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“well, alters, by nature, ARE deep down just parts of your self” [...]Alters are created from trauma that ‘YOU’ experience. They don’t just come down from heaven or come up from hell as souls of others that have once passed on.

I don't understand why he was confused by this statement. It makes alot of sense.

I like to look at relationships, whether friends, family or whatever, like a business. Are you getting out of it as much as you are putting in? Are you feeling emotionally bankrupt? Is this partnership in your health beneficial? Sometimes, it feels like it's two steps forward, one step back, w/ my T at least, she doesn't want to dig deep, or hear about my issues, just say I have panic attacks, but not say when or what the triggers are, she just said, tell yourself you're okay, blah blah. It's working, but I need someone who's not afraid of what they'll find going on in my head.
So, is this something you think your T can work on? Or is it something not within the capabilities of your T? If it's not, is that acceptable? Will you find this partnership fulfilling or healing still?
That being said, I suck at advise, so maybe asking yourself to take a vote on what all ya'll feel like helps too.

Bourbon, I am curious. Why are you creating such elaborate imaginary scripts for your therapist? Try processing this using Byron Katie's Judge Your Neighbor worksheet (thework.com).

Ultimately, you must resolve your denial for yourself. It would be inappropriate for your therapist to either validate or invalidate your belief or your denial. Until he has seen for himself an unambiguous switch, it is appropriate for him to reserve judgment. An unambiguous switch would be one in which an alter tells him explicitly that someone else is speaking, or he observes you exhibiting amnesia.

-- Sat Dec 03, 2011 4:36 pm --

Borg wrote:w/ my T at least, she doesn't want to dig deep, or hear about my issues, just say I have panic attacks, but not say when or what the triggers are, she just said, tell yourself you're okay, blah blah. It's working, but I need someone who's not afraid of what they'll find going on in my head.

I doubt your T is afraid. More likely she is using the recommended 3-stage approach. It sounds like you are in the first stage, safety and stabilization. She is helping you to learn coping strategies and to develop greater tolerance. Digging deep comes later.

I notice that my T, who you know who is ---- Does this.

1. He acknowledges that without a doubt I have DID, in fact the worst case he has ever come upon in all that he has treated. Remember DID is only a label. You have a dissociative disorder and that is what must be treated. I get this lecture each visit too.

2. That treating alters as separate identities is a backward step to getting healthy. I of course do it and talk to each one as an individual but he as a therapist does not dive into the giant depth of darkness that might be impossible to crawl out of. He constantly reminds me that this close relationship with my alters must change, but at the same time I am just getting to know mine. It's a hard place to be in, but I work on doing both at the same time if that makes sense.

3. He instead works on keeping me present and not dissociating and allowing others to come out. Keep in mind however that I do loose huge chunks of time daily and have all my life. I have had 18 hosts that alternate with each other and other parts, but I have the feeling he would treat all DID cases and DDNOS-1 the same way. That said we do try and work with various alters and of course will process trauma with those that hold those memories.

4. "He explained that he knows this is very real for me. What he doesn’t know if if these experiences are separate personalities or just parts of my “self”."

They are both and neither. A personality is not a thing. You cannot have more than one of them. They are indeed parts of yourself, but they have been isolated enough to have their own way of being.

I believe you can trust him. He wants you to feel as normal as possible. Don't fall into the trap that you are special because you have multiple personalities! He is trying to lead you away from that sort of mind thinking. If you go there is might be impossible to heal yourself! You want to be present and feel you are as normal as possible. Everyone does have parts of the self and that is normal. Yours are just more separate for now, but know you can fix that my friend.

I hope this helps.

PS! I fight this way of thinking too! I want to feel special, but keeping a dysfunctional way of thinking and being is not the way to do it, but yet --- DID fascinates people so it makes us different and we want to embrace that. Don't do it! Trust your therapist. Relax and do as he suggests.

That is my 2 cents!


More on 3, but I started to ramble so put it down here...

* Yesterday my therapist tells Jessica she can come out because she has been trying to write to me and has not been able to. He asked why is she not able to write. I said I don't know but she tries between 5am and 8am each morning. Jessica is the one that had always posted in this group and who was host for the last 2 years.

When Jessica came out - Frank the Gorilla came out and scared her away and tore the therapists book he gave us to write on to shreds and pages went flying all over the room. He is STRONG and scary! Then we switched to 4 parts (Jessica, Gorilla, Hope, Snake -according to Sage my ISH) before I could come present again. This does not phase my T. We still need to work on those parts of self of course. Entertaining - yes! Helpful? no!

Jessica does report that inside it's terrifying. Frank the Gorilla does not look like the sweet little boy he is. In fact, he terrifies her and looks like a HUGE ANGRY Gorilla, but to me he is a sweet little boy when we talk because that is how I treat him. He will not let any of the alters write anything and does his best to keep them from talking. She keeps trying but she is taking a beating. I think she feels at 5am he is sleeping, but they still wake and stop her. The Gorilla is way low on the hierarchy of how mean my system protectors can be. He is the first defense. They get way meaner if he fails to do his job. All my Father and Mother introjects: Mammoth, Tarantula, Bear, Snakes, etc.... look and feel real to her inside, even though she has been out here and knows it is not real! She knows those parts are NOT the real Mother and Father nor are they huge animals attacking her. I even gave her a sanctuary and the magic protection the others have and it works for everyday use, but does not when they try and communicate with others.

Una+ wrote:Bourbon, I am curious. Why are you creating such elaborate imaginary scripts for your therapist? Try processing this using Byron Katie's Judge Your Neighbor worksheet (thework.com).

Pardon? I'm doing what?

And also, Una, he has seen a switch. Two, in fact.

bourbon wrote:Pardon? I'm doing what?

I am referring to this:

if this means that his view of DID is that alter personalities are some mystical creation where the personalities are not related to you AT ALL and don’t even match up with your DNA.

See? Where does this elaborate idea come from? It is your own fantasy of what may be in his mind. You are making up stuff about what he thinks, and getting upset about what you think he thinks. Why are you doing this to yourself?

Right. I think you're off course, but I see where you're coming from.

Issue is resolved anyway so I will delete the original post.

Bourbon~ I will adequately respond to your post later...

Una~ I may be wrong, but the way I read it was that Bourbon wasn't creating an imaginary script, but rather just being sarcastic. What I thought she was trying to say was, where does he think all these parts might come from, if they didn't come from me? It sounds like she fully recognizes that the parts are all a part of her, so what's even the debate?

(my underlines in the following)

tylas wrote:2. That treating alters as separate identities is a backward step to getting healthy. I of course do it and talk to each one as an individual but he as a therapist does not dive into the giant depth of darkness that might be impossible to crawl out of. He constantly reminds me that this close relationship with my alters must change, but at the same time I am just getting to know mine. It's a hard place to be in, but I work on doing both at the same time if that makes sense.

Well, on the face of it, the underlined sounds like bad advice, certainly not universally applicable, and potentially damaging if applied to some systems.

Going against some published "wisdom," I've done exactly that -- treated my alters as separate people -- and it has brought me more peace of mind and hope than I've had in years. Not to have treated my alters as separate individuals would have been abusive, particularly of the littles. It has not created the preposterous narcissism that this so-called wisdom claims it would. We are in fact more aware that we are parts of one human being now, not less. I've been alarmed by this "one solution fits all" theory of DID treatment wherever I encounter it. All systems are unique and some are radically different from others. The narcissism exists not in the alters but within the therapist-as-god who believes they alone know the right path.

For the second underline, surely he means something else or I'm taking this out of context. The growing closeness with my alters has built cooperation and trust within the dissociated parts of our one mind, helped us understand why the separation and our differences exist, and created the compassion for our other parts because of what that part holds or had to experience.

I realize this is nearly a rant and probably off course of what you've stated from your T, not to mention I'm responding to a part of a response of a post that's gone. It's just really scary that a one-size-fits-all thinking might be pushed on someone with a system like mine or any other that wouldn't prosper from that model.