Protector who uses DP/DR to "take me away" from feelings

On Friday, the T and I were talking about something to do with my childhood, and he was saying (again) that he wants me to know and feel how valuable and important I am--or something like that, but I was distracted by being taken back to a time when I was 9 years old. I felt like I was back there but I could see the T talking and having another one of those big caring feelings about us, and I wanted to be in the present so I could really feel that and take it in. But I couldn't.

I told the T about it, and he said he hoped to hear from whoever was blocking me from being there.

When I was writing in the journal to him today (which we haven't done in weeks), I remembered that he said that, and asked inside about it. What I heard from Watcher was that "bodies are stupid. I don't have to stay there. I can go anywhere. But feelings keep you there like sandbags on a hot air balloon--just weighing you down and keeping you from being free."

Their position in any map of the system is separate--floating above it. And when I'm in the T's office, I have a sense of Watcher being up and to the left of the T, kind of hovering near the ceiling.

In the past when I've been writing about things in our private journal and have started to feel overwhelmed, Watcher pulls us back from it by having us suddenly view what we wrote as material for a book that we'll write someday. We can't stay in the feeling of whatever we're writing about, or keep writing about it, because suddenly we're picturing it on a page in a book, and how it would come across to a reader.

Depersonalization and derealization were strategies that we used throughout our childhood--they were obviously very helpful then, and we needed them to survive. But this is really getting in the way now, and I don't have a clue about how to help Watcher start to see that. They really believe that it's vastly superior to not have a body at all--to be a sort of floating and observing intelligent entity with no corporeal form.

Does anyone have ideas or advice? Are there ways to help Watcher explore other possibilities of how to help us?

Hi Gang,

I don't have any answers but we are interested in the topic.

We have a lot of DP/DR in different situations, and have not found grounding techniques to be effective. Or haven't found the right techinques yet.

The idea that it might be someone intentionally trying to pull us back a bit to protect us, that never occured to us. Sometimes it seems to happen for no reason at all, but other times we think it's because someone else is trying to push past us to get front, or 'crowding' us a bit to try and share front.

Maybe a stupid question, but have you tried asking Watcher not to do that to you? Like, I understand that's their preference, they prefer not to have a corporeal form, but do they know you don't need them to do that to you any more?

Arin

oh my, I thought it was just us...
we have at least 2 parts who are up in the 'sky' of the inside world, all mind, pulling strings.
one is actually called the puppeteer because he moves parts around and decides who will front. not in an evil way, but he plays his own story and we are just puppets in that story at times and it is not comfortable.
the other one is sometimes refered to as Joker and he doesn't seem nice...
Age is a watcher, but she found out she likes olives. without a body there is no savoring. the mind is not enough for that. While it does create pleasure to think smartly, it is nothing compared to body pleasure, sorry. without ever trying and hiding in the mind all the time Watcher will never know... too bad.
for us, Mike is negotiating with the mind parts. he seems to be accepted by them a bit because he is smart and he knows how to talk to smart people and he rarely fronts at all, so he seems the most similar. they won't talk to Asti, whose body awareness is low but she fronts all the time...
so, negotiations are possible, just tricky.
I am not sure if it can be called DP/DR when it is based on structural dissociation. because obviously you need a system approach and cannot work with DBT skills or gounding here. no amount of orientation exercises would get you closer to your feelings if someone inside is raising a wall...
next blog post on Astis list is about negotiating emotion... maybe she knows something smart to add...

I'm interested in what they have to say if you explain them the reality. That someone is gonna need to take care of body for you to stay alive. Is it that they think it would be OK to let the body die and it would release you all to be free, like they feel what freedom is? Or is there also understanding about how and why body and staying with it is important? To me their opinion on that will change the way how I'd talk about it with them.

Remember respect and thankfulness, and remember remind them they are still very much wanted part of the system, when you start to talk about how they do things now is not needed, or hoped anymore. If they are emotionless they may not need that talk, but you know them better than I can.

I think it's important that they understand that their view about feelings being just obstacle on your way is their opinion, but you have your own views as well, and you do get to choose what you want for yourself. But you still hope they'll help you, but maybe different ways. Just tell them what you hope for yourself, you want to have a happy life in real world, not just float around. And how in order to get that you need to get practice about how it is to feel, and be able to feel bad feelings too, and that it's OK, as long as you are still safe. And if you are NOT safe, you can't help yourself out of that, if you just float. Now, as an adult, there is a lot you can choose and you can protect yourself too, when you are aware how things feel to you. Back then you had no options or no power. Maybe they can be part of you new awareness power even? IDK, maybe they can't help in that, maybe they can.

Is it possible for them to do the same to all parts in the system, or do they protect only you? If they protect only you, there will be littles left alone to deal with bad feelings, if you just float and don't care. If there's no one taking care of outside things, your body with all trauma parts will end up hospitalized and your life will not be what you hope for and it's very unfair to others who are left behind. Then you NEED to escape again because reality is too hard, and that is not what you want at all. You want your reality be safe and full of feelings, mostly good ones, but to get there there's a lot sorrow to face first.

If they can make it happen to all, you'll end up the same if you all just float. There will be a body left behind and it needs to be hospitalized for as long as you keep on floating. And even if you don't feel anything about it, the reality is still that your life has stopped and is not how you want it to be, or you end up dying. If they do think dying is good option, that's when you are freed forever, then that is what is gonna happen anyway at some point. And you can explain you DO wanna live life in real world before it and have real feelings.

So how can they help you to get it? I don't know. I think that is question you ask from them. You don't want to stop their existence, because their method is not needed anymore. You want them to be there still, when you do have outside life you don't need to escape from. And they may have the best hunch about how can they actually keep helping you with co-operating way to get you where you want to be.

They are how they want to, and they can if that's what they choose. And you can choose for yourself. You can explain that bad feelings you deal with now, don't have to be altered. That is how you get rid of them eventually for good, by facing them in safe environments bit by bit. That is also how you can set others free in your system your way, by letting them heal.

When one day you have life you hope for and all feelings, maybe the observer wants to even try how it is to feel themself too. It's essential part of being human, to have feelings. It is their trauma they needed forget theirs in order to escape AND help you. So I see them as one who sacrificed something essential for you, and even if they are emotionless now, it's not how they've always been. It can be in a way very painful to be wrong kind now, after they are how they are for reason that was not their fault. They may not feel it, but it can be hard for them to let it change for you.

All parts have a reason in the past for how they are. I'm thinking where their reason, that must have been painful, is restored, if it's not restored in them. I think you found out if they still have that, or if they managed to leave it somewhere when they became how they are. Or is it all over the system?

You can tell them the way they feel what freedom is, is not how you see it. For you it's freedom to feel, live and choose, or what ever it is for you. I can't know.

Could they became your adviser? But you could choose for yourself, and they wouldn't make decisions about you on their own anymore? When you respect them, you are allowed to have some respect for you too.

birdsong87 wrote:Age is a watcher, but she found out she likes olives. without a body there is no savoring. the mind is not enough for that.

Wow this has given me some sudden thoughts about our Rebecca... will explore that in our journey though rather than take this offtopic.

Arin

VioletFlux wrote:Wow this has given me some sudden thoughts about our Rebecca... will explore that in our journey though rather than take this offtopic.

Arin

Same here. I thought that maybe for me, who have been escaping all my life, dealing with people is so hard ALSO because there's sensory overload in the real reality. Among other reasons. We've discovered many reasons why it is that way for us, this is one new one to ad on list.

I think that the mind parts are afraid of needs, physical, emotional, social needs.
they stick to mental and spiritual needs.
this might be due to the structural dissociation, because we might have split needs off in that way.
it makes all of us incomplete.
the hubris of not having a weak body is a way to hide the extreme fear of having a body and needs. it is also avoidance of reality, which exists in the outside world, not in the constructions of our mind.
mind parts can prove their superiority by mastering needs, not by avoiding them and calling people weak who at least try to master them.
I think it helps to look at it from this perspective instead of one where big parts try to control little parts. mind parts are not stronger, they are driven by fears like everyone else.

VioletFlux wrote:Maybe a stupid question, but have you tried asking Watcher not to do that to you? Like, I understand that's their preference, they prefer not to have a corporeal form, but do they know you don't need them to do that to you any more?

Arin

Well, I guess it's their way of keeping the whole system safe. They don't see it as something they're doing to me, as in one separate entity doing something to another separate entity. It's more like those "beam me up" tubes that they have on Star Trek (I forget what they're called). Wherever we are, it could come down around us and take us away, so that we're no longer in the body, or it could leave us there but make the surroundings seem unreal--so we're still present, but the situation is no longer reality (we would still be in our body, but it would be like we were reading a book, or watching a movie).

A slightly less drastic thing that they do is to make it seem bad to have a body and to be able to be seen by anyone. So the feelings of ugliness and having to hide to avoid being seen also seem to come from Watcher.

birdsong87 wrote:While it does create pleasure to think smartly, it is nothing compared to body pleasure, sorry. without ever trying and hiding in the mind all the time Watcher will never know... too bad...

...I am not sure if it can be called DP/DR when it is based on structural dissociation. because obviously you need a system approach and cannot work with DBT skills or gounding here. no amount of orientation exercises would get you closer to your feelings if someone inside is raising a wall...

Watcher sneers at your assumption that it's better to be in a body--to them it has been proven beyond a doubt that any possible pleasure is not worth the horrible pain, helplessness, and inability to hide, that one has with a body.

I called it DP/DR because I either don't feel like "myself" (the body suddenly seems to be bulky, ugly baggage that I'm stuck with--I become separated from it), or it suddenly feels like I'm watching a movie--the surroundings aren't real and don't matter (I'm sometimes surprised when I can be seen by the people I'm watching). Those are the basic definitions of DP and DR. But you're right--it's being done to me/us by another part, so it's definitely based on structural dissociation.

Floralie wrote:You don't want to stop their existence, because their method is not needed anymore. You want them to be there still, when you do have outside life you don't need to escape from. And they may have the best hunch about how can they actually keep helping you with co-operating way to get you where you want to be....

...So I see them as one who sacrificed something essential for you, and even if they are emotionless now, it's not how they've always been. It can be in a way very painful to be wrong kind now, after they are how they are for reason that was not their fault. They may not feel it, but it can be hard for them to let it change for you.

All parts have a reason in the past for how they are. I'm thinking where their reason, that must have been painful, is restored, if it's not restored in them. I think you found out if they still have that, or if they managed to leave it somewhere when they became how they are.

This may be a useful approach to take. Thank you, Floralie.

birdsong87 wrote:
the hubris of not having a weak body is a way to hide the extreme fear of having a body and needs. it is also avoidance of reality, which exists in the outside world, not in the constructions of our mind.
mind parts can prove their superiority by mastering needs, not by avoiding them and calling people weak who at least try to master them.

This is also a useful perspective. Thanks, Asti.

I'll try to journal about this and have a dialogue with Watcher. Thanks for all the helpful input.

I just read the original post not replies and am responding to that because I had a thought about it and didn't want to loose it reading more. Detachment from feelings is what came over to me about your watcher. They don't want attachment because attachment is pain, body has pain, life is pain. - Maybe I'm taking what they're saying in a different way to what they're saying because I'm extrapolating the main gist which I read as "detachment from feelings and the body" and the reason I would want that is because those two things are the source of pain.

I am fully immune to sneering from someone who is not even oriented in the body enough to notice that time has passed and that the years of pain and helplessness are over and the time of being able to decide about some seriously pleasurable things is happening now
Smart minds doubt. it's the timid and ignorant souls who believe they know everything for sure.

The things Watcher is so afraid of sensing are the most fullfilling in life (there is research about that if they are intersted in reading that!) and being seen and known is at the very top of the list. if Watcher don't want to be fully alive and happy and fulfilled and loved and cared for and connected and cherished and comforted and encouraged and supported that is their business, but they could allow others to try it.