I've heard people, even professionals, comment that the mind is totally different from the body. I'm here to say that the mind-body connection is very much intertwined. Growing up in a severely dissociative state of mind (moment by moment) totally destroyed not only my mind, but my body too.
The house that I grew up in was extremely violent, loud and harrowing. I was the youngest of five, and the screaming would just get louder and louder and then mother would chime in, and all that I could do to escape the turmoil was to run to my room and hide in the closet with my hands on my ears. I was also very tiny, so I knew that if I got caught up in the fighting I could be severely hurt.
Along with the screaming and fighting, I suffered with severe migraine headaches almost on a daily basis. My stomach was always so woozy that I vomited more than once a day every single day of my life, even to the extreme of vomiting on my mother every time she held me. (So was the story told by her.) I was extremely exhausted every waking moment and suffered with horrific stomach problems when I began puberty. The cramping and blood clots were so severe that they were debilitating, and I spent many hours on the bathroom floor vomiting and too exhausted to even crawl to the bed. My neck was always hurting from the tension, and I found myself in different places, clothes and even different ages at times. It never made sense, and the shame consumed me.
The stress on my body has aged me way before my time, with osteoporosis diagnosed in my early forties. The doctor told me I had the bones of an eighty-five-year-old woman. Depression consumed my every waking moment, but now I'm on the right meds and am finding life to be a happier and healthier place now.
When I was thirty my legs ached as I sat, and I felt faint when I stood. It also felt as if I had ice picks jabbing my insides with every step that I took. After one miscarriage and many attempts to have children I finally opted for a hysterectomy; however, at my young age and the fact that I had no children, I had to beg the doctor to even consider giving me a D&C. One week later I was in the operating room having my hysterectomy, and the doctors found that I had varicose-like veins wrapped around my uterine tubes and ovaries that were causing all of my pains and failure to carry any babies full term.
To date (age 54) I have had a total hysterectomy, tonsillectomy and rhinoplasty (to fix my broken nose). I've had three levels in my c-spine fused and breast reduction (in hopes to take the weight off of my neck and relieve the pain in my neck). I vomited so drastically all through my life that my teeth are now eroding with only a few teeth left that have no problems at all. When I had my breakdown in 1995 my hair began to fall out in clumps until my beautician sold me a shampoo just for that problem, and I was so happy after a couple of months when my hair stopped falling out and even grew in thicker.
As far as my mind goes, it can be extremely confusing when your focus in life is to simply survive instead of laughing and having fun with your friends. I had very few of those and even fewer happy times. I had three hiding places in my room and kept it spotless so I could hide in an instant.
I never gave it much thought that something could be wrong with me (nothing big, I mean). I always thought that I was the freak of the family and did my best to keep the secret so nobody could tell that I was so different. I knew that I was, "at the least," depressed, but I never dreamed that I might have multiple personalities until I began to see my alters in my head. It all made so much sense that day that my ballerina and little man shuffling papers on a desk showed themselves in my vision. As sickening as it was, it was also a bit relieving too. Finally, at last I knew something was wrong, and I thought I had a name for it; I just couldn't say it. How can a person explain something so eerie to another person? There are no words to give it; no way of explaining it; and nothing I could do to get the help that I needed.
I sought out for weeks a way to get myself to a doctor, but how does a person tell even a doctor what I was seeing and feeling? For a couple of years I had finally stopped vomiting on a daily basis, and now it was starting up all over again. I couldn't hold my baby boy without vomiting again, and I was all of a sudden going back to the way life used to be when I was a child.
The only way that I could get the help that I needed was by poetry that I started writing to a friend, and finally she got the gist of the urgency. Together we were able to decide that I needed to see my family physician who sent me to the psychiatrist whom I needed for anti-depressants. I was then referred to my therapist, whom I've been seeing ever since.
Now, after fifteen years, I can finally say that I am on the other side of the rainbow. I did not set out to "integrate." I only wanted to feel better, and finally I have found that happy side of my life. Sure I still have moments of dissociation and fear and anger, but it's the normal emotions like the uno-mind has. I can be angry one moment, and the great part is that I can be happy another moment; and I can remember what it felt like to be angry. I know it sounds odd to hear, but life is great now.
If you are suffering as an adult, you do not have to be silent, and there are places to go to get help when you need it. The best part is that you can have better days, but you have to get through the rough spots. Find a great support for yourself, be careful whom you tell, and by all means journal, paint, draw and write poetry. You might surprise yourself. But always tell yourself that you are worth the healing that it takes.
![[Valid RSS]](http://www.webrss.com/logo/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=logo}
