# Feed and water your brain!



## 2011 Again (Jan 29, 2015)

And distract it. I CANNOT stress this enough. Give your mind new fresh expierences daily and find a balance in your life. This is so fucking important.

I was laying in bed and woke up early and was stuck thinking about negative things and I was feeling dull just aimlessly looming on my phone and that's when my hyperventilating started. The minute I had a positive outlook on things, remembered I have things to look forward to, and read about something I was interested in online, I noticed I was breathing totally normal and not twitching at all. Of course shah I noticed it I started again, but wtf files that tell you? My anxiety is not minor either. If simple stuff like that works for me it can for you. Anyone who knows me here knows my anxiety can get SEVERE. We have to put effort in to retrain our brains guys...


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## plaidpajamas (Dec 8, 2015)

Yes! Agreed!

It's a full time job combating this disorder but the paycheck is sanity


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## Zed (Jul 25, 2015)

Austinnn said:


> And distract it. I CANNOT stress this enough. Give your mind new fresh expierences daily and find a balance in your life. This is so fucking important.


Distraction may give temporary relief, but it's not going to solve the underlying problems which keep the dpd alive.

I think we've all witnessed enough stories here to know that too much empathises on 'acceptance' and 'distraction' will do nothing but temporarily relieve the symptoms. They CAN be helpful in certain situations but they're NOT going to resolve anything. In other words, you'll be back at the same place as soon as the distraction is over.

What is required for recovery is a deeper understanding of why you have dpd in the first place and from there you can work on changing the need/automatic response from dissociating to self soothing.


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## truffle (Dec 8, 2015)

I agree

Self-care is very important. Doing little things everyday that help you improve your environment around you can only give a positive outcome for yourself.


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## aworthycause (Mar 22, 2010)

Zed said:


> Distraction may give temporary relief, but it's not going to solve the underlying problems which keep the dpd alive.
> 
> I think we've all witnessed enough stories here to know that too much empathises on 'acceptance' and 'distraction' will do nothing but temporarily relieve the symptoms. They CAN be helpful in certain situations but they're NOT going to resolve anything. In other words, you'll be back at the same place as soon as the distraction is over.
> 
> What is required for recovery is a deeper understanding of why you have dpd in the first place and from there you can work on changing the need/automatic response from dissociating to self soothing.


What sort of deep understanding is it possible to arrive at, in your experience?


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## Zed (Jul 25, 2015)

alostcause said:


> What sort of deep understanding is it possible to arrive at, in your experience?


In my experience... I know exactly why I have a dissociative 'disorder'. I understand why my mind is fragmented and how it became fragmented.

People here often talk about feeling emotionally numb - I know this experience all too well. Most of my life I was emotionally numb to at least some degree. After years of working on understanding why I react the way I do and at the same time being open and non judgemental, I've been able to see which parts (emotions) of my mind have been 'cut-off' and left me numb, and I've also been able to see quite clearly where those parts are located (so I know they're safe, which puts me at ease).

I also have deep self compassion. As truffle said, self care is very important. I don't get angry at or punish myself for being dissociative, in fact I'm very proud of my ability to do so. However, as time goes on I do prefer not to dissociate so much, so I've taken steps to reduce the amount of dissociation I experience. I work with myself, not against myself.

I understand where my anxiety comes from and I've taken steps to reduce that.

I understand where my fears come from, and with compassion I've been able to reduce those down to a level where I don't get triggered anywhere near as much as I used to.

I have much more control over my life now. This is because I have worked on having a deep understanding of how my mind works.


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## aworthycause (Mar 22, 2010)

Zed said:


> In my experience... I know exactly why I have a dissociative 'disorder'. I understand why my mind is fragmented and how it became fragmented.
> 
> People here often talk about feeling emotionally numb - I know this experience all too well. Most of my life I was emotionally numb to at least some degree. After years of working on understanding why I react the way I do and at the same time being open and non judgemental, I've been able to see which parts (emotions) of my mind have been 'cut-off' and left me numb, and I've also been able to see quite clearly where those parts are located (so I know they're safe, which puts me at ease).
> 
> ...


I can identify with a lot of what you say compared to my own slow recovery process. I'm still not sure why or how my mind became fragmented though (other than too much stress vs too little coping resources and support). How was your DP triggered and why exactly did your mind fragment, if you don't mind me asking so directly?

Did you always have self compassion, or did it disappear during DP (or depression if you had it) and you had to rebuild it? If so, how? Personally, loving-kindness meditation has been somewhat helpful, but I have downturns back to self-criticism.


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## Zed (Jul 25, 2015)

alostcause said:


> How was your DP triggered and why exactly did your mind fragment, if you don't mind me asking so directly?


Actually I'm much further along the dissociative scale than DPD. However, I did suffer from DPD and DR for many years.

The reason my mind fragmented was because I suffered horrific abuse for most of my childhood. I was 46 years old before I even began to remember what had happened - which believe it or not is not that uncommon. The dissociative walls begin to erode eventually. So yeah, going through tons of trauma like that I had to learn how to push it out of my consciousness, and that's what dissociation does - it stored the traumatic memories in 'compartments' that were unavailable until I was strong enough to see the contents and begin to process what hadn't been processed previously. In fact I never processed anything in my life that was remotely traumatic - I dissociated everything and got on with my life.



alostcause said:


> Did you always have self compassion, or did it disappear during DP (or depression if you had it) and you had to rebuild it? If so, how?


I never had any self compassion. I went through my life secretly detesting myself. I learnt from a very young age that I was totally worthless, ugly, stupid and a waste of space - thanks family! I was taught I was born to serve others and nothing more. So how could I have any self compassion?

It was only after I started therapy that I realised not everyone felt the same about themselves deep down. I was so shocked to learn all this - but not as shocked as the counsellor hearing it though! With a lot of patience and repetition the counsellor and subsequent therapists helped to instal in me a sense of worth and with that came self compassion and high levels of self care. I should take some credit though, because I was the one who ultimately took this on and made the changes. I did the hard yards. I faced up to everything that was thrown at me, every message in my head, every inhuman thing I could remember . I could've put a gun to my head or a needle in my arm but I choose not to because I wanted a chance to enjoy my life just like everybody else out there in the world! And after years of hell reliving and finally processing everything horrible thing I could remember that was done to me I believe I'm over the worst of it and I'm beginning to enjoy my life and experience emotions I've never really experienced before. I can stay with the difficult emotions without the need to run away (dissociate from them). I have a completely different outlook on life.

Years ago when I first stated my recovery journey, a very wise woman said to me.. "When you first begin to walk the road of healing and you look ahead, you see this enormous mountain. At this point you have a choice. You can take the easy path and walk around the mountain or you can make your way up and get to enjoy the view." From that day on I made the choice of wanting to see the view.



alostcause said:


> Personally, loving-kindness meditation has been somewhat helpful, but I have downturns back to self-criticism.


There's every chance the self-criticism you experience comes from what people told you when you were young. Things that were told to us as young children have a very powerful effect on us all through our lives. My thoughts would be, when you hear that criticism running in your head, stop and challenge it! Call it out for what it is. Call it "lies" or "b/s" or whatever you want, because that's what it is - they're lies. The more the you challenge those lies the more they loose their power over you, until they get to a point when they disappear completely. And they do disappear eventually. I guess this is what neuro-plasticity is - the ability to rewire your responses.


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## aworthycause (Mar 22, 2010)

Zed said:


> Actually I'm much further along the dissociative scale than DPD. However, I did suffer from DPD and DR for many years.
> 
> The reason my mind fragmented was because I suffered horrific abuse for most of my childhood. I was 46 years old before I even began to remember what had happened - which believe it or not is not that uncommon. The dissociative walls begin to erode eventually. So yeah, going through tons of trauma like that I had to learn how to push it out of my consciousness, and that's what dissociation does - it stored the traumatic memories in 'compartments' that were unavailable until I was strong enough to see the contents and begin to process what hadn't been processed previously. In fact I never processed anything in my life that was remotely traumatic - I dissociated everything and got on with my life.
> 
> ...


Well said. Thanks for this post. It made me think.


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## Alex617 (Sep 23, 2015)

Zed said:


> Distraction may give temporary relief, but it's not going to solve the underlying problems which keep the dpd alive.
> 
> I think we've all witnessed enough stories here to know that too much empathises on 'acceptance' and 'distraction' will do nothing but temporarily relieve the symptoms. They CAN be helpful in certain situations but they're NOT going to resolve anything. In other words, you'll be back at the same place as soon as the distraction is over.
> 
> What is required for recovery is a deeper understanding of why you have dpd in the first place and from there you can work on changing the need/automatic response from dissociating to self soothing.


Hmm it's complicated. Rumination increases symptoms and actually changes the shape of your brain. A big point of CBT/mindfullness is letting your brain have a rest so it can recover, like pausing a treadmill that is going too fast and destroying you. I think distraction does this to an extent.

Better yet, don't even think of it as distraction. DP/DR is the distraction from life, we will all get old and die someday so do we really want to spend all this time intensely focusing on this negative disease?


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## Zed (Jul 25, 2015)

Alex617 said:


> Hmm it's complicated. Rumination increases symptoms and actually changes the shape of your brain. A big point of CBT/mindfullness is letting your brain have a rest so it can recover, like pausing a treadmill that is going too fast and destroying you. I think distraction does this to an extent.
> 
> Better yet, don't even think of it as distraction. DP/DR is the distraction from life, we will all get old and die someday so do we really want to spend all this time intensely focusing on this negative disease?


Yes I agree it is complicated. I think part of what makes it difficult to comment on peoples dpd is there's such a wide range of severities. Some people with less severe dpd seem to be able to move through dpd within weeks or months and others with more complex symptoms can take many years or even decades.

So with that in mind, yeah, I have no doubt some people can simply use distraction and acceptance, and after a relatively short time the symptoms pass and they get on with their lives.. but it's the others who've been stuck for months or years that I guess my comments where more directed at.

I have a theory about rumination. I believe the deep thinking sets us up for recovery. Because basically, it's thinking our way through that gets us out of this mind maze. I don't believe it's a coincidence that pretty much everyone with dissociative disorders ruminates to deep levels.. Even though it's pretty hard going ruminating about 'crazy' stuff, I believe it has a purpose. After all, the answer to the question of 'how to get rid of it' is inside us. From my experience CBT is a good way to ease rumination when it's getting too much.

Getting back to the title of the thread - absolutely, keeping well hydrated and well nourished is very beneficial to mental health!


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