How do you get parts to the point of recognizing who they are? How do you get other parts to recognize who is out?
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
I think it’s a lot like getting to know a new group of people in a new setting. At first, you can’t remember anyone’s names, and some people look alike so you get them confused all the time. But with more time spent with them – time and repetition – you start remembering who people are and what they’re about. So it seems a lot like any other relationship – where I can’t force time and experiences together to happen faster – they just do – in time – and eventually I begin to ‘know’ the people and a relationship begins to form.
I seem to have people surface often, who don’t know who they are. If they don’t know who they are, how is anyone else supposed to know who they are?! It seems like the more a particular one surfaces though, the more that gets learned about them. So again, over time and across various circumstances – they become known, and may be given a name. Some seem to have a name right from the start, but there have also been several unknowns. And it may be a year between when some ‘unknown’ surfaces – to when they surface again for some reason.
I don’t know. I guess I think that if it’s important – they will eventually be known. I don’t have to ‘try’ to make myself know who all is in here. If it’s important, in time I will ‘know’. …… I’m SO not in a rush to force anything in this process ……. I just want to keep getting more and more functional – and slowly, I am. And I’m thankful.
we’ve been working on this one, and i finally got a chance to discuss this and other things i’ve been concerned about with my therapist. not that we came to any conclusions, but she said she’d think about ways we could work with it.
anyhow, the problem in our system is not just that parts don’t necessarily know who they are, but that very often, several of us will be out, and operating simultaneously, but we won’t all know who’s there, or that we’re not the only one there, and stuff like that. and it’s a challenge to figure that out, because the different combinations of who is out can sometimes get really confusing.
we haven’t had really good boundaries between ourselves, which might be considered a good thing. except we also don’t realize that we have to communicate with each other, because it’s not clear that there’s more than one part out, so then whoever is out starts doing something different from what they planned, and gets very confused and frustrated, but we don’t know that it’s because there’s more than one part out.
sometimes it operates more smoothly than that. like, if a part is out with another one, but they think they’re the only one out, and then they don’t know how to respond in a situation, but the other one(s) out *do*, and so whoever didn’t know what to do is really surprised to find the right words coming out of their mouth, when they think they’re in control, but they’re not the only one there… i’m not making any sense here, am i?
but the problem comes in when parts don’t really realize who they are, and make decisions that negatively affect the rest of us, but they think they’re someone else in the system. grace, who used to be “the suicidal one” had a *BIG* problem with that, not realizing she was who she was, so she would think, as she was out with whoever else was coming out, that *all* of us felt the way she did, and it meant that she/we started to think we were all suicidal, when in fact, it was just grace not containing her own feelings within her own “skin”. or when i (ellis) or jamie would get mad at someone, but we wouldn’t recognize who we were, and we’d think *everyone* was mad, and then whoever was out would also start to have those feelings.
one thing i/we have noticed is that feelings are very much of a body thing. and when more than one part is out, and one part is feeling something very strongly, whoever else is out will *also* start to feel that, because it’s in the body. but the more we can be aware of ourselves as individuals, the less that happens. which doesn’t mean we can’t share in feelings about things, but it means it’s more like being with someone who is having a feeling, instead of having it yourself, and it’s easier to have sane reactions to things, instead of getting caught up in it.
i’m rambling here, but there’s a lot on my mind. also, i think grace or someone is out as well, because i keep making typos and i know grace is the one who has that particular weird typing thing going on. so anyhow, i guess it isn’t just ellis, but also grace. like that.
i guess chariots is right, that the more time you spend with someone, the better you’re able to recognize them.
but it’s also helped recently, just a little, to encourage more parts to get their own “rooms” in the magic house, because that somehow helps them to have a greater sense of themselves as individuals.
and also for parts to think about who they are, and all of that. and to work really hard on all of us trying to recognize who we are, and that there are different parts, and that we’re separate from each other.
i know the official treatment guidelines for DID say that we should NOT work to separate from each other more, but in my system, things get SO much calmer and more organized, and it’s way easier to cooperate and just function, the more we’re able to separate from each other. so i don’t know. it’s what i’m doing right now, and the people in my life (including my therapist) seem to think it’s a good thing.
sorry to write so much.
Since i know this will show up on the recent posts, and im sure thats what everyone checks first, im going to take a risk here. Im oficialy refering to my collective self as nutmeg. This is a nickname that me and one of my alters have been using in public. So i run the risk of being “outed” now. So be it, i need to stop hiding. I dont know why, but i do. So from glenn (host), to “we” to nutmeg. Sorry for the confusion guys, any way, i discover my other ones when i have a thought, and i go ” wait a miniuit, that dosnt sound like me” so i “listen” for the next time it happens. Its like stalking a deer. Pretty soon you getclose enough to see it. And sometimes you can coaks it out. Until that happens though, i can never be sure if its realy a ” new ” alter or not.
Hi nutmeg. Don’t worry about any apologies. And no one has to go by a collective name unless you want to. It’s whatever you and your system want to do. You can even submit a comment and leave all the boxes blank (name, email, etc) – and it will come up as anonymous.
Thank you for understanding. Im still learning about me. Im still not sure of the others motivations.