TW: Help I think we have an introject of our abuser

Long story short because this post keeps getting deleted

Nightmares of our abuser keep occuring
Our motherfigur ( who was main during abuse,) was strangled recently by a figure made from the water which is the physical representation in our innerworld of her memories of abuse)

Of late we have all noticed "glitches" with our phone and email which I now think is someone microsnatching time to gaslight us/prevent us from communicating.

Our motherfigur had worked so hard to recognise which parts of her personality were her and which parts of the personality he had forced onto her she had stripped them become herself become happy. Now she has totally reverted again.

Yesterday it seams we said something to our partner that was identical to the style of emotional putdown our ex would use on the mother figure.

Why now after 2 years is this happening? We are in a good safe environment. Why would our brain use those memories to create an alter to terrorise us? How do we stop this? If this alter becomes a permanent part of us what's to stop it abusing the ones we love?

Personally I can't detect anything in that area when the motherfigure is fronting. I think it is programming from him that has been triggered that is changing her. But it is an interesting and disturbing question. If all alters are made from memory what is to stop old memories from becoming alive if the alter they belong too is under stress externally?

-- Fri Feb 25, 2022 7:19 am --

Personally I can't detect anything in that area when the motherfigure is fronting. I think it is programming from him that has been triggered that is changing her. But it is an interesting and disturbing question. If all alters are made from memory what is to stop old memories from becoming alive if the alter they belong to is under a lot of stress ?

Ex-persecutor.

Please use trigger warnings in the future

One does not need to have an introject of an abuser in order to experience this. It is something I have experienced in the past. (But the introject cannot be ruled out either. )

When we go through hard times, we develop "programmings" to keep us safe. We self-censure, self-punish, self-abuse... in order to try to escape the abuses from the physical abuser. They are protection mecanisms that we develop to keep ourselves safe.

We can also experience flashbacks of our hardships because some parts of the system are still trapped in the "there and then" of the difficult time.

Our protection mechanisms (does not matter if they are fragments or full-on alters or whatever) can also be trapped in the "there and then". When we feel like things have been "normal" (non-abusive) for too long, they can re-activate "just in case", because that it what kept us safe "there and then".

There are specific trauma therapy techniques that help updating the old protection mechanisms so that they are no longer trapped into the "there and then" and become more adapted to the "here and now". What also helps is, anchoring techniques to bring all parts (alters, fragments...) into contact with the "here and now" as well as building up inner safety so that everybody inside feels safe here and now, and nobody feels the need to reactivate the old mechanisms from "there and then".

Good luck.
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Morwan.

Sory I was in such a rush to hit send before the post got deleted I totally forgot to add the trigger warning.

What's the name of the technique do you know?

Also grounding is cool we use it a lot.

Thanks

Protector

It is difficult to name just one because most of them can be adapted to it. You will find specific chapters about it in "Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors" as well as exercises in "Coping with trauma related dissociation". If you read french, the book "Psychothérapie de la dissociation et du trauma" displays a lot of trauma therapy techniques and how they can be used.

Roughly, alternative tappings such as in EMDR or EFT help, but you need to know what you are doing for it to be fully efficient.

I will let the rest of the forum answer too because there are many other references and techniques that I do not know yet.
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Morwan.