On Blackouts

Oh my god!

I just realised that I blacked out in a high school maths exam!

I remember being severely berated for only having gotten 14%... I remember not understanding how on earth that could have happened... or even remembering how it actually happened... At one point, I even remember having this feeling of rising panic in the exam... almost like 'waking up' and panicking because I somehow 'knew' that I wasn't supposed to be 'out' right now as I wasn't old enough to understand maths... and also not really knowing where I was...

Just as I was about to get into trouble (I can't remember if the trouble was internal or external), everything went black and then the next thing I remember was 'waking up' with my mother 'losing it' at me about the 14% mark and demanding to know how that could possibly happen and what kind of game did I think I was playing???

This frightens me... not only because it gives me more undeniable proof of the D.I.D. (and the fact I have it) but also because of how insidious the blackouts can be... I am afraid of how powerless I am against them when they do break through and happen... I am afraid of catching one happening because of the extreme emotional and mental distress such a realisation brings with it... (and the 'rolling blackouts' that distress then triggers etc etc etc)... And I am afraid of not being able to catch them happening because of how helpless and powerless to keep myself safe I feel, being at their mercy like that...

I take such pride in how determinedly co-conscious I am... How I have worked so hard to control the truly uncontrollable... How I can hold back the whole ocean, with just my little finger (which is figuratively what I am doing here)...

What if I am wrong???

What if all of this fighting and struggling is not only not truly working... but it is also the wrong way to go? What if all I am doing (in being so 'strong' and stubborn) is really only making me sicker???

I remember a time that my (now) ex-husband (who was my boyfriend at the time), told me, out of nowhere, the most ludicrous story about how I had behaved when he came home to my house from work one night... I remember it sounding completely made up...

But why? Why would he make something so completely unbelievable up? Unbelievable? Yes... But ludicrously so? It just makes no sense...

1. He just doesn't have that great of an imagination

2. There was no point (and if there had been, he sooooooooo would have used it against my by now)... No clear (or unclear) agenda presented itself at the time and none has presented itself since, either... ever

3. There was a tiny part of me, inside, that it sounded familiar to :(

And it's number 3 that I just can't get past...

I think that blackout was very likely real too...

I am surprised, that with how high my stress and trauma levels have been and for how long, lately, that the worst I seem to have been experiencing is retrospective amnesia - where things fade out fast just after they have happened, as opposed to there simply being blackouts and complete blanks...

I am proud of this... but I am also not stupid... I know that at any given point in time, I could end up having blackouts again... I know that this is a very real and present danger... But I also know that so far I have managed to stand strong against any of them happening... It is true... at times, I am switching like mad... but so far (as well as I can tell, which is pretty darned well), I am not blacking out... again

There is so much more I want to write about this... but right now, I am suddenly incredibly tired again (I am actually physically sick and in real pain too)... so for the time being, I am going to leave this entry here...

And I am going to hope and pray that I get a break from major trauma and stress, long enough to start to recover enough to continue to stave off the blackouts... still