Third of a Lifetime

Best Tweets for Trauma Survivors is a weekly Friday feature. My selections are entirely subjective, and I know it will never be possible to include every great resource tweeted. But I can try! I’ve personally read all tweeted links, and believe them to be of great value.

Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for content found on any other website. Stay safe, and don’t follow links if you believe you might be triggered by them. Also, I will not be re-checking links from older Best Tweets posts, and if the site’s archived URL is different from the one I’ve provided here, you may need to do a search on their site.

NEW and REALLY COOL: You can now “like” this post, and “share” it everywhere with the touch of a button or two at the end of the linked tweets! Feel free to do any or all of that! (And thanks.)

Photo Credit: Hubby Dan!

@CarePathways “Simply put, the beauty of fall
can be savored but not saved.”

Six Provocative Standalone Tweets To Ponder

@PsychDigest “The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own wonderful lesson.” ~ Marden

@CarePathways “People spend their lives struggling, trying to be someplace that they’re not. They never get to arrive.”

@karenkmmonroy “Forcing a transition, forcing ‘something’ to happen, takes you out of alignment with flow. So does the resistance of same.”

@LillyAnn “The more I ask, the less I understand; the harder I seek, the less I find. Slow down — let go.”

@zebraspolkadots “In creating change from the inside out I had to stop focusing only on what I was doing and connect it to what I was thinking and feeling.”

@InspirationDay “The end of wisdom is to dream high enough not to lose the dream in the seeking of it.” ~ William Faulkner

Linked Tweets

The colder, shorter days and coming holiday season are not always a joyous or easy time of year for trauma survivors. If you need help, find it. Line up resources now, and know how to contact them when you most need them. My special thanks to @unsuicide for tweeting suicide prevention resources on Twitter.

Suicide Prevention Resources

@unsuicide Suicidal? Read this first
[SEO: Compassionate and honest, this speaks to you directly about wanting the pain to end, and how to think about it in ways which don't include you having to die. It does not judge you for your feelings, it encourages you to understand why you feel them. If you understand the why, you can see better solutions. "While we are together here for the next five minutes, I have five simple, practical things I would like to share with you. I won't argue with you about whether you should kill yourself. But I assume that if you are thinking about it, you feel pretty bad. ... Being unsure about dying is okay and normal. The fact that you are still alive at this minute means you are still a little bit unsure. It means that even while you want to die, at the same time some part of you still wants to live. So let's hang on to that, and keep going for a few more minutes." Includes hotlines to call to talk with someone, and a list of related articles and resources on Metanoia's site.]

@unsuicide Hello, Cruel World by @katebornstein — ebook helps you stay alive (PDF)
[SEO: Four pages, a mini-version of her book of the same title, she speaks as you might wish a friend would when you are contemplating ending your life. "You’re better off alive, no matter how messed up you think you might be right now. And you’re better off alive no matter how mean someone is being to you. You are simply better off alive than dead—no matter who or what you are, no matter who or what you love, and no matter what you do. Just don’t be mean. Being mean never works. Never. So that’s the only rule I can think of that’s worth following in life: don’t be mean. Yes, you can be mean to yourself if that’s what’s going to keep you alive. I’m sorry if that’s happening to you. But keep in mind that there are alternatives that hurt a lot less, and I hope you find one soon." Includes exercises.

@unsuicide Need to talk? International list of people who listen and care, 24/7
[SEO: The International Association for Suicide Prevention's website is a wealth of help and resources if you are suicidal. If you are not suicidal, bookmark this site so you can point anyone you meet online to resources in their area, worldwide.]

Therapy Issues

@NAMIMass Do I really need help? When mental health problems occur, recognizing them is the first step to recovery
[SEO: A great overview of the stereotypes regarding seeking therapy (that it's only for people with severe disorders, or that it's not needed until a bigger problem develops). The key for most people is determining whether the problem is impairing good functioning. "It is good to be worried about cars on the road, so you are more careful when you walk across; but when you are so worried that you cannot cross the road at all, it has impaired your functioning.” Article includes a list of common symptoms, and how to find a therapist. See also the next article below.]

@PTSDdotOrg Choosing an Anxiety or Trauma Therapist (via Treating Anxiety blog)
[SEO: "Focus on the human part. It’s a relationship. Yes, a business partnership but anxiety and/or trauma therapy also introduces you to novel concepts like calm. Not to mention brave new worlds. Brave new worlds which offer a great deal, but you have to be comfortable opening your mouth first."]

@ssanquist 9 Rules for Surviving Therapy (via Beyond Blue)
[SEO: If you wonder if your therapy is going anywhere, or if the problem is you or your therapist, this list explores reasons why it could be either of you or both. Really good therapy requires really good communication, especially on the therapist's part, because you may not know enough about your issues to communicate them completely yet. Ask for clarification if you need it. Be assertive, but not aggressive. Assume the therapist is in your corner unless and until proven otherwise. And check out these 9 rules for surviving therapy: you -- and your therapist -- may be viewing your therapy process with inaccurate assumptions.]

@FaithLotus Alternative Healing: Expressive Therapy
[SEO: This is excellent. Faith explains the difference between "art therapy" (which usually involves a prompt by the therapist) and "expressive therapy" (which may or may not utilize "art" to express it, and does not necessarily use a prompt, meaning, it can be purely spontaneous). "In a nutshell, she said that it is an outlet a person can use to express feelings and emotions. This can be done with painting, sculpting, drawing, etc., but it doesn’t even have to be art-related. Expressive therapy can be done through drama, writing, or any other way that you find to express yourself."]

The Rest of the Best

@fromtracie The October Blog Carnival Against Child Abuse is up!
[SEO: A look at child abuse by various bloggers under the categories of Advocacy and Awareness, Aftermath, Healing and Therapy, Poetry, and Survivor Stories.]

@zebraspolkadots Deeper Than Skin Deep (via Overcoming Sexual Abuse)
[SEO: "This got me thinking about the different things that affect my outward body and things that have affected my soul—those things that I have tried to fix with a band-aid or with coping medication such as alcohol and drugs. It eased the pain for a while only to have it return again. This way of thinking made sense to me because there were many mixed messages that were fed into my soul as a child that I battled with for most of my life. It was those messages and false beliefs that I had to tackle during my healing. I had to go deeper than the sexual abuse, find the mixed messages, connect them with the emotions that were attached to them, and replace them with truth. Once I was able to put the healing truth in my soul, I was able to overcome them."]

@psychcentral 4 Steps to Getting Unstuck
[SEO: "In order to get unstuck we need to understand that there are perceptions, judgments and opinions that occur so quickly beneath our awareness that we get stuck before we even notice any thoughts arise. Your mind judges exercise as “bad” before the conscious excuse comes up. Your partner was “wrong” milliseconds after he opened his mouth."]

@patriciasinglet Hearing Negative Self Talk? (via Emerging from Broken blog)
[SEO: "I became aware years ago of the negative self talk that went on in my head. I tried all sorts of ways to deal with it or combat it. I heard all kinds of cute sayings and instructions such as 'tell the committee to shut up, the meeting is over' and tell them to 'stop renting space in my head'. ... Maybe I thought it made sense to ignore the voices because like many of us I grew up with my needs being ignored, so it was familiar and comfortable to ignore them myself. I don’t think I ever saw those nagging critical voices as expressing a need but maybe they were after all. Maybe I thought it made sense to ignore them because I didn’t have any other solutions about what to do about negative self talk."]

@ssanquist The Health Benefits of Tears
[SEO: This article propounds that crying is good for you, physically and emotionally, and discusses some of the science behind tears and their direct connection to stress relief. "Emotional tears have special health benefits. Biochemist and “tear expert” Dr. William Frey at the Ramsey Medical Center in Minneapolis discovered that reflex tears are 98% water, whereas emotional tears also contain stress hormones which get excreted from the body through crying. After studying the composition of tears, Dr. Frey found that emotional tears shed these hormones and other toxins which accumulate during stress. Additional studies also suggest that crying stimulates the production of endorphins, our body’s natural pain killer and “feel-good” hormones."]

@natasha_tracy Holding Onto Hope in Bipolar Disorder (via Breaking Bipolar blog)
[SEO: Achingly honest -- and applies to anyone struggling with complex mental disorders. The author differentiates between the hope that anyone trying new treatments must have in order to keep trying vs her personal agony of hope when treatment after treatment does not work. While she knows they didn't work for her, she still offers to hold hope for you if you have none, because they might well work for you. "There are probably people holding onto your hope right now without you even knowing about it. People like doctors, therapists, friends, family, and yes, even me. I’m hanging onto a piece of your hope too. I’m keeping it safe. I can see it there even when you can’t. It doesn’t matter than I don’t know you. I know your despair. I know your pain. And I know there is hope. I know that as long as you are breathing, there is hope. Really. Truly."]

@patriciasinglet Forgiving Your Body (via Blooming Lotus blog)
[SEO: This is a concept I struggle with daily. Still. "Throughout my years of healing, I have learned that I actually have a relationship with my body, and I have not always been kind. In many ways, I have been my own body’s abuser, from banging its head into pillows to overstuffing it with food that it did not need. I have hated my body for having orgasms during sex, and I have hated my body for not having orgasms during sex. I have taken a lot of my anger out on my body even though my body did nothing to deserve it."]

@PalCheck How helping others helps you (via @DrKathleenYoung)
[SEO: "If you lug your elderly neighbor's groceries up her steps, clearly it's good for her. But did you know that it's likely good for you too? Research indicates that those who consistently help other people experience less depression, greater calm, fewer pains and better health. They may even live longer." Research, hints on helping, and ways to volunteer.]

Each Friday I scoop out Twitter goodness from my Tweet Stream that is artsy, humorous, beautiful, sometimes just plain weird. Mostly links today — my snark radar must have been in the shop this week! Enjoy!

@CarePathways “According to quantum physics, time may be coexisting and happening all at once. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow are all now.”
[SEO: This may be the best explanation for my life. ]

@ssanquist So cute!! [referring to Theodore]
[SEO: Theodore (@DrKathleenYoung's pug), have you met Lola (@CarePathways' pug)? You two seem to have a lot in common.]

@2morrowknight The 10 most annoying smartphone habits

@AnnTran_ 40 Gorgeous Examples of Beach Photography (via @ssanquist)
[SEO: Truly exquisite photos.]

@NatGeoPhotos Photo of the Day: Rooftop Golf, New York
[SEO: Extremely difficult to retrieve errant balls.]

@goodthingZ Beck’s Live Art Project

Special Request: If you find value in this blog showcase, please add the Dissociation Blog Showcase link to your blogroll so others can find it. Thanks!

We have amazing writers amongst us who give insight and hope to anyone struggling with dissociation, or to their loved ones. It’s a brain trust, and I treasure it. When I find new blogs, I update the Dissociation Blog Showcase (DBS) on Sunday evenings. Tonight I’ve added the following four new blogs:

Adventures in Anxiety Land

ASTRID’S JOURNAL

IDENTITYBREAKS

I Probably have Dissociation

Please use the DBS link above to access these blogs, and check out the entire directory of (currently) 179 dissociation-related blogs!

As always, be careful and safe. Many of these blogs do not provide trigger warnings, nor are they obligated to do so.

If you, or someone you know, experiences dissociation and blog about it, write to me with the URL at

sarah.e.olsonATgmailDOTcom

I review each blog before adding it to the Showcase. Thanks so much for the feedback and well-wishes for this project!

Best Tweets for Trauma Survivors is a weekly Friday feature. My selections are entirely subjective, and I know it will never be possible to include every great resource tweeted. But I can try! I’ve personally read all tweeted links, and believe them to be of great value.

Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for content found on any other website. Stay safe, and don’t follow links if you believe you might be triggered by them. Also, I will not be re-checking links from older Best Tweets posts, and if the site’s archived URL is different from the one I’ve provided here, you may need to do a search on their site.

NEW and REALLY COOL: You can now “like” and “share” this post everywhere with the touch of a button or two at the end of the linked tweets! Feel free to do any or all of that! (And thanks.)

Image Credit

@LillyAnn “The beautiful souls are they that are
universal, open, and ready for all things.” ~ Michel de Montaigne

Six Provocative Standalone Tweets to Ponder

@Tamavista “Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.” ~ Kung Tzu

@rcinstitute “ThoughtfulThursday: 21st century sins: apathy, complacency, making assumptions, mental rigidity.”

@allgreatquotes “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” ~ J.K. Rowling

@zebraspolkadots “In anger I let go of the past I’d had, in grief I let go of what I’ll never have, and in joy I live what I’ve got. #acceptance”

@CarePathways “Happiness is a form of courage.” ~ Holbrook Jackson

@InspirationDay “The first requisite of success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem without growing weary.” ~ Thomas Edison

Linked Tweets

@ssanquist 16 Ways Depression Is Like a Pumpkin (via Beyond Blue)
[SEO: A little humor about the overlap of depression and pumpkins. What makes humor work is that it so often reveals the truth.]

@tinybuddha Discovering Happiness Through Purpose in 3 Natural Steps
[SEO: "Once you’ve found your path, the superficial destination the world defaults to becomes unimportant. Comparison disappears and all of a sudden it’s the travel itself that becomes meaningful. No longer are you trying to get somewhere. You’re there."]

@VoiceinRecovery The Power of Empathy (via @kris_burns)
[SEO: An excellent in-depth look at what empathy is, how it is beneficial, and how to become more empathic. "Empathy is not sympathy. When we're sympathetic, we often pity someone else but maintain our distance (physically, mentally, and emotionally) from their feelings or experience. Empathy is more a sense that we can truly understand, relate to, or imagine the depth of another person's emotional state or situation. It implies feeling with a person rather than feeling sorry for a person. And in some cases that 'person' is actually us."]

@MentalHealthUSA Embracing life after suicide attempt
[SEO: A tough subject, but one many trauma survivors are acquainted with: surviving a suicide attempt -- and what comes next. This article, written by a suicide attempt survivor with bipolar disorder, emphasizes that speaking out about mental health and suicidal tendencies is the way forward. "The dangerous thing about silence is that it breeds shame and isolation, both of which can be much more devastating than any singular psychiatric condition alone. It's one thing to be crazy. It's quite another to think that you're the only crazy person on the planet."]

@DrJennifer How do we know if what we are hearing from someone is really going to help us to grow and nourish us?
[SEO: In a world where everyone's a "guru" or "life coach", or even when dealing with a new therapist, how do we distinguish between hope and hype? "How do we honor our own depth and substance when we live in times that often seem to encourage exaggeration instead of honesty?"]

@PalCheck How to Put Boundaries Around Worry
[SEO: A series of nine slides. "Worrying is stealing your energy, fatiguing your muscles and body, exacerbating your aches and pains, increasing your vulnerability to stress and infection, distracting you from the present, interfering with your sleep, inappropriately increasing or decreasing your appetite, and keeping you from more pleasurable or important tasks. It is time to recognize the act of worry serves no purpose and has become a bad habit. Here are 9 tips to help you put up boundaries around your worry."]

@SarahEOlson Learning How to Say ‘NO’ | The Therapist Within
[SEO: Learning how to say no is part and parcel of exercising good boundaries. This article poses the idea that saying yes and no are linked, in that if you say yes to "A", by definition you are saying no to "B". "So maybe it’s more the kind of ‘no’ that’s worth looking at. For if you’re saying yes to everyone else’s needs first, then you’re probably speaking a lot of big internal ‘no’s."]

@drcmblake 5 Ways to Push Through Discomfort to Make Positive Change (Via Tiny Buddha)
[SEO: "How do you separate yourself from your fears so they don’t sabotage your efforts? How do silence that inner voice and force yourself to keep taking step, after step, after step?"]

@catatonickid Anxiety and PTSD: How to Set Goals, Heal Trauma and Find Anxiety Relief (via @DrKathleenYoung)
[SEO: "Each step matters. Not 'just a choice' but treating anxiety is definitely about choices we make. That isn’t about being hard on you. Maybe it sounds like it is? I mean that here and now, you do have the freedom, the space, the chance to be more than just fear, stress and anxiety; let yourself be more. Let go."]

@HealingPTSD A truly excellent GLOSSARY of terms related to psychological disorders
[SEO: More specifically, it's related to Dissociative Disorders, but various terms defined crossover to other disorders as well. Sidran Foundation provides many excellent free (and paid) resources for trauma survivors.]

@grace2244 Healing Body Work
[SEO: The body stores traumatic memories, too. Doing body work to release trapped tensions and pains can be a scary prospect. This post, written by a trauma survivor, explains some of the methods available, and how they are done. I admit that I'm one of those people the author mentions who cringe at the idea of a relative stranger touching me. But I've known many people for whom therapeutic massage and touch worked wonders.]

@arttherapynews “In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness, Telling Without Talking: Breaking the Silence of Domestic Violence.”
[SEO: "...when talking about violence brings shame, ambivalence, and fear, art therapy gives survivors not only a voice, but also is a way to raise consciousness about the profound effects of battering and all forms of abuse between partners." (Unrelated to the article, but also discussing art therapy's role in healing, is a 1995 book similarly titled, Telling Without Talking: Art as a Window into the World of Multiple Personality. Expensive, but you may be able to request it at your library.)]

@psychcentral Refusing to Forgive: 9 Steps to Break Free (via @NCFTC)
[SEO: A therapeutic (as opposed to religious) basis for forgiveness. I still resist forgiveness in certain instances. The eighth tip in this post gives me a reason to revisit this issue. "Instead of focusing on your wounded feelings, and thereby giving the person who caused you pain power over you, learn to look for the love, beauty and kindness around you. Forgiveness is about personal power."]

Happy Friday! Each week I rescue the fascinating, weird, beautiful, colorful, and inspiring from my Tweet stream. Enjoy!

@SarahEOlson2009 Happy Inside ~ IKEA cats advert (YouTube)
[SEO: Love this! IKEA let 100 cats loose in one of its stores, and they do get into everything. ]

@adamsconsulting “Tweet like no one’s following, Love like you’ve never been unfollowed, Dance like the picture’s not being tagged (via @TweetSmarter @AskAaronLee)

@goodthingZ Sculptured Fence Made From Old Road Signs (colorful, awesome!)

@docmarion “Most of us can read the writing on the wall; we just assume it’s addressed to someone else.” ~ Ivern Ball

@dahara Awesome body paintings pictures (via @PaulBritPhoto)
[SEO: Some of these, you really have to search for the human.]

@kmweiland “Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.” ~ Olin Miller

@tweetmeme The Statue of Liberty Hit By Lightning
[SEO: Very vivid and dramatic!]

@iwisenet “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” ~ W. Churchill

@PhotoZech Sunrise on Moorman Outlook

@Quotes4Writers Writer’s block: when your imaginary friends won’t talk to you.
[SEO: Just because you can't see them, doesn't make them imaginary. ]

@heykim Check out these 10 unforgettable hotel bathtubs from around Asia

Tomorrow night please listen in on my interview on HealthyPlace.com’s Mental Health Radio Show. The topic is: Life After Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I will discuss the integration process, and how life changes as a result. (From my perspective, there is no “before and after” of DID. With good therapy and a lot of work, it just changes, as do you.)

You can listen live tomorrow night at 7:30pm CST (8:30pm EST) on HealthyPlace.com’s Mental Health Radio, or the show will be archived, and you can catch it later. And, please, come back here after the show, and ask any questions you might have!

“HealthyPlace.com is the largest consumer mental health site on the ‘net.”

Best Tweets for Trauma Survivors is a weekly Friday feature. My selections are entirely subjective, and I know it will never be possible to include every great resource tweeted. But I can try! I’ve personally read all tweeted links, and believe them to be of great value.

Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for content found on any other website. Stay safe, and don’t follow links if you believe you might be triggered by them. Also, I will not be re-checking links from older Best Tweets posts, and if the site’s archived URL is different from the one I’ve provided here, you may need to do a search on their site.

Announcement: If you follow PTSD or trauma issues, please join the new PTSD Twibe at http://www.twibes.com/group/PTSD — all you need is a Twitter account. Thanks!

NEW and REALLY COOL: You can now “like” this post, and “share” it everywhere with the touch of a button or two at the end of the linked tweets! Feel free to do any or all of that! (And thanks.)

Image Credit

@rleseberg “It’s not what you look at that matters,
it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

Six Provocative Tweets to Ponder

@karenkmmonroy “Everything and everyone is your teacher. Everything. Everyone. No exceptions.”

@sparklekaz “When you welcome your emotions as teachers, every emotion brings good news, even the ones that are painful.” ~ Gary Zukav

@rcinstitute “TruthfulTuesday: the truth isn’t just the absence of lies; it’s the presence of sincerity and a desire to clarify.”

@_Munir “Compassion is the substance that binds all living things. You begin to understand the universal connections through empathy.”

@Tamavista “My definition of success is total self-acceptance.” ~ Viktor Frankl

@soulseedz “Always say ‘yes’ to the present moment. What could be more futile (insane) than inner resistance to what already is.” ~ Eckhart Tolle

Linked Tweets

@HealingTouchAz Rescue of Chilean miners provides lesson in human resilience, psychologist says
[SEO: "These men could have just sat there, marking time on the wall. But instead, even in a situation unique and terrifying in their lives, they determined what needed to be done, who should do what and when, and set about giving order and meaning to their experience. That practice, as much as anything else, reflected and promoted their mental and emotional well being. It's a lesson for the rest of us."]

@ssanquist Childhood Hardships May Trigger Lifelong Susceptibility to Stress
[SEO: More about resilience: "In yet another study that links mental and physical well-being, researchers from Brown University have found that people who experience adversity during childhood are more susceptible to stress throughout the rest of their lives....Psychological resilience does not mean that a person will never become depressed, never be overwhelmed by stress, or never need to find a therapist. But it does mean that a person is in a better position to work through these things, and possibly has more fully developed emotional tools that will help them do so. And as this recent study shows, resilience starts young."]

@psychcentral DBT Blog: How to Find Your Power: The Process of Empowerment
[SEO: "Empowerment is seen not just as mastery or self-advocacy, but as a process focused on personally meaningful and powerful goals. Change is both personal and internal, as well as social. In this model, to be empowered you cannot simply feel better about your abilities, you must have an impact."]

@SarahEOlson2009 Gratitude is an Attitude [Self-Discovery, Word by Word series] | Nourishing the Soul
[SEO: "What gratitude does is refocus your attention and energy away from the burdens that you carry and creates a new reality. When we fail to consider the gifts that we have in our lives, we remain in a state of despair and frustration. We feel that we want more, need more. That we cannot be happy or feel satisfied with the way that things are.]

@Mindful_Living The Antidote to Self Hatred
[SEO: "Consider someone you respect who is living or dead that you consider to be a wise person or being. Now, imagine them inhabiting your body and mind during difficult moments or moments of self hatred and see how they might handle it."

@goodthingZ 6 Simple Tips for Fighting Boredom
[SEO: Positing that boredom contributes to unhappiness, this post outlines six unusual ways to combat boredom.]

@SarahEOlson2009 Believing Your Own Memories « Blooming Lotus
[SEO: This is beyond validating for child abuse survivors. We all doubt, try to deny. And yet, we know. I was a person convinced I was crazy, and that my "memories" proved it. So I love this quote! "He even told me that the 'insane' patients try to convince you that they were abused, but the child abuse survivors try to convince you that they weren’t!" Excellent post.]

@psychcentral Feeling stressed? Take a break and watch this relaxing video
[SEO: "An instructional video with demonstration and guided narration to practice Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). PMR is an evidence-based relaxation method that involves tensing and relaxing muscle groups, effective for stress and insomnia."]

@goodthingZ 10 Ways that Writing Helps Relieve Stress
[SEO: A helpful way to focus on the benefits of writing. Most intriguing, for me, is the claim that "writing alleviates asthma". I have noticed on occasion when asthmatic and deep into my writing, that it draws my focus away from each breath, and I seem to relax and breathe a little easier. Who knew?]

@Mindful_Living What to Do in the Places That Scare You: Pema Chodron
[SEO: "... if we’re honest, it can be downright frightening to face or come to terms with those parts that we find so threatening; the parts of us who procrastinate, feel insecure, gets anxious, or falls into addictive patterns. However, it’s just a matter of truth that over and again it has been found that connection is the greatest source of healing."]

@MentalHelpNet The Key to Dissolving Pain
[SEO: Intriguing read. People with chronic pain (I'm one of them) need all the keys they can get. "There might be a moment where we experience pain and that’s all we can focus on, exacerbating it with a barrage of negative judgments. Or maybe there’s a moment of pain where we intentionally choose to focus on it, but this time, letting the judgments be and tuning into the direct sensations of the feeling, thus stopping the negative cycle between thoughts, feelings, and emotions."]

@SarahEOlson2009 Promise Me You Will Be Here Tomorrow (video)
[SEO: This was by far my most viewed post this last week. This video, done by a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder, is empowering and validating. If you are in a bad place, watch this. Watch it even if you're not in a bad place. It's that powerful. Note: Because I could not get the video to embed, the link to the video is at the end of the post.]

Each week on Friday I rescue goodies from my Tweet stream that are inspirational, beautiful, humorous, and/or weird. It’s all here! Enjoy!

@zebraspolkadots A Journey… I see the Light in You…
[SEO: A beautiful wish that, in wishing it for others, you help to make it possible for yourself.]

@petapixel Surreal landscapes created with food
[SEO: Except for the broccoli trees, it really doesn't look like food!]

@pourmecoffee “I go to sleep knowing that my strengths — sarcasm and overthinking things — would not be prized in a mining disaster.”

@goodthingZ Collection of Household Junk Recycled into Amazing Art

@petapixel Yum — Happy Meal photographed weekly shows no change after half year
[SEO: Ewww. Things that make you go 'hmmmm'.]

@Tamavista “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” ~ Tao

@zebraspolkadots Leopard and tiger in love (YouTube)
[SEO: Awww. I'm a sucker for stuff like this!]

@tinastullracing “Yes, I read Quantum Physics. But only for the particles.” ~ Prithvi

@IAmEchad You’re under arrest. Put your feet up where I can see them.

Special Request: If you find value in this blog showcase, please add the Dissociation Blog Showcase link to your blogroll so others can find it. Thanks!

We have amazing writers amongst us who give insight and hope to anyone struggling with dissociation, or to their loved ones. It’s a brain trust, and I treasure it. When I find new blogs, I update the Dissociation Blog Showcase (DBS) on Sunday evenings. Tonight I’ve added the following two new blogs:

365 days

Shapeshifters

Please use the DBS link above to access these blogs, and check out the entire directory of (currently) 175 dissociation-related blogs!

As always, be careful and safe. Many of these blogs do not provide trigger warnings, nor are they obligated to do so.

If you, or someone you know, experiences dissociation and blog about it, write to me with the URL at

sarah.e.olsonATgmailDOTcom

I review each blog before adding it to the Showcase. Thanks so much for the feedback and well-wishes for this project!

In late night web wanderings, I found the following video by sidian3. She is a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and included “MPD/DID” in her title. I purposely excluded that designation here in my title because her message is valid for and needs to be heard by any survivor of child abuse, including multiples. She speaks in generalities, so I do not consider this video to be triggering. There may be exceptions, but if you’re in a bad place, you really need to hear this. It’s empowering.

She speaks to the idea that many times in the healing process it’s so hard you believe it will kill you. It’s overwhelming, and you think about giving up. Her message is: you won. Don’t give up now. Important powerful stuff that child abuse survivors need to hear, and a promise to be made that must be honored.

For whatever annoying reason, I cannot get the video to embed here. Go to MPD/DID Promise Me You Will Be Here Tomorrow (youTube).