moving on

Sending lots of support for the organization of seeing the T outside of the clinic.

And kudos for the book project! That's such a good new! Congrats! It's such a feat to write a whole book!

Keep us updated about the publishing process too. I wanna read this book so bad!

We wrote something like a handbook for stabilization for complex dissociative disorders. It is very much a response to Treating trauma-related dissociation and its so BIG. basically the size of 3 solid paperbacks. we are worried sick about finding a publisher who won't try to cut out stuff. It feels so well rounded the way it is now. We lovingly call it the 'beast' because it is just so big and publishers aren't in for huge books unless it really really makes sense.
We have something like a small backup plan. Someone who would do professional editing and graphics. but if we have to self-publish, it will take at least another year to learn all the things I'd have to learn for it. So you can all pray or tell the universe that we find a good publisher...

Sending good vibes and tons of prayers!

Self-publishing is not that bad when we go through some platforms. I had to do the inside myself but I'm good with my writing software's formatting. For the outside I basically scanned a painting I did and uploaded it into the platform, filled in the text areas for the title etc. and voilà, not a lot of designing skills necessary. It was a bit long because I had to figure out the online tool of the platform for the cover works on Chrome but not on FireFox. I did not even need to register for an ISBN because the platform does it automatically.

If you want more specific infos do not hesitate to PM me.

But of course it's better to go through a regular publisher if you can. Less hassle, more visibility.

I have looked into varying degrees of doing things yourself and working with platforms and I don't feel any peace with that right now. Whenever I collect info the sense that something is going wrong is increasing. So I will stick with my intuition before I try to force things that don't feel right.

I have a deep dislike for do-it-yourself covers and I hated most of the self-published non-fiction texts I have seen. So having a real professional editor and some real graphic design is important to me. We've done everything properly so far. We will finish things properly.

Thank you for the detailed response. It makes the whole thing much less murky and terrifying, and gives us confidence that we can figure it out. It's especially good to hear that it might always be a situation that gives us pause, but doesn't cause panic and distress, only the awareness that it used to cause that. It puts less pressure on us, since we always have such high expectations and standards for ourselves.

I'll be rereading your response a few times to make sure I can absorb it all. I think we're at a point where we can handle some trauma processing for the littles on our own, since those triggers are so clearly related to early childhood situations. Maybe if we make a lot of progress with those, and the littles are more stable, we can consider seeing a therapist to process some of the later traumas.

I know nothing about self-publishing, or publishing at all, for that matter. I hope you can find someone to publish your work, since I'm sure it will be a useful addition to the literature.

puzzling and re-orientation are things you can usually do by yourself when you have the grounding skills for it. doesn't need much more than containment and grounding.
a trigger exposure can get a bit tricky and it would help to have someone around who could support you. (most Ts would tell you it is so advanced that you need to pay them but we have done it alone a couple of times. it just needs really good grounding and regulation skills and very solid preparation.)
processing... gets a bit trickier. Re-parenting and rescripting can be done alone if you know what you are doing. The bigger techniques are closer to an actual confrontation with trauma material and that's where a T is actually needed. Never try anything if you aren't absolutely sure how it works and what to expect. if you have more questions please feel free to ask. it will take ages until the book is available in english.

I understand the feeling about the do-it-yourself books. Hope you find a professional editor suitable for your needs!

we finished editing. we wrote a book!

(lots more work to come but today we celebrate that we did the best we could while working on it alone)

We've started intervalls of trauma processing. It is going really well.
It is also quite hard because processing leads to more integration and that includes restoring connection with sensation and experiences that used to be split off.
It feels like the weirdest struggle ever to finally have a sense of hunger. One with a rhythm. You know how our body struggles with any kind of rhythm... Hunger is actually super uncomfortable! Stuff I am learning now...
those are side effects of some integrative processes. We almost had a spontaneous fusion. How exciting! Ended up with parts overlapping noticeably but still a bit seperated...
working with our clinic T is easy as ever. I have no idea why it is so easy with some people and so hard with others. He said he has never seen that level of ability to guide oneself that we have. We worked damn hard for that!
The current setup is traveling one day, processing the next day, hiking the third day, more processing (with another part) the forth day and then traveling back home the next day. Expensive. But worth it. We already gained some new freedoms that will make life so much easier. And that will help us in the near future when we will give a workshop at a special national meeting (where we are literally only allowed in because we help with the workshop)

There is something I wanted to share, just to make sure it is somewhere on the internet...

We loosely worked with IRRT/rescripting for processing. Usually you face the trauma scene, some parts who are capable or an imaginery helper enter the scene, optionally defeat the abuser/s and rescue the child part. bring them to a safe place to heal. thats it.
We've done it in a way where the grounded child part takes position outside the scene and watches it with a helper and the girl being rescued is more like a fragment of her that is still stuck in that scene and therefore causes the flashbacks. It just gets a lot more difficult if you have a child part actively imagine that they are in that scene and being rescued. You'd use that for child parts who are not grounded in the present anyway. But if they are, they can watch the scene and not step into it. It takes getting used to but this makes work a lot more gentle because it avoids the really big stress responses while absolutely getting close enough to the scene.

We used the same technique of a rescue mission, but in the trauma scene there was actually a split and the part we worked with ended up Inside. For the usual process you'd have to get her back into the body to reconnect and that was plain impossible. The body was so hurt there was no going back to it. We ended up opening a door from the Inner World back then to the Inner World today to let that part slip into Today. And only then did we draw her to the front to reconnect with the body. That worked wonders. I am also very much aware that there is no textbook out there that would tell you that this is possible. It was a really gentle way to resolve the dissociation of the past in the present. Without facing more horrors than necessary. Just through grounding and then integrating awareness again.
I am very blessed to have a T who is so flexible that he allows for personal interpretations and ideas during the process...

I thought I'd share those experiences with you. it is kind of hard to find tricks for trauma processing online.

We are making very good progress with our life.
The work we do is highly respected advocacy. We just finished a big political project where we had some major impact on future projects. There are possible paths to take concerning more training and qualifications. We are planning intervals of processing in a setting that finally fits our needs. It is a lot of phase 2 und 3 work now with very little unrest and no crisis.
We have reached a place where we barely benefit from online communities anymore. It is rarely where other people in the later stages of therapy hang out. We long for those connections and they are better found IRL and within my own cultural background. I don't think that we will be writing much in the future. We've been around longer than most and life is also moving on.