Trying To Understand Something About My Inner Child

[digger]

@Sammyiam I'm no expert, but I'll try to explain my understanding of it. It sounds very much like what you're describing is that your therapist was talking to DID alters that you weren't aware of? Like she had the conversation, but you don't remember being part of it? I may have completely misunderstood what you said though. With DID these are pretty much separate parts of your identity, split off personalities that are kind of independent of each other - hopefully someone more knowledgeable on DID will correct that if I'm way off.

The inner child stuff that I think Russh is talking about is more like having an awareness of the child you were at the time trauma was occurring and all the feelings and emotions connected with that. It helps me to picture my inner child as a separate identity in some ways, and often it can feel quite like that for me in that I revert to thinking and experiencing the world in those ways - but I am kind of aware of it at the same time, moreso since being therapy..... Sorry it really does get complicated to try and explain! I think reading up on inner child therapy, and on DID might be helpful to you though.

In addition to this my therapist talks a lot to me in terms of the transactional analysis model which says that we all have parent, adult and child parts that we operate from at different times, which has helped me with inner child stuff - happy to share more on that if Russ doesn't feel it takes the thread off topic.

 

[digger]

http://www.livestrong.com/article/14692-inner-child/ might be helpful

 

[digger]

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/dissociative-identity-disorder-multiple-personality-disorder And some stuff on DID

 

[Sammyiam]

Hope you don't mind RussH,

With the inner child thing I don't no about others on here but even the thought of inner child writing or saying to myself or out loud sends a shiver up my spine and a horrible feeling I start sweating and get clammy hands I just carn't stand thinking of my inner child does anyone else feel that ?

 

[littlelostchild]

@RussH I had a hard time getting my inner little ones to interact with me. The sad one was nearly catatonic and the angry one was off hiding.

Here is my thought for you: try visualizing you near where you believe him to be hiding, playing with some of your favourite toys from when you were young. See if that brings him out. If so, play for a while and enjoy each other's company to start building a relationship with him.

 

[digger]

With the inner child thing I don't no about others on here but even the thought of inner child writing or saying to myself or out loud sends a shiver up my spine and a horrible feeling I start sweating and get clammy hands I just carn't stand thinking of my inner child does anyone else feel that ?

Absolutely. It's only very recently that I've started allowing myself to entertain the idea and I am still extremely uncomfortable with it a lot of the time. Writing to or speaking aloud to are still absolute no's for me. I am working on visualising in my head and occasionally talking to in my head - again that is hard to explain though, it's not really words or conversation as such, more an exchange of thoughts and feelings.

I have been, and still am largely, very resistant to the idea.

 

[Chava]

Weirdly, in therapy the way I sit and hold my body sometimes feels like 6-7 year old (I remember the quietness), but is probably more like typical 4-5...so my inner child is something like a partly regressed 6 year old? Might be because I just don't remember much before then. Sometimes probably a baby. Once in a while, when I'm feeling strong and afraid of my energy, I feel like an angry and self-absorbed teenager. I never got to be an angry teenager really, just had to cut up my legs in secret. But mostly centering around an age where I was first quite aware and could do many things, 4-5ish. Among other things, stressor around that time was being left alone in the children's ICU, hooked up to life-saving machines and a whole bunch of strangers were my new authority figures. Surreal.

 

[The Albatross]

My inner child is somewhere between 4 and 7. It took a long time for her to stop screaming. I avoided her for many years because she just stood there screaming.

Reading along I am intrigued in the visualization exercises. The last guided visualization I did I had a man who spoke to me briefly and gave me his name, and four animals in my safe place. I asked him, "Where is my woman?" and he replied, "You aren't ready for her yet."

That was a couple to 3 years ago now. I have not attempted again or tired to meet my "wise woman"/spirit guide.

 

[p-no]

How old do you see your inner child as being? Is he / she the age you were abused? Or a different age?

My inner child is around 1.5 years old, rather a bit younger. She is the age she was sexually abused and not heard and therefore not helped. This is what her pain is coming from, the not having been heard, seen, perceived, helped. That's why she needs so much attention from me; it's not the sexual abuse that troubles her until this day, it's the seemingly having been invisible to the adults around that she can't live with.

I have processed the sexual abuse and it is over. Neither does she nor do I (although that "she" or "I" feels slightly off because I am still one) have an issue with that anymore. I am saying this because I used to think that once over the sexual abuse, my inner child should be able to develop more, grow older on an emotional level, yet, she hasn't. She has changed though. I can have her Safe Person take care of her when I need to be an adult without a baby/toddler (e.g. at work). She does not scream around the clock anymore, and often, when she screams, I can calm her and comfort her. It took a long time for her to learn that I would come back for her once I'd left her with her Safe Person. She didn't trust the Safe Person then, and neither did she trust me enough. How would she. But she did learn and now, most times, we're a team, and often she doesn't need me at all.

I do think the reason for my inner child not growing older in that sense is that I have had so much abuse and was never heard or helped until I was an adult that the pain and the insanity that makes her scream and feel desperate and non-existant at times will not ever pass. I have no real children but I do feel as if I were a mother living with a baby/toddler with special needs, which is probably who my inner child is, I am.

 

[p-no]

I am just not sure why I picture him so young, 4-8, when I broke at the age of 14.

RussH, could your inner child be the age he is maybe because at that age you were still what you define a child to be?

You said in the quote above that you *broke* at the age of 14. That doesn't mean things were easy before. It takes a lot and it can take quite some time for a person to break. Things can add up. Maybe on some level you sense that round about the age your inner child seems to have, the process leading to you breaking started?

 

[rainbow1]

Mine is about 10 years old. She seems to really only surface when I talk to T. I really struggle with the concept that I 'change' into this younger version of me, my voice apparently goes more childlike too. She is learning to talk and trust T though.

 

[Springer80]

the way I sit and hold my body sometimes feels like 6-7 year old

my voice apparently goes more childlike too.

It's not weird. Well it is but it isn't. :D

I used to experience a sensation that my limbs were shorter when I dissociated into a child state and I wouldn't stand because my limbs felt too short and small to support me. It got me interested in neurology. The body/mind/emotional connection is a wondrous thing. It was sort of like phantom limb.

The voice thing too. My ex-fiance used to call me boo-boo because when I felt loved and safe I would make pre-verbal noises. I didn't realise what it was at the time.