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Johnny-Jack's Musings and Some Alter Stories
Hi, all! I finally figured out a few years ago that I am multiple, having suffered yet to some degree succeeded in life with dissociative identity disorder. Like many with DID, there had been areas of and moments in my life that were confusing and dysfunctional but I could never figure out why.

I had periodic depressions and my memory was often poor. But I didn't experience the hallmarks of DID like losing chunks of time. In my search for answers I spent a fortune on books, seminars, and therapists. I considered the possibility of having DID many times, but the clues I had gave me no certainty and no therapist helped me focus on the potential root cause of my problems. Blocked awareness and inaccessible memories are how DID works. A blessing in childhood, problematic later.

Several years ago, trauma memories started coming to me in images and flashbacks, and alters "woke up" and communicated with me. It was easy to admit then that I had DID. I had always felt a bit like a counterfeit. But it was impossible to fathom how the "good" parents I remembered were randomly monstrous abusers of me as a child, psychologically, physically and sexually.

I will never, ever, ever understand how a person, let alone a parent, can hurt a small, innocent, utterly defenseless child, not once but hundreds of time. It is contrary to the most basic human instinct to nurture and protect one's offspring. But it happened. Though it wasn't necessary, I sought and discovered external proof it happened. Now I work in therapy and in life to reverse the damage these warped people caused.

In 2011 I began communicating with a teen with DID and, when it looked like he would become homeless, I hired him from across the country -- knowing it would be a challenge -- as a live-in personal assistant to cook, drive and run errands. We soon began to rely on and support each other the way healthy families do, so I adopted him. Really, I adopted them, dozens of sons and daughters.

Over the years we've learned how to attach to another person, safely and in a family context. I sometimes feel rage when I think about his parents or mine. Still, both of us are prospering. Living well is the best revenge.
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Johnny-Jack
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how we avoided an internal war
   Sat Mar 28, 2020 2:44 am

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how we avoided an internal war

Permanent Linkby Johnny-Jack on Sat Mar 28, 2020 2:44 am

Communication is one of the keys to healing from DID. But sometimes communication fails. Fighting among alters, and certainly disagreements, are not always negative. Sometimes they're what's needed to achieve true communication.

DID is so named because the aspects of what makes a person whole are dissociated, mostly due to repeated, unavoidable, and continuous childhood trauma. So it was for us.

We recently began in earnest to assemble a coalition of alters and started to journal about it, in hopes that everyone might get the message. Our coalition of our most experienced alters, even including some littles, were prepared to "go to war" with our large subsystem of "card" alters who have been virtually inaccessible yet in control of the majority of our time and on autopilot for decades.

There was no amnesia for what they did. How they spent our time wasn't doing anything awful, it was mostly watching TV and doing repetitive, unimportant things on the computer. In short, they have wasted, in the opinion of our hosts, a massive amount of time in our life. And even though we've learned what was happening, we remained powerless to change it. We recently discovered this subsystem was under the control of two unemotional adult alters, previously unknown.

We had found them all and could even see inside their factory of sorts, but we had as yet had no success breaking into their space to get their attention. Sphinx, the ultimate pacifist, suggested we get ready to go to war in order to break through and open up communication. He had tried on his own with no success; the boundaries were stronger than he expected. We started checking inside to see who'd be a willing ally, who would be better sitting it out, who among us were probably not reliable. And we assembled a list of allies.

It was the threat of an impending fight, and oddly perhaps the current COVID situation which eliminated our need to be at work and hold it together in person for 4-8 weeks, that seemed to have led the leaders of this subsystem to suddenly begin communicating via journaling. It didn't start with them explaining or justifying their thinking. Rather they began replaying for us and recording in word the hopeless thoughts, painful emotions, and suicidal plans from the abuse and betrayal we experienced at age 13.

The fight or war was never going to be brutal or cruel, it was an internal only battle. Our general intent was to band together to create an intense focused pressure on the subsystem to open up. However it happened, it worked and the need for that conflict now feels behind us because we have communication.

Dx = DID. My blog. My personal Periodic Table of 78 alters.
Ab Ad Al Am An Ar As Ba Be Br Ca Cb Ch Cl Cm Cn Co Cp Ct Cu Cv D Eb Ed Er Es F Fl Ga Gd Go Gr Gw He Hk Hs Ht I J Jh Jk Jn Jy Ke Ki Kn Ky Li Lu Md Mi Mt Mx Mz Ne Ni O Pe Pi Q Ra Rd Ry Sc Se Sh Sk Sx Tk Ty U V Wa Wi X Y Ze Zn


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