update

it's been a while since any of us wrote anything here, and i figured i should give an update.

there's been a lot of life stuff in the past (eek!) half year. some of it was really hard... not so much stuff that was directly about me, but stuff with various family members. and i've been in really rotten physical health, so there've been a LOT of times when i wasn't up for sitting at the computer (darn it), and didn't have the energy to think of something to write.

but that amazing place in my healing process? boy, yeah. it's been almost seven months now, since i got there, and it hasn't gone away. and i've gone through enough stuff that i KNOW would have knocked me back into bad depression, and it just didn't.

i'm not saying that i haven't felt sad, or even depressed, but it's different in a way i have trouble describing. that suicidal edge hasn't been there. i've (we've) been able to feel emotions, and accept that they are all temporary. something might make me (or someone else inside) feel bad, but we're all able to realize that we will feel better.

there were a few weeks, right at the beginning, when it was like endlessly fizzing water, just joyous, even through things that were upsetting. and then someone i'm really close to died, and that fizzing really went away. because, well, yeah. but the funny thing is, even through the deep sadness that went along with that, i was able to see that i wouldn't feel that sad forever. and i was able to handle a lot of tough things while dealing with the specifics of that that i don't think i could have handled on my own before.

i guess the main reason i'm writing right now is to say that, yes, healing is possible. if you keep slogging through, you'll get to the point where you're not always being blindsided by panic attacks or depressions or all of those nasty triggered feelings.

the funny thing is, it's not like i haven't had panic attacks or depression or triggers since november. it's just that they aren't as bad. they don't knock me out as far, and i can get back on my own.

i guess the main thing is that i'm able to see my emotions as information, which i can act on in different ways. i don't feel like i'm held hostage by them, or attacked by them. they're just... information. sadness or depression are signs that there is something hurting me, and i can use those to find what's hurting me, and look for ways of easing the pain.

i guess the biggest thing is that all of us in here have gotten to a place where we realized that we can *do* something to ease the pain. we don't have to be stuck there. and that makes all the difference in the world.

so i'm sharing this, because i know that i would get discouraged, back when i was first reading lots of blogs, at feeling like the slog was endless.

the other part i want to share is this: you never know when it will happen. right before it happened for me, i'd had months of some of the worst depressions i could remember. the pain was unbearable and intense, and i would go from feeling fine to suicidal, all of a sudden. it felt like i was never going to get better, and like i'd made no progress at all in all of those years of therapy. and then, i don't know. something clicked. it's like the healing had happened, separate from a bunch of the parts who were active. and the parts who were most active for months before the change were some of the ones with the deepest hurts, who seemed least affected by any of the healing. and then, all of a sudden, they went from seeming not healed at all, to being pretty much there.

and, yeah, i've still got parts, and i think i'm always going to have parts. we've been spending more time out together, or maybe it's more that we're more aware of each other when we're out together, since that meshes a little more with how we experience life. we're all able to accept each other, even if we don't necessarily *like* or agree with each other. things are just smoother internally, with less of the deep conflict. and, so far as all of us are concerned, that is the kind of integration that works for our system.

i'll try not to go another six months in between posts. :)