*tw* a part of me wants me to be dead

I woke up with a part of me wanting me to dead. I don’t know where it came from and every time I try to ignore it or distract myself from it, it gets stronger. Anyone know how I can get this to stop?

Try talking with them? Ask what is bothering them, but if they don't want to talk about that, just try being compassionate and understanding. Be gentle with them and with yourself.

V2

We often find when we acknowledge the feelings and accept them and the parts having those feelings they become less intense and when we try to deny them or suppress they get stronger. It's like they are fighting to be heard and accepted and that the only way they are able to communicate is through emotion sometimes.

So your ignoring it or trying to distract yourself from these thoughts/feelings makes them stronger. That suggests it's time for different action on your part, like attempts to communicate with an open mind, ultimately, to help.

There are so many reasons an alter may wish that they or another alter (often a host) would die. We've had more than one alter who have held these thoughts and emotions too. For each of them, the desire is there for a reason and, in our system, that reason has always been to escape pain. The pain may be physical pain, as from past abuse, or emotional suffering.

Common sources of emotional pain are an awareness of betrayal of someone close to us (parents), cruelty (especially if we're powerless to stop it), or other unacceptable behavior, sometimes in ourselves. Some pain has come from watching outside people or one of us in the body enjoying life. The contrast between joy out there and their own pain creates overwhelming sadness or anger.

Some have thought they can escape sadness by dying. Anger makes some of us want to punish or kill, specifically an abuser or someone whose behavior mirrors an abuser. Or they want to kill the body itself to release us/them from pain. At least one of us has thought they should kill the body so that another of us won't have to learn what happened, since their prime directive was to prevent the knowledge from reaching daylight.

We have, and many systems have, alters who are dead in some way. If that's involved, you'll want to look into why. We've had a ghost, someone (emotionally) dead by choice, someone "killed" by another alter, someone who died (to hide the most painful info), and an infant who was in a perpetual loop of dying until we rescued him. One alter has been suicidal due to recognizing his own brokenness, one seems to hold on to suicidal thoughts for another so that other could function, and another who holds despair so deep it's connected to oblivion (= death).

My general practice and recommendation when encountering an alter who is problematic in any way is to thank them. Let them know that you know they're doing what they think is best. You can pretty much assume that that's true, from their point of view. If you can reach out to an alter in a way that avoids rejecting them, in fact appreciates them, it may allow them to reach back and communicate, even if the first response is to reject you.

Progress doesn't always look positive. For example, if you start with a situation where you have zero communication with acting out that threatens or endangers the body, and that changes to the alter telling you "I hate you, I want you to die" but not acting out, that's movement in the right direction.

NyxX wrote:When we try to deny them or suppress they get stronger. It's like they are fighting to be heard and accepted and that the only way they are able to communicate is through emotion sometimes.

I think that is because of what parts are: they are suppressed feelings who got to be their own persons, because feelings in them were too intense to bear. That is why they were separated from other feelings in your mind. So they exist, because they have been put away and suppressed, that is how they were born. If you try to put them away even more, you are repeating the reason for their existence. They don't have another choice than to get even more independent, if they aren't allowed with others. They can't disappear just because you don't like them. They didn't choose to exist in the first place. They exists, because someone needs to take care of the feeling which still feels overwhelming.

You don't need to agree with them to understand them and co-operate with them. It's easier said than done, but that is how DID works. Your mind can suppress things away from you, but you can't suppress your mind intentionally. Probably there is a reason why this part is getting active now.