of DID survivors have had abusive fathers, so the idea of celebrating fathers typically stirs up great turmoil.

The first day of summer, like all season changes, has relevance to those who have experienced difference forms of Ritual Abuse (RA).  Many of the dark church organizations celebrate the seasonal changes and these so-called “celebrations” are full of trauma, abuse, gross activities, icky messes, scary events, etc.   Survivors of these ordeals are often flooded with flashbacks, emotional distress and internal conflict during the times of season changes.

When you put the two of these highly emotional events together, dissociative survivors experience a lot of overwhelm.  Some of the difficulties can include PTSD symptoms (nightmares, flashbacks, depersonalization, body memories, difficulties sleeping, irritability, feeling distant from others, etc.) and anxiety symptoms (panic attacks, excessive fears, heightened startle reflex, nausea, trembling, heart palpitations, headaches, obsessions, chest pain, etc), self-destructive thoughts, self-injury behaviors, suicidal ideation (pervasive thoughts about wanting to die), depression, tearfulness, or detached numbing.  It’s probably been a miserable weekend for a lot of DID survivors.

Fathers that participate in dark church rituals are often not the kind of fathers that you find written about in Hallmark Cards.  These are the kinds of fathers that prefer abusive activities, or that like sadistic pain, or have freaky and perverse sexual interests.  They are difficult men who have caused a lot of hurt and pain for a lot of people, especially for their children.

And yet, even so, there are nearly always those parts within the DID system that feel loyalty and a deep bonding with the father figure.  These parts are typically parts that have adopted some level of acceptance of the traumatic activities, and have long ago learned to tolerate the abuse or to even define it as anything but abuse.
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Father Introjects

DID survivors often manage abuse by their fathers by creating a father introject within the internal dissociative system.  Father introjects are internal system parts that remember the father so well that they look-feel-sound-act-appear to the others inside as the same as the actual father.  An internal introject may do the same kinds of abusive behaviors to the other parts of the system, recreating the same abusive patterns and feelings that the external father did.  Since the internal world is so real to DID survivors, it can feel like the father is still there, still controlling things, still making all the decisions, still threatening harm, still causing harm.

And in many ways this can be true.

It can be difficult to separate who the external father is from the internal father introject.  They can very much feel like mirror-images of each other, shadow replicas, and the child parts of the system will not be able to tell the difference between them.

But father introjects are NOT the actual father, no matter how much they may claim to be so. Father introjects actually belong to you.  They split from you, they came from your mind, and they originated with you.  They are actually part of you, and not part of the father.  They may have been taught by the father, but they are actually yours.

However, they will be powerful parts of the internal system though so their power and influence is not to be ignored or minimized.  It is more important to work with these parts, and reconnect their loyalty to the survivor person instead of to the father figure.   This is an absolutely crucial part of the DID therapy process, and if you haven’t yet gained a safe working relationship with your father introject, you will need to do so.
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Father Transference Issues

In the therapy process, male therapists will have many of the same kinds of transference issues regarding father issuesj as female therapists have with mother issues.  In fact, it is often difficult for some female dissociative survivors to work with male therapists because of the kinds of trauma, abuse, and controls associated with their father.  Male therapists often have to address transference issues of being seen as the abuser, controlling male, dominant owner, sexual pervert, etc.  So many trauma survivors have issues with men — and even more have issues with their fathers — that it makes being a male therapist for female trauma survivors particularly difficult.

Other female trauma survivors are so used to be led by men or connected to men, especially their father, that they feel more at ease with men and less comfortable with “neglectful, abandoning mothers”.   (Female therapists tend to get more of the abandonment transference issues, while male therapists tend to get more of the abuser-male dominance transference issues.)  The relationship between survivors and their parents will very often dictate which gender of therapist is a better fit for them.
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Typical Father Issues

Father issues are not easy to work through.  They often take years of time to sort out, and they are very painful.  Many survivors truly feel bonded to their fathers, even if some of their relationship involved sexual activities.  Sometimes feeling sexually connected to the father felt better than being emotionally abandoned by the mother.  When this is the case, there are numerous emotional complications to process during your healing.

Do you understand the role your father has played in your life?

Do you experience system switching, feelings of fear, or flashbacks when you are in the same room with your father?

What would your father do if you said no to him?

What would your father do if you chose a lifestyle very different from the one he chose for his life?

Are you allowed to live separately from him?  Have you been allowed to move away from his neighborhood?

How much control or influence does your father have over you life in the current day?

Are you safe when you are in the same room as your father?

Does your father still abuse you or any of your younger parts?  Does he still exert a level of sexual dominance over anyone in your system?

Would you be betraying your father if you refused to let him touch you in sexual ways?
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Remember This

If your father is an abuser, you can get distance and separation from him.

You don’t have to stay bonded to abusers.

You don’t have to stay connected to violent relationships.

You don’t have to be abused to be accepted.

You do not have to be sexual to be accepted.

All men are not abusers.

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By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

Copyright © 2008-2010 Kathy Broady LCSW and Discussing Dissociation

January 19, 2010

Externalizing Responsibility vs. Internalizing Responsibility

Posted in Borderline Personality Disorder, DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Domestic Violence, Family Members of Trauma Survivors, Physical Abuse, Prevention of Sexual Abuse, sexual abuse, Trauma tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 6:05 pm by Kathy Broady


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Externalizing Responsibility

What an interesting phrase.

Externalizing responsibility is when someone fails to accept responsibility for the messes they make or for the problems they cause.  It is also failing to accept responsibility for the situations they find themselves in.

Internalizing responsibility is personally taking on the responsibility for what happens (in the past, present, or future).  It is accepting the responsibility for personal welfare or for consequences of actions instead of dumping the blame on others.

Do you externalize responsibility?

Do you internalize responsibility?

For dissociative trauma survivors, the issue of when to accept responsibility versus when to deflect responsibility is a very complicated topic.

Most DID survivors have had years of experience internalizing responsibility for the actions of their perpetrators, family members, abusers, etc.  Abusive offenders are some of the world’s best at externalizing blame onto someone else, and most trauma survivors internalize that blame, guilt, shame within themselves.  Purposeful and direct blaming of the victim, especially child victims, typically ends up with the victim feeling responsible for the abuse.

Having this convoluted, complicated history of who is or isn’t responsible makes “accepting responsibility” a very difficult topic for trauma survivors.
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Self Blame

Survivors spend years of time blaming themselves for the abuse (internalizing responsibility).  Survivors typically end up feeling like they were bad, or they did something to cause it, or it was because they were too pretty, or too available, or too easy, etc.  Survivors were usually told by their abusers that they deserved the abuse, or they liked the abuse, or they wanted the abuse, or some variation of the sort.

Perpetrators know that if they verbally blame the victim, that victim will be more likely to internalize the responsibility for what happened. Perpetrators typically do not accept responsibility for their actions.  The more the perpetrators push blame and responsibility onto the victim, the more the victim will internalize that responsibility and blame.
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Blaming Perpetrators

But typically, survivors are not responsible for being abused.  At least, they are not responsible for what the abuser does.  The abuser is responsible for what the abuser does.

However, it is very difficult for many trauma survivors to put the blame of their abuse back onto their perpetrator.  Trauma survivors will argue with their therapists that their abusive loved ones were not at fault – that they cannot be considered a perpetrator – that they are not to be blamed.

How many of you refuse to believe that your father (or mother) sexually abused you even if other parts in your system have said this clearly?

How many of you refuse to blame your perpetrator, and instead will run in circles protecting your family member from being called a perpetrator?

How many of you will argue that you have no right to be angry with your father – perpetrator?  How many of you will define criminal actions as “not a problem” in order to not assign responsibility to your loved one?
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Abuse

Children are not responsible for being abused.  Adults are responsible anytime they have abused children.  Children will internalize the blame, but they are not responsible for being abused.

What about when the trauma survivor is an adult?  What if the adult survivor is being abused as an adult?  Who’s responsible then?

Adult trauma survivors do get abused.  There are thousands of domestic violence situations where adults are being abused on a regular basis.  Rapes and date rape situations can happen to adult trauma survivors.  Dissociative survivors can still be involved in the sex slave industry or other ongoing abuses even as an adult.  Abuse certainly can happen into adult-hood.

Who is responsible in these situations?

Of course, the abusers are still responsible for their own abusive behavior.  (The topic of recognizing who abusers are will be discussed in a different blog article.)

However, these issues are not simple once the victim is an adult who has to be responsible for their own selves and any dependents. If you are an adult trauma survivor caught in abuse, it is not your fault you are being abused, but it is your responsibility to get yourself out and away from this abuse.

These adult survivor victims are responsible to get the help they need to get out of their abusive situations.  They do not cause the abuser to abuse, but they are responsible to learn how to protect themselves and to protect any children that may be involved in the situation.  It is important to build and utilize enough resources for safety and protection that will make the abuse come to an end as quickly as possible.
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Finding the Balance

The difficult part is internalizing the correct portion of the responsibility.  Even adult trauma survivors well experienced in therapy will internalize responsibility that genuinely belongs to the abuser.  Other adult trauma survivors will stay stuck completely in the victim role, refusing to accept responsibility for getting out of the mess they are in.  Sometimes survivors will cause-create-instigate-perpetuate emotional conflicts that are of their own making, and yet, claim to be the victim of their circumstances (more on that topic another time…).

So think about it…

Internalizing responsibility vs. externalizing responsibility.

What really does belong to you?

What really does belong to someone else?

Are you taking on too much?

Are you acting like a victim in situations where you are actually responsible?

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By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

November 15, 2009

Attachment to the Perpetrator

Posted in DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, emotional pain, Family Members of Trauma Survivors, Friends of Multiples, mental health, Physical Abuse, sexual abuse, therapy, Therapy and Counseling, Therapy Homework Ideas, Trauma tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 7:53 pm by Kathy Broady


Last night, I saw another television documentary on Jaycee Lee Dugard – the young woman who was kidnapped at age 11, held captive for 18 years, and found alive, along with her two daughters on August 26, 2009.

Jaycee is now 29 years old.

Jaycee spent the past 18 years held captive in the backyard of a registered, violent sex offender, Phillip Garrido.  Garrido fathered Jaycee’s two daughters, and has been charged with numerous criminal offenses.

While most of the world was thrilled to see Garrido arrested and locked away into police custody, Jaycee and her girls had different emotional reactions.  Initially, when questioned by the authorities, Jaycee was supportive of Garrido, she refused to admit her real identity, and when the facts weren’t adding up, she claimed to be hiding from a fictitious abusive husband that lived in another state.  She had chances to tell about her perpetrator, but her first responses were to protect him.  Her two daughters cried when they heard Garrido was arrested.

Garrido spent years torturing these young women, but yet they were clearly connected to him.

How can this be?

This dynamic is called Stockholm Syndrome.  It is when victims form positive, caring attachments with their violent perpetrators.  The more victims have to depend on their perpetrators for their very survival, the more likely the victim will form an attachment to their perpetrator.

The world has been appalled as they heard this story.

But this story is not a new story.

This story happens to many children every day of the year.

Many dissociative trauma survivors have lived a life all too similar to the life that Jaycee lived while with Garrido.  As children, most dissociative trauma survivors lived – day after day, year after year – under the strict sadistic control of a sex offender.  They were repeatedly sexually abused, many became pregnant, they were given hidden identities and new names, and they were taught bizarre religious beliefs.  Many DID survivors were locked and confined in unhealthy places, made to be completely dependent upon their abusers, and the reality of their daily abuse was hidden from the neighbors.  It is not at all uncommon for DID survivors to have been sexually involved and sexually controlled by their perpetrators well into their adulthood.

The main difference between most DID Survivors and Jaycee Dugard is that most DID survivors were not kidnapped by a stranger.  Most DID survivors who have lived this kind of ongoing abuse were simply living in their family homes.

These DID survivors were being raised by their father and mother.  They didn’t have the hope that someday they would be rescued and returned to their “real family”.  They were with their real family.

In either situation, the child-victims learned to adapt to the sadistic behaviors of the abusive parental figures in order to survive.  Despite the extreme abuse, they learned to depend on the abusers.  Everything from breathing, food, clothing, water, shelter, warmth, education, medical attention, etc. was controlled and monitored by their abusers.  There was no personal space.  There was no way to get away.  There was no known place to run to even if they had gotten away.

The child-victims knew they were stuck there.

They knew that their life and basic survival needs were completely dependent upon keeping the perpetrator happy.  They learned to base their own survival on effectively meeting the needs of the perpetrator, and the perpetrator had the power to decide if they would live or die.  To survive, they became loyal to the perpetrator.

Perpetrators purposefully create this kind of dependence in their victims.  They want their victims to feel trapped, and to lose hope, and to be stuck in their abuse.  They do not want their victims to know there is a way out, or to find a way out.  Perpetrators want to be in control of absolutely everything, barely leaving their victims room to breathe on their own.

In keeping the required secrets, the surviving children often  learned that the ONLY person to turn to in time of trouble or need is the perpetrator.  To get their daily survival needs met, the child learned they had to placate, please, and depend upon the abuser.

In these long-term abusive situations, the perpetrator is both the caretaker and the abuser.  The child learns to love and hate this parent.  The child feels either trapped in the abuse, or feels tied to them in order to get their needs met.

Consequently, the child-victims have to depend on their abusers for their care.  Who else will feed them?  Who else will get their books for school?  Who else will provide clothing and a place to sleep? These children have no where else to turn, so they form a variety of trauma bonds with their perpetrator.

Since the child-victim’s life depends on their perpetrator, the victim develops a loyalty to the perpetrator.  They experience a positive loyalty when the perpetrator meets their daily needs.  They experience a fear-based loyalty when their life depends on it.

Whether the offender parent is being appropriate or violent, the dissociative child is drawn into the relationship, and feels emotionally connected to the perpetrator.

Child-victims might split off parts that keep the abuse separate from their feelings of love and appreciation.  It’s hard to genuinely care about someone who is hurting and abusing you, but child victims often have to manage both of these scenarios. They might split off parts to deny the abuse, so they don’t have to remember the violence.

And after living that dynamic for years of time, survivors lose the ability to recognize who or what a perpetrator is.  They grow up feeling responsible for pleasing perpetrators, learning how to tolerate abusers instead of learning how to leave perpetrators. They grow up believing that attaching and bonding to a dangerous person is critical for their own life.

Attachment to the perpetrator creates many layers of confusion for many years to come.  It is a critical area of healing that requires a great deal of work in the therapy setting.

Do they love their abuser?  Do they hate their abuser?  Do they recognize their abuser as an abuser? Can they recognize who in the world is or isn’t an abuser?  Can they leave their abuser?  Can they bond with a non-abuser?

Even as adults, far too many DID survivors can no longer separate who is who.  They will live a life connecting to one abuser after another, yet they won’t be able to recognize a safe person when they meet one.  DID survivors may feel more comfort in the victim role, and they may prefer the familiarity of abusive relationships over the strange unknown of safe relationships.  Or, they may assume that all people are abusers, and thus miss out on the opportunity to learn the difference between a safe person and a perpetrator.

Every DID survivor has attached to at least one perpetrator in their lifetime, and probably more than one.

It is critical to work on this trauma dynamic in therapy.  This work is essential for healing.  Otherwise, DID survivors will feel a high degree of comfort with perpetrators, and will not be able to stay connected to a safe person when they meet one.  Or, they’ll accuse a safe person of becoming a perpetrator.

There are a lot of different possibilities, most of them ending up as relationship disasters.

In order to have any chance at having successful social relationships, dissociative trauma survivors absolutely must address the attachment they feel to their perpetrators.

The health of your future relationships depend on it.

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By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

July 4, 2009

20 Signs of Unresolved Trauma

Posted in Depression, DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, mental health, Self Injury, therapy, Trauma tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 8:14 pm by Kathy Broady


Many people enter the therapy process with minimal awareness of their trauma history.  When the trauma survivors are dissociative, they have the ability to block out an awareness of their trauma.  They may know that their family had problems, or that their family was dysfunctional, etc, but they may believe they were never abused.

However, blocking out conscious awareness of trauma does not mean that the survivors have no effects of that trauma.  Using denial and dissociative skills does not mean that the abuse did not happen.  Denial means that the person simply is refusing to acknowledge or accept the fact that they were traumatized.  They are pretending they were not hurt, when they were actually hurt very badly.

Even if the memories of abuse are hidden from the survivor’s awareness, blocked trauma / unresolved trauma creates very noticeable and obvious symptoms that can be easily seen in their every day lives.

People will enter therapy aware of some of the following symptoms, but they may not realize these complications are suggestive of unresolved trauma issues:

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1. Addictive behaviors – excessively turning to drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, gambling as a way to push difficult emotions and upsetting trauma content further away.

2. An inability to tolerate conflicts with others – having a fear of conflict, running from conflict, avoiding conflict, maintaining skewed perceptions of conflict

3. An inability to tolerate intense feelings, preferring to avoid feeling by any number of ways

4. An innate belief that they are bad, worthless, without value or importance

5. Black and white thinking, all or nothing thinking, even if this approach ends up harming themselves

6. Chronic and repeated suicidal thoughts and feelings

7. Disorganized attachment patterns – having a variety of short but intense relationships, refusing to have any relationships, dysfunctional relationships, frequent love/hate relationships

8. Dissociation, spacing out, losing time, missing time, feeling like you are two completely different people (or more than two)

9. Eating disorders – anorexia, bulimia, obesity, etc

10. Excessive sense of self-blame – taking on inappropriate responsibility as if everything is their fault, making excessive apologies

11. Inappropriate attachments to mother figures or father figures, even with dysfunctional or unhealthy people

12. Intense anxiety and repeated panic attacks

13. Intrusive thoughts, upsetting visual images, flashbacks, body memories / unexplained body pain, or distressing nightmares

14. Ongoing, chronic depression

15. Repeatedly acting from a victim role in current day relationships

16. Repeatedly taking on the rescuer role, even when inappropriate to do so

17. Self-harm, self-mutilation, self-injury, self-destruction

18. Suicidal actions and behaviors, failed attempts to suicide

19. Taking the perpetrator role / angry aggressor in relationships

20. Unexplained but intense fears of people, places, things

.

These same symptoms can be applied for survivors already working in therapy.  Attending regular therapy does not mean the clients have resolved their trauma issues or that they are even working in that general direction.  Many therapy clients will continue to deny, dissociate, and refuse to look at their trauma even if they are aware of their daily struggles.

If you are experiencing a number of the symptoms listed above, ask yourself if you are truly ready to address your trauma issues, or if you find it more comfortable to continue living with these struggles.

Is it harder to face how you were abused and who abused you?  Or is it harder to live a life full of depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide, troubled relationships, extreme fears, physical pain, and addictions?

Running from your trauma history will not help you feel better.  In the short-run, you might not have to face the issues, but the cost in the long-run of unresolved trauma weighs more heavily than you might suspect.

Your life can be better than it is.

Be brave – face your trauma issues!

__________

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

June 25, 2009

When a Perpetrator Dies….

Posted in DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Self Injury, Trauma tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 8:26 pm by Kathy Broady


Did you experience the social earthquake today?

The sudden death of Michael Jackson today has caught everyone by surprise.

Will he be more remembered as the King of Pop?  Or will he be forever remembered as a suspected child molester?

Everyone will have strong views about it, I’m sure.  I can’t even begin to imagine all the controversies that are going to be brought back to the surface.

The death of a famous celebrity icon affects so many people.  Early unexpected deaths of the rich and famous create a public stir for months and years to come.  Everyone talks about it.  Even twitter was overloaded with the breaking news. Anyone that sang and danced along with some of his songs will feel the loss.  Every choreographer will feel a sting and sadness.  We’ll see new books, new articles, new blog posts.  His face will be on magazine covers and newspaper headlines and in every version of media that we have.

In fact, it’s already on the news, online, in twitter, in chatrooms, on the radio, on television, in blogs – the news is everywhere!  Everyone is talking about it, and everyone is asking everyone else if they have heard about it.

Even Farrah Fawcett’s death today will be overshadowed by the controversial Jackson’s death.

Thousands and thousands and thousands of people will feel the reverberations of the news.  It’s like a social earthquake.

While maybe not as public or as clearly visible, the death of a perpetrator can wreak havoc on a survivor’s life, also for days and months and years to come.  For trauma survivors with dissociative identity disorder, all the different parts within the internal system will feel the news with just as much shock.

Sometimes, abuse victims feel safer talking and telling about their trauma after their perpetrator dies.  I don’t know if or how that will apply to the children near the Michael Jackson situation, but it is very common with other survivors of sexual abuse.

When survivors feel intimidated by, scared of, threatened by their perpetrators, it is not unusual for those survivors to keep the secrets of their abuse tucked inside them until after their perpetrators pass away.

Survivors may do this purposefully, or their dissociative walls may simply have been strong enough to hold all that information back even without the survivor’s awareness.

Survivors with DID systems will often feel all kinds of internal changes taking place with the death of a major perpetrator.  There will be all kinds of internal movement, and shifting.  There will be an internal earthquake.

How do survivors with dissociative identity disorder experience this earthquake?

A.  Noticeable Decrease in Dissociation
Deaths of perpetrators can make dissociative walls crumble, emphasizing the point that those dissociative walls were there for safety and survival reasons in the first place.

When there is less likelihood of ongoing abuse, the need for dissociative walls is decreased significantly.  When the walls come down, the now-unblocked information reconnects back to the parts that initially dissociated it away.  Different parts of the system will be learning all kinds of new information, and experiencing new feelings.

B.   Memories of abuse, incident after incident, can come crashing through.  PTSD flashbacks and other PTSD symptoms will increase.

Why does this happen?

After the fear of dealing with their perpetrator in current day life subsides, and once the survivor feels safer, all kinds of memories can come flooding back.  Child parts or even older parts with trauma memories will come to the surface, each wanting, hoping for, needing time to talk about what happened to them.  The host of the system may feel overwhelmed by the sudden need of so many trauma-holding parts to have time to talk, and needing time to heal.  The pain attached to these parts will be intense.

C.  Increased Activity by Internal Introjects
Internal introjects may be kicked into greater action, feeling the need to replace the external perpetrator by taking a more vigorous role in the daily life of the dissociative survivor.  Some internal introjects were taught and trained to respond when the external perpetrator was no longer visible.  The internal perpetrator introject will try to carry on in the same manner, just to keep the status quo.

D.  The Emergence of New Alter Personalities
New alters may finally feel brave enough to step forward and speak about their life story, including trauma memories.  They may not have felt comfortable appearing until the perpetrator was dead and gone.

E. Increased Denial
While some parts may be happy and thrilled about the death of the perpetrator, other parts will fight that reality with all their being.  These parts with an attachment to the perpetrator will need time to explore and process their feelings, and to explain why they were so connected to the perpetrators.  Oftentimes, these are the parts that were treated kindly, and any abuse would have been framed in a more positive connotation.  These parts simply will not want to accept or believe that the external perpetrator is dead.  They will see the internal introject of the perpetrator and transfer much of their loyalty to this part.

F. Increased Pull for Self-Harm and Suicidal Activity
Many survivors will react to the death of a perpetrator with increased self-harm or suicidal activity.  The self-harm could be a physical effort of shoving back all the memories and feelings, to regain control.  It could also be an acting out of the trauma memories they are experiencing.  Sometimes survivors feel pulled to commit suicide from the need to be with their dead perpetrator.  When a survivor is experiencing these symptoms, it is imperative to work through the historical causes and beliefs that are supporting such extreme behaviors.

G. Emotional Relief
While experiencing safety from ongoing abuse of this perpetrator, the healthiest goal is for survivors to feel their sadness, their pain, their fear, their anger, etc.  So many feelings get contained away, but once it becomes ok to feel, there is a big release when those feelings can surface.  When survivors can truly allow themselves to address their fear, their anger, and grieve the loss of their perpetrator, they will be much further down the road in their emotional recovery.

All these internal events certainly cause emotional earthquakes in the lives of dissociative trauma survivors.  All of these issues can be addressed effectively in therapy, and many of these issues can be avoided by preparing ahead of time.

If you haven’t worked on breaking the bonds with your perpetrators until after they die, you will have a harder time after their death.  If you have worked on these issues ahead of time, the emotional earthquake won’t be as devastating.

__________

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

June 20, 2009

Believing a Lie – the Foundation of Dissociation

Posted in DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, mental health, Physical Abuse, Ritual Abuse, sexual abuse, Trauma, trauma therapist tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 12:22 pm by Kathy Broady


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What makes it difficult for trauma survivors with dissociative identity disorder to know the truth?

How easy is it to trick someone with DID with a lie?

When are survivors lying to themselves?

When does dissociation block out information to know the difference?

When does pain, especially emotional pain, become the deciding factor in what survivors believe, regardless of truth?

When does the viciousness of perpetrators demand and create particular beliefs and realities?

Is dissociation built on lying to yourself?

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I recently saw a situation where a DID survivor could not accept the truth.   Despite the facts that pointed to the obvious, the dissociative survivor was determined to believe what her closest confidants had said.  She trusted these loved ones completely, but these were the very people who were completely invested in hiding the secret from her.  Accepting the truth would have been far too painful, and she fought that reality with all the strength and vigor that she had.  She was angry.  She threw out rationalizations.  She projected blame onto others. She railed back through time, pulling out circumstantial evidence that could support her beliefs. She argued like a court room lawyer.  She completely protected her position with every psychological defense available to her.

And she believed the lie.

Because to not believe the lie would have been utterly and completely devastating for her.

So she couldn’t let herself go there.  Not even for a moment.

She absolutely, without question, had to deny the truth and hear only what she could stand to hear.  She had to stay true to her preferred beliefs and rationalizations.  She couldn’t risk losing everything by believing the conflicting information.  The cost of believing the truth was too high.  To believe the truth would have hurt too much, so it was necessary for her to completely refute the truth.

At first I wondered how this survivor could be so staunchly set in her beliefs, even in the face of clear and direct evidence of the contrary.  I marveled at the intensity of her denial, and felt a deep sadness for her.  I was amazed at how completely sold she was on the lie – she would have fought to the death to defend that as truth.

But then I understood.

Believing the truth would have been enormously painful for her.

She would have had to believe that her loved ones betrayed her – that they hurt her beyond comprehension.

How could she believe that?

It would have cost her too much.  To accept the betrayal would have meant she was alone.  It would have completely broken her heart. It would have meant her loved ones abused her.  It would have meant that her trust and faith in them was shattered. It would have created an emotional pain so huge that her body would have felt seared to the core.  It would have left her feeling broken on more levels than words can say.

She would have wanted to die before accepting that truth as a reality.

Yet the truth was so obvious that it seemed undeniable, so it was mind boggling to see the intensity of the denial that could prevent her from seeing the truth standing right before her eyes.

And then I realized I was seeing something stronger than denial.

I was seeing the beginning of a dissociative split.

Dissociation – complete dissociation – is an emotional protection strategy that totally and completely removes painful realities from the mind and body of the survivor.

When the pain of accepting a trauma is too huge, dissociative people split.  They get rid of the excruciatingly painful information by dissociating it.  They don’t accept it as happening to them, and they make it be gone.

They completely refute the truth even as it is happening to them, and they completely separate that painful reality from themselves, blocking it off, locking it away, keeping it as far from themselves as possible.  Thick dissociative walls keep that horrendous information away from them.  It protects them from feeling that unbearable pain.

If they don’t want to believe they were being sexually abused, or physically abused, or spiritually abused, or emotionally abused, or ritually abused, they use that same intensity to tell themselves it wasn’t happening to them.  It doesn’t belong to them.  It was happening to someone else – anyone else – just not to them.

They weren’t betrayed by their loved ones.  They weren’t hurt and destroyed by their loved ones.  That just didn’t happen.  Not to them.  And if it happened to somebody else, they didn’t want to know about it.  Not now, not ever.  That bad news had to be totally and completely separated from themselves.  It had to belong to someone that was not them.   It could NOT be happening to them.

And so they protect themselves from the heart-wrenching truth.

They need to believe the lie.  They want to believe the lie.  The lie feels better than the truth.

Believing the lie that “it didn’t happen” is the very foundation of dissociation.

As understandable as it may be, every time you split, you believed the lie that it wasn’t happening to you.

Ouch.

It still hurts.  It hurts a lot.

And yet, finding the courage to face the truth in the present is as necessary for your healing as dissociating the truth away once was necessary for your survival.

__________

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

April 26, 2009

Expressing Anger Instead of Pain

Posted in DID Education, DID/MPD, Dissociative Identity Disorder, HBO's Series "In Treatment", therapy, Therapy and Counseling, trauma therapist tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 4:37 pm by Kathy Broady


Every now and then, Dr. Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) from HBO’s series, “In Treatment” comes out with a good line, full of depth, and accurate to the therapy process.

In one of the episodes I saw this week, Dr. Weston says, “Is it easier to be angry with me than to look at your own pain?”  His client was throwing all kinds of angry jabs at him when clearly she was angry, upset, and miserable about her own life.

Even though it was said on television, that line has a lot of truth in it.

Is it easier to be angry with me than to look at your own pain?

I realize that most of you reading this blog are not connected enough with me — Kathy — to make me a likely target for your anger.  Frankly, I appreciate that.  Believe me, I’m not “volunteering” to be the target.

But, have a think about the people that are closer to you — the people that are more visible in your life.

Is it easier to be angry with your therapist than to look at your own pain?
Is it easier to be angry with your spouse than to look at your own pain?
Is it easier to be angry with your friend than to look at your own pain?
Is it easier to be angry with your boss than to look at your own pain?
Is it easier to be angry with a stranger than to look at your own pain?
Is it easier to be angry with yourself than to look at your own pain?

So many people want to deflect their pain by pointing at other people, blaming other people, and being angry with other people.  It’s often too hard to sit with your own pain without doing that.

What makes anger easier to express than pain?

How many times have you argued with or fussed at your therapist when you were in deep pain?

What makes your therapist a safe enough person to be the target of your anger?

For people with DID (dissociative identity disorder), it is even more complicated because there are often insiders with memories of pain that they want to talk about, and the host / front alter part may not want to hear about it.  Host parts can get angry and upset with their therapists for listening to the inside ones.  Why is this so often the case?

Are you getting angry at your therapist instead of looking at your own pain?

Listening to all that a person says is an important part of therapy.  Would you rather your therapist not listen to your inner parts?  Isn’t that the same as asking your therapist to not listen to you as a whole person?   Why should your therapist talk to some of you, but not all of you, especially if those others want to talk about the pain that they are feeling?  Why should they be ignored, neglected, shunned?

What if your therapist listened and talked to them, but not to you?  It probably wouldn’t go over so well if the shoe were on the other foot.

See, even though you are switching, and you feel very much like different people, your therapist will still see you as the same basic person.  While there may be some parts of your system that are more involved with the current day / outside world than others, everyone in your system is still important, and everyone can have their say.

Of course, part of the difficulty here is that some of the insiders speak about things that the host is very very uncomfortable with.  Sometimes the insiders speak of trauma memories that the host doesn’t want to hear about.  Sometimes the insiders speak of ongoing abuse, or abuse by a loved one.  Sometimes the very speaking about abuse at all is more than the host wants to hear.

Another common reason that dissociative trauma survivors express anger at their therapist is because expressing anger at their perpetrators is too complicated.  Displacing and projecting anger at your therapists instead of your perpetrators may help to find some version of release of anger, but it isn’t really going to get to the root of the problem, so it’s not going to get the kind of resolution that you might be looking for.

Expressing anger at the people that hurt you — while one might think that should be easy — is actually very difficult for survivors with dissociative disorders.  There are a number of different reasons for this:

  • The violent, sadistic abuser is still alive and still poses a threat.  If you are overwhelmed by your fear of this person, it is harder to feel safe enough to be angry with them.
  • You may have been threatened with great harm and more violence if you expressed anger or irritation with your perpetrators.  This “rule” is hard to overcome.
  • You may be too dissociated from your trauma memories to really know who your perpetrators are.  When this is the case, you are at risk of expressing your anger at the wrong people.
  • Due to the complications of your family dynamics and trauma memories, you might feel too trapped by your own guilt, or shame, or humiliation to feel able to be angry at anyone else.

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Emotions can be very complex and finding a way to safely and honestly express your pain and your anger may take a lot of work and practice.

The next time you are angry at your therapist, think about what Dr. Weston words, “Is it easier to be angry with me than to look at your own pain?”

.
__________

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

March 19, 2009

What do you think about Suicide?

Posted in Depression, mental health, Mind Control, Self Injury, therapy, Therapy and Counseling, Trauma tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , at 5:23 pm by Kathy Broady


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Suicide is a difficult topic.

All too many trauma survivors feel drawn to it.

Mental health professionals fight against it.

Insurance companies dismiss it.

Religions disagree about it.

The world out there doesn’t know how to interpret it.  The world does not know how to talk about it.  It’s controversial and complex.  There are no simple answers.

Who’s to blame for it?  The individual?  The parents?  The treating physicians?  The perpetrators that caused the initial pain?  The spouse or other family members?

And do we have to have someone to blame?

When you think about suicide, do you think that it is…

  • A last resort?
  • Abusive?
  • Ambivalent?
  • An avoidance?
  • Comforting?
  • Controlled?
  • Depressing?
  • Destructive?
  • Devastating?
  • Discouraging?
  • Disrespectful?
  • Good?
  • Heartbreaking?
  • Horrifying?
  • Isolating?
  • Lonely?
  • Manipulative?
  • Overwhelming?
  • Painful?
  • Peaceful?
  • Punishing?
  • Relieving?
  • Reluctant?
  • Right?
  • Scary?
  • Selfish?
  • Someone’s right to choose?
  • Stupid?
  • Tragic?
  • Upsetting?
  • Wrong?
  • An option?
  • Never an option?
  • A compulsion?
  • Something outside of your control?
  • Your destiny?

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If you have ever truly cared for someone who has committed suicide, your life will be forever changed.

I am convinced that one of the absolutely most painful and devastating traumatic heartbreaks is to have a loved one commit suicide.  The surviving friends and family members are left with questions that will forever remain unanswered.   Children whose parents commit suicide are forever scarred, and parents whose children commit suicide are forever in gut-wrenching pain.

If you are suicidal, please get help immediately.

Your life matters more than you realize.

There is hope for you.

There is help for you.
.

———-

By:

Kathy Broady LCSW

www.AbuseConsultants.com

www.SurvivorForum.com

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