Just wanted to see if anyone had any input on this. I feel like I have no control over my abuse memories resurfacing. I can tell lately that there is one right underneath the surface but I don't know how to get to it. My internal communication isn't good enough yet for me to go inside and find who knows and try to connect with them. It is just torture sitting here only remembering feelings most of the time and not knowing what it is connected to. My T doesn't do hypnosis and I don't know how I feel about that anyway. I feel like I just have to sit and wait for a trigger to come along that finally releases the memory from hiding/storage. I would like to have more control over when memories come.
I don't trust my ability to let my alters talk. I am
co-conscious and often feel like I'm making stuff up if I am trying to
communicate with an alter.
Severina
I too always want to rush the process... to find out what causes me to the feel what ever it is. You can't rush it though.
My T does not do hypnosis. We have tons of other methods of working through something. It all depends on who we are. <sigh> We talk, we draw, relax, pretend that we are in a conference room, read Winnie the Pooh, play in the rice tray.... and some times just sit there like a stone wall.
I know what it feels like to be trapped with only part of what ever it is.... It is sooo frustrating. Emily
I can resonate with your frustrations: memories are both crystal clear and elusive, and everything in between. I have a favorite quote from author Brian Aldis, who speaks about memories something like this: that most of us think of our memory as being like a kind of filing cabinet with everything neatly stored, yet in reality memory is more like a compost heap from which unexpected plants grow.
In a previous life (if I can put it that way) I used to be a professional counselor, and I can think of a number of instances of women in their early 40s "recovering" memories of childhood abuse, and although in a sense they always "knew" about the abuse as part of their personal history, there were so many ways that they did not know, and they were often unable to remember any detail at all.
It seems that it was not until they had reached a stage of emotional security or perhaps maturity that the memories began to resurface, and with them the horror of the experiences, and the awareness of being different as a consequence. This is the "heart" of dissociation: the survival of the child who elegantly sequesters the most appalling experiences as dissociated memory - there is nowhere else to run and hide.
Response to the abusive environment is dissociated as well. Every part of me serves a purpose in the survival of the whole, every dissociated memory or behavior has a reason for being. The difference is that I am no longer a child, yet parts of me still are, and still behave as children. Parts of me are male, young and older; parts are female, child and woman. I know that there are many secrets within the system, even if I don't know the detail: experience tells me that there is a time and a trigger for the vulnerable and most damaged parts of me to reveal their terrors, as some of them have.
The huge challenge for us as a multiple is coming to terms with a biological process that although absolutely essential for our survival to reach adulthood, does not fit us well for adult society. This is not so surprising I suppose, because so many of the experiences "burned in" during childhood, perhaps especially about forming relationships and trust, were negative ones.
Anyhow, it took me nearly 40 years to discover who I am - an intelligent set of responses to whatever circumstances "I" find myself in. Emily described herself as being "Nobody". That really sums it up. Alters appear to meet needs as they appear, respond as necessary - there is no core.
As regards conversations with alters, I am mostly co-conscious (but not always) and I am beginning to learn to simply let thoughts tumble out as they will, and the conversations (although often chaotic and contradictory) seem quite natural and unforced - can't force an alter anyway!
Kind regards, W.O.
We are survivors of ritual abuse and have an alter that was created by a cult. She is ruining our life and threatening to kill the body. In the past year I have done everything I can think of to rehabilitate her to the world and get her working with the rest of us but nothing is working. I have given her chance after chance to show that she wants to be a part of our team but all she does is work to destroy us.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of an alter? She doesn't need to be here anymore. She was created by the cult to work for them but we are out of the cult and don't want to go back. We don't want her around anymore and would like to get on with our lives for real.
Please, any ideas will be greatly appreciated. Name withheld...
I don't know if this will help you but from time to time it does help me - no matter what we think we are, no matter how many of us we think there are, in the end there is just 'me' or 'you.' Everything is created by your mind. Thus in the end you have total control!
I know this is so totally over simplistic that seems but it is the truth. I know my 'alter' is as alive as I am. She has her own wants needs and desires. But in the end she is nothing more than something my mind 'created' in a time of need or was forced on me. Dave & Michelle
Being the sum of many parts almost guarantees the sorts of inner conflict you describe. Most of my alters are 'specialists' in that they typically have assumed roles separate and distinct from each other, and with this specialization comes the disconnectedness of feelings, thoughts and emotions. It seems that one of you is specializing in withdrawal, and is convinced that the only way to cope is to self destruct. On the face of it, you may say that you are better off without this member of the family, but from my own experience, such a person is owed a great debt: they have taken upon themselves the sort of overwhelming pain and anguish that if distributed equally across the whole system may have been impossible to bear, with tragic results.
What has been especially helpful to us has been to look steadily at our traditional roles in terms of childhood or adolescent survival skills, and then to ask, "Are these particular skills now relevant?" or, "Can this specialty be expressed in some other way?".
I actually took a piece of paper and listed, as well as I could, the attributes of each of my alters, being fair and honest, and it turned out that what I had always thought of as being negative and self destructive could be re-understood in a much more positive light. It was then possible to begin looking at alternative roles for some of my people given that their traditional role was no longer necessary (now I am an adult), but that nevertheless, what made them so powerful in the first place, gave them a positive and valuable position in the system.
It was a lengthy process K, and sometimes one step forwards, two steps back, but over time my own 'scary monster' became my backbone who is so precious to the team. I am in awe of his strength and focus, and even though in the past there has been much conflict, I know that I would not be here if not for him.
What is there about your other self that you cannot live without? Why is she so convinced that the only answer is to run away? How can her obvious and capable talents be reassigned? (what else can she do?).
JayI know how you feel when your alter expresses her negative thoughts. Kat, my strongest alter, does that a lot. She constantly tells me how we are so stupid and we can't do anything wrong. I used to hit anything that didn't move just to cause myself pain so she would shut up. I learned the hard way that wasn't a good idea. Kat still voices her negative thoughts. I've started to think of Kat more of a bully now. If she doesn't get her way I'm either hurt with a migraine or broken bones. I've started standing up to her and taking control. Giving her a certain time she can be out and sticking by that. Do you have a memory of what your harmful alter does when she is out? Dannique
I've been in therapy for 12 years - just reached total integration having had almost over 300 insiders. I, too, was ritually abused - my was satanic and I had LOTS who were out to destroy the body. Reading that you want to get "rid of her" would hurt my feelings, if I were your insider. She was created to help you...in a funny way. I hear you're very angry at her and scared about the body, but have you tried seeing what she really needs and caring for her.
Below her anger is probably a great deal of pain. That's how I always eventually reached mine was by "parenting" them in a loving way. Sometimes "parenting" is painful because that means we're grown and nobody will parent us anymore, but there are people - me included - who love and care for people who've gone through such extreme trauma. We can't make up the past or re-do the past, but we can pour in love and care now as adults.
Warmest regards BeardogI tend to believe that the acting out comes from children who are especially wounded and have been ignored for many years.
I recommend to read book by Frank Putnam (and discard info about fusion/integration)
Our children need time, love and kids stuff. This is a challenge at times for me because I have existed as an adult with those needs only for so long.
World1All "alters", "parts", "selves",etc... are made from the need to survive terrible abuse that could not otherwise be handled.
What I did with a self that was to me, a mirror of an abuser of ours, was to give her a chance. Really get to know her, and why she had done or was doing things to sabotage us all. Until you truly know that self, its really no use in trying to get cooperation. A self that is very strong and overriding in the system is usually the one that has received more than their share of abuse, probably because others were not as strong as that self. So, with that, Listen to her story, then get to know her like you would a potential new friend, then ask for cooperation. You will find there are reasons why that self cannot freely give in to working together, the reservations or fears once brought to the light can finally be addressed and dealt with. This has been my experience.
Jill
