The phobia of inner experience

Everyone has inner experiences .

"Our inner experience is made up of what we think, feel, remember, what we perceive, understand, decide, plan and foresee. We could also call it mental actions or mental activity . We are continually occupied by mental activity, whether or not it is a combination with physical activity. This can have both a positive and a negative influence on our life and well-being .

By becoming aware of internal experiences that momentarily influence your life in a negative way (such as negative beliefs about yourself and others, or other feelings and reactions that come to you from the past), you can learn to manage them and what done, eventually get to change them . It is essential to work on these memories, to understand them and then learn to correct them gradually. Chronic avoidance is called experiential avoidance or phobia of inner experience. "Managing the dissociation of traumatic origin (Boon, Steele & Van der Hart, 2014).

There are 3 causes for the avoidance of internal experience:

Traumatized people have not learned and had the help they need to learn to cope with intense inner experiences (feelings or feelings that are very strong or very invasive).
The tendency to call them "good" or "bad" . This label is generalized to qualify the person as such . Anger is bad and dangerous so if I feel anger, I am bad and dangerous. People who feel repulsive and worthless are ashamed so if I am ashamed, I am repulsive and worthless.
Certain interior experiences function as triggers and reactivate traumatic experiences from the past or awaken terror that something terrible will happen.

As I explained to you, in the sect in which I grew up, listening to their needs and desires was forbidden and criticized. It was necessary to give body and soul to the sect, to give its time and its energy, to silence its desires and needs to conform to the desires and needs of the group and the guru. The adults around me have given me this model to grow and build. The other came first, the guru's orders came first. God decided everything for us through the guru. We were not to think, to think, the guru was doing it for us. He was the only one who knew, God appeared to him, God spoke to him. God had plans for us, purposes. Listening to yourself internally was like doubting. To doubt was the work of evil and betrayed a lack of faith.

Little when I felt something, or when I wanted something, these feelings and these desires were under the microscope by all and I was taught to describe them as good or bad, good or bad, coming from satan or god. When they were labeled bad, I had to pay the price either by asking forgiveness and confessing or by being punished. We were all classified, labeled as people toward holiness or people possessed by the devil.

What we avoid, we cannot change. We have an inner experience: we are not.

"By understanding the meaning of our thoughts and reactions, we can question our beliefs, make changes to them, and therefore act more effectively. Through reflection, we transform our automatic reactions into consciously chosen reactions. " dissociation of traumatic origin (Boon, Steele & Van der Hart, 2014).

I constantly tend to run away from my inner feelings. All the rules and dictas of the sect are deeply rooted in me and are associated with very intense shame and guilt. The spiritual dimension that has been given to strengthen these prohibitions adds a further degree to the manipulation and grip that I have endured. In addition, the inner experiences I can have are associated with acts of extreme torture, moments when I almost died of pain or terror in the past. These acts could not be explained, analyzed, understood, integrated ...

At the start of my therapy, 3 years ago, I refused to accept the fact that I had DID, that I had dissociative parts. Many of my ANPs said that I could not have a life so balanced, that someone would have seen my "switches", or would have diagnosed it to me before ... My parts presenting themselves as "loyal to my attackers" me recalled all the love and kindness I had received from them, my happy memories came back to me in a loop ... It was simply not possible! I was crazy, I wandered and my shrink too!

My "controls" parts to get to understand and accept this diagnosis have been forcing! I had long periods where they let my EP parts come one by one, those bearing the memory and the sensations of my trauma. I then plunged into terror, physical pain and flashbacks for several hours. It was usually evening or weekend when I was alone at home. I then found myself lying in my bed or nailed to the ground for hours on end. I vomited, my breath was cut, I could not move, speak, eat ... the suffering was so intense, so unbearable and excruciating !! And I had no way of escaping it. My mind no longer had any capacity for reflection, I relived these moments as if I was there at the same time. I was no longer at home, in my apartment, safe, I was in the places of my childhood ... I felt a knife point sink into my chest, I felt a body climb on me, I felt its weight which crushed me, I felt the caresses of a hand on my body ... I heard the words, I saw furniture, places ... I felt in all my body the terror and the pain that I felt when I suffered these acts. Reality no longer existed, only the memory, what I was experiencing was true, nothing else existed and I had no way of escaping it. The parties engaged in "forced sharing".

As soon as, for a few days, this "forced sharing" ceased, my denying parties began to doubt again. As soon as one of them questioned the trauma I suffered, I went back into pain and terror. My "controlling parties" did so until all of my parties accepted this fact: I was raped, I suffered numerous rapes.

Then my "control parts" used another technique to make things understood and integrated. They let some of my EP parts act and reproduce in my everyday life some of the "scenes" that I experienced in the past. Like a robot, I replay scenes of sexual violence with my partner. I was in the present with my partner but it is as if two realities overlapped, I saw him but I also saw my rapist from the past, and like an automaton, I redo exactly the course of the rape with as "actor" in place of my rapist, my partner. And I heard parts express themselves: "you see this is how it happened, he did this to you ..." Then parts "analysis and observation" explained in my head the unfolding of things, which was normal or abnormal ... They helped me and helped all the parties forced to be present to analyze situations, to understand, to make sense ...

I gradually began to accept and listen: to stop fleeing. This "sharing obligation" made me move faster too. The denial was very intense in me, I would probably have taken years to accept to listen without it. And anyway I had no choice, as soon as an objection was made, the control parties made a little "reminder prick" from which I could not escape!

I ended up accepting. Then it was also necessary to establish a dialogue, an internal communication. My ANP parties refused to let the other parties express themselves and come to see my daily life. It is essential that all my parts are oriented in the here and now, that they understand that I am safe now, that I have grown up, that my life is different ... It is therefore important that they can see my daily life, that they express their thoughts, desires (that their coming is no longer due solely to triggers) ... so that they can integrate new perspectives, a new way of acting that is adapted to my life today and no longer focused on the excruciating experience they had. This is how I will manage to have a "smoother" life and suffer less. So there were also moments (well chosen that did not put me in danger) or my ANP games were either blocked and the other parties had to manage my daily life for them, the ANP being spectators cannot intervene. And moments when they were "forced" to cohabit with other parties without them being able to prevent them from acting or advising in my daily life. I finally understood and accepted that there were so many of us and that the only way to get better was to establish a dialogue, to make compromises. If dialogue or compromise was refused, I found myself in chaos not possible and my ANPs were unable to do anything. It was either you accept or we prevent you! It also allowed me to move very quickly. Now we are talking a lot and no decision is made without the agreement of everyone or a majority. I am a model of internal democracy ...

Likewise, I have parties who want to say everything, to everyone. They want to inform the press, my relatives, file a complaint ... To make them understand that doing so without everyone's agreement and without a prior analysis was harmful, my "control" parties regularly blocked them. As soon as I got ready to testify, I was cut, curled up in my bed or on the floor. I couldn't move in terror. The controlling parties let other parties who had experienced the testimony and suffered the consequences show what they had suffered. I suffered in this way until internally my parties seeking to testify capitulated and agreed not to do so. Now, a dialogue has been established, I reflect, I learn about the laws, the functioning of justice and society ... I gradually prepare to testify, I do it in stages to reassure my parties anxious and make them integrate that saying will not kill me, I advance at their own pace.

My phobia of inner experience has not yet been resolved. I am always terrified by the sharing of memories, especially that of bodily images and sensations of the exact moment of the rapes. I'm afraid of having tastes, of seeing the sexes, of hearing the groans ... I'm afraid of the details. I am afraid that these details will remain etched in my memory. Forgetting at times is a relief. It is a relief to pretend that my past was not soiled by these despicable acts. I am afraid of not being able to see and think of that when my integration of memories is complete, when I no longer have any dissociative amnesia ... I am afraid of not being able to hope, laugh, live ... I'm afraid my world will be dark and disgusted.

I still have periods when to escape my inner experience, I immerse myself in a task to do to occupy my mind (work, cleaning, papers ...), I put on music thoroughly so as not to hear nothing, I watch series or movies to focus only on that ... One of my parts starts singing songs when she wants to escape memories, she then intones loudly "Jacques or apple brother reinette and API apple "or any other song ...

To cope with interior experiences, it is necessary to develop a retrospective reflection (a bit like thinking with a rested head, taking a step back at a favorable moment to analyze):

reflect on a chronic reaction to an emotion
think about a dissociative part of our personality
reflect to understand others

For this we need :

Being in the here and now
Become aware without judging
Observe the similarities and differences between the past and the present
Be empathetic and understanding towards yourself and its parts

Must also :

Always keep in mind that each dissociative part, each of their actions was done and is done with one and the same goal: to save us, to protect us, to help us. They have a good reason to have done it and to do it!
All my dissociative parts are good, none is to be "killed" or "made to disappear", none is bad or nasty!
All of them felt alone, all of them suffered and carried their suffering in solitude, all of them need the love, tenderness, listening and compassion of the other parties.
All of them felt judged, rejected, hated by the other parties. All of them need to feel that they are accepted, understood and thanked internally for their roles in my safeguarding and my survival.