I am using yesterday’s blog entry to launch a new section of my blog. Up until this point, my blog has only included Aftereffects Categories for post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative identity disorder (DID) because I have personal experience with both of these labels. However, there are thousands of child abuse survivors who experienced trauma that went beyond PTSD but did not result in DID. Those child abuse survivors need resources, too.
I have launched a new Category called Aftereffects: Other, which is a working title until we can collectively come up with more descriptive name. (Any ideas welcome!) This will be a category for blog entries that include, but are not limited to, other types of child abuse aftereffects that go beyond PTSD but don’t fit under DID, such as…
- Dissociative Amnesia
- Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DD-NOS)
- Dissociative Fugue
- Multiples who are not DID (for example, there is no “host personality” who loses time)
- Splitting into one adult alter part with a buried child part
A particularly interesting aftereffect that I have heard from two different people is splitting into colors. (Both were diagnosed with DD-NOS.) Instead of splitting in alter parts (people), they split into colors. As an example, for one of these people, Red held the anger, Blue held the sadness, and Brown held the memories that were too traumatizing to view. If this person looked into the brown, she would lose time. The other one also split into colors, but there were some variations. I think that each knowing about the other’s experience would be incredibly helpful.
I am sure there are other types of aftereffects that I am not familiar with, so please educate me! If you have reacted in a particular way, there is likely at least one other person on the planet you can relate to your particular aftereffect. I want this blog to provide hope and healing for them as well.
Here is where I need your help … I know that I don’t personally know enough about these different types of reactions to child abuse. I have read many stories and spoken with many child abuse survivors, but repeating what I have heard is not the same as having experienced it.
I have never done this before, but I would like to invite guest blogs to add material to this category. You may take credit for your blog entry under your reader name, choose a pen name, or request that I credit the writing to “Anonymous.” I will not divulge any identifying information, and I will only edit your submission for grammar and punctuation if needed for clarity. You are welcome to provide your own image (please let me know who to credit with the image – you must have permission for me to use the image if it is not your own.) Otherwise, I’ll choose an image for you. If you have questions about how this would work or would like to submit a guest blog, please email it to faith_amom@hotmail.com.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
I would not work with any professional whose view was so simplistic they did not understand that all classification systems have no value other than to appease insurance companies. The dx of DID is helpful in keeping a person from being medicated by those who do not understand the mind should not be medicated. I have no experience with PRN’s.
I do not fit into any or your above categories in any meaningful way.
I know of no one who spit into colors. I and others are colors at different times. In my case it is a result of the color training. The color training it goes hand in hand with the metal training and object training with some programmers. The trauma is really preparation. The isolation the same way. I experienced twining programming. Which was done at the same time. I am not in anyone’s control rather I learned and need to unlearn.
I am never one color although one color may be writing. It right now is only orange, blue, black and purple.
I do not experiencing anger as red, peace as blue etc. It is much more complicated than that. There are many many different colors of every emotion, many shades and values. Some that do not exist in this word so there is not name for them at all.
There is also related to the color parts synesthesia which is an involuntary activation of all senses and cognitive pathways different than most people experience. I can see time in colors and shapes I did not know everyone did not. Sounds and colors can become blows to my body. Etc. It is not limited to color it is all senses. The color seems to be the most common or the most common discussed.
There is also an experience in extreme pain where the body is “revived” after losing consciousnesses. The brain works much differently and is not explainable to those who have not been through it and then only in a limited way as it is different for each person and different each time it happens. It is possible my brain came to this from the trauma or it is possible it is and ability that I have.
And then there are the auras that can be seen. For me seeing auras as colors is very much like reading headlines of a newspaper in its limitations.
The effects of trauma can be classified it has no value other than a place to start. I can not imagine that as an end all although it seems to be for many people. In a way success based on what they were told was possible.
If this was simple enough to qualify and quantify it would not be a problem for me.
The effects of PTSD in a strict sense would be what you have to deal with when dealing with those who think they understand the effects of trauma. I think the effects of trauma are what are important.
I would also not work with any professional who did not have the understanding that the cause is trauma and therefore the solution is in processing the trauma.
My categorizing system personalty would kinda run like this.
Those that understand they do not understand and never will and those that simplify to the point of no value other than a place to start. Does not matter what level of not understanding you start at. Ego states is as good as DID as long as you do not stop there.
Those that cope and those that heal.
Those that process and those that live with PTS.
Those who discover how to express and those that discover ways not to.
Those that discover there own power and those that are still trying to get power only through learning.
Those that let their spirit use there intellect and those that use their intellect to try and understand their power.
That is just for right now. It will change as I go along. Unless I stop growing.
I am a dumb ass.
I throw out the terms psychoanalysis and expressive therapy thinking that anyone who has not experienced it understands they have not.
It is not explainable as it is experienced.
A psychoanalyst who rejects that a person can be different people will be harmful to a multiple. Reasonable to assume that a psychoanalyst who rejects or things they understand “repressed memories” would be harmful to many.
Transference is common. Doing it and being aware of it is not. Many of the abusers that I had to deal with were transferring what they felt about others to me. The true psychopaths were not. That makes transference hard for me with my therapist. We have designed a way around it.
I wonder if there is often a transference of power that was given to the abusers to the cognitive therapist and it is unknown. I wonder if that is what I did for 6 years with conventional therapy which is why it was so harmful and I thought it was working.
Anyway I think this will clear up a lot of the disconnect I feel with many that are healing. We are healing in totally different ways. That and I have a sense that some of us as a multiple need psychoanalysis and are not about to butt in when others are traumatized and they are not. We have had more than one therapist at a time. Never two psychoanalysts.
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“It is not explainable as it is experienced. ”
this is something a lot of people dont get a lot of times, including me.
I used to believe that by having something explained to me then I would understand. If I did not understand I blamed the other person or myself, or demanding for it to be explained “properly”. I wasnt aware that there was an experience part to life. That for understanding knowing is not enough- it also needs to be felt. Now I understand because I have experienced.
So when someone demands me to explain something experiential to them, I ask: do you want worded expectations or do you want experience?
the explanation I offer, is that it needs to be experienced in order to be understood. and if the asking person is likely to have a clue about true experience or true understanding (no offense intended)
Its like expecting to learn swimming by having someone explain it to you. It wont work until you get in the water yourself and give yourself the experience of swimming. Knowing about swimming wont make you understand it.
in the case of being able to swim, people understand that they need to experience it for themselves by actually doing it. They accept that the explanation part doesnt substitute for the experience part.
Same goes for therapy, (vipassana) meditation, life.
thats why I, too, think cognitive bt is not conducive to trauma processing.
I have had the experience of 3 years cbt when I started out – in hindsight it had not been very helpful and it took me another year to understand why.
it only changed circumstances but it didnt change my experiences.
hmmm… my comment seems to be slightly off topic, oh well…I just find the topic of explaining vs experiencing to be of such importance as well as being discerning when it comes to forms of therapy. And Im inspired by what you observe, Micheal!
Well two comments in a row, that’s a good day for me.
I’m actually experiencing what I called a “Short Circuit” effect. Which is like having my body and my mind feeling so tired and numb without logical reason. To the point that I can stay laying in bed for days.
Something (in my case) is unidentified but is emotionnally overwhelming, which litteraly cut my body’s current (in lack of better words).
I couldn’t find any post related to this, maybe do you call it differently ?
If anyone has more informations about this child abuse’s after effect, that would be a great help. Thank you.
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