So, one of the things that confuses me… about myself is that people often have regarded me as having high emotional intelligence.
And then, my brother dies and I get slammed w/ this DID diagnoses and these parts start emerging that to “me” look damaged and hurt and all manner of broken. And for a while there, the slightest thing makes me/us spiral and want to off ourselves. And those are not examples of having “high ego strength“, which is something Nichole talked about in sesh today.
That website talks briefly about high and low ego strength. And I see those high ego strength characteristics in parts of me, but I also see the low one’s too. And so I am trying to wrap my head around how it’s possible to exhibit both in the same person? And I hear my friend Shannon’s voice in my head say, “Parts” lol.
But even further, is it that, the “me” that people see as resilient and calm and “unflappable” (as a previous mgr told me) only exists because the other parts have held onto a lot of the harder emotions? Or is it really that this “self” part of me does show high emotional intelligence/ego strength and resilience and it’s legit built from an understanding of both pain and love…of real life experience… and that the other parts just have a lot to learn and haven’t caught up because I’ve kept them buried? But if it’s the case that I do show these positive characteristics, why don’t they inherently trust me? It’s not like I..this me… intentionally kept them buried. It was largely unconscious.
I’m having a really hard time these past couple of weeks accepting DID. Especially the closer I get to the patterns of my old life. Part of me thinks I just made it all up and that the diagnosis has made things worse. Caused more dysregulation and more leaning into these “crazier” parts of me. It’s really hard to argue with that line of reasoning.
I think, this is why I drew that piece yesterday “Discordant”. Because, I often sense it. I sense the polarization of both being incredibly strong and resilient and having a ton of empathy and love for others… which comes from the wisdom of many experiences and I sense the other half of me that is easily dysregulated, suicidal, incredibly anxious, avoidant, just all sorts of disorganized attachment shit… and I don’t know how to make sense of it. I don’t know how to make sense of “me”. The only thing that fits is to say “well, you have DID” that’s why. And that fucking hurts because I don’t want it to be true. I just want to live as this stronger version of myself, but as Ben might say, thats probably less honest, huh?
I feel like I’m rambling. I do feel a little better after my sesh w/ Nichole, less like a scared 5 year old kid and more like an adult who can tackle things as needed – who though she feels a little bad – knows she will prove her skillset at work and really will strive to improve things. I want that to be the case not just cause its my livelihood and reputation on the line – but cause I actually really do care.
I just need to be careful about pouring too much of myself into it. Because at the end of the day I still need to be “me”, the best version of me, and I can’t do that if all of my mental energy is tied up in work. I’ll reflect on this. Meanwhile, I feel like I owe a bit of an apology to Ben about how childish I was being earlier. I know I was badly triggered but – it was still dumb. lol hahaha
Also, I had a lot of fun drawing on my iPad last night. I’m excited to do more – hopefully this weekend. I have to put off a doc’s appt for work on Monday which is stressing me out because it’s an example of work intruding on my own needs…but apart from that…I will hopefully have some time to reset and calm down.
I’m sorry I couldn’t meet everyone’s expectations this week. I know some of them are unrealistic, but it still stings when I can’t do it all. And I really do want to do better for myself/my parts and those supporting me… I’m sorry, I’ll try again next week. <3