I need to blog more about today then yesterday.

            I started this blog several weeks ago with the intention of keeping a daily account of my feelings, thoughts and how I am progressing in my healing. While I know it is normal to have flashbacks and all that, it seems that all I have been posting are things that I remember about my past. Yes, this does involve my past however I don’t write about what I do, how I spend my day as someone who has PTDS and DID. This I need to do more often, and if there is something that happens like a flashback not to focus so much on what the flashback was but to focus on what I can learn from it and use it to better understand who I am. What I need to do is to go ahead and tell what the flashback was about, how I stayed grounded, what I did to move on from that flashback and how I was able to keep my alters contained without them coming out but rather let them know that it is okay and that today is not yesterday. So here is going to be my first blog with how my day was.

            My day started with me waking up to several of the kids bopping into bed to wake dad up, that and the dogs who love to kiss any exposed part of my face. I woke up about a half hour before the last of the eight children were getting on the bus for their day at school. I felt as if I had a bad night sleep, but the only thing I remember about my dream was something about bed bugs and cockroaches. I think that came from the fact we are going to New York this weekend to take our exchange student down to meet her mother for a day. It’s really nice as she is making it all expense paid for us which is not really that much, but it would be too much for us to afford. In any case, I had read an article about bed bugs and what to do when you arrive at a hotel. So from my bed downstairs I made it upstairs to head to the boys room and start my day. When I went upstairs my wife reminded me that we needed to leave in twenty minutes because she was going to help her mother around the house, leave my three year old son there and would go to my 1:00 appointment from there and since it was on the way she wanted me to come and save gas.

            Once we arrived at her mother’s house, I went in bringing my laptop with me and set it up in the living room as I always do when we go there for any length of time. I am not sure if it was my Agoraphobia kicking in but I was shaking terrible. So bad that even to use my mouse to center on something became a big challenge. I don’t use the touchpad on my laptop but rather a trackball so all I need to do is roll it and not worry about using one finger. I called my wife over and asked if I looked like I was shaking as bad as I felt and she said no, but when she place her hand on my arm and leg she said she could feel me shaking like I was out in the cold. This always happens about two hours before going out to any public place, and my appointment is no different. As long as I am in my home, in my truck or at my in-laws which are places that I know I can be safe it does not bother me to leave the house. However if I go to a store I can drive but I can’t get out to inside no matter who is with me. So like I said, I was shaking pretty bad at this point I sat down and had a cigarette in hopes it would calm me down, it did not just like it never does and I had taken my meds well before this so they would have kicked in by now. So we left for my counselors’ appointment arriving just one minute late, better then the usual five to ten. I was nervous as expected but went into take a seat, walking with my head looking at the carpet as if I am a little boy being led into a principal’s office not wanting anyone to see.

            When we sat down, she asked me what we wanted to discuss in today’s session. I had brought along my wife because I wanted to discuss a fight that we had two days prior in which I was acting out, or I should say my alter came out, and what was said and done. I then told her I wanted to talk about the face change that I had while my son was yelling at me. She explained that what happened was I had a mental flashback where I was seeing my brothers face rather then my son. It was as if the alters projected in my mind the sight of my brother and this is how my mind was processing, even though it was not true and consciously I knew who it was my son but my mind did not. We discussed a few other things, but like with my memory I do not recall everything we talked about. I am considering purchasing an electronic recording device so I can have it to remember topics at least. For some reason ages and abuses were brought up, I believe we were talking about reasons my sister and I were left alone with my brother. I stopped mid sentence when I mentioned that both my parents and grandparents flew to Florida and that this may have been the time of my actual rape at age fifteen. I immediately started to drift off as I always do when I sink into myself and loose conscious with the real world, often allowing one of my alters come out and take over. This time it did not happen because I was being talked to, “Ed are you here”  and “Ed we are in my office” and as I listened to the voices I stayed focused moving my eyes and feeling the arms of the chair I was sitting in. When it was over and I was in the present, we talked a little about how I was able to stay grounded which I have not done in a long time. We also talked about what that might mean to me, knowing that I am the person who has to know everything like times, dates, places or what may have been going on at some time. We also talked about my depression because the deep depression has been plaguing me for days on end and how I just sit around the house on my computer or sleeping to sleep it off. What she gave me to do at this point was to give me home work to do some cleaning of some type fifteen minutes a day, twice a day and to make it a strong effort to move. You see, I have not been moving very much in fact letting my depression run my life as if I was dead, a zombie if you will. And trust me, when you live like a Zombie all you think about is the negative things and that only brings you down even more. So starting tomorrow I will do this, whether it is cleaning or even moving about the house picking up something like dishes it will be me doing my homework.

            When we got home the kids we all starting to return from school first the older kids and finally the younger ones. I decided to move my laptop upstairs to be more around for the kids as they always see daddy sitting downstairs in his dark cave. So I sat upstairs listening to some old songs on YouTube thinking about the past as I normally did and thus wrote about it in my last blog. What I was doing was not really anything different then sitting downstairs thinking or dwelling in the past, letting my past get the better of me. It was just me and the kids for a better part of the afternoon and evening so after I wrote my blog post, I shut the computer down, text messaged a friend from my work and basically watched television with my kids, it was the Disney channel, but at least I was up being a father.

            So to sum today up, I learned from my flashback that I was left alone with my brother even though mother knew and that it was not my fault as I have been feeling. She gave him the time, space and opportunity to abuse my sister and I and he used what she had given him. I learned that one of the most important things I need to do is to stay grounded. I learned this during my three week stay in a Maryland hospital and quickly forgot how to do this and how important it is to remember to continue to do this. I learned that depression, as deep as I have it may be lessened if I give my mind something to do and stop thinking about my past or trying to stay focused so I don't see or think of something that could trigger a flashback. I learned that it is okay to think about the past but it is best to contain it as soon as I do when I am able to bring it out in a more controlled setting. I also realized that I don’t need to stay in my cave away from the family that the upstairs is safe also, as long as there are no fights or fighting. Had to mention that, why not right! Well that is going to be it for tonight, we will see how tomorrow plays out and what life has in store for me. Until Next Time….