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Other Trauma-Splitting/Parts

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Roland

MyPTSD Pro
Hello everyone.

When I had my psychological evaluation, it was determined that my personality is split, not like DID, but like trauma splitting, common for people with childhood trauma and ptsd. One is a direct mirror of my dad (this showed on my psych eval), this part is narcissist, schizoid, antisocial, masochist, and turbulent. It's are self-defense coping mechanisms. The narcissist one shows up when I feel threatened, especially by men. I also have a suicidal part.

I'd like to discuss one that I believe is a part, I just don't understand how it works. When I'm around groups of people, I assert social dominance, by being loud, acting kinda crazy, like a clown. I make fun of people, everything is a joke, etc. This is NOT my main personality. In general, I'm a relatively quiet person, I only really act crazy like that in groups of people, I feel anxious and don't really know the people and act like that.

Those of you that have studied or done parts work, why would I do that? How is that helpful? What would have "made" that personality split? I just don't really understand it, and it didn't come up in my psych eval. Though, "Expressively dramatic" did come up, which is definitely a part of that "crazy part". Like if I have a minor injury on my foot I'll be like "I'm gonna cut my foot off, it's on fire!" and if I'm in severe mental pain I'm just silent, like I internalize everything, but if I can turn it into a joke than I'll definitely be "Expressively dramatic".

@shimmerz I know you may have some valuable insight
 
When I was lost in the confusion of part'swork,I read"healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors" by Janina Fisher. I'm always mentioning this book! It really helped me.

I feel anxious and don't really know the people and act like that.
That's your reason why you , or part of you,acts like that.
The underlying reason as to why you feel anxious is the key. What happened in the past to make that scenario make you behave in certain ways. Reparenting that part to make them feel secure, and integrate them into you.
And allowing adult you to behave the way adult you wants to.
 
When I was lost in the confusion of part'swork,I read"healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors" by Janina Fisher. I'm always mentioning this book! It really helped me.


That's your reason why you , or part of you,acts like that.
The underlying reason as to why you feel anxious is the key. What happened in the past to make that scenario make you behave in certain ways. Reparenting that part to make them feel secure, and integrate them into you.
And allowing adult you to behave the way adult you wants to.
Tell me more about the book, does it actually show you how to heal the fragmented parts?

Thank you
 
I'm here with you Roland.

This new information may feel like a shock to you. I remember it being very hard to process. That thread way back about structural dissociation may be a help to you. It was a great guide for me.


My most problematic part was the one that was determined to die. For her parents. Because her (aka my) birthparents wanted me dead. It was brought on by the feelings of disorientation and confusion. Once I figured that out I was able to identify
1. How to avoid those types of situations.
2. How to identify the signs that I was feeling those emotions.

Is it possible that you can pinpoint what type of emotion you may be feeling in a group? This is where the emotion wheel was helpful to me. There is a copy of it in the thread here


Emotions weren't easy for me at first but I started slowly and identified times that I felt positive emotions and then it got very easy somehow. I think it was just about building awareness and mindfulness of emotions.

No idea if this is helpful to you at all but I hope so. Otherwise, if you have specific questions -- fire away. I will do my best to answer.
 
When I'm around groups of people, I assert social dominance, by being loud, acting kinda crazy, like a clown. I make fun of people, everything is a joke, etc. This is NOT my main personality. In general, I'm a relatively quiet person, I only really act crazy like that in groups of people, I feel anxious and don't really know the people and act like that.

gentle empathy, roland. i do this and trying to stop the clownery is always wa-a-a-ay harder that allowing it to be triggered. i'm not familiar with "parts," but in my own 20th century psychotherapy we treated this as a symptom of social anxiety and worked on "defusing the triggers" to keep that evil clown from ever leaving her cage.

but that is me, working theories from another millennium.

steadying support while you work your own.
 
I don't really get it. I can either be quiet, withdrawn, and disengaged in groups, or the clown. I feel anxious, hypervigilant, overwhelmed.

Oh another thing that is worth mentioning, I have avoidant personality disorder. Such extreme fear of rejection that I won't get close to people. I don't know what I should and shouldn't say, being a clown I can say absurd things, jokes, or kinda verbally attack different people "as a joke". I am loud.

If it keeps going in the clown state long enough, I'm actually really fragile, like it's an inflated sense of self-defense and what goes up must come down. So if I'm full euphoria, loud, laughing as the clown, I'll start to feel weak, powerless, scared, so the clown is like a cover.

OH I guess that makes sense, but like idk.

I don't know why I get like this, I'm quite sure it's a personality split, but I don't know why I have it.

I was homeschooled growing up, my family lived a quiet life on the farm, and I didn't spend much time in groups. My dad was abusive. My Mom would get overwhelmed and we would stay home for a whole month at a time. I really wanted to make friends as a teenager in dance, and I tried my best to, but I couldn't really connect with the girls there. I didn't act like a clown then, I was quiet, reserved.

I guess I want to be well-liked and seen, and that can only happen if I act like a clown. Like people always "like" me, but no one really knows me. In fact, people that have only interacted with me in groups say things like "I've never seen you quiet" and I'm like dayum that's my main personality, you really don't know me xD if I meet people one on one, they couldn't imagine me acting like a clown like that.

I don't know when this would have been made, like blahhhhh. I guess at it's core it's an attention seeking behavior to be seen, well-liked, and to cover feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, unsafety, fear, anxiety, weakness. It's strange.
 
I'm diagnosed with DDNOS so this may not be what you're looking for as an answer. But in general, leaning into gregariousness and outgoingness is very useful when it comes to trauma because the more people like you, the easier life is for you, yeah? I have parts that are sweet and syrupy as honey. I have parts that are cold and calculating as f*ck. Human social dynamics necessitates a wide variety, sometimes. It sounds like you developed the "clown" persona as a coping mechanism and a way to distance yourself from other people, which is pretty lock-step with AVPD.
 
I'm diagnosed with DDNOS so this may not be what you're looking for as an answer. But in general, leaning into gregariousness and outgoingness is very useful when it comes to trauma because the more people like you, the easier life is for you, yeah? I have parts that are sweet and syrupy as honey. I have parts that are cold and calculating as f*ck. Human social dynamics necessitates a wide variety, sometimes. It sounds like you developed the "clown" persona as a coping mechanism and a way to distance yourself from other people, which is pretty lock-step with AVPD.
I guess it does make sense

What is DDNOS?
 
What do they stand for? I know about DID and structural disassociation
DDNOS is from the DSM IV I believe, though I'm not 100% on that. It's Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified. OSDD is Other Specified Dissociative Disorder and that's split up into OSDD-1a and OSDD-1b which are like DID without amnesia or DID without alters? That's a very ultra simplified explanation though. Someone more educated than me in the specifics could probably provide a better answer but that's the Weemie's Notes version. ^_~

For me I developed a fragmented sense of identity due to an extreme environment growing up. The idea of having to do some of the things I needed to in order to survive was repulsive to me natively so it was beneficial to me to rely on "internal others" to do those things instead. I've also heard it put that when kids are growing up they don't have a singular identity but rather as kids our identities are more fragmented and then gradually coalesce. But with structural dissociation and dissociative identity that never happens because it gets interrupted.

I imagine that even though you describe your issues as not being based in dissociative identity or structural dissociation, adopting an outward "clownish" persona probably served a similar purpose for you. You said your natural inclination is to be quiet and calm. That might be your core self, but you felt it was advantageous at some point to adopt the "clown" and be "liked" by everybody. Being liked makes things easier at some point, so that's what you relied on.
 
I think you might be veering off-track a bit. You have a Personality Disorder, and Splitting is a recognised 'thing' that is associated with some personality disorders (including, for example, Borderline Personality Disorder, which has a lot of the same symptoms as cptsd as it was traditionally understood).

Splitting is not a dissociative phenomenon. My knowledge from that point on is sketchy at best, but my understanding is that it's an emotional response, or emotionally triggered.

Dissociative Disorders are distinct from Personality Disorders. Two very different psychological things going on.
 
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