Catching Up at the Conference
This morning, I “slept in” at the Doubletree Hilton SeaWorld where the 2023 Healing Together conference took place last weekend. I’m lounging around in my bed while I hear others playing in the pool outside my window and still others gearing up for the short walk to SeaWorld via the path that winds along the palm trees just a few units away. I know others from Dissociative Writers are already in their cars or on their flights making their long treks home. I purposely scheduled my time in Orlando to include a few extra days before and after the conference to soak up the sun by the pool, read, write, and relax. So I’ll be hanging out in Florida by myself for a couple of days!
This Year’s Conference
This year was the largest year ever for the popular conference geared specifically for people with DID. There were 300+ people in-person in attendance and 600+ people when you include the online conference-goers. Dissociative Writers had at least 13 folks: Barbie, Margit, Frances, Kenna, gabby, Peter, myself, JJ and partner, Kim and partner, and Sharri and partner. It was delightful to run into Bonnie and River whom we haven’t seen in a while and to meet new people who have or will sign up for Dissociative Writers. Expect some unfamiliar but eager faces to show up in our future workshops!
Presentations by DW Subscribers
Three of us gave presentations. Gabby’s session on grief combined her grief for the death of her friend and grief for the trauma-related losses we all experience in an important conversation that included her psychostructures and her beautiful voice and guitar. Sharri and Frank shared their profound story of Sharri’s RA/MC with deep wisdom that’s meaningful for all of us with or without RA/MC. I gave “permission” (according to one of the online commenters) for trauma survivors not to forgive the perpetrators of our abuse by working on healing as our goal rather than forgiveness. Each of us could tell you more, I’m sure, about how our sessions impacted us and the people who attended.
Shorts
More shorts …
A New York Times opinion writer attended and is writing a deeply researched article about people with dissociative identity disorder. She was as horrified as I was by the article published several months ago by Ethan Watters in the Times. Hopefully, her work will help to set the record straight.
A research team from McClean Hospital in Massachusetts gave a summary of current research into dissociation and DID. One of the researchers is interested in becoming a Dissociative Writer.
A small group of dissociative writers swam late into the night outside my bedroom window (you know who you are!).
So many more stories we could tell …
Friends
But the best part was seeing each other in the flesh — “3D” as gabby called it — the real people who decorate our zoom screens each week. We wish you all had been there. It will take days, maybe even weeks and months to process all we experienced, but one thing stands out for me already — that in the writers workshops we call Dissociative Writers, we have found friends ❤️.
Signing off and heading to the pool!
Below: Dissociative Writers meet for the first time in “3-D” at the Laguna Restaurant in Orlando!
Mindfulness is not about making the wave stop. It's about learning how to surf.
~ Dr. Jamie Marich