Comment by Stella on 27 Aug 2009 at 6:40 pm

Hi Karen!

I was just reading your response to Joyce, your wise advice to not be too trusting with whom you share what you have been through. Boy does this ring true!

As a person who is really just in the beginning stages of therapy for trauma related disorders, I have been both blessed and injured by sharing with people whom I really trusted some of what I am dealing with. Some of them had been life long friends and with whom I wanted so much to find acceptance and support. This doesn’t always happen. But I am glad that I have learned this lesson early on.

I’m fairly convinced at this stage that those who will be the most supportive in my life are going to be on a similar path, maybe not with the exact same past or traumas, but on a similar path toward inner healing. This seems to be a bonding agent, this pain we share; not necessarily to wallow in it, but to empathize and understand both the triumphs experienced and the disappointments of those occasional setbacks or just plain bad days. We all need encouragement, it gives us strength to keep going, this is so important when you are dealing with extremely painful memories.

I so much appreciate your honesty about your struggles, both past and present. I look forward to keeping up with what you have to share here with those who are drawn to you.

Blessings!

Stella

Dear Stella,

Thank you!  Your kindness and acceptance of me and my work inspires me to continue on.  It’s so vital for all of us to receive encouragement.  I’ m just like anyone who has been hurt from past abuse.  It’s not my desire to mask my feelings but to share a hope for a better tomorrow.  Unfortunately, there are always people who break trust, disrespect, or think of us in a bad way.  I believe these people have no understanding about the true depth of pain an abused person suffers.

My goal is to share the good and the bad of being a multiple, the journey through healing, and the after integration ups and downs that come from being one woman trying to deal with everyday reality.

I know very well that those of us who have shared similar stories can bond in a way that most find hard to understand.  It’s all in the nature of who we are and how we survived despite all that happened to us.  Surviving a complex, incomprehensible illness such as multiple personality disorder needs to be understood by all.  That is my goal.  To share a better understanding of the suffering that causes a multiple’s mind to fragment and create alternate personalities.

Thank you for understanding, supporting my efforts, and for all your kind thoughts.

Karen