More on Depression

Kahless left a comment with several questions on yesterday's post, Depression Looking over the list, I thought maybe the best way to address the questions would be in a post where I could be more thorough. Also, I'm going to change the order of the questions so the follow time sequence stays in order.

Q: What do you mean by 'real' therapy?

A: In some of my very first posts, I gave some history about myself. A Little History gives some of my family background and an overview of my 'first' therapy. While I learned some things that were helpful in my 'real' therapy, it no way addressed any of the real issues that were responsible for me being a victim as an adult, let alone any of the issues from my past.

When I use the term 'real' therapy, I'm referring to the therapy that began when I joined a group for incest survivors on through the completion of my therapy dealing with ritualistic abuse. This 'real' therapy came in two stages, the incest at home and the ritualistic abuse away from home.

I posted A Little More History about the therapy that addressed the issues from my sexual abuse by my older brother, Danny. It was the stepping stone for the revelation that there was much more in my past.

I don't know if you've heard the analogy about therapy being like 'peeling the onion" but it sure fits what I went through in therapy. To this day I couldn't really tell you if the 'first' therapy had any peeling involved at all. But the second part sure did. I would say that the work done on the incest was my first layer and from there each layer became more and more intense.

Looking at this so far, there's a lot more I could say about my 'real' or productive therapy. So much in fact that I will go ahead and do a series of posts about that therapy and what made if different from the first for me.

Q: How long in therapy did it take to overcome these feelings of depression and the 'trash' talk?

A: Now, this is a loaded question. I think that each and every one of us, singleton or multiple, has our own way in which we work. 'Work' here for me would be the process used in therapy to resolve issues. So I'm hesitant to put a time frame on anything for fear someone will look at it and decide that she/he isn't doing it 'right' because she/he isn't keeping up with my time table.

Also, remember I said in the depression post the reason for my depression was two-fold. Part of it was from all the feelings turned against myself and part of it was from the way I beat up or trash talked myself.

But I will say this, once one of my controlling personalities figured out that my depression was affected by the way I treated myself, there was an immediate change in my behavior. I'm not saying my behavior was fixed, it was improved. With that improvement, there was relief for my depression.

To begin with, that strong personality took on the task of responding to the negative talk instead of taking it on as she had in the past. She confronted the trash talker and explained what she had learned about the negative messages. The fact that she stuck up for us instead of joining in on the trash talking was very important to the healing. I It took time but as we got stronger and stronger the depression got weaker and weaker.

Q:Was it a case of learning to express your anger, or did you also have to find it? If so, how?

A: It was both. Sometimes the anger just boiled over with no warning and other times I had go looking for it. But as I found productive ways to express my anger it seemed to be easier to locate it. Sometimes I would set up the ways to express it without my anger being anywhere in sight. Usually, that was productive as well.

Q: Was there a special 'key' to turn to overcome it?

A: The special 'key' you are looking for is self acceptance! It is a simple yet complicated as that. As long as a person, multiple or singleton, is filled with self loathing, they're going to be depressed. Once I learned to totally accept that I was ok just the way I was (all of me!), my big struggle with depression was over.

The problem is that most people have no clue how deep their self loathing goes. Most people who suffer with depression would probably say they don't feel self loathing. But, whether they know it or not, it IS the root of the depression.

I could probably have gone on venting for years with all of the rage built up inside because of my ritualistic abuse and still not been free of my depression. It was not until I accepted myself that I became free of my demons.



multiple personality disorder MPD dissociative Identity disorder did depression