Why the nastiness? *may trigger*

I'm new here. I'm trying not to get hung up on diagnosis and how precisely these things affect me but I also want to be respectful and not try to claim I have something I do not. Ultimately, I'm learning and I hope that I don't speak out of turn.

I understand how we develop other aspects of self that serve to protect us in different situations however I am struggling to understand the part of my that wants to absolutely destroy myself. It comes out whenever I am more present in my body e.g. I was put on a mindfulness course and the body scans made me feel as if something was coming out of me and being really violent towards my body. This was all in my mind but I do have episodes of self harm that feel like i'm being "taken over". There is something in me that feels cruel maybe even evil. It doesn't feel like me but it must be. Has anyone managed to gain any insights in to where this sort of thing comes from?

It's not uncommon to have parts continue the work of your abusers. It's generally a way of eschewing feeling like a victim. This part might not realize they no longer need to do the abuser's work. They might believe you need to be punished by someone and it's better for everyone if they're in control. They might not have any idea that circumstances have changed and they're still doing what they learned to do in childhood. Have you tried asking?

I'm not good at communicating with such parts myself, so I'll let other people make recommendations there.

If you have DID or OSDD, it is very common to have a Persecutor. Persecutors will often be cruel or abusive to the body or the rest of the system....at first. The thing to remember is that DID/OSDD is the brain’s coping mechanism response to childhood trauma (and later on, to any stressor). Ultimately, every part of a DID/OSDD system is a “protector” in that each role is created to protect the system (even host, trauma-holder, etc.). Persecutors are doing what they think is right based on the information they have, which is usually very limited and so their attempt to cope or help is misguided and counter-productive. Persecutors who self-harm are common.

But the good news is that Persecutors can heal and grow and learn better coping mechanisms, just like all alters (and all people) can. Reformed Persecutors are some of the best Protectors out there! My system is committed to surrounding ALL alters with love, acceptance, and gratitude — even the ones who present with “negative” behaviors at first. The goal is to build communication and trust, and get them included in therapy, so they can evolve their role from Persecutor to Protector.

If you do some research online, there is lots of information about Persecutors/Protectors. There are many great DID YouTubers who have addressed this topic. One good example is the TeamPinata system who posted videos about their Persecutor Nadeen (who is now an awesome Protector!).

Good luck to you

Thanks for the replies. It's starting to make a bit more sense. Hoping to get some more appropriate support so I can start working this out and try and connect with these other parts of me, suppose it's all a pretty long process x

Basically, ask yourself or your possible alter coming forward, to name and tell them about themselves. Their trying to present themselves to you. And somewhat scare you into there awareness.

lovethehouse wrote:It's not uncommon to have parts continue the work of your abusers. It's generally a way of eschewing feeling like a victim. This part might not realize they no longer need to do the abuser's work. They might believe you need to be punished by someone and it's better for everyone if they're in control. They might not have any idea that circumstances have changed and they're still doing what they learned to do in childhood. Have you tried asking?

I'm not good at communicating with such parts myself, so I'll let other people make recommendations there.

I also find this, at least for us, to be part of the shame and even "guilt" a victim feels. Whether we know it or not, we feel guilt for what happened to us. It's a KEY element of most abuse that the abuser deflects or tries to transfer the guilt to the victim. TRIGGER WARNING- When the later monster, the "girl-monster", hurt us, she'd tell us (Angel who suffered nearly all of this) things like "You deserve this cuz of what you have." (being a male- it is MY belief she'd been abused sexually by a man, maybe her father, in childhood and likely why she was in the foster care system- and thus she took it out on boys, like her brother and us) or "you like this cuz you're a dirty slut"... END TRIGGER WARNING

It was mean comments like that that created a deep sense of shame- somehow deserving it, somehow the body reactions to being touched in those ways validated (and she used that as "evidence" even) her claims.

It was ALWAYS her guilt... but she tried to transfer that to us, the victim of the abuse.

THAT is a hard and heavy burden to carry. It's illogical, but trauma isn't logical. The mind can logically know it's untrue, yet FEEL it is anyway. It's a justification of WHY it happened. I've seen this with rape victims, "If I hadn't been wearing... doing... going..." (both from the victim and from ignorant apologists deflecting blame from who REALLY deserves it).

Our mind desperately tries to make sense of what happened and come to terms with it... and sometimes there's no real way to do that. The self-harm stuff is expressing that unprocessed and unreconciled hurt. It's expressing the damage that was done in the only way that part knows how- often associating/expressing the emotional pain inside with the physical pain.

Sometimes it's a measure of control. Something that was desperately absent in the moment of trauma. NO ONE being abused controls that situation- if they did, we wouldn't have been abused.

Sometimes it's a perverse way of "protecting" us. "If I do this, no one will need to hurt us..." I've heard some say. I knew a girl back when I was in HS that used to cut herself. Her explanation was "if I hurt myself, no sicko will need to touch me to hurt me." Does it make sense? No, not to most "normal" people. But remember, victims of abuse are NOT "normal" - as much as I hate using this term, we're "damaged". We've got things NOT processing healthy due to extremely painful trauma. To a traumatized mind, to a still hurting person/alter, this could make PERFECT sense.

Thank you that makes a lot of sense. I guess this is why, in the 9 years I wasn't self harming, the feelings never went away. That part needed me to know that it was still there and hadn't really been seen. Looking at what is going on with me, it screams of trauma of some kind but I honestly don't know what it is. Like many people on here I feel like I've invented it but even looking at childhood photos I can see that I am not ok. I had a very triggering counselling session a few weeks ago and I was battling to stay in control and shut that part up. I feel like there's something to find out but I don't know that I am prepared to deal with what it is. Equally, I cannot leave it alone. I need to understand.