{"id":1476,"date":"2009-09-16T19:34:57","date_gmt":"2009-09-17T00:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/?p=1476"},"modified":"2009-09-16T20:56:16","modified_gmt":"2009-09-17T01:56:16","slug":"karen-answers-kat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/?p=1476","title":{"rendered":"Karen answers Kat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--StartFragment--><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>Comment by Kat on 12 Sep 2009 at 10:01 am<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>Dear Karen,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>I have always been curious about this disorder. While in my college library I came across your book. I began reading there and was still reading at closing time! Your story is brave, honest, and so gripping. How any person could survive this\u2026 Well it speaks volumes about your character and courage. How blessed you were to find some one like Dr. Baer to help you along the path to becoming whole.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>I was wondering, after integrating all the alters did you have any more periods of disassociation? Or was that it? Did you find you had any other feelings of depression? As you mentioned in the book that sometimes you missed having the others around. Did you find the jobs the other alters had previously taken care of were hard for you to cope with? Or did most things come naturally?<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>Thank you for your time!<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>And thank you for providing this wonderful story of how you came\u2026 to be YOU!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>Dear Kat,<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>Thank you so much for all your kind thoughts and inspirational words. \u00a0I\u2019m touched\u00a0by your many compliments! \u00a0Yes, I was blessed to find Dr. Baer. I believe he was\u00a0God sent and that our working together was meant to be. I was at the end of my rope the day I walked into Dr. Baer&#8217;s office. \u00a0I don&#8217;t know if he sensed that. But I am very grateful for all that he has done to keep me safe during the intense healing process so that I could one day live as one woman.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>I never dissociated again after integration. I admit there were times I wished to escape reality and be rescued by an alter, but that was not meant to be. As time continued, I grew stronger and was able to deal with most issues on my own. There have been times when I felt depressed and struggled through more than I thought I could handle. At these times, Dr. Baer was there to help me understand. In order for me to survive those moments, I needed to calm myself, and that was something I hadn&#8217;t ever done for myself before integration. I now had to adjust to each new circumstance I faced. As reality tested my patience, time and again, I would wonder whether integrating my alters was best for me. It was. I have no regrets about integration.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>I really\u00a0had to learn most everything all over again. The knowledge was there, but acting on it wasn&#8217;t. It was difficult at first, yet it was all a part of my journey to heal. It took years for me to feel complete. I&#8217;ll try my best to explain. \u00a0As each alter integrated, I slowly acquired the ability to function with their added talents. \u00a0For example, my alter Katherine cooked and cleaned. For about a week after Katherine&#8217;s integration, I realized nothing was getting done. Dishes were piling up, I&#8217;d order fast food, and didn&#8217;t try to cook up any meals. \u00a0Soon I realized that &#8220;I&#8221; needed to do these things. Before Katherine&#8217;s integration, everything was just done for me, out of my awareness. Strange as it sounds, I had to pick up where Katherine left off. Once I committed to performing Katherine&#8217;s tasks myself, my memory of doing so came back naturally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>Becoming one is the most amazing feeling, even though I still hate to do dishes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>Thank you for caring about me. I continue to learn something new about myself each day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span>Karen<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Comment by Kat on 12 Sep 2009 at 10:01 am Dear Karen, I have always been curious about this disorder. While in my college library I came across your book. I began reading there and was still reading at closing time! Your story is brave, honest, and so gripping. How any person could survive this\u2026 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-karens-answers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1486,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions\/1486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.switchingtime.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}