I Didn't Write It

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

Try a meeting and suggest they always use handwriting.

I do "internal meetings" in a journal. I have my alters/parts put their initial next to their writing just in case it's hard to tell through hand-writing, though some have the same initial, but so far it's worked. @KeepingTime , it took me a long time to establish communication even through writing so it might not be the first step for you, though it is a very useful thing. Hopefully your therapist is knowledgeable and able to guide you through this. My therapist is great with this, but even still I needed more intensive help eventually and went in-patient to a specialized place. It was so worth it because I learned so much and there was usually someone available to ask questions of or to talk to.

 

[markymark]

I do "internal meetings" in a journal. I have my alters/parts put their initial next to t...

I'm fortunate to have a very experienced DID therapist. Initials are a great idea. I've been making better progress that finally after 4 years, the parts trust him and will reveal themselves and converse. I have been frightened by what I have learned when he talks to them, but it is incredible what they can reveal. Like you, meetings and journals have been very helpful for me.

 

[markymark]

I have come to know when one of my alters reaches the point they are comfortable to tell me someth...

When your alters tell you somthing, do hear their voices? My alters converse with one another and I can tell who is talking to who. Sometimes it's annoying. They thought I was ssxhizophrenic until the Doc realized they were helping and not being destructive. (Except for Baker who I feel is verbally destructive.

Often, I just have to listen to the conversations to get a sense of what emotions are being kept from me.

 

[markymark]

@KeepingTime oh hon :)

What ur describing is completely NATURAL for the s...

Whispering Unicorn's Story is inspiring. My wife has tolerated me for 26 years and has her favorite parts. I tried to hide my PTSD and DID for 22 years in fears of someone finding out and my losing a job to provide for my family. But lif IS better accepting these parts that-in my case-preserved the true core personalilities of compassion, business, creativity, and many others. These are the ones she looks for and had embraced the parts who now respond to her. My alters often coexist, but with triggers they are there in full force. Thanks for story from Whispering Unicorn as DID can sometimes be lonely even with all the parts trying to do their own thing, trying to keep me company.

 

[Dissociated1]

When your alters tell you somthing, do hear their voices?

I can understand the confusion with Schizophrenia. I do not hear voices. My female alter prefers to speak to me out loud conversation-style when I am alone as I do when she is fronting, otherwise her ideas just form in my head. I do not hear the chatter in my mind but she tends to be their spokesman for my Child alter and Inner Self Helper. I am usually the last to know. I never thought to ask her if she speaks to our Protector, but he and I are still much like my System was before my breakdown. I am very aware of his thoughts when his is triggered, but not the memories and feelings of abuse he keeps hidden from me. For reasons unclear, my Inner Self Helper sees no benefit to him being self aware like my other alters.

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

When your alters tell you somthing, do hear their voices?

My husband experiences both voices and thoughts-out-of-nowhere interchangeably. He'll be mid-sentence, and the thought will "pop" into his head just as most people experience, but his are "different" really only in that it completely derails him mid-sentence, and can completely undo a conversation we're having. He might not even realize it until much later - because often it's like he's just been "commanded" to go do or get or say something. But that "command" doesn't have to be a voice per se. Though if that "command" is coming from his Protector/Grumpy, it's usually an audible voice to him. Sometimes Grumpy will "break through" and (as we say) "steal the microphone" .. just split the sentence or thought or conversation completely in half.

Nowadays, most often, he can "ask" his others to "speak" on a topic - sometimes they answer, sometimes they don't. For example, if I want to know if his "littles" feel ok about a thing, make sure they feel "safe" or comfortable, or if I want to do something FOR one of them they would find meaningful, I'll ask him to ask if they would like xyz .. Probably about half of the time the answer comes back as just a thought versus a voice. But he almost always knows "who" is answering, either way.

As an aside, my husband's "others" are far less well-defined than many on the "dissociative" spectrum. It's rather like they aren't fully formed, so we don't really deal so much with full self-aware "persons" (except for Grumpy who IS "self-aware" but prefers NOT to be "out" as a general rule, cuz his being "out" has historically meant he was being "forced" to deal with something on my husband's behalf, so I feel like Grumpy's disposition is he'd really rather just not be needed).

My husband's littlest "Little" is not self-aware at all, but we think this is his "core" self. Kinda "little-boy-lost" who only voices himself in extremely distressing situations - and usually without my husband realizing it. But he also "owns" my husband's most tender-spirited side, the deepest "love" .. which is why we think Little is the "core." Perhaps that's just a philosophical distinction rather than a psychological one? But we're not sure how or if we can fully "engage" Little on purpose. It seems best to us to let Little engage on his OWN terms. Perhaps like GIVING love freely rather than it being required or demanded of him?

My husband's other younger part is rather like the extroverted side of Little, and can really be playful and the "life of the party;" he's little-boy-flirty-camera-hog. (LOL) As much as he LIKES to "come out and play," he doesn't seem to be very self-aware either - in that, he's VERY vulnerable to suggestion. Right now, this is ok because he's "safe" with me and my husband's "Middle" taking care to be as completely truthful and careful with him/them. (Actually, BOTH younger parts are very vulnerable to suggestion .. ) As long as he's not fully "self-aware" he doesn't "steal the microphone" unless he's WITH me to engage with or talk to me. This usually happens rapidly - like if he sees a "toy" in the store and gets excited, and then poof he's gone again. But he's "voicing" to ME, not TO my man. I think that distinction is important, but I don't know if I'm explaining that very well ...

If Little "comes out" when we're out in public, he usually takes my hand and stands behind me (like a little boy hiding behind his mommy's skirts while she talks to the stranger at the counter, for example). But he's basically non-verbally "voicing" WITH me, not TO my man. And this is also like a quick experience - as soon as I'm done talking to the clerk, or whatnot, everything switches "back to normal" for us. These quick "switches" ARE also "normal" for us, but not necessarily dominant in our experience of each other .. Still I take these as GOOD signs and experiences, actually. Because not THAT long ago, these two younger parts NEVER got to "come out" except in secret (even secretly as far as my husband was concerned), and their experience of the world was mainly fearful and facing threats or being misused by others, etc. So Grumpy usually just took over for them, and my man lived behind a very hard wall of internalized terror - one I don't think he even fully appreciated.

So the more his others interact with me, and with "the world," the more WHOLE and altogether confidently/"peacefully" my husband lives with HIMSELF.

Which is truly beautiful to me.

... I think I'm straying from the thread topic, a bit. Hopefully I'm not hijacking, here! :)

~WU

 

[markymark]

It is amazing how well you know your husband's parts. Characteristics so similar to mine except they refer to themselves by a specific name. There are three younger alters stuck in specific ages for me: Tommy 5 holds fear and physical pain (fully introverted and timid), Stephen is 12 and likes to run away (has a paranoid personality)-I've disappeared for a day or two with him at the helm). Ian is 18 and a wild party animal and deals with stressors in a more self-destructive way (excessive extrovert and can be dangerous).

The one who always stays in control is a very old alter named Martha who is the "mother hen" of them all. Extremely wise, intelegent, thoughtful, and patient and has the ability to be an incredible caregiver. Never angry, but the group respects her authority. It's who we like the most to be "out." And of course Sgt. Baker who is the bad ass protector. All bark though, but one I fear and am working on the most right now.

I deal with a lot of physical pain from dystonia caused by a brain injury, but take very little pain medication out of fear of side effects and addiction. I often disassociate to deal with the pain, I think it's better than destroying my liver.

There are other alters and I realize these parts were created mostly to preserve important characteristics of my identity. Everyone except Tommy has spoken to my therapist on several occasions in their own unique accents and voices. These are parts highly developed and were hidden for 40 years until I went missing for several days. And after 20 or so years of marriage, things finally made sense to my wife and we have been able to deal with this quite well.

When your husband "switches," does he have any recall memory of the event? There are very few times I can recall when a switch occurred until I'm told. But just like your husband, I switch around in conversations, but have also had switches occur during seizure activity (TBI related). So often it is very confusing, but the alters always know what is going on. Working on "copressance" for memory, but so far no real success.

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

When your husband "switches," does he have any recall memory of the event?

In general, he remembers most of what happens - what he loses is flow of conversation ("What was I just saying/what were we just talking about? Bring me back..."), sometimes he loses time in a kind of "spaced out" dissociative state - he has this tendency when dealing with depression or physical pain - and he usually "wakes up" to realize he's "wasted" the whole day (or so it seems to him) but he doesn't seem to "hard click" into one of his others during these times. It's more like a dream state, and he realizes he was sleeping or daydreaming, but doesn't remember what was going on during these times. He has had occasions where his "insignificant" memory glitches .. he developed a lot of OCD like behaviors to manage this over the years .. to LOCK a certain thing in his mind. Example, he's been robbed more than once, so he has a deep protective need to ensure his property is SAFE and SECURE, so he has a routine he MUST follow to leave the house and be sure he's remembered everything - turn off the furnace or hot water heater, close and lock the windows, "lock lock lock" the doors, set the welcome mat against the door slightly so he'll be able to tell if someone visited his front door when he was away, etc. If he doesn't follow the routine, he can't remember if he did everything just right, so we have had a LOT of return trips to the house after we're already well under way - have missed the first 20 minutes of I can't tell you how many movies over the years. ;)

When his "Grumpy" Protector takes over, my man generally is - as he describes it - SHOVED aside, and often this involves him not being able to "see" what Grumpy is doing, so he "wakes up" in compromising situations and Grumpy gets a sinister glee out of making Middle struggle to catch up - if it's conversational (Grumpy starting a fight and leaving Middle to clean up the mess) - or physical (Grumpy administering "vengeance" on someone for a perceived wrong and leaving Middle to deal with legal fall-out), etc. These "hard clicks" are much fewer and farther between than they used to be - we're a lot better about recognizing triggers and mitigating them, and Middle has gotten much stronger in "negotiating" or reasoning with Grumpy about HOW to handle a given situation so Grumpy doesn't feel compelled to take over .. But when they DO happen, my husband is generally "blacked out" from whatever went down, and his recovery is very exhausting - like, needs to spend a couple/few days in bed to come back, exhausting.

There are smaller, little things that might happen - like he's accused me of putting a collar on the cat cuz one of his others did it and he didn't know about it, so he gets mad at me as if I must have done it .. or he'll misplace his keys or a million other things, and this makes him super mad (aw, haha!) sometimes .. Or he'll express surprise because I'll tell him of a conversation we had when I might not have realized he was dissociating and afterwards he's asking me to tell him everything again - "What did I say? then what did YOU say? then How did I respond?" etc. So there are memory lapses there - though these are fewer and farther between now, too.

Best we can tell, my man and his two "young ones" have integrated or ARE currently integrating (?). Hostage memories are now coming to the surface - usually with pleasure, cuz it's not past traumas, but more like other things he'd "lost" from when he was young .. just last night I heard for the first time about this ongoing relationship he'd had as a boy with an old man vet who lived across the street from him - he visited with him every day after school for an indefinite amount of time, and this man taught him how to play poker, how to smoke a cigar, reminisced with him about his time in war (not sure which war?) etc. There was no memory of any trauma associated with this memory, only great .. um .. joy? or nostalgia? and a kind of sense of recovered wonder that he'd not remembered this man in years, and it was something of a safe haven for him during an otherwise traumatic season in his life ...

I don't know if this really answers your question - "little" memory issues are a constant battle with the "little" or quick switches .. "blackout" memory issues are RARE nowadays, and we can usually reconstruct what happened, what was the trigger, etc. Talking these things through with me seems to help him a LOT, because he TRUSTS me to give honest feedback (if I know it) .. And we don't have any illusions that whatever form "integration" may or may not take place for him would be permanent or even necessary.

I love ALL of him, and he's learning to love all of himself - whatever his "mood" .. some of this might be easier for him than others insofar as he's not "DID" but more "DDNOS" .. and even at that, he is NOT in "disorder" anymore .. he's got good internal communication for the most part, good cooperation inside - the "others" all pretty much defer to or depend on "Middle" to handle things and communicate FOR them, so the pecking order inside has changed a bit .. namely insofar as even though "Grumpy" is still the trump card, and perceives himself as the one REALLY "in charge" - he kinda "delegates" to Middle in most cases....So those memory issues aren't as re-traumatizing as they used to be .. Even IF he "forgets" something, he can usually ask the "others" to TELL him what he's missing and they usually respond accurately :) .. to the best we can tell. If he couldn't TRUST his others to be truthful, that would be very different for us. And even Grumpy is truthful (to the best of his own version of events) .. he just can't be BOTHERED to explain himself most times cuz he scoffs at Middle's mediating ..

Every person is unique, and every experience of "dissociation" has it's own characteristics - I'm learning, as the "supporter" in the relationship, to kinda go with the flow, to not be so worried about whether this or that is "textbook" and I think we have a very organic, accepting, loving, humble, LOYAL, and protective dynamic that flows well .. Even when we have our arguments, we always default back to "believing the best" about each other, and eventually get over the hurdle. ;)

:inlove:

~WU

 

[KeepingTime]

I'm reading all of your posts in awe and maybe a little fear :) but I'm learning a lot. Don't worry about hijacking lol.

I don't really hear voices except for maybe just phrases or repetitive words that don't mean anything to me at the time but some have later become part of a memory or things I used to say or like counting that I think was what I did as a child when I dissociated. Like rhyming phrases out of a dr Seuss book that now is a really big trigger for me but I don't have the memory to go along with it. As soon as my t repeats one of these I instantly dissociate and I have no memory of what was discussed.

I'm wondering tho I have recovered many memories so far and how can I have gotten this far without knowing I have other parts (if I actually do) maybe t knows and just hasn't told me. I know there are memories that have surfaced and after processing the memory with t he has told me "you have discussed this before" but I don't remember.

I know there have been signs that I can look back on like losing several days and changing my hair color or ending up somewhere and not knowing how I got there. They were explained away as a bipolar manic episode which my t has recently told me he is questioning that diagnosis.
Idk, just thinking out loud I guess.

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

You know, even my husband speak at times with SUCH definitive confidence about his "other parts" referring to "them" by name .. and we KNOW .. insofar as any person can "know" such a thing .. that "they" are real .. we live with "them" and their comings and goings every day. He HEARS himself(ves) and I SEE himself(ves) .. we can even pick out in certain photos "who is whom" in given moments ..

Grumpy and Middle and Femmy and Little ALL show up at different times in our wedding pics!!

And my husband STILL struggles to "believe" his own reality .. he sometimes thinks we're imagining all this complexity .. maybe "they" are nothing more than "moods" after all ..

But as much as I can DESCRIBE us in definitive terms, and our very real and necessary behaviors to take care of "all of him" WELL .. I LOVE him as ONE man, whole and complete and himself (singular) ..

WE are US .. us and THEM .. he says "weus'em" .. and we still don't KNOW what we today think we know.

If you'll forgive my waxing sorta poetic on the matter, at the end of the day we walk this TOGETHER and adapt to new things every day and we laugh and grieve and play and argue with each other .. and in a real sense .. *sigh* "it" doesn't matter. I mean, I'm committed to his happiness and wholeness and healing as I always have been, and he is mine. And whether we're right or wrong about this or that category of thought or mood? *shrug* I know THIS .. the HEART of the man, and he, weus'em, HIMSELF .. is SO "worth it" ..

He was WORTH "saving," WORTH "surviving" .. WORTH struggling with and listening to and triggered or not triggered .. his parts or my parts or anything everything in between .. the beautiful "mess" is WORTH it ..

Some phrases trip us up, some experiences or expectations muck up our day to day .. but for my husband the "abuse" (& "complex traumas") are over .. Life is hard .. swarms of Japanese beetles still destroy the garden :( from time to time .. but we build better n better strategies, we fight for truthful transparency, and we don't quit! We don't quit. :inlove:

YOU are WORTH fighting for, you HAVE a purpose and a story, and you WILL help someone else along the way .. my husband's theme is "we don't let the Grace dead-end on us."

What if we have this ALL wrong? "They" aren't really "them"? HE is WORTH it, no matter what [wicked or wounded?] others tried to TAKE from him/us/you along the way. .. This IS the Good Fight ..

God made us for MORE than the "sum of our parts" .. ;) :inlove: .. if you'll forgive the silly pun ..

~WU

 

[WhisperingUnicorn]

Ps .. a diagnosis, right or wrong, is (in our books) merely DESCRIPTIVE. .. not PREscriptive .. no "expert" has this all figured out .. there IS very real help, there ARE very real "explanations" AND some solutions that really help along the way .. EVERY day is a new day, newmmercies every morning ;) :inlove: ..

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I'm reading all of your posts in awe and maybe a little fear :) but I'm learning a lot. Don't worry...

I don't hear a lot of voices. I, too, questioned how I could have gone this long without knowing these memories, but I guess it just wasn't meant to come out before. I also think that there is only so much once can hold onto dissociatively before it has to come out.

Bipolar is a common misdiagnosis when it's actually DID one is dealing with. DID can present itself differently for people so keep that in mind, too. I used to think I couldn't possibly have it (even when it was clear that I did) because I didn't hear voices like most people described. I can now to some extent, but nothing like some people experience.

And diagnosis or not, working with the symptoms and how to find your own way through this is what's best. A diagnosis can help with pointing you in the direction of more diagnosis-specific strategies (like the internal meetings). It sounds like you are on a good path with your T though so keep working.