Can I Get Some Thoughts On This? *TW*

Well, that approach worked, you communicated directly with Keith!

Cynthia wrote:I'll admit it, I don't like Keith. I get a weird vibe from him and I don't like it.

Cynthia, whereas you do have to pay attention to your gut reaction, you know you guys are going to have to communicate to Keith. He is a part of you, even if he reminds you of an abuser or someone else you don't like. Avoiding any alter as a strategy is just never going to work in the long run, we with DID don't have that luxury unfortunately. Working out an understanding sooner rather than later may help shift things in a positive direction. Could you ask Keith if he knows why it is you're uncomfortable with him? It's possible he has answers that can help you learn to work with him.

Is he the one that is telling you to hurt yourself? If so then Cynthia has good reason to not like him. Maybe you and Cynthia could talk to him together or with her by your side just in case?

Does he seem dangerous to you? I guess you could ask him some questions and find out more about him. I dunno I get scared when I talk to my SI girl, always afraid she'll attack. Maybe she doesn't because she knows she'll get her a$$ kicked by my protector.

Will Cynthia let you ask?

-- Sun Aug 24, 2014 9:05 pm --

Johnny-Jack wrote:Well, that approach worked, you communicated directly with Keith!

Cynthia wrote:I'll admit it, I don't like Keith. I get a weird vibe from him and I don't like it.

Cynthia, whereas you do have to pay attention to your gut reaction, you know you guys are going to have to communicate to Keith. He is a part of you, even if he reminds you of an abuser or someone else you don't like. Avoiding any alter as a strategy is just never going to work in the long run, we with DID don't have that luxury unfortunately. Working out an understanding sooner rather than later may help shift things in a positive direction. Could you ask Keith if he knows why it is you're uncomfortable with him? It's possible he has answers that can help you learn to work with him.

Excellent idea! Cynthia you can ask questions too. Please let me know how it turns out.

-- Sun Aug 24, 2014 9:07 pm --

I don't know how I just did that. Hope the post still makes sense.

I tried to talk to him with Cynthia present but Cynthia kept interfering and blocking Keith during the conversation. He didn't like that very much. He seems to be the one telling me to hurt myself, but I noticed that he didn't seem happy to see Cynthia so I wonder if his animosity towards her is causing the want to harm. If he harms me, he harms Cynthia is the way I'm thinking of it.

Violarules wrote:If he harms me, he harms Cynthia is the way I'm thinking of it.

He'll also harm Jeremy, Sasha and William. There's got to be a way to get along or at least have a conversation. Maybe you could move a little farther away from Keith and that will help Cynthia calm down.

Cynthia, does that sound like a good idea to you? Can you let Violarules ask some questions so you both can get to know him? He may not be so threatening or scary if he's not ostracized. Ya'll sound like you're caught in a circle. Ask him to promise he wont hurt anyone.

well, when I was making a comment in the For the teenagers thread, I heard him say it wasn't him trying to get Viola to hurt herself. If that's the case, I don't know why I don't like him. I just know I don't. Maybe that's why he doesn't like me either since I don't want anything to do with him. I'd rather block him out and block him from communicating with anyone else.

Well, I don't think blocking him is helping. It's hurting him, and has you on ultra guard which is exhausting.

It sounds like he is triggering you. What is it about him that is causing the trigger? I think if you can figure that out and understand it, you might not feel the same way. You might realize it's the trigger that's causing you to feel that way about him, and see him in a different light.

Hi. So, I decided to communicate with Keith this morning while Cynthia and the others were asleep and I found out some more information. Keith is a kid (I would say little but he hates that term and prefers to be called a kid) and he's 10. I also found out that the hallucinations I've been having seem to be coming from Keith and that it's a problem he has. That would explain why I still have the hallucinations but they don't affect me but I still feel fear from them, but the fear reaction doesn't feel like it's my emotion, if that makes sense. I just want to thank all of you for the advice given so far

I'm glad you able to talk to him! Has Cynthia found out yet? Let me know how that went.

Now that Keith is with all of you those hallucinations will stop.

The urge to self harm, thoughts about self harming, and fears of self harming all together are very common in obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Early on in my therapy I had a lot of symptoms that looked like OCD; they appeared to be a love obsession / erotomania. But although my personality type is "obsessive", I had never before been troubled with obsessive or compulsive symptoms of any kind. It turned out all those symptoms, every one of them, were coming from one alter, my Girl in Love. She was stuck, frozen, and radiating the state she was stuck in and I was picking it up. I was experiencing it yet aware that it was "not me"; it was "second hand". But I was helpless initially to do anything about it other than manage the symptoms because I had no access to this alter, this part of myself.

I am so thankful that my diagnosis of DID came so early in treatment. I cannot imagine how miserable and unproductive it would have been for me to be treated for symptoms without this diagnosis, while she remained behind the barriers and uninvolved in and thus untouched by the treatment.

Which brings me to what I would like to contribute to this thread. At first this situation sounded like garden variety OCD. And then the new information came out that there was an alter at the source of it: Keith. (Hello you!) Now that Keith is engaged in the therapy healing can come so rapidly! This is one of the reasons why DID therapists enjoy working with DID.

Well, I don't have a DID therapist or a diagnosis of DID. I haven't even mentioned it to my family either.