So, let me catch everyone up? :)
Well the latest is I got locked down on a 5150 hold just last month.
There was yet another incident of self harm (cutting) and we were not able to keep the cuts hidden from our biological daughter. She had the expected reaction - anger and disgust. She even yelled at me about how I was trying to take her mother away. Interesting that at that moment, she seemed to forget about the DID. I still get frustrated with the others and how I end up dealing with the ramifications of their actions. It wasn't the person who cut who ended up in the emergency room. Nor was it the person who cut who spent the time on lock down. It was me. I spent 8 days in a mental ward filled to the max with mostly bi-polar 1 and/or schizophrenic patients. Most had tried to commit suicide and failed. The only thing I could do really is just laugh at the situation. I am neither bi-polar nor schizophrenic, so I really just had to 'play the game and say the right things' so the medical professionals would let me out of there. Just typing it now is ticking me off. Do any of you deal with taking responsibility and dealing with the fall out for the actions of the others alters? [ASIDE - In case you don't know what a 5150 is, here's a pretty good explanation from Wikipedia]:
"Section 5150 is a section of the California Welfare and Institutions
Code (specifically, the Lanterman–Petris–Short Act or "LPS") which
allows a qualified officer or clinician to involuntarily confine a
person deemed to have a mental disorder that makes them a danger to
him or her self, and/or others and/or gravely disabled. A qualified
officer, which includes any California peace officer or paramedic, as
well as any specifically designated county clinician, can request the
confinement after signing a written declaration. When used as a term,
5150 (pronounced "fifty-one-fifty") can informally refer to the person
being confined or to the declaration itself, or colloquially as a verb,
as in 'Someone was 5150'd'."
Most of the in-patients went on to the intensive out-patient program of the hospital. It goes from 9am until 3pm. Can you imagine having to be in group 6 hours a day, 5 days a week? I'll pass, thanks.
It has been now over 3 years since my DID diagnosis and I still - STILL have moments when I have doubt that we are plural. I simply don't want it to be true. Plus I don't want to have to do the hard, hard work that is required to at the least get us all working congruently. We can't even think about considering integration because we feel so strongly that to do so would kill most of us. And that's just too much for us.
It is so good to see all of you here again. We'll speak again soon.
~by: Jess Mei
