passive sabotage?

Hi, Srhai here. I posted recently about having sort of met a part of me who is pretty fully formed, who I am co-conscious with a lot of the time. Her name is Star, as of yesterday.

I haven't shared this with anybody in my real life yet, even though my partner knows a little bit about my parts. I've only been in therapy for this for two weeks, and I'm in a real state of feeling totally validated and completely in denial. Probably typical, huh?

Anyway, so I'm an artist, and yesterday I felt really compelled to try drawing Star. She asked for it, actually. She doesn't really draw (long story short, she has tried to my whole life and it always had a very specific body feel that I never understood until now!) but she's good at HELPING me draw mentally. I drew a couple sketches yesterday and she LOVED them.

Today I decided that if we are going to try out having her be herself more often, I should set aside time for her here and there. Today we worked together to draw her more completely. It was a ton of fun for both of us, a real break for me and working together felt really good. My partner saw that I posted the art online and asked who it was (I usually draw specific people) and...I lied. I said it was "someone random" and tried to brush it off.

Star...didn't like that. As a rule, I don't lie to my partner unless I REALLY have to, and I felt really conflicted at letting Star kind of "out there" yet. It's only been a single day, and I've only felt clarity about this potential disorder in myself for around a month, and I personally would like to have therapy sort of support my understanding before I make it clear to anyone.

***trigger warning, not sure if "denial" is a trigger for anyone but i know denial can be for some of my other mental health issues, so i wanted to put it here haha***

I was...really intent on "not" having specific alters with their own names, etc. I thought I just didn't feel that way, but very, very suddenly I felt Star sort of assert herself. I guess I'm worried I'm in over my head, faking or something, so I haven't introduced her to anyone yet. Because...what if she disappears, and was never there to begin with? What if it was a trick I was playing on myself, or some kind of game? What if I hurt myself and other people by saying, hey, there's another part of me that has a different name and different likes and dislikes and she doesn't even look like me? It's a lot. And I'm not ready to put that on my partner.

***end trigger warning***

Regardless of my feelings about Star, I got the strong impression Star was really unhappy with my minimizing her like that. So my question is, is it possible that she passively influenced me from that point on to be really standoffish towards my partner? The rest of our phone conversation was really stiff, and I was aware of that, but I felt like "I" wanted to be off the phone and alone. It kind of feels like those were Star's feelings, that she was upset that she couldn't be around, and therefore didn't want ME to be around either.

Does anybody else have experience with feelings like that? She and I are usually co-conscious (she's here helping me type and submit the post, but not contributing any words), but I've obviously never considered that some of my unexplainable behavior or feelings might be actually coming from her.

- Srhai

We get a lot of coconsciousness and a lot of what I think of as seepage from inside. The presence of the others in my mind can be so light I don't realise they are with me until I behave in a way that's not me. Also sometimes I feel things that aren't what I'm feeling. Before I knew anything about DID my last T amongst other unhelpful things would say I afraid of being afraid. Which used to frustrate me no end because I wasn't I just wanted to stop being overwhelmed by feelings that weren't mine and didn't really even understand that myself.

Anyway my point is yes the emotions of others can have an influence on yours and they can do so deliberately or it can be that what they are feeling is so strong that it is spilling over onto you.

-- Sun Aug 19, 2018 4:01 pm --

It works the other way as well so if your feeling something strongly it can spill onto them. So say your in denial Star might be feeling that from you and that could be hurting her just as much as she (or whoevers feelings your getting) is hurting you right now.

i can really relate to your feelings about denial. i still find it very hard to accept what's going on, and whenever it feels like things have gone "too far" i feel similarly to how you described it. i want to cover it up, take it back, make whoever was involved forget what happened. i know your main question was about passive influence but what you said about denial feels really important to me, and i wanted to share something i've been dealing with recently as i hope it might help.

i've been in a situation lately with my partner (who has DID) and my therapist where i wish i hadn't told either of them about any of my suspicions about being multiple. my therapist has interacted with others in my system, so has my partner, one of the alters in my partner's system is even dating one of the alters in my system. because my alters seem to front/communicate extremely infrequently, i feel worried that it's not DID/OSDD at all, that i led people on, that i unknowingly gave them false information. it feels like i've been forced into a narrative where i have to be multiple, where my alters have to be as distinct and fully-formed as my partner especially believes and wants them to be. that makes me feel suffocated and under pressure and i end up burying my head in the sand about the whole thing because it's too overwhelming.

the thing is though, all of that is denial. it was a good thing that alters reached out in therapy, reached out to my partner. even if the others in my system don't front or communicate often, that doesn't mean they don't exist. i have been told repeatedly how my feelings of denial are hurtful to the others since it makes them feel like i'm ignoring them or denying their existence.

i still feel i should be cautious about the whole thing just in case i got the wrong idea about it, and i need to feel like i can take things slowly and have the time and space to come to terms with it in my own time, otherwise it's incredibly overwhelming. but that's different from "i don't want this to be happening, i want to hide what is happening" because that is denial.

you opened up to star, encouraged her to draw and express herself, but you then hid her from your partner. i think you should talk that out with her, explain why you feel the way you do, and work on separating the feelings that come from denial and the feelings that don't. i also think you should talk it through with your partner, but i understand why that's difficult, and stuff like that should be done when you feel comfortable doing it.

the thing is, you don't have to be certain about this. it's okay to feel overwhelmed by it. you are still free to look into other options and consider different labels, even if you tell others about what's going on. you don't have to view yourself in a certain way if it feels uncomfortable.

it's important to recognise what feelings come from denial and what feelings don't, if that makes sense. i personally end up feeling like i either have to be in denial and should therefore deny and ignore the whole thing, or i have to not be in denial and therefore be completely okay with all of it, but that's black & white thinking and it's unhelpful. it's okay to have feelings of denial and it's okay to not want to rush things and to not want to feel overwhelmed by it all, but when it starts entering territory where the denial is all-consuming and dictating how you react to what's going on, that's when it's a problem.

that was very rambly and i'm not sure how much it'll help, but i hope things get better for you soon.

I'm gonna say, I think you ought to talk with Star and apologize, then talk with your partner and apologize there too.

You put the drawing online for other people to see, so whether that was your choice alone or yours and Star's, the point is that you shared the picture and then when asked about it, you lied to your partner and you hurt Star's feelings.

Keep in mind Star is only just starting to come into her own and feel like her own self, so having you immediately dismiss her like that to someone else will probably have been really hurtful, even if unintentional.

I understand the denial, and I understand the appeal of wanting to not have to deal with other parts sometimes. V1 had a lot of issues with this stuff (she probably still does) and I felt a lot of the fallout from it.

This is just my opinion and all, but that's what I think. You chose to share the drawing, so own that decision and make amends with the partner and Star.

V2

raptureblues wrote:it's important to recognise what feelings come from denial and what feelings don't, if that makes sense. i personally end up feeling like i either have to be in denial and should therefore deny and ignore the whole thing, or i have to not be in denial and therefore be completely okay with all of it, but that's black & white thinking and it's unhelpful. it's okay to have feelings of denial and it's okay to not want to rush things and to not want to feel overwhelmed by it all, but when it starts entering territory where the denial is all-consuming and dictating how you react to what's going on, that's when it's a problem.

Thanks for this, I think talking about denial was a subject I was trying to avoid when really it’s the biggest thing on my mind right now. I definitely want to allow myself to work on those feelings, both with myself and with Star.

We did have a bit of a chat after posting that. I think posting here helps us talk. It helps her feel more individual and me feel more receptive, I guess? She’s. More understanding than I am in some ways haha. She was fine with being put out there; the image I posted was totally in line with her, and it meant I was beginning to admit she’s there, regardless of who else knows. It was a step into believing all this and art is a really big process for me, so making it was more complex emotionally than I can really describe here. We communicated a lot through it, basically.

She even started speaking to me using my voice? And had us record what she said. And requested I listen to it later, when it’s not as fresh. It was really good, I remember kind of what it was like emotionally, and I remember deciding to do it, but I don’t remember the contents clearly? It was good though; I was starting to think about her age, but it moves around a lot. It’s a bunch of feelings I’ve “put away” because they were too big for “me” so she’s got a lot more depth than I originally gave her credit for.

I think this advice is really good though. There’s a lot of black and white thinking on my part that I don’t take responsibility for, and it’s helpful to be reminded of that. Star is okay now, she wants to work with me on all of this still, and wants to sort of come out to my partner when I can handle it, too. If I do it too soon, I think we both know I’d put a lot of that “away” too, and the point is for us to be in this together for the first time, not for us to be handling everything independently.

She appreciates people sticking up for her, too. I’m sure she will have more to say as we get used to her. She’s pretty amused at my attempts to talk for her and accept her at the moment. It’s nice.

Oh! And I’ll keep in mind how I can affect her as well. It makes my emotional states feel...more logical, to know we can affect each other. And that gives me a lot of security. Thanks