used to be called multiple personality disorder (mpd).. i have it.
i was physically, emotionally, sexually abused.
the tramas in my life were so great that i split into many.
waiting, you need to say it again:
A GOOD therapist can be a valuable help.
a BAD one can do irreparable harm.
Don't hesitate to shop around for a GOOD therapist. Don't 'settle' for anything. YOu need to find a person who will NOT tell you what to do. You need a person to help YOU find what is best for YOU to do. It's a subtle difference but very important.
Love
MD
i've been under medical/psychological treatment for prolonged distress stress disorder and severe depression for several years.
after a runaway ride on the rainbow pharmaceutical wheel, a retro-looking doctor gave me old reliable prozac... and it lit today in high relief for the first time in my living memory.
it was a good thing, martha.. for the first time in my life i felt that today was real, and that this moment was complete and intact and entirely void of dread.. amazing!.
I've been under medical/psychological treatment for Prolonged Distress Stress Disorder and severe depression for several years. After a runaway ride on the rainbow pharmaceutical wheel, a retro-looking doctor gave me old reliable Prozac... and it lit Today in high relief for the first time in my living memory.
it was a Good Thing, Martha.
For the first time in my life I felt that today was real, and that this moment was complete and intact and entirely void of dread.
Amazing!
Well since then(about two years now) I have had my daily ups and downs. Life has never been easy or simple in the Dark household. This is ok; usually I manage to balance on the biggest wave, or at least swim off before it breaks me.
But... lately I've been tested right to the edges of my newfound calm.
(Note: whining imminent. Move on if uninterested.)
Due to management roulette at work, we have been without medical insurance for over six months. My maintenance meds for blood pressure cost us over $100 a month. I haven't used the prescription pain medication my doctor recommends for about six months, because it would cost yet another $100 a month.
Then there is the Prozac. It costs almost as much as all the other drugs together. I finagled and took a half-dose for months to stretch it out, but we just can't afford to buy it anymore. I've been off it for over a month now. It shows...
I applied for a drug program that a social worker at the DHS recommended. We have no idea how long the application process takes, so meanwhile we are scrounging the money for the meds. Without the pain med and the Prozac, coping is a moment-to-moment thing. I spend a lot of time in bed and I cry way more, but my minimum needs are met, and hopefully within a month I'll have some clue as to how things will shake down.
In all this, Papa has changed jobs yet again. This is his first step out of retail management in five years, and it's going to be a good job, but the transition between is financially bleeding us dry. Our prospects appear, like the White Queen's jam, to be every-other-day-only prospects: prospects yesterday, prospects tomorrow, but never never prospects today. (Of course it isn't really that bad, but Mommie's old depressed thought-grooves are leading her into those old familiar fears.)
Papa left this morning for a week of training in sunny Fla. I am home alone with Little Dark and his grown brothers. Ordinarily this is no biggie, but I am becoming squirrely, like I was B.P. (Before Prozac), and wonder if I can manage things for a week without melting down.
Three months from now when our medical benefits are active and we are beginning to stabilize financially, I will have a much happier perspective. I repeat this platitude like a mantra.
For today, though, I am having the old weird dreams, the sleep disturbances, and a hair-trigger startle response.
Even positive change sucks when it comes thick&fast. Mommie is a pediscooter in a supercharged motorized world. ANd she can't find a bike lane to save her skin...
used to be called multiple personality disorder (mpd).. i have it.
i was physically, emotionally, sexually abused.
the tramas in my life were so great that i split into many.
for those seeking reading material on this and related topics, I suggest you try this site:
. http://www.soulselfhelp.on.ca/.
I think that all of us who were misused by trusted adults have the tendency to fragment or compartmentalize the experiences. It's obvious that DID and MPD are incredibly creative ways of coping with unbearable stress. They are the extreme expression of a common human coping mechanism. I was surprised how many people experience the milder forms of dissociation. I am appalled at how many people have had such hideous experiences that they need to dissociate in order to survive the very memory of it.
In my own case, when I talked to my therapist about the 'actor personalities' I trotted out to deal with situations that were too much for me, she nodded and talked at length about using those little actors to do the job while I cringed inside my protective bubble. (ALthough I never dissociated to the point of coma, I certainly did let Ms. Nurse and Ms. Tittlejotter run the show while Mommie wept in terror behind them every time she had to touch her father.) According to that therapist, the diff between Wounded Heart and someone like me is a matter of degree.
Wounded Heart, you are incredibly brave to be here sharing your experiences. Thanks for doing this. You really never know who is lurking and gathering courage from you. I know I feel better for knowing that you are working through the old horrors and into the quieter better places.
As always,
Mommie Dark
i'm a bookworm and would love to hear some of your recommendations.. besides the traditional coc, in search of christian freedom, etc.
books that help facilitate one's journey out, please feel free to share the titles you found helpful to your own growth after leaving the organization.. thanks a bunch!
Kristin I just had a V-8 moment with this topic! (D'OH!)... if you want a guide to really good books, watch what Ginny Tosken has to say. If she recommends a book, you won't go wrong checking it out. Ginny is one of the smartest women I know, and she is a thinker of rare clarity.
Dunno why I didn't think of this right off the bat!
Kicking herself,
(picture MOmmie pratfalling over her cane as she tries a three-legged buttkicking to her own fat behind! ROFL)
MD
i was reading through some of you guys old postings and i was laughing so hard.
some of you guys still believe the strange things your mom and dad said but didnt explain like not eating count chocula cereal.
didnt ever occur to you that maybe your parents thought that keeping you away from something as simple as a cartoon dracula might be in your best interests?
Wait a sec, Geoff.
You said:
"SIXofNine you dont believe in the devil? I assume then that you dont believe in God. If this is the case then why are we arguing over a box of cereal, when we cant even find a common ground on God which is way more basic."
FIrst of all, nobody was 'arguing' over a box of cereal. We merely offered our anecdotes about JW superstition and its effect on various people. You apparently needed to intellectualize the reasoning behind those superstitions. Nice try, but no brass ring...
Those of us who were told to throw out or to avoid purchasing said foodstuffs (or whatever 'questionable' item)weren't scolded by those elderettes and pioneers 'because it might be spiritually dangerous to bring such ideas into our childrens' lives'! We were told superstitious stories about other JWs who had experienced demonic attack after eating/using/wearing whatever the suspicious item might be at the moment.
JWs encourage a morbid fear of demons and Satan. I vividly recall a Service Meeting part about talking to inactive ones, which urged JWs to descibe the world to these 'weak ones' as a 'demon-filled void.'
These people are not talking about introducing abstract concepts that may spiritually pollute a child's innocence. They are talking about cartoon characters walking out of the wallpaper and biting JW kids! They are talking about demons hopping out of a bowl of cereal and down some JW kids' gullet! Most JWs don't even try to coat this stuff with the thin veneer of intelligent reason you've tried to slap over this fearmongering.
Distaste for rank superstition does not preclude a belief in some higher power, as you smarmily imply to Six of Nine...but perhaps that is another discussion altogether.
i was reading through some of you guys old postings and i was laughing so hard.
some of you guys still believe the strange things your mom and dad said but didnt explain like not eating count chocula cereal.
didnt ever occur to you that maybe your parents thought that keeping you away from something as simple as a cartoon dracula might be in your best interests?
Hi Geoff. You said,
" Some of you guys still the strange things your mom and dad said but didnt explain like not eating Count Chocula cereal."
I think you left a few salient words out of this sentence. I can't quite understand it.
Please explain to me how a cartoon chocolate vampire is a glaring example of spiritual degradation.
Thank you.
is anybody else a foodie?
.
fans of comedy central and bravo?
Is anybody else a foodie?
Fans of Comedy Central and Bravo?
i'm a bookworm and would love to hear some of your recommendations.. besides the traditional coc, in search of christian freedom, etc.
books that help facilitate one's journey out, please feel free to share the titles you found helpful to your own growth after leaving the organization.. thanks a bunch!
I recommend some fiction because it helps open the doors of yor perception, especially for those of us who were so closed-minded as cultists.
Here are some of my faves that helped expand my horizons:
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin. In fact, almost anything of hers will help pry your mind open, but this one was especially wonderful for me.
Towing Jehovah, by Robert Morrow
anything by Tom Robbins. His take on religion is incredibly refreshing and he is a screamingly funny writer.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Follow this with other Vonnegut but be careful. His work is deceptively simple but idea-rich, you can get overloaded before you realize. Sirens of Titan and Slaughterhouse-Five are my choices for #2, then take a break before you read more of his stuff!
I hope you'll try some of these. Let me know if you found this helpful?
Love
MD
ive been thinking a lot about this subjection thing that is so much a part of wt teaching.. i mean, what is the point of it?
who does it benefit?.
why cant couples work out a who does what pattern that suits themselves, why should they pay any heed to the wtbtss edicts about women being in subjection?.
Careful Englishman, you tread perilous close to blasphemY! Us wimminz are weak vessels, prone to sin, led by our ovaries to be silly featherheaded broads or foolish cows. Now get with the program and take up that rod!
!!!!! ;) ;)
In our household, we have worked out a system where the best-qualified person delegates to the rest. Whoever has the most training or expertise leads the way. Nobody has a problem following instructions. Nobody feels threatened by being told what to do, or how to do it, or when, if it serves the greater good of the household. I have no qualms submitting myself to someone else if they are the designated boss. Thus if my 9-year-old son knows more about something than me, he leads. We all follow Papa's word as law in all technical aspects of our home. Nobody feels threatened by acting subordinate if it serves the family's purpose.
If you used the words 'headship' or 'humble submission' in our house you would get blown out the door by the gusts of laughter. If you prove you are the best man for the task at hand, though, everyone here will line up to find out how you want stuff handled, and then do their best to carry it out successfully. (this is the ideal, mind you, we fight and argue and stravage along like any other family, ;D. But we don't have anyone claiming 'headship' by virtue of gender or age or other pointless criteria.)
Dunno why some folks (mostly menz) are threatened by such an arrangement but dang, some peoples have MEAN things to say about it! Fortunately we all have elephant hides when it comes to criticism of our...eccentricities...besides it works for us so why go back to an archaic and awkward system?
i so desire to know more about the people i am listening to, and occasionally talking to.
aol has profiles.
some other web sites have them.
Hi there, jst2laws.
Mommie Dark's history is available at Free Minds Inc. in the section titled 'Rose's Cantina'. Mommie Dark has a little corner in the Cantina where she tells True Scary Stories of her JW life. So if you would like to see inside Mommie's head, try there first.
I'll fill in your list since you ask:
Name: Mommie Dark aka Lynn Atwood
age: 47 in a couple of months
Sex: female human (with pit bull genetic stock, LOL)
current temporal location: Corntown, middle USA
family status: Married to Papa Dark, boy genius. Three sons, ages 23, 24, and 9. Of nine siblings, three brothers and one sister still speak to me. The other five are either dubs or believing walkaways who hate my outspokenness against the cult. (My darling sister is at home under hospice care for cancer. Death is an old acquaintance of ours, and we are preparing to meet him again, we hope NOT too soon, but so far she is WAY more resigned than I to this meeting.)
dislikes: authoritarianism, fearmongering; ignorant smug arrogance in cultists
likes: most everything I don't dislike!
music: the 10% of all genres that isn't crap. Currently I've been listening to Fatboy Slim (LOVE that new video with Walken dancing...), classic Traffic, lotsa Mozart, ICP, Barenaked Ladies, Cleo Laine, and the soundtrack to 'Brother, Where Art Thou?'
books: Mommie is a literature omnivore. If it holds still, I'll read it...
poetry: Jong, Plath, cummings, Thomas, Blake, and other mad human conduits
hobby: researching crackpot conspiracy theories and using them as fodder for storytelling.
favorite food: Papa Darks' Melting Uranus Chili (tm)
favorite tv show; That's My Bush on Comedy Central, Becker on CBS (a tie)
current most time-consuming pastime: Trying to live a semi-normal life with progressive degenerative arthritis and tendinitis. Finding perspective through a filter of increasing pain. Learning to cope with the growing invisibility of disability (having recently been spoken around by a public servant as if my cane rendered me stupid or deaf... what a humbling experience! I wonder how our friends in wheelchairs maintain good cheer in the face of this idiocy?)
OK that's enough about Mommie. If you want to know more, ask. Otherwise, poke me with that fork, I think I'm done...
as always,
Mommie D.
