DID New part

[Ecdysis]

So, I got re-traumatised a few years ago and it's done my head in like nothing else in childhood trauma has.

I think maybe during this experience, a new part emerged. Certainly, I don't know this part/ side/ aspect of myself.

There have been both deeply negative and deeply positive experiences regarding this new part.

Ever since being re-traumatised, this part has been totally dominant, has taken up nearly all the room/ time and the "me" I've been used to all my life is relegated to the sidelines and almost gone.

This part has very different interests/ values/ priorities than me... This part basically doesn't care about "my" life at all and wants to pursue totally different plans and goals.

It's a very weird experience.

I feel like this is a part of me that went missing during childhood abuse... So this part turning up feels like a homecoming, like being reunited at long last.

But it's also creating the hugest mess in my life.

This part doesn't know my old friends and acquaintances and can't relate to them. This part can't relate to the work I do for a living or to where I live.

It's like I've become a stranger in my own life.

I keep finding out random bits of information about this part, but am pretty much overwhelmed and clueless as to what I should do.

For a long time, after being re-traumatised, I fought really hard, to get things back to "how they had been". Which I guess entailed trying to get this new part to go away so that I could be the old me again.

Anyone who's got experience working with parts knows that trying to make them go away is bound to end in failure.

I'm so confused by this situation and it scares me too. I can't grasp how the old me can suddenly be redundant and irrelevant.

And I have no idea how to deal with this weird new me that feels like a stranger and who's taken over my life.


(I currently don't have a therapist. My old therapist retired and my health insurance won't cover therapy costs again until January 2024. It sucks, but there's no point discussing it atm, cos it's simply not an option right now. I've done a lot of trauma therapy over the years tho, so I'm just going to have to work with what I learned there, for now.)

Sigh...

Maybe I should start by giving the new part a name? I'm going to go with Amy for now.

Amy scares me, feels like a stranger and feels like coming home, at the same time. And she feels much more powerful than me. (Whatever "me" even means anymore...)

 

[beaneeboo]

Hi Ecdysis,
I can relate to bits of what you've shared here...

This part has very different interests/ values/ priorities than me...

and wants to pursue totally different plans and goals.

It's a very weird experience.

I think I can relate to what you've said in the above 2 quotes. Only in my experience there's no complete split so I'm experiencing both sides of myself in tandem, though one comes to the front more than the other at times and this changes often.

I know how scary that is. I know how tiring that is and very disorienting.

So this part turning up feels like a homecoming, like being reunited at long last.

I see this as a positive actually. But I also understand you're having to deal with ...

But it's also creating the hugest mess in my life.

And I think this bit you've said above here is because of the abrupt arrival and the fact your usual you has now gone to the back... although I'm not you, I would say your usual you likely hasn't nearly disappeared completely. Though it feels like that now because of the split.

This part doesn't know my old friends and acquaintances and can't relate to them. This part can't relate to the work I do for a living or to where I live.


It's like I've become a stranger in my own life.

I keep finding out random bits of information about this part, but am pretty much overwhelmed and clueless as to what I should do.

So I'm not a therapist. I have DDNOS. I struggle with accepting my diagnosis and go in and out of feeling / thinking that I do have it.. But, I do relate alot to many dissociative issues so I'll give you my thoughts - feel free to ignore if they aren't helpful or relevant.

I'm wondering if you can start with a scrap book of information about Amy. Writing down things you know about her already and things which you'll learn about her. Maybe do some free writing where you also invite Amy to talk / draw more about herself so you can get to know her. This may or may not work for you. But the act of putting some time aside to see if there's a way you can try connect to her to find out more about her may be a good process in itself for you to start to have some control (in a healthy way).

In a similar way, separately from that, I wonder if you can write all the things down about your usual you who you feel is disappearing now. Facts you know about your life that your usual you has done and usual does toget you through the day. This may be helpful in bringing back some key info to your system to then help you / Amy (if appropriate) navigate daily life. I'm not sure if your memory will be able to function like that and regain some of that info that way.

For a long time, after being re-traumatised, I fought really hard, to get things back to "how they had been". Which I guess entailed trying to get this new part to go away so that I could be the old me again.

Anyone who's got experience working with parts knows that trying to make them go away is bound to end in failure.

And I wonder whether in that process you'd be able to either ask Amy if it's ok for you to show her some of your work / info about past friends etc (or to explore what it is together) Not sure how old Amy is and whether this would be possible or appropriate?

I'm so confused by this situation and it scares me too. I can't grasp how the old me can suddenly be redundant and irrelevant.

I can see why this is scary. Have you got anyone other than on here that you can speak about this with? I don't in my real life world so I don't expect that to be a yes for you either. But you aren't alone either way.

(I currently don't have a therapist. My old therapist retired and my health insurance won't cover therapy costs again until January 2024. It sucks, but there's no point discussing it atm, cos it's simply not an option right now. I've done a lot of trauma therapy over the years tho, so I'm just going to have to work with what I learned there, for now.)

I think that's a great idea. You'll have good knowledge already about some things which work for you. Trust your gut. Take time to sit and think when you're ready...

Amy scares me, feels like a stranger and feels like coming home, at the same time. And she feels much more powerful than me. (Whatever "me" even means anymore...)

Let the dust settle with Amy's arrival...

Have you heard of this resource...

Carolyn Spring | reversing adversity

Carolyn Spring helps people recovery from trauma and reverse adversity through her blog, videos, podcasts, books, resources, live and online training.

www.carolynspring.com

I think you may find some useful tips and info....

 

[Wendell_R]

Maybe I should start by giving the new part a name? I'm going to go with Amy for now.

What would the new part like to be called?

We're thinking that a good goal isn't to get them back in the box, but for the you-writing-the-post part to learn how to talk and be present with this new part, and for the new part to learn how to take part in that as well.

The question that comes up for us is which of you holds the trauma, both the original trauma and the retraumatization? Working through that will make it easier for the parts to work together.

Good luck!

 

[SusanPLC]

We have also found the part of accepting ‘the last hosts friends’ difficult too. So have lost touch with several everytime there has been a change of host. the only one everyone really loved sadly died in the first lockdown after getting covid.

Also going through a lot of changes in later life and seeing things differently

 

[Ecdysis]

So, I'm still struggling with this... It's still very confusing to me, but I'm getting some insight into it...

The new part is strange... and hard to describe... I'd describe her as someone who's 100% led by emotions (no rationality at all)... It's like she's a sleepwalker who's following the light of the moon... just following it wherever it leads her, even if it's walking off a cliff...

It's a part that seems to have zero survival skills... She's all intuition... She doesn't seem to care about buying groceries or having money in the bank account or putting gas in the car's gas tank... All practicalities are utterly irrelevant to her...

Which is the total opposite to how I've always lived... I've always been focused on rationality, focused on survival...

So this new part seems to be some kind of spirit child... it's like she's tuned deeply into my subconscious and into spiritual matters...

I can see/ sense that she's of enormous importance to this phase of my life... but I don't know how to incorporate her into my life without everything falling apart in an utter mess (which it already has done so to a large degree).

I don't know how to allow her to have an influence on what happens in my life from now on, while trying to salvage some of the "old" responsible, survival-focused me...

That old part... it feels like it has pretty much died and like there's only the ghost of it left now... it's not quite "gone" but like a ghost, it can hardly have much impact on the real world...

It all feels so strange... I don't feel like the old "me" anymore... It's like my previous life has become irrelevant...

At the same time, allowing this sleep-walking spirit child to be in charge feels like an utter loss of control and feels like I'm unprotected and in harm's way...

I'm worried about letting this new part "speak" to anyone, for fear of what she may say sounding utterly nuts.

A lot of the time, she feels mute, anyway.

On a positive note, whenever this new part is there, things feel deeply meaningful and "right" and it feels like I'm "home" somehow. There's such a deep sense of belonging and of yearning.

Sometimes I also feel like this new part belongs more to the realm of death, than to the realm of life tho. And that if I follow this new part, she'll lead me out of life into the realm of death.

No wonder I find her somewhat confusing and scary.

Edit to add: I'm frustrated with myself tho, for feeling too scared to even find out what she wants... I mean, if I ask/ find out what she wants, it doesn't mean that I'm bound by that and have to do it... It feels like I'm reacting out of fear and avoiding her and trying to suppress her, because I'm scared to find out what she wants. That seems so counterproductive tho, and must surely be contributing to me feeling so stuck. Why can't I - at least here - let her say her piece and at least *listen* to it? Surely I'm not so much of a coward that I'll run away from even that.

Futher edit: I feel like much of the abuse and trauma in my childhood was to keep me in "scared, functional, rational, sensible survival mode". It was certainly aimed at controlling me and at preventing me from following my free instincts. I was parentified and expected to behave like an adult... This new part (which would have been there, dormant, in hinding, all along... She doesn't care about any of the rules, doesn't care about the practicalities of my life, of all its outward trappings... She thinks all of those things are just random and that they're just compromises that I've entered into, in order to get by and to survive. She feels like it's all some old burden to be shaken free and got rid of and escaped... I've been reading Jane Eyre a lot recently... I identify with her so much, at this stage of my life... And this new part feels a bit like Jane when she was lost out in the moors... just wandering with no plan... just running away, following her instincts... in danger of starving, for lack of thinking in terms of survival...

 

[beaneeboo]

So, I'm still struggling with this... It's still very confusing to me, but I'm getting some insight into it...

The new part is strange... and hard to describe... I'd describe her as someone who's 100% led by emotions (no rationality at all)... It's like she's a sleepwalker who's following the light of the moon... just following it wherever it leads her, even if it's walking off a cliff...

It's a part that seems to have zero survival skills... She's all intuition... She doesn't seem to care about buying groceries or having money in the bank account or putting gas in the car's gas tank... All practicalities are utterly irrelevant to her...

Which is the total opposite to how I've always lived... I've always been focused on rationality, focused on survival...

So this new part seems to be some kind of spirit child... it's like she's tuned deeply into my subconscious and into spiritual matters...

I can see/ sense that she's of enormous importance to this phase of my life... but I don't know how to incorporate her into my life without everything falling apart in an utter mess (which it already has done so to a large degree).

I don't know how to allow her to have an influence on what happens in my life from now on, while trying to salvage some of the "old" responsible, survival-focused me...

That old part... it feels like it has pretty much died and like there's only the ghost of it left now... it's not quite "gone" but like a ghost, it can hardly have much impact on the real world...

It all feels so strange... I don't feel like the old "me" anymore... It's like my previous life has become irrelevant...

At the same time, allowing this sleep-walking spirit child to be in charge feels like an utter loss of control and feels like I'm unprotected and in harm's way...

I'm worried about letting this new part "speak" to anyone, for fear of what she may say sounding utterly nuts.

A lot of the time, she feels mute, anyway.

On a positive note, whenever this new part is there, things feel deeply meaningful and "right" and it feels like I'm "home" somehow. There's such a deep sense of belonging and of yearning.

Sometimes I also feel like this new part belongs more to the realm of death, than to the realm of life tho. And that if I follow this new part, she'll lead me out of life into the realm of death.

No wonder I find her somewhat confusing and scary.

Edit to add: I'm frustrated with myself tho, for feeling too scared to even find out what she wants... I mean, if I ask/ find out what she wants, it doesn't mean that I'm bound by that and have to do it... It feels like I'm reacting out of fear and avoiding her and trying to suppress her, because I'm scared to find out what she wants. That seems so counterproductive tho, and must surely be contributing to me feeling so stuck. Why can't I - at least here - let her say her piece and at least *listen* to it? Surely I'm not so much of a coward that I'll run away from even that.

Futher edit: I feel like much of the abuse and trauma in my childhood was to keep me in "scared, functional, rational, sensible survival mode". It was certainly aimed at controlling me and at preventing me from following my free instincts. I was parentified and expected to behave like an adult... This new part (which would have been there, dormant, in hinding, all along... She doesn't care about any of the rules, doesn't care about the practicalities of my life, of all its outward trappings... She thinks all of those things are just random and that they're just compromises that I've entered into, in order to get by and to survive. She feels like it's all some old burden to be shaken free and got rid of and escaped... I've been reading Jane Eyre a lot recently... I identify with her so much, at this stage of my life... And this new part feels a bit like Jane when she was lost out in the moors... just wandering with no plan... just running away, following her instincts... in danger of starving, for lack of thinking in terms of survival...

Hey ecdysis, I'm short on words generally atm but just wanted to say there's an incredible resource on DID/OSDD on YouTube by the CTAD Clinic....

https://youtube.com/@thectadclinic?si=Wc8yKPmnlmCQNR7O

On here there are videos about working with / communicating with parts etc...as well as when some alters are more difficult to understand or communicate with...

Sorry I don't have more than that atm... Good luck with it all

 

[Wendell_R]

Your journey sounds like it's in the right direction, even if it's hard and exhausting.

After our female parts came out, we learned that life was better when one of them was in control, but that was only temporary because the male parts' hurts and loneliness was just hidden. Then we found that a female part was deeply empathetic, but when she was close to the male parts' struggles, she was completely overwhelmed and hurt herself. It's been a path of trial and error for the parts to learn how to co-exist and interact. That path has led to good things, but it's been a long path.