Integrating alters by yourself

First off I’m not trying to say I found a cure for DID. All I am doing is sharing what seems to be working for me and if that helps anyone then that would be amazing.
First off I never refer to myself as we or us. To me that is almost like admitting defeat. I see my alters as different aspects of me so I call myself I.

Secondly every time all alter fronts for me I don’t remember any of it. So I get my family and friends to film my alters. Then once I see how they act I simply start acting that way myself. When I start doing this the alters seem to integrate and they are no longer alters.

Here are a couple of examples. I had an alter who would always dance. So I simply started dancing everyday. No more alter. Another example is an alter who was suicidal. So all I had to do was realize that I was suicidal and so I became suicidal. I was this way for about a month and I talked myself out of it. That alter is now gone.

Has anyone else here tried this? If not I recommend you do. If it worked for me it might work for you. Thanks

Given that alters have been known to go quiet, how can you be sure they are gone? Perhaps you are doing something to change the triggers that make them come out?

I tried to kill an alter. I did my best to rid myself of him, to make him go away. I have since learned that, until I address the issue that created him, he will not go away/integrate into 'Me'.

I have alters who have gone dormant. They're still there. Their doors and rooms are still there. They have simply locked the door for some reason. Perhaps they feel that they aren't needed or aren't needed right now.

One of the alters who co-fronts with me quite a lot, Pippa, has had periods of dormancy lately to let other alters come forward so we can work on healing. When things got too much for me, she came back out and has been helping keep things on a more even keel.

Bri went dormant for a while, then game back up front. (She's still frustrated she struggles with coordination).

We've worked with each alter on their issues. We've on Lilith's toxic views and tendency to lash out and hurt the body. We've worked hard to try and heal others. Is it easy? No.

Thing is, I will find myself behaving like some of the others in the system. It doesn't change anything or make them integrate/fuse into me. I've learned to spot passive influence. Angel likes to smoke, so they'll put things in our mouth like they're smoking. Me doing that doesn't make Angel integrate.

I've also read/watched stuff about other systems who even went through full on therapy and thought they had fused/integrated only to discover that their alters had just gone dormant at a later date.

We don't see being a multiple as admitting defeat. In fact, we see it as our conduit to healing. How much we refer to ourselves by the plural tends to depend on the alter, the situation, and the plurality of the voices. We see being a system as a way to heal without being overwhelmed. Right now, we've been working with some of our Littles and that's rough, but when necessary, other alters come forward and calm the emotions and Beth takes them into the Inner World in order to rest and feel safe. We are slowly healing this way. It just takes a lot of time and effort.

I hope that this helps,
Take care,
Vi

that's not usually how DID and alters work. they don't tend to just go away like that. they either go quiet/dormant or when they are healed enough, they might naturally integrate.

i have never heard of just acting like them and them disappearing. that to me seems almost like mocking them which would be how alters in my system would feel, not taken seriously, etc. and probably would just not want to be active anymore.

This is not how integration normally works in DID. Imitating your alters is different from integrating the materials (memories, feelings, etc.) they hold. Also, integration doesn't mean the alter goes away and stop showing. I've integrated most of my system, we're only three left now, and not a single part of us is gone. They just express themselves differently, without being dissociated parts.

Yes, you can do a lot of integration by yourself, but it relies on building communication and cooperation, grounding skills, emotional regulation skills, working on your window of tolerance, etc. (things that are better and faster done with the help of a therapist).

Now, maybe imitating them can help with understanding them or finding a way to fill their needs, but for those who want to try that, be careful. For some people, trying to imitate their alters could make things worse for a wide variety of reasons, some have already been mentioned. The other alters could feel like they aren't taken seriously, depersonalization symptoms could rise, some alters could be triggered, go into denial...

And I would not recommend to start imitating suicidal alters without the supervision of a trained professional. This can be really dangerous.

I believe its possible to integrate alters by yourself but I would say it depends on what the trauma is and the personalities of the alters.

I am Kit. I rarely front in front of other people as I'm not a 'people person' but am more practical, logical and prefer posts about the more scientific/medical aspects of things rather than 'social chit chat'. I'm not so good at that....Jay is our 'social host' who does all that kind of thing.

We did not have communication with our external 'social mask hosts' (dealt with school/college/work) in our 'younger' years with no memories between switches and alters have disappeared for 10 years or more at a time and resurfaced when outside life was 'better for them', so just cos they've disappeared doesn't mean they won't return later! Natural body events can unexpectedly trigger alters re-surfacing (eg menopause or other hormonal shifts or medical emergencies).

You've only shown them if they come out they will be shamed into staying inside, be careful they don't start plotting a rebellion inside! If you have no memory of switches then you will also have no knowledge of whether the other alters inside know of each other! ..

After all some of us 'insiders' have been able to 'block' the external host' for years who previously had no connection to the inside' from knowing we were in the background watching and waiting for an opportunity to slip out! ..unless you;re constantly surrounded by people 24/7 you're not going to realise if you never remember or realise you are 'losing time' or have gaps missing...eg you start off walking the dog, but don't remember the whole walk once you've reached somewhere no-one else is about etc ..but remember coming back home or saying hi to the neighbour as you reach your house....your brain cleverly fills in the rest based on past walks so 'you' think you remember the entire walk! ..or you 'wake up' thinking you dozed off in front of the TV and wonder 'why am I watching this?' and stare at the TV not remembering turning over the channel to something you felt 'you' would never watch!

Kit

Thanks for the responses. Very informative and helpful. I do worry that I am not really integrating and my alters are just in hiding. I guess I am so fixated on fixing this that I may be in denial of what it actually is. Just like how I deny that I had any childhood truama. I only started showing obvious symptons of DID at age 36 but I'm guessing I could have always been showing signs but they just weren't so obvious. DID is very complicted and me being such a logical person has a hard time coming to grips with it. I know I have work to do but since I am in a good place right now I don't want to open up old wounds. Do I just continue on like nothing is wrong and hope for the best? Or do I try and get to the bottom of this? Tough decision.

If you think "no more alter" is what "curing DID" is all about, then I advise you get a really good look at the following books:

- The Haunted Self
- Treating Trauma-Related Dissociation
- Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation
- Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors
- The ISSTD Guidelines
- The website "DID-research"
- The website "DIS SOS"

binbots wrote: DID is very complicted and me being such a logical person has a hard time coming to grips with it. I know I have work to do but since I am in a good place right now I don't want to open up old wounds. Do I just continue on like nothing is wrong and hope for the best? Or do I try and get to the bottom of this? Tough decision.

The trauma will always come forward whether you want it to or not.

This year was our 48th birthday, and we only just ten months ago learned that we have DID. The symptoms were masked rather strongly through a lot of unconscious coordination between the three of us who have worked as host over the years. Early on, Bri was obsessive about 'we had a good childhood, how could we have DID'. It took a while but we started tracking down. Before we can actually move forward with some things in our life. Trauma can be insidious and make life a lot harder.

I highly recommend reading up on the situation and looking at the books and sites that Arbremonde mentioned.

VI