DID Shame and fear of dissociated parts

[BlueOrange]

In addition to much great stuff above:

"Part" does not mean "Fake".

A gearbox is not a car. A car without a gearbox isn't going to work very well. A gearbox without a car doesn't do much either, but it's still a gearbox.

These parts, they do important stuff. We grow them because we need them. We hide them because they are painful and/or shameful.

There's ways of protecting from pain and shame that don't require us to hide our parts from ourselves. (We don't have to hurt them and drive them into hiding either.)

Finding those alternatives and practicing them is the foundation of therapy for DID.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

"Part" does not mean "Fake".

A gearbox is not a car. A car without a gearbox isn't going to work very well. A gearbox without a car doesn't do much either, but it's still a gearbox.

Thank you for this analogy, @BlueOrange. This is helpful. I am trying to remember that these are parts of me, but I don't want to own them, you know? It is easier to just cast them aside and pretend that they aren't at all a part of me.

 

[pixel]

It is easier to just cast them aside and pretend that they aren't at all a part of me.

This is what I do, which is why i lose so much time and my memory is SHOT.

eg, last week I lost three and a half days
Don't recommend it @theshadowoftheliving, you're in therapy so you can address this.
Seriously mate.

 

[Sideways]

Because I'm loving @BlueOrange 's analogy of the gearbox, you don't have to like that you're driving a manual car instead of an automatic. It would be better if we could just be driving a damn automatic.

But we've got a manual. It comes with a darn gearbox. Don't have to love it, totally makes sense that you'd rather trade in for an auto and not have to worry about having to deal with the gearbox and changing gears. Acceptance is fine. Pretending we're in an automatic? Just gonna make us stall and have a mid-traffic crisis.

so we aim for acceptance. This is me, changing damn gears again. My car isn't the easiest to drive, but it's the one I'm driving.

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

A gearbox is not a car. A car without a gearbox isn't going to work very well. A gearbox without a car doesn't do much either, but it's still a gearbox.

But we've got a manual. It comes with a darn gearbox. Don't have to love it, totally makes sense that you'd rather trade in for an auto and not have to worry about having to deal with the gearbox and changing gears. Acceptance is fine. Pretending we're in an automatic? Just gonna make us stall and have a mid-traffic crisis.

Beautifully put! To extend further - the gear-shifting is MUCH easier with a well-tuned clutch, and there DOES eventually come a time when the body knows how to drive in this way, to smoothly "shift" from one gear to the next as 2nd nature - it's "rote" (ie: not as much fierce concentration, stress, clumsiness) .. except those occasions when you wish you could eat while you're driving, but don't have a third hand. ;) (LOL)

Honestly, my husband could echo this very sentiment - yes, he'd "wish" for an automatic, but there are times, very REAL times, when he is GLAD he's driving a manual, because he has heightened abilities in some areas - There are things you can do to maximize your engine power and RPM's etc, things that you could NEVER do with an automatic. When those times show up, we are super thankful!! :) Example, my husband's ability to downshift to take a steep hill in winter and get us over the summit where we're out of danger! ;) Or in human-interaction-speak - He's so alert to potential "threats" (he can read the traffic and road conditions, if you will) and his Protector side is quite capable to take over to fearlessly DEAL with the threat - he has (collectively) gotten us out of a couple sticky situations because of his almost super-human sense in these instances.

So perhaps the analogy naturally swings itself into SOME measure of increased self-appreciation? This is where I'd be perhaps in danger of OVER-encouraging my husband, as if being thankful for my husband AS HE IS has the potential to minimize his genuine struggle, or makes it too easy to overlook the genuine horrors of his past as horrors - yes, we DO also grieve together as we've sewed up the bits of his memory and narrative. :( But my trend is to want to minimize the PAIN - so in those moments when the pain of being "not normal" is the most prevalent cause for discouratement, I REMIND him that ALL of us have parts and EVERY part has value, yes some may need some refining or maturing, etc. but all are intrinsically VALUABLE (and has as much "right" to be heard and loved). ;) :)

Forgive any overly sappy sentiment. I can swing that direction pretty fast. ;)

~WU

 

[BlueOrange]

Wow, this gearbox metaphor gained a lot of traction! I'm inclined to see if more torque on the subject would be equally powerful....

So, if we use 'gearbox' as a metaphor for the mind, and we talk about different personality states as 'being in different gears' then we can see that the 'gears' are parts of a gearbox, which is part of a car. (Phew! Everything is neat again!)

But, if 'manual' versus 'automatic' is a true metaphor, then why is Dissociative Identity a Disorder? To answer that, we need to understand how the standard-issue automatic gearbox works. It's really very clever - the gears have got detectors in them, and when the car is trying to do something that the gear isn't very good at, it says "It's time to switch gears now" and a different gear takes over. 5th gear says "Life is a smooth highway" and when life turns out to be something else, we switch to something else. When we're in a parking lot for instance, reverse gear and it's fundamental belief that "There is no way forward from here" finds a way to back up and find a new direction.

DID is a problem with those detectors. So, if we were once pursued by bad guys in black Porsches, then 5th gear might be really reluctant to change down, because it knows that we have to be going really really fast in order to get away from them. And it might refuse to disengage even though we're going up a steep hill, and we'd go faster in a different gear, because it remembers the time it took over by itself when we really needed it, and it saved our life that time.

Meanwhile, reverse gear is looking at the peak-hour traffic, and thinking "There's another car in front of me, I'll find a new direction." But there's a difference (however subtle) between a traffic jam and a parking lot. And there's a car behind us as well, so reverse isn't actually helping! But Reverse remembers that time when a steamroller was coming at us from the front, and it saved our lives that time - it's going to save our lives first, and explain later.

5th and Reverse are not bad gears, they're just not always the best gears. (Sometimes, if we're truly honest, they're the wrong gears, and they look like bad gears because they make trouble in our lives.) And they have good reasons to be scared of each other - if Reverse takes over all of a sudden while we're being tailgated on the freeway, that's a serious problem. And if 5th takes over in the parking lot, that's bad too.

And so, the trick is to find ways to get them to talk to each other, and to learn when these gears are truly useful. Over time, it's possible for them to respect each other and to not be stuck in one gear when another might be worth trying.

Oooh, that's something I've just learned from writing this: If you're really good and comfortable at changing gears (because it takes practice, and those horrible grinding noises and bunny-hops can get quite discouraging), then you can try a gear for a few seconds, and change into another one if it doesn't turn out to be better after all. Hmmmm.

 

[whiteraven]

I must be just super weird because I love my part that is sexual! LOL Actually, I have two. Both female, Lucy and Liza. Lucy is more gregarious and gets us (or used to get us) into trouble more, not for explicitly sexual behavior, but for being very flirty and "friendly." She also loves to sing and will do it absolutely anywhere. More than once she has started belting out some Broadway show tune in the hallways at work, or an elevator. And I am normally kind of quiet.

 

[7Cs]

You walk out and it feels like the appointment may as well have not happened at all, because you didn't even talk to your T.

I've been dealing with that quite a bit in therapy lately. I had on part that took up almost an entire session and it was so weird listening to "me" talk. So different from myself! This part has no compassion and views the world in black and white. My husband told me about a time when he was concerned about our relationship in the beginning and was shocked by how cold I was in response. I don't remember but I would imagine it was that part. Then my daughter (who is an adult now) told me that several years ago I sat down and explained to her how sometimes I have no emotions and can't feel love for anyone. When she told me, I apologized and let her know that was a horrible thing for me to say. She knows I have a lot of ptsd and dissociation issues so she was understanding. Still, I felt terrible hearing about it.

the trick is to find ways to get them to talk to each other, and to learn when these gears are truly useful. Over time, it's possible for them to respect each other and to not be stuck in one gear when another might be worth trying.

I'm still trying to understand how parts with opposing viewpoints could ever be able to work together or for that matter merge into one unified personality.

I must be just super weird because I love my part that is sexual!

Luckily I'm married so I have no problem with my more sexual part, I'm pretty sure my husband is happy with it too. I have always remained faithful. I would say that I am pretty aware when I'm no longer completely me but not sure if that part is more "coaware" with me or is more of a normal part that normal people have. I know that 95% of the time I have NO interest in sex but then I will become insatiable, more kinky ;) and obsessed for a short period of time (hormones don't appear to be a factor), so not sure what's going on there.

 

[whiteraven]

Hm, @7Cs, nothing wrong with kinky. :p