Lark In The Dark – Discussing Dissociative Disorder – Page 3 – Fractured Personality Disorder aka Dissociative Identity Disorder and Neurofeedback

A Breath At A Time

The week after the Christmas party a co-worker, moved by the Christmas spirit, begins to sing a Bing Crosby Christmas carol. The flashbacks begin. This was one of the songs the radio played the night we were raped by the family friend. The family friend would sing to me when the bad things happened. I begin to dissociate.

My First Experience with a Child Aspect

Yesterday

I was at work. It was a stressful day with lots of unplanned out of my control events. Adding to the stress was the knowledge that the company Christmas party was that evening. I hate Christmas and I hate Christmas parties. To be fair, I hate most parties. I am always anxious and all those people (whether I know them or not) in one room has me wishing I was somewhere else. I get tongue tied and it is a long night of dissociation.

Facebook

We felt very alone in our DID. A couple weeks ago it occurred to us to search for groups on Facebook that deal with dissociative disorders. I found them fairly easily and joined a group.

Neurofeedback – Third Protocol

This protocol was designed to address the dissociation issues that arose during the second protocol. Dissociation is the brain’s coping mechanism to protect a person experiencing something traumatic. It is a survival mechanism. The first time dissociation happens it is a response to an actual threat of some kind – physical, emotional, mental, or sexual trauma. Dissociation can become a learned response to stress.

Neurofeedback – What is it and how do you know it is working?

The purpose of neurofeedback is to teach the brain to regulate itself. What is the brain learning to regulate? That is complicated to explain because the brain does more than one job.

Neurofeedback: Second Protocol

The second neurofeedback protocol focused on the trauma center of my brain. Very quickly, things started to go crazy at home. My husband and I began to have truly ugly fights. Prior to the second protocol we’d disagree and talk it out; at most extreme we might have argued without name calling or profanity. After the second protocol started, name calling or profanity became the new normal. The arguments we began to have had to do with how I felt I was being treated, how my husband felt he was being treated, money I didn’t recall spending, not being able to account for time lost. After these arguments I wasn’t receptive to reconciliation, which was another difference in my behavior from before the second protocol.

Aspects

This document gets updated as I learn more about the aspects, I am guessing that there are around 20 of them. I once believed that the Aspects were individuals and had no interaction. During the early neurofeedback sessions it became apparent that ‘The Angry One’ agreed to work with the Administrator, the Observer, and ‘Go Away’.

Dissociation Anecdotes

Recently:

I was settled in for one of my first neurofeedback sessions. Although the session involves watching a video or tv show, my preference at the time was YouTube meditations. My eyes were blinking, the images I saw in front of me were not what I saw previously. I had a sinking feeling – I thought I might have been sleeping. I checked in with my psychologist who reassured me I had not been sleeping based on the data from that session.

Who is Lark In The Dark?

I was struggling to find a username for my WordPress account. My usual screen names were taken. Inspiration struck, ‘Lark In The Dark’, low and behold the name was available in WordPress. I began blogging. As a Witch I work a lot with animal spirits. In the moment I faintly wondered at the inspiration, but the Witch wasn’t the one ‘on the keyboard’ several others were – namely the Administrator and one other.

2019

I began to have severe short-term memory problems. I went to see the doctor concerned that I had some kind of brain disease. Imaging showed a physiologically perfect brain. This was a good news/bad news result. I don’t have brain disease (good news). The cause of the short-term memory problems was unknown (bad news).