I need to clear memory on my laptop, so here are some unedited notes from May 2019!
I never explicitly remember these things, but I know the implicit experience remains within my consciousness, and explicit notes help the information move forward with me!
May 1, 2019, at 10:43 AM:
~~~1 May 2019~Meeting Morning with Rising Ritual Meditations~~~
I know it’s hard, Kristin, but we are worthy of celebrating our victories even if we can’t “feel the win” right away.
Our year began by being published in TOI Magazine with a 3 page spread including a dozen coloured photos of us from the past ten years.
In April, we gained a new member to our Dream Team! Haley Stern is our new publicist & executive assistant, a volunteer position paid through my own innate abilities to offer healing empowerment through my work & interactions.
In April, thanks to our new publicist, our favourite article from a few years ago, Pursuing The American Dream{?forget exact title:)}, was published by ___{name of website/organization}___.
In May, two stories of ours are being published by Love What Matters Magazine. This is our first time sharing a first person narrative of our DID experiences somewhere other than our personal blog!
This is extremely exciting, even if you can’t feel this victory yet:)!
May 15, 2019, at 11:52 AM:
New! Kristin Chronicles’ Monthly Newsletter! For Self & Parts, Not Others!
Protectors help normal self compile a monthly summary of victories. The same style as FurryVille newsletter or other things we did as kids! The same style as our Christmas cards growing up, too.
~~~Kristin Chronicles’ 2019~~~
Our year began by being published in TOI Magazine with a 3 page spread including a dozen coloured photos of us from the past ten years.
In March, we hosted a DID Awareness Walk of our own original creation! It was a roaring success with over a dozen people in attendance! We even successfully gave a 15 minute speech!
During this time in March, we also met our soul friend Haley for the first time! These beautiful interactions led to progression with internal integration as sweet baby Abby emerged for the first time ever.
In April, we gained a new member to our Dream Team! Haley Stern is our new publicist & executive assistant, a volunteer position paid through my own innate abilities to offer healing empowerment through my work & interactions.
In April, thanks to our new publicist, our favourite article from a few years ago, Pursuing The American Dream{?forget exact title:)}, was published by ___{name of website/organization}___. This was especially healing because this same article, one of my favourite pieces ever!, was accepted to be published in The Mighty last year, but they never followed-up & published it, & that hurt our sense of career confidence. This helps revive our hope, daring to believe in dreams once again!
In May, two stories of ours are being published by Love What Matters Magazine. This is our first time sharing a first person narrative of our DID experiences somewhere other than our personal blog! This is the first time in our entire life that the normal life self has the neurobiological capacity to own our life narrative without severe dissociation blocking presence. This is extremely exciting, even if you can’t feel this victory yet:)!
Living with a Dissociative Identity: Personal Narrative Description: May 1-15, 2019.
I am required to conquer the impossible to cope with every day existence living with a dissociative identity.
I was completely unaware of the severity of my mind-body disconnect. I had no idea that my concept of self was a complete illusion to protect me from an unbearably painful truth.
Every piece of stimuli causes shifts of consciousness, my internal perceptions always feeling more real than every piece of external, physical, present-day reality. Both near & far sights, sounds, smells, people, lighting, temperature, & every other environmental variable directly affect my access to cognitive abilities & bodily safety.
Every emotional sensation causes nervous system dysregulation & activation of subconscious parts of consciousness suffering fragmentation from repeated traumas. If I feel joy or excitement, flight parts become activated; if I feel agitation or anger, fight parts become activated; if I feel sad or embarrassed, fold parts become activated; if I feel worried or afraid, freeze parts become activated; if I feel lonely or
I rarely ever feel like a grown woman as my body responds to every minuscule piece of stimuli as if in an animalistic survival mode. With every ounce of my being fighting to survive non-existent threats, my access to consciousness dependent on those unconscious survival shifts, my ability to access my adult self day by day is extremely limited, the healing progress being petrifyingly/terrifyingly gradual.
Orientation with time is impossible & the stress of constantly attempting to “fake” linear time orientation is its own exhausting battle entirely. Because of my brain’s inability to create new memories, it does not feel like the year that it is. Due to how my inside-out consciousness functions, the passing of time is also distorted. This lack of conceptual time is always isolating, my world an ever-spinning mirage of past years while everyone else continues into a brand new one. Abandoned by the passing of time, my mind dwells in lonely caves, hoping time doesn’t have to exist at all, or risk total insanity.
{towards ending, shifting from negatives to positives, from struggle to victory!}
The average person possesses an innate ability to listen to their body’s needs through automated communication. Living with post-traumatic stress disorder & dissociative identity disorder, my body no longer possesses those innate abilities & requires my manual efforts to sustain every day rhythms of functionality.
I create full-body sensations of compassion & safety every day through hours of repetitious rhythm through vocal vibrations, affirmations, & bilateral body movements of my own creation. My body cannot create these natural rhythms so I must step in & manually guide it towards the feelings it is worthy of experiencing, such as hunger, exhaustion, laughter, desire, & a will to keep living.
Every day is spent investing 15+ hours in manually regulating my nervous system & cognitive flow functions. If I’m lucky, I can recognize myself in the mirror before going to bed at night; maybe I’ll even be blessed enough to hear silence for a few moments. Upon each awakening, whether night’s full sleep or day’s partial nap, I am reset to a place of ungrounded dissociation, my mind being a different reality from my body, the two worlds drudgingly daring to acknowledge one another.
May 17, 2019, at 11:11 AM:
Embracing my Dissociative Memory ~ Personal Narrative Journal Entry :)! ~Felicity
I do not just live with dissociative amnesia, forgetting portions of my life & identity; I also live with a dissociative memory.
My brain responds to life the way my body responded to trauma, causing new memories, that have no relation to trauma, to be processed similarly, if not the same as, traumatic memories.
Fresh memories from my day to day adult life are processed implicitly, rather than explicitly.
The only times a brain immediately processes memories as implicit are during early childhood as the brain is just beginning to develop & create its foundational neuropathways within the consciousness, & during times of trauma.
May 22, 2019, at 3:33 PM:
MOVEMENT INTENTIONS: May-June 2019
Clarify the meaning & distinction between terminology: Blending, Shifting, Switching states or parts of consciousness, especially within structural dissociation or insecure/disorganized attachment, both caused during early childhood development {or are they the same thing? LOL}
Define, clarify & explain the spectrum of structural dissociation
DID Healing Journey Trick
~high five yourself, with a congratulatory or celebratory intention! Your brain hemispheres are two different individuals, so this can have a profound affect on your subconscious, especially when done repetitively {regularly/routinely}, which also dramatically impacts your conscious awareness experience. :D!