I believe having DID falls under the neurodivergent umbrella, but at the same time it is a mental illness that can cause a great deal of distress. So, is Dissociative Identity Disorder divergent or disordered?
Tag: anxiety
Poetry & Trauma: It Is Hard to Write with a Broken Heart
This week my debut poetry book, “Pet: the Journey from Abuse to Recovery” comes out. The poetry sequence takes you through my experiences in an abusive relationship, my attempts to heal, my retrospective reflections on the relationship, and the larger-scale insights that came with long-term healing. To introduce it, I wanted to share with you this piece about what it took to write that book in the first place. CN: extensive and detailed discussion of …Read More
New Merch: Emotional Support Kitties & More
We have two new merch items available for you now! A few months ago, I was working on a cute painting of two cats while I was also doing everything in my power to try to get an application for a property I wanted to rent, approved. We had a suspicion that they might be making it difficult for us to get approved because they didn’t want to house our Emotional Support Animal, Rosa. We …Read More
Why I Stopped Taking Gabapentin
I am updating and republishing some of my early articles from this blog. Please enjoy this article, originally published under the title “Color” in March of 2017, about the early days of my chronic pain journey. CN: extensive discussion of the experience of anxiety, chronic pain, medication side effects, and medical neglect. Duloxetine was the first pain medication my doctor ever prescribed me, an anti-depressant that can sometimes help with pain. A year after I …Read More
What Does Dissociation Feel Like?
CN: extensive and detailed descriptions of what disordered dissociation can feel like; extensive discussion of Dissociative Identity Disorder, amnesia, and mental health management in general; specific examples of abuse; general discussion of trauma and chronic pain. Added note of caution: Some people who struggle with dissociation find that reading detailed descriptions of dissociation can bring on those symptoms for them. Read at your own pace and take care of yourself. For as long as I …Read More
Early Signs That I Had Dissociative Identity Disorder
CN: extensive discussion of the symptoms and experince of dissociative identity disorder, such as dissociation, trauma flash backs, amnesia, anxiety, and extreme emotional fluctuations. Dissociative Identity Disorder is a really unique and amazing mental illness, or as we like to call it, a survival mechanism. In most of the media portrayals of DID, the separate identities are dramatically and obviously different, switches are highly visible, and the host is constantly disoriented by their blackouts and …Read More
Everything You Need to Know About Boundaries
The topic of boundaries comes up quite a lot during discussions about trauma and mental health but even therapists can skimp on the details of how to actually formulate, set, and enforce boundaries! It took me many years to learn that a boundary is not a tool to control the actions of others or to prevent harm from ever reaching me. It is an agreement that I make with myself about how I expect to …Read More
The Things Our Pets Can Teach Us About Self-Care
CN: General discussion of food and healthy eating habits, mental health, and the emotional impact of the pandemic, brief mention of bodily functions, and white supremacy. Extensive discussion of rats including photos! Everything happening in the world at the moment is a lot and it can be easy to default to just disconnecting from current events, or pushing through without taking care of yourself which can result in burnout. Neither of these extremes is ideal. …Read More
Article on Medium: Why Does Everything Feel So Hard Right Now If I’m Fine
When social-distancing first started, I figured, besides my anxiety about the virus itself, my life wouldn’t change a huge amount and the transition would probably be easy for me. My work is already remote, my financial situation is stable, and my partner and I are pretty used to co-existing in our apartment for long periods of time. Almost immediately, I found that if I didn’t work hard to use my systems and tools meant to …Read More
Coping with Covid: Learning to Find Comfort Amidst the Unknown
CN: Extensive discussion of the mental and financial impact of Covid19, mention of existing oppressive systems. I tend to have a pretty hard time during a national or global crisis. My primary method of deprogramming my anxiety that has been my baseline for as long as I can remember has been teaching myself that the external causes of that perpetual state of fear are long gone and I’m safe now. When something happens that genuinely …Read More