Integration – what does it really mean? Â … or what do you think it means?
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
Integration – what does it really mean? Â … or what do you think it means?
I’ve been struggling with what integration means. Does it mean I have to accept all my people’s stories as mine? If it means I have to feel like their stories are really my stories – and that what happened to them, happened to me…. that I have to FEEL this…… yikes. According to one definition in the dictionary it means, “the intermixing of people or groups previously segregated”. …… maybe for me right now it just means mingling or ‘intermixing’ a little more with everyone!
I think integration means a lot of different things to different people. I worried once that it meant we all had to be ‘smushed’ together to form one individual personality. I did not want to cease to be, to exist. I use to feel like I was a person in the back of the elevator who could not get out. Now that I am out, I want to to be alive. I want to experience myself and life. Maybe integration for those of us who have DID has a different meaning than it might to other people.
I like what you say, mingling and intermixing. Sounds like a good “get together.”
I have struggled against integration but your view is reassuring.
I think the definition of integration is what you and your system define it as. It really isn’t up to anyone else. It’s a system decision on how you might best work and function as you heal over time. It really is up to the individual and their system members, needs and functions. For me, integration means we all learn to work together better as a team and each part of the system has a healing journey that we all share in. That seems to work best for us at this stage. We don’t spend a lot of time worrying about integration things any more. We devote a lot of time to developing trust within all members of our crew and we trust that we will know what is right for all at the appropriate time. The best part about it…it is our decision and we trust ourselves to follow the right direction. Hope that makes sense. It was a huge relief that the therapist(s) concurred and totally supported that view. No one was forcing any definition of integration. It was ours to find, discover, trust and secure. That was the best news of all.
we were reading that book ‘switching time’ and we’re in the part about integrations happening. it’s like ‘ok, time to integrate’ and ‘boom!’ they integrate. i don’t know. this isn’t comfortable to me. but when i was reading i saw our inside house and see/know that 2 of our people have been looking faded. and it seems like they are just always with someone else and barely ever out on their own anymore. so i was thinking – this is probably how it will go with us. people start to fade or something and you can see it. and eventually they are just part of someone else. like the particles that made them up before have partly moved into someone else. like star trek or something. we did the ‘boom’ once before – and it basically didn’t end up working in the long run. we broke up again. anyway – who knows. just thinking.
for me, maybe integration is more about each part becoming more whole? what i mean is, when we are cooperating, and recognizing who we are, we start to get centered and balanced. but it works best when we do that while defining ourselves more clearly from each other. and then it’s easier to cooperate and get things done, and not keep switching uncontrollably… i mean, maybe we still switch, but we don’t lose as much time, and we don’t have so much conflict in the system. but there are some parts who are really uncomfortable with the idea of working to make sure each part is more separate from the others, even though that actually *works* better for us.
who knows, though. i think the systems i’ve seen talking about integration and stuff have adults who are more active, and the adults have been pretty much shut out for months. they were starting to come out a little more, and then a bunch of new parts showed up, and it feels like everything is back to the beginning. chaos, lots of switching, losing time, not being able to communicate inside. so that’s frustrating. and the adults have been pushed back again.
ps–that was me, grace, but i forgot to sign when i wrote the comment.
May I ask a question? I didn’t know where else to ask this and I hope it doesn’t cause a challenge or something but I honestly don’t understand. I don’t have the luxury of attending meetings with all of you and I wish I could, so your website and the blog mean a lot to me. I don’t understand the request that one speak from the “I” perspective. Sometimes I can do that, but most of the time, the term “we” is frequently used and always has been. “I” am a “we” and I guess, I always felt like the expression was more valid than the pronoun one used. I’m not an “I” and we’re just kind of getting to know all the “we’s” that comprise this “me” and sometimes I’m going to slip and let loose of a “we”. I’ll apologize for that in advance, I guess. I have a hard time getting my arms around the concept of an “I” and making sure I speak from that perspective all the time when I am not an I. I would genuinely like to understand the premise behind the rule. Understanding the rule might help remind me not to say “we” when it might be offensive to everyone or something. Can someone explain and I’m really sorry we had to ask.
The whole issue of guidelines will be discussed more at our next meeting. And definitely in a DID/MPD blog, we should be able to use “we”! The “I” thing is meant more as a generality that you should speak about yourself rather than someone else outside your body ….. see the guidelines now – hope that helps. Anyway, we do have guidelines we follow in our meetings, as you can see on the “Meetings” section of our website. Some of these rules would apply to blogging, but most don’t! So – just a few guidelines are posted for now – until we meet to discuss things some more. In the end, we want to create a safe place for people to blog. Hope that answers your questions a little bit at least! Thanks for asking, and definitely feel free to use “we/our/us” etc!!! …. or even “she/he” if the she/he is part of your system.
Thank you so much! We appreciate it and understand what you are trying to accomplish. All of you have done a wonderful job with the web site and this blog. Keep doing what you are doing! It matters…a lot.
I do not feel at one with my parts. Sometimes I refer to them and me as I am not my parts. However, I am my parts. I know that in my head but not inside. As certain parts and I communicate more and more, all of a sudden it’s like we are working as a team. It’s a wonderful experience. Sometimes I become aware (somehow) that it’s time for that part to integrate. Once I “hear” the message, I check within. Then we we are sure, we let the process happen. It has always been the same. The part and I are together, then the part kind of meshes with me a little at a time. And then she/he is no longer there. I immediately feel more whole and stronger. I become aware of how I see some things differently. I even get memories I did not have before (NOT a barrage of them!) The integration experience is very emotional for me. When it is over, that part is no longer present. That part is now me. I don’t know how else to explain it. For me it’s a great experience.
My T says that integration is like evolution. Before you graduated HS you didn’t know what it would be like next until you experienced it.
Also that integration happens when there is no longer a need for such rigid walls between parts. It probably feels different for different people. I think for some of us, things may be so scary that full or even partial integration may not be possible. In terms of recovering memories, I have no idea what this all means. I’m not ready for that yet.
interesting. in my system, it seems to be that we’ve just been such different *people* that integration isn’t really possible. even when we’re co-present and experiencing the same things, or even co-conscious, we experience it differently. and there’s always been a *lot* of co-presence. that’s made recovering memories an interesting process, because often several of us will remember something, but we remember it differently. and while no part seems to have experienced *everything*, there’s still a degree of being able to process through things with each part contributing their experience.
one thing we’ve found is that even when a part seems to be pretty much one-dimensional (ie, holding a lot of anger, or sadness, or something like that), as they get a chance to spend more time out, they have a much fuller range of who they are. so as we spend more time working together, parts have had a chance to get recognized even when they’re not in crisis, and that’s helped things a fair amount.
we’ve been working on moving from co-presence, which has always happened, to greater co-consciousness and cooperation, since those are real stumbling blocks for us, and it means that some parts have felt they just have to take over when they want or need something, because they often feel like they haven’t been listened to when they express their needs.