Susan wants to know: My system and I recently blended (about 34 days ago). I'm really having a difficult time making decisions and functioning with out their constant verbal input. Getting motivated is also a problem. Has anyone else experienced this problem?
My name is Jennifer, and I just wanted to encourage any of you who may be considering blending (integration). I have been blending for a couple of years now, and understand the fear and trepidation that comes with this enormous decision. I want to reassure you that I have lost none of my selves in this process. We are all ME!! I also want to tell you that I have experienced great joy and peace in this blending. It is worth the journey. Incognito
Emily writes: When I do the blending thing I find it difficult to function. I found that I had to learn to adjust to a blended way of thinking. It didn't help at first to think of the blending process as something outside myself.... but I thought about situations where I had to work along outsiders who had a very different method of working than I did.
I had to learn how they did things, maybe understand why. I didn't have to agree with it, nor did I have to be exactly like they were, but I learned how, through patience and practice to go with it and adapt new ways of thinking. Yes, different doing this inside--you have to really adapt and integrate the thoughts.... but there is no need to rush it.
Jennifer elaborates: I got a million ideas, now where do I begin? Let's see....in the beginning we found each other with our journal, and progressed from there to shouting over the walls between us. Then we got the idea of destroying the walls with a sledgehammer, or dynamite! It felt great using the sledgehammer to knock them down. Those who were more timid would peek thru the holes in the walls at first, and then began to climb thru to investigate.
For those who did not believe we were there inside, we began to prove it. We started by recording all of our different voices on a tape for her to hear. That made a big impact, we read lots and lots of books on multiplicity to compare notes with others. We also looked at old pictures of me and found different alters in them.
Videotape is the most revealing way of all to find yourselves, there is no denying a lil on videotape. Cringe! My best advice is to try each of these techniques slowly and one at a time!!! It took years to reach the level of blending where we felt comfortable with each other. Acceptance of all is crucial, despite what their personality is.....R E S P E C T is the way to wholeness. Or should I say SELF respect.
Dave wonders: I've been thinking and pondering and started a discussion with my girlfriend the other day about this, but she couldn't really understand or relate. For most people the goal is to become 'one' or 'self' within the scope of DID/MPD or in other illnesses bipolar to 'manage one's illness' and overcome the 'experience(s)' which caused the on set of the illness itself.
That being said - how do you achieve that goal and manage the stress of not having something that for most of us has been a major part of our lives? We want so bad to be normal but if we manage the 'normality' will we suffer depression and loss and be able to cope without the things that made us us?
Hmm... I dunno maybe I'm just not ready to let go of her and the people around me want me to.
Dave,
I started out with the goal of complete wholeness. I haven't actually eliminated that goal, but I am trying to be more realistic.You do not have to integrate in order to have a full life. You do have to love or care for the other part of yourself. You do have to be able to cooperate and communicate. You also do not have to rely on a T to teach you the skills you need to cope... that is if you and your other are willing to work together as a team.
Don't lock yourself into the idea that being healthy means being one. I am actually pretty dang healthy and there are many, many. I have learned to manage, to cope and to take care of ourselves. Emily
Jay writes: I can really relate to your comments about being therapeutically encouraged to be something that you never have been! It just may be that it is as difficult for DID people to be integrated, as it is for monominds to become DID.
The point I am wanting to make is that we are now adults, and the influences that led us to become DID happened in childhood, when our young brains were growing and adapting, learning to survive in a hostile environment. Once 'wired up' as either a mono or a multi, it may be a little unrealistic to expect to become permanently the other.
I take riversrages' thoughts to my heart - being at one with myself is being at one with my selves, a loving family, or team, if you like. There are times when the teamwork is so smooth and together that I am at that time about as 'one' as I can be. I also remember that, at least to date, those sorts of feelings do not last, and I become a happy or unhappy jumble again. Learning to adapt is perhaps the greatest gift of being DID.
Beardog writes: I just attained total integration 4 weeks ago after working through with my almost 300 insiders my severe abuse by my mother, and my satanic ritual abuse at my grandmothers. It was always my goal and each of my insiders felt after processing their memories and feelings there was no more need of them to hang around because there was no more abuse and I was handling everything. But hear me clearly...I never forced any of them.
The first week of reaching total integration was very calm, peaceful, and thrilling. Now in the fourth week I'm grieving the loss of my multiplicity. I miss them terribly. I am now just parenting myself, but I miss hearing them individual voices. The integration slowly took place over the last 10 years - not all at one time.
I'm also - again - feeling and processing from the last blending - pain and grief.
Jay elaborates: The question of integration is one that has attracted a lot of attention, and we all seem to have different experiences, hopes and understandings of our potential to achieve or maintain it.
Some, like myself, are not integrated: some have been integrated for a time, and others have been integrated 'at times'.
I can only speak personally; being in touch with my voices within has been a great joy and a blessing. We are learning to be a happy family, and caring for each others' needs, as best we can. Certainly, before 'selves awareness', life was disastrous - periods of apparent stability punctuated by catastrophic episodes of self destruction. Although obviously (and chronically!) dissociate at my stage of life, this present state of being cannot be compared with the sadness and confusion of previously.
Simply put, we are not ready for integration. We may never be, we may be. For now, working together as a team is just great.
