Fearful I stopped the process *** trigger warning ***

TW*****

I’ve been told by my insiders a big part of “my problem “ is cult abuse.
Today was taking a nap and a dream came up and there was a split screen.
On one side a place I remember about cult activities . The other side of the screen was a very similar looking place that was in a movie I have seen where violence takes place.

They ( my inside people) were validating my experience of being in a cult ( which I sometimes question ).

I started to fade out and another part who knows about this history began to come forward. I was afraid of blacking out and being “ lost” so I asked for them not to take over . They didn’t .

Now I feel badly like I prevented them from being out and talking just to stay comfortable myself -I get very fearful of total black outs.

I/ we don’t seem to know how to balance things. I don’t want to black out but do want them to come forward. I suspect they believe I can’t handle the info . How to do this? Maybe ask them to journal ? Why do they want to take over 100%?
Maybe just need to talk to them more ?

Maybe I’m answering my own question about not handling it too well. A while ago a teenage girl told me something pretty horrific . I sat up and was so freaked out I said over and over “ that’s not true”. My anxiety was off the charts.

I knew it was likely true but felt like I was going to explode/ implode / lose my mind... whatever . So I said the only thing that could calm me down -but terribly unfair and unkind to whoever was talking to me.

So this episode today in dream form brought the whole dilemma again to the forefront .

LadySlippers wrote:I started to fade out and another part who knows about this history began to come forward. I was afraid of blacking out and being “ lost” so I asked for them not to take over . They didn’t .

Now I feel badly like I prevented them from being out and talking just to stay comfortable myself -I get very fearful of total black outs.

I/ we don’t seem to know how to balance things. I don’t want to black out but do want them to come forward. I suspect they believe I can’t handle the info . How to do this? Maybe ask them to journal ? Why do they want to take over 100%?
Maybe just need to talk to them more ?

I'm not sure how helpful I can be, since I don't seem to get total black outs (and they do sound terrifying). Talking more is usually the answer to most things, and journaling is usually a good idea, although I've sometimes had journaling lead to opening up too much and being overwhelming.

There are probably many things that you have already become aware of and are able to tolerate. I don't think there's anything wrong with slowing things down when you need to. That's usually much better than pushing ahead in the face of "off the charts" anxiety. You did gain more information than you had before. How about if you think of it as pausing the process, rather than stopping it?

Hi LadySlippers,

Good things going on here, I think; your insiders respected your request to not black out, you respect your insiders and you don't want to supress them. Great! Now that's a healthy process:) Please don't doubt yourself too much.

Is the information about the cult new to you? It took me six months before I would even concider the possibility that this nice group of friends of my parents was actually... well, not really nice. At all. ER was already connecting some dots, bigtime, and Bart still just skips this part of the trauma.

What helped me was to not fight the to me so, how should I put this, foreign thoughts, but keep a close eye on my window of tolerance. You don't have to black out if you can handle it. Everytime I get new flashbacks, they overwhelm, disgust, scare, etc me. I now thank the part who told me about it and reassure them that we'll work on it when we're ready, ánd; I adress the parts who dealt with it, because they are there, and they are in pain, so I tell them (not even knowing who they are yet) that I think it's horrible that this has happend to us, that we are going to heal as much as possible, that we will be ok and that it's not happening now. It's over and we are still here.

I hope this helps.

Thankyou!
Gang-I like the idea of reframing it as pausing rather than stopping. I guess because I asked them to “ stop” that’s how I viewed it.
Off the wall anxiety isn’t good no matter what you’re correct. And yes I did gain more information-more validation that this happened. And in some ways just tolerating this knowledge is a huge success.

I did get more information. More “ in-depth “ information when I think about. I like that perspective so will keep that in the forefront of my mind. ( rather than castigate myselves for “ stopping”)

Efragment-this back and forth has been going on a long time. It was inconceivable for quite a while /couldn't wrap my mind around the idea it could’ve happened.
At first I would challenge the memory as to why it couldn’t be real and then a voice would tell me “ how” it was real and I remembered more details. More “ how” and “where” .
This has happened repeatedly so I’m more accepting but it has to come in tiny pieces or it’s outside “ my window of tolerance” for sure.
Thankyou for saying the process looked healthy and not to doubt myself. I don’t know what more I can expect of us. There’s no way to rush this. Not sure why the black out feeling was coming on.
It’s happened before when I asked them to please please not “ take over “ and they listened ( I was in a park with my 2 dogs and afraid of how we’d get back home safely -not knowing if whoever was wanting full control could drive us home). They listened then too.

I’ll be more reassuring to everyone involved . I did say that we are far away and are safe now. So maybe that helps . Maybe emphasize I want to know their story -slowly .

Don’t know why the blackout feelings come though . They’re in a hurry to talk ? But it happened at the park too. It’s happened in therapy ( with my former T). Maybe I need to put forth more effort in general to communicate-it’s spotty at best.

Again -Thankyou both for responding. Knowing I can share this here and get support and ideas is a strong safety net that helps me have confidence to move forward .

Just real quick because we're busy; it is possible that the blackout feeling is programmed to prevent you from talking about this (T) or even think about it too much. I ofcourse don't know how 'your cult' worked, but it very well may be something none authentic. If this is the case, you can ask the part who pushes that button why and 'negotiate'. Kind regards, and EA will be back later.

Thank you Thankyou . You’re correct about the cult stuff and not talking. Not knowing. I suspect there’s a lot of internal threats to not to think about just the cult but about DID itself. It’s all a giant well guarded secret.

Never thought about it this way.

You're welcome. I'm glad more people are opening up about this because this is very important; it happens, it is bad, and the approach needs to be different from 'normal did treatment'. Something a lot of T's do not understand. Please don't worry about accepting, not supressing, etc. If you feel this is the problem, then you're probably right. Something inside knows. And believe in yourself; you can talk to the parts who push those buttons. This is not about 'communication'/teamwork, but about deprogramming. Really got to run now:)

Oh geeze . I have 2 reactions . One is you’re correct about the cult stuff ( I’m not so knowledgeable about this).

The other is I haven’t even gotten DID about sexual abuse and the regular family craziness processed. I’m still getting to know who’s in me.

I’m still on DID 101.

Hi LadySlippers,

Very common, those two (or even more) reactions. When you're ready, you'll get your answers from inside, whatever those answers are:)

Are you ok now?