Integration

[Movingforward10]

Is integration a ‘one time thing’? Or something to continually work on?

i.e. is it a structure that once integrated is always integrated and you’re a whole person, or is it a structure that becomes integrated and can disintegrate again along the pre existing cracks?

in my last session my T said it sounded like I am integrated. And I do feel very different. I do feel ‘whole’ and ‘solid’, whereas before it was not like that. But, I still have messages, internal dialogue that isn’t helpful etc. it’s just easier to manage at the moment.

what does this look like for you?

 

[Friday]

Mod Q : When you’re talking about being integrated are you talking DID/OSDD/etc.? Or meaning your past/present no longer mixing up, but are linear, or…?

 

[Workingonit]

I had dissociative amnesia. If thats what you're talking about. When i accidentally recovered my memories it was quite rough. I am starting to feel like me again but its still a struggle. I would be interested in this topic as well.

If you experienced this was it like it just happened yesterday at first? Did the memories become elusive? Like they were still there but hard to think about?

 

[sidptitala]

Is integration a ‘one time thing’? Or something to continually work on?

i.e. is it a structure that once integrated is always integrated and you’re a whole person, or is it a structure that becomes integrated and can disintegrate again along the pre existing cracks?

in my last session my T said it sounded like I am integrated. And I do feel very different. I do feel ‘whole’ and ‘solid’, whereas before it was not like that. But, I still have messages, internal dialogue that isn’t helpful etc. it’s just easier to manage at the moment.

what does this look like for you?

I'm not sure if i understand the science well, but I can tell you how I understand it. I see lack of integration as a lack of communication between parts of the brain and body- e.g. walls between thinking and feeling/ things you remember in fight and flight you don't otherwise etc. And then to be integrated would be movement between these areas- ie that your feelings would move and change but be accessible to you, you could readily recall memories, and you are able to get over things. I'm not sure that I think of integration as a fixed state but more one which needs to keep flowing or you could get stuck again. If you imagine trauma as mould, something lethal that accumulates in damp houses- you both need to remove the mould and decrease the damp by increasing the heat and adding circulation- to me integration is the circulation and compassion is the heat. If you were to remove one of these things the house could get mould again, especially if it has had it before.

 

[SophieBernstein]

Is integration a ‘one time thing’? Or something to continually work on?

i.e. is it a structure that once integrated is always integrated and you’re a whole person, or is it a structure that becomes integrated and can disintegrate again along the pre existing cracks?

in my last session my T said it sounded like I am integrated. And I do feel very different. I do feel ‘whole’ and ‘solid’, whereas before it was not like that. But, I still have messages, internal dialogue that isn’t helpful etc. it’s just easier to manage at the moment.

what does this look like for you?

Hi! I was not diagnose with DID or OSDD but I had like 2 "parts". In my experience, they appear and dissapear depending on my needs, for example, when I can't handle my memories or my rage, pain or whatever my mind stars to dissociate and eventually one called Pan shows up, and If Pan (that is kinda like a persecutor and too much emotional), give me problems and I don't know how to cope with her eventually shows up Sam (like a protector, he is really rational). Pan have been showing up for years, first time i noticed was with 15y, and Sam since 20yo. I'm 21 now. Sooo, in my experience, they can integrate and desintegrate but they are not exactly the same. But as I said before, I was not diagnose with DID or OSDD so I don't really know if it can be useful for you. Anyway, I wish you a happy new year ^^

 

[CuppaNina]

Hi! I experience DDNOS and DP/DR
From my understanding, integration can happen once and stay. If another trauma happens, it's quite possible not to intergrate.

 

[Movingforward10]

I'm coming back to this thread after abandoning it.

Mod Q : When you’re talking about being integrated are you talking DID/OSDD/etc.? Or meaning your past/present no longer mixing up, but are linear, or…?

I don't have a diagnosis so I'm not talking in those concepts, but I'm interested for people who have those diagnoses.
I've done a lot of parts work.
I think my answer is: putting all the pieces of the puzzle back into one. So yes, past no longer being present. But also, 'parts' no longer being different to thinking me in the here and now.

Basically I don't know. And yes and no. And all of it. Is my answer!!

 

[Movingforward10]

I had dissociative amnesia. If thats what you're talking about. When i accidentally recovered my memories it was quite rough. I am starting to feel like me again but its still a struggle. I would be interested in this topic as well.

If you experienced this was it like it just happened yesterday at first? Did the memories become elusive? Like they were still there but hard to think about?

I must have had this too as up until I was 24, I was adamant I had never experienced any trauma.
And when memories started coming back it was very difficult. The memories were dreams at first and then day time visuals. And then I blocked it out again for another 15 years. And then reliving it again ok and off.

My T would say I would be blended with the parts. Or she sees a child part. Etc. and talks a lot about integration. Parts that needed to protect no longer needing to do that so I become a whole adult person.

I'm not sure if i understand the science well, but I can tell you how I understand it. I see lack of integration as a lack of communication between parts of the brain and body- e.g. walls between thinking and feeling/ things you remember in fight and flight you don't otherwise etc. And then to be integrated would be movement between these areas- ie that your feelings would move and change but be accessible to you, you could readily recall memories, and you are able to get over things. I'm not sure that I think of integration as a fixed state but more one which needs to keep flowing or you could get stuck again. If you imagine trauma as mould, something lethal that accumulates in damp houses- you both need to remove the mould and decrease the damp by increasing the heat and adding circulation- to me integration is the circulation and compassion is the heat. If you were to remove one of these things the house could get mould again, especially if it has had it before.

This is really helpful thank you.
I think I'm beginning to see that nothing is constant and integration can pop apart again.

 

[Weemie]

Is integration a ‘one time thing’? Or something to continually work on?

I used to be misdiagnosed as DDNOS, because of the whole structural thing I have. I decided to comment since you are talking more broadly and not about a specific diagnosis, but feel free to ignore if this isn't useful.

These are symptoms, rather than diagnostic-by-symptom (having internal structure doesn't mean you must have DID/OSDD) and they can reflect many different issues. I did go from an unintegrated state to a more integrated state from about the ages of 15-26-ish (I have had these symptoms since ~4 years old, it went from hallucinating these people as imaginary friends, to role-taking, developing constructs for socialization and endurance, method acting etc).

While the work to become integrated was ongoing (relying on role-taking into constructs that had traits like sadistic/torturer/abuser, made dealing with that "part" of my mind very difficult and I held a lot of animosity for that construct, and now I don't), now that I've got a handle on it, I don't need to focus on it as much. For me, integration was akin to cooperation and acceptance. Once that process clicked for me, it stopped being a source of distress.

For me, I liken it to the process of friendship. It takes work to make friends sometimes, but once you are friends, you don't need to keep trying to be friends. You do need to remain a friend, which is its own ongoing thing. But the distress and frustration from not being friends is no longer front-and-center. I just made friends with myself, as opposed to someone else.

 

[Midnightmoon]

I had a random conversation with my new T about this the other day, who described integration as a sesame snack bar... I'm learning to tolerate the idea of a DID diagnosis so this might be a bit random if not structurally dissociated.

All the tiny little seeds, without the sugar coating, are loose and fragmented and split of in 1000 different directions (how she was currently describing me). With time and work and therapy and whatever else slowly you get that layer that sticks the fragments together, and become 'whole'. But the individual parts are always there, they just work to form one functioning product.

Then, life happens and stuff can get fragmented and broken again, but never to the point it was before, because a level of 'together' has historically been achieved, and with some fixing could get there again. Or maybe it's ok for bits to break up here and there.

I got her point, will probably never look at a sesame bar in the same way again!

 

[brokenpony]

@Midnightmoon can i ask how you are learning to tolerate it? what is helping you get there?

 

[Midnightmoon]

@Midnightmoon can i ask how you are learning to tolerate it? what is helping you get there?

Its definitely a work in progress.

My main resource is a T that knows her s***, she's been qualified longer than I've been alive, has studied for decades about this stuff and is qualified to assess and diagnose as well as treat. I don't trust in relationship yet (that will take me a long time) but I trust logically, that her level of knowledge means what she's noticing and sharing about what's going on for me is likely to be accurate rather than a guess. I think if it was coming from anyone else I'd push it away more, but I can't deny her level of skill in this area and that holds significant weight to me tolerating the idea.

Letting her see what's happening is more of a challenge. Eg the other day a little one ended up texting her about a teddy, and when I found it the next morning I was mortified and apologetic. I messaged to apologise and said I was going to put a lock on my phone so they couldn't text. She phoned virtually instantly to tell me not to, there was no shame, and she wants them to be able to communicate. That's huge, that stuff can be seen and it lands safely.

There are a few very good YouTube channels that she has pointed me in the right direction of for accessible info. I avoid like the plague anything else, I can't stand the almost performance of switching that is portrayed on many platforms and it does me no favours watching it whilst getting more frustrated. Bizzarely, it's turned into a bit of a fashionable dx which I can't get my head around.

Other than here under the anonymity and of course with T I haven't shared with anyone, I need to learn about it myself enough before I get other people's unhelpful options. I learnt this the hard way with my CPTSD dx and I'm keen to not repeat it, and that's helped massively.