Creating Parts

[shimmerz]

I put this thread under dissociation because I am speaking about 'parts' or Structural Dissociation.

I wonder if the reason we create parts is because we cannot reconcile those pieces with who we attain to be? I see anger as violent. It isn't always so and I am slowly recognizing that. I have an angry part, although I denied it for a very long time. This angry 'part' t comes up every once and again (now, finally). I know I had a tremendous self loathing (and a real distaste for others who were angry) for my own anger. I didn't want to be 'that'. Now that part is coming up and I am realizing it isn't as out of control as I thought it would be. I think that came with much work though. It took time and patience and a ton of you all helping me through it. Reconciling it, so to speak.

I often wondered why I didn't become the 'angry' person that I was so often exposed to in my childhood. I think because my 'part' felt it was right for me not to 'go there'. It would be dangerous to my system if I let it out in the warped way in which I was exposed to it.

I just wonder if any of you realize how your parts actually protect you from a distorted sense of the true emotion that you are suppressing?

 

[Hope4future]

Structural dissociation is something I deal with too. I've learned through time as parts come up to ask the question, "How is this part trying to help?". The help being offered isn't always the best idea so its not a good plan to take it, but approaching it this way, with kindness and compassion, tends to lessen the opportunity for self-loathing that often comes with parts.

Yes, I think that parts are created to hold or manage emotions or situations that were just too much for us when they occurred. They took the hit, so to speak, so that we could survive.

 

[Deleted member 28740]

Now that part is coming up and I am realizing it isn't as out of control as I thought it would be.

In my life the accusation of being angry has only ever come from my abusers. Not being an abuser, I took that in as aspect of me to swallow and shove deep down, rather than an appropriate reaction to abuse. Anger has many manifestations. Only one word for snow, yet many types of snow. Anger shunned when it is an appropriate response to abuse as opposed to a being sent to anger management courses.

Yesterday had many instances of 'righteous' anger. The effects ill making, not from the anger, the injustice done to me. Judge my anger as reasonable. Yes, it was. To have played nice, false. False would not have mitigated the harm being done to me.

 

[littlelostchild]

@shimmerz, you have articulated it beautifully! If you look at my avi, you will see my anger represented as the red. I am also working at integrating my emotions and have been very fearful of anger/rage. I am slowly reconciling that I can control accessing it in bits.

I am learning that anger can motivate change - that's a good thing! Who knew anger could be good, not me! Anger also creates energy for action to create that change.

I have spent lots of time and energy suppressing my emotions, too. As a child, they weren't safe and as an adult, I didn't have the skills or understanding to live with them fully, but I'm learning now in my mid-life, better late than never!

My parts have protected me from feeling the emotions full stop, but that includes joy and happiness too. When it comes to emotions, I really struggle with having a 'true' sense at all, but I am beginning to be less numb.

It was an necessary strategy for an unimaginable and horrific experience as a child, but it became obsolete, and I had no other skills. Sad for so many of us!

 

[shimmerz]

Only one word for snow, yet many types of snow.

This is lovely Changeling. Yes. One word, many facets, dimensions, textures, etc. @Valentino wrote and provided very good information in another posting (towards the bottom of the posting - I think it is the double bind post) that really helped me put into proper perspective something that had been shoved down inside of me for so long.

I am learning that anger can motivate change

You know, I didn't realize this until recently. It is true. It can! This is a grown up concept. I am attempting to walk towards it. I am getting small tastes for it and it isn't all that bad.

I am working my way towards freedom right now and am realizing I can't have that until I learn how to express myself appropriately.

 

[Deleted member 28740]

I am working my way towards freedom right now and am realizing I can't have that until I learn how to express myself appropriately.

You do express yourself appropriately.:tup::hug:

 

[shimmerz]

You do express yourself appropriately.

lol. You are so good to me Changeling. :hug::hug::hug: I so wish this was true, but I am getting there. I am trying to get to a place where my inside voice (inner critic?) and my outside voice actually match. Clearly I don't want to project out my inside critic, so am trying to get to a place of balance. That means expressing my anger (or other emotions) in an appropriate way so they don't fester inside of me. Isn't easy......:hungover:

 

[Hope4Now]

I am trying to get to a place where my inside voice (inner critic?) and my outside voice actually match.

Yes! This is the goal isn't it? It seems impossible, but what is called being "true to oneself."
You are very brave to be exploring the anger in you. And it is so helpful to hear that it is not so overwhelming as you feared.

I'm just dipping my pinky toe into letting myself feel angry. Actually talking myself into feeling angry and feeling what it feels like. It is quite uncomfortable. And I've realized that my child parts believe that anger is bad bad bad. They are ashamed of anger. Hmmm. Goes a long way toward the mixed messages of fight/flight/freeze.
I am phobic of anger. I avoid it in others and try to avoid it in myself (but that toxic inner critic is always angry). I'm fairly certain that my toxic parts were "born" in an attempt to protect myself from external danger. In a kind of desperate and destructive bid for control over things that were/are uncontrollable. These are parts that say, "I can do way worse to you than they can...SEE?"

A sort of fear-response that aims to keep the system safe. I've learned about it mostly from observing my dog. She has what's called a fear-response...she will try to bite you before you hurt her. This goes for both people and other dogs. Although the response to danger is totally normal, in her case nobody is trying to hurt her. The other dogs may be just trying to play. People might just be petting her, or stepping around her to go upstairs. Any sort of sensory overload gets turned into a fear response for her. It is very sad because I will no longer let anyone but our immediate family pet her because we can "read" her body language and pull back before she's triggered (most of the time). And I don't let her play with other dogs for the same reason. So she desperately wants love and attention, but when she gets it, she freaks out.

Sorry...rambling...not sure where I was going with all that.

 

[shimmerz]

"I can do way worse to you than they can...SEE?"

This is so key for me. I think I have set up a 'double bind' where I want to get to me before I feel the crushing blow of someone else getting to me first. With anger it would (still does, truth be told) take on an 'indignant' form of expression. "I am nice, you are mean". All wrong. Anger can be mean but isn't always. Rage is mean really, not anger. Hmmmm, just figured that one out. Although rage can be good if the anger is directed at something that is horrendously evil. Have to think on that a while.

Anyway, I think what I am trying to say is that my anger did come out (and still does) as a form of indignation. Same colour. Different hue. :banghead::banghead::banghead:

 

[GrowingJoy]

I appreciate what you are saying about indignation @shimmerz, very true for me. Righteous, raging, indignation...I get numb so often and I don't know how to handle it anymore. I have had migraines for over 25 years and I think that is my body's way of avoiding all the hurt that I have taken on. Feeling panic daily and not sure what to say, who to talk to, how to move through/past it.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I think if you did IFST parts work, or its counterpart which also includes mapping, you'd find that "anger" is the feeling NOT to be felt, and therefore you have "guard" emotions which keep the anger hidden (in check, etc).

Mapping is one of the first steps of recovery for those with DID, at least it was when I was in the trauma hospital with many other DID patients. I'm a bit surprised that I don't see it mentioned more here on the forum, given that I have done lots of mapping myself (but I am not DID), yet I don't see many other DID people discuss it at all. Hmmm.

 

[Hope4Now]

@Solara, can you start a thread on mapping? I am not sure what it is. I mean I have an idea but I would like to hear more.