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- #769
HealingMama
MyPTSD Pro
Last night I got stuck in research mode. My therapist discourages this. I have said myself that I want to avoid peering behind the curtain too much, for fear that I short circuit my own treatment by having access to information about what we are doing and why that isn't designed for patients to have. But I have done this several times now and it isn't seeming to interfere ultimately. I still can't facilitate my own communication as much as I'd like.
I was researching the difference between "dissociated parts" and "ego states". DID-SOS seems to be a high quality, well-informed source on this type of subject. But their article on parts vs ego states still confused me.
I couldn't really put the topic down until I read the intro from Shapiro's Easy Ego State Interventions book. When she described the basic exercises she uses, I scoffed like yeah, that isn't at all a fit for what I'm dealing with. This isn't an imaginal exercise. Some of what I do in therapy is imaginal but thinking about my parts is not. I don't think my face and voice would change just with an ego state but maybe I'm wrong on that. All dissociated parts are ego states but not all ego states are dissociated parts.
At the end of my last therapy session after ***** had been instructed to come forward and talk to everyone directly, it was time to do the scheduling and it felt super weird, woozy, like vertigo trying to transfer into the part of myself that handles my schedule. That makes me think that I (main fronting self) was actually stepping back, and it was a bit of an adjustment to take back my regular position.
I was reading about types of alters and one source said protectors often follow needy attachment parts to keep them safe and that is exactly what it's been like for me. That's probably why I looked kinda borderline. I had a needy part come out pulling my husband to me, followed by a protector pushing him away, rinse and repeat.
Why does it matter if I have "regular ego states" or "dissociated parts"?
The part of me that researches like this wants to be knowledgeable so she has safety. The more we know, the more control we have, the more we can predict things. We refer to her as "keeping it together" in therapy. I tried to refer to her as the host but the therapist didn't pick that up. I'm supposed to think like we are all parts including the part that is usually in control of the body. Maybe that is why she did not reinforce the use of the word "host."
I am noticing now how much I am being the "good student" in my approach to this, and the "good patient" with my therapist. I've almost never confronted a therapist for something, if I do it's very gentle. I was programmed to be compliant. (Not in like a ritualistic way just, you know, my mother was a psychologist so she very intentionally used operant conditioning on me.)
Interestingly, twice now my male protector has come to the front in anticipation of me receiving communication from people that he considers unsafe. Namely, my husband and my abuser. But he shows up BEFORE I receive the actual text. I feel him pop up, I try to be aware of why so I understand my system better, and can't think of a reason for him to feel his presence is necessary, and then the phone dings and the text comes in. Which is very interesting and I suspect not normal?
Protector popped up last night per the above and I couldn't understand why. Then I get these long text messages from my mother explaining a conversation she had with an acquaintance about why their respective family members went into occupations involving the treatment of PTSD.
My mother's narrative focused on my father's death and how she couldn't get me to process it when it happened. According to her message, my friends would say sorry your dad died, and I would just walk away and not talk to them anymore. I gave up multiple friendships to avoid facing the loss.
And then I also spent at least a year sleeping in her bed, at 8 years old, so I could stay up watching her sleep, because I was worried she would die in her sleep like he did. I have a vague memory coming up of a time when I had a neighbor over and she commented on the pile of stuff on my own bed, and I lied and said I move it at night to go to sleep. I was embarrassed to be 9 years old and sleeping in my mother's bed.
Interestingly, I have awareness about these incidents. But the stuff with my mother, that I know happened because the body memories are so strong, I have no real narrative for. I believe I learned to forget it or dissociated it away so that I could live with my only caretaker without unsolvable levels of cognitive dissonance. I believe I have different parts that took on different segments of that stuff.
his has proven to cause major issues for me in setting boundaries with other people and actually sticking to them.
Eh... There's a part trying to come forward to talk about this Stockholm syndrome type of thing that we had to do, but the process is being short circuited bc there's other people in the room and this would break one of our rules. I'll have to try this again later.
I was researching the difference between "dissociated parts" and "ego states". DID-SOS seems to be a high quality, well-informed source on this type of subject. But their article on parts vs ego states still confused me.
I couldn't really put the topic down until I read the intro from Shapiro's Easy Ego State Interventions book. When she described the basic exercises she uses, I scoffed like yeah, that isn't at all a fit for what I'm dealing with. This isn't an imaginal exercise. Some of what I do in therapy is imaginal but thinking about my parts is not. I don't think my face and voice would change just with an ego state but maybe I'm wrong on that. All dissociated parts are ego states but not all ego states are dissociated parts.
At the end of my last therapy session after ***** had been instructed to come forward and talk to everyone directly, it was time to do the scheduling and it felt super weird, woozy, like vertigo trying to transfer into the part of myself that handles my schedule. That makes me think that I (main fronting self) was actually stepping back, and it was a bit of an adjustment to take back my regular position.
I was reading about types of alters and one source said protectors often follow needy attachment parts to keep them safe and that is exactly what it's been like for me. That's probably why I looked kinda borderline. I had a needy part come out pulling my husband to me, followed by a protector pushing him away, rinse and repeat.
Why does it matter if I have "regular ego states" or "dissociated parts"?
The part of me that researches like this wants to be knowledgeable so she has safety. The more we know, the more control we have, the more we can predict things. We refer to her as "keeping it together" in therapy. I tried to refer to her as the host but the therapist didn't pick that up. I'm supposed to think like we are all parts including the part that is usually in control of the body. Maybe that is why she did not reinforce the use of the word "host."
I am noticing now how much I am being the "good student" in my approach to this, and the "good patient" with my therapist. I've almost never confronted a therapist for something, if I do it's very gentle. I was programmed to be compliant. (Not in like a ritualistic way just, you know, my mother was a psychologist so she very intentionally used operant conditioning on me.)
Interestingly, twice now my male protector has come to the front in anticipation of me receiving communication from people that he considers unsafe. Namely, my husband and my abuser. But he shows up BEFORE I receive the actual text. I feel him pop up, I try to be aware of why so I understand my system better, and can't think of a reason for him to feel his presence is necessary, and then the phone dings and the text comes in. Which is very interesting and I suspect not normal?
Protector popped up last night per the above and I couldn't understand why. Then I get these long text messages from my mother explaining a conversation she had with an acquaintance about why their respective family members went into occupations involving the treatment of PTSD.
My mother's narrative focused on my father's death and how she couldn't get me to process it when it happened. According to her message, my friends would say sorry your dad died, and I would just walk away and not talk to them anymore. I gave up multiple friendships to avoid facing the loss.
And then I also spent at least a year sleeping in her bed, at 8 years old, so I could stay up watching her sleep, because I was worried she would die in her sleep like he did. I have a vague memory coming up of a time when I had a neighbor over and she commented on the pile of stuff on my own bed, and I lied and said I move it at night to go to sleep. I was embarrassed to be 9 years old and sleeping in my mother's bed.
Interestingly, I have awareness about these incidents. But the stuff with my mother, that I know happened because the body memories are so strong, I have no real narrative for. I believe I learned to forget it or dissociated it away so that I could live with my only caretaker without unsolvable levels of cognitive dissonance. I believe I have different parts that took on different segments of that stuff.
his has proven to cause major issues for me in setting boundaries with other people and actually sticking to them.
Eh... There's a part trying to come forward to talk about this Stockholm syndrome type of thing that we had to do, but the process is being short circuited bc there's other people in the room and this would break one of our rules. I'll have to try this again later.