Anything That Helps When Trying To Let Young States Or Parts Show Up In The Therapy Session?

[Justmehere]

How do you know @Justmehere if it is a full personality or not?

Many things with dissociation happen on a spectrum, with a lot of grey areas and variety inbetween.

I'll try to explain it how it's been explained to me. Everyone has ego-states. Let's take the example of Jane the school teacher. She's teaching a class as her professional-teacher-adult self. Someone comes and tells her she has an emergency call from her mother. Then she becomes jane-the-worried-daughter. She goes to answer the call, and finds out that her mother wants to simply give her advice about cooking. Then Jane becomes pissed-off-jane... But, because she is well integrated with her teacher-self, she is able to remain professional and ends the call with her mother, goes back to work, and deals with the anger later. That's how ego states generally work.

For me, having ego states that are disconnected means that I have a hard time moving from one state to the other, and sometimes things are jumbled up. It's very hard to explain.

My therapist told me that even people with DID have ego states, it's just that the walls (or lack of integration/communication) between different states were so strong at a young age, in order to cope, that the ego states developed into separate personalities. Feelings of sadness or terror about trauma walled off into a full personality, sometimes with his or her own likes and dislikes and etc. It's my understanding that in the case of DID, these personalities sometimes don't even feel like the same person. They can feel like someone else. (Someone with DID can explain so much better -- and please correct me if I am wrong in any way.) Sometimes the personalities in DID can even be different genders.

My therapist has told me I don't have DID, this state isn't another personality, because I act the same, only sound younger. The young state in me feels like me. I don't lose time, etc.

That's the best way I can explain it - as I understand it.

 

[Muted]

Thank you, that was extremely helpful. So what if there is almost a semi-awareness and a conversation, but after the conversation you can only remember bits and pieces. Like you remember being there and remember talking, but its fuzzy and you may only remember like certain key words, hours later or the next day but not the conversation? Does that sound like a full personality or a bunch of different ego states?

 

[Justmehere]

So what if there is almost a semi-awareness and a conversation, but after the conversation you can only remember bits and pieces.

If by conversation, you mean a conversation with the therapist or someone else, this might be dissociative amnesia.

Forgetting a conversation, parts or all of it, can be combined with other symptoms or be it's own thing. One can have dissociative amnesia with or without DID, with or without fragmented personality, with or without out any ego state disconnection.

 

[Muted]

I didn't realize all this @Justmehere. Sorry for asking all of these questions on your thread. I've avoided asking my therapist for a diagnosis on this, because I'm afraid it might scare me. I had a hard enough time initially admitting that I had parts. Thank you for answering my questions.
I'm not sure if I can help or not with your original question, because my t somehow gets past my defensive parts and I don't know how she does it. We go through hard times, but somehow she hears them and its like they just will be vulnerable but I think its because they trust her alot. But it hasn't been easy and we've had roadblocks at times. Some times especially lately I feel like and I think she knows me better then I know myself . I believe you will get through this @Justmehere.

 

[watundah]

That was a very powerful session for you. I think that's wonderful that you could go to such a deep and meaningful place with her. I always am a bit stunned, overwhelmed, baffled yet relieved when these hard sessions happen. It's hard but it feels like progress.