I think I understand what the "part in the present" means

A lot of DID therapists talk about "merging with the part in the present" and us DID people are like, what the fork? There is no core self, no part in the present.

Well. Well. Well. If this isn't dissociation talking. (Hold your horses before closing or yelling in the comment, because it is a wild ride and the "part of the present" is not an alter at all!)

Parts are functions of the brain. Memories, emotions, abilities to react to something... One of them is the "part in the present" meaning, the function of being able to experience "I am me, in the here and now".

In DID, this is called "fronting mindfully". The "part in the present" is the ability of being fully in the here and now, fully experiencing the feeling of "I am me".

So, of course there is no alter in DID who is completely, permanently, connected here and now! This "part in the present" in DID is the "pilot seat" we use when fronting. Not an alter!

"Merging with the part in the present" means "being permanently connected with the here and now and the feeling of being me". It is not a "core self" because there is no "core self". It is an empty seat that integration aims at turning into the Megazord's cockpit where everybody can sit and pilot all together all at once.

Thank you for sitting through my TED talk. Have a great day.

I think this is kind of like my past role. My job was just to 'be the host' there and then when they were in danger of becoming overwhelmed.

I hold no trauma so just had to occupy the body for the remaining time the host was required to be there eg at work and then get us home so we could switch back.

Jay

Not 100% sure about that. My T uses "part in/of the present" (translating this from french is tricky) to qualify me as an alter.

She opposes the part in/of the present with the ANP. An ANP experiences losses/misses bits of things (emotions, behaviors, memories...). They often have a sort of "being numb/unaware" of some aspect of the present - like not being able to feel anger or joy, not noticing a part of them is triggered, only being able to dissociate in front of something stressful, etc.

The part in/of the present may experience memories as "almost me" or "happened to us", but they have access to it. They don't lack emotion, behaviors, or memories. They are grounded in the present, aware of their system, aware of their past as a whole. They just don't always identify with it. It means they feel everything, they remember everything and they have the choice on how they will react. They don't have one "default" behavior. They can adapt and adjust.

And that's what I am. I'm not the numb scared ANP I was before. I've access to the past and present all the time, I can be aware of the inside and the outside worlds all the time, I'm able to handle all emotions my system feels. When another part can't handle to feel something, I'm often able to feel it for/with them - because I am a part of them, their emotions are also mine -, which help a lot the process of healing from traumas, and also integration. I deal with the daily normal life, but I can access the action systems of defense and choose how I'll react in front of most of the stressful situations we face (not easy because of fragments close to me, but we're working on it).

Daem is doing the same thing, but he's made to face only very serious situations that could create new traumas if not handled well. He's 100% not an EP, he's not stuck in "trauma time", he has access to every information about our past/present and the inside/outside, he makes sure no one inside is left scared, or with questions, or worries, etc. He adjusts and adapts himself to the context very well, without extreme emotions or behaviors (well, there's sometimes issues because of fragments, just like me, we're working on that too). If the situation is a "long term one", he can also take care of the daily life without any problem, as he has access to all the action systems I have - and having him in charge during hard times reassure a lot the trauma holders.

But we're at a point in our healing which, if we haven't merged yet, it's only because we don't want to. We were 12 alters at the beginning of the year, we're only 6 left now (most of them have merged/are merging with Daem and I), with 4 of us constantly co-conscious and sharing our abilities. The last 2 are young trauma holders who still need therapy and will merge with one of the other 4 when done. And we like how we work, we feel very comfortable like that.

Anyway, I really need to ask my T where she got this "part in/of the present" idea from, because it's an interesting piece of theory, and I didn't find anything related to it when I searched.

But maybe it's the same thing as the "Self" in IFS? It can be seen as a way to behave (with kindness, understanding for the other parts, etc.) as well as a part of the person, depending on how the person understand it.

I think Dwelt that you describe better what I meant, that I was able to do with my "seat" metaphor.

It is something that, in DID, needs to be built from scratch as opposed to less dissociated structures where there is enough material (parts, alters, systems of action whatever) connected to this ability of being "me here and now" so that this "me here and now" can have a face and name.

I guess that in functional multiplicity, all of the alters become "me here and now" all together at the same time (my Megazord metaphor), while in the fusion option, all of the alters become together a new identity for the "me here and now" (similar to the fusion in Steven Universe).

I had a "lightbulb moment" the other day about this, but it was gone before I could write about it, hence my completely confused explanation xD

ArbreMonde wrote: in functional multiplicity, all of the alters become "me here and now" all together at the same time (my Megazord metaphor), while in the fusion option, all of the alters become together a new identity for the "me here and now" (similar to the fusion in Steven Universe).

[YUNA] I'm confused?? I thought 'we' were FM but all of us are not 'me here and now' because we have 'littles' who are clearly 'me in early childhood' and we're never all at the front simultaneously?

in regards to fusion... Juno and I fuse for public appearances/interaction and become the 'social mask/public me' the world see's as 'personality of this body that answers to legal name' but again that's not ALL of us ..and Juno is not 'a version of me' - I don't see her as that and she doesn't see herself as 'another version of Yuna' either...maybe this is just 'blending' and not fusion, we can stay this way for however long is needed,she can leave the front I can't unless another human self' switches with me. (such as Kit).

I've started to feel like there's too many different terms for things. The way I see co-consciousness, it lines up with the idea of everyone being in the 'here and now' as opposed to alters not being co-conscious and being unaware of what is going on. In our system, roughly a third of our system (so six of us) are co-conscious to enough of a level that, even if they are in the Inner World, they know what is going on and in an emergency can fade into the front to help. Some part of them is always in the 'here and now' while the others aren't aware of the world except when they come forward to co-front.

Of course, I could be wrong.
Vi

I agree with you ViTheta: there IS a lot of terminology, some from the therapists, some from the researchers, some from the DID people themselves.

Trying to figure out what connects to what is interesting and confusing and exhausting at the same time. Therapists use a lot "part in/from the present" and I'm trying to wrap my head arount what it means for DID. It is very explicit in PTSD because it is the ANP acting every day, in the here and now - it starts being fuzzy and a bit abstract in OSDD - and in DID it just feels like "lulz there is no such thing in DID". But, since DID is ""just"" PTSD over 9000, if there is something in PTSD, it must remain in one form or another in DID, right? So my guess is, in DID the "part in/of/from/whatev the present" is so tiny, like a speck, that it becomes overlooked. Because the dissociation becomes so intense, there is almost nothing left connected to it to give it shape. Hence why us DID persons feel confused or even insulted when therapist talk about "merging with the core self in the present" because lul, whut? What core? I have no core in my phonebook.

Yeah, if this tiny speck that is the "core" is completely invisible in DID so tiny it is, you bet it's in nobody's phonebook!

(Just another lame metaphor from my part. Dwelt is better than me at wording these stuff.)



@Yuna from Tri Force : the way I understand FM is, all the trauma has been resolved and every alter has access to the totality of the memories and abilities of the system. I see fusion as something permanent, while blending is temporary. (To the contrary of Steven Universe where the same word is used no matter how long the fusion holds.)

I've actually never heard "part in/from the present". In what context is it used?
To me it sounds a bit like an ego state.

A lot of therapists use it. The Gang (if I am not mistaken) was faced recently with a therapist telling them to "merge the alters with the core self, the part in the present" which is cringey to hear when you are DID and never had a core identity nor a singular sense of self.

My own DID therapist talked about the part in the present (from the present? of the present?) and associated it with what I call "front(ing)" but we never really talked about it again, I shrugged it off on the moment as her trying to match my vocabulary with hers. But apparently it is some sort of official vocabulary used in therapists' training. Now I am the one trying to connect the dots with my own experience and what us DID people tend to use to describe our experiences.

Intuitively I would see it in DID like an undevelopped seed that all parts need to connect to in order to gain a better sense of overall cohesion. But it is not a necessity to do it because in DID you can also function by connecting the alters with each-others, increase communication etc. without using this seed. While in integrated persons, everything is connected to this seed already through the normal brain maturation process, so this seed becomes the "center of command" of the brain. (I am trying to put into words what my intuitive understanding gives me in feelings and pictures.) And in OSDD, it depends on the person, what had time to mature before the trauma damages started, what could not mature due to trauma damages. So sometimes in OSDD you could have some alters connected to it, some not connected to it. While in DID, nothing connects to it at all.

Maybe it has to do with the thalamus?

[KIT] I get your original post about the pilot seat @ArbreMonde.

I think whether you believe there is a core or you are the core depends on the part sitting in the seat and whether they 'identify with the seat'.

let me give you an example with our system.... Some (not all) of our alters when they started to front for the very first time they 'became convinced' they were the 'core'. It happened with me originally, it happened with Teen S/Yuna and Bobby. It did not start with that feeling inside, it was 'getting into the driving seat and staying there consistently' over a period of time that I/they started to think this.


Alters within our system who have never fronted or for much shorter periods have never developed that feeling/belief. Some just see it as 'a job' ..such as how Jay described their past role of 'auto pilot'...that has been her only experience of being up front in the past and despite having 'rote replies' for what her hobbies are, what she liked (whatever were the host's likes at the time) and she said she had full autobiographical knowledge of both the host and the bodies history at the time she still does not see it as 'her body'.

Jay is very new to us so we are still trying to work out where she may fit in and be able to help us the best and all her answers so far are based off a host that no longer exists within the system. When not 'autopiloting' she seems to have just been dormant in the past so has no hobbies/identity of her own and appears to have just woke up straight from an era when we had no understanding of DID.

In contrast most of our other insiders have their own fully developed personalities and likes and dislikes which don't always match what outside people believe is the 'personality/likes etc of this body'...regardless of whether they see the body as theirs when they're fronting.