How to help troubled part?

Fourteen is clearly the one who's "job" is to feel bad. He has background that has nothing to do with our body's background, but T explained me, it does not matter. That is still the way our system deals with trauma, and because he clearly is traumatized by the things that have happened to him, we need to address it just the way he feels it is. His feelings are true and he is troubled. Now T wants to work with him and support him. I agree with that, the problem is Fourteen's trust issues, and the fact he is way too aware of my body being in there and he doesn't want to talk out loud to our T, because his voice sounds like mine, not his own. It causes him dysphoria he does not want to deal with.

I have talked about his problems, so T knows about what are his main traumas and how he feels about them. She knows the basic structure of their system and she has met little one from his system, and their host two times. Because voice sounding wrong is so big thing to him, I've tried to suggest if we can practice it alone at home, and train his talk to sound like him as much as it's possible. But he refuses, he doesn't wanna deal with it, he wants to be left alone.

I know that is not what he REALLY wants, he wants to be rescued, not left alone. He just can't deal with the work he needs to do in order to have help. He needs to come to therapy, and he has two times, but he doesn't feel so trusty he'd be willing to talk about how he feels like. He doesn't even know how he feels, except that he is feeling bad.

The other reason why it's hard for him to talk, is because his feelings are like a big junk of overwhelming feelings mixed up together . He has so much to say, there is nothing where to start. He feels he can't get it out, because it's all in that messy junk of everything. He has troubles to recognize his feelings or organize them, they just are there like a mountain inside of him, and asking him to talk about it, feels to him like someone is trying to pull that out and he will suffocate.

He really needs help and wants it, but at the same time can't deal with it. I got homework to try to figure out how to get help for Fourteen. I have been thinking about us fronting together, or me fronting with him on the background and me talking out loud the things he has to say. That would take away the voice problem, and I could help him to maybe give names to what he feels like. I can feel his sadness and anxiousness and other feelings too. He can't really feel them as separate feelings, that is his normal, and he doesn't have names for feelings.

I have thought about writing. If T would talk to him, and he could write his answer. Or they both could write in session to each other if Fourteen wants.

I hope I could help him feel better in my body. T knows how he looks like. Maybe he could talk, if he can hide, and T doesn't see him in wrong body. But the voice is still not his.

Any ideas?

It needs to be T leading the conversation, he doesn't know what to say. I have talked about his problems with T so she knows enough of him to start with him, if he is willing.

Would 14 be willing to just sit and write what he feels? Tell him that it doesn't matter if it makes sense to anyone else, or if it's jumbled up or not.. just pick up a pen and start writing and not stop until he's spent.

And if he's willing to do that, would he be willing to let you show that to the T, and he can watch to look at her expression while she's reading, and can hear what she has to say. Maybe that could be a way to start building trust.

I have a part who has always felt bad, and angry and sad. Even when we started being happy, it was like it was her job to nit pick and find SOMETHING to be upset about. It's like.... it's like she was an emotional masochist. She HAD to feel bad. And if she didn't feel bad, it's like she couldn't stand it because she was waiting for something bad to happy, so she couldn't enjoy being happy. So, she would find things to be mad about, or pick a fight with our SO, or start antagonizing others inside until they retaliated... Britney want's 14 to know that he's not alone, that she empathizes because what you're describing reminds her of herself as she was learning to trust and grow. She says to tell 14 it's not easy. And to tell him it's scary. But she says it's worth it and thinks he should try.

K

Neither you or your T can rescue or save 14. He has to rescue himself others can help him to do that but he has to be willing to do the work and try himself. And it sucks but that is reality change has to come from within. Getting better and trying day after day and not feeling like your making progress and sometimes feeling like things are getting worse is incredibly hard and painful and something that he has to accept if he wants to heal because the road to good health sometimes feels unbearably hard.

So assuming he is willing to put in the work things like writing or we use the emergency chat app which is a chat app for just one device and needs no internet (because we have selective mutism.) For the trust issues work on bonding with the T and learn to trust them. So that doesn't even need to be threapy things talk about books you have read or whatever ask the T about themselves, how they deal with different situations ask if she do something with him like play a game or draw.

If he isn't willing to try then leave him and work with others in tge system maybe seeing others improve will make him willing to try. And even if it doesn't it should help your system overall anyway. Maybe enough time of your T consistently supporting your system will make him feel like they could support him.

Floralie wrote:Now T wants to work with him and support him. I agree with that, the problem is Fourteen's trust issues, and the fact he is way too aware of my body being in there and he doesn't want to talk out loud to our T, because his voice sounds like mine, not his own. It causes him dysphoria he does not want to deal with.

NyxX wrote:If he isn't willing to try then leave him and work with others in tge system maybe seeing others improve will make him willing to try. And even if it doesn't it should help your system overall anyway. Maybe enough time of your T consistently supporting your system will make him feel like they could support him.

Is this push coming from the T? Because it doesn't sound like it's coming from 14. I agree with NyxX that it's up to him to decide. There's no rush--there are lots of other parts that can benefit from therapy in the meantime and the longer you see her, the more trust will build. Offering suggestions to him is fine, but if he's rejecting all of them for now, and it feels too painful to him to try, then I would respect that.

NyxX wrote:Neither you or your T can rescue or save 14. He has to rescue himself others can help him to do that but he has to be willing to do the work and try himself. And it sucks but that is reality change has to come from within. Getting better and trying day after day and not feeling like your making progress and sometimes feeling like things are getting worse is incredibly hard and painful and something that he has to accept if he wants to heal because the road to good health sometimes feels unbearably hard.

So assuming he is willing to put in the work things like writing or we use the emergency chat app which is a chat app for just one device and needs no internet (because we have selective mutism.) For the trust issues work on bonding with the T and learn to trust them. So that doesn't even need to be threapy things talk about books you have read or whatever ask the T about themselves, how they deal with different situations ask if she do something with him like play a game or draw.

If he isn't willing to try then leave him and work with others in tge system maybe seeing others improve will make him willing to try. And even if it doesn't it should help your system overall anyway. Maybe enough time of your T consistently supporting your system will make him feel like they could support him.

That is not how it works with underage boy who holds too much anxiousness to bear it. It would be like that if he would be an addict and not willing to give that up. But he is willing to give up his anxiousness. He just don't know how, and no one can assume he needs to figure it out by himself. He needs an adult to come and take the responsibility. To tell him it is not his fault he feels like he does, and tell him he can be helped and is worth it. He needs to hear there is no emotion too big or trauma too deep for T to bear. To hear he doesn't have to do it all by himself anymore.

It should not be his job to feel bad. I didn't make it to him on purpose, that is how DID works. But I am an adult now, and I won't use him like I have before.

He has a reason not to trust. He's trying to protect himself the only way he knows how to. It is not his fault either, and it's T's and my job to proof him wrong. But to do that, he needs a way to communicate. He cannot talk without feeling ashamed. He needs help to overcome that fear or we need to come up with something else than making him talk and not care it makes him ashamed. Helpers don't make their help needers to feel ashamed of themselves.

He has come to T's office although he didn't have anything to say and he didn't know why he came. His little has been there too. Their system is trying to approach the way they can. But he has huge abandonment issues, so he won't say out loud he needs help. In his experience that is when he will be abandoned again. So he tries to do things the way he has learned to be possible. When asking help equals abandonment, he won't do that. But he has come again. Even after what T said, the thing that made him be ashamed of not having his own voice and body in here.

He feels he wasn't good enough for T like that. He won't make the same mistake again. He feels he was judged when he did came and talked with T the first time, with his wrong voice and body. So it was a mistake. He's aware of it. He didn't talk when he came the second time, I talked for him. He didn't find his way to the body anymore. All I can find now is their little one. I don't know if it's because little is fronting in their system, but 14 years old part in Fourteen's system has been really quiet lately.

T is very sorry her words came across like that to him. That is something that needs to be talked more about, because it keeps Fourteen from talking. Writing about this clearly activates the same feeling he had then, the urge to hurt the body. This body is not his, he has his own. T needs to admit that's how it is and believe it the way she believes his traumas are real, although he has had traumas our body didn't. That proofs him separate from this body and his own body to be the real one.

I don't know who would be the one who gets help before Fourteen, because he is the one hoping for it. Ferro has been apart from me for a long time. He is in the inner world just where he should, but I only see him thru other's eyes, I don't feel his feelings. Sami is a protector, he is really not into talking about trauma. He thinks he has his $#%^ together and doesn't need anyone. Lucas is in denial about his traumas. He is mostly happy, but he can get triggered. He avoids things that can activate flash backs, and other than that, he feels happy.

Maybe it needs to be other parts from Fourteens system. Little one was not worried about bodies at all, but talking and playing happily.

Or maybe it needs to be Rami. Inside he is responsible of Fourteen. Maybe he needs to come out and sort things out about Fourteen, adult to adult.

Fourteen is not 14 years old just like Nixie in our system is not 4 1/2. They might perceive themselves to be that age and they might only have the abilities of someone those ages but they are not because they exist within a physical body that is much older. And that means no one can come and rescue them and be the parents they feel they need because the time for that past long ago and now they are stuck in a place where they can no longer have someone come and rescue them. And it hurts to realise this but that is the reality of the physical world. Your body is his body also it is the only physical body he can ever have the body he perceive himself as having can never exist in the outside world he may not want it he may not like it but he has to deal with it in order to interact with the outside world and insisting that the body is only yours helps no one.

NyxX wrote:Neither you or your T can rescue or save 14. He has to rescue himself others can help him to do that but he has to be willing to do the work and try himself. And it sucks but that is reality change has to come from within. Getting better and trying day after day and not feeling like your making progress and sometimes feeling like things are getting worse is incredibly hard and painful and something that he has to accept if he wants to heal because the road to good health sometimes feels unbearably hard."

So assuming he is willing to put in the work things like writing or we use the emergency chat app which is a chat app for just one device and needs no internet (because we have selective mutism.) For the trust issues work on bonding with the T and learn to trust them. So that doesn't even need to be threapy things talk about books you have read or whatever ask the T about themselves, how they deal with different situations ask if she do something with him like play a game or draw.

If he isn't willing to try then leave him and work with others in tge system maybe seeing others improve will make him willing to try. And even if it doesn't it should help your system overall anyway. Maybe enough time of your T consistently supporting your system will make him feel like they could support him.

I respect you, and I agree with a lot of what you said here... about 14 having to be willing to put in the work, and sometimes getting better means feeling worse at first and the road to healthy is hard. I somewhat disagree with "no one can rescue him he has to rescue himself." Just someone holding out their hand to offer help can be seen as rescuing to the person who is drowning.

Did I rescue myself from a bad situation. Maybe. But it took my husband holding out his hand to help me up. I had no will left for a lot of things. It wasn't until I looked up and saw someone willing to help that I was able to put in the work I needed to get to a better place. Because I didn't think I could do it, I was beat down, and I felt like I was drowning and I could not pull myself up. I needed someone that I saw as stronger than me.

And I don't think the answer here is "leave him and work with the others." Then he's going to feel abandoned and it will deepen the "I don't deserve to be happy," and he'll give up completely.

-- Tue Dec 11, 2018 7:09 pm --

NyxX wrote:Fourteen is not 14 years old just like Nixie in our system is not 4 1/2. They might perceive themselves to be that age and they might only have the abilities of someone those ages but they are not because they exist within a physical body that is much older. And that means no one can come and rescue them and be the parents they feel they need because the time for that past long ago and now they are stuck in a place where they can no longer have someone come and rescue them. And it hurts to realise this but that is the reality of the physical world. Your body is his body also it is the only physical body he can ever have the body he perceive himself as having can never exist in the outside world he may not want it he may not like it but he has to deal with it in order to interact with the outside world and insisting that the body is only yours helps no one.

It's true that the parts are not actual teenagers or children. But that's where they are stuck, and have to be treated as such. No one would tell a 14 year old abuse victim in a ton of deep pain, "Well, suck it up, be an adult forget what happened and move on," and then just walk away without attempting to help them. Not if they truly cared about them.

Do parts like this exist in a body much older than them? Yes, of course. Britney, my 17 year old KNOWS the body is much older. My little understands the body is much older than 5.5. And they know they have to deal with it, but that doesn't mean we are cruel to them and leave them on their own, or that we don't help Lilly when she's fronting, or that we see Britney's pain as any less.

Thanks Britney, and the rest of your system for understanding. Fourteen is not angry tho, but he is sad and anxious all the time, and feels lonely. He feels lonely when he's with people too, it's inner loneliness that comes from not being understand or cared. Maybe it's caused by depression. He thinks about it a lot. He can walk in the street and look at all the people and feel how non of them cares or knows. He feels he's some way too different for anyone to understand. That is trauma, I don't believe it's true at all. But to him it is true.

He has DID, so there's a lot of things in them, but that is the side of them I feel most often. He is disconnected to the point of depersonalization.

NyxX, he is not stupid, he knows and I know he cant have his body outside. But he has to never accept my body as his, if that makes us rather die. He is not looking for integration, he is looking for help to survive with his feelings. And we are looking for a life where we will be close only with people who will see him as who he is, and not as who am I. It is good to know, you are not one of those people, I will keep him away from here and all other young or fragile parts too.

He is not me, he will never be me. And like I have told, telling "the truth" about the body would make my whole system suicidal, which is why it won't be talked about to the parts in therapy. We go there and here to have help with our traumas, not to get reasons to end our life, because there is no help.

What is the point of having therapy if there is no other help, than telling the parts they don't actually matter and there is no help with that, and leave them deal with it like proper adults they all should be? Anyone can do that, it doesn't take years or require education. Then I rather continue life as we have to this point, and keep us all safe. Turns out, Sami is right about it all anyway. Just avoid people, and they'll have no chance to hurt you.

I regret opening about this, and wish no further comments on this thread, please.

ItsJustUs you actively accepted you husbands help rather then resisting and as far as I'm aware are unique on this forum in that your husband is happy pretending to be Lily's parent and treat her like a real physical child. Most of us don't have that we have to accept that when younger parts interact with the outside world they are not accepted as they age they feel that the things they missed and should have had in the outside world are not things they can have now. I wasn't saying he has to grow up but that if he is going to interact with the outside world he needs to accept the outside reality. One of the most healing things for abuse survivors of any age is empowerment so him having the right to say no he doesn't want to go has to be respected trying to force fourteen to go risks further traumatisation.

Floralie if knowing the outside reality will make your system suicidal it might mean they can never get outside help because to do so would mean confronting the outside reality. Leaving fourteen doesn't mean abandoning him or telling him he doesn't matter it means respecting his choices even if you know its not the right choice. Make sure he knows you do care and that he can change his mind at any time ask if it's OK if you check in on him again. Self determination is an important part of development for a teen which is also something you should probably keep in mind as you seem to have alot of teens in your system.

I have experience dealing with a similar part.

I don't think you'll like to hear this, but I also think that an outside person can't save someone.
It's very heartbreaking, but even when it's a real fourteen year-old, most likely they are not going to get what they need. In the best case scenario you get one experience of someone seeing you, and giving you some tools to regulate emotions and behaviour.

That's the best case scenario.

I would suggest using inner resources - let other parts connect with Fourteen. Find out what Fourteen needs and teach him the skills to meet those needs, or help him to meet those needs. Your T cannot meet them as much as you can. No one else can.
You may need someone to listen and to care, but no one can listen and care as much as you can. Let other people in and take the helpful things they say on board; but know that ultimately you can mean the most.

Maybe being co-conscious in therapy will help indeed.