Struggling with self hatred as usual but with a difference.

[Abstract]

Thank you everyone. The support is a little overwhelming. In a positive way of course. After I answered Leah I :cry: which I haven't done for a long time. Healthy for me I think. I am just so tired.

I also spent some time thinking afterwards and decided I was going to do a thread to find out how those with DID and DDNOS deal with their parts. I don't have DID and as Hashi said am very resistant to dealing separately with parts but I think I am too worn out now not to start looking for something different. It is not just a simple critic situation and I have to accept that. Until I posted I saw it as a positive to avoid separating parts more as it feels I will split more if I do but maybe that is a fear I rather have to face and deal with. I am going to have to pace myself as just the thought feels very threatening. I feel the one part of me is successfully killing off another part.

All your reassurance is touching and I thank you for it. What I meant is that it is a self destructive urge. A masochistic urge. Me feeling that that is what I deserve. Hard to admit and not something I normally would. It feels wrong that people don't feel like that about me. Like the self hatred should be echoed from outside too. I am sure there are times that people do ;) but that I see as healthy as it means I am able to be brave enough these days to say what I think even when it isn't popular. I am sure all your kindness is good for me though.

There is a lot of valuable insight and input in your replies and I will answer properly. Thank you. Need to do a few things and then I will come back.

 

[Bedbug]

I am not sure that "dealing separately with parts" means "separating parts more".

I'm struggling a bit to express myself just now, but I feel there's something in this.

 

[DharmaGirl]

Just want to add to the support. There would be a hole in the forum if you left.

I have personality fragments (?) which is not DID, but I am learning to see the youngest one, and I am trying to love her and care for her so she will be integrated. It is not easy, but none of this stuff is.

 

[radicalgratitude]

Until I posted I saw it as a positive to avoid separating parts more as it feels I will split more if I do but maybe that is a fear I rather have to face and deal with. I am going to have to pace myself as just the thought feels very threatening. I feel the one part of me is successfully killing off another part.

I have a part that feels sad when I read about your fear because that is not the goal of parts work. I can identify with that fear. Fortunately, I was in a program and there was no time for me to resist this form of therapy because I was there to feel better and I figured my therapists knew better than me how to feel better. So I did it and I am so glad I did. Since doing parts work, I have never felt more integrated and whole in my entire life. It is when I take a break from it that I start to separate out again.

If you do decide to do parts work, remember that all parts are welcome. I would ask the part that is killing off another part what it is hoping will happen if the other part goes away, then validate the part's feelings (much like you do to us on this forum). There is no need to rush the part. Ask the part if it wants to unburden, and if so what it needs from you to help it unburden from the incredibly difficult task of killing off the other part. But if it isn't ready to unburden, don't rush it. There's probably more information the part wants to let you know. Be curious, accepting and compassionate. Parts are more open to talking if you are nice to them. There is probably a lot that this part wants to share with you.

 

[Hashi]

As you know, I don't have DID and I see "parts" as aspects of my single self. If someone has DID then I hope they will get good guidance and support from someone knowledgeable about that. If they don't have DID then I think there can still have been a kind of splitting that can be addressed and healed. For me, doing work towards integration and harmony has been huge - difficult but also some of the most important work I've done. (I've started to cry because this has so much meaning for me.)

The most helpful thing to me around this was reading that Jung had likened it to experiences normally being on a spectrum - like the colour spectrum. When parts of us split off during trauma they go into the extreme ends, almost off the scale - infra-red or ultraviolet. They hide there and they're not even visible to us in normal conditions. But everything is still there, still on the same spectrum. Hiding, but not somewhere else.

 

[Pencil]

DDNOS

OSDD in the DSM 5.

A person with Other Specified Dissociative Disorder may experience different parts of their personality which are not distinct and separate identities and do not physically take over their body. This is similar to Dissociative Identity Disorder but without the identity alteration.

A person with Other Specified Dissociative Disorder may experience different parts of their personality, and those parts may physically take over their body but there is no amnesia for the past or present, so the full criteria for Dissociative Identity Disorder is not met.

Other Specified Dissociative Disorder and Dissociative Identity Disorder both develop from early childhood trauma. Dissociative Identity Disorder may initially present as Other Specified Dissociative Disorder, but cannot develop into Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Other Specified Dissociative Disorder is often a diagnosis made when the amnesia prevents full awareness of the symptoms, or before past amnesia is recognized (for example a person may initially believe that most people do not remember most of their childhood).

From: Link Removed

Yes, would love to hear how members manage theirs.

 

[ms spock]

http://www.dbtselfhelp.com/html/radical_acceptance2.html

This is very simple and perhaps a little beautiful, in its own way. It might be soothing for you Abstract. It is a video with Celtic music and meditative images about radical acceptance.

 

[Seasounds]

What I meant is that it is a self destructive urge. A masochistic urge. Me feeling that that is what I deserve

. @Abstract, I think your process is totally a good sign! By separating out the toxic thought-and speaking of it, it is like a purge. Now you can let healthier people reflect a healthier identity! You taught me something. :)

 

[Abstract]

@Solara you are right that acceptance and not fighting is the right way to go with this. When it started I had always thrown myself doggedly at things and it was a hard lesson to learn that it does not work with this stuff. It has been humiliating that I have so little control and so many things that worked in the past don't work now. I have had to learn an entire different way of thinking and working and it is still a process. Thank goodness for radical acceptance and mindfulness. I never realised in the past how much of my achievements came from self punishment and judgement.

Reading your response though I realised I have along way to go with this. ACT is one thing I have never done formally although I have seen it's value. I too have very obsessive tendencies.

@Ms Spock . Double binds seem to be the foundation of almost everything for me these days. Who knows maybe they always were and just didn't realise it. I had the self awareness of a flea. Thanks for the support. That site is great.

@radicalgratitude thanks for your kind thoughts. Funny how hearing things and feeling things is so different isn't it? I think it is almost like a self harm wish sometimes. :-/ The incongruence of positive regard from others when there is only toxicity inside.

 

[Abstract]

@franciemarnie thanks!

When there is the war on, what happens to the part of you which is the voice of reason and truth,

I don't know if I can explain this very well but it isn't a matter of me and then this part trying to do me in. It doesn't feel like that. It is just different parts of my mind and they all have power. Yes there is a part of my mind saying the opposite always. One part of my mind knows that something is true whilst another knows it is false. It is better than it was at one point. I could never have discussed any of it then as it would have cost too much and I would just have written how I was lying. I have enough awareness to know that I would just sound disturbed.

@katiekat it's funny as I have never had an issue with depersonalisation and trance etc. It just was and I ever thought of it and it never frightened me although I should have been frightened by it's affects on my life in many ways. In some ways I am good at going with the flow. Not so much with this brain war. My logic and intuitiveness have been my anchor and I haven't taken too kindly having it undermined in this way. Yes I have have accepted a lot more but with difficulty.

I'm curious to know what is stopping you from picking up the phone, scheduling a therapy appointment and going.

If only it were that easy. I am much, much closer though and have made a lot of progress recently. Excuse the clumsy and possibly eccentric analogies but if you want to know more the best way to explain it would be on here. https://www.myptsd.com/threads/topi...d-temporary-loss-of-information-anyone.35761/

 

[Abstract]

@change thank you for your kindness. No wished for harm coming from this direction then! ;)

Do you mean that anytime you start to take any actions to get help for PTSD that it makes your symptoms worse? I do like the wisdom of the above posts; sometimes the intensity decreases if I change my plan.

Even tiny things. To start just being on the forum and posting anything would set off a storm of self abuse of great intensity. It actually become physical at one point about a year ago. I would find myself self harming. Both when I tried to do something to get help and when I was totally won over that there wasn't anything wrong and I just had to get on with life. Now it is if I say anything that more directly refers to experiences, my having PTSD or anything to do with getting into treatment. Some other things set it off too but maybe that isn't necessary to describe. If I look at it practically I have come a very long way in the last 6 months on many ways. I don't feel positive at the moment regardless though as I do feel quite strange.

I can't even just simply be hopeless and be out of it as there is always another agenda going in. There is no respite.

You are right though and I do have to change my plan. Sneaky is the only thing that works with this stuff.

 

[Abstract]

@Hashi,
Excuse the long response but you have brought up a few important points.

You are right that I need to pick an approach and Solara is right that I need to step up the acceptance. Truth be told I have made enormous progress with all this if I had to list it all down. Even in the last month. But as I have answered here I have gained more clarity and the truth is that although there is a lot of movement it isn't nearly enough and I need way more if I am not going to be more damaged by this. The toll it is taking is too much and I am too tired. I feel like I am loosing part of my strength and if I take any bigger steps forward there will be intense reactions that I am not sure I have the strength for. Maybe if it hadn't taken me so long to start dealing with it differently then it may have been different now.

he idea of parts work of any kind (archetypes, sub-personalities, schema therapy) feels too destabilising. Have I understood that correctly, and if so is that still the case?

It's funny that you brought this up as I was probably coming to this realisation as you wrote the post. To clarify I have felt fear of separating things too much. By that I mean in terms of inner children etc. Not helped by reading up quite a lot a while back about manufactured DID (I don't have judgement of this for others but it has added to my own cautiousness). I don't know much about schema therapy and didn't realise there is sub personality approach involved.

Achetypes I don't find threatening at all and they appealed to me straight away. It's still the spiritual aspect of the approach that is an issue. I have thought there must be a way around that so haven't written it off at all. Ironically after reading up about metaphysics a little that way of thinking isn't foreign to me and lot of it I do already naturally. I guess I have concentrated on what has felt more of a priority with the knowledge that I need to find a way through when getting a t. What I hadn't thought of is that I need to be doing it now with myself to help to deal with this. There are few things that I can do that will make this all more comfortable for me which I will discuss later.

Accepting that this is how it will stay is not an option; giving up on therapy isn't an option; I may do a thread about craniosacral therapy to find out more; I do think I need to start working on a concrete therapeutic way of addressing this issue at home. If I am to carry on inching forward I need more to support me.

Medication wise I am on anti depressants and these are of some help. My gp wanted me to go on antipsychotics to help with sleep but I decided not to do so without seeing a psychiatrist. I probably should look into ant anxiety meds to give me some extra help. It's amazing how much shame I still have in accepting taking meds.

Thanks.