Everyone is capable of putting up walls. Whether a singleton or a multiple, walls are a necessary form of survival for abused children. I understand that walls can be a good for of protection.
They can also be a hindrance. If walls are used to shut out the people who care for us, they can be a big problem. Particularly with the multiple, walls between personalities or alters can make it impossible for the system to function successfully for the good of the whole. But walls with singletons can cause problems as well.
Walls can shut off feelings that are necessary tools for protecting us from life's predators. They may have been built to ward off pain but can only lead to more problems. Granted, I don't want the woman at the horse show who hates me to get to me, BUT I won't allow my discomfort because of her presence to cause me to build anymore walls.
I have learned from experience that those walls really set me up to remain a victim. They isolated me from my feelings so I didn't get those warnings that someone was not trust worthy. Ignoring the signals left me unable to protect myself in more appropriate ways.
Walls can harder a heart so that is no longer empathizes with fellow human beings. There are prisons full of people who are dealing with much bigger walls than the ones keeping them incarcerated. Their inner walls drive their dysfunction leaving them non-productive members of society. Their behavior is self-destructive yet they have no clue their unhappiness comes from within.
I read a comment on a friend's blog a while back that suggested she guard her heart. I remember the image of walls rising up in my mind. I felt sad for the person who had shared that comment because it told me that she had been deeply hurt. It told me she would rather protect herself from the possibility of pain than take a risk.
Protecting one's heart means not allowing oneself the opportunity to live and love. Considering that we as human beings need love to survive, protecting one's heart can have dire consequences.
For me it brings to mind the song, "Standing Outside the Fire" "Life is not tried is it merely survived, standing outside the fire..." I can say from experience I'm a much happier person because I've decided to quit surviving with my walls and having jumped headfirst into the fire of life.
multiple personality disorder MPD dissociative Identity disorder did
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About Me
- Rising Rainbow
- I've owned Arabian Horses for at least 20 years. While we have been breeding them most of that time, due to the current economy we have stopped breeding. Now with my current health concerns my future with horses may be in question too. In the meantime, with my husband and daughter, we currently have a herd of about 25 horses. Most are sired by our herd sire, Scandalous Legacy. The horses we have bred have been worked with from the day they are born and we pride ourselves on raising beautiful horses with kind, sweet, willing dispositions. Arabian horses have been therapy for me without them I would not be here.
8 comments:
Do you do any counseling for others? You have such a wonderful perception of all this...the how's and why's. You always satisfy my curiosity about things...
I love that song: Standing outside the fire. Yes, to everything you are saying about walls. I believe that there is actually a spectrum that goes from being fully singleton to being multiple. I believe that even singletons in a sense partition parts of the self--career, home, relationships. It's a question of degree, of how absolute the wall is.
As always, a great post.
Don't know anything about multiple PD, do know about abuse though as a therapist and from what i'm reading you are working hard to lay your ghosts.
Thank you for visiting it's lovely to meet you.
pxx
I agree with kat_womanx2. Your post has made me think. But walls are so hard to break down eh?
One of the things I like about cyber-space is it allows me to share stuff that I wouldnt in RL. I guess another type of wall.
Kahless (from Moscow!)
at the moment we have walls of numbness, there are many walls you are right and many forms of them
kat_womanx2, I'm not sure how to answer that question. I am not a counselor but I guess you could say that I counsel my friends, as many of us do. If they have a problem, and sometimes if I see a problem, I share what I know.
Sometimes I do my posts on issues my friends are dealing with because I sit here at the computer not knowing what I should post about then something come up with one of them and I decide to post something related.I'm glad you find my posts helpful.
april_optimist, I believe that you are right about it being a matter of degrees between singletons and multiples. In my history in groups I saw plenty of singeltons with walls as effective as mine ever were, they just performed their functions a bit differently. And the walls can have many different functions.
Hi, pixie, it's nice to meet you too. I have worked hard on my issues and they no longer rule my life. Hurray!!
Kahless from Moscow no less!! I think the internet gives people a false sense of security about being anynonmous. But I have no delusions about that. My life is an open book, I've long since given up all of my secrets. That is what has set me free.
jumpinginpuddles, I'll bet you have walls of numbness right now. You have a lot going on in your life. It's probably better to be numb for a while instead of overwhelmed as long as you still make the time to deal with the issues instead of stuff them away.
I don't want a life merely survived. That's why I started Survivors Can Thrive! It's still a work-in-progress, of course. Great thought-provoking post!
after reading this post, Im w/ Kat! you are right on with your insights.
I am a classic wall builder. But the last 5 years or so, I have come a long ways from where I was.
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