People With Parts: Do You Have To Schedule Time For Each?

[Dissociated1]

The mind has many clever ways to keep itself from seeing reality when the mechanisms it put in place to protect itself from trauma are threatened.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

...my diagnosis is DDNOS, not DID.

DDNOS is the diagnosis given when a clinician suspects DID but hasn't yet seen enough evidence to diagnose DID. If he sees transitions from one alter to another, he will most likely move to a diagnosis of DID.

No matter what the diagnosis, there is a treatment available. You can be OK.

You are worrying a lot. Are you practicing grounding techniques? They really help. For now, I would consider mindfulness and grounding techniques, staying in the moment.

Ben

 

[Dissociated1]

Someone on the forum recently made the excellent comparison between therapy and an antibiotic that fights a whole variety of bacteria rather than a single strain. My trauma therapist explained diagnoses are clinical descriptions that have very little meaning in actual therapy. Dissociation is a spectrum with the losing track of time while driving many people experience on one end and full dissociative identities on the other. In and of itself dissociation is a healthy self protective mechanism used by everyone. It becomes a disorder when it begins to negatively impact our lives. The goal of therapy is to treat the cause not the symptoms. Regardless of the diagnosis, the work required to heal the underlying trauma is very much the same.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

Regardless of the diagnosis, the work required to heal the underlying trauma is very much the same.

DID requires a specific skill set that relatively few therapists - even at the doctoral level - have.

If you are DID, please make sure to engage a therapist with the requisite skill set. Most therapists will be quite forward with you right away, upon initial consultation, as to whether they have the requisite skill set.

Ben

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

I don't know if I'm DID or not. That's all part of the problem. I know that it doesn't do me any good to worry and obsess, but I do know that it affects treatment decisions, which is why I get worked up. I'm currently between therapists, with a month off, so that isn't helping things at all, either.

I'm trying to practice grounding, but I'm not sure that always helps. Spent the morning at yoga class, obsessing over the feeling of my body shifting size and space and the concurrent shifts in my thinking that accompanied it. I'm not sure if I left more or less grounded than when I walked in the door.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

I wouldn't worry about the diagnosis. When the situation becomes clear, then you can make a decision about treatment providers.

Maybe try doing something both you and the little girl would like? How about reading fiction appropriate for her age?

I still read kids books, as I find it quite helpful. Right now, I'm rereading the Harry Potter series. :)

Ben

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

It sounds silly but I'm really baffled. How do I ground myself?

I know how, in terms of the skills, but I'm starting to be aware of cycling in and out of different parts of myself and I have no idea who the "real" me is. I feel empty and identity-less if I'm not stuck inside a part, acting out whatever script they have. There is no "grounded" in that state at all.

But the parts that have scripts - they are by nature dissociative, yeah? So if I'm stuck in one of those, how do I ground myself? Am I trying to move all the way out of that part or simply be present within that part?

I'm never sure what grounded even means because I don't know what version of myself I'm supposed to treat as the real version, the one to aim to be in more.

 

[shimmerz]

For myself, I found that if I wasn't in a 'part' I was completely lost, it made me realize I had finally gotten to a place where I actually had room for building the untraumatized self.

So I started to recognize different 'parts' of myself and what I liked about them. I didn't 'talk to them' like most do here, but instead acknowledged that a part of a new whole, what would I like to be from each part that already existed and then thought of my new self and tried to tap into various characteristics of those parts.

I was just forever mindful of the new self..... not so focused on the old parts. No idea if this is helpful at all, but it is what came to me when I read this thread. :hug:

 

[Snowflake]

I am trying to learn about my parts now in therapy and their needs -for instance I know if my little girl (5 yr old) is triggered then something she likes to do is swing, so we do it. It's not always easy. I haven't really thought about how to ground my parts-hmmmm-something to think about.

 

[Suzetig]

I tend to just be very caring and soothing to myself in whatever place or part I find myself. So lots of reassuring me that I'm ok, that it's ok for me to feel the way I do and just doing what I feel I need to, so nap if I need to or cook or colour or whatever. I tend not to try and get hung up on what "part" is at play so much as soothe my whole system.

 

[Sideways]

Getting outside and in almongst the plants and the sun and doing breathing exercises is a big help for me, but not always possible. Going over the facts about "right here, right now" in my head is starting to be a godsend, because I can do that to when I realise I'm slipping without anyone realising ("I am Ragdoll, I am 34 years old, I am sitting in a brown wicker chair on the patio of my apartment..." And on it goes).

Honestly though, being dissociated has been the "norm" my whole life, yeah? So realising when it's happening? I don't even know how I'd tell if I was space cadet a lot of the time because that is what my normal body/mind experience has always been like. How do you know that you're not seeing the colour green right now if you've been colour-blind your whole life?

Some of my older parts are connected enough that they know how to ground, just like me. But I think it's more often they decide they're done and retreat voluntarily if they've decided to take control completely.

And how do I know which one is me? :cautious: I take it as a given that I just "know". No master plan there, just rollin with it and hoping that I've got it right. I think Me is the one that operates most of the time, and is kind of like the muffin tray - I'm the one that holds all the other muffins together (that analogy makes sense in my head, which is good enough for me!!)

 

[Dissociated1]

The “real” me…Script…Stuck…ouch.
These are strong words to use when referring to another part of a person’s mind.

Parts “have scripts” and “they are by nature dissociative.” If a person is “stuck in one of those” it is because that is how his mind has chosen to cope and protect itself. I see being grounded as having more to do with regaining stability during a panic attack or flashback than aiming to be a particular alter. It isn’t a choice or decision to move all the way out of a part, to be present or to be in more.

I am primary alter, host and what remains of the birth personality. I have fronted for my System all but 3 years in junior high. Coming to grips with the question of which version of myself I'm supposed to treat as real was harder than the realization that I had alters. It wasn’t until I reached the point that I could accept my role and the roles and needs of all of the parts of my System, that I began to understand who the "'real' me is."

Years of therapy and introspection have led me to visualize my mind as as a Hershey chocolate bar. Like my birth personality, taking off the wrapper you can see the individual segments but the bar is whole. Trauma caused my mind to dissociate. Like breaking off a segment of chocolate, it created my 8-year-old Child alter to contain feelings and memories leaving me slightly smaller. A few years later my mind dissociated again, broke off another segment to create my 13-year-old Female alter leaving the chocolate bar and me even smaller.

Each segment and the smaller bar are unique pieces of chocolate. They share the common heritage of being part of the same original bar. But nothing was added or taken away. No segment is more significant than another and the remainder of the bar is no more significant than any of the segments. It takes all of them to make the original Hershey bar.

As I become more coconscious, self compassionate and accepting of the needs of all the parts of my System I have come to understand that like the chocolate bar, it takes all the parts of my System together to be the real me. And like putting the segments and the smaller bar together in the wrapper and placing it on a sunny shelf, my mind is slowly healing to reform the original bar.