Help with social anxiety around talking to your alters?

this is a bizarre one, but it's one of those things i've consistently tried to ask around about, and i've never really gotten an answer that actually helps me.

i have a lot of trouble trying to communicate with my alters effectively, because we can't always do art or music or writing or anything like that, it's just not realistic or convenient. i would love to communicate with my alters in a similar fashion that other people do, but i have so much trouble with it because of two major things:

social anxiety
i don't know how to explain it other than i just get a massive amount of social anxiety when trying to talk to my alters because i just don't know what to say to them. i'm autistic, and this causes me to be pretty consistently bad at most conversations because i don't really understand what i'm supposed to say unless someone talks to me first. the most i can do is offer a 'how are you?' because i'm not good at small talk or similar methods of conversation. i just suck at it. it's very largely due to our trauma, that being isolation, and not ever actually learning how to talk to people, find shared interests, make small talk or make friends normally due to my biggest and most important developmental years being robbed by an abusive and neglectful mother deciding the outside world was too scary for 11 year old me/us. not that i don't see her reasoning, but the way she went about it was so incredibly detrimental for our mental and developmental health, and we're so much worse off for the choices she's made for us, all the while she refuses to take responsibility.

denial and self doubt
denial is a huge reason that i don't communicate. even damn near 3 years into this journey, i struggle so much with denial. i think to myself, 'why bother communicating with them? they're not real anyways, so they won't respond', even though i know, on a base level, that is not true, and that i have communicated with them in real time before. it hurts me, and i know it hurts my alters to invalidate them. it's caused issues in the past with one of my alters getting frustrated that i was ignoring him, but deep down i'm just terrified of everything being real, even though i know it already is. this denial hurts me and it hurts my system, but i've never found effective ways to combat it, so it just keeps growing and growing until i have anxiety attacks about it, then i try to distract myself until it goes away, and then the cycle continues. it's horrible.

it gets even worse when you notice that we haven't switched for a very significant period of time in quite a while. months. lately, i've barely heard anything from my system outside of our gatekeeper-protector coming out to help me during a panic attack i had not long ago, and another alter occasionally becoming co-con for a period of time when we talk about him. every time i look into the fronting room of our inner world, it's empty. there's no one there with me when it's usually got at least a couple of people in there, like two of our alters who hang out on the couch, or the same alter that becomes co-con when we talk about him, he hangs out in the corner, and his friend, the one that got angry with me for ignoring him, also hangs out there too.

i've been stuck at the front for so long and i haven't switched and it's causing me such anxiety. i know the self doubt is wrong and it's hurting my system, but no amount of "you're real" and "if you're worried about faking, you probably aren't" seems to help, at least not anymore. it's seemed to have caused an almost complete system shut-down, where i haven't been able to even see the others in the inner world anymore. this needs to stop, but i don't know how to make it stop.

i need to address what's causing the denial, and reconcile it, but i don't exactly know how. i also don't know how to get over not knowing what to say and getting so anxious when trying to talk to my alters. i'm terrible at small talk because it feels awkward and uncomfortable, and i don't know how to change that or better it.

if anyone has any advice about getting over this stump in our recovery, i would really, really appreciate it.

grem (host)

Hello

I'm Jody. Our system has autism too. some more than others. Could it be that some of your other alters that aren't communicating back don't know what to say either?

We have some in our system that don't really do 'social chit chat' and one is completely non-verbal. Do you know if any of your others may have more severe autism than the you thats typing? or may have more social skills?

Kit never' chatted' to me for years but when the body needed help she was up straight away to help, I found it's better if there's a logical or physical reason,like a project we can do together (like getting fitter/losing weight - she does the exercise side, I'm doing the diet plan).

Maybe set a goal and ask who has the skills to do which jobs?

Jody

p.s also be open to them communicating with you via non-traditional ways eg sending images to you instead of words cos it could be a non-verbal alter or a young child alter. Maybe they already tried and you missed it cos you were expecting them to speak back or send thoughts in sentences for example?

KitMcDaydream wrote:Hello

I'm Jody. Our system has autism too. some more than others. Could it be that some of your other alters that aren't communicating back don't know what to say either?

it's grem and teef co-fronting right now.

i've never actually thought about it like that before... maybe some of our alters just don't know what to say either because we're all autistic and don't really understand conversation very well. it might be because we're just better with "being" instead of talking, but it's not like i/we don't get energetically involved in conversation ever, we can, the circumstances just have to be 'right' i guess. it's weird.

KitMcDaydream wrote:We have some in our system that don't really do 'social chit chat' and one is completely non-verbal. Do you know if any of your others may have more severe autism than the you thats typing? or may have more social skills?

i don't think we have any alters that are particularly nonverbal, at least not any of the ones that most commonly front, except for one maybe, but they don't front very often. i also think we're all pretty bad with social skills personally. the only one who may be better than everyone else at social skills might be jonathan or matt, maybe gordon. those are the few that seem relatively stable and normal enough to be sociable, except i'm pretty sure matt may be dormant by this point.

KitMcDaydream wrote:Kit never' chatted' to me for years but when the body needed help she was up straight away to help, I found it's better if there's a logical or physical reason,like a project we can do together (like getting fitter/losing weight - she does the exercise side, I'm doing the diet plan).

Maybe set a goal and ask who has the skills to do which jobs?

that's actually a really good idea. we might do something like make bracelets or crochet and work like that, or maybe work on a project we have, where we try to build our inner world as accurately as we can in a videogame called minecraft. we have a lot of details ready, but not everything is fully fleshed out or completed yet, and we haven't worked on it in a while. i think ben might enjoy working on it considering that his special interest is minecraft, and he hasn't fronted in a while.

KitMcDayDream wrote:p.s also be open to them communicating with you via non-traditional ways eg sending images to you instead of words cos it could be a non-verbal alter or a young child alter. Maybe they already tried and you missed it cos you were expecting them to speak back or send thoughts in sentences for example?

that's also something i haven't really considered, even though i know i should've, since i'm aware that alters can communicate via images and feelings and such. i never really ask myself if what i'm feeling is an alter's feelings or if they're my own, and i really should ask that a lot more.

thank you for the advice

-grem (host) & teef

grem@gremandco wrote:i don't know how to explain it other than i just get a massive amount of social anxiety when trying to talk to my alters because i just don't know what to say to them. i'm autistic, and this causes me to be pretty consistently bad at most conversations

Autistics are bad at conversation with non autistic people. Put two autistics in the same room and once they have attuned to each-other they'll start to chat happily about what is important for them, exchange informations, and stim happily.

If you are autistic, so are the other alters in the system. You can have different traits but you are all autistic. So... Just chat along about what you like? Give infos about your daily life, the latest cool movie you watched, invite them to come watch the next movie with you, and so on.

Being a system is an awesome opportunity to learn to interact with others.

grem@gremandco wrote:the way she went about it was so incredibly detrimental for our mental and developmental health, and we're so much worse off for the choices she's made for us, all the while she refuses to take responsibility.

Go about your life without waiting for her to take responsibility. It can take a lifetime and more for abusers to take responsibility. You deserve nice things and self-care. Does not matter if she agrees to it or not. You deserve it. Period.

grem@gremandco wrote:i think to myself, 'why bother communicating with them? they're not real anyways, so they won't respond', even though i know, on a base level, that is not true, and that i have communicated with them in real time before.

Talking to the rest of the system sometimes feels like talking to oneself. And you know what? You deserve to say nice things to yourself! You deserve to show self-care to yourself! You deserve to tell yourself "This chocolate is good, let's eat it in a mindfull way so it tastes even better!" and invite all the parts of you to sit with you eating the yummy chocolate.

Nobody can judge you by what you tell yourself in your head. So, be nice to yourself in your head

And even if the others in your head are "not real" it does feel good to chat with "imaginary friends" and have company and care for each-others. It never hurts!

grem@gremandco wrote:it's caused issues in the past with one of my alters getting frustrated that i was ignoring him, but deep down i'm just terrified of everything being real, even though i know it already is.

Sending moral support! It is a difficult situation. Maybe it helps to see that your alters are parts of you, shards of you, that they are here to help (even when they get frustrated or angry!) and that you are all together a big beautiful team of strong survivors.

grem@gremandco wrote:this denial hurts me and it hurts my system, but i've never found effective ways to combat it, so it just keeps growing and growing until i have anxiety attacks about it, then i try to distract myself until it goes away, and then the cycle continues. it's horrible.

Another truckload of moral support being sent your way!

grem@gremandco wrote:it gets even worse when you notice that we haven't switched for a very significant period of time in quite a while.

We have the same issue... If some of us do not show up for more than a few days we start panicking in a "We made them up they are not real" way. *le sigh* I agree with you it is so annoying and stressful! Then after a while they come back up looking like Merlin back from Hawaii at the end of the Disney movie.

grem@gremandco wrote:it's seemed to have caused an almost complete system shut-down, where i haven't been able to even see the others in the inner world anymore. this needs to stop, but i don't know how to make it stop.

The key here IMO is to tackle anxiety first. The system will show back up eventually. It exists even when you do not see it. Take a deep breathe. Name five things that you can see right now. Have some tea. Do things that you enjoy doing. You deserve it.

__
Zami and Urielles.

ArbreMonde wrote:The key here IMO is to tackle anxiety first. The system will show back up eventually. It exists even when you do not see it. Take a deep breathe. Name five things that you can see right now. Have some tea. Do things that you enjoy doing. You deserve it.

___
Zami and Urielles.

honestly, yeah. tackling the anxiety has to be the first step. figure out why it bothers me, and try to cope from there. peeling back the layers, like an onion, except it progressively gets harder and harder with every layer, which is what sucks about it.

and you're right in the first paragraph, about the autistic thing. we know we're all autistic because our brain/body is autistic, but we behave pretty differently, even if we're in the same body, because of how autism can present in so many different ways. we just have to find something to work on and enjoy together. like i thought about before, we have the minecraft world where we're building what our headspace looks like, which would be a pretty fun project to work on with my alters, and it would help me to visualize the headspace better, which is something i have trouble with personally, (i hear that's a host thing, to have trouble visualizing and being in the headspace).

another idea i had is that we could all do something together, like what jody/kitmcdaydream suggested. we don't really consider ourselves as much of a "family" and more as a kind of "community", like a town or a neighborhood, because i feel like family implies something different to me/us, something smaller and more tight-knit, but we're not exactly like that. we're more like a community we all live in together. we can get a bunch of us, but not all of us if we don't want to, (and considering that there's 50-60+ of us, probably impossible, and a little painful...), and maybe do something together to better this community, if that makes sense. we could watch a movie together, knit or crochet a sweater, write songs, the kind of stuff that could have more than one person working on it. i think, ideally, it would be really nice to work on a large quilt, but we don't have the materials, so maybe we could each work on one square of blanket we crochet or knit and then sew together. that would also be a really nice exercise in communication, and also creativity.

i don't know about giving info on my daily life, considering my daily life is, to a degree, their daily life, but i get what you mean by sharing interests and such and trying to better get to know everyone. maybe meditation would help a little bit. but at the very least, we switched for a significant amount of time for the first time in quite a while and it feels really good to have. sure, he started an argument with some other people somewhere online, but he has strong opinions and i respect him for that, and for not backing down about it, even if it gets us on some people's bad sides sometimes. as long as he's not directly hurting someone else, or interfering with relationships important to me, i'm okay with it.

now to try and communicate with the rest of my system, and try to switch more when it's healthy.

Hello, Grem.

Not to invalidate, but this doesn't seem bizarre to me! Our alter who was the host who found out about the system back in 2016 had a similar issue of being afraid of the alters. She had social anxiety, too, and did not like losing the sense that she was at least all alone in her mind. She found she was never really by herself and that bothered her deeply. The book The Haunted Self is about dissociation and mentions a lot the "phobia of other parts [alters]", so it must be quite common. It is also very common for people with DID to be autistic.

We are autistic, too, and, as someone else has already said, so are your alters. They don't think much differently than you do in this way. They probably hate being approached by someone who wants to engage in "chit-chat" the same as you do. I say skip it. Do whatever you have to do, whether you're breaking the ice with a pick or a sludge hammer. You can learn how to talk to your alters as you go along. That's what I have to do. You will find what is effective and what isn't by trial and error. First, you just have to try, but I understand if anxiety is keeping you even from that. (I'll get to this later.)

I agree with Jody: verbal communication isn't always the best way to go about it. Show them pictures, impress your feelings onto them, try to feel what they themselves are feeling. Make signs if you have to. There are lots of ways to communicate. You can find what works for each alter. I know you can.

As for the anxiety, that is crippling, isn't it? Especially when it messes with your inner world. I think before you try to communicate internally, work on soothing/calming techniques. Put the communication off until you have this under control. Know also that the alters may have social anxiety, too. The Haunted Self also talks about a "phobia of normal life" and you, as host, may embody that to them.

It may help to list things you want to know about your alters. This could lead to a script of things to say/ask, if you would do better with a script. Maybe you could do interviews, if that is more comfortable than conversation. You can always end with, "Thanks, that's all I wanted to know!" and then rush off, if you need to.

I hope I hit on enough things to help you in some way. It is frustrating when you talk to everyone you can think of and no one has the right thing to say. Let's just try to keep this thread going until we finally get you the help you really need, okay? I'm sure the answers are somewhere. We may just need a little feedback from you if we have failed to "hit the nail on the head" with your problems.

Remember, I'm always happy to try and help!

- Marcella

Truly_happy wrote:I agree with Jody: verbal communication isn't always the best way to go about it. Show them pictures, impress your feelings onto them, try to feel what they themselves are feeling. Make signs if you have to. There are lots of ways to communicate. You can find what works for each alter. I know you can.

i've never really tried to communicate with them like that before, not intentionally. i'm sure it's happened accidentally before, though. i always try to be verbal about it because that's the only way i've known how to, where they're the ones that communicate in vibes and stuff.

Truly_Happy wrote:It may help to list things you want to know about your alters. This could lead to a script of things to say/ask, if you would do better with a script. Maybe you could do interviews, if that is more comfortable than conversation. You can always end with, "Thanks, that's all I wanted to know!" and then rush off, if you need to.

i might try something similar to this, thank you for the idea !

Truly_Happy wrote:I hope I hit on enough things to help you in some way. It is frustrating when you talk to everyone you can think of and no one has the right thing to say. Let's just try to keep this thread going until we finally get you the help you really need, okay? I'm sure the answers are somewhere. We may just need a little feedback from you if we have failed to "hit the nail on the head" with your problems.

actually, the people here have been pretty helpful so far for that i thank you guys

i'll be sure to try some of these methods out when i get the chance.

grem (host)

Do you or any others like video games?

We have found them very useful, some were able to explore feelings and complete the grieving process and others were able to come forwards at all, first to watch then co-host (with host still present) and then slowly then have developed more communication 'during play'.

KitMcDaydream wrote:Do you or any others like video games?

We have found them very useful, some were able to explore feelings and complete the grieving process and others were able to come forwards at all, first to watch then co-host (with host still present) and then slowly then have developed more communication 'during play'.

we play a few video games, like minecraft, slime rancher, osu! and among us. personally, we've found that minecraft is a very good game for communication and such because it's so relaxing, (if you're playing on creative or peaceful mode), and we've actually been using it to try and build a semi-accurate world map of what our headspace currently looks like, which was an idea we got from someone else. we've gotten quite a bit of progress done on it so far, but it's still nowhere near done but it's fun to do if you have the time and know how to use minecraft for something like that, because it's not normally used to do things like that, ha.

outside of that, i don't think we've tried to use video games like that before, we'll definitely have to try it. thanks for the advice and your experiences.

teef

We first found out about one of our alters from a child alter playing animal crossing, she named her character after the alter we hadn't realised was there. This helped her to come forwards. She then did her own island and named her character after her mother (who died many years ago) It turned out the alter was the one who had been up front at the time of the mother's terminal illness and death but had never been able to process it properly.

The child alter also revealed that the name Kit had given her on here (just to explain things to others) was not her real name and she wanted to be known by her real name.

Our non verbal alter had not come out into the body since early childhood. But started re-surfacing when we got breath of the wild on switch. They never come out fully but play the game co-consciously with Kit (our most autistic adult). After the first time they wanted to play again and started sending images to whoever was out hosting 'eg link on horse', so they'd put the game on.

When another child alter started enjoying colouring books too, 'Bobby' (the more autistic non verbal child) started sending us black and white images of animals and Kit remembered that when they were in the unit they had a compulsion to sketch dolphins almost constantly. We gave Bobby a sketch book and pencil and they sketched the identical pictures all over again. including scenic ones from when Kit was taken dolphin-watching, (position of the cliffs with birds on, the boat Kit was on, the big bridge that spanned over the water with the dolphins swimming underneath, indicating Bobby was also present at the time!

I've noticed someone has started a blog (on here) in our name too! ..Phoenix owned up the first post but she didn't write the last two.. They are written from 'Bobby's perspective', we had absolutely no idea they could read or write poems!

I guess my point is some of the alters living really deep within the system may take many years yet before they feel they can or want to communicate.

Jody

-- Sat Jun 26, 2021 9:49 am --

By the way does anyone know why the blogs have to be approved and these posts don't? Bobby's second blog post still hasn't been approved??? ..we don't want them to be discouraged after its taken so long for them to express themselves in this way, cos their posts aren't been approved for days.

Jody