Powerlessness

How does one learn to become assertive if they feel their words carry no weight?

It would have been dangerous to assert myself as a child. I was not allowed to refuse ECT as an adult.

I think of being assertive - but it feels hollow. I have adapted like an amoeba and take the shape of my surroundings.

Going to learn how to be assertive anyway.

Ugh...I realize this post is kind of a repeat. Sorry about that. Won't make another post about it.

puppieskittens wrote:How does one learn to become assertive if they feel their words carry no weight?

It seems like this would be something one could work on in therapy. It has really helped to work on this with my T. If we ask for something, and how he responds isn't really (or isn't quite) what someone wanted, in the past we would just accept it and be upset. He has encouraged me to ask again--he wants to respond in the way I need; I just have to be clear about what I want. So with him, my words have weight, and I see the positive result of being assertive.

puppieskittens wrote:I think of being assertive - but it feels hollow. I have adapted like an amoeba and take the shape of my surroundings.

We can really relate to this ourselves, when Naomi is triggered out of her widow of tolerance we become very passive and suggestible. We are working, slowly, in therapy to remedy this but it is real work. A lifetime of "blending in " does not go away overnight.

We were assertive enough for holding a job but noticed a decided lack of conviction and fortitude in personal life. We labeled it wimpiness and it was frequent but sporadic. Sometimes the weakness showed up at work and sometimes decisiveness and conviction showed up in the personal life. So it was confusing and hard to recognize a clear pattern, especially before we knew bout the DID.

Over time we began to make the distinction that what we thought was a host alter in a really foul mood was actually an adult alter who sometimes stepped in for us when, it turns out, he felt we were being disrespected or letting ourselves be walked all over. He held strength but also way too much anger and his interpersonal skills were, well, absolutely wretched. (Sorry, Ulrich.) So we had to identify what was going on, recognize the strengths scattered among us, and figure out how to start sharing these. We lacked balance, especially between attachment and detachment.

Is there a part or parts of you that hold anger or resentment at not being able to assert yourself safely? Do you have moments or memories of not being powerless, as in taking useful actions? If so, some of you may have preserved the strength that was way too dangerous to be in touch with most of the time in childhood. Given what most of us with DID experienced, it seems likely that there are parts who are angry and hold rage in most if not all of us.

For our system, it wasn't clear this was a distinct alter, one who needed to be identified by himself and by us before we could establish communication. After all, before we realized there was more than one of us, what need was there for communication and negotiation? What happened was we switched, automatically, when it got to that point.

Powerlessness -- or perhaps, more accurately, non-assertiveness -- was a survival tactic for you, later a familiar, default habit more than a fixed character trait. Power absolutely resides within but it may not be clear how and where it's distributed. But it's hard to access that power when it's dissociated, possibly into more than one part.