Exploring Language

Hi All

I'm wondering how others feel about the language that is generally used with DID?
For me, early on, I had a really hard time with using various names for my different states. There were a couple of key experiences that I had early on, when I was first understanding DID, and my brain attached names to a couple of states, but I really resisted it because the experience of thinking of myself and various "others" was extremely fragmenting. I've always had a very hard time with identity, and that fragmenting experience was distressing and unhelpful.
Now, I generally think about my various states as the emotions that they're attached to. So like, "I'm in a heavy guilt space right now". Or "I'm in a high anxiety space with an undertone of shame". There are a lot of traits that are more or less common in particular spaces - like in my most common spaces, I'll smoke 2-3 cigs a day but in a certain anxious get-shit-done space, I'm repulsed by the idea.
It doesn't change the symptoms of what I face, but it helps me in my sense of identity. Even when I think about the states that took on names at the beginning, I am so totally separate from those people, I can't even really understand them as a part of me. By not allowing the spaces to have names, I feel like I have a more collected, whole understanding of myself. I could definitely see myself going into a rabbit hole of a loss of sense of control and autonomy over myself if I had done otherwise. And autonomy and control are a major struggle for me anyway, so mitigating that is definitely worth it.

This also means that I haven't dived into a lot of the DID lingo around Littles and Hosts and Social Directors, etc., which I do feel can be limiting because they could be helpful in understanding the different capacities of my different spaces. But I don't know how to go down that road at all without the fragmenting sense of losing my identity.
I definitely have all of these. I have spaces where I am obviously very young, or teenager-esq, or older, or whatever; I have spaces that are very Logical or very Empathetic; I have spaces that are far more social than others; I have ones that are fem, others that as masc, and some where i feel totally estranged from my name.

I guess I'm trying to figure out how to talk about my experience in a different way and wondering if anyone else has explored different language when talking about their different spaces?

That fear, of identity dissolution or annihilation, is a common one. But it is only a fear, not reality, so it doesn't matter what you do, you won't disappear. For the same reason there is no right answer to your questions either, so the main thing I want to say is just do what works for you and don't sweat the details.

So, some more thoughts about this, in no particular order...

All dissociated identity states are ego states (or collections of ego states). But ego states are not all dissociated. Everyone has ego states, lots of them.

Sounds like a therapist is trying to use Internal Family Systems with you. IFS is about very mildly personifying the ego states, as if the client were a multiple, to adjust how the client identifies with that part of themself. The "chair work" in Gestalt therapy does the same thing. Often, encouraging a little distance and separation is a temporary phase and helps the person to embrace that part of self. This works because often we are more alienated from ourselves than from other people; we don't know how to embrace ourself.

IFS therapy was derived from work with DID clients but applying it to DID clients can be problematic. The DID client has actual dissociated identity states and the IFS stock labels applied from outside may be very alienating.

When I worked with a therapist who was very into IFS, briefly, I tried the stock labels. They were not a good fit, so then I used somewhat awkward functional descriptions: "the insider who said . . ." That was okay for some insiders but one popped out and stated they would be called by a certain name. It was both disturbing and a relief for me because the whole "the one who said . . ." routine was tedious and complicated.

Think about how people talk about third persons: most of us, most of the time, use a name, often a nickname. Or a role, then a name. "My maternal grandmother's brother Dave . . . Dave . . ." Or "The guy who raped me, let's call him CC for, you know, convicted criminal. Well, CC . . . and then CC . . ."

I hope that gives you some reassurance, and maybe some tactical ideas.