The more I seek to document myself, the more I look around the world for testimonies, experts, books, films, the more I realize the debates and divergent currents of thought that exist. Divergences between wars of psys theories, misunderstanding and inadequate identification of patients ...
Few people are really trained to take care of traumatized people, so there are misdiagnosis, under evaluation and under management of dissociated people.
I subscribed to exchange groups between TDI and I am a lot in the observation to understand how other people live their DID, and what this kind of exchange group brings them. It allows me to better understand myself and see how my functioning differs from others.
Before, I could contact other people to reinforce my diagnosis, seek recognition, and find information about what I was going through or similarities in how I was functioning. Now it's more of a need to belong to a group that pushes me to seek this kind of exchange and as I dig deeper I realize that there are "drifts" in a certain sense.
I hope not to hurt anyone in writing this and I am not trying to minimize the pain and the daily difficulty that these people experience with their psychiatric disorders ...
But the more I observe these groups the more I realize the difference in perception that a lot of people that I have read about these groups have about their psychiatric disorder and what I feel deep inside me. I took a lot of perspective on my therapy, which was not the case before, now that there is a lot of inner dialogue, that I understand myself better, that my actions and thoughts have meaning, I am more able to analyze what I live internally and therefore to see and understand the others and the functioning of the parts.
It seems to me that many are not diagnosed and self-proclaim TDI. I have the impression that some people may prefer to say that they have a DID rather than being bipolar or schizophrenic or borderline ... Perhaps it is "easier" for them to have " cause traumatic "to their psychiatric disorder and that this allows them to have a" victim status "easier to endorse than that of" psychotic "? I especially do not wish to criticize them and reproach them for this need to identify with the TDI, I understand that in the society in which we live, it is "easier" to explain his changes of mood or his state by the presence of dissociative parts. Not understanding yourself, not recognizing yourself, behaving strangely in front of society is very difficult. The fear and stigma of mental illness by people in general does not make patients feel sufficiently secure and supported. So I understand this need for identification.
I have read many people in these groups who talk about "animal or fantasy" dissociative parts. For me it cannot be a TDI. We can have parts that form if our system is very imaginative that see themselves as an eagle that flies away to escape rape, or imagine ourselves as a bear to fight and defend ourselves physically, a way to find strength internally. to rebel ... If our system is very imaginative, we can take refuge in the imagination to escape a reality too difficult and build a very complex and elaborate inner world and "waste time" in these reveries ... But a person with IDD is still aware that it is she, that she is not a bear or an eagle, that this inner world does not really exist. And the most important need that we have is that these parts are understood, that their mode of safeguarding be explained and analyzed and that inside the person understands that he had to put this in place to escape violence. . As soon as the reason is explained and understood, I think the person ceases to "perceive himself as an animal". Too much imagining or making our parts very "fantasy world" does not help to feel better, does not help to anchor in the security of the here and now ... Does not help to discern the present from the past , the reality of our imaginary hopes ... From what I have learned from my research, I have the impression that a person seeking to maintain this does not have DID but has another psychiatric disorder.
Many wear very heavy makeup to show off their dissociative parts. I think people who do this cannot be TDI because it defeats the very purpose of training TDI. THE TDI is a camouflage, we hide to survive and our switches can be seen for those who agree to observe well. No need to blacken your eyes or make quilts to see that a part carrying our feelings of anger or our small feeling parts are present! Some people I have met on these forums fall into patterns of action that I find incompatible with the actions of a person with DID. For example, they will have lots of cuddly toys in their beds, or go shopping while buying children's toys when they are adults ... It seems to me that they have like a "Peter Pan" syndrome and fall back into childhood. It's as if DID and hearing about small dissociative parts gives them more "legitimacy" to stagnate in childhood and not face the real world ...
For me all this cannot be TDI. DID is a way of survival, a way of breaking down in order to survive because our daily life in our childhood and the adults around us did not allow us to be everything we felt and thought. We had to shut up and hide certain aspects of our life on pain of death.
I have "anger" parts because in the sect where I grew up, anger could not be expressed. I have "depressive" parts because the sadness and hopelessness could not be said. I have "small" parts because I was tortured and raped and I was not believed and heard or protected when this took place.
I have parts that see themselves as masculine but I know that I am a woman. I understand the objective of these parts and the need to see oneself as a man because in the sect, women or girls had to be submissive and only two options were available to them, to marry and procreate or to become a good sister. By switching to a man I could allow myself to rebel, to claim my freedom and to allow myself not to be a "weak woman".
But now that I am safe, now that I am able to protect and defend myself, these parts are only looking for one thing, to be heard, to understand, to grow and that our mode of operation harmonizes is in integrating us into one person or by functioning together in an adequate manner.
During my childhood and adolescence, my parts were in survival but they did it because I had no choice, there was no other option. Now they are all fighting to say what they have worn and been through.
My "small" parts grow daily, they "catch up" to the learning that they did not have. My "small" parts suffer from being stuck in this way in the time of my past. To value in the extreme and to claim to have "small" parts and to "lock them up" in their "age of trauma" is to condemn them to remain powerless, fragile, vulnerable forever. And make them believe that the danger is still there and that they are not safe in the present! I feel that the more these parts share my daily life from here and now, the more they grow the better they feel! They realize that they are no longer babies, children of 2 or 3 years who could not do anything about abusing adults. They are less in the desperate search for surrogate parents, they suffer less from emotional deprivation ... They discover a world around them completely different and full of promises and joys ... Brandish having parts " small "and" make them exist and persist "in their perception of still being 2 or 3 years old seems to me nonsense. They want to grow up and feel safe, they don't want to remain fragile and vulnerable.
My angry parts calm down and delay their reactions over time. My depressive or suicidal parts learn to see my reality today and to appreciate it ... No one wishes to remain frozen in what she has worn! None of them want to remain walled in in their suffering and terror ... They all want to be liberated, in peace and to live a fulfilling life and daily life and to live in the security of the here and now. My parts are experimenting with nuances, sharing helps them a lot with that!
Of course when we begin to understand that we have dissociative parts, it is important to be attentive to their needs, their thoughts ... But when a dialogue takes place, I think that what is essential is to focus and orient oneself as much as possible in the here and now, in our adult life. This is something that took a long time to mature. Before, 4 months ago for example, the priority was to make my parts disappear and to share on the past trauma as a priority but that has changed a lot!
Now that a lot of dialogue has taken place in my game system, I have a harder time seeing my games as PAN or EP. These have evolved and grown so much that I can no longer really distinguish them into two groups that are so distinct and reductive. I still have parts that have very truncated visions and perceptions with thoughts in terms of everything or nothing. But in fact my PANs are also like this! For my PAN my childhood was idyllic a few years ago, when I was my "moms" parts, I was nothing else ... Now I'm a mom but also able to take care of the administrative side at the same time i can moan when my daughters exaggerate, i can laugh and joke with them using my teenage or kid parts ... I'm no longer a "stereotype" of the "perfect" mom. I can be all at the same time. And I perceive my switches a lot less. I feel more whole, more real, more complete ... And the more my functioning is "smoother", the better I feel!
In these groups of exchanges between "TDI", I do not like this kind of claim to be TDI, this cleavage that they put forward between "single" (person without dissociative parts) and "multiple" (person with dissociative parts). As if having a TDI was the latest "hot thing". Our TDI is not a choice! And all we seek and hope for is to no longer have these walls between our ways of being and acting, our thoughts and feelings. I think that to be like this, to keep this state going makes us suffer!
We must be proud of ourselves, of our ingenuity to survive, of our strength of resilience but it is not our identity, it is not what defines us as a being ...
Talking, explaining DID is essential, but with the aim that more people will know how to recognize it in us and that we receive adequate psychological help.
People who brandish the TDI label in these groups seem to forget that TDI is due to the extreme and prolonged trauma in childhood that caused this dissociation and the existence of these dissociative parts. I don't want to let all the atrocious memories of the tortures I have suffered burn on my skin! I refuse that the rapes that I have been made define me all my life!
This is all an evolution. A year ago, each part claimed its existence and the vital side of its individuality, some even wanted to do away with the parts that did not look like them or bother them. Now after months, and years of therapy, I know that what I want to keep as an identity and self-awareness is that I am extremely strong and combative, very intelligent. I want to be able to be able to feel contradictory things, to be angry but to be able to weigh this reaction, to be sad but able to feel peace and happiness in the little things in life, to be an adult who works and takes care of her daily life but also to be crazy at times and have fun ... Because that's what allows you to have a fulfilling and happy life, because seeing the world and society really as they are in all their complexity is essential to protect myself and be safe ... I want to be able to recognize myself and identify myself in all my feelings and all my thoughts. I want to understand myself and accept myself as a whole. I don't want to be just angry or just desperate. I don't want to continue to have sexualized behaviors that put me in danger, I want to have a fulfilling sex life and make the difference between the pleasure I can experience and the past of my rapes. I want to be free and no longer be chained to automated actions and reactions. I want to be capable of reflections taking into account all the options available to me ...
I want to have the CHOICE! I want each of my parts to know that it has more than one possibility of action and feeling. I want each of my parts to be able to step out of their assigned role. The day when my cowardly parts can rebel and say no firmly will be a great victory for me and those parts will be extremely proud and happy to have moved on and found another helping role inside of me. !
I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want any of my parts to feel alone and abandoned anymore. I no longer want to forget that I have suffered, I no longer want to forget that I had moments of joy and happiness. I want to have the choice. I want to be me with all my complexity. I no longer want to be separated, fragmented! I do not know what we will decide in the end, but all the doors are open and each of my parties will eventually be able to choose what they want to do: be integrated or collaborate.
Treating dissociative, traumatic memory without establishing a real internal dialogue in a DID is impossible. It is necessary that the parties be seen and heard by the therapist and that he encourages internal dialogue and dialogue with him so that they then agree to modify their methods of safeguarding, their beliefs, their points of view ... dissociative amnesia cannot decrease if the patient is not encouraged to listen to himself internally and if the therapist does not engage in dialogue with different parts. My parts to understand that my past belongs to the past must come to live my daily life.
Everything is in perpetual motion, in perpetual change.
I'm not the same person as 3 years, 2 years, 1 year, 1 month ago ... My parts change, I change! My system doesn't work the same way it once did. Locking the dissociative parts into roles, ages, and representations is to condemn them never to be appeased! It is to condemn them to perpetual suffering!
Realizing that we have dissociative parts is essential at the beginning, it is then necessary that these parts gradually accept to spend time and share the here and and now, the daily life of the person. The "processing of dissociative memories" is done in parallel but it is not the "priority" for me. Adjusting our beliefs, ceasing to function in terms of all or nothing, black or white, good and bad is the most important. Understand the reality of our current life, succeed in orienting ourselves in the present, understand when we act automatically as in the past and discern our false beliefs (no one will believe us, there is no hope, everyone is bad ...), all this is essential!
My therapy helps me understand that sharing dissociative memories is a very long journey. The assimilation of our wounds and their understanding will be done very slowly, in parallel. The most important thing is to make all the dissociative parties understand that we are safe and that our daily life, our reality has changed, that what they experienced is a thing of the past. The complete sharing of memories is the "bonus", the ultimate reassembly. And this sharing, when there is a good dialogue and a good mutual understanding, is done very gently, in a kind of inner relief, of recognition, of a sigh of joy and of happiness.
Finally I am seen, finally I am heard, finally I no longer have to wear this alone! I have the choice ! I can live and feel something else now!
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