to all those with DID/OSDD thinking about integration
because there is so little information on it
integration is worth the struggle, trust me.
take your time with integration and be patient. start with integrating just two (consenting) people. i tried to integrate everyone at once without their agreement and i learned the hard way that that’s not what integration is about. it’s about mutual healing and accepting. a decision fueled by love for yourself and for your alter(s).
start by saying “I” instead of speaking in the third person. i know it’s hard to admit that an alter you’re integrating with might, for example, have violent thoughts. but you must accept them as your thoughts if you are to truly integrate.
integration has made me more emotionally mature and more equipped to deal with stress and trauma, and it will help you with this, too. it may be rough at times, but you will reach a point where you feel freer than you ever imagined.
you will probably feel extreme emotions at first; either extreme joy and happiness turning into a loneliness and craving for dissociation, or vice versa. this is because, while integration is an amazing reclamation of one’s mind and identity, it’s also very overwhelming and unfamiliar. you’re used to the wall between you. these feelings will subside with time.
the important parts of who you and your system members are will not go away. that being said, you will have days when you act more like one person than another. don’t be afraid that you’re losing yourself; just try to remember who you are, you will be fine.
you have to work at integration, consciously work towards fully accepting every inch of each of your identities and histories as “me” and “mine.” otherwise you will split again. and that brings me to...
you will split again. it’s like any relapse. but you can reintegrate, too.
there’s a good chance that dormant and perhaps previously unknown alters will come out during the integration process. just a forewarning.
even if you aren’t planning on integrating, i’d really appreciate if you reblogged this. I hardly had any resources when i first started integrating and it was really hard on me.
if you’re in the integration process/have integrated, feel free to add stuff to the list, and feel free to ask me for more information/experiences. I’ve integrated eight alters at the time of writing this post.