What now? *Possible TW*

jen here.

im giving a TW because i have no idea what type of things need one, although im sure there will be at least one in here. maybe the moderator can help me out a bit with that. for now, this probably deserves a TW.

So, i was talking with system support (jess's friend) about some internal concerns. we came to quite a lot of possible assumptions, but were not sure what to make of them or how to progress.

main concern is over the introject. he generally makes attacks of a sexual nature, though we have discovered that they werent always sexual. toward the beginning of jess's memories of him, confirmed by lell, he simply did things that bothered, scared, or hurt her. when they turned sexual, we assume it stuck because it was the most effective method at the time. the problem with this is that jess and her friend have come up with a good number of things to avoid the sexual attacks and the attacks have become slowed to a point that they are almost ineffective. im concerned that the introject will move on to more dangerous methods once he gets tired of trying to get around our road blocks. jess's friend has a plan for that, but she wont tell any of us what it is for fear that he will become aware of her intentions and work to prevent them.

also, jess doesnt seem to want to stop him. weve come to the idea that i could keep watch and step in if needed, since he never shows up around me and even made a comment once about me being "impossible". however, jess, who is always the target, sends me away in times when hes likely to show up, claiming that she finds it embarrassing and doesnt want me around to see it. i think shes lying. She seems scared of something. i think that she expects a negative consequence, but either shes not telling us, or doesnt know what shes afraid of herself. we were thinking that i would watch anyway and just take over without her permission if things got ugly, but we were worried - since we generally lie down and trance to induce a switch - that we could fall and get hurt if i pull her out unexpectedly. so we decided to test it on the bed where i wouldnt be hurt if i fell, and the switch was hard and we did almost fall, but someone stepped in and caught us, then left as i took over. we dont know who it was, but our best guess is someone we dont know yet or the introject himself. so were iffy now in regards to whether that would be a safe course of action.

however, to honestly stop the threat at the core, we need to understand why he's here to begin with. he doesnt talk to us and when we can get information out of him, its warped, misleading, and often downright lies. so we cant really get any accurate information from him. so we started looking into her past and trying to piece things together. there is known neglect in her childhood, but that's all we know for sure, and no one seems to have the memories we need. except there is the non gendered kid who stays inside, likes to cause problems, and never talks. we think its safe to assume that he knows something. however, we cant get any information from him either. system support suggested that a possible reason that he cant talk is because the system isnt ready to hear it. we do have some things that we have access to - curtains in my room and in jess's - that are clearly hiding something and we know we dont want to look behind them. system support suggested that if we can prepare ourselves and show that we are ready for the information, then maybe hed be able to talk. But that would likely require pulling back the curtain, which could be dangerous as well, depending on what's behind it - especially considering the fact that our rooms are our safe havens on the inside and they are where we stay when we are not out. We dont want our safety area to become unsafe.

so we want to prevent the introject from causing harm. we want to solve the problem completely by finding out why hes here and eliminating the problem at the core. to do this could be potentially dangerous. we have no idea how to proceed. we would appreciate any suggestions or accounts of personal experiences similar to anything ive addressed above. thank you.

I am not sure I follow all of this. Are any of the identities mentioned outside your DID system?

alrite, here's the system:

jess - 'original' - by this i mean that her name and internal appearance match that of the body.
jen - me - spirit. currently the primary host, though that changes between myself and jess.
teen - female, 14-ish, no name yet chosen. stays inside unless directly asked out.
lell - female, 6-ish, comes out about once a week.
kid - younger than lell, no name, no age, no gender, and doesnt communicate. came out once on request.
introject - no name, no age, no physical form, assumed male.

non-system:
sarah - jess's best friend, a friend to jess, myself, teen, and lell. kid hasnt given an opinion, and introject has said he doesnt like her.


alrite, to sum up the last post:

im concerned about the introject because i have reason to believe that he will get more dangerous sometime in the near future.

to solve an introject problem, you need to understand why the introject is there.

even if this knowledge does not solve the introject problem, it will still be useful in piecing other things together.

main problem i would like addressed in this post is how to go about getting this information.

relevant facts:

talking to the introject directly doesnt work, as most of the information he gives is warped, misleading, or an outright lie.

myself, jess, teen, and lell combined have few, if any, memories from before the first grade. we know there was a case of neglect from the mother during the forgotten time. but we know little else. sarah and myself believe that someone iside must have those memories. we figure that we have two main choices if we want to proceed.

ONE: in our respective internal rooms, jess and i have curtains hanging in a corner. we know (instinctively) that the curtains hide things that we dont want to see. so naturally, we have not moved them.

we know some of the things behind the curtains. for example, i know that sometimes there is a clock behind mine, because i hear it ticking when im stressed.

we both feel that we dont know everything behind the curtains. and considering the purpose of the curtain, we likely dont want to.

the curtains surely could provide some kind of information. however our rooms are our safe havens inside. if we move the curtains and cant handle what we find behind them, and if we cant replace the curtain, then we run the risk of losing our safe zone. i dont know if thats a good idea.

TWO: the kid that doesnt talk probably knows something. when we consider that being younger than lell corresponds with the timeframe missing from everyone else's memory, and (s)he has destructive tendencies, i think its even more likely that (s)he has some memories that we dont.

we dont know if the kid cant communicate or chooses not to. we dont know how to make the kid talk either way, because we dont know why (s)he cant (or wont).

even if we do find a way to get the kid talking, we have a decent amount of information that goes into a shared storage. what one of us knows, i will likely know, jess may or may not know, and lell will definitely know. so if the kids information is too much for someone in the system, then it will be too late to go back. and while we can say were ready, there is no way to know for sure that we are without knowing what the information is. so there could be some bad results there as well.

WHAT WE HOPE TO GET BY POSTING HERE:

we are hoping that there are people here who can provide one or multiple of these:

(1) information on the curtains or the kid (such as if this is common in other systems and/or the reason it may be there or be the way it is).

(2) advice on whether or not to open the curtains or push for information from the kid.

(3) advice on how to go about safely opening the curtain or getting information from the kid.

(4) any experiences any of you may have had that were similar to ours (in hopes that we can learn d=something from the experiences of others).

jenrose wrote:(1) information on the curtains or the kid (such as if this is common in other systems and/or the reason it may be there or be the way it is).

(2) advice on whether or not to open the curtains or push for information from the kid.

(3) advice on how to go about safely opening the curtain or getting information from the kid.

(4) any experiences any of you may have had that were similar to ours (in hopes that we can learn d=something from the experiences of others).

1) I don't have anything like the curtains in my system, but other systems' cellars, basements, attics, and similar stuff that I've read about on here sound like your curtains (mainly in the purpose they serve).

The kid might not talk for a variety of reasons. The kid might be stuck in trauma, and believe they're unable to talk, or the trauma itself might've been something that prevented them from talking. For example: I've heard of alters who were blind because they were stuck in trauma that affected their eyes, such as having something rubbed in them. The kid might simply be mute, they might have selective mutism, they might not talk due to fear, etc.
Perhaps you can ask the kid why they don't talk, and have them write down an answer (if they can write)? Or you could ask the kid through writing why they don't talk, and receive a written answer? Or perhaps you could ask yes/no questions pertaining to why they might not talk, and the kid can just shake or nod their head? Perhaps you could try sign language (just spelling out each word using alphabet letters, something easy like that)?


2) I wouldn't open the curtains, if I were you. Not until all of you felt completely, 100% ready (and not pushed or forced, even by the desire to find out more about the introject). It's always best to have a for-sure safe place.

You could try writing questions for the kid, or using sign language, or asking them yes/no questions about the introject/that time period, but I wouldn't actually push them for information. If the kid is willing to share, then that's fine, but if the kid isn't willing, or gets uncomfortable/upset, or something like that, then I wouldn't push it too much.
You might want to work on interaction with the kid and getting to know THEM a bit more before trying to get information from them. Increased communication and knowledge is always a good thing, and it might also help the kid feel more comfortable about sharing information with you. (Remember, the kid is a part/alter as well, not just an information source).


3) The safest way I can think of if you did want to open the curtains is just to be extremely prepared. Have everyone be prepared, inside and out, don't open them alone, and open them only one at a time. Be as calm/relaxed as possible, and have the outside environment be as calm, relaxed, and safe as possible as well. Actually, it'd probably be best for you to open them in therapy with your therapist, if you're able to/are in therapy.

(see above for the kid)
As far as safety goes, this is going to have to be a system judgement call. Are you actually ready to possibly fill in those blank spots, or are you being pushed towards it by the desire to know more about the introject? Because you should either wait until you're 100% ready by choice (not being pushed or forced by anyone/anything), or you should wait until you're in therapy (if you're in therapy, then wait until you've told your therapist about this issue, so that they can at least know what's going on in case you're negatively affected, if not help you with this). It's never a good idea to start crossing "possibly-not-ready-lines" unless you have therapy to help you deal with the consequences, good or bad, of crossing those lines (whether you cross them inside or outside of therapy sessions).


4) The only experience I have is that a suspected introject in my system, "Hannibal", is still very much a mystery, despite having been known about for a while, and being a danger (both inside and out) for his entire existence it seems (we don't know for sure how long he's been around, but our oldest record of him being a danger/causing damage was 9-10 years ago, when the body was 11-12). No one seems to know his age, his real name (if he has one), why he's here, why he does the things he does, or anything like that.
But we have learned how to "deal" with him, and we've gotten better at resisting him and the damage he causes. We have safety plans set up, we help each other, and we find strength in each other. The main way that we "deal" with him is that all of us refuse to let him scare us, hurt us, or affect us at all anymore. If he tries to go after little alters, all the older alters stand in his way. If he tries to hurt us, we fight him, and we don't stop fighting until he goes away. If he tries to tell us lies or manipulate us, we ignore everything he says and don't react to it at all to show him that he can talk all he wants but his words don't have power over us.
You might have to learn similar coping techniques because sometimes, information isn't ready to be learned yet, so you might have to be patient and use coping techniques in the meantime. In my case, information not only isn't ready to be learned, apparently, but it also seems to not be found anywhere except for within "Hannibal", so I have to simply cope and be patient. I hope that when I get back into therapy, I can start focusing on him more and have my therapist help me learn more about him/"reach" him and stuff.

Sorry if this wasn't helpful to you. Best of luck with this.

-Cassandra

your post was extremely helpful. thank you very much.

as for the curtains, i dont believe im ready. i dont know if i ever will be. i know that when one feels uncomfortable with something, the mind can imagine worse than what will actually be there, so that encourages me to face it.

of course my motivation for opening the curtains is desire for information and not readiness. however, i feel that if one doesnt have the desire for information, then no progress will be made, even if we are ready. because no one will have a desire to make it.

that being said, i think the therapist is a good idea. we dont know yet if we have one. we went to see one, but some insurance issues have come from it and we want to see if we can resolve them before digging ourselves in deeper. but having someone who knows what they are doing around is never a bad idea.

when i set out on a goal, i do tend to view things in terms of how i can reach that goal, often including people. you made a good point in reminding me that this is a person, even though (s)he doesnt talk and ive never seen this person myself. we have tried to talk to the kid once - that was done outside with sarah (best friend/system support). we dont think (s)he can write. but the ones inside who spend time with the kid - lell and teen - say that the kid could find ways to get the point across if (s)he really wanted to. neither of them seem to want to push for information, but they are willing to assist us if we initiate.

The biggest barrier we have with the introject is jess, actually. i dont see this introject. i dont hear it. i am completely unaffected - to the point that when i am inside and i keep an ear open in case jess needs help while hes there, it seems like jess is acting completely of her own accord. i am honestly taking everyone elses word that this introject exists at all. lell claims to be able to see and hear it, and she says it threatened her once, but nothing has come of it. jess seems to be the primary target. and for reasons that jess either doesnt know or wont say, she doesnt want protection. she does whatever this thing wants with very little restraint, and she usually remembers very little of the event afterwards. there are major time gaps in her memory (about 30 minutes per encounter), although we know she was the one out at the time. but whatever it is that goes down, i think something happens that leaves an undertone with her; one that the rest of us cant pick up on and she cant seem to make sense of. whatever it is, it keeps her from seeking our help, and lets the introject just keep with what he was doing. we did attempt to see if i could intentionally force a switch, but it didnt go over very well. so were still working out a plan there.

as for your introject, good luck to you all. i hope that the therapist can give you some techniques and help you solve the problem. you seem to be pretty well connected and moving along, so i hope that progress continues and everything gets settled.