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@archivalconvergence
[“The terms “dissociation” and “integration” have long been synonymous with one another—meant to signify that the only reasonable goal in working with splitting and compartmentalization must be the fusing together of dissociated parts to create one single “homogenized” adult. Daniel Siegel, however, makes a strong case against defining integration as fusion. He asserts (2010a) a different view: “Integration requires differentiation and linkage.” Before we can integrate two phenomena, we have to differentiate them and “own” them as separate entities. We can’t simply “act as if” they are connected without noticing their separateness. But, having clearly differentiated them so they can be studied and befriended, we then have to link them together in a way that fosters a transformed sense of the client’s experience, facilitating healing and reconnection.
A part can be connected to the past, to a physical movement or body sensation, to particular emotions. Another emotion can be noticed, related to a younger or older part, and then linked to the reaction of other parts to those same feelings. In the wake of trauma, individuals need to be able to connect implicit memory to trigger and link the trigger to an explicit context. New information about the present must be linked with old perceptions shaped by the past. To feel safe today, a felt connection must be made between the “child I was then” and the “adult I became today.”
Trauma-related vulnerability feels less painful when it is linked to new body experiences of mastery or to a somatic sense that “it’s over—finally, now it’s over” (Ogden & Fisher, 2015). Using Siegel’s definition of integration, fusion is not necessary nor is it as empowering as coherence, collaboration, and overcoming self-alienation.
In this chapter, we will focus on how to foster integration by differentiating parts previously denied, ignored, or disowned, connecting to them emotionally, and providing experiences that replace self-alienation and self-rejection with self-compassion and secure internal attachment relationships. When the emphasis in the therapy is not on the recall of traumatic events but on identifying trauma-related parts connected to the implicit memories that still affect the client’s current experience, the need to disown the parts is diminished. When clients are helped to see their ashamed parts as “real” children of particular ages and to empathize with their littleness, their bravery, or their pain, disgust and fear give way to empathy. “She looks so little,” clients say. “He is trying so hard to be brave, but he’s really afraid.” “He’s too ashamed to let me own anything nice—because if it’s too nice, he’s afraid that someone will take it away because he doesn’t deserve it.” Moments before they made these observations, all three clients had been blended with their parts.
Diane described being appalled that she had burst into tears when her boss criticized her performance: “I can’t believe I humiliated myself by being so weak.” Josh had been trying to replace his old car with a brand new one, only to find that his ashamed part could not let him buy something “nice.” Mark came to therapy to talk about his “speechless terror” of speaking in public and the impact of this deficit on his professional life. In each case, the problem could be traced to a young part connected to particular times and events in the client’s lives. Interestingly enough, I have a very clear sense of those young parts, but many of the events that wounded them were never described to me. I let the symptoms and the parts tell the client’s story.”]
janina fisher, from healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors: overcoming internal self-alienation, 2017
I hope they choose a new person to be me tomorrow I kinda don’t feel like doing it
just wanna say i am a big fan of this trope specifically
Dissociation protects the mind from the unthinkable, the unimaginable, and the unbearable helplessness to stop events that trigger feelings of terror, annihilation, and non-being. The encapsulation of self-states into varieties of dissociated ways of being containing affect and experience forestalls the total collapse and dissolution of the mind. This allows the person to preserve a semblance of self-continuity and capacity, albeit changed and somewhat limited, of engaging with the interpersonal-relational world.
Once the traumatic experience has been dissociated from the sense of "who one is," it is no longer thinkable as a self-narrative or so-called "rational" process. The emotional set of living experiences has now been encapsulated as a part of past living time, and remains contained in that self-state as present and ongoing. When the experience has become dissociated, what the trauma is and was is not known to the self-state of "me" that is usually presented to the world. This dissociative mental structure remains—until the traumatic experience reappears, often in raw form as a flashback or memory, whether verbal or somatic.
Elizabeth F. Howell and Sheldon Itzkowitz, The Dissociative Mind in Psychoanalysis
Fredrickson (1992). Repressed memories: A journey to recovery from sexual abuse.
a sequel to this post
one of the most important things about dissociative identity disorder and generally being a system that i wish people would understand is that it truly isn’t as cut and dry as it may seem for member count.
you’ll see people who say they have “six alters” and then immediately assume it’s six fully fleshed out equal individuals with no confusion or fuzziness regarding identity. that’s simply not true in a majority of cases, as i have seen.
most systems still VERY much deal with confusion regarding potential splits, go through dissociative episodes where they’re unsure of who they are, sometimes feel no attachment towards any identities, feel like they might have split and then suddenly that person is gone, unsure if alters they haven’t heard from often have gone dormant, not sure how to react when alters do come out of dormancy, etc.
it’s not a fun feeling and it’s genuinely unfair in certain situations to force systems to list every single alter to you with full certainty, as if it will never change. because it will. for so many different reasons, systems will grow, they will shrink, they will fuse, they will develop. you can’t expect the person with the dissociative disorder and lack of core identity to be able to keep up a perfected list of forever, it’s simply impossible. you may have alters who stick with you, but that doesn’t mean changes won’t happen.
and systems who may be reading this — please don’t feel bad. you are not a hassle, you are not a headache, and you are not an inconvenience for simply coping with something like this. it’s out of your control and the only thing you can do is continue to cope to find ways to help yourself retrain from these reactions. please don’t allow yourself to be harmed by others who don’t understand what you are going through. there are people who will accept and love you for who you are, all of you.
past, present, and future.
Been doing some reflection on what it means to be me's, myselves, and I's. What it means to me to have DID, to be a system of alters, and to be an alter in that system. What a "self" is in relation to all that. And I think I have the beginnings of an answer to that.
The self is the narrative I tell myself about my life. It's about my history and experiences, and it's also about how I perceived that history and those experiences. And that history may stretch back to things I don't personally remember and will not personally remember. Family history, ancestral history, things that happened to me in the womb, and even things that happened to me that I have forgotten.... all of these things make up who I am. But it's not just that history, it's also what I take from it. The lessons I took from it, the scars it left with me, the love and joy that stay with me.
And it's because of this shared history that I have with all these other parts of me, these other "alters", that I can feel confident that we are, indeed, the same self. But I am also my own self, because the way I look at and examine this history of my life is different from how another part of me may tell the story. In that way, this self has many selves. We hold multiple perspectives of the same life and the same story.
In the past, we had a habit of thinking of each other as "alternate universe" selves. But now... I think what may be more accurate is that we are all retellings of the same story. Or even different readers of the same book.
And I think that's kind of how I want people to understand me. My history, my past, is the same and unchanged. But from moment to moment, my understanding of it may be different, and that may color which version of "me" you're talking to. No matter which version you're talking to, though, that's still me. Even if I disagree with the other me. Even if I want to deny and reject that other me. It's still me.
When ppl talk about alters being stuck in trauma time, they usually talk about those alters not knowing the body's friends, or recognizing where they live, or any number of physical reality changes. And we've definitely had that experience! But more often what "alters being stuck in trauma time" means for us is those alters know basic physical reality facts, but their emotional reality has not changed at all. So they might know our best friend, but they aren't connected to how that friend and I interact. They respond to everything like the trauma is still happening, so they expect any mistake to be met with punishment, they expect the ppl around them to suddenly hurt them without warning, they have no ability to use our modern coping methods, and they have no concept of anything being other than the abusive environment of our youth.
So yeah, our trauma-stuck alters typically know we live in a different house and our dad isn't coming home, and they know things like we graduated college and the names of our friends. What we struggle with a lot more is getting them to understand that this current time isn't just our childhood with new set dressings.
Things Fictional Introjects are:
A real and valid part of having DID/OSDD.
Dissociated parts, just like the rest of their system.
Created by trauma, stress, overwhelming experiences, or the system’s inability to integrate new materials into existing alters/parts.
Centered around a “substitute belief” and can be based on characters and media that you have no strong attachment to or may not even like.
Worthy of the same care and support everyone in the system deserves.
Capable of growth beyond their source material.
Things Fictional Introjects are not:
The same thing as “kins” or “kinning” with something.
Created just by liking, identifying with, being strongly attached to, or being attracted to a character.
A completely different “type” of alter that should be treated differently than the rest of the system.
An exact copy of their source.
Incapable of growing beyond their source.
[ This post is about Fictional Introjects as experienced by people with DID and OSDD. Please keep reblogs and replies relevant to DID/OSDD and dissociative experiences. ]
if you could magically no longer experience ONE aspect of dissociation, which would you get rid of?
identity confusion.
derealisation.
depersonalisation.
time/memory loss.
i genuinely can’t pick!
[not a traumagenic system/see-results button]
- amaranth.
yanno a hyperspecific trope i cant get enough of. when a character is made out of a piece of another character’s personality or soul or whatever the series is working with, usually something negative like all of their anger or cowardice or something like that, and then still develops into their whole fully developed person. like yeah this is SHADOW JOE he was made of all of all the darkness in joe’s heart but he chilled out. we go bowling on weekends. still looks like joe but made of pure darkness with glowing red eyes but we’ve all got our quirks
text reads: "you're struggling to make the change because the old behaviour is still meeting a need. instead of shaming yourself, identify the deeper need and allow it to exist. then get curious about a new way to meet it."