Final Photos of Finished Needle Felted Dog

It’s done! The sculpture is 100% wool (except for the collar). I can’t wait to give it to Willow’s mom!

 

 

Almost Done! Wool “Portrait” of Terrier-Poo

I’m getting close! The top coat on this sculpture is raw fleece that I hand washed. This is my biggest needle felting project yet, as it is a gift for Willow’s mom and needs to look like her dog! I really hope she likes it…

https://www.etsy.com/shop/HonoringWilderness?ref=hdr_shop_menu

In Progress, Needle Felted Dog

His name is Beau and he’s full of mischief! Day Two of working on this gift sculpture.

My Etsy shop, where I have other needle felted animals:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/HonoringWilderness?ref=hdr_shop_menu

Needle Felted Terrier/Poodle In Progress

Half done! It’s a gift for Willow’s mom, a replica of her dog.

I can make a replica of your pet too! See my Etsy:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/HonoringWilderness?ref=hdr_shop_menu

DID: Why Association is Not My Goal

I am a proud (fierce, even!) multiple with almost countless parts. I am also healing and growing stronger week by week. It’s been several years since my DID/MPD healing journey began, but only one and a half years since the abuse, programming and forced dissociation actually stopped.

It is sometimes assumed that a multiple cannot be healthy, functional, and healed until she has associated all her parts and become singular. I couldn’t disagree more! My brain split itself into parts to cope with extreme trauma, and if I can get all my parts to a happy, non-dissociative place, I will be unstoppable. Multiplicity is not a sign of weakness, it is a sign of the brain’s unique ability to survive the most horrific of abuse and trauma.

Also, if I somehow associated right this minute, how would that heal the symptoms my parts and I deal with on a daily basis? Being a multiple means I have tools. I have parts who can help me with all manner of specific issues. If I need to be social, I have parts who can help. If I have a kidney stone passing and I’m in a lot of pain, I have strong parts who can help me get through it.

I love all my different voices and parts. I never want to lose the kids, who bring light and fun to any situation. Associating would mean that I would fully be a singular adult, so how would the kids be completely expressed then?

Who would run through the house screaming, “Bum OUT!!!“?

Who would yell “CHICKENS!!!” at the top of our lungs whenever we pass a poultry /egg farm?

I have plenty of smaller, poly-fragmented parts (we call them shards) that may not be able to stand on their own, so at any time when it feels right, they can associate into their various maker-parts (the larger parts they each split off from). That kind of natural association is critical. If any association comes naturally, then by definition we’re ready for it and it’s the right thing for the system.

However, I can never imagine our big parts associating.

Take Kai, who is almost as big as the host (Story).

Take our Chief Kid Kassie, who is ever so powerful, who could turn us all into hamsters in the blink of an eye.

And let’s not forget Bobby and James (how could we??!), wee ones with BIG voices…

Take Katie-Lynn, beloved mother-figure to the kids and also a kick-ass survivor.

Take Angela, one of the toughest people I’ve ever known.

Take Robert, who once tried to be “smooth” with Katie-Lynn while being dragged around by a bunch of miniature cows. Who is the father-figure to the kids and the most realistic, emotionally honest dude in the system.

Take Sylvia, who can be the sweetest softest soul ever…until you threaten one of us, and then her true strength bursts forth. She’ll cut a bitch!

Take Kodiak, Shannon, Bianca, Rueben, Matt, Allan, Bronte, Griffin…

How could all these flavours ever boil down to just one person?

Long before I’d even heard about DID, I once said to a friend, “You know I’m more than one person, right?” It’s how we’ve always felt, and how we’ll always be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recovering With DID/MPD

An average acquaintance would not know, but I have Dissociation Identity Disorder. My partner calls it Magical Personality Diversity because the term “disorder” does not compute with my outlook — that I will always be a multiple, perhaps with fewer parts, but still a multiple even when I am fully “healed”. I can function as a multiple, when healed from the past, even better than a singular.

We (my system as a whole) have noticed a great deal of healing this past month. All my senses have become alive…food tastes like never before, and I am more observant than ever. I now hear parts of songs that I’ve never noticed despite listening to the songs many times. Watching a movie I’ve “seen” a million times before, I am aware now of how much I never actually saw before.

We have done so much work to make this happen. We’ve never dwelled on the emotional side of things — sure, we’ve had our tears, lots of them. But instead of processing the emotional side of things, we processed the symptoms first. Body memories, PTSD-like symptoms, anxiety — all were attended to by looking for, finding, and working with the personality parts that held those symptoms and memories.

Through it all, we kept saying, “It’s ALL shit. What happened at 2 years-old was just as bad as at 15. No one event, no matter how f’d up it was, was worse than the simple neglect, because it’s ALL SHIT, none of it was right, and it was all their (my perpetrators) fault.”

That mantra saved me a lot of obsessing over some of the difficult topics. Like how sexual abuse isn’t all pain, there is often something that feels good — attention, or your body’s reaction. We didn’t need to emotionally figure this out, because it was ALL SHIT, nothing was my fault — NOTHING. Whatever I felt or did was normal under the circumstances because I had been so conditioned by abuse.

So we have spent all our energy on finding the parts instead. One therapist was intrigued by our approach, which she called “search and rescue”, as opposed to the usual idea of healing by making parts go away (by associating or actually dissociating them).

Healing has brought up out of fear. We can be ourselves — which is to say, I can express all my parts. We no longer worry what people think. If my kid parts want to dance in the middle of the craft store, or get excited when they see chickens at a far, it’s all good.

Yes, there are still triggers, but I practice getting used to the things that irrationally scare me. It’s my own exposure therapy. We don’t have to do it constantly — there are some days when eating/food triggers should just be avoided. But when we’re feeling a little better, we try again.

We ARE healing. I feel like we can even sing and create better than ever before. We feel like we’re waking up and coming to life. Stepping out of a dissociative fog, brave and determined.

A lot of what we do is done because we want to prove that we are stronger than they ever could know. They thought they were making a victim — but they made an army out of me.

Here is a spoken-word poem I wrote and performed. It is VERY TRIGGERING, but powerful too, if you’re in a good place to handle it.

 

Trying to Improve My Needle Felting

Working on realism, I made another bunny. Adopt him or one like him on my Etsy!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/HonoringWilderness?ref=hdr_shop_menu

Needle Felting turns wool fluff into animals with just a barbed needle. It all began with a pile of wool roving!

Needle Felted Guinea Pig

Adopt this little guy, handmade by me! All the love but no oinking.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/286623383/realistic-needle-felted-guinea-pig-cute?ref=shop_home_active_1

Needle Felted Bunny

I don’t want to brag, but he’s just so cute! I made up a new technique for fuzzy fur and I’m really happy with it. He’s about 4 inches tall at the head. I’m going to take better photos in the yard tomorrow morning and then put him on Etsy 🙂

Edit: Etsy link here

https://www.etsy.com/listing/272797066/cute-little-needle-felted-bunny?ref=shop_home_active_1

Feeding Spirit

At the heart of your relationship with spirit is the exchange of energy. This is the most basic give-and-take between you and spirit. When I speak of spirit, I mean both a singular Great Spirit and also the individual spirits you may come to know, for instance, a spirit guide. In this way, spirit needs “feeding”. This really means that you cannot expect a bounty of blessings while giving nothing in return — this would be a shallow and very limited relationship with spirit.

So what are some ways to feed spirit? Thankfully, it’s a long list. You should be able to adapt one of these basic ideas to fit your practice — but more likely, you’re already doing something 🙂

As far as I see it, there are two categories for feeding spirit: Offerings, and Prayers.

Offerings. There are limitless possibilities here. Offerings can be things enjoyed by the senses — a beautiful flower, a lush incense, a delicious fruit, an amazing song. They can be physical things given on an altar or in nature. On the other hand, offerings can be things that you do for spirit. Maybe you have decided to make a new altar with a certain theme, or maybe spirit has asked you to spend time alone, dancing freely. Thus rituals are offerings, albeit elaborate ones.

Prayers. Prayer is actually more adaptable and interesting than people think — it doesn’t have to be done just one way. You can sing a prayer, for instance. If you’re not big on words that’s perfectly fine. You can think a prayer in your mind, or just try to send out the different kinds of basic energy discussed here. But besides asking for things (which isn’t really what feeding spirit is about), what kinds of energy can you give spirit in prayer? There are actually quite a few different things prayer can represent. First of all, the energy of gratitude is very important. If you’re not giving gratitude, you’re not in a caring relationship with spirit. If you don’t even feel gratitude then you have some work to do before establishing any relationship with spirit. Another prayerful energy is appreciation or love. It’s how you emotionally honour spirit. Then there is the energy of faith and trust. Finally, there is the energy of harmony, which is what I believe spirit creates. By establishing an energy of harmony in yourself, you’re helping spirit work for its cause.

The simplest but most powerful thing I share with spirit is breath.When I breathe in, I imagine the whole universe contracting just a tiny bit, and I say thank you. When I breathe out, I imagine the whole universe expanding just a tiny bit, and I say bless you. It can be surprisingly intimate and powerful.