Not allowed to have this and be this

Hmmm. *I* can say it, sure. That's not a problem at all. *I* can say what's true about my littles with ease. But that doesn't affect their not believing they have a right to exist and their believing it's not ok to be afraid.

I can certainly try to explore this further. I've acknowledged a bazillion times that "we" are full of terror and that my uppermost priority in T is to get relief from the terror. The little parts know I know they are full of terror and the people it's tied to, and I know some of why they are terrified. They know I believe them about what they have revealed. I have lived through many terror abreactions where little ones burst forth with a bit of terror and a smattering of info. A bit is a LOT when it's abject terror.

Oops, I've rabbited away. So I should try to validate their terror myself. Yeah, now that I'm typing this, I remember doing so quite a number of times. Not to say I can't try it some more.....

Hi Caeri,

I can identify with a lot of the "rules" your system has. We've had to shed quite a bit of those and are still working toward that. My system has some thick walls at times and it has seemed near impossible to get through them with words alone. Like you, I can easily determine that someone else has been abused and say, "I'm sorry, that was wrong and you didn't deserve that. It wasn't your fault." Finding that compassion for myself and myselves was more difficult in part due to the internal rules. You know the ones. We don't ever admit fear, frustration, anger, or even let on that anything was wrong in our lives. We have to maintain a strong and ultra composed front at all times......or else. I have been the host of my system for decades though strongly influenced by several parts all throughout so these rules are very hardened in my own headspace.

Living these rules to perfection has been the job of my front system and we have been quite proud of how well we fool people. Yet that fooling has been to our own detriment. We are living rules no normal people would ever even think of living by because they are incredibly cruel and abusive not to mention the fact that these very rules protect our abusers crimes. Part of breaking down the rules is finding a part of the unfairness of them in which YOU can personally connect to on an emotional level. It's one thing to say it isn't fair. Quite another to FEEL the unfairness. It's one thing to know your parts live in terror. Quite another to connect to that terror, feel the constant weight of it, and want to do something to end it. Once I felt that unfairness and terror in my own system on a heart level, I started to feel the anger toward the abusers for the vast amount of my life I've had to adhere to these rules thereby protecting them. That begins to break down a barrier between parts and myself because I wasn't just saying words anymore. I was feeling the words and parts were feeling that I finally empathized with their plight, as well as my own. I suppose it is the difference between saying something happened to my parts which was unfair and leaving it at that OR instead feeling that THIS happened to ME and it is still affecting and controling ME. I need to give this my full attention and change it.

That said, one of the hardest things I have had to learn is that "I" need to rescue myself/ves. No one else can do that for me. "I" have to be there for my parts and "I" need to listen to them, care for them, love them, etc. I cannot hope someone else will do that for me because that isn't realisitc. My T can be there for "me" and whichever parts are presenting for a miniscule part of the week. My husband can be there for "me" but that is hit or miss because he cannot read my mind and does not yet identify many of my parts. I have found that my healing goes at the pace "I" am willing to go at and if I put all my hope in an outsider to help or rescue me, I will be waiting forever. "I" have to do this for myselves. I cannot stop trying to reach them no matter how many walls I hit. No matter how long it takes. If something isn't working, try something else. This is my life and my abusers have wrecked enough of it so I am taking that power away from them daily by reaching out to my parts and connecting with them- if only for a few moments. It is a painful journey but the healing I have had thus far has been worth it.

Rayh, that was one of the most compelling pleas for continued work and justice for oneself I have read on this board. Thank you.

I hope the distinction between identifying the emotions and feeling them speaks to you, Caeri, it does to me. If your littles don't think they have a right to exist (they absolutely do) and can't believe it's okay to feel fear (it's okay and never feeling fear is simply impossible for a human being), perhaps you'll have to think and believe this more overtly, loudly and often yourself.

Since you're all part of the same mind, though a dissociated one, your littles will eventually get what you do. The challenge is that they are children and probably can't be persuaded by a complex verbal argument because they won't be able to digest it mentally. So maybe you can try getting in touch with unconditional love for yourself as a child. Create and build images of moments of the opposite type of treatment you all received when you were young. Play them out as realistically as possible in your mind and experience the emotions generated yourself as much as possible.

Just as negative emotions from a past traumas can seep through the dissociative walls so that you feel them, positive emotions from the present can flow through and be felt on the other side of these walls. Sort of a flash forward as opposed to a flashback, if you will. I've read about this and experienced this myself so I know it's possible. But it will take effort and repetition. It's hard to finish writing this because in writing it, I've had to imagine "sending acceptance and unconditional love through the wall" and so the positive emotional impact is overwhelming and happening for me.

Rayn, that was an amazing, amazing post. You all are phenomenal here. I appreciate what you guys have written to me so much. You have said some things I have never heard or read or considered. Honestly, I feel like I need to read what Johnny-Jack, Rayn and Sammys Group wrote to me, about 100 times out loud. It is difficult for me to absorb, but has such a ring of truth to it that I know some of the content is spot on for me.

I appreciate both of you parsing out the emotional component that my littles need from me. I think I'm beginning to understand what you're saying. What springs to mind, is the loyalty to my father and our lifelong protection of him internally. Some kind of early threats made it so that in some ways we've been much more loyal to him than to ourselves. I'm remembering a 20-minute terror event where a little one screamed over and over that she can't know that about him, etc. "That" being the abuse. The horrible tug-of-war rages about of the person I know as an adult and the bits of material my young parts have divulged of the abuse. It seems like there are double binds or unsolvable puzzles in place.

I will never know what kind of progress I can make with my system till I try what you guys have suggested. I, well, I think I'm petrified. Discussing this and trying to move toward the little ones is scaring the hooey out of me tonight.

Parenthetically, I completely bounce back from this element:

So maybe you can try getting in touch with unconditional love for yourself as a child. Create and build images of moments of the opposite type of treatment you all received when you were young. Play them out as realistically as possible in your mind and experience the emotions generated yourself as much as possible.

I haven't the slightest doubt that this is true and vital, but it bounces off of me so fast it's not funny. I can't even stay with the concept mentally. I guess my not being able to get to the information is informative. *sigh*

Caeri, in another thread you mentioned getting nowhere in your therapy these past 5 years. So I looked at all your posts here. Mostly you empathize with and validate others, and you do that very well. Your posts supporting others emotionally are always constructive but to me it feels like you are avoiding doing your own work. I would like to see you posting more about yourself. Post more about techniques you have tried for yourself and what the results were.

One technique you might try is some physical play therapy. I don't usually recommend this and in fact rarely even think of it in connection with other adult multiples, but for me personally play is incredibly grounding and integrating. It sounds like your system is like mine: very defended, very covert, and possibly very somatic. So this is one thing I do that might help you. I like to do child-like physical activities. I play on jungle gyms and other play structures, I splash in fountains, I play with all the little kids' toys and use the slide at the community pool.

Johnny-Jack and I once spent a day together at the Boston Children's Museum. I explored all the play structures. On one, an intricate "cave system" made of netting and plywood, museum staff were recording usage and I talked to them. You can see this thing on the museum website, link below. The staff told me that except during "singles night" events, hardly any adults would climb this thing. It is very safe but feels "scary". Climbing up inside it and being scared at first but then calming down brings an amazing sense of achievement and personal safety. It is a sense of "I can do this scary thing and still keep myself safe." It builds confidence.

It sounds to me like your insiders need some of that confidence building, on a physical level, to help them feel safer being in the body and in the world. You have mentioned in another thread that you are clumsy. That suggests to me that your physical activity may be very constricted. My children had similar issues and benefited a great deal by working in school with an occupational therapist and a physical therapist. You might benefit as well.

Boston Children's Museum

Wow, Una, you invested such time, reading my posts and then writing me here. Thank you so very much for your kindness!

What an interesting and intriguing path you've taken with the physical play. That is fascinating and very cool to hear.

You are right about my system being very covert and defended.

I am not sure what to say, but certainly I can attempt more play and see what happens. I wasn't allowed to take PE in high school and absolutely hated it as a child because I was so uncoordinated. I need to investigate the internal reaction I feel. I can't articulate it at the moment.

I am drawn to children's paints and art supplies and have plenty but it is very hard for me to sit down and diddle around with them. I have no art talent but I know that doesn't matter.

You are right, I haven't posted much about myself, and I think it's because this is a totally public forum. The prospect is frightening to me.

I surely have gained ground in the last few years, but it's been so very slow. I can cry in the presence of a therapist now, which I couldn't do for a very long time. The emotional component--expressing feelings that were forbidden--is so very important to me. I keep typing and deleting because I'm scared. I'll stop for now. But thank you, Una, so very, very much.

Oh, when I tried to work on some of the issues surrounding the littles maybe 10 days ago, I ran right into a mother introject who said she wants to hit the babies and children (in me). That was disconcerting but has a definite right of truth, knowing my lifelong thought life. I tried to engage with her a bit but stepped back pretty quickly. I felt shocked for some reason.

And you rightly called me on not doing my own work. There are such strong forces inside against that! I bounce back from my stuff over and over, but I have got to find a way. And maybe that is something I need to post a thread about.

[Trigger warning]

Oh I can relate. Totally. I can hear my own mother saying "Stop crying or I will give you something to cry about." I can remember my fear, even terror, at what might happen to me. I can remember my anxiety, that feeling of "walking on eggshells".

Caeri wrote:Oh, when I tried to work on some of the issues surrounding the littles maybe 10 days ago, I ran right into a mother introject who said she wants to hit the babies and children (in me). That was disconcerting but has a definite right of truth, knowing my lifelong thought life. I tried to engage with her a bit but stepped back pretty quickly. I felt shocked for some reason.

This is a very positive development! Though it may sound counter-intuitive, I would thank her for communicating, for warning you, for being so diligent in carrying out whats he sees as her mission, and most of all for protecting all of you in childhood. She may appear now to be a persecutor, but she arrived as a protector and that instinct is what continues to motivate her. It just doesn't look or sound like that to you.

There are such strong forces inside against that!

This is the dilemma of so many of us with DID. The forces remain inside and you probably can't solve it all there. Things really happened in the external world.

I've used speaking aloud to challenge my or others' strictures against disclosure or a desire to block any musing about the abuse, especially by my internal self helper Sphinx. Once I learned what the mother and father really did, I found myself saying it aloud, speaking it. This felt like defiance and I was hit with waves of terror, shame, sadness, despair, betrayal, loathing, fury, psychic nausea and other emotions. I felt like I was fabricating and heard in my mind standard family responses to anything negative. Sometimes I would choke mid-sentence or before I could even say the first word.

I wasn't sure why I did it at the time but it felt necessary. I knew from various readings and personal work that there is tremendous power in simple declarations and the spoken word.

We hold these truths to be self-evident.

I had some returned memories and the new information explained so much about how our life had gone. All the bad that happened had remained unspoken for decades. It wasn't enough to know it and believe it mostly myself. I spoke it aloud while alone (well, alters were listening) and, later, to a couple people close to me.

Speaking what happened out loud in declarative statements helped assure some newly known (to me) alters that I believed them. For some like Luke, who had no clue either parent did anything bad, it helped break through their own rejection. It especially drove the stark reality home for me as an alter. It was shocking, overwhelming and painful for me at first but that waned over time. Now the emotional impact, at least of speaking what happened to us, is usually minimal.

Thanks so much, Una+ and Johnny-Jack.

Yeah, it shouldn't have spooked me but it did about the mom introject. I've made some little overtures, but I hope to find her again and interact further.

That's really good about speaking aloud. I have been careful to articulate to my T every single abreaction, major trigger event, insight through journaling, big emotions, etc., and all the information my insiders released in snippets. If there has been any clear sense of something that needed to happen, it is that what is inside needs to come outside, and especially all the forbidden emotions. Most of what was revealed about SA occurred several years ago now and I hate that it stopped, but all hell broke loose in present-day life for several years. Perhaps it will benefit us for me to speak again about what the triggers and outbursts from inside ones and to read out loud notes from our healing work and sessions from the era when the SA stuff was "moving" internally.