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DID Anyone experienced full or partial DID/parts integration? How did your life change & how did you cope?

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prynne

MyPTSD Pro
I think I am starting to experience integration. The lines between my parts are starting to get blurry. One of my parts, A, is now the same person as “me” in day-to-day life. We think as one person almost 24/7 now and I’ve accepted her traits and beliefs as my own. This has eliminated some of the traits and beliefs that I formerly thought of as “me”, which scares me. I also have wildly different plans and aspirations for my life since this has happened. I’m now discontent with many things in my life, but I’m scared to change anything or commit to anything right now because I doubt that this is the end of the personality changes.

All of this is scary. I feel like a different person. I don’t think the same way about hardly anything, including the people I love. I feel more alive and present, but at what cost? I feel like the Me I’ve been used to for years is dead, or now just another part. She was sort of a depressed empty shell, with 80% of her personality repressed, but I don’t like change. Even good change.

I do have a fear that the former Me was overthrown by A and now A is the one in charge. She has sabotaged me many times in the past. Right now it feels super hard for me to access some of my old traits that A is not so good at, like rational thinking and empathy.

Has anyone else experienced integration? What was it like? How did you cope with this feeling of having no stable foundation within yourself, no true identity? I have no idea who I am right now.
 
I'm fairly sure I'm going through something similar as well. The result is actually a bit of the opposite of you. I went from having limited empathy and a flat affect to now crying all the time and having a huge baby brain. Some of that is probably the effect of neurogenesis but some of it is very clearly C.

I'm male and the part that is becoming closer is female, which is also challenging and bizarre. I never related to feminine characteristics whereas she is extremely religiously observant, dresses frum, very feminine, etc. Because it's so opposite to me, it's been a challenge to try and integrate it all. The best I can come up with is that I'm probably going to end up GNC.

Which is uncomfortable, since I tend to be fairly masculine in presentation.

It's not exactly fusion as there is definitely still a separation between us, but her thoughts and her emotions and the sensation of being her, is something I now also have access to and periodically it crosses over into being me as well. I'm assuming it's an integration and not a fusion but that might change.

As for the feeling of having no stable foundation within myself, I'm not really sure. I'm Shayne, or can access Shayne, like 85% of the time. But I also have thousands of parts that I'm peripherally aware of (not as individuals, but just, I know they're there). My internal sensation of my identity is very fractured and I vacillate frequently between very minute iterations of parts, or I ghost-switch without being aware of it until after the fact.

I tend to just roll with it because the alternative of trying to keep track and caring about it is too mentally exhaustive. As long as I'm not hurting anyone or myself I don't see the purpose. But I can definitely relate to the experience of having my "common" personality change as a result of integration, and while it absolutely is uncertain and uncomfortable and bizarre, I do think it's a good thing.

Like you, my primary iteration was very depressive, flat, empty and now that's starting to change and people have noticed it and I'm forming friendships and connecting more with my family. All things that I've always said I wanted to do. Can't shy away now or pull the brakes. I already changed the way my brain functions thru intense psilocybin therapy, there's no going back, LOL.

Even though I'm used to being the way I was before and I knew how to function and now I don't, and I've ended up hospitalized like 6 times in the last year, I don't regret it.
 
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Like you, my primary iteration was very depressive, flat, empty and now that's starting to change and people have noticed it and I'm forming friendships and connecting more with my family. All things that I've always said I wanted to do. Can't shy away now or pull the brakes.
I get it. I've wanted to feel this way for years, but now that it's starting to actually happen for me, it's terrifying. Feeling happy is a huge unknown for me. I've been depressed to some extent for as long as I can remember, severely depressed since I started middle school. I don't know how to be happy or "normal". I feel like I'm learning to be human 20 years late
 
I feel like I'm learning to be human 20 years late
Better late than never IMO! I think there is also some validity to... in the back of my mind I'm like "I'm not a person, blah blah." But I think, probably, we are people and it seems like, at least when I have shared here, a lot more people than not have related to what I've said (including u) or at the very least didn't respond negatively to it.

So that leads me to think that maybe this is just another piece of humanity. What happens when we're traumatized. And how often when we are traumatized we don't correctly learn social and emotional development and that comes with a lot more intention than a non-traumatized person, usually in adulthood.

Whereas most healthy adults learn these things in childhood thru foundational learning (other than like, the kindergarten basics of "share and be nice") but otherwise may not be able to point to "I took this med/did this therapy/did this worksheet/had a Wheel of Feels." So that intentionality can feel really alienating.

But learning to be happy, learning to be healthy, especially when uve spent so long not being those things is a huge difference and differences like that are super scary! I legit changed the way that my brain processes information and I went from having 0 emotional experiences to having emotional experiences as a 30 year old n lemme tell ya it has been f*cking nuts.

Sometimes because I have emotions now I experience really negative emotions and I wish I hadn't done it, but I've also had periods of genuine happiness and connection and I think that's worth it. I have hope that eventually those experiences will be more common than not, and I can say that I am "mostly" healed, which is not something I ever felt was possible prior to therapy.
 
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I also have wildly different plans and aspirations for my life since this has happened. I’m now discontent with many things in my life, but I’m scared to change anything or commit to anything right now because I doubt that this is the end of the personality changes.
So, I'm wondering if this is really integration? Have you discussed with a therapist who works with DID?

I am not sure if parts of me have integrated or not, but I don't hear them anymore, mostly (every once-in-a-while I do, but it's seldom). I definitely feel different--more whole and not at all bothered by how things feel (at least in terms of the things my insiders presented). The hostile, self-harming one is just not there--and neither are those kinds of compulsions to self-injure. I don't feel the angry intensity of the one who was so very angry. You get the point...

When I felt like you are describing, it was still when I was in the midst of sorting things out with my insiders. When I felt different, with different needs and wants, someone inside had either taken over or was trying to take over.

As I said above, I do feel different, but it's not a "bad" different. At all.
 
Hmm... I've integrated some parts. It was definitely an adjustment. For me, the swirl and struggle was bigger just before it happened. Change is hard and scary and there was a lot of resistance at first from other insiders. I definitely felt different but I still felt like me too. Hmm... it's hard to explain.

How are you doing now?
 
So, I'm wondering if this is really integration? Have you discussed with a therapist who works with DID?

I am not sure if parts of me have integrated or not, but I don't hear them anymore, mostly (every once-in-a-while I do, but it's seldom). I definitely feel different--more whole and not at all bothered by how things feel (at least in terms of the things my insiders presented). The hostile, self-harming one is just not there--and neither are those kinds of compulsions to self-injure. I don't feel the angry intensity of the one who was so very angry. You get the point...

When I felt like you are describing, it was still when I was in the midst of sorting things out with my insiders. When I felt different, with different needs and wants, someone inside had either taken over or was trying to take over.

As I said above, I do feel different, but it's not a "bad" different. At all.
I'm also not sure if it's integration. This doesn't feel like anything else I've experienced. It does feel like my main personality and the A personality have merged, at least mostly. Almost 24/7 I'm experiencing traits from both of them at the same time, although usually, A's traits are much more prominent. I think this is because my former main personality is pretty empty, depressive, and one-sided, like a superficial shell personality. That makes sense to me since most of my personality is repressed. I don't hear A's thoughts as a voice separate from mine anymore, they're just my thoughts. But my main personality's thoughts haven't been pushed to the background as a voice either, like when A has taken control in the past. They're also my thoughts. This has also lasted wayyyy longer than switches I've had in the past. Usually one of my parts would not be able to stay in control for a full day, this has gone on for a couple of weeks.

My therapist doesn't have a ton of experience with DID, but she does consult with a DID specialist online to talk about my treatment. Maybe I'll ask her to ask the specialist about integration and what she thinks is going on with me
 
How are you doing now?
Not too great. This new merged (?) personality has a lot of harmful beliefs about my trauma. Now instead of lurking in the background, they are what I believe most of the time. On Monday, I was telling my therapist about how any time I've been raped I wanted it or it doesn't matter what I wanted. I said that I don't care about anything else in life except finding a man like my abuser to "treat me how I deserve to be treated". Yesterday, I cut myself for the first time in a long time.

I don't fully believe those things right now, only partially. It's like these two parts are still fighting over control, but they've lost the ability to fully push the other out. Like they're attached at the hip.

Thank you for asking 💛
 
We're right in the middle of the process. Our female parts are starting to blur and feel more like one, strong female part. For the male parts, it's been a hard process. A few of them experience life with greater co-consciousness of the others. When memories of a trauma come up, though, it can be overwhelming for a collection of parts to all experience that trauma, instead of just one isolated part. We are making progress, though, at getting used to that.
 
Okay so I also am not sure this is integration. How are you doing @prynne ? Sorry I’m very late to this thread.

I think I’ve almost completely integrated, I don’t feel like the aspects of my personality are distinct, nor do I feel as if different parts of me hold different memories as much as before. There is definitely still some stuff locked away but yeah, mostly.

For me it was very slow and at times it was hardly noticeable. Which is what makes me think it’s maybe not what you’re experiencing. It wasn’t like some parts started warring with ‘base me’ for want of a better phrase, for control. Nor did my interests or values change much. It was more just a gradual awareness of the nuance in my personality and being able to access all of it. Rather than before where it was like “jasmine is always scared and shaky and crying” and “Marty is the angry one” etc etc. Now, it’s only when I’m very triggered and it’s very out of the blue that I go into a flashback so bad that I dissociate and it’s as if I’m re-doing the dissociation I did as a child when it happened just as the flashback itself is a re-doing of the trauma but in your head. If that makes any sense?

Now I just feel like, if for example I’m in a situation where something needs a bit of courage or aggression, those emotions and determination are now accessible as me. Whereas before I’d switch, go off the extreme end of whatever behaviour was perceived as needed and then not really be aware of much afterwards.
 
For me, integration has been imagining the 'me' I want and mindfully stepping into that me. I try to set my life up in such a way that I can use the best parts of my 'parts' to move forward. I look for the good in all parts. The strengths and the weaknesses and bring forward what I want and mindfully take in the weaknesses that at one time were almost the death of me. So for me it feels very much so like I am creating a new life. For the record, I have had differences in opinion on whether I was/am fully DID or not. My original dx was DDNOS but my current therapist feels that was incorrect and that I am/was DID.

I mean, I feel like I am a work in progress, just as we all are. I don't focus a ton on my parts as that throws me back into dissociation so I try to keep my sights more on who I am working on making myself. It is and most likely always will be a struggle for me but I no longer feel like parts take me over and destroy my life anymore.
 
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