During the therapies that I am and have followed, I have noticed that my psychiatrists or psychologists often ask me or have asked me the question who is there, who speaks when my dissociative parts come and no longer hide. Sometimes even my relatives do. I fully understand this need to be able to identify by a name that speaks to them.
The professionals I have had to deal with sometimes seek to identify my dissociative parts by "ease" I think. It is easier to know that when I have a very mothering, benevolent speech, that I am calm, it is "Marie" who is there and who speaks. Then when I'm seductive and provocative, when I pout with my lips, when I raise my chin proudly, it's Enzo who is present. That when I'm terrified and I talk about the papers that scare me, it's Jade who is there... They can then name them and show that they recognize and identify them. At times, focusing on a single dissociative part and working deeply with it can be good. I don't doubt that.
At the beginning of therapy, when the patient understands his dissociative disorder and for him to accept his diagnosis, it may be good to explain and help the patient to better identify and perceive the changes in him so that he can better s accept and understand each other. There is a big, very important step to take in order to tune in internally and initiate an internal dialogue. The patient must understand the internal struggles, the different points of view that fight each other. He must also do a lot of work to be kind to himself, accept to take the time and no longer try to force decisions, accept that each dissociative part evolves at its own pace independent of the other parts, accept that it is the evolution of the entire game system that will make it possible to get better, reduce suffering and improve daily life...
But then I think it's no longer necessary to focus on who is who and who is there.
Knowing how many dissociative parts you have and naming them all is scary.
About a year ago, Jeni Haynes fascinated me. The fact that she was able to know the number of her dissociative parts present, her ability to identify and name them formally... I thought that was great! For a while, I wanted to do the same. But inside, we didn't agree. And in the end, I did not continue on this path. Personally, knowing how many of us there are, knowing that there are so many of us scares me. Because that makes my healing work really too long, too difficult... How am I going to succeed in bringing together and getting so many different opinions heard? How could I manage to unify tens, hundreds of dissociative parts? I see it as a gigantic, screaming, fighting crowd that you would have to get to sit around a table and get each of these angry, unruly people to agree to cooperate... If you've ever worked in a class with students, you must have some idea of ​​the complicated task that awaits me... It seems to me to be insurmountable and in the end, counting my dissociative parts is counterproductive for me because it plunges me into despair and despondency, helplessness. I will never get there...
Moreover, it makes even more real and present the number of traumas I had to survive, the extent of the damage... It makes me very depressed!!! I had to "cut" myself, "divide" myself so many times... How could I go back? I feel powerless !
Insisting on knowing is an unhealthy form of pressure for me.
In the end, being able to name the dissociative parts of a patient is more on the sensational side than anything else... Something a little unhealthy, a form of voyeurism in a way... The names of my dissociative parts is part of my intimacy, something secret between me and me. When people ask me who is there, it's as if they were asking me to show my private parts in a certain way, to expose myself... And that makes me uncomfortable. I want to feel free, and each of my parts to feel free to say who they are or to keep it a secret without being pressured. Without being questioned at every moment of my therapy... Wanting to count and formally name is of the same ilk for me as tabloid newspapers looking for a catchy title or Hollywood films that portray people with psychiatric disorders as serial killers or psychopaths...
Naming the dissociative parts gives "power" of control over us.
This is something that scares me a lot. As soon as I'm asked the question, I feel a wave of fear that goes through me and an inner withdrawal takes place.
I feel in danger.
Being able to be "identified", so that the person opposite knows who they are talking to is a source of great concern for me. It's like I'm deliberately giving access to my brain, the way to manipulate me, the way to hurt me... It's more us who "decide" who can come and speak or not. And that arouses my suspicion and my vigilance.
Throughout my childhood, I did everything to hide my dissociative disorder. I've said it many times before but DID is camouflage, an incredibly sophisticated survival technique for surviving horror. If my rapists had known who my dissociative parts were, what they were called, they could have manipulated me much more easily by calling a very young dissociative part for example and causing a switch which would have made me vulnerable!!!
Knowing the name of one of the dissociative parties present during the exchange does not mean that we know with certainty who and how many are listening or interacting!
Personally, sometimes I know for sure which part is present, and sometimes I have no idea who is in the foreground and am unable to positively identify it. When I switch, at certain times I clearly feel that a part "settles" in the foreground, I feel in my eye sockets a movement, as if other eyes were coming and replacing mine. Sometimes it's just the tone of my voice that changes and I know it's someone else who comes to speak, my voice is harder, more masculine or on the contrary very childish. Sometimes I talk and my hands try to silence me by choking my neck or my fingers dig into my wrists or I punch myself in the thighs...some of them disagree with what I am saying and disagrees with my body... Sometimes I speak and tell what was done to me but the feelings and emotions I express do not agree with my speech. .. Sometimes I speak, I cry everything is adequate in my body and my head, everything agrees... Sometimes my speech and my body react and express the same thing and suddenly I feel something else and nothing is wrong. is more tuned...
All this to simply say that the important thing is not to know who is who and who is there. Because in the end, you won't know for sure. Sometimes I have dialogues with my psychiatrists and I think that no other party is present and all of a sudden a party comes and expresses its disagreement and its opposition with what has just been said whereas before I I had no awareness that this part was there to "listen", I had no conflicting thoughts, no objections, I had no awareness that another opinion was coexisting in me...
The real question to ask I think is what is the purpose of therapy to treat dissociative identity disorder?
For me, in therapy, what is important for my therapist to do is to create a bond of trust with each party, to accept and encourage direct dialogue with each of them to help me little by little to be more attuned. listening to my feelings, my thoughts, my goals and gradually allowing them to operate smoother and less conflictual.
I think that encouraging the patient to formalize, name, describe his inner world is nonsense. I have no internal place in which my dissociative parts evolve, I refuse to comply with that and build, as sometimes psychiatrists or psychologists recommend, an internal secure place. What I want is a safe place in my present, a benevolent and understanding environment, a suitable job, a place to live in which I feel good. That's what I need. And each time I saw that I was getting better, that I felt better, it was because my environment allowed me to have these criteria. This is what allowed me to evolve, to confront my story and integrate it in part, to have less amnesia of my present and my past. Thanks to this, some of my dissociative parts have changed their ways of acting and reacting, they have "grown up", they have adapted to the reality of my present, they have become less reactive to certain traumatic triggers, they have been able to look to the future in a positive way, to have dreams and hopes that we were unable to have in the past because we were in the daily survival and safeguarding.
What is needed is to identify and dissect the thought patterns, the false beliefs anchored and lead to a constructive dialogue to understand the fallacious resonances, the irrational fears, to integrate the past experience. Not identify who is speaking, how old he or she is.
Why insist on giving a mental representation of the dissociative parts, giving a visual to something that has no place to be?
We are wounded and bruised children but we are in adult bodies. The goal of therapy is not necessarily to know in detail what the patient has experienced but rather to allow him to have a daily life in which the patient feels good.
Also, in general, I find it unconstructive. The therapy for a dissociative identity disorder consists in reducing the feeling of splitting, the dissociative barriers between parts, smoothing the feelings, the emotions, the beliefs, the objectives... So why insist on reinforcing this splitting by formally identifying in different dissociative parts a person who ultimately has only one and the same body?
I think the names don't really matter, nor the number of dissociative parts for that matter! What we need is understanding, listening, consideration and people who know how to dialogue with us and take into account the different points of view that fight inside us by helping us through dialogue and a constructive exchange to understand each other and to collaborate internally.
Admittedly, this proves to me that they see us and that they don't miss my switches, but isn't the important thing to help each party understand each other, listen to each other and adapt their way of acting in my present? That in the end we were all one, that we agreed on our decision-making, our ways of interpreting things, our objectives?
What I see with my therapy is that the advances that I make happen a lot in the background, that often parts "listen" in the background and then express themselves or show their disagreements outside of the therapy and that neither I neither my therapist knows with certainty who is participating in the exchange, who is present or how many of us there are.
Dissociative parts adapt to survive. They evolve, change... I'm not the same as 1 year, 5 years or 10 years ago!! Some of my small dissociative parts have "grown up". They are no longer "stuck" in the "age" of the trauma they experienced. So why persist in putting them in a box of an age, a name? Why would you want to "lock them up" and force me to confine them to my history and my past experience?
What is important are the thoughts, the beliefs, the confusions between past and present. It is by unraveling all of this that the whole functioning is smoothed out. It is the dialogue, the exchange, the sharing of the present moment that heals and is helpful.
I think what you have to keep in mind is that a person with DID has only one body and that to get better, you have to integrate this indisputable notion and accept it.