Please save my marriage

by **bamabecky** » Wed Sep 14, 2005 7:50 pm

I'm glad you found a therapist. Just in case that doesn't work out..here is my two cents........ Caroline Myss is a MEDICAL INTUITIVE....read medical psychic! She works with doctors who are having difficulty diagnosing a patients cancer, illness, problem. She can see into the "pipes" of the human body, in the same way that any other psychic can see into someones future. That's how she got started in the healing field. She started out working with Dr. Norm Shealy. I wrote a paper on psychoneuroimmunology in grad school. That's how I learned of her work. My best memory of her work claims that our history becomes our biology........so this quote from the Dr. web page fits that: "This concept of developmental bio-cognition, assumes that our thoughts and our biology are dynamically interwoven with our historical culture and cannot be reduced to their components. " Basically, I discerned a Catholic background for Caroline....since she discussed a the bi-location (being in two places at once) of an Italian Priest that went into the clouds and turned around some World War II bombers. Catholics are into this stuff, if you go back and read about the Catholic saints.....they usually had some "strange abilities". Stigmata being among them, bearing the oozing bleeding wounds of Christ. So the therapist is probably also Catholic since he is into studying the Stigmata. I read all about it once myself, but I'm Methodist. Your wife has DID and that's very serious. There are many psychiatrists out there that don't even believe it exists! So be very careful choosing help. There ARE psychiatrist out there that FOCUS on DID, and that's who you need. Find out who is renown in this country for their work with DID, call that office for a referral in your area. Good Luck! The psychiatrist who specialize in DID, usually have PREFERRED therapists that they work with and have confidence in. Therapists that work with DID have to be really strong emotionally and have excellent boundaries, as DID patients are difficult to treat. Let the psychiatrist guide you. I also know some excellent therapists who learned everything they know from their DID patients. If this were my daughter, mother, sister....the paramount consideration would be the doctors expertise.....period, end of story! Their politics would concern me, in that I'm a liberal, but if the specialists didn't know the truth of 911, I would take the opportunity to educate him/her. If, on the other hand, I discovered that the Doctor is "thick as thieves" with the Bush Administration, then I'd run away. Bama<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)">

by **Avalon** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 12:48 am

Dreams End, could you give us a pseudonym to use for your wife's name? "She" and "her" depersonalize when used exclusively, and being only the nameless object of possession ("my wife") is also somewhat grim. I wonder about the conflict of interest difficulties you may run into given the small pool of potential counsellors. What's in the best interests for each of you as individuals may not be the same for the two of you as a married couple, especially given that your wife (as the more vulnerable partner) would need that the two therapists be able to work together or at least in a complementary way. You also may run into issues of being in a mixed marriage, with your wife being Pagan. I'm assuming that you came into your stepdaughter's life late enough to miss the poop-fixated period? That time when you get a special night at a nice restaurant without kids, and all you can talk about with animation is their bowel movements? <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/smile.gif ALT=":)"> I'm gonna get graphic here, as both a parent and a former kid, so if anyone wants to tune out, please do. You said, "I would assume that such suppositories would be slickly coated, so if there was any struggle it would have been to the idea and not pain." Here's a section of a FAQ on constipation by pediatrician Dr. William Sears, who I generally trust. <a href="http://www.askdrsears.com/html/8/T081100.asp">www.askdrsears.com/html/8/T081100.asp</a> It details how you've got to do not only a fair amount of motion of the kid's buttocks, but you need to wiggle the suppository itself. From what that is saying, it probably involves having a firmer grip than any kid would like. I remember being a little kid, having to have a rectal thermometer for whatever reason, when I was old enough to remember it. Probably four-ish? I remember it feeling like a violation, a sense of inherent wrongness, a totally icky feeling of needing to poop yet knowing that that wasn't exactly the sensation my body was having. I can see it being traumatic, and triggering a need to fight it. "a full YEAR of this trauma and the pediatrician couldn't come up with another plan?" Not out of the realm of possibility. Not all pediatriciams are the sharpest crayons in the box, and not all of them when we were kids thought that kids deserved the inherent respect many of us feel they deserve. Maybe your inlaws believed you listen to authority figures like doctors, and do what they say without questioning. I remember some of my fears, as a kid who wasn't traumatized. Sheets over the furniture would probably have been enough to scare the crap out of me at certain ages.

by **Nymarya** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 4:11 am

Some years back when I was recovering from breast cancer I saw Caroline Myss's first book. I had read all the usual New Agey stuff, Bernie Siegel, Louise Hay...everybody in my support group had died and most of them really wanted to live so I didn't believe all you had to do to survive was to want to bad enough. I did see that the person who lasted second last as long from me and I had one trait in common: we didn't listen to our doctors slavishly, but did a lot of research and made our own decisions. Our minds weren't, as someone said above, entrained into dependence on the medical community. (After she was told she was a short-timer, she wrote on her chemo-bald head "FIPO." We asked what that meant, she said "Fuck It, Push On." She lasted several years past her prognosis; I've lasted a decade past mine by pretty much ignoring everything my doctors said, eating a macrobiotic diet, and doing Zen, but I have no idea if that's why I'm alive or if it's luck of the draw). Anyway, Myss seemed a little too...well, New Agey, I never liked the idea that all spirituality means is "prosperity"--it didn't seem to have anything to do with morality, it was all ME ME ME not how can I be of service to those who need it, which to me is the only thing attractive about religion though more honored in the breach. I would however never in a zillion years have put her together with the weird shit DreamsEnd described. However, here is an interesting tie-in. I have a former friend who is DID and a Satanic Ritual Abuse survivor. At one and the same time that she reads books that describe the involvement of the Bush family in SRA and child sex slavery, she (or I'm sure another alter) listens to Michael Savage all day and adores Bush and is absolutely vicious to anyone who isn't his big fan. She and I became friends because I had done a stint in a month long inpatient recovery program for sexual abuse (I was abused as a toddler by an uncle, did not realize it till my mid 30s) in which I was diagnosed as 'mildly' DID (don't have full fledged alters but have separate mood states that amount to personalities, with co-consciousness, that is, I remember everything from all the personalities which I always considered rapid moodswings.) My roommate however was a fullblown MPD (the old name for DID) with a 'system' of hundreds of alters. In a month she told me all she knew about MPD/DID and SRA and was surprised I was one of the few people she ever met who did not immediately tell her she must have imagined it. So when I met this other woman ten years later, she had many similarities with my roommate, and again, as she opened up a bit at a time, she was amazed I would just listen and not go into denial or reject her. She was a smart, fun person except when she went into this rightwing Bushlover mode. I would then say I didn't want to talk politics, and she'd slow a bit, usually by the third time I said it she'd drop it and go back to the person I usually saw. Well, last summer (2004) under the pressure probably of the election, one day she went into her Bushite rant on the phone and would not stop after multiple requests, so I hung up on her. She called back and told me to buy a gun and kill myself. Now, I have suffered from suicidal depression off and on since puberty (not uncommon with sexual abuse survivors.) This was just a horrible thing to say, luckily I was not depressed at the time. She called back several more times, screaming vicious messages, then a day went by and I got an email apologizing and asking me to please not listen to my voicemail from her, to delete it, that it was horrible. Well, I decided for my own sake that she is not a safe person for me (HAD I been at one of my own low ebbs her nastiness could have been very destructive to me) and told her while I accepted her apology, I did not want to associate with her anymore. I made it clear it was not because she was DID but because after 3 years she had not figured out a way to control the Bushite alter around me. We have bumped into one another and had some pleasant casual conversations since, but we used to see each other just about every day and talk on the phone daily as well. She seems to be doing well and I am sorry it turned out this way but feel no need to reassess. Anyway...seeing the connection of the Bushy people to the New Age really astounded me. I knew the FMS people, according to my friend in her non-Bushite mode, were trying to cover up government-sanctioned child abuse memories which had begun breaking through the 'programming' by stigmatizing ALL recovered memories as bogus. But the idea that they are also behind this whole 'if you're not prosperous you're a bum' (which I always said sounded more like Calvinism to me than paganism!)...well, hey, it DOES make sense. I have found that many New Agers totally lack compassion for others and use the idea of 'karma' to say, if someone is in a pickle, they earned it (a variation of the 'they contracted for it' approach.) Dreams End, you must love your wife very much; I saw what my friend's husband went through with her (she also had a 200+ alter system, including one who was sexually promiscuous--she came out once when I introduced my friend to a male friend of mine, and many child alters who were very demanding. Most people find it hard to have a relationship with ONE spouse, let alone one plus all the alters. I had one thought about the therapist. The two SRA survivors I talked to, plus some books they recommended for me, said that part of the SRA programming is that others in the cult can 'open up' the survivor with the right words or even symbols (the hospital room-mate's family members still in the cult kept trying to send her greeting and postcards with pictorial 'triggers' to get her to call in to one of them). IF your wife has had this kind of programming (which is not yet breaking up) this guy could be reinforcing it. My former friend has a friend from her church who spends hours 'praying' with her at her home. One day the friend's husband came home to find her lying on the couch with her blouse off, in her bra, and the prayer guy there. My friend had no memory of what happened, prayer guy said she had just 'gone into an alter' and taken off her blouse as hubby walked in. I began to wonder if prayer guy is actually coming over, triggering the promiscuous alter and having sex with her (she doesn't have co-consciousness with this alter.) I didn't dare say anything because my friend thought that prayer guy was a saint. I mentioned it once to a mutual friend who however did not know prayer guy; she said "Icky, but possible." Anyway, sorry to ramble on, just glad to find some rational discussion of this topic, rather than a fight between FMS type people and those who believe practically EVERYONE is an SRA survivor but just doesn't remember it yet. ======= Oh, I enjoy an egg myself, yes. They don't make good pets, though; you can never get them in at night. ~Doctor Pratt (played by Peter Sellers), "The Wrong Box"

by **alice** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:03 am

Poor Maggrwaggr!! Why did nobody answer her/his question? For pete's sake, it's not like we're all health care professionals here, so we can't assume everyone knows the jargon! Wikipedia's discussion is excruciatingly 'objective' -- but at least you get the basic points on both sides of the controversy: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_identity_disorder">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dis...y_disorder</a>

by sw » Thu Sep 15, 2005 10:04 am

by **Dreams End** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 11:08 am

Wow, always amazed at the posts on this site and this thread is inspiring. I am sorry, maggrwaggr, that your question didn't get answered. Definitely focusing on me at the moment. DID used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. the basic idea, if you didn't want to read the wikipedia article, is that trauma in childhood can lead to dissociative states. You've had dissociative states yourself, most likely, such as when you drive for a bit, realized you've zoned out and have no actual memory of driving for the last five minutes. Some are more prone to this. In the midst of trauma, such dissociation can be so severe that a "separate" personality can split off. It's actually a creative survival strategy, but as an adult it can interfere with your life rather dramatically...especially if some of the alters are into destructive behavior. I'll call my wife Donna, at Avalon's suggestion (I'd just been thinking the same thing, actually). Donna is fairly co-conscious...that is to say, that usually, even if an alter is "out" she remembers most of what is going on. She has actually always described the "man with the camera" who sits back and sort of comments on what's going on. She later realized that she was the man with the camera while alters were out! Avalon also suggests that the suppository episodes might have been indeed as traumatic as recalled by the parents. It's possible...though no matter what a bad pediatrician might suggest, I would certainly not have continued such "treatment". And I'm pretty sure that the "holding down" part would not have been done without loss of temper because a)her Dad is known to have one and I imagine alters of her Mom do as well and b) Donna has an angry alter named Spike...let's just say you don't want to trigger Spike. Unfortunately, Spike is primarily triggered by rebellious behavior by her daughter. I also, despite being fairly left brained, have an intuitive side. Intuitively speaking, there's some definite wrongness from Donna's childhood. And I think the fact that her Mom is DID really shows a family system at work here. But what it means and exactly what happened...well, yes, sw, we may never know exactly and healing is the thing to focus on. I let Project Willow know, in a private email, that Donna's system does not seem to be as complex as many of the RA/MC abuse survivors. That, and the fact that I've probed her history as discretely as I can for evidence that there is something more than simply family abuse (not that this is a good thing) and so far, I see no reason to suspect any more "formalized" abuse. (I shared in another post that she had lived with her family in Italy as a child. She read "Sinister Forces" and came across the name of a General who was in the middle of all kinds of intelligence stuff and said, "Oh, this is the general who lived across from us in Rome." Shit! However, a simple Google revealed this this guy died before she was even born. ) However, if memories of such behavior did emerge, I would certainly not have a problem believing her. The one thing that did make me a little suspicious, however, is that after her Dad got the message that she wasn't able or willing to talk to him, he would call every week at exactly the same time. We never answered but he'd keep calling. Having read so often about "trigger words", this made me a little nervous. Still, I'm not going to assume that there is more to this than is needed to explain what's going on. She has enough to worry about. If such memories emerge on their own, we'll deal with it. For now, she rarely talks to her Dad...in fact the only reason she did so recently was a funeral of her grandfather, whom she loved dearly. It almost put her in the hospital, but I went to the funeral with her and we got through it. We both now wonder if that had been worth it, but had she not gone, I think her doubts would have been much greater. I also NEVER let her out of my site, which I think creeped Donna's sister out, but whatever. It was very important to her that she not get stuck with her dad alone. Sorry for such a long post. Let me also mention that we talked last night and there are just some things going on that are triggering memories from Donna's last marriage and this is one reason she's seemed a bit irrational...that is, arguing about things that don't make sense (to me, anyway). I think we are in better shape now. I also read Whisper a story last night (and, sw, told her about Space and she was quite interested and thought maybe they could play hopscotch together!) and so I think we are okay. Whisper is the only alter I have a relationship with so I don't know how the rest of her system is feeling, but I think the crisis has passed. Thanks to all of you for allowing me to vent. I realize this is not a psychological help forum and that, given how the nature of conversations can go on this site, I don't think we should encourage it in that direction. But I took the liberty of sharing all this and was really thankful at all the remarks, encouragement and good advice. If anyone has read this far, let me end with remarks in an email to me from my friend who is a therapist about the original subject of this thread, Dr. Martinez. I think it's interesting and rather validating: <blockquote>Quote:<hr> I will be honest in my appraisal of what I read about this therapist. Such political views would have to influence his practice, and to think otherwise would be naive. He sounds like a grandiose narcissist. His opinions are framed as facts, and I would bet that his research methodology, if indeed there is any research (He refers to having "studied" the effects of retaliation on the immune system), is the kind of pseudoscience that appeals to people who are mistrustful of real science. What he is suggesting is, in my view, so complex that it would be very hard, if possible, to generalize as liberally as he does about retaliation and health. The truth is, "an eye for an eye" type of thinking would be a good way to spread ever-increasing amounts of post traumatic stress disorder further and create future generations of violent and vengeful people around the globe. I'll have to admit, his message is one that can draw audiences in these times. Hitler did the same in his time (Read Alice Miller's book, For Your Own Good). We know that laughing is good for the immune system. So, maybe I should generalize as well and start encouraging my clients to laugh at terrorists. There is a lot of nonsense out there, especially in my profession, and such bullshit can cause harm. I'm glad that you are not going to see him. <hr></blockquote> Well said, I thought.

by **Avalon** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 4:18 pm

It's not just helping you vent. There's other useful perspectives coming through that can help many of us understand the dynamics of how people respond to abuse. And not just those of us who are active, but maybe some who are silently watching and learning too. My husband's mother comes out of an abusive childhood. What happened, we don't know -- she's not willing to talk about it. It helps me to see how this impacts other families. How's your step-daughter handling the stress?

by **hanshan** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 5:05 pm

Whoa...some outstanding observations don't even want to go into my own history (way too shy) DE: I also, despite being fairly left brained, have an intuitive side. Intuitively speaking, there's some definite wrongness from Donna's childhood. And I think the fact that her Mom is DID really shows a family system at work here. But what it means and exactly what happened...well, yes, sw, we may never know exactly and healing is the thing to focus on. Dreams End - sounds like you're on track.Seeking & receiving good advice. Following through can be a bear but doesn't have to be. This (if haven't already read it) has some interesting insights: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1569802394/qid=1126814450/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-3219925-9603364?v=glance&s=books" target="top">www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1569802394/qid=1126814450/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-3219925-9603364?v=glance&s=books</a> ...

by **glubglubglub** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:00 pm

a) Are you sure he's an actual psychologist? What level of education? I wouldn't put it past him to have like a bachelors in psychology and have gotten whatever 'higher education' he's received via some of the schools of spiritual / transpersonal counseling that, say, advertise in the back of Parabola magazine (a great magazine, btw), or lesser variants of that ilk. As with all such things there are, of course, tremendously competent counselors whose specialties would be best described as spiritual, transpersonal, or a synonym of such, and -- although this is less clear to me -- there may well be respect-worthy institutions of learning that specialize in those areas, but there's also a whole slew of charismatic-but-sketchy individuals preying upon the vulnerable and respectable-sounding-but-dubious institutions offering certifications of very questionable merit in such forms of counseling. I'd stake a beer or two that his credentials would turn out to be less than sterling should you investigate those who issued them. b) I'd avoid going in for counseling with someone with whom I'd had prior contact -- good friends offer good advice based off of the extensive knowledge of you that they have built up over years of knowing you, and professionals maintain their professionality by keeping a comfortable personal distance from their clients; the 'dead zone' between good friends and pseudo-anonymous professionals is best avoided when going in for counseling. c) On a pragmatic note, you may have angered your wife by shooting him down seemingly b/c of his politics, but try this argument: a good therapist/counselor will, upon getting to know you, issue advice designed around and personlized for you and your specific issues, background, etc.; a bad therapist will instead attempt to find a way to slot you into this or that theory, putting some particular theory first, with you coming in second (or lower). Besides the distastefulness of using 9/11 to troll for customers, between his biocognition and his desire to wrap world events in the cloth of theory I'd see he's more theorist than therapist, and avoided for that reason... Good luck.

by **Dreams End** » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:06 pm

Thanks. Actually, he is registered in this state as a licensed counselor with appropriate degrees. But no, I"m not going near the guy.

by **jenz** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 6:16 am

feel embarassed to chip in to such informed discussion, but 2 most useful pieces of advice came to me from a non practising psychiatrist friend - follow your heart and don't feed the madness. so when trying to work out how much to do of basic cleaning etc, i try to balance these 2. there were in the past of the people I most closely support and some others I know of, very specific tortures related to the basics of looking after yourself and environment, so that not only can general exhaustion feature as a turn off to doing the laundry or cleaning your teeth, but also such things can trigger through to something foul. its hard and i sympathise with you. never feel i have got it totally right. its impotant also to try to keep the here and now in focus, and smartening up the place can be therapeutic. voices are a feature of more than one mental illness and no-one has diagnosed did for the 2 people i 'help', or accepts ra actualy, only i have the advantage of knowing a lot of these people - including a bit of personal experience, so validating the 'reason' for the illness is not a problem for me, but the process of finding a therapist

by **emad** » Fri Sep 16, 2005 10:34 am

How and where a painful event becomes permanently etched in the brain 16 Sep 2005 A team of researchers led by the University of Toronto has charted how and where a painful event becomes permanently etched in the brain - a discovery that has implications for pain-related emotional disorders such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress. U of T physiology professor Min Zhuo and his colleagues Professor Bong-Kiun Kaang of Seoul National University in South Korea, and Professor Bao-Ming Li of Fudan University in China have identified where emotional fear memory and pain begin by studying the biochemical processes in a different part of the brain. In a paper published in the Sept.15 issue of Neuron the researchers use mice to show how receptors activated in the pre-frontal cortex, the portion of the brain believed to be involved with higher intellectual functions, play a critical role in the development of fear. Previous research had pointed to activation in the hippocampus, an area buried in the forebrain that regulates emotion and memory, as the origin of fear memory. "This is critical as it changes how and where scientists thought fear was developed," says Zhuo, the EJLB-CIHR Michael Smith Chair in Neurosciences and Mental Health. "By understanding the biomolecular mechanisms behind fear, we could potentially create therapeutic ways to ease emotional pain in people. Imagine reducing the ability of distressing events, such as amputations, to be permanently imprinted in the brain." Zhuo says that fear memory does not occur immediately after a painful event; rather, it takes time for the memory to become part of our consciousness. The initial event activates NMDA receptors - molecules on cells that receive messages and then produce specific physiological effect in the cell - which are normally quiet but triggered when the brain receives a shock. Over time, the receptors leave their imprint on brain cells. By delivering shocks to mice, the researchers activated the NMDA receptors and traced a subunit of the molecule - a protein called NR2B - long believed to be associated with fear memory in the hippocampus and the amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in front of the hippocampus. To further test the protein's influence, researchers reduced the amount in mice and found they were less hesitant to avoid shocks. "We tested the animals using both spatial and auditory cues," Zhuo says. "In one experiment, the mice received small shocks when entering a chamber and they developed fear memory. In another experiment, we used sound tones to be associated with shocks. When NR2B was blocked, they no longer avoided the chamber or reacted to the tone." Zhuo and his team then studied the mice's brain slices and discovered traces of NR2B in the pre-frontal cortex, supporting their theory that fear memory develops in that region. "By identifying NR2B in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, we propose that fear memory originates from a network of receptors, rather than one simple area," Zhuo says. "It is more complex than previously thought." The next step, according to Zhuo, is to determine how NR2B directly affects memory formation and storage in the brain. "While we know it exists in the hippocampus, amygdala and the pre-frontal cortex, we don't know exactly how it alters them," Zhuo says. "Once we understand the implications for each part, we will be able to reduce levels of NR2B accordingly and effectively reduce fear memory. In the future, perhaps people can take therapeutic measures before experiencing a particularly discomforting situation." The University of Toronto Innovations Foundation is currently working with Zhuo to push for the translation of this finding into treatments. The research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Institutes of Health, the EJLB-CIHR Michael Smith Chair in Neurosciences and Mental Health, Canada Research Chairs and NeuroScience Canada. This project is also supported by the exchange program between Seoul National University and the University of Toronto. Karen Kelly k.kelly@utoronto.ca 416-978-6974 University of Toronto <a href="http://www.utoronto.ca">www.utoronto.ca</a> <a href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=30679">www.medicalnewstoday.com/...wsid=30679</a>

Please save my marriage

Re: Please save my marriage

Names, boundaries

This thread was a real eye opener.

DID definition

my take of DID

Re: my take of DID

venting

re: Pandora's Box

If I'm repeating stuff said earlier ignore me, but

Re: If I'm repeating stuff said earlier ignore me, but

belated empathy with housework

Don't know if this item may be of any interest, DE, but:

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