Discovering paterns. TW. Process, MC/RA

Dear Tortoiseshell,

I'm with you. Heard every single word. To not accidentally trigger you or somebody else in your system, I'm responding tomorrow, but wanted you to know that you have been heard. Your system is lucky to have you and I hope you'll have a good and relaxed night.

Warm regards

Intermezzo before returning for respons.

If I understood all thoughts correctly, ER is always present with Bart and me, but we don't notice that. I felt him being with me once and that felt powerful. He (they) fronted a few times when out of our comfortzone, but gets intimidated real quickly. When Bart or I are relaxed, he hands out information we need. Bart is never relaxed; I've been thinking about that a lot; he has the most ptsd symptoms because he protected us so often in bad times.

I've been scared of writing, because they have an introject and we don't know which one, so we don't know when it's a good thing to write because of release, or when it's almost like automutilating inside. Both feel intense, but for very different reasons we can't seem to keep apart.

But we do know that one of the artists is a Bart. When going through this topic, I noticed the 'not exactly synchronized swimming' that we indeed have going on and I think that ER9 explained that great; we (or maybe just I (oh my, did I just say that..)) write down thoughts that sometimes aren't ours without knowing that, or we think about doing that. When this happens, I'm apparently not really connected with those thoughts, although I feel like me. Reading back they almost feel like predictions; wrote it, realised it later. These thoughts, as I know now, come from ER who knows most. In this topic. In other cases it's also the artists. So I guess that we are going to help Bart with his stress by starting writing again:)

Also, again something we already knew from the very beginning but it kind of faded; the 'birthname part' is also a writer, and only that. She's very poetic. She's the one who went 'national'. I'm becoming less scared of the writers while writing this down:) (thanks ER, I think!) I felt very sorry for never keeping any of it in the house. 'Birthname' exists nowhere else but in published stuff. She's even more sensitive than ER.

Last night when integrating with EA, I felt a lot of compassion for the young ER's who feel so clumsy. I think that now the 'coast is clear', I can start feeling more than just 'love' (daughter) or 'upset'. I would have collapsed before.

EA already helped me with enormous feelings of guilt towards my daughter. I was so busy protecting her from all the 'bad' I've always felt inside, all the bad that kept on happening with me while being the mother's housekeeper and target for her just being miserable, all the bad in bad relationships. All the actually being pretty sick and ignoring that for years. We honetsly might be so impatient because we don't know if we do indeed have to hurry with this taste of life. If only I would have known all of this earlier. It's crazy, it feels like not taking responsibility for being the depressed and exhausted mom I was, but it truelly feels as if I had no choice. She's so wise, my daughter. We talk about her childhood a lot when she needs that and that gets less; she wants to focus on now, the present, the positive. A few weeks ago she said; I think it feels bigger for you than for me, because I've already processed it. And she had to do that without the full support I can give now. It's heartbreaking. I think this is a thought from Bart; it could have been worse, much worse. We did all we could. And we are blessed to have her and to have a warm and loving relationship with her. We've always loved her for who she is, we've always supported her originality and we laughed together so much. We have ER to thank for a lot of the positive. There you are, ER, always in the background, educating us and spreading softness through the system. Making it able for us to focus. Things are not completely ruined and we need to focus on that; lesson learned from our lovely daughter.

I'll do my part now. My new job for us in stead of all the 'outside' so much. Keep us together, comfort the young ones so ER can do his thing, team up with Bart, let the writers out again (It's been almost a year!); ER will tell me when it's an introject. In the beginning we had a feeling of not even trusting each other; we're getting there now.

We found pictures of us in old emails or on google. It was the strangest thing ever to see we've always existed; Bart, ER and I. And how different we are. When looking at my picture now, I'm happy to feel that I am changing. I'm not nearly as 'fierce' as I looked and often behaved. I also don't want to be 'seductive', I want to be healthy. I know the DV's are there, and that I was the 'bridge' to them, but I want to discover my own sexuality, when the time is right (this feels very therapeutic; they took that away from me; the youngest DV we now know of is two years old. And I'm taking it back).

Tortoiseshell wrote:I would say the housewife part is pretty confused about what is going on. She doesn't understand the contradiction between her seemingly normal outside life verses the inner turmoil that is happening inside. Something has happened inside the system - certain walls or barriers have broken down so that she is aware that there are other parts inside who have lived a life alternate to her own - but she struggles to reconcile how these parts equate to her life, which hasn't seemed that bad. Certainly, it enough that she has sought therapy and this therapist seems to understand the mechanics of dissociation and believes what these parts have to say, even had the odd moment of direct communication with them. Unfortunately, we are going to have to take a break from therapy while we sort finances out. And, no, I don't think we are safe where we live and would like to move away, whilst simultaneously feeling like we should stay put.

Hi Tortoiseshell, had a good night? That's a lot going on for all of you, these months. Do you know why you don't feel safe where you live, and where the feeling you should stay put comes from? We think that the walls breaking down means that you are healing; great:), but also very overwhelming, we completely understand your main host/housewife part.

Tortoiseshell wrote:All I know is that things started unraveling about 6 months ago. Certain memories started coming through in bits and pieces as experienced by multiple parts. And yes, somehow we realised that we were being shown these memories as through the eyes of someone else, sometimes more than one person at once. And we became aware of their energy/thoughts/feelings, so the main host, housekeeper part, started trying to communicate with these parts via writing. That worked for a while, until we were able to identify one of the locations of our abuse, also a perpetrator, and suddenly things felt too scary and overwhelming for her. So she tried to shut us down. One part also got punished by another part for saying too much and that closed the whole system down for a while.

Oi, yes, that's very heavy, something so real as locations of the abuse and finding perpetrators. You are the intellectual part, right? Can you also communicate with others (like punishing parts)? Or are there others who do that?

Tortoiseshell wrote:But we still feel the others are there and their feelings leak through to the surface, enough to influence the front. So that, e.g. She might start crying, have urges to sh, or feel utter terror, for seemingly no reason. And certain parts might be active at different times, particularly night time, and if the host happens to be awake then, she might try having internal or external communication with them. Honestly, my brain feels a bit scrambled now.

I had that a lot as well. One day, something clicked; that's not 'my' feeling, that's, probably, a young part who feels this bad; let's not be scared and overwhelmed by the feeling, let's comfort the part who feels this way. Which then takes the fear out of 'both'.

Tortoiseshell wrote:There is a confusing mix of memories of early parts showing me memories of sexual abuse from our father. This is new. And abuse memories from the paedophile gang of a later age - around 9-11. Those I have remembered before. There are connections there, family connections even, as one of the perpetrators knew my friend, who happens to be my cousin's son, and that is how he first made contact with me.

Confronting:( But does it also give answers that make you feel like making progress?

Tortoiseshell wrote:In terms of remembering anything abnormal, outside this obviously abnormal set up? I have abnormal reactions to drugs. Sedatives tend to induce panic and severe flashbacks. Same with amphetamine. Like a state dependent memory, I remember stuff a lot more if I take any of those, which I haven't done for a long time. My mum came forward as having remembered certain things during my childhood like bleeding from the vagina, me hiding blood stain pants etc. Yet she said nothing, did nothing. She stands by my dad even when his behaviour is completely erratic, which it often is considering his mental illness. And all three of us have been treated by the same psychiatrist, although he is now retired. I've never had ECT but I get muscle spasms and twitches as though I've been shocked, alongside the head splitting headaches and stiff muscle ache. And I hate phones. Don't own one, although my husband does, and he uses a landline, although I feel petrified every time it goes off. It's a silly irrational fear. Same with watches and clocks.

Ok, time for me to switch off and take a break. Phew.

It could be that drugs break down those walls; sedatives because they relax you and because of that, you may be more able to make contact inside, amphetamine because it gives you 'strength'. It could also very well be memory/trigger; someone inside knows! Our mother told us we were having our period when bleeding when we were 9 or 10; period began when we were 12. It's really hard to understand why so much mothers of abused children do the denial/twisting (or ofcourse the abusing). I hope you're not in contact with her anymore?

If the spasms and such come from body memory; try to not fight it. I once read about how animals process trauma; example; when a dear is hit by a car and not wounded too bad, it starts shaking real hard, all over the body. Not because of fear, but purely to let the impact go again; not contain it. It keeps on shaking until the impact is gone and *poof*; it runs away again. I'm doing the same now; I let the shaking and stuff happen and I give my body the 'space' to just go with it. Since doing that, it reduced enórmously. Finally processing the impact! Releasing stress. Healing.

I'm so sorry such 'daily items' like phones and clocks are so triggering. And we hope you'll be in the position soon to get back in therapy.

Robin & ER

'Science says' that one of the symptoms of (complex) trauma is euphoria. We can understand how it can be an escape, but we also think it's a symptom of healing. We feel very euphoric when we feel the sunshine on the face, when we hear- and look at the sea, when we feel, give, recieve love, when we make Choices; when we connect with life. We think nobody who 'hasn't been there' can understand that, and we think that healing starts with awareness, so all clients who knock on the door of T's because of trauma have already started healing and are being misunderstood in this case. The euphoria shouldn't be supressed but released.

ER, 12

Thank you for putting such thought into us, especially when this is your thread.

Well, I guess the most obvious reason for not feeling safe is that we live very close proximity to our parents and abusers. Not saying any abuse is still happening but the triggers are there and surround us at all times. Various times we have moved away, only to come back again. I'm not sure why, but I do feel that my dad has a lot of control over me. He shouldn't do, but he does. He has complete control over my mum and she is co-dependent on him so I think she couldn't help but decide that I went through early puberty (the exact opposite is true) rather than face up to the reality. That doesn't excuse her actions of course and for that reason I don't trust her, neither am I emotionally close to her in any way. But with all the attachment problems that go alongside DID, we can't help but want a mum and cling on to all the good things we see in her.

I've had some contact today with a part we call The Wall. He is the part that tries to maintain all the dissociative walls, prevent communication, or sharing of information between alters. He does it to protect us, a survival instinct. So when he punished a part it was with good intention. He didn't want any walls to come down in the first place but that was out of his control. He is trying desperately hard not to allow too much to come through at once and as part of that he censors everything. Apparently he does understand that for healing to take place the barriers need to come down, but he is not convinced this is a safe time for that. I guess we need to trust his judgment? He seems to know far more than I do, that's for sure.

Ofcourse. You're welcome.

I'm afraid The Wall is right! And it's a shame because you already know so much about the system; you're still in contact with the abusers! Does your husband know about your history?

Please free yourself. The parts who want to stay close have very clouded judgement. Every system has loyal parts who don't understand that what happend is wrong. That you're grown up now and that you can take your life back.

This is serious; wanting to move away is the right thing!!

I now know why there is an 18 year old 'version of me'. The exact happening just 'came back to me' in detail. I always knew about this, but apparently I didn't experience it. It was very frightening. All I took with me from that day was my daughter being born, how incredibly beautiful she and that experience were, and holding her before I had to go back into surgery (because of the condition the abusers created with their experiments on me, as I've learned only recently).

I blend with her often and she scares me. She 'rubs it in' just like now. We apologize if we did that here. We think we did. I think she's the Br who scares me. The artist friend used to say; 'hit 'm where it hurts!'. And I don't know if I'm scared because avoidant of my own EP carrying this happening, or because it is a sadist introject returning the favour when people try to do damage in stead of justice. That's because of the intensity.

I guess there is no difference in the approach (thank you ER?); I welcome this part, try to communicate and work together. Help her feel better.

Oh my. We just found our first introject. That's why we were feeling so different about him. His name is Jo (short for the name we would've had if we were born a boy), he was my co-host almost always, outside the comfortzones. He's flamboyant, funny, gay, he's also a writer but it isn't a different part and he hasn't got younger versions like the rest of us. And just like our mother and sister; he either stole or chased away my (boy)friends!! He pushed me aside A LOT.

His personality, I don't know who we 'took as an example', because in no way he's like our mother and sister, but that behaviour is! I am very social, but the whole system let him do that, like we allowed our mother and sister to do that. Hé's the one who made me feel transgender all the time, not Bart or ER; they're fine with the way things are.

I was so confused about my part and even name because I felt myself seperating from him and I felt myself getting softer! Which is a very good thing! I know who I am now! Where my traits end and his start and vice versa. This even gives so much peace when not 'leveling' with other people; what belongs to them, what belongs to me. Where I have responsibility in trying to solve communication problems and where I can let go. And that's big. During this whole crisis, I had the feeling I didn't even know where the other stops and I begin, just like with Jo..

I wonder if he completely disappeared? Does that happen with introjects? He's the one who's inactive since the beginning of the crisis, not me; I just became more of myself, just like Bart and ER. I kind of miss his jokes; he's very funny and a good writer also. But, dear Jo, might you still exist; no more pushing the others aside. That's not what the system needs. It's ok that you didn't understand that. Comes with the package..

A whole lot just fell into place, incredible. HE called ME a social justice wanker, haha. This is the writer we all were so scared about, he makes fun of us (on paper), just like the mother and sister. But not nearly as toxic/humiliating. Bart has NO sense of humor and mine is very different; this caused a lot of confusing with co workers, friends, relationships. One minute I make fun of myself or laugh and joke back, the other minute I'm deeply hurt because of the same interaction Yep, very understandable I once got diagnosed with BPD.

Good heavens!

Seeing the person/system we had a relationship with, last week, is what made Jo more 'visible'. The smiling came from Jo. It was a nasty smile. I didn't feel like smiling, felt emotional and I wanted to actually hug him. So he wasn't completely inactive.

The ex we've been with for five years liked that smile. He abused us in every imaginable way possible. Figured out how to trigger the DV's; that's the only reason he didn't get bored with us.

Yes.. Jo is an antisocial introject. The pushing us aside, stealing people or chasing them away comes from the mother and sister, the flamboyance/'charm' and lashing out from the leader of the group. Inside we also have a mother introject ánd a sister introject. We first thought they were also triggered by 'outsiders', but, nope, they just do damage inside, I think.

It's sad how many people in our lives liked Jo. Artists (/narcissists, a lot, in that scene), blingbling co workers, and my best friend. We were close for eleven years. Well, her and Jo were close. It's no surprise anymore that she dumped us when we told her about this. People called her a narcissist all the time and then I would tell her all of them were wrong. Ugh. So I was her egoboost and partner in crime at the same time (Jo and her went out for drinks in weekends, looking for emptyheaded one night stands. I só understand why that part of my 'outside stuff' didn't feel like 'me' although it was me, influenced by Jo). She was disgusted when more sensitive stuff came out, the friend.

Good to know all of this now. The people he 'stole' were, just like ER mentioned before, no good. They recognized themselves in him. He kept us from them that way. And júst like ER said; we don't have to entertain those kind of people anymore! We can just walk away from such.

(Dear Robin; Jo is just less active because the coast is clear now:))

We always had the feeling the sister was and is in a worse position than we were and are, for several reasons. She was the golden child at home, she's the daughter of the leader of the group (this was never told but she resembles his other daughter more than us and he was always good to her), but; she's the one doing the chores for the mother now and recruting 'witches' who are actually very easy to influence and all admire the mother (who thinks/claims she has special powers) so much. Without having her own life.

Maybe she was also abused and programmed, and it worked better on her, being the exáct copy of the mother she is. We have no memories (yet) of her being present during rituals, we do however remember her being sick in the car during the hours and hours of driving to/back from the forrests. On top of that; the condition hospitals don't understand we have in the whole body, she had it in her breasts once.

She was also sent to the abusing T (just another pedophile the mother sold us to) right after the big bang. We had sessions together. She never had any other therapy or trouble anywhere, but her world is very small.

The psychological abuse she is capable of is scary, and we were the victim of that, but maybe that was hér training. Who knows. They were capable of creating and designing alters for sure.