Hi, I'm Katie. I'm 35 and live in London.
As I wrote in another thread, I am in 3 x a week therapy and am in the process of er becoming alive?
I've been pretty much dissociated all my life, never feeling fully here, often looking at my body and thinking 'who's that'. There is often a mist between me and others, or, as I am becoming more conscious, the barrier is stripped bare and I have no skin and any closeness is utterly unbearable. Causing considerable distress in public, and can send me into er, regressive dissociative/acting out episodes where I lose control and I become an angry lashing out baby or toddler or child, back to where the feelings originated. And hadn't been able to be expressed as I had dissociated because the pain was so immense. Now they need to be expressed, and that's what I'm working with in therapy. And its hellishly tough.
I am scared that I might end up arrested or hospitalised. I have hit people (in the way a child would, though) a couple of times, strangers.
It is very frightening to lose control like this. I am conscious of what is going on but am still as yet powerless to do anything about it.
My therapist cares about me (just passed the 3 year mark of working together)and is concerned, as I am, that hospitalisation not occur and we are working to protect me from that.
My background---born 2 months premature at 2 pounds 13 ounces via forceps, and was separated from my mother, with no touch or holding from her until I was 3 weeks old. She would see me through a glass wall into the special care baby unit where I was in an incubator.
I was bullied at school from age 7 to 17 (10 years, every day) which included verbal humiliation, particularly about my appearance, and some physical abuse.
My father was very unstable during my childhood and there were frequent family rows that included threats to send me away. He could not stand my emotions. These rows were occasionally violent.
I learnt to, as my therapist says 'go away' inside myself....
Now I'm 'coming back', and its painful.
I hope I will find a real me at the end, one me, not several
Katie
