Hope for Recovery

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I thought the article below might be helpful for anyone who, like me, sometimes finds themselves wondering what the point of therapy is and whether things can actually get better for dissociative survivors. It is written by Carolyn Spring, founder of PODS (a UK organisation providing support, information and training on DID-spectrum disorders) and I have found myself returning to it a number of times over the past year or so. It not only provides hope that things can get better for us, and that therapy can, in fact, end, but it also validates how long therapy takes for these disorders (she was in therapy for 10 years, but was living, as opposed to surviving for much of that time – I’ve seen her speak at a PODS training day I went to in 2016 and she is truly inspirational). I found myself returning to it today because I needed reminding that I have not ‘done’ the work, I am not done with therapy – if I had done the work, if I was ready to leave therapy, I wouldn’t be feeling like this about it ending. Yes, I would be immensely sad to lose someone who has played such an important part in my journey, but I would be ready to go it alone, and I wouldn’t be flung repeatedly into this state of total annihilation where I am self-harming and not eating and not able to sleep and just clinging on for dear life as the waves of abandonment and attachment pain obliterate me over again and again. I have come a long, long way in the past 3 years, but this article has helped to remind me that where I am now is not as good as it gets for me – there is more than this for me, and I am going to get there.

Divorcing Old Habits by Carolyn Spring of PODS

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