The Uninvited Guest

Why does growth always travel with an uninvited guest?

Identify the obstacle ahead.
Plan exactly how to get over it.
Pick up speed.
Lift both legs up,
Take that flying leap of faith.
Soar above a hurdle so high it has obscured everything beyond.
Land it perfectly!
Turn to check the judges' scorecards and find they have disappeared into the shadows.

Who needs them?
This was not about evaluations!
Reap the rewards of all that hard work!
The road ahead will surely be smooth and paved with joy.

Turn towards the future, ready to celebrate in the sparkle of success!
Feel the smile vanish.
An uninvited guest is shouldering a sobering consignment of issues.
The shadowy shape screams for assistance and the road suddenly narrows, again.

The joy is in the journey?
Those are your words of wisdom?
*sigh*
There certainly can be joy in the journey, but sometimes it’s awfully nice to stand in the gentle waves of a sundrenched beach with a cool drink and nowhere to go.
Just when it seemed safe to get back in the water...

Eyes focus steadily forward on another ominous obelisk.
The silhouette of the looming obstruction blocks out everything else.
It impedes perception of past progress.
It makes it hard to imagine the breathtaking future, seen as a reality only moments before.

It isn’t falling into old habits.
It isn’t that the finished work was worthless.
It isn’t backsliding.
It isn’t failure.
It’s a whole new hurdle, and now it’s time to get back to work.

The uninvited guest... Unwelcome? Not exactly.
This escort... Unwanted? No, that isn't quite right.
Unsought but so well-known is this companion.
Skin, blood and bone are more easily abandoned.

Consider the weight of the load as it shifts to your shoulders
It feels both novel and familiar
Let this unsolicited guest tie the bundle tight
Try to see the ropes that bore into your back as the ribbons of a magnificent gift
And try not to feel discouraged.

Stuck on the Third Rung

Yesterday was one of those rare therapy appointments when I didn’t have an exceedingly pressing issue or anything that felt really unresolved from the last few appointments. I talked about some current things in my life. I love the fact that C is able to both help me with the past and work with me on the present. I know some people have said that they get only one or the other from their t.’s. It’s a blessing to be able to work on whatever needs working.

So, since we ran out of things to talk about with fifteen minutes still left in the appointment, she opened up my (very thick) folder and started going through papers she had paper-clipped – her way of marking things that we had not finished. She found several DNMS sheets that we never completely finished, but when she refreshed my memory about the parts of self and problems we had identified in those sheets, they already felt resolved.

Finally, she pulled out a sheet that was from an actual “ladder rung” of the DNMS process. Honestly, I had almost forgotten that this is how the process is supposed to work.

In DNMS there are four “rungs”. There is a fairly involved protocol for each one, and the idea is to go through them all, in order, to resolve childhood issues.
When I first started working with C in this DNMS process, we completed rungs 1, 2 and 3a in six months.
(Keep in mind that the following is my interpretation from what I remember and what I have in my old email and word files, and not directly from any DNMS book or guide.)

• The issues on the first rung are about existence. They are about knowing you exist and believing you have a right to exist.
• The second rung is about safety. It is about feeling safe and knowing you can keep yourself safe.
• The third rung comes in two parts. 3a is about owning your personal power.

When I look at those ideas, now, I can see how far I've come.

I spent a most of my life with a sense of unreality. On a deep level, I didn't understand that I existed at all. The idea that I had a right to exist - that the world was meant for ME as well as everything else in it – seemed ludicrous the first time it was presented to me. On some level, I knew it was true, but on a much more personal level, it did not feel true. I felt like an impostor .. a hanger-on in a world of the deserving.

Working through that first rung gave me a clear sense that I am real and that I am here for a reason. My existence is purposeful in a way it never was before.

For most of my life, I lived in such fear that I didn't even know I was afraid. Fear was my natural state, my norm. I honestly thought that’s how it was for everyone. I thought it was just how life is, to wade through every experience in states ranging from anxiety to panic. Now I know that is not true. It is my spirituality that helps me keep my fears at bay. Knowing I am connected to everything, that the energy within me is eternal, helps me understand that nothing that happens to me can hurt me. I exist. I will continue to exist in whatever form I am meant to have. No matter what happens, “I” will be okay! That was an amazing revelation that came from my most adult self and my spiritual core. It makes life so much more manageable.

Next we come to 3a – personal power. I did not remember that this was the last rung we completed, but it made so much sense when my therapist refreshed my memory.
I believe I have found my personal power. I have learned how to look inside myself, determine what I want, decide if it is appropriate to go after, and if it is appropriate, I give myself permission to go for it.
There. One sentence to describe an enormous process. I suppose it makes sense that it was at this point that we stopped working through this protocol because I believe I needed time to fully process this before I was ready to go on to the next part.

Apparently I needed a LOT of time. We finished rung 3a in June of 2008! Now, 21 months later, I have gone through major changes in my life, accepting things that I couldn't even allow myself to remember, before that. It seems like a lot of time, but that’s how much time I needed and I’m glad y therapist didn't rush me or allow me to rush myself.

I assume she now believes I'm ready to move forward, which is why she pulled out rung 3b, yesterday.

3b is about self worth.

If there is a piece of the puzzle that I still struggle with, this is definitely it. To me, this is proof that the process is working. We didn't have time to delve back into it, this week, but I’m excited about starting it again, next week. Although we have done a lot of DNMS and EMDR in the last 21 months, it has all been a kind of side road. It was all necessary, but it feels good to think I have made it back to the highway, again.

I wonder if it’s possible that I will look back at this rung of the ladder in the same way I can the others, at some future point, and say “yes, I now understand that I have self-worth.” I hope so. Before she pulled this out, yesterday, we were talking about my writing. She said something about my writing having innate value just in my doing it, even if no one else saw it or commented on it.

While it seems that should be true, I still can't really believe it.

She asked me, “If you wrote a hundred blogs and ninety-nine times someone gave you a positive comment, but on the hundredth time no one did, would that make the hundredth blog less valuable?”

I said, “I would wonder what I did wrong.”

So, since she is certain that it doesn't change the worth of something just because someone sees it, and she gave examples that make sense, I can see that I still have a ways to go on the self-worth idea.

And, in case you’re wondering, the final rung is about relationships with others. I'll get there...

Realizing I Couldn't Do It Alone

In the past, it often seemed Mother's Day should be called "Grandmother's Day". I have four children, but it was a rare moment when the spotlight shone on me. The why of that is something I've gradually come to understand, but in 2007, I had no idea.

I have three siblings, and one lives quite close, but I always felt holidays were my responsibility. My children gave me cards and wished me a happy day, and I was and am grateful for all of them. Still, I spent Mother's Day and the days leading up to it cleaning, worrying, and waiting for it to be over. I made reservations for brunch, and invited my parents, mother-in-law and my brother's family to my house, afterwards. I had snacks and dessert. I had a nice, mushy card for my mom, as well as a small gift.

My parents like to play cards. It's not my favorite activity, but that's what we did because it's what my parents expect and it was Mom's day, after all. My father was cranky because he prefers to choose which game we play, and my parents rarely agree on one. But Mom picked and we went through the day on a decades-old script that none of us knew how to stray from.

Except, my kids don’t follow a script. Between card games, my fourteen-year-old son announced that he was thinking about getting a summer job. He was looking for input as to what kind of job he could get and how he would get back and forth.

My mother looked to me and asked, "Isn't he too young to get a job?"
I said, "I had a job when I was fourteen."
Dismissively, my mother said, "Oh, you had babysitting jobs."
I started babysitting when I was eleven, but at fourteen I found a "real" job, working at a low-budget department store.

"Oh you did not. I don't think it's even legal for children that young to work."

I said, "Well, I had one. I worked in the summer, and also after school and weekends all through high school."

We went on to play more cards. When they were heading out the door I hugged my mom and told her Happy Mother's Day again. After everyone left, I cleaned up the kitchen, got my youngest to bed, and finally began to relax a little myself.

The next morning, after I took the kids to school, I checked my email. I found one from my mom, and opened it, assuming it would be some kind of thank you. In all honesty, I probably rolled my eyes because I felt resentful that I "had no choice" in what I did for holiday.

But this email had not been sent to thank me. Instead, the short and angry note informed me that I had "ruined" her Mother's Day. It took several back-and-forth emails and phone calls to discover that she was angry because, by saying I had a job at fourteen, I had implied that they were bad parents. That rather insignificant conversation was the only thing Mom remembered from a day spent in her honor.

How strange that of all the things that have happened in my life, this is the event that pushed me to finally look around and see if anyone else had answers I didn't. I'd been running in circles to do everything my parents wanted me to do for more than forty years, and it was simply not working. I constantly felt pressured and unhappy, and I was much too focused on finding the correct answer, the one action or response that would make my parents love me, and consequently, make me feel whole.


It took a couple of days to get the nerve to tell my husband that I was going to seek professional help. I was afraid he'd be angry, or disappointed, or would reject me. This is unjustified because my husband has always been my biggest cheerleader, but I projected my own anxiety and my parents' attitudes onto him.

His response surprised me.
He cried.
I am still not sure, why. At first I thought it was because I was failing. It felt like failure to me. After all, I was supposed to come up with the answers myself, right?

The next day, I started looking for a therapist. I had no idea what to look for. I researched online for hours, but ended up randomly picking one and emailing him to ask for an appointment. The following week, the world began to unfold in new and unexpected ways.
       

What's Wrong with Me?

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is the current name for what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. Under any name, this disorder has been sensationalized in books, movies, and on TV. The idea seems to fascinate some, while others become staunch disbelievers.

Since May 2007, I've been searching for answers. I have "lost time" for as long as I can remember. I would "wake up" in places and have no memory of how I got there, with hours missing from my life.

These gaps in time were a problem. I wasn't supposed to have them. I had to adapt by learning how to cover up my missing time, unexpected absences and sudden appearances. At a moment's notice, I could come up with a story to explain why I had not returned home from school at the expected time, or where I had been when I was sent to the corner store with five dollars to pick up milk and returned hours later without the milk or the money.

It was a mystery to me where those hours went, but it was just part of my life and one more thing that seemed to be wrong with me, to be ashamed of, and to hide from the world.

I hope that my journey will be a guide to others who struggle with mood swings and depression, find it difficult to find closeness in their relationships, are beginning to admit to themselves that they live a multiple life, or are simply suddenly aware of an emptiness within that just can't be right. There are ways to put your life back together. I know, because I have.