Emotional Overload

Some days I just get so much anxiety from the others, the alters, and find it hard to separate their emotional state, their emotional influence on my own feelings.
After troublesome comments or incidents, especially, it gets extremely difficult for what one (or more) of them are feel (particularly if very strongly or deeply) to be contained and not affect me. I find myself suffering from whatever they are feeling and it's almost overwhelming to try and separate it and not let it cause my emotional state to change.

I know, ideally, best would be to address whatever is wrong… but some of these causes are unknown, and some of the known ones can't be addressed or corrected at this time (it's going to require action on other peoples' part- people unwilling to even talk to me, much less address the concerns that the alters within me have created).

How can I manage these emotions and feelings, without being overwhelmed and buried under it?

I get this a lot with Nixie she is constantly frightened and struggles to differentiate the past and present l.

What helps us is first identifying that the feeling is indeed coming from her. When I can do that I become less overwhelmed by the feelings and my aversion and desire to suppress those unpleasant feelings becomes less urgent.

Next is trying to reassure her even if I can't change or ilimanate the triggers we are safe now. Which is sometimes easier said then done. Slowly she is starting to learn that things have changed and we are safe now.

Maybe enlist the help of your Pixie she seems to know a lot about your system. Identify who is thinking or feeling what then find a way to deal with those feelings or thoughts. It could be changing things or sometimes just acknowledging the feeling as valid is enough.

NyxX wrote:I get this a lot with Nixie she is constantly frightened and struggles to differentiate the past and present l.

What helps us is first identifying that the feeling is indeed coming from her. When I can do that I become less overwhelmed by the feelings and my aversion and desire to suppress those unpleasant feelings becomes less urgent.

Next is trying to reassure her even if I can't change or ilimanate the triggers we are safe now. Which is sometimes easier said then done. Slowly she is starting to learn that things have changed and we are safe now.

Maybe enlist the help of your Pixie she seems to know a lot about your system. Identify who is thinking or feeling what then find a way to deal with those feelings or thoughts. It could be changing things or sometimes just acknowledging the feeling as valid is enough.

I think a lot of the emotion this past week was from my Pixie- and yes, she seems to know a TON about me, all of them, and the system as a whole. I had been in regular communication with her until this past Sunday with that meeting… she got angry, hurt, and has shut down entirely. I had one writing in my journal from her Monday, an email Monday, and a brief entry in the journal yesterday… But the regular actual direct person-to-person communication via email we had has been dead all week.

If you are truly overwhelmed though, you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others…

With that said acknowledging insiders has been concerns and feelings and giving them some time can lessen the anxiety. It can be a difficult balancing act sometimes.

From your other threads, you might write to Pixie to tell her you still care and that her opinion is valid and important.

We initially started with integration as the goal. But, we have had much better progress when we stepped back and discussed that reaching co-conciousness, with system stability, no blackouts, and being functional day to day would be a huge win by itself! Integration switched from being the goal to a potential goal but would require consensus if we go that route.

Also if journaling is not working you might try art. Set down with some colored anything (pens, crayons, markers, etc.). Start doodling then see what happens. We get a lot of art when words may be too difficult…

SOHank wrote:If you are truly overwhelmed though, you have to take care of yourself before you can take care of others…

Fortunately it was a short duration kind of thing. It didn't last for days on end… But that day was incredibly difficult.

SOHank wrote:With that said acknowledging insiders has been concerns and feelings and giving them some time can lessen the anxiety. It can be a difficult balancing act sometimes.

From your other threads, you might write to Pixie to tell her you still care and that her opinion is valid and important.

SOHank wrote:I have been in some communication with her. It's been kind of limited, the past week especially (since last Monday, so 9 days)… But it's at least showing signs of picking up again. That necessary and difficult meeting was very detrimental to the established communication for the short term… 

We initially started with integration as the goal. But, we have had much better progress when we stepped back and discussed that reaching co-conciousness, with system stability, no blackouts, and being functional day to day would be a huge win by itself! Integration switched from being the goal to a potential goal but would require consensus if we go that route.

Also if journaling is not working you might try art. Set down with some colored anything (pens, crayons, markers, etc.). Start doodling then see what happens. We get a lot of art when words may be too difficult…

Journaling has shown a few others making comments lately- two others (one just a line or two, another two short entries of a paragraph or two (combined)). It's a start. I hope to be able to communicate with more of them more regularly soon. I think it'd be best for all of us if we could get to open up a little more to and with each other and make things less difficult for all of us in daily life.

As for integration, the doctor said that that was the ultimate goal- but he's backed off a little on that, saying that apparently it's not always the successful end for many people and we should keep it in mind, but more importantly (especially early) is learning the others, and how we can work together, and working towards getting some sort of cooperative existence for us all. He said he'd continue to do some reading and research on all this stuff, since it's not something he's had any exposure to outside of grad school.