Having Trouble With Separating My Different Inner 'people'.

[just me here]

OK, I am losing my ability to separate out different role players inside my mind. I thought I was able to see a distinction between my inner critic and my inner protector and my inner child and my inner formula 1 champion etc. But now I just see it all as different facets of my self. I especially cannot try to speak to a part as if it was a separate entity and my therapist just tells me I need to be able to do it, or she can't employ the methods we need to use.

I am pretty good at suspending disbelief so that I can watch a movie without just seeing actors reading lines on a set. But this is different. I cannot even envision a separate entity let alone describe an appearance or have a conversation with it or dress it in a different costume as was suggested today. I just can't stop thinking this is a wasted exercise of my imagination that isn't working.

My hyper vigilance is caused by my "inner protector" and I am supposed to have a conversation with that entity and picture him as a friendly, warm and fuzzy guy in charge of safety but not a bad guy, Smokey the bear was suggested- a cuddly kind of fantasy animal that protects our forests from wildfire ( well known in the US, we all learn about him in grade school and the fantasy animal is like the official mascot of our Forest Service).

But I know that the forests are protected by the guys that monitor the weather and humidity and post bans on campfires and wood cutting and enforce them with tickets and even arrests.

There is no bear in coveralls, how can I try to see my inner protector as a bear in coveralls when I can't even see any part of me that doesn't look like me because all the parts are all just another part of me?

Can anyone out there tell me about their battle with the reality that there aren't different people living inside of us?

 

[anthony]

I think it is vastly dangerous that a therapist is telling you to literally split your personality and find inner personalities, wrapping that argument in a need to deliver therapy. What total nonsense. Slap your therapist and tell them to fit to you, not the other way around.

 

[Red Feather]

I would agree. I find it a very good sign that you aren't able to separate them.

 

[Hashi]

There are respectable therapies that use the sort of concepts you're talking about, like Gestalt, journal dialogues, Jungian approaches and dreamwork. Most people are used to the idea of an inner child, which is one aspect. But I wonder if there's some miscommunication/misunderstanding over this with your T? (To be honest, it sounds like either she's making a right mess of getting the idea across or she should be investigated!)

I work with archetypes so I'm used to giving a voice to different aspects, but they are always facets of myself. They're not separate entities like alters. It's useful to see them as having a persona, but really they're just patterns of behaviour.

They have their own "personalities". Someone else can't assign a personality to them for us. For example there's no point someone telling me to visualise the Detective archetype as Sherlock Holmes if the way I experience the Detective archetype is more like Inspector Gadget. Your T has probably only confused things by giving you a suggested image that doesn't work for you at all.

I wonder if your T's explaining it extremely badly or putting it into practice in too inflexible/unhelpful a way. I don't know her or her approach, but I'd have to ask how much she knows what she's doing with this, how well she's communicating about it and why she's so invested in it if you aren't.

 

[Meadowsweet]

Justmehere, I wondered if you've got any further with this?

I'm finding it quite difficult to understand because over the years my mind has seperated my personality into different parts, and for me it is quite distressing.

I imagine getting better to be bringing these parts back together so that I can be fully involved with my life.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Are you diagnosed as DID?

If not, then by my way of thinking, these "parts" SHOULD just be parts of yourself. I've done a little bit of IFST and this is how I understand it to be. (I am not DID.)

 

[just me here]

I am taking a two week break, we discussed my inability to get past the idea of having internal personalities I could see and talk to. There was a time I was willing to go along and "fake it till you make it" but I am just getting nowhere with it.

I was the victim of a very bad EMDR therapist a few years back, she had years as a therapist but only a weekend course in EMDR and I was her first patient I found out later. We never closed anything, never re-assessed a memory or replaced it with a more positive feeling, just 5-6 sessions of ever deeper horror and painful memories.

I explained all of this to my present Therapist and she has been taking it easy on me, working with feelings both physical and emotional, not specific events and not my conscious self as I am today.

We are going to go to the more mainstream methods in 2 weeks, but slowly and not tearing down any defenses I have built up to leave me in distress with no strategies for survival like my previous T did.

I think it will be OK

 

[Deleted member 1860]

If you're not feeling a particular therapy, then perhaps it isn't right for you? Just a thought...

I've done "parts" work in my intensive trauma therapy program and they were very careful when presenting the idea of parts to me as I have previous therapy issues related to this sort of work. In the end it worked out. I now have about 25 puppets which represent my various emotions. I am able to check inside to see which "part" needs a voice and needs to say something. This is all in the context of everybody having parts.

But, I understand that this sort of work may be difficult to grasp at first. Perhaps it is the way in which your therapist is presenting it to you? Every therapist does therapy a little bit differently, so maybe a different therapist would be able to present it to you in a way in which you're more comfortable? Just a thought.

 

[just me here]

I can understand that there are "facets" of my personality, we all have many faces we put on for different requirements. I just can't answer the question "what does this aspect of your personality look like?". The only answer is "it looks like me" because it is me, just a facet of the total sum of all the different personalities.

When I get asked " can I talk to the aspect of your personality?" I have to say- you just did.

I accept that she is working very carefully with me, not only because of the past bad EMDR but also because of the high stress of the past year, I sometimes feel like I am being tested, and when I pass one test I get hit by another level. I don't blame her for using techniques that deal with the feelings and only parts of my "self" and no specific memories as of yet, frankly I think I scare her a bit, she doesn't want to send me into a suicidal spiral again.

We are going to take a more direct approach in 2 weeks.