How do you guys deal with lonliness?

Being alone is a struggle for us and that is a very mild way to describe it, the truth is far more devastating. We go through periods when a very strong and desperate (or angry) alter comes out and just about everyone else dives for cover. Enforced loneliness is not something we would even consider.

We are about to head right into phase 2 due to financial issues on my part. So we in theory are wrapping up phase one right now. We did record all the alters i currently have and have been writting history about them. She has a philosophy of “i might never know all of your alters and i might never know all of your traumatic events and thats ok” im thinking i might force her to know them lol. As it makes me more comfortable. She is trying to plemntn alters to do different things like one helps balance everyone one helps woth recprding traumatic events. Just to give alters more roles and things to do to start working like a fuller system i guess. She diagnosed me with depression no anxiety or anything so my symptoms to deal with arnt to much besides the PTSD. I’ll be seeing her wednesday so it should be fun to maybe reform what we need to work on.

I also understand littledaria i think i feel the same way. I would rather have a family than be seperated.

Im beginning to notice a pattern of maybe being alone isnt a gpod idea which is good.
Thank you for the guidance!

we have tried to rush into phase 2 work and it was hell, almost cost us the host.
we are back to laying a solid foundation in phase 1 before trying any of this again.
just a personal warning, that rushing it is not getting you to heal faster.
with 9 years of mixed therapy experience, if we had limited resources we would STILL begin with a solid phase 1 and risk not getting beyond that for a while.
you will probably not listen to me but I felt like I needed to say it anyway.

You are far wiser than me it would be stupid for me not the heave that warning. I can ask to slow down and work on foundations. That will benefit the rest of the system anyways. I have healed trauma on my own but i have a feeling with a therapist it is a far different experience. I will take your words to heart thank you

I agree with birdsong87 this seems way to fast.

My T always tells me I work to fast and need to slow down and you are going 1000x times faster. And even if you head into phase 2 you inevitably bounce back into phase 1 when things get messy.

I still don't understand the loneliness thing. I guess the integration leaves a hole, but maybe by then you are better at making outside attachments? For me the feeling of loneliness has little to do with who is or isn't around me inside or out.

Yeah i dont get the lonliness thing either i also think im going to ask to slow down and build more bridges before trying to dive into trauma

Hannasue wrote:she said being with alters and making friends with them is a secondary benefit that needs to go away.

We had though alot about that, 'cause I was wondering if the "inner life" wasn't a threat to my "outside life".
And the conclusion I made is : not at all (but that's my pov).
The friendship among alters isn't the same as the friendship among outside people.
As alters, we need to be friends in order to be able to cooperate. We need to be friends because we share the same head-space. Even if we enjoy each other (more or less), it's not the same than having an outside friend who choose us as well as we choose him/her. The feelings look the same, but are totaly different.

Of course I will totaly feel alone if my system suddently disappear, but I think that you can be 1.000 in your head, be friend with all of them, and still feel alone if you don't have outside friends.
We feel alone when our outside friends aren't there (they live at 4h from us, so we're used to that feeling).
That's why we keep trying to connect with outside people.

I hate being alone. But my parts are mostly "not very nice according to normal human behaviour" so having them doesn't help with being alone. So although I am mostly by myself, I don't like it at all & don't feel calm, peaceful etc so I binge watch tv.

I can understand that tv is a good distractor