Is DID bullshit?

My name is Cristina Johnson.

Last night was the first good night's sleep I've gotten in weeks.

I have tried guided meditations, hypnotic sleep meditations, binaural waves, and Schumann resonance. I have done everything to avoid taking the Trazadone (50 mg) I was prescribed.

Still nothing has really worked. Anxiety is the problem. It keeps me awake. I wish it were easy to describe. Maybe to a mother. They would understand that irrational jolt of anxiety that goes through you as you imagine the worst case scenarios a thousand times in your mind, within milliseconds.

Laying in bed at night, that's what it's like. Like electricity; A bolt of lightening and you have to, once again, try to focus...focus on the breath...count the breaths....hold your breath and count...and release...

And it works, until the next bolt of lightening.

Oh God I have no money. Oh God I have to leave the house tomorrow. Oh God my rent is due. Oh god I need a spare tire. Oh god the cat has worms. Oh god, what will I do for dinners next week? Oh god what if that  taxi cab driver comes back to my apartment and breaks in and rapes me?

One after another after another, it's like someone hitting you on the base of your skull with a two-by-four; it doesn't knock you out, but stuns you and you have to take several minutes to gather your bearings. (Trust me, I know what it feels like).

So I was grateful for one good night's sleep. I had no dreams that I recall. A blessing.

Probably because yesterday I saw a new "provider" - as they call them in my insurance network - who was supposed to be specifically for medication management but who, surprisingly, was familiar with - and had even worked with - people with DID.

Nothing was barred as I grit my teeth and ground in my heels against the diagnosis. "It's bullshit," I told her. "Can't be. It's bullshit. I just think it's bullshit."

She then gently told me of her first experience  dealing with a DID client. She had been in training at the time. She's had several such clients since.

She told me the typical DID case is the result of repeated, prolonged trauma before age 5.

Well, that suits me.

But still I wanted to kick and scream.

And yet....

I was validated.

"It's clear you have PTSD," she said.

Yeah I have heard that before. My entire life.

But I managed it.

DID....well that's different. It's crazy. It's nuts. It's insane.

Right?

I left feeling achingly validated but still confused.

She wants me to see a specialist who specializes in cases like mine: a history of complex trauma.

I'm open to it, but not holding my breath. My insurance is state insurance and most "specialists" don't take my insurance. I can't even walk outside. God. How could I go to work?

Actually the truth is: I could go to work.

I would work my ass off, make a great impression, be the best person on the job. And it would last - maximum - six months. Such as is my history.

Oh man it seems I don't even know myself.

I don't know.

It's just ....KIND OF nice to be validated. Again. Even though she didn't diagnose me with DID, she said she wanted to do further analyses. I'm okay with that, if skeptical. Over the past few weeks, I have dismissed DID as a diagnosis, despite the multiple times I was diagnosed with it but you must understand it was a psychological "rage" in the 80's and early 90's so I disregarded the first time. The second time I tried keeping an open mind. Still;.... Still... Ugh....

Online, some of the support groups and message boards and discussion groups I joined....the members just seem to jump right in and say, "Hi, My name is <so-and-so> and I have <three-five-ten-20..._> alters. My youngest is "Jimmy" (or Jamie or Annie or whatever) and they like ...ice cream...teddy bears....IDK..... who fucking knows but it's like they just take this horrid, horrid Dx and embrace it and run with it. Like it's an excuse to be crazy. Am I crazy? Are they crazy?

I mean yeah crazy shit happens to me but I'm not a dangerous psychotic.- except perhaps to myself at times - but I can't imagine ever hurting anyone else. Ever.

DID. Crazy shit.

My current therapist - the one who I vaguely remember saying (through a haze) - "You don't have PTSD," is a struggle.

It makes me wonder how much of anything I have ever told her, she believes.

The fear of any child, I suppose, who has been molested. I can't tell because nobody will believe me.

I feel that coming from Michelle. Irrational or not.

Just like I told my latest appointment for med management - Judy.

"I may cognitively know that my reactions are irrational, but something is broken - something broke - and I can't un-break it. I don't know how to not break it."

Her response:

"I would imagine that's always been the case for you. I would imagine you always shut down and shut out."

It was good to be understood, even if I don't understand it myself.

Judy was confident and calm. She seemed to know what she was talking about and dealing with. Even told me about her first encounter with DID. I listened but....still leary.

Sometimes I miss Gary....times like these. Times when someone steps in who understands and who may be able to give him insight. Maybe...maybe then he would have understood. Maybe then he wouldn't have done the things he did. Maybe then, he would still love me.

Then again, maybe he never did.

Maybe he simply can't love.

I don't know.

I saw his name again on Facebook the other day. For three days I was reeling...nearly de-friended the person who posted it. Not because she did anything wrong but because I can't see his name. I can't bear it. I am terrified of seeing him. I saw a white van the other day.... I panicked.

I hurt him.

But oh... Oh he hurt me so badly. Intelligent. God he's so intelligent and yet, so stupid. So foolish. Uneducated and uniformed.

And I love him.

And I love Bill.....

Bill is gone now. He's in PA working. Helping as much as he can.

I asked my adoptive mother the other day, after Bill left to go back to his little motel room, "Why does he do this stuff for me?"

"Because he loves you," she said.

And I just can't wrap my head around "why."

Why?

Why?

I watched a movie the other night called "Gardens Of The Night" and at one point the girl - stolen and sold into sexual trade, trained to believe her parents had abandoned her and were dead - was told her parents were alive and wanted her. She said: "They don't want me...they can't want me...you don't understand...I've done such horrible things..."

I cried...

I know that feeling.

How can anyone love me? Nobody knows all the "dirty."

Nobody.

Perhaps nobody ever will.

So confused.