...Dreams of Wandering the Rainforest at Night.

Last Friday, I had a discussion with my psychologist and a psychologist specialized in EMDR and complex or early trauma in general. The aim of the discussion would've been to figure out whether EMDR would be for me, but we quickly found out that it isn't. The reason is that I have apparently recently been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder (DID, formerly known as multiple personality disorder [MPD]). The treatment for DID is some kind of three-phase model, in which I'm in phase one and trauma work is in phase three. The first phase had to do something with getting to know your system, developing trust in the treatment, cooperation between the system mebers, etc., but I'm not sure exactly what was said.

It was quite a shock to me to hear my psychologist say that I meet DSM-IV criteria for DID. I knew that I will meet DSM-V criteria if they remain the same as proposed, but the DSM-IV is somewhat stricter. Particularly, I sometimes wonder whether my parts truly come out and whether I lose enough time. I know that I recently lost time after a therapy session in which one of my parts was present, but I thought maybe that was not real. However, my boyfriend told me over the week-end that, back in 2009, I used to switch and not remember that I'd reacted quite differently to a certain situation just before. Back then, I was not involved with dissociation at all, so it would be unlikely to be caused by internalized suggestion or some other mechanism by which I could fake.

I also feel bad, because I wonder whether I have enough trauma in my history to warrant me having a dissociative disorder. I don't feel like my childhood was that bad, and I don't believe that's a matter of not remembering things. Then again, everyone has a different level of sensitivity to trauma, and my childhood was certainly overwhelming. That may be explained by the fact that I'm autistic and therefore more vulnerable to environmental stimulation.

Between the lines, there was some talk about my possibly not being autistic after all. My psychologist actually meant to wonder what of my problems is cause of the DID and what is due to the ASD. I worried that she was going to throw out my autism diagnosis, which not only explains much about why my experiences were traumatic to me, but also serves as the ground for my moving to the workhome next year. I feared that I could not go to the workhome, and where else would I find a safe place to live? I sent my psychologist an E-mail asking her for clarification, and she explained that there are indeed indication to support a diagnosis of autism, and that she is not going to throw out the label. That relieved me quite a bit.

To distract myself, I decided to do a meme. I stole this one from amadi

1. It's 2AM and you are not home. You are more than likely:
   At my boyfriend's.
   
2. What’s the last thing you spent more than $100 on?
   Instittuion care copay bills, LOL.


3. What do your bank cheques look like?
   Don't know.


4. Where did the shirt you are currently wearing come from?
   I don't remember where I buy my clothes.


5. Name something that is on your Christmas wish list:
   Heck, I don't even know what I want for my birthday, let alone Christmas.


6. What color is your toothbrush?
   Purple?


7. Name something you collect...
   Blogs for in my feed reader.


8. Last restaurant you ate at.
   A pancake restaurant in my city


9. Last person you bought a birthday card for:
   My mother.


10. What is your worst bad habit?
    Biting my nails.


11. Name a magazine you subscribe to?
    Zapp.


12. Your favorite pizza toppings?
    Salami, peppers, onions and fresh tomatoes.


13. Whose number were you looking up the last time you used a phone book?
    I've never used a phone book.


14. Who is the person that you love most?
    My boyfriend, duh.


15. What is the last thing you cooked?
    Macaroni I think. Haven't cooked in months.


16. Name something you wouldn’t want to buy used?
    Underwear.


17. Which shoe do you put on first?
    Whichever one I find first.


18. What is the last thing you remember losing?
    Can't remember


19. What is the ugliest piece of furniture in your house?
    The blue chair. It was in my house, but when I went to empty that, the ward wanted to have it. All other patients like the chair.


20. Last thing you bought and ended up returning?
    Tried to return a piece of software I bought online, but failed.


21. What perfume/cologne do you wear?
    None.


22. Your favorite board game?
    Scrabble.


23. Last board game you played?
    Scrabble.


24. Where did your vehicle come from?
    I don't have one


25. If a movie was made about your life what would the theme song be?
    Can't think of anything.


26. You're sad, who can cheer you up easily?
    Random people on the Internet


27. What was the color of the bridesmaid dresses of the last wedding you went to?
    I don't have a clue even when the last wedding I attended was.


28. What house cleaning chore do you hate to do the most?
    Vacuuming.


29. What is your favorite way to eat chicken?
    I like any sort of chicken except for chicken liver.


30. It is your birthday. You hope the cake is?
    Home-made apple cake.

Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day. Check out people's contributions over at the Diary of a Goldfish BADD page. I posted my contribution over at my other blog.

Now I don't remember whether Facebook had a CAPTCHA upon registration - probably it did -, and I don't care, since I already got an account. But for fuck's sake why do they have a CAPTCHA if you want to deactivate your account?! I bet it's something like them not only not wanting spammers to register, but them wanting to continue to spam everyone who isn't a spammer themself. I only have three "friends", but I get E-mail messages multiple times a week inviting me to events I don't want to attend and sending me messages asking whether I had a nice week-end - the last time I called the person who obviously sent that message to all of her "friends" in one click, she hung up on me, so I don't think she wants to know. And I don't want any more Farmville gifts either. Apparently, however, I have to prove that I am not a robot or disabled before they will stop bugging me. Note that they do provide audio CAPTCHAs, but those not only leave out the Deaf-Blind, but also don't always work on my very slow, mobile connection.

This entry was crossposted at accessibility_fail.

Guess what? I actually did all three things I listed in yesterday's meme that I would do today. Hanging out online was inevitable and seeing my boyfriend was expected, but I actually also did some studying.

I am currently signed up for a health psychology course at Open University, and I have discovered that I do not prefer digital textbooks over talking textbooks as much as I used to think I did. In fact, I take much longer to read my textbook using my Braille display than I would take to listen to a DAISY book. Of course, I could be using synthetic speech to read my book, but I can't stand that voice and can't attend to it at all. The advantage of having a text-based textbook is, of course, that I can skip over all the tables and figure captions, which whoever is reading the talking book will often read in their entirety, usually with semi-comprehensible image descriptions added. That's how I know the woman who read my neuropsychology textbook isn't color blind. Anyway, I took about an hour to read 12 pages. That is not much for me, but not bad either. If I resolve to study an hour everyday, and I actually stick to my resolution, that would mean I could be finishing the course by the end of May. Attend to the meaning of "would" and "could" here.