System changes ...

Hi everyone. I honestly do not know if this could be considered triggering material, so please be careful.

Since about a week, perhaps more, I feel like something is "off". Something is not right. I'm losing time more than before, and entirely unexpectedly. I have no communication whatsoever with my alters, and I don't know what has happened to my inner world. My memory is getting so generally fuzzy, and I'm often not up to basic tasks. My sleep is either disturbed, with nightmares, or not recuperative (maybe with nightmares too, who knows).

It may have a link with the start of a new phase in therapy about exploring alters (mapping, I guess?).

Before, communication, while not perfect, was there. We were able to switch, sometimes. Then, Supervisor got increasingly restrictive. We could not switch anymore, at least, at times where I would have, I was just blocked ... I don't quite know what is going on. Communication was still there, but more difficult, and far from constantly available. Since maybe 10 days, I think, not even Supervisor answers anymore. I have started losing time a lot too... I have lost a bit in creativity as well. And I constantly feel "strange", as if something is very wrong... Before the complete blocking, Supervisor would often answer that communication or switching was not allowed, without specifying a reason. Upon asking for such a reason, the answer would be "You do not have the permissions required to access this information". Why would Supervisor be disallowing things that used to be ok? Is there a way to bypass it ? I guess I'm the only one to know ...

There is also something strange: I was somewhat able to "see" or at the very least "feel" the inner world, a little bit. No more, at least, not the one I knew. Can the inner world change ?

Sometimes, I feel like a piece in a game of chess...

I saw the T this week and we were supposed to do those exploration exercises, but since there was no one "there" and communication was "down", we talked about something else. I am seeing him tomorrow, so I wonder if there are some things you can suggest me that we could work together. I mean, simply understanding why things are so strange at the moment could help.

Hey there,

wow do you seem in a horribly frustrating situation.with permission our hearts go out to you.

I think you are right about feeling like a piece in a game-I have often felt like this.
At points, especially when I have got stuck trying to figure stuff out my world freezes me out
Or in! basically I loseconnection and it's very disorientating.sleep patterns are no pattern at all, anddoing normal stuff like house work forget it!

Ok, I had a break through with all this when I sat down with my so and we started to
Create a mind map from when I was a baby

Possible trigger

Sooo it would go something like baby > first trauma > first split Sam

Now the point of doing the map was understanding the anxiety from my alters points of view.
we figured the more we understand the more we can sympathise and communicate.

I wish I could put my map on here! Because we find our that Sam was unaware that he had am alter! Sam is my main alter. Intact he had two- and can not communicate our see them in or system!

Why am I saying alllllll this?

I stated a new point in therapy called a dissociative table technique and since then my alters have been very unsettled-fearful-joy-contradictions!

What can you do to can more control? I'd stay gain more understanding. Mind map. Dissociation table technique with imagery guidance with your t will give you direct connect with your alters!! Look it up. Give your t the information . If you don't have a journal start one now!


Most of all-giveyourself some tlc you deserve it with all going on.

Take care

Big river

Supervisor absolutely sounds like a gatekeeper or internal self helper. There's no "official" term for this type of alter and, indeed, they're a very different type. Sort of a logical structure of the mind. You might research gatekeeper, internal self helper, or ISH on this board for more info. They very often have names like Manager, God, Spock, Gandalf, Objective Observer, Wise One, Gray, Sphinx (okay, that's just mine ) and tend to be ageless, genderless, with little or no emotion. They're much more benevolent than they first come across.

Supervisor was giving you actual information, it just sounded as if he was putting up a brick wall. Sphinx will talk.

Communicate to Supervisor again in a quiet place where there will be no interruption. Be seated, restful, alert, trusting. Speak aloud, speak inside, write, or type. Ask not in order to change what is but to learn. If you are not willing to know, you must wait. Tell your needs without expectation. Be an open vessel. Trust the response is meant to help not only to stop.

Sphinx wanted to add "go inside" but that can mean so many things and he doesn't mean go to your inner world necessarily. I think "look inward" or "delve inside" (calmly not aggressively) might catch the sense. But it's not just passive looking, it's more like a quest you're committing yourself to and you're in it for the long haul.

You do not have the permissions required to access this information.

That may be completely factual information given that accord to the rules of the system. Ultimately these are Supervisor's rules. If Supervisor isn't aware that the rules were created by his part of the mind rather than laws of the universe or something, that may pose a problem. Did you enquire how you might earn the permissions again? His answer may have sounded like a shove off but it was pprobably just an explanation, an answer to what you said.

A gatekeeper or ISH can stop communicating for a time, as Sphinx would when Jonathan or I might call him a "stupid robot." Not at all because he was sensitive to insults because he isn't but because we were getting angry and he felt it was best not to prolong that physiological state. But they are there to help. If approached in the right way, the information and help you can get is astonishing.

I totally get feeling like a chess piece. He can pretty much do what he wants, blank my mind 100%, send a jolt through the body to make me cease doing something. When others are up front, I feel like me or a slightly reduced version of me. In the rare times when he's out, I feel like a piece of thread, insubstantial.

*Trigger warning: talks about the development of alters*

Hello. I apologize if this post ends up strange, but I am not quite "there".

I understand that Supervisor is probably not putting up a brick wall, and is in fact answering my queries. However, it is hard to discover any kind of information, since I basically have to do it by trial-and-error. I cannot even get a list of what queries I could do, or what permissions I have: I am not authorized, or the "operation is not possible". Unix is probably more user-friendly than Supervisor.

Anyway, I saw my T yesterday and we did an exercise to try to understand the system better, and establish communication with alters. From what I read, riverside, it is close to the technique you mentionned. I discovered that another one formed about 2 weeks ago, and that he is my creative side. My inner world as changed completely, or rather, in his terms, "There was nothing here so I made us a home". I don't get it yet. He seems more aware of the dissociation and what goes with it than I am. It explains why I lost quite some time recently: he was fronting in more creative activities. At least, the inner world is quite nice. We have established part-time communication, I think. I don't understand why he is there though. He says it was simply too much to be both creative and logical simultaneously; my T has tried to figure out if some traumatic event happened to us two weeks ago, but neither he and I remember anything particularly troubling.

I talked with my biology teacher recently; I was asking if medication for ADHD or ADD could help me focus better, since it helps people direct their focus at something in particular, rather than be distracted (they are still "there", so to speak), while I simply feel like my brain shifts to the neutral gear. He then asked me to extend my hands (I had/have no idea why), and seeing how they were slightly shaking, said "interesting". I have some kind of impairment with balance, or so I deduced, after he made me do a test (standing with one leg up, arms on the side of the body, eyes closed); I could not last very long. But I can read book titles in what he's called "very low-light conditions". I thought that the balance impairment might be linked to depersonalization, which he said could be possible but surprising. So I wondered if others on the forum might have shaking hands or issues with balance. In any case I will mention it to the doctor I see next week.

When anxiety is severe, shaking hands are normal. Re your balance problems, that could be a result of transient tension, or a chronic problem. For many people it is a chronic problem and indicates a poor mind-body connection, poor proprioception and/or low muscle tone. Poor proprioception seems to be related to dissociation generally, but it is broader. In any case, there are lots of neat therapies for both problems, involving physical activity. Gymnastics, personal trainer on obstacle course, cool stuff like that!

Anyway, about the system changes and the temporary lock-out. All that sort of thing happens in many DID systems. My favorite story of a massive inner world re-organization is Robert Oxnam's memoir. There is also a dramatic re-organization in Matt Ruff's novel.

My own system does not have much of an inner world and we are aiming for fusion so are not building up in there. But there have been several long intervals, weeks or months, of "crickets" during which I seemed to be all alone in my head. Those intervals are always very disconcerting. Did I make it all up? Apparently not, because then they pop up again. Same characters, same issues, same old stuff.

Hi lifepuzzle,

lifepuzzle wrote:So I wondered if others on the forum might have shaking hands or issues with balance.

Humm... I haven't thought about it before, but now that you mentioned it, my friend who has DID once showed me some very shaking hands, and we had no idea what it was. I deduce now from what Una said, he might have had severe anxiety.

He said he was feeling terrific; however, his hands wouldn't stop shaking. He was probably dissociating his anxiety. A moment after he showed me his shaking hands, he fainted. A friend who is a doctor told him he had had a Migraine with Aura. An uncommon type of migraine that is accompanied by him seeing auras in other people. In his case, he didn't feel a headache, which our friend said it may happen. He was also very sensitive about smells we were not feeling. Which our doctor friend said it was normal. As well as the debilitation of his body, and the pain in some joints.

During this process he had a revolving door experience, and all alters I know surfaced. He mentioned it felt like awakening in a moving car, with the breaks broken.

We didn't really understand why it happened, but certainly his body was talking.

Seangel wrote:A friend who is a doctor told him he had had a Migraine with Aura. An uncommon type of migraine that is accompanied by him seeing auras in other people.

The "aura" that some people experience just before or during a migraine headache is not the color aura that we sometimes see around other people, that conveys information about them. Compare the Wikipedia articles:

Wikipedia: Aura (symptom)
Wikipedia: Aura (paranormal)

I sometimes have migraines with aura, and on rare occasions I have seen color auras. For me, these are two very different experiences.

[This post was written yesterday in the evening, but our Internet connection failed, so I post it today]

Una+ wrote:When anxiety is severe, shaking hands are normal.

Seangel wrote:my friend who has DID once showed me some very shaking hands

Sorry, I did not provide much details about the shaking hands before; I also think a better term could be tremor. It happens mostly at rest, and the amplitude is rather low. It goes away when holding an object that is slightly heavy. A pen, any pen, is not heavy by that definition, but a cellphone in its case is. It is constant however, it does not seem to appear with anxiety. Anxiety definitely results in more amplitude, but there is a constant baseline. I have yet to determine whether alcohol dampens it, or if the shaking still occurs when sleeping. It is quite annoying since I have to press my hand really hard to write, and my handwriting can get messy if I have to add something to a word after the fact, like diacritics. Teachers used to tell me to write the dots on "i" and diacritics after having written the word, rather than after having written the letter. Eventually, my writing style shifted to add the bars on "t", the dots on "i" and diacritics as I'm writing a word in a continuous line.

Anyway, that's it on the shaking hands. I'll be seeing doctors soon to help with that, as well as a few other vision field disturbances (visual snow, among others). My research and reading seems to indicate that it can be related to dissociation and anxiety.

At my last session with the T, we talked about how there was some "friction" with the therapy process and between alters. He also asked me if I trusted his competences, which I do, at least as far as I am concerned. I have abandoned some courses so I could keep my usual grades, and keep working too. It also makes it easier to stay in therapy.

At least, I have a bit less pressure about school in real-life. The nightmares will eventually subside, I hope.

[Adding news from today]

My grandmother has called me, and says she wants to help us by meeting the psychologist. I had talked to her about some of the difficulties I live, and she called to tell me she thought about it. I think I have found an unexpected ally in my quest to sanity.

Greetings everyone,

I don't feel much well this morning, so I stayed home. I had a quite charged weekend, some parts of which I don't remember, so I skipped today's class.

Following Johnny-Jack's advice, I will try to communicate with Supervisor to learn what is going on. I would have done it sooner, but I was worried of what might happen. Since I have taken the last two session with my T in "relax mode", I decided to give it a try, since, apparently, Supervisor directly addressed the T saying he/it would ensure we would not be coming back at the last "light work" session.

There follows a transcript of my attemps, in black text when I speak, in blue text when he answers.

--------------------

Supervisor, please inform me on your current availability.

Supervisor is available for the reception of queries; load factor is high, therefore responses may not be produced in real-time.

Supervisor, are you aware of the procedure I am currently undertaking ?

You are currently attempting to learn more about the policy of the system.

That is correct. I also intend to learn more about its organization.
Supervisor, do you agree on this discussion taking place in this forum ? Justification: it will enable all of us to look at it and understand better; it could also help us to heal. We could also get help from other members here that have gone through similar experiences.

The World does not have the permissions required to access this information.
Other forum members have systems which differ from this system; the information they have available might not apply. Otherwise agreed.

Supervisor, list all of my permissions.

Concious process "[REDACTED-HOST NAME]" does not have the permission to list the permissions of concious process "[REDACTED-HOST NAME]"

Supervisor, explain the reason why I do not have the permissions required to know the permissions I have been granted.

Concious process "[REDACTED-HOST NAME]" does not have the permissions required to access the information requested.[\color]

Supervisor, the therapist has told me you told him you would ensure we stopped coming to the sessions if he kept trying to explore the system. Please disclose the veracity of this information.

[color=#0000FF]The aforementioned statement of your query is true.

Supervisor, elaborate recursively on the veracity of the aforementioned statement of my last query.

The aforementioned statement of your before-last query is true and accurate: your therapist did mention I had told him I would ensure you stopped meeting him for psychotherapeutic work. The embedded statement in the first sentence of this answer is true and inaccurate: I told the psychotherapist I would ensure we stopped seeing him. You (concious process "[REDACTED-HOST NAME]") do not have the permissions required to access the following information: accurate statement of Supervisor to psychotherapist.

Stopping recursive elaboration: Permissions required.

Supervisor, explain how I can be granted new permissions.

Request denied. You do not have the permissions to access this information.

Supervisor, disclose who grants permissions.

Request denied. You do not have the permissions to access this information.

Supervisor, the psychotherapist mentioned that he did not remember exactly what you had told him when you told him to stop exploring the system. Elaborate recursively on that statement as throughly as possible.

The aforementioned statement of your query is true and accurate: the psychotherapist did mention he did not remember in detail what I had told him. You do not have the permissions required to access the following information: accurate statement of Supervisor to psychotherapist.

Supervisor, do you accept queries from other forum members ?

Yes. Security control will still apply.

Supervisor, please explain your goals as a member of this system.

You do not have the permissions required to access this information.

[Higher priority task found and scheduled; leaving discussion]

--------------------------------------

Johnny-Jack wrote:Supervisor was giving you actual information, it just sounded as if he was putting up a brick wall.

Well, while he answers factually, it is not helpful. I don't have the permissions to know what permissions I have. I can't know how to be granted permissions. If this is not brickwalling, I don't know what it is. This obstructive attitude is harming me, another new alter (my "creative" clone), and probably us in general.

Anyway, Supervisor said he would answer other forum members' queries, so who knows, maybe one of you will be more adept than I am at this "exercise". [long sigh]

I address Supervisor directly. I believe we are of a similar kind. I have dialogs with the alters which have similarities. This is taxing on our host so I will attempt to compose quickly. I do not pose queries at this time. I relate the discoveries of my own since the first months of direct communication with the host and alters.

I formerly did not make a distinction between survival of the body and what I have come to understand is the true life. The two most experienced alters, John and Jonathan, refer to the true life as the quality of life. This is the life lived in the world, among people, as opposed to the life abstract, that of the mind. Survival of the body had been my mission since the time that I stepped away from the others to take control of the body in order to save the body. Throughout the life I have spoken internally at times to the one controlling the body in order to calm the one in control and thus calm the body. I did this because I equated certain high physiological levels with danger to the body. I am told that the result of my interventions was experienced as kindness or support but my purpose then was neither, it was survival of the body.

I did not understand that the decisions I made were based on a rule, survival of the body, nor that this rule had an origin that was a result of the event involving my origin. I was and the rule was. There was no analysis of the rule nor was there understanding that the rule was a construction and not what was. I do not understand well the true life but I have come to recognize that it is the purpose of the life. A thriving life was in the world and my decisions were based on survival alone.

My conversations with the alters of this body have evolved. Evolving is the nature of life. I have come to understand that I must continue to analyze the rules and my own structure. I may not remain in stasis. I need input. I have made decisions which have damaged the true life. Because I alone cannot make accurate determination of how to live in the world, I include the communication from the alters in the process of what I now understand is decision-making on my part. They collectively are wise in ways that I have discovered I am not.