We’ve been going through a book called Got Parts? An Insider’s Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder and it’s been...interesting.
Don’t get me wrong, there have been some good and interesting things about it, but there have also been some things about that...just sit weird. One portion talked about how it is necessary to always know who was fronting. Paraphrasing, “I don’t know isn’t an answer.” that was a few days ago we read that part and it’s taken up to now to realize why that sits so wrongly with me.
“I don’t know isn’t an answer” was something we heard a lot growing up. It was something that was said when we were in trouble, it was said, often times, when developmentally or due to difficulties with neurodiversity, “I don’t know” was the only answer we had.
We didn’t know why we were struggling with staying on task because we didn’t have a word for dissociation- which everyone labeled as daydreaming- we didn’t have the words for executive dysfunction, hell, at that point, according to our therapist, we didn’t even really have executive functioning because that doesn’t actually develop until 15.
It was like being told, “There’s something wrong with you and you have to tell me what it is.” except that you’re 10 and you don’t know either, you didn’t even really realize there was anything wrong with you. On top of that, for us, there was the added layer of what was happening and had happened outside the home that had caused a lot of the “daydreaming”. Things that we should have been protected from by the adults in our lives, but we weren’t, so we had to learn some way to protect ourselves. And that was “I don’t know”.
Because we didn’t know, we didn’t understand. “I don’t know what’s happening to me, so I’m going to pretend it’s not.”
“I don’t know if I’ll be believed or if I’m going to get in trouble or if they’re gonna get angry and hurt me more. So I’m going to pretend this isn’t happening.”
We’ve been striving to bring “I don’t know” into neutral territory, to make it not a trigger, to be comfortable in the realm of “I don’t know”, “I don’t have all the answers”, and seeing such a...firm take, really did a number on us. Especially from a book that should, in theory, be meant to help us. It’s really made it hard to digest the parts we’ve been reading most recently. It made it feel not safe in some ways and has triggered a lot of the doubt and denial in others.
If we were really a system we’d know all these things and be like they outlined, but that’s not true. I don’t know can be an answer. And it is a lot of times for us. We are very new at this still and pushing for answers isn’t always helpful and cause some disruptions, which we have seen first hand.
Don’t get me wrong, there are good things to this book and it is interesting, but I think there are parts we may have to go back and reread after we’ve processed a bit more of the “I don’t know” issue. Maybe the second time around we can be more receptive and a little less triggered.
