How To Convince My Other Part She Isnt Hated?

[Unsure]

I'm new to this forum but am seeking answers. I have read things and waited to post until I thought I had a good question that I really needed help with. My other part isn't acting out of control and scaring my boyfriend and I. It seems she gets triggered and comes out sometimes just because his efforts to help seem scary because having someone care about me is unfamiliar.

Due to childhood abuse, I formed an alter, or another part, I am not sure what to call it but I've seen it called both here. I lost my mother to a car accident when I was four, after which my father wasn't capable of helping me process or understand what happened, or to deal with my emotions. I am pretty sure my father was gaslighting and manipulating my mother before she died, as well as doing hard drugs, but things got much worse after she died. Later, he married a woman named Patty. In this relationship, they both abused each other, as well as me, and my two step sisters, Patty's daughters. After they divorced he got cancer on his adrenal gland, which made him act very unpredictable and scary. This was worsened with drug and alcohol abuse, although I am pretty sure some amount of that was present my entire childhood, it got a lot worse after she left him.

I have recently been able to figure out that my other part comes from this time. I needed something to help me deal with these people and the way they treated me, and my other part developed to be able to be angry as a way to protect myself because I wasn't allowed to.

I have been making progress understanding this, and have been helped a lot by my boyfriend, who has been through childhood trauma himself, and understands a lot. However, now we have gotten to something I feel we need to ask for outside help with.

My other part doesn't know that my boyfriend is trying to help me. She doesn't know that the things he says aren't criticisms or gaslighting. Even when I know this, and tell her, she still doesn't understand, because no one ever cared about her, or showed they cared. All she ever got was criticism, and anything that seemed like care or concern was actually manipulation, and gaslighting, and passive aggressive abuse. My boyfriend has learned a lot about CPTSD through his own efforts to heal, but he doesn't have another part, and does not know as much about these things.

How do I convince her she is safe? I have had some good results with telling her out loud that she is safe and doesn't need to come out, but sometimes she even hates me for trying to help her, and wants to hurt me, or she hates my boyfriend for hating us, even though I know he doesn't, and wants to hurt him. Mostly she just yells and says hurtful things to him, but has occasionally hit him, but she hits my legs again and again as hard as she can, and tells me to cut myself and to kill myself. Her behavior is hurting me so much, I can't take the guilt of hurting him any more, hes the only person who has ever cared enough to try and help me. He forgives me but I am having a harder and harder time forgiving myself.

I've already read threads on here about having another part that wants you dead, and stuff like that, but I am specifically wondering how to convince her she isn't hated, and that he isn't criticizing us? It seems like even when he is trying to help me she takes it as some sort of passive aggressive something, and I can't convince her otherwise. Sometimes I think she thinks he is my dad, but other times I think she just thinks he hates us, even though I know its not true.

Thank you in advance for any help. I am grateful this forum is here, and I have already learned a lot just by reading it. I'm scared of her now though and I could use some help.

 

[joeylittle]

@Unsure - are you working with a therapist, and if so, what do they say?

 

[Unsure]

@Unsure - are you working with a therapist, and if so, what do they say?

...[/QUOTE]

I am sorry, I meant to put this in the original post, I guess I forgot. I am not seeing a therapist, I don't have very much money, and I have also had some bad experiences with them in the past and it is hard to find a good one. My last therapist laughed at me when I tried to tell him about my gaslighting. Like actually laughed at me. I just don't feel up to spending the little money I have, and trying so hard to open up and trust another therapist for it to not work out.

 

[EveHarrington]

Given that physical violence is involved, I cannot stress enough the importance of seeking professional help. :hug:

 

[Sideways]

When you're trying to convince her that she's safe and doesn't need to come out, prehaps at those times you could try shifting the focus away from internal dialogue, and work on finding some groundjng exercises that work for you. A lot of people (me included) find that getting grounded is the best way to stop an oncoming switch, and if your boyf gets the heads up that "Alert! I need to get grounded!" he could assist with this process.

Working on the relationship, like any difficult relationship, is going to take time, and is best worked on at times where you feel safe, rather than waiting till there's a problem. Personally I use internal dialogue and journalling among parts to do this, but other forms of expression work as well. It's a case of trying out different ways to improve the communication that best suits you and your parts. Littles can't always journal, but they can often chat and usually appreciate play time.

Do you have an idea about how old this part is? That can be really helpful in terms of deciding "how do I talk to this difficult ****??" You'd chat with a 6 year old differently to the way you'd talk to a 15 year old, you know?

Really, there's not a lot of magic to it. It's about learning how to communicate and then building trust. That takes time, patience, honesty, respect, and empathy. It's kind of like you've just taken in a foster kid that's come out of an abusive home, and the kid needs to learn that she really is safe (hard work, because trust is a problem), and that then puts you in a good place to start addressing the behavioural issues, just like you would with a foster kid.

In the meantime, lots of practice with grounding skills. It sounds like you already have a good awareness of when she's looking to take over - that's when you stop everything, and ground, ground, ground!

 

[pixel]

*I've had a switching day like being on a carousel, brain not totally together but i want to offer support to you.*

Can you discover what she likes to do/hobby and maybe your boyfriend can do it with her, or start it off.
i mean, if she likes baking, he can help her get the instruments out and play some music she likes, and leave her to it.

Dont talk bad about her, to anyone, not even another alter. she will hear & internalise. broken trust.

Point out to her all the times your man is trustworthy and respectful.

have special time together, do you do that? sometimes me and my 8yr old will have a movie night together. i am out - the grown up- and i get foods she likes and we watch a movie she has picked. i know she is inside looking out and this is teaching her we are in a safe place. i will laugh or talk to the tv and i feel her relax and enjoy being a kid.
you can do this similar too!

and you sound mature and mindful of the entire situation, good stuff!

 

[Unsure]

Help! This is kind of an emergency, I am sorry to be so dramatic, I know everyone here has problems but I really need help getting through just the next week. I will explain why.

First, thank you for helping me. The grounding has helped. I didn't think it would because I didn't fully process what goes on with me because my other part just feels like me sometimes. Sometimes she mocks the grounding and it doesn't help. I had also never thought about figuring out how old the other part is, and I think that is a good thing. I am still not sure how old she is but I think she is pretty young. Today I watched Winnie the Pooh and told her she was allowed to come out. I think it helped.

I really need some help from this forum right now. I know I need professional help but I just can't right now. I have to move in the next few days, moving is a huge trigger for me because my dad and I were always getting evicted from places when I was little and he was always mad during those times and I felt I had to take care of his feelings and even without that moving, especially getting evicted, was just really scary to a little girl. After I move I will be able to find a safe place to live, and a job, and a therapist, but I have to be out of the place I'm living in five days. My boyfriend and I thought things were getting better and we could move but my other part is coming out more and more and more and every time she is madder and more self destructive. I'm terrified because in order to move I have to drive almost five hours away. Right now I live in a very small town that doesn't have job opportunities in the winter so I need to move to a city near me to find work. I'm scared of having to drive that much because my other part really seems to want me dead. I have to drive my own car, my boyfriend has to drive his, we can't just take one, we have too much stuff and no where to leave a car and no one to leave stuff with.

I keep getting triggered and my other part keeps coming out, she yells at my boyfriend. I used to think it was because she thought she was protecting me from him, and scared he would get angry, like my father, but today we realized that she is trying to push him away, or provoke him into yelling or getting mad, so she can feel justified in killing me because she wants me dead. This is really scary, I don't know what to do or how to protect myself from her. I am trying to say nice things to her and take care of her but she really seems abusive, to me and my boyfriend, but really in the way that she wants to kill me. I am scared to drive these days because she seems to be getting worse and worse. The closer we get to the moving date the more she seems to be trying to push him away and telling me to kill myself.

I know there are threads about similar things, I have read the 'parts that want us dead' thread. I just feel like I need some help getting through this week. Please help.

 

[Unsure]

My boyfriend and I are developing different ways to deal with my other part, which do see to be helping. One thing we have been doing recently is I have been making sure to tell him every time she tells me things like that he is mad at me or that I should kill myself. Telling him helps me recognize whats going on so he can reassure me and I can say nice things about myself. I'm just scared we can't figure these things out in time to make her not want to kill me while we have to drive and I would really appreciate any help.

 

[joeylittle]

I'm just scared we can't figure these things out in time to make her not want to kill me while we have to drive and I would really appreciate any help.

The answer is - figure out a different way to travel. Make two trips. If this problem is serious enough for you to be this worried, it's serious enough for you to adjust your plans.

That's pretty much it, as far as I can see.

Besides you running the risk of hurting yourself, you risk hurting/killing someone on the road. You want to risk your own life, that's your call - but taking other people down with you isn't ok.

So either rent a tow hitch, to drive one car and tow the other, or get a third person to help so you aren't driving alone, or one of you go, bring car 1, find another way back, and you both come in car two... I'm sure there are other ways, too.

 

[Unsure]

I am not going to put anyone else in danger. I don't think you understand, we had planned on moving and everything seemed fine but the closer we get the more the other part is acting out. I need help, not condescension.

I'm not going to put anyone else in danger, but there is no one else to help us, no where to leave a car.

I already know everything you said, that its not ok to put someone else in danger. The point was I was looking for help with a suicidal alter, and you have nothing to offer other than guilt tripping me about putting other people at risk. You made me feel like you wouldn't care if I killed myself. I really don't think I am going to lose control and just swerve into oncoming traffic, but the fact that she is telling me to kill myself makes me feel unsafe driving exactly because I don't want to put anyone else at risk. I'm not a sociopath, isn't it obvious that my asking for help means I don't want to risk harming anyone? I feel like your reply is very invalidating, to tell me its just my call if I kill myself, as if that doesn't matter to you at all. I don't think you would like it if someone treated you like that. I already don't want to kill myself because of the emotional effect it would have on the people in my life and the people who would have to respond to the scene, I'm not that selfish. I feel very hurt that my well being seems to matter so little to you.

 

[Unsure]

My last reply was emotional, I felt very hurt, and I needed to express that. I would like to offer a little bit of a constructive reply to you, to tell you that if you wanted to say the advice about finding another way to travel, that would have been ok, if you hadn't of acted so callous and uncaring about my own well being. You could have offered some sort of kind word or something supportive along with your advice. Instead you were just callous and uncaring. It hurt me, but I also feel like I should tell you this, because to someone else who is more suicidal it could have been much more damaging. You never know what someone has been through, and you should treat people gently, especially in a place like this. My father has told me to kill myself. I think its scary that you are an administrator.

 

[joeylittle]

Hi, @Unsure - sometimes, blunt is helpful. You said this:

I'm scared of having to drive that much because my other part really seems to want me dead. I have to drive my own car, my boyfriend has to drive his, we can't just take one, we have too much stuff and no where to leave a car and no one to leave stuff with.

I understand what it's like when there seem to be no options for the real-life things - but sometimes, it helps to be told that there has to be another option.

You made me feel like you wouldn't care if I killed myself. I really don't think I am going to lose control and just swerve into oncoming traffic,

I do care, or I wouldn't have bothered. I didn't make you feel anything - you were looking for a response in which someone told you they were worried for you, and instead you got some advice - which made you feel like I didn't care.

And if you didn't think you were going to lose control of the car, why write this?

I'm just scared we can't figure these things out in time to make her not want to kill me while we have to drive.

Is there any other way to understand that statement besides that you've got a week to resolve things with an escalating psychiatric situation, and if not, your alter will kill you on the road?

If you are looking for a kind word, I am truly sorry that you're going through this. I'm going to say, I'm not certain now if you are looking for sympathy or looking for help.

I don't think you would like it if someone treated you like that.

It actually once helped me a great deal, to be reminded of what it would be like for the people who found my body, were I to kill myself. For me, when I can't see any way out, sympathy doesn't help - straight talk does. So, that's where I'm coming from.

I know it sounds like I'm laying into you - and in a way, I am. The problem you described is not something that resolves itself in a week. Especially not when it's been escalating, as you've indicated.

Now: If it's not a practical consideration of making sure you don't kill yourself - if you are looking for coping skills, then people will offer those. I was frightened by this statement:

I know I need professional help but I just can't right now.

Sometimes, it's not a choice - sometimes, you need to keep yourself safe. And I'm not interested in enabling self-destruction. If you need professional help you need to go get it. If you aren't safe to drive, then you need to resolve the travel problem differently. There is always another way to do things.

You only have one life.