Spontaneous integration

I wondered if someone could explain to me what spontaneous integration is, what it feels like, how it works etc..? Will I know when/if it happens? How is it different from having 2 seperate personalities?

Thanks,

Bourbon

That happened to us I believe but I heard it doesn't last long that it is only temporary..which is why I came back to the forum because everyone was back. It was really weird its like I had everyone's thoughts and actions but they were my own during that time..I didn't like it.

I don't have DID, rather my girlfriend does, so I can't give a firsthand account but I'll try my best to explain what I know x[

She said it was her "awakening", and it felt like she was waking up from a really long sleep. Memories were there, but they were almost as if they didn't happen. Memories rushed to her in surges, and she seemed to be running through a lot of things instinctively. I'm the biggest part of her life, and she could barely remember my face. She knew she had me in her life, my name, and had non-linear memories of our experiences. Facebook helped her a lot with retrieving memories.

There were gaps here there and everywhere, that probably would have been filled in if she had stayed fused for longer. She was really happy while she was fused, and she felt alive. She said something along the lines of, "I feel like I've woken up for the first time in 2 years, everything is real again. I went to sleep sad, but I woke up happy. I thought to myself, life isn't so bad now."

As I said though, it's probably a lot more than just that. That's all I know =]

bourbon wrote:I wondered if someone could explain to me what spontaneous integration is, what it feels like, how it works etc..? Will I know when/if it happens? How is it different from having 2 seperate personalities?

Okay, first off this concerns integration meaning fusion. People experience integrations differently; integrations guided by a therapist tend to be very gentle and ritualized, heavy on abstract symbols of two (or more) becoming one. Spontaneous integrations mentioned in memoirs tend to be merely stated as, well, just happening, no details. In his memoir Robert Oxnam says two of his alters integrated with each other while he was elsewhere and he has no idea how it happened. I have wondered about those details!

*Trigger: sex*

Now here is my story, with perhaps Too Much Information. You have been warned. My first spontaneous integration, between me (Una) and Teen Girl, happened during some very hot sex with my husband. I was on top and approaching orgasm when suddenly I became aware that I had company. Teen Girl was there, co-conscious with me, fully sharing the experience with me, sharing our body. Our orgasm was incredible. It was hers and mine; my husband held himself back. Just remembering it now, I am again feeling on the verge of orgasm. I then had two more orgasms, almost as incredible, during which I was aware of other alters somehow "lurking" in my mind. I think they were co-present with me, paying attention and thinking their own private thoughts about what was happening.

*End trigger*

In the days and weeks afterward I noticed that Teen Girl was absent, that the last experience I had of her was during that first orgasm, and that I felt somehow different. Younger, lighter, sexier and more interested in sex, more feminine, more complete. I began searching for an explanation in the DID literature, and within minutes suspected the answer: during that orgasm, in the moment when we all typically feel that our boundaries have dissolved and for a moment two are one, Teen Girl and I literally became one. Nothing that I have read or experienced in the 6 months since then has changed the first answer.

It has taken me months to get comfortable with our being one. I felt some confusing intrapsychic conflicts over my clothing, personal grooming, and a number of other issues. I also mourned the "loss" of Teen Girl, even though she is (I am) right here, fully present. At the same time and even now I am rejoicing in my new life and still mourning my (Teen Girl's) 30 years of lost time.

*Trigger: sex*

More recently I had a spontaneous integration with Alter 1 and possibly also Alter 2. Again there was a huge orgasm. I felt an overwhelming, urgent need to masturbate, and suddenly they were co-conscious and there was a merging. It was all very fast and intense and although I knew and accepted what was happening I felt rather roughly treated and emotionally hurt. Why couldn't they have talked to me first? Since then there has been no more sense of Alter 1 in my head. I still feel Alter 1's emotions just as before but they are more immediate and they are in my body and they are mine, not in my head and someone else's. Now I am finding it much easier to know what the emotions are about, what thoughts and memories they relate to.

Una, I appreciate so much the direct honesty and clear matter-of-fact explanation with which you relate these experiences. We all know how unusual and intimate so much is about DID. Consider how many people now and in the future, people on the board and lurkers, can relate to and benefit from parts or all of your particular story, even with its pre-warned Too Much Information. That was great.

Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences. I think I will just have to wait and see if it comes along because at the moment I am baffled between all these subjective experiences. DID is so sensitive and so unique!

Bourbon

thank you for sharing your experience una. Your honesty is such a breath of fresh air.