i’ve been thinking a lot about trust lately. the trust i have for other people, but also about trust within my system. i think one of the big problems we cope with in this system is we don’t really trust each other very much. i mean like, ellis (who is very responsible and bossy and stuff) doesn’t trust most of us other teenagers, or the little kids, to do jobs “right.” most of us younger ones don’t trust the adults to pay any attention to us or make sure we get help. i think maybe some of the little kids are more trusting. well, no, not all of them. *some* of the little kids are the least trusting ones you could think of. they aren’t even convinced that we’re not trying to trick them when we say that they’re in a safe place, far away from the bad stuff (both in time and in physical distance).
so it’s something we’re working on. but it’s hard, because i think each of us feels that our “job” is the most important one, and the jobs don’t necessarily mesh. i mean, if one part’s job is to make sure we don’t get over-burdened with responsibility, and *another* part’s job is to make sure we take care of all of the responsibilities… that’s just gonna conflict. and it’s hard to trust that we really can meet in the middle.
and there’s the guilt that comes from trusting my own reality. so trusting that it’s ok to stop listening to the negative messages i was raised with, or trusting that it’s ok to find a path to healing that is different from the official treatment guidelines for DID, or trusting myself to know the difference between a healthy behavior and an unhealthy one…. yeah, so there’s that aspect of trust too.
Maria
I know you have written before about finding the way that is best for you to handle your DID and your T agrees with this. I too know that I have to find a way to live our lives fully and it may not be the current theory in the psych treatment manuals. But I have to do it the way that I feel is best for all of us.
I identify with some things you say. But I am not sure if it is that we don’t trust one another or if we each believe “our way” is the best way or possibly the younger ones just want their own way. Maybe its the same thing and adults only say it differently.
I find it often difficult to compromise or meet in the middle. this is true within the system but also true of the external world.
I really respect you for trying to follow a path to healing that may differ from official treatment. But if I remember you have that therapist who supports this. So you are not doing this alone. I am following a non traditional path with the help of a therapist I trust. And I am beginning to know that I can usually trust us. We have our problems sometimes but we really do care for one another and don’t want to hurt. And somehow I feel we sense the difference mostly between healthy behavior and unhealthy…even if we don’t always follow the healthy.
I don’t know what other path to take but one that feels kind to all of us.
Maria
I think I just lost some trust with one of the young ones, my Cathy. I tried to register her at another place for littles using what I thought was an old but still active email address. It failed. She was crushed and thought I was trying to be too secretive. I feel the need to be protective of myself and still trusting of other people carefully and with discretion. I like the idea of this blog but I don’t want to be too public. I am also wondering if I should adopt one main user name that is a non de plum, so to speak, so that others will know it is us writing,,,our same system. Otherwise, how can we introduce ourself without disclosing too much publicly?
I want to stay part of this blog but am feeling confused and overwhelmed and the most careful adults are holding back.
any suggestions?
it can be hard to build trust inside, because one slip, and it feels like you’re back at the beginning. but something i’ve found is that even though it feels like i’m back at the beginning, when there is consistent trustworthy behavior, and a willingness to admit to (and correct) mistakes, not all the trust is lost from a single mistake.
with names, i’m lucky in that my system has a single name we can agree on to represent us generally (well, a couple of them, because there’s the body’s name, which refers to us generally, and the name we use online–jigsaw analogy). your question made me think to use the general name, and then something more specific if someone wants to put their own name in the name spot.
Michael
Trust inside is a gift given to one another in honoring all of the differences and working together to address differences in opinion or approach to something. We work pretty hard to honor and validate everyone inside. We have a buddy system where every little has an older buddy inside that can help interpret what the littles need and give them a voice. The older buddy has a similar teenage buddy and the adults are buddies all the way down the ladder and help everyone try to communicate inside in positive ways. Doesn’t mean we always succeed. Means we always try and it’s kind in the trying that we built the trust inside. As long as we know we are all trying to support one another, the trying builds the trust within. As long as we honor one another and validate any and all feelings and open the floor to discussion of those feelings and give everyone a venue for those thoughts, feelings and actions they may have, we tend to get a lot accomplished. Some of the other things we do to build trust within is take a day and make it someone’s special day inside so everyone gets to know one another a lot better. That insider’s special day, they get to choose (within reason) the clothing (outside of business), the dinner (healthy), they lead the prayers that day and they get time to execute their hobby or interest that day. We learned a lot about ourselves doing that. Now the littles help the bigs when they get frustrated and the bigs help the littles and the in betweeners. If we make a mistake, we all take a look at that mistake and how we might own it, learn from it and change it in the future. We would not be who we are without all parts of our system and we just try to find safe places and safe/healthy ways to give everyone a venue for sharing everything inside, good or challenging things. Oh, we also CELEBRATE things. We CELEBRATE every single solitary thing a little insider accomplishes. We celebrate successes and really, really celebrate the things where we learned something, even if we skinned a knee doing so. We find something, usually many things, to celebrate and if you just ask inside, what can we celebrate today at the end of every day, you get all kinds of things in there (mostly because celebrations involve special things like COOKIES (just one) or may an outing to celebrate something, we’ll take the little parts to the zoo or the book store or just have story time for the littles where some of the bigs read it to the littles or maybe drawing time for the littles. The point is, we win as a team and we address our challenges as a team. That’s kind of how we do it. If somebody is upset in there, we have ways to acknowledge their memory or whatever upset them. Usually, the current person gives up their special day for the little person who is upset about something and we all work with special recognition for that little part, particularly those who share the same memory set as that little part. We have learned how to celebrate and how to console one another. We’re still working on how to do 100000 other things, but there’s a lot of trust inside that we will get there together. Don’t know if that helps or not. It’s all we know. We sure don’t know what on earth those two words are below. We’ll try them.
i guess teamwork is something a system has to build up to.
the adults in our system felt like everything was under control, and even though they had to deal with DID, they were going to do everything perfectly, and they would Overcome The Obstacle and be all perfect by insisting that they could just decide we’d work together as a team, and there would be no problems.
that kind of fell apart for us. i guess for us, it’s really messy to build trust, and a lot of that is, different parts have their own opinions about how things should work, and we’re not able to just fall together and operate seamlessly without a ton of problems.
for us, it’s messy and complicated and frustrating and aggravating. sometimes it’s also fun and playful. but it’s like having a group of people–a family, or friends, or any of it. people. people that don’t always get along. people that don’t always cooperate. people that don’t always agree on the goal.
add to that the fact that we younger ones have very good reasons to be leery of trusting people, because we’ve experienced a lot of hurt… well, we’re just not anywhere near perfect. and it kind of sucks, because it would be nice to be able to have a smoothly operating system where everyone was able to feel like all their needs were being met easily.
don’t get me wrong. there is cooperation. but we’re also coping with sheer messiness and imperfection. and we’re working on being able to accept doing things “wrong” because for us, that does seem to be the right path. it’s just hard, because lots of us, not just the adults, would like to be able to do things the “right way,” because we were taught not to follow what feels right to us. and we worry about what other people will think of us, and we struggle with shame and guilt. but in the end, i guess each person needs to do what works for them.
ps–if you click the little arrows to the right of the place to type, it’ll give you a new pair of words, and usually after trying a couple of times, i can find some i can decipher.
A few notes – also left in the “Blogspot for Younger Insiders”:
**We will get the new NYC DID Bulletin Board posted here on the blog and on our main site soon! Thanks for setting this up Jigsaw.
**Also – as for creating more privacy on this site – we would need to take it to the next group meeting and have a vote on that. In discussing the blog at the last meeting – everyone liked it and felt ok about it as it is. But it is new and changes can keep being made till we’re happy about it.
My suggestion for now, would be to create a ‘group’ name like Jigsaw suggested. It really is up to you – because even a ‘private bulletin board’ – is not TOTALLY safe. Whether you write in to a private board or blog or not, you still need to protect your privacy, and the privacy of those you refer to. Ie – using an initial for the name of your therapist or significant other or friends, etc. In general, write in such a way as to protect yourself and those you know. Writing anything personal/private online carries some risk.
In light of this issue – a new blog guideline has been added that reads:
4) Be careful not to share personal/private information such as: Your real name, phone numbers, address, email, names of those you know and care about (significant other, friends, therapist, etc), meeting places. Recognize that anyone can read this, so protect yourself and others you know.
**As for the wavy words that you have to type to submit your comments – If you click on the “?” next to the “reCaptcha” word, it explains a lot about it. For one thing, doing this keeps computers from spamming our blog – in order for a comment to come through, an actual person needs to see these words and type them. Another thing that’s kinda cool about it – is apparently we’re providing a service to the world – one of the 2 words is an actual scanned word from documents that are in the process of being converted to digital type. Apparently we are helping to convert these documents each time we do this!
However, if enough people hate this, it can be removed. It just provides a bit of a safety net from spam.
cool! i didn’t know that about the helping to convert documents part!
it might be annoying to have to type in the words, but for myself, i’d rather do that than wade through a bunch of spam.
i agree with rule #4–seems to me like a way of balancing between being too cautious, and not being cautious enough.
Flowers our group name/Maria
Thank you for sharing all your idea on trust. I think all humans have issues of trust. Our issues may be more complicated but maybe at the heart of things they are very similar to all other people. Celebrating everything (Life) and each other is important. Also having inside helpers supporting one another is a great idea. We usually share many of the same feelings. So if one of us is very afraid the rest will feel that fear in varying degrees.
In reading the blogs above I see how hard we all work to create trust and to do our best. We make mistakes, like everyone else in the world, and then we try and learn from them or find a better way to deal with them.
I applaud all of us here. I think we are all trying to be the best we can. So bravo to us!!!!
one thing i’ve noticed in my system is that if one part feels something strongly, others will get the body response of that feeling, and share it. like, if one part is having a flashback, the other parts who are out will feel their heart pounding, and their breathing being more anxious, and the physical tension. and since our minds kind of respond to the physical symptoms, we will feel whatever feeling in our bodies, and then it turns into an emotion. it’s helped a lot to start to recognize when something is coming from another part, and to kind of ask them to contain it… not so we can ignore it, but so we can find a better way to cope with it.
i guess that’s partly a trust thing as well, since it takes trusting each other to continue to listen, even if we’re not forcing them to do it. like, some of the parts would make panic attacks happen, because they felt like they weren’t being heard any other way. and the more we’re able to listen, the less that happens. kind of, anyways. it’s not as easy as just deciding to do it!
Flowers our group name/jane
ellis, I am jane and I am a teenager too. what you described about what happens to the body when one of us is having a very strong feeling is exactly what we experience. it is not always easy for us to identify where a big feeling or panic attack is coming from. so at times a panic attack will sweep over us. also the breathing thing is a problem. I am more tough then they are sometimes. I use to get angry and take it out on me and they asked me to stop cause I was hurting the body. and finally I was able to stop. now maybe we can try and watch the others panic feelings and the way some of them startle so badly. this is a good suggestion.
also paying attention when one of us is having a flashback. when that happens we just try to comfort that one but sometimes we all get sucked into it and then it is tough. I know this line is about trust so I hope I didn’t go off topic.
i think building trust involve all of this stuff–communication, listening to each other, getting to know each other. that’s just my opinion.
one thing we’re really struggling with is admitting to ourselves, or others, about the fact that there are parts inside that are abusive to us. very abusive. physically–a lot of the “self-harm” stuff is that technically, but it’s not so much a part hurting itself as an abusive part hurting someone who did something “wrong.” that’s hard for us, because how can we trust them? how can we trust that it’s safe to tell about them? how can we trust ourselves not to be making it up, and blaming something outside of our inside selves for it? shouldn’t we take responsibility? lots of mixed up feelings about that.
but… starting to accept that it is a different part, that somehow *is* helping. i was talking to the body’s partner about this, and said that it’s like when you see a kid come into school with bruises. you respond differently if they are the ones causing it than if someone else is hurting them.
not sure where i was going with that. but somehow, it’s tied in with trust for me.
Michael
Cool comments, Flowers. Jigsaw, we totally like your self-honesty. We also agree with you. Everything relates to trust and particularly developing trust of self. We had the same challenge and the same mixed up feelings you referenced when we had to deal with four parts of our system that really presented challenges like you referenced. Sometimes they still do but we keep trying to understand what their role was historically in our system and we learned a lot with that one. They are all four super-defenders. They protected this person historically in different ways and they learned that behavior. So, we kind of all started to understand where they fit in and we started to listen to what they had to say and we started to speak up inside. The little parts learned to speak up for themselves. The older parts helped the super-defenders understand what they had learned from someone eles was wrong. We worked hard and then everyone noticed these four were incredibly strong parts. We figured if we could get them to share their energy in more positive ways inside, it would magnify and help a lot, so the littles decided to pester them about it and over time, relationships developed. Littles got stronger being able to speak up for the first time for themselves and the super-defenders started learning how to have relationships inside with other parts and they became less abusive internally as they learned to value other parts and to be valued by other parts. It took a ton of work and YES, there are times where something BIG will happen and it all goes to heck in a handbasket, but we learned how to pick the pieces up again and work at it better. It’s frustrating a lot, but when we get it right and those super-defenders are super supportive of the little insiders, it’s worth it. It’s totally worth the aggravation, the frustration and everything else. We just started trying to understand the more internally abusive part’s role and the why’s and to get other parts that are more nurturing parts to reach out to the more abusive parts and it really helped both sides of the emotional equation. Don’t know if that helps or not. We hope it does. It isn’t always successful but it helps us. We’d kind of like to help you, too. You have tons of great thoughts and ideas and best of all, your honest with yourself. We respect the stew out of that.
DK
TRUST NO ONE
Michael
Hi, DK! We can understand how you feel. We used to feel that way too. For us, it was hard, still is, but trusting someone else a little bit at a time and learning to trust different people different ways actually helped us learn to trust ourselves more. We found it wasn’t good for us to stay so isolated and so we have learned to trust a few people a little bit with certain things. Do we trust anyone with ourselves and all of who we are totally? Nope. But the little pockets of trust we’ve been working hard with actually mean a lot to us. So we’ve kind of gone from TRUST NO ONE to TRUST SOMEONE and then you get to TRUST YOURSELF better too. Trust is kind of a circular gift in that respect, but gosh we know where you are coming from. Just some caring thoughts, no advice meant. You comment struck home and we just kind of wanted to reach out to you a little bit. Hope we have done that.
Flowers...jane
DK Wow. I like you. You say what you feel. But I hope what you feel doesn’t make you hurt inside.
Some things I trust on some days. Some parts I trust on some days.
And some day I hurt inside and feel very sore and tender and then I trust nothing.
But it hurts my heart.
Flowers...Sarah
I am wondering if it is okay to ask if most of you are “out” to your friends, work world. acquaintances….the world. We are only out to our therapist and one friend who is very confused about us.
I guess this relates to trust but it could also relate to discretion and privacy.
chariots
Oo – we’ve talked about this at the group a couple times I think. Where there are different levels you have with people:
-People who you’d NEVER tell anything to – like at work maybe
-People who you feel you can tell you’ve had some struggles with stuff like PTSD or something related, but still not DID
-People who know you have DID, but who don’t actually see it – because you guard yourself too much around them (they don’t have your full trust for some reason)
-People who know and who see
Personally, yes – there are others who know and have seen my DID. This is fairly recent though… like the last 2 years?? It’s been amazing though – ‘coming out’ to a few people and meeting DID people – wow. I know it’s been invaluable in my process. I feel less and less crazy about who I am. …… don’t get me wrong though – it was really scary to allow myself to be ‘seen’ by some others. But there was a time and a need, and my therapist even helped with it. It’s really been a VERY important part of my healing – I know it.
i’m actually “out” to a fair number of people. my partner, my therapist, but also much of my partner’s family, quite a few of our friends, and some of my friends from college. for me, it’s partly because i’m used to coming out–feels like i’ve been coming out for most of my adult life, about one thing or another. and i have found repeatedly that it’s easier for me to be out than to try to hide things.
but there are people i don’t come out to, for one reason or another. i don’t know what i’d do if i were working, because that could get sticky. at the same time, though, it’s something where i’d rather have the control over how people found out, so i don’t know. it’s a bridge i’ll cross when i get there.
and there’s my family. they are one group where i just don’t have the trust to do it.
on the other hand, pretty much everyone who knows me has met quite a few different parts. not necessarily in an obvious way, in a way they can’t just ignore as quirky me. and that’s been fine.
in a lot of ways, the fact that my system doesn’t seem to have one single “front” has worked to my advantage, because it means that when i tell people, they can be like, “OH! you make so much more sense now!” and they can think back to all of the different “me”s they have known, and maybe it feels less weird to them.
my “coming out” has been pretty positive for me. i guess i only tell people in two situations: if i feel like i can predict that they will react well (is this trust? i’m not sure.) or if i have gotten to a point where i don’t care what their reaction will be.
i’m not out to the neighbors, or to random strangers on the street.
but i also have the DID/MPD awareness ribbon on my backpack, and eventually, i’ll probably get a bumper sticker for the car. if people ask about it, i guess i’ll decide what to say on a case by case basis. if nothing else, i can say i have “multiple issues” and leave it at that. 😉
ps–tee hee! the words at the bottom are “St. moderately.” that’s amusing me for some reason.
Flowers...Sarah
Thank you for telling me about how things go for you. This is a new experience for us…talking to others like ourselves. We are viewed as ecentric and full of fun unless we are being private. People don’t know me or the others. Our main person works and has what people call an “interesting” life. They think she is creative and imaginative and very good at her work. We use to hae a lot of “lost time.” About 7 years ago we had a horrible experience in the Bahamas. We survived but it caused us to go into therapy. There we remember and learned for the first time about each other….slowly. We are not “out.” People have been with may of us but they think it is just spontaneous expressions. I have learned to trust my therapist…7 years!…I guess I trust slowly. But this site and blog have really affected us and let us feel we have our own normal. So what is normal anyway? You both have made me feel more human, more real, more whole. Thank you for trusting me.
and to your ps. of St. moderately…mine is Upland -thee
this blog is a small step toward my trusting more I think.
small steps, heh?
although one thing i’ve found is that sometimes, if i’m scared of doing something, and i can kind of go over the possible outcomes in my head (as in the *rational* possible outcomes) and none of them is actually that bad… then even if i’m still scared, sometimes i just go ahead and do something. and it’s often such a relief to have done that!
just takes being able to make realistic predictions, i guess. like, posting on this blog, or going to a support group meeting… the absolute *worst* that could happen? not much. maybe you wouldn’t enjoy it.
it’s like that with coming out for me, too. the worst possible outcome is that it might be uncomfortable to talk about. and there are a few people where that has been true. but over the course of people knowing for a couple of years, some of the ones who *were* uncomfortable have actually gotten more comfortable with it.
i just wish i could figure out exactly what it was that happened so that my coming out experiences have been mostly positive, because then i could let other people know, and they could have the same experience.
i’ve been thinking a lot about trust lately. the trust i have for other people, but also about trust within my system. i think one of the big problems we cope with in this system is we don’t really trust each other very much. i mean like, ellis (who is very responsible and bossy and stuff) doesn’t trust most of us other teenagers, or the little kids, to do jobs “right.” most of us younger ones don’t trust the adults to pay any attention to us or make sure we get help. i think maybe some of the little kids are more trusting. well, no, not all of them. *some* of the little kids are the least trusting ones you could think of. they aren’t even convinced that we’re not trying to trick them when we say that they’re in a safe place, far away from the bad stuff (both in time and in physical distance).
so it’s something we’re working on. but it’s hard, because i think each of us feels that our “job” is the most important one, and the jobs don’t necessarily mesh. i mean, if one part’s job is to make sure we don’t get over-burdened with responsibility, and *another* part’s job is to make sure we take care of all of the responsibilities… that’s just gonna conflict. and it’s hard to trust that we really can meet in the middle.
and there’s the guilt that comes from trusting my own reality. so trusting that it’s ok to stop listening to the negative messages i was raised with, or trusting that it’s ok to find a path to healing that is different from the official treatment guidelines for DID, or trusting myself to know the difference between a healthy behavior and an unhealthy one…. yeah, so there’s that aspect of trust too.
I know you have written before about finding the way that is best for you to handle your DID and your T agrees with this. I too know that I have to find a way to live our lives fully and it may not be the current theory in the psych treatment manuals. But I have to do it the way that I feel is best for all of us.
I identify with some things you say. But I am not sure if it is that we don’t trust one another or if we each believe “our way” is the best way or possibly the younger ones just want their own way. Maybe its the same thing and adults only say it differently.
I find it often difficult to compromise or meet in the middle. this is true within the system but also true of the external world.
I really respect you for trying to follow a path to healing that may differ from official treatment. But if I remember you have that therapist who supports this. So you are not doing this alone. I am following a non traditional path with the help of a therapist I trust. And I am beginning to know that I can usually trust us. We have our problems sometimes but we really do care for one another and don’t want to hurt. And somehow I feel we sense the difference mostly between healthy behavior and unhealthy…even if we don’t always follow the healthy.
I don’t know what other path to take but one that feels kind to all of us.
I think I just lost some trust with one of the young ones, my Cathy. I tried to register her at another place for littles using what I thought was an old but still active email address. It failed. She was crushed and thought I was trying to be too secretive. I feel the need to be protective of myself and still trusting of other people carefully and with discretion. I like the idea of this blog but I don’t want to be too public. I am also wondering if I should adopt one main user name that is a non de plum, so to speak, so that others will know it is us writing,,,our same system. Otherwise, how can we introduce ourself without disclosing too much publicly?
I want to stay part of this blog but am feeling confused and overwhelmed and the most careful adults are holding back.
any suggestions?
it can be hard to build trust inside, because one slip, and it feels like you’re back at the beginning. but something i’ve found is that even though it feels like i’m back at the beginning, when there is consistent trustworthy behavior, and a willingness to admit to (and correct) mistakes, not all the trust is lost from a single mistake.
with names, i’m lucky in that my system has a single name we can agree on to represent us generally (well, a couple of them, because there’s the body’s name, which refers to us generally, and the name we use online–jigsaw analogy). your question made me think to use the general name, and then something more specific if someone wants to put their own name in the name spot.
Trust inside is a gift given to one another in honoring all of the differences and working together to address differences in opinion or approach to something. We work pretty hard to honor and validate everyone inside. We have a buddy system where every little has an older buddy inside that can help interpret what the littles need and give them a voice. The older buddy has a similar teenage buddy and the adults are buddies all the way down the ladder and help everyone try to communicate inside in positive ways. Doesn’t mean we always succeed. Means we always try and it’s kind in the trying that we built the trust inside. As long as we know we are all trying to support one another, the trying builds the trust within. As long as we honor one another and validate any and all feelings and open the floor to discussion of those feelings and give everyone a venue for those thoughts, feelings and actions they may have, we tend to get a lot accomplished. Some of the other things we do to build trust within is take a day and make it someone’s special day inside so everyone gets to know one another a lot better. That insider’s special day, they get to choose (within reason) the clothing (outside of business), the dinner (healthy), they lead the prayers that day and they get time to execute their hobby or interest that day. We learned a lot about ourselves doing that. Now the littles help the bigs when they get frustrated and the bigs help the littles and the in betweeners. If we make a mistake, we all take a look at that mistake and how we might own it, learn from it and change it in the future. We would not be who we are without all parts of our system and we just try to find safe places and safe/healthy ways to give everyone a venue for sharing everything inside, good or challenging things. Oh, we also CELEBRATE things. We CELEBRATE every single solitary thing a little insider accomplishes. We celebrate successes and really, really celebrate the things where we learned something, even if we skinned a knee doing so. We find something, usually many things, to celebrate and if you just ask inside, what can we celebrate today at the end of every day, you get all kinds of things in there (mostly because celebrations involve special things like COOKIES (just one) or may an outing to celebrate something, we’ll take the little parts to the zoo or the book store or just have story time for the littles where some of the bigs read it to the littles or maybe drawing time for the littles. The point is, we win as a team and we address our challenges as a team. That’s kind of how we do it. If somebody is upset in there, we have ways to acknowledge their memory or whatever upset them. Usually, the current person gives up their special day for the little person who is upset about something and we all work with special recognition for that little part, particularly those who share the same memory set as that little part. We have learned how to celebrate and how to console one another. We’re still working on how to do 100000 other things, but there’s a lot of trust inside that we will get there together. Don’t know if that helps or not. It’s all we know. We sure don’t know what on earth those two words are below. We’ll try them.
i guess teamwork is something a system has to build up to.
the adults in our system felt like everything was under control, and even though they had to deal with DID, they were going to do everything perfectly, and they would Overcome The Obstacle and be all perfect by insisting that they could just decide we’d work together as a team, and there would be no problems.
that kind of fell apart for us. i guess for us, it’s really messy to build trust, and a lot of that is, different parts have their own opinions about how things should work, and we’re not able to just fall together and operate seamlessly without a ton of problems.
for us, it’s messy and complicated and frustrating and aggravating. sometimes it’s also fun and playful. but it’s like having a group of people–a family, or friends, or any of it. people. people that don’t always get along. people that don’t always cooperate. people that don’t always agree on the goal.
add to that the fact that we younger ones have very good reasons to be leery of trusting people, because we’ve experienced a lot of hurt… well, we’re just not anywhere near perfect. and it kind of sucks, because it would be nice to be able to have a smoothly operating system where everyone was able to feel like all their needs were being met easily.
don’t get me wrong. there is cooperation. but we’re also coping with sheer messiness and imperfection. and we’re working on being able to accept doing things “wrong” because for us, that does seem to be the right path. it’s just hard, because lots of us, not just the adults, would like to be able to do things the “right way,” because we were taught not to follow what feels right to us. and we worry about what other people will think of us, and we struggle with shame and guilt. but in the end, i guess each person needs to do what works for them.
ps–if you click the little arrows to the right of the place to type, it’ll give you a new pair of words, and usually after trying a couple of times, i can find some i can decipher.
A few notes – also left in the “Blogspot for Younger Insiders”:
**We will get the new NYC DID Bulletin Board posted here on the blog and on our main site soon! Thanks for setting this up Jigsaw.
**Also – as for creating more privacy on this site – we would need to take it to the next group meeting and have a vote on that. In discussing the blog at the last meeting – everyone liked it and felt ok about it as it is. But it is new and changes can keep being made till we’re happy about it.
My suggestion for now, would be to create a ‘group’ name like Jigsaw suggested. It really is up to you – because even a ‘private bulletin board’ – is not TOTALLY safe. Whether you write in to a private board or blog or not, you still need to protect your privacy, and the privacy of those you refer to. Ie – using an initial for the name of your therapist or significant other or friends, etc. In general, write in such a way as to protect yourself and those you know. Writing anything personal/private online carries some risk.
In light of this issue – a new blog guideline has been added that reads:
4) Be careful not to share personal/private information such as: Your real name, phone numbers, address, email, names of those you know and care about (significant other, friends, therapist, etc), meeting places. Recognize that anyone can read this, so protect yourself and others you know.
**As for the wavy words that you have to type to submit your comments – If you click on the “?” next to the “reCaptcha” word, it explains a lot about it. For one thing, doing this keeps computers from spamming our blog – in order for a comment to come through, an actual person needs to see these words and type them. Another thing that’s kinda cool about it – is apparently we’re providing a service to the world – one of the 2 words is an actual scanned word from documents that are in the process of being converted to digital type. Apparently we are helping to convert these documents each time we do this!
However, if enough people hate this, it can be removed. It just provides a bit of a safety net from spam.
cool! i didn’t know that about the helping to convert documents part!
it might be annoying to have to type in the words, but for myself, i’d rather do that than wade through a bunch of spam.
i agree with rule #4–seems to me like a way of balancing between being too cautious, and not being cautious enough.
Thank you for sharing all your idea on trust. I think all humans have issues of trust. Our issues may be more complicated but maybe at the heart of things they are very similar to all other people. Celebrating everything (Life) and each other is important. Also having inside helpers supporting one another is a great idea. We usually share many of the same feelings. So if one of us is very afraid the rest will feel that fear in varying degrees.
In reading the blogs above I see how hard we all work to create trust and to do our best. We make mistakes, like everyone else in the world, and then we try and learn from them or find a better way to deal with them.
I applaud all of us here. I think we are all trying to be the best we can. So bravo to us!!!!
one thing i’ve noticed in my system is that if one part feels something strongly, others will get the body response of that feeling, and share it. like, if one part is having a flashback, the other parts who are out will feel their heart pounding, and their breathing being more anxious, and the physical tension. and since our minds kind of respond to the physical symptoms, we will feel whatever feeling in our bodies, and then it turns into an emotion. it’s helped a lot to start to recognize when something is coming from another part, and to kind of ask them to contain it… not so we can ignore it, but so we can find a better way to cope with it.
i guess that’s partly a trust thing as well, since it takes trusting each other to continue to listen, even if we’re not forcing them to do it. like, some of the parts would make panic attacks happen, because they felt like they weren’t being heard any other way. and the more we’re able to listen, the less that happens. kind of, anyways. it’s not as easy as just deciding to do it!
ellis, I am jane and I am a teenager too. what you described about what happens to the body when one of us is having a very strong feeling is exactly what we experience. it is not always easy for us to identify where a big feeling or panic attack is coming from. so at times a panic attack will sweep over us. also the breathing thing is a problem. I am more tough then they are sometimes. I use to get angry and take it out on me and they asked me to stop cause I was hurting the body. and finally I was able to stop. now maybe we can try and watch the others panic feelings and the way some of them startle so badly. this is a good suggestion.
also paying attention when one of us is having a flashback. when that happens we just try to comfort that one but sometimes we all get sucked into it and then it is tough. I know this line is about trust so I hope I didn’t go off topic.
i think building trust involve all of this stuff–communication, listening to each other, getting to know each other. that’s just my opinion.
one thing we’re really struggling with is admitting to ourselves, or others, about the fact that there are parts inside that are abusive to us. very abusive. physically–a lot of the “self-harm” stuff is that technically, but it’s not so much a part hurting itself as an abusive part hurting someone who did something “wrong.” that’s hard for us, because how can we trust them? how can we trust that it’s safe to tell about them? how can we trust ourselves not to be making it up, and blaming something outside of our inside selves for it? shouldn’t we take responsibility? lots of mixed up feelings about that.
but… starting to accept that it is a different part, that somehow *is* helping. i was talking to the body’s partner about this, and said that it’s like when you see a kid come into school with bruises. you respond differently if they are the ones causing it than if someone else is hurting them.
not sure where i was going with that. but somehow, it’s tied in with trust for me.
Cool comments, Flowers. Jigsaw, we totally like your self-honesty. We also agree with you. Everything relates to trust and particularly developing trust of self. We had the same challenge and the same mixed up feelings you referenced when we had to deal with four parts of our system that really presented challenges like you referenced. Sometimes they still do but we keep trying to understand what their role was historically in our system and we learned a lot with that one. They are all four super-defenders. They protected this person historically in different ways and they learned that behavior. So, we kind of all started to understand where they fit in and we started to listen to what they had to say and we started to speak up inside. The little parts learned to speak up for themselves. The older parts helped the super-defenders understand what they had learned from someone eles was wrong. We worked hard and then everyone noticed these four were incredibly strong parts. We figured if we could get them to share their energy in more positive ways inside, it would magnify and help a lot, so the littles decided to pester them about it and over time, relationships developed. Littles got stronger being able to speak up for the first time for themselves and the super-defenders started learning how to have relationships inside with other parts and they became less abusive internally as they learned to value other parts and to be valued by other parts. It took a ton of work and YES, there are times where something BIG will happen and it all goes to heck in a handbasket, but we learned how to pick the pieces up again and work at it better. It’s frustrating a lot, but when we get it right and those super-defenders are super supportive of the little insiders, it’s worth it. It’s totally worth the aggravation, the frustration and everything else. We just started trying to understand the more internally abusive part’s role and the why’s and to get other parts that are more nurturing parts to reach out to the more abusive parts and it really helped both sides of the emotional equation. Don’t know if that helps or not. We hope it does. It isn’t always successful but it helps us. We’d kind of like to help you, too. You have tons of great thoughts and ideas and best of all, your honest with yourself. We respect the stew out of that.
TRUST NO ONE
Hi, DK! We can understand how you feel. We used to feel that way too. For us, it was hard, still is, but trusting someone else a little bit at a time and learning to trust different people different ways actually helped us learn to trust ourselves more. We found it wasn’t good for us to stay so isolated and so we have learned to trust a few people a little bit with certain things. Do we trust anyone with ourselves and all of who we are totally? Nope. But the little pockets of trust we’ve been working hard with actually mean a lot to us. So we’ve kind of gone from TRUST NO ONE to TRUST SOMEONE and then you get to TRUST YOURSELF better too. Trust is kind of a circular gift in that respect, but gosh we know where you are coming from. Just some caring thoughts, no advice meant. You comment struck home and we just kind of wanted to reach out to you a little bit. Hope we have done that.
DK Wow. I like you. You say what you feel. But I hope what you feel doesn’t make you hurt inside.
Some things I trust on some days. Some parts I trust on some days.
And some day I hurt inside and feel very sore and tender and then I trust nothing.
But it hurts my heart.
I am wondering if it is okay to ask if most of you are “out” to your friends, work world. acquaintances….the world. We are only out to our therapist and one friend who is very confused about us.
I guess this relates to trust but it could also relate to discretion and privacy.
Oo – we’ve talked about this at the group a couple times I think. Where there are different levels you have with people:
-People who you’d NEVER tell anything to – like at work maybe
-People who you feel you can tell you’ve had some struggles with stuff like PTSD or something related, but still not DID
-People who know you have DID, but who don’t actually see it – because you guard yourself too much around them (they don’t have your full trust for some reason)
-People who know and who see
Personally, yes – there are others who know and have seen my DID. This is fairly recent though… like the last 2 years?? It’s been amazing though – ‘coming out’ to a few people and meeting DID people – wow. I know it’s been invaluable in my process. I feel less and less crazy about who I am. …… don’t get me wrong though – it was really scary to allow myself to be ‘seen’ by some others. But there was a time and a need, and my therapist even helped with it. It’s really been a VERY important part of my healing – I know it.
i’m actually “out” to a fair number of people. my partner, my therapist, but also much of my partner’s family, quite a few of our friends, and some of my friends from college. for me, it’s partly because i’m used to coming out–feels like i’ve been coming out for most of my adult life, about one thing or another. and i have found repeatedly that it’s easier for me to be out than to try to hide things.
but there are people i don’t come out to, for one reason or another. i don’t know what i’d do if i were working, because that could get sticky. at the same time, though, it’s something where i’d rather have the control over how people found out, so i don’t know. it’s a bridge i’ll cross when i get there.
and there’s my family. they are one group where i just don’t have the trust to do it.
on the other hand, pretty much everyone who knows me has met quite a few different parts. not necessarily in an obvious way, in a way they can’t just ignore as quirky me. and that’s been fine.
in a lot of ways, the fact that my system doesn’t seem to have one single “front” has worked to my advantage, because it means that when i tell people, they can be like, “OH! you make so much more sense now!” and they can think back to all of the different “me”s they have known, and maybe it feels less weird to them.
my “coming out” has been pretty positive for me. i guess i only tell people in two situations: if i feel like i can predict that they will react well (is this trust? i’m not sure.) or if i have gotten to a point where i don’t care what their reaction will be.
i’m not out to the neighbors, or to random strangers on the street.
but i also have the DID/MPD awareness ribbon on my backpack, and eventually, i’ll probably get a bumper sticker for the car. if people ask about it, i guess i’ll decide what to say on a case by case basis. if nothing else, i can say i have “multiple issues” and leave it at that. 😉
ps–tee hee! the words at the bottom are “St. moderately.” that’s amusing me for some reason.
Thank you for telling me about how things go for you. This is a new experience for us…talking to others like ourselves. We are viewed as ecentric and full of fun unless we are being private. People don’t know me or the others. Our main person works and has what people call an “interesting” life. They think she is creative and imaginative and very good at her work. We use to hae a lot of “lost time.” About 7 years ago we had a horrible experience in the Bahamas. We survived but it caused us to go into therapy. There we remember and learned for the first time about each other….slowly. We are not “out.” People have been with may of us but they think it is just spontaneous expressions. I have learned to trust my therapist…7 years!…I guess I trust slowly. But this site and blog have really affected us and let us feel we have our own normal. So what is normal anyway? You both have made me feel more human, more real, more whole. Thank you for trusting me.
and to your ps. of St. moderately…mine is Upland -thee
this blog is a small step toward my trusting more I think.
small steps, heh?
all it takes is small steps.
although one thing i’ve found is that sometimes, if i’m scared of doing something, and i can kind of go over the possible outcomes in my head (as in the *rational* possible outcomes) and none of them is actually that bad… then even if i’m still scared, sometimes i just go ahead and do something. and it’s often such a relief to have done that!
just takes being able to make realistic predictions, i guess. like, posting on this blog, or going to a support group meeting… the absolute *worst* that could happen? not much. maybe you wouldn’t enjoy it.
it’s like that with coming out for me, too. the worst possible outcome is that it might be uncomfortable to talk about. and there are a few people where that has been true. but over the course of people knowing for a couple of years, some of the ones who *were* uncomfortable have actually gotten more comfortable with it.
i just wish i could figure out exactly what it was that happened so that my coming out experiences have been mostly positive, because then i could let other people know, and they could have the same experience.