Too much thinking…

been thinking too much… and when I think too much I come to sme fairly depressing conclusions… and far too many unanswerable questions…

had a chaotic few days… sort of felt like was back to square one… all that time convincing myself that it was not my fault sort of died and seemed wasted… started going over and over the events in my head again looking for any and all mistakes I made…
added to that a “new” alter has made an appearance. I have no “contact” with her, but Jack (my partner) “met” her at the weekend. Apprently she had no name then, and refused to come up with on as names “have to be given”… so she is now called Luna, due to her love of night time.
But I’ve also been thinking… I’ve seriously “not been there” for most of my life, I’ve actually missed most of my life… that’s… I don’t know… strange to think I guess… and a who we are is made up, in part, from our pasts and experiances, well… doesn’t that make me sort of “incomplete”? I know I’m not really incomplete as such, just sort of fragmented, but… well if I am “incomplete” then who am I? And if I don’t fully know who I am then how can I be a part of the world? How can I know what wants and needs are mine and which are not? How can I know what is me and what is just what my parents and other bad people sort of “programmed” into me?

Other thing I’ve been thinking is… is it all worth it? When you think about it the world is a violent, nasty place, full of evil and hurt… is all the fighting to survive really worth it in the end?

I also miss Isabelle… really miss her… I’m not sure if Ive spoken abut her on here before… but Isabelle is my daughter, she was born prematurely very ill, and she didn’t survive. People say I shouldn’t still be upset, esspecially as she was conseived via a rape. But the rape wasn’t her fault, who her father was wasn’t her fault. and I do miss her… it feels like something is missing… deep inside… I wanted to give her all the thngs I never had, I wanted to be a good parent, to show her love and kindness.To make it worse I think it was my fault that Isabelle died… when I got to the hospital after going into premature laoure they gave me some drugs to try to stop the labur but it didn’t work because it was too late… I culd have been there earlier… I could… and she’d have lived…

I miss Sam too… I really did fail him, misscariaed at 19weeks after a suicide attempt…

I wish they were here… Then I would actually have a family… I want to have been able to have given them a great life, the life I never got to have with my parents, I want to have given them the chance of life. But I failed them, failed both of them.

what is DDNOS?

disorders in which the predominant feature is a dissociative symptom (i.e., a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, or perception of the environment) that does not meet the criteria for any specific Dissociative Disorder. Examples include

1. Clinical presentations similar to Dissociative Identity Disorder that fail to meet full criteria for this disorder. Examples include presentations in which a) there are not two or more distinct personality states, or b) amnesia for important personal information does not occur.

2. Derealization unaccompanied by depersonalization in adults.

3. States of dissociation that occur in individuals who have been subjected to periods of prolonged and intense coercive persuasion (e.g., brainwashing, thought reform, or indoctrination while captive).

4. Dissociative trance disorder: single or episodic disturbances in the state of consciousness, identity, or memory that are indigenous to particular locations and cultures. Dissociative trance involves narrowing of awareness of immediate surroundings or stereotyped behaviors or movements that are experienced as being beyond one’s control. Possession trance involves replacement of the customary sense of personal identity by a new identity, attributed to the influence of a spirit, power, deity, or other person, and associated with stereotyped “involuntary” movements or amnesia and is perhaps the most common Dissociative Disorder in Asia. Examples include amok (Indonesia), bebainan (Indonesia), latah (Malaysia), pibloktoq (Arctic), ataque de nervios (Latin America), and possession (India). The dissociative or trance disorder is not a normal part of a broadly accepted collective cultural or religious practice. (See Appendix B in DSM-IV-TR for suggested research criteria.)

5. Loss of consciousness, stupor, or coma not attributable to a general medical condition.

6. Ganser syndrome: the giving of approximate answers to questions(e.g., “2 plus 2 equals 5”) when not associated with Dissociative Amnesia or Dissociative Fugue

From the DSM-IV

Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS) is an inclusive category for classifying dissociative syndromes that do not meet the full criteria of any of the other dissociative disorders. A person diagnosed with Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS) typically displays characteristics very similar to some of the other discussed dissociative disorders, but not severe enough to receive their diagnoses. DDNOS includes variants of Dissociative Identity Disorder in which personality “states” may take over consciousness and behavior but are not sufficiently distinct, varients where alters are present but either do not take over consciousness or only ever do so in a co-consiouss mannor with the host, or variants of Dissociative identity disorder in which there is no amnesia for personal information. Other forms of DDNOS include possession and trance states, Ganser’s syndrome, derealization unaccompanied by depersonalization, dissociated states in people who have undergone intense coercive persuasion (e.g., brainwashing, kidnapping), and loss of consciousness not attributed to a medical condition.

DDNOS occurs primarily in men (80%) and is currently regarded as a dissociative means of withdrawal from a traumatic or stressful circumstance. It is characterized by absurd or approximate responses to interview dialogue, a dazed or clouded level of consciousness, somatic conversion symptoms (eg, pseudoparalysis), hallucinations, and, frequently, anterograde amnesia regarding the episode.

Trauma, Memory and the Brain

Trauma changes our brains on a fundamental level, the psychologically traumatised brain causes inscrutable eccentricities which can (and do) cause it to overreact – or misreact – to stimulus and the realities of life. These neurological “misreactions” become established in part due to the effect that trauma has on the release of certain stress-responsive hormones, such as norepinephrine, along with the effect upon various areas of the brain involved in memory – particularly the amygdale and the hippocampus.

The amygdale is the part of the brain responsible for communicating the emotional importance and evaluation, via the thalamus, of sensory information to the hippocampus. In accordance with the amygdales evaluation the hippocampus will activate to a greater or lesser degree, and functions to organise this information and integrate it with previous similar sensory events. Under a normal range of situations and conditions this system works well and effectively to consolidate memories according to their emotional priority and content. However, at the extreme upper end of this hormonal activation, as with traumatic situations, a breakdown occurs. Overwhelming emotional significance registered by the amygdale actually leads to a decrease in hippocampal activation, this results in some of the traumatic input not being organised properly, not being stored as a unified whole, and not being integrated with other memories. This results in isolated sensory images and bodily sensations that are not localised in time or even in situation, nor integrated with other events. In effect these fragments of memory float about in the mind, ready to reappear at any moment.

To make matters even more complex, trauma may temporarily such down Brocas area, the region of the brain which translates experience into language, the means that we more often use to relate our experience and feelings to others and even to ourselves.

Regular memories are formed and are subject to meaningful modification, they can be retrieved when needed and can be conveyed to others through language and expression. In contrast, traumatic memories include chaotic fragments, which are sealed off from modification or modulation. Such memory fragments are wordless, placeless, and eternal. Long after the trauma has receded into the past the brains record of them may remain a fractured mass of isolated and confused emotion, images and sensations which can ring through the person like an alarm at any moment.

These sensations and feelings may not be labelled as part as belonging to memories from long ago, in fact they may not be labelled at all, as they may have been formed without language. They merely are, they come forward to take over the body giving no explanation, no narrative, no place or time, they are free-form and ineffable.

The traumatised brain has, effectively, a broken warning device in its limbic system. A bit like an old fuse box where the fuses tend to melt for no reason, reacting to an emergency when there is none.