New Things, Old Trauma...

[Ranger] We hit a really low point in January. We considered seeking partial hospitalization. However, after talking to Gray's brother we hung on for just a bit longer. It payed off in the long run, but January was still rough. Our depression was possibly the worst it has ever been- back to laying in bed most of the day and doing nothing.

We finally achieved a theraputic dose that started to help us. We have been increasing the dose of our new medication for months. Our depression eased a bit, which was good timing given that February was dedicated to packing for the move

We felt better in general. I was less sour, more social, and did some art stuff. Gray is feeling better too. While we spend a lot of time in bed, we do actually do things. Well, at least before Dream took over for awhile lol

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From a trauma work perspective, things have been wild and messy lately.

Dream hit a snag first. Things got complicated relating to his Architect clone, and some underlying issues sprung up.

And then I split again, but this time I didn't believe it happened until almost 3 weeks later.

I had a panic attack over what initially seemed like me being tired. Late at night while really tired, I had an idea about cocreation- I shouldn't be worried, cocreation is harmless. I was eager to act on that in the morning. Once in bed, I suddenly panicked. I had the worst case of intrusive thoughts ever. The intrusive thoughts were so bad I couldn't focus, or even watch a YouTube video. During that I feared I split. After calling a crisis line and calming down, I decided to entertain the idea I split just so I could get some sleep. After some rest, I thought it was all bs and it was just an unreasonable fear. For almost 3 weeks.

Yeah... it wasn't. Dream said I split (he struggled because his Dream the clone part was trying to build trust with his Architect part, so Dream the clone felt obligated to side with the Architect), Gray supported me but had his doubts, and Jared said I split implying I was full of bs. And after 3 weeks of angering my split and an alter created to to help us connect, I realized that yes, I did split.

About that cocreation idea- it's wrong. Cocreation can absolutely be harmful. You can hurt yourself with bad mindsets, feel closeted, disturb your sense of self, and so on. I liked the idea because I didn't want to believe what I love hurts people. However, after talking to my split, she gave the metaphor of cocreation being like an extreme sport: be transparent on the dangers, and be there to help steer people away from hurting themselves.

At this point I don't fully understand the trauma response and why I split. The trauma reaction to that idea is more complicated than just my feelings on cocreation. My split helped me realize it's because of a belief about myself, but I don't know what that belief is. Yes... I haven't had the chance to fix myself, even though it's been almost 2 months since I split.

After working things out with my alters so things were stable, Dream melted down again. It started with mostly me and my alters accidentally triggering him. And things went downhill from there.

Dream isn't comfortable with me sharing the details, but it was a huge mess. Gray got tangled into this to the point we didn't want him to switch in. Dream spent 2 and 1/2 weeks staying switched-in to do trauma work. He finally switched out once things were stable and he was too exhausted to make much more meaningful progress (as well as getting sick of packing boxes lol).

While splitting and these melt downs are frustrating, they aren't necessarily surprising at this point. After Gray's first split, we were told by another system doing trauma work and being stressed can cause splitting. However, this will go away and we shouldn't panic. We wonder if doing trauma work caused our trauma to float up closer to the surface, making it more likely to cause problems like splitting.

I don't want to walk around entertaining the idea anything could be a split, and I don't have to. My alter made a list of what makes a split situation different from intrusive thoughts. One thing coming to mind is my alter pointing out going along with believing this is a split situation makes things less stressful instead of more stressful, the latter being intrusive thoughts. My alter wrote other things too, but I feel that list is too personalized to be useful to other systems.

On the bright side, we came up with an idea on how to prevent future splitting. (Given how long this post is I'll explain in the next one)

Posted 3/21/24