United States of Tara Update

I am always interested in how people stumble across my blog. Lately I have a lot of people ending up on here that are using the search "United States of Tara" and "ISSTD" so I feel like I should put an end all statement out there.

First, a disclaimer. I am not affiliated with ISSTD at all and any opinion of mine does not reflect my opinion of ISSTD. Therapist is involved in ISSTD but nothing I have written here reflects her opinion or affiliation with ISSTD.

Ok, legal mumble jumble aside...have you guys watched? I told myself that I was going to refuse to watch it so that Showtime would not have my TV tuned in for ratings. However, my boyfriend has heard me speaking about this show but not my opinion and thought I would want to watch it so he set DirectTV to record the series. I considered ignoring it and telling him I wasn't interested but then I got the idea that maybe it would be interesting to see what someone without DID thought (especially since he does not know I have DID). We watched it and I was appalled nonetheless, and he was really uninterested in it. He commented on how it had potential to be a sad and dramatic show and that he could care less about watching it again. He said some parts of it were funny but nothing was that great to keep him watching. I felt extremely satisfied that his response was such, but I decided to test the waters by telling him that it was a very inaccurate portrayal of DID. His response to that wasn't all that surprising. He thought it was and began to use words like "split personality" in which I had to give him a long explanation about what DID is and how it is different from schizophrenia. He felt satisfied by my explanation and deemed to never watch again.

So, initially when I saw the interview with Dr. Kluft on Showtimes website and then posted on the ISSTD website I was outraged. I felt as though one of my own was against me and it hurt my feelings. After thinking about it for a long time I realized that this is just one person's explanation and view on things, it doesn't matter that he is an 'expert'. He has never lived a day in his life with the experiences of DID and that he has only witnessed people's experience. I will not claim to know his intentions of affiliation and consultation with the series, nor do I really care. He doesn't represent all treatment providers or even ISSTD for that matter. He is just a guy that works in the field who is entitled to his opinion just like me, although I DO know what DID is like. I've spent a lot of time and energy being worked up and angry over all of this but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter because I am doing my part, I have a public blog about my experiences and I spend a lot of time educating people in my personal life. DID is not my crusade to fight and the more I try to make it mine the more I am doing to myself exactly what I don't want for my life, defining myself as the "DID girl". It's only one aspect of my life and I don't need to label myself.

So that is that. :-)

United States of Tara

You may or may not have heard of the new Showtime Series "United Sates of Tara" for a more thorough reading of what Showtime says this show is about, click here. For a visual you can watch the trailer, here. Now, I had first heard of this show about a year ago and I felt a little odd about it. I was unsure of the networks ability to accurately portray DID and at that point it wasn't even mentioned as being a comedy. Well, they have finally began to market the show and are releasing it soon. An avid reader of mine (as well as a VERY good friend) , Bravehearts, was kind enough to e-mail me the information about the show and get me all fired up about this. In the trailer you can see that Toni Collette's character drastically changes between a truck driver like alter, a promiscuous teen and a Martha Stewart stand in. She changes everything about her appearance and it's so over the top it makes me sick. What makes it even worse in the director talking about why it's important to make comedy's about sensitive subject matter.

I became enraged and I took some action. I e-mailed the information to Therapist who is actually a big part (I'd mention her titles, but I don't want to out her) of ISSTD and she forwarded it on to the incoming president as well as the Executive Committee to see if they could do anything about this. Bravehearts and her therapist e-mailed Showtime directly expressing their concerns and they both were sent a standard response from Showtime in which they had the audacity to spell dissociation wrong, they spelled it 'disassociation'. Morons. They even claimed to have an expert advising them on DID. However, no one in the ISSTD community knows them so therefore they must not be an expert. And Therapist has written her own little schpeal to Showtime. She has not told me their response yet, however we both assume it will be the same bull-crap Bravehearts received.

I just need to say very clearly why this show makes me angry. I just need to get it off my chest.

1. There is nothing of comedic value about living a life with DID.
While people whom experience the trials of living with this disorder may find humor in some of their every day experiences no one would write a comedy about this. DID requires treatment, tons of money, painful therapy and re-negotiating your entire life to live less dysfunctionally. Humor? Where?

2. DID is simply not funny.
Excuse the sarcasm, but WOW, a disorder stemming from severe childhood trauma such as sexual abuse, rape, molestation, neglect, abandonment, child prostitution, ritual abuse, witnessing murder, domestic violence and much more is HILARIOUS. Give me a break.

3. It's complicated enough to educate the public.
After 3 Faces of Eve and Sybil it's been nearly impossible to educate people on what DID really looks like, and to remove the stigma that DID is like schizophrenia. It's NOT like that. Now we are going to make a comedy out of the extremes of DID that is completely inaccurate?

4. Life with DID does not look like Toni Collette.
There are some extremes in DID, like with appearance. Some parts/alters may dress a little differently than others and some maybe talk differently. However, these extremes don't often happen in a way that is noticeable to many people. Most parts that spend their time present in the world do everything in their power not to out themselves because if they were to do that it would jeopardize the whole reason for their existence. Parts/alters exist out of protection to the host and their job is to maintain the host appearance to keep them safe. In therapy or with trustworthy people more drastic changes in personality can be witnessed, but hardly ever do they change everything about their appearance just to be present. ACK!

I am angry. What do you guys think about it?

Internal Meetings, what's the deal?

When I first began treatment for DID I was coached into recognizing the importance of internal communication. I was overwhelmed by the thought of having internal meetings, I mean geesh, how can I listen and talk to ALL those parts at once? I tried relentlessly for weeks to establish a way to accomplish just one quick meet in greet with all the parts I knew about, but no such luck. It often seemed chaotic and loud and I couldn't get all of us on the same page. Finally I expressed this to my psychiatrist at the time, Dr. Richard Loewenstein. He was quick to tell me that I was going about it all wrong, that it needed order and agenda just like any normal business meeting and that in the beginning it wasn't ok to have young child parts in the meeting. He suggested that I come up with a list of rules and expectations and make sure every part read and agreed before the meeting to follow them.

I wrote out a quick list that included speaking at a normal tone of voice, no name-calling and speaking in turn. When I returned to the good old doctor he said it needed more. He suggested that I appointed a leader for the meetings, someone that could be objective and call on parts to speak in turn. He sarcastically said to make one of the rules to "leave all guns at the door". I did just that, and I accomplished my first successful internal meeting. Over time I was able to tweak my meetings and also include younger parts so that their voices may be heard. In the beginning that was all I needed, however in time I have learned how to manage this process much more effectively. I thought I'd share what's worked for me.

General Internal Meetings:

We hold these several times a week, most parts do not attend. My system has many subsystems and each group has an information giver an a leader. Both of these parts attend the general meetings to give status updates and problem solve. We save a portion of time for any other parts that may need to say something to the whole group and we can all offer support or suggestions. We have a note taker that keeps everything up to date and reminds us of an unfinished business from the meeting before. We have one part designated to call on parts in turn. The meeting stays short and we keep it very brief.

In response to a crisis:

When something big is happening that has resulted in acting out, flashbacks, eating disorder (beyond the norm) behaviors, we created and emergency task force. We have parts that are able to call for help if needed, parts that can ground other parts well, parts that can maintain external life while the crisis is being attended to and other parts that can act to get us to safety if need be. All of them come together to make a plan to get things back under control and help get other parts that are triggered to safe places.

Young Parts Meetings:

We have two different versions of these. The first being the normal maintenance. In these meetings we have several older parts that work really well with younger parts get together with the young ones and do a group therapy kind of meeting. Younger parts can talk about what is bothering them in a safe and nurturing setting. They can play while they talk, or they can sit in a circle together. When younger parts are triggered by something, these older parts create a safe room where they all work on grounding and containment together.

Maintenance is key. It's very important to pair parts up or group them together with parts that are stable and in control so that ALL the needs inside are met on a consistent basis. This keeps the chaos down and the likely-hood of acting out to grab attention down. Hope this helps.

"Part of a System...I am"

copyright reserved for picture above

When I was a young boy I tried to listen
And I wanna feel like that,
Little white shadows blink and miss them
Part of a system, I am

If you ever feel like something's missing
Things you'll never understand,
Little white shadows sparkle and glisten,
Part of a system, a plan

Thanks to those of you the read my story, I guess now we can move on to what it's like as someone with DID. I figured the best way to offer this insight was to tell you a little about how my internal system works, and get you familiar with the parts of me that are often active and will more than likely make a presence on this blog.

The first disclaimer I'd like to make is that there is no one way to have a system of DID. Everyone that has it has a different set up internally, a different way of using parts, and a different strategy for coping. I guess this would be the area of complexity for the therapist as they navigate through each system and learn it's uniqueness. Some people with DID have 2-20 parts, some have hundreds. It's not something that can be generalized, however there are often similarities in the types of parts people develop and similarities with their established roles.

To begin with, as of this very moment, I have three separate systems acting internally. Each system serves a purpose from my childhood to cope with various people and situations. The most active system is full of parts that participate in daily activities and has many parts that are 'helpers' and are generally aware of what the current date, time and situations are. Below that layer is another system that holds a lot of traumatic material in relationship to my father, cousins and school years. The system below that is reserved for parts that were created solely to cope with my mother and the trauma she herself inflicted or paid others to inflict. I certainly have more parts to handle than I know what to do with, so a lot of things that happen internally I miss and just get updates from other parts.

When I first started treatment, inside my head felt like an enormous room full of radios that were constantly changing stations. Nothing was discernable as one individual voice speaking, it was just a lot of noise that got louder and louder and drove me insane. Now there are times when only faint chatter can be heard, but generally I can just hear when parts are speaking directly to me or when something has gone wrong. It's not as intrusive and definitely something I can cope with. In fact, I am not sure what it would feel like to not have those sounds there and I imagine it would feel pretty lonely. There is always someone inside that will have an opinion about a decision I make, even over simple choices such as what to wear. How odd it would be to make those decisions...alone.

The better part of my treatment over the past 6 years has been dedicated to figuring out who parts were, what their roles are and how to orient them to the current time and space as well as teaching them symptom management. Each part needed to establish a safe place, a form of containment imagery and pairing them up with a buddy that would be able to assist them in crisis. Essentially we learned how to micro-manage and communicate so that there was not a constant free-for-all and we could function as ONE person and hold a job. The most difficult part of this is that as we change, so do our systems and we often have to realign.

Not to mention, during part of this transition I was still being abused by my mother and trying to break down dissociative barriers was somewhat detrimental. However, that's how it played out and I am stronger for it. I do feel badly for my therapist, she often doesn't understand the game going on in my head and walks into land mines. In the past 2 years though, she has learned a lot about the way I work and she is no longer an outsider, but more of a guide and participant in our systems. It's much more effective now that she knows most of the pieces of my story and can effectively navigate the small brush fires that result in exploration.

With my systems working more efficiently and cohesively there is a lot less parts that are active on any given day. Many parts that hold severely traumatic information are content in their own little worlds until that particular issue comes up. Some parts remain 'dormant' most of the time and the parts that are having a difficult time are handled in therapy and through buddy-ing up with another part to express concerns and feelings.

Key Players

Who inside will visit this blog? Here is some quick info about my most active parts...

Tempy - That's me! I don't really have any connection to specific trauma...I have been an observer and information relay forever. I often communicate difficult information when parts can't muster the emotional energy and formatively I gave our mother information about our internal world. Currently, I offer this information to our therapist and often give her opinions on how she is dealing with certain issues and what she may be missing because she doesn't have the full scope of the situation.

Allie - Simple put, a peacekeeper. Allie knows what is going on with who at any given time and can offer complete solutions to problems. I'd like tho think of her as a Lead Project Coordinator. She is very strong and her strengths with younger parts amaze me. She learned every coping skill ever taught to us and applies it daily.

Charlotte - Oh, Charlotte. Our current crisis. She is a very traumatized part that copes mostly with the relationship and abuse by our mother. She is a very active participant in the eating disorder symptoms and often looses the ability to connect with the present day. She is so amped up these days (and has been for the past year or so) that she influences our daily life often and keeps us on our toes. She holds a lot of information that was previously unknown to us and is key at understand our relationship with our therapist.

Rachel - This would be the part that goes to work and practically runs our daily lives. She has the friendships with people and she presents for therapy 95% of the time. She often lives in a world of denial and cannot handle most of the information inside. She is very emotional and prefers not to remember what has happened. It used to be much stronger, but these days she does try to understand and at least get us what we need. I don't mean to sound negative about her, because she goes through the day-to-day stuff and without her we'd be lost.

Cade - He holds our anger for us. And he makes sure we know that on a regular basis. At this point in our therapy we can (well most of us) can tolerate feelings on a small scale. When an event warrants stronger feelings of anger he tends to take over that role and express is much more frankly than the rest of us are able to. Generally most parts fear anger and it causes such an uproar. He is our extreme to go off of and we are able to regulate our feelings based on what his reaction tends to be.

Julie - She handles our money. Previously this meant giving it all to our mother and never having any to provide for our basic needs. In the past 8 months this role has shifted to a more protective role and she manages this very closely and does an amazing job. She makes sure we have the funds to do what we need and makes it very clear that my mother no longer receives any funds.

Alright, so those are the key players and only about 4% of who is inside. I have tons of younger parts and many, many teens. They may participate out here, but they often do not introduce themselves...