Healing From A Maladaptive Prosecutor

We have been struggling with a very real issue for us...how do we heal from all the bad things that Marcus did to us. It feels slightly easier to heal from those who hurt us who were outside our body, but how does one heal from a maladaptive prosecutor who isn't there any more or who refuses help?

Does one just treat them like an outside of the system abuser?

Thank you for any advice,
Violette

Hi

Sue here from 'Team Sammy' This is a difficult question... some of our system have made decisions in the past that weren't entirely beneficial to everyone.

I guess we took into account

1) whether they even understood or knew that we were there when making their decisions or if they did know of any of 'us' ...

2) whether there was some element of ..'I'm doing this to protect you from the world' However misguided ..doing something to protect someone is not the same as the intention to deliberately hurt someone.


This is how we got Bobby to understand that 'scary physical contact' that is necessary to save a life (ie restraining a child during a seizure where they could hurt themself) is not the same as 'scary physical contact' with an intention to frighten or intimidate. (eg bullying from external kids/adults).

For what its worth I don't think its the same if their belief was that they were somehow protecting you..from what we've read their behaviour is often driven by the belief that if they treat others in their system badly it somehow saves you from further external abuse. Maybe Marcus held memories of abuse that no-one else in your system has and he was trying to protect you all from that?

TS (Sue)

Thank you.

We're trying very hard to sort out how to deal with Marcus. We think he was trying to make us tougher and stronger, but all he ever did was make us feel weaker and more damaged. As an example, it wasn't until after he was locked away that we were able to start trusting men at least a little.

It's just going to be hard to figure out how to deal with him. We had kind of hoped that he would be redeemed and we could heal together, but that's not happening any more.

Take care Sue,
Violette

I do not know your story, so apologies if received badly, yet reading this made me think that Marcus was meant to prevent you from trusting men and now is gone as you are open to trust men.

AW10 wrote:I do not know your story, so apologies if received badly, yet reading this made me think that Marcus was meant to prevent you from trusting men and now is gone as you are open to trust men.

Marcus was our long time maladaptive protector. He did a lot to hurt us in the name of protecting us. About a decade ago (during one of the times we were edging close to realizing we had DID) we ended up writing stories about the 'man in our nightmares' and how we defied him and locked him up.

From what we've been able to piece together, he was an amalgam of all the different people who did Bad Things over the years.

I (Violette) tried to get him to accept change and that we could help him heal, but he refused. A few months ago, he 'glitched out' and we had a group of new alters who have shown up. Some aren't the safest of protectors, but none of them are actively harming anyone in the system.

I'm not sure he was meant to make us distrust men, but he had that effect.

Thank you,
Violette

Hi !

I can share this article: Persecutory alters and ego states: protectors, friends, and allies - Goodman & Peters, 1995

It talks about the theories around persecutory alters, and how to deal with it in therapy from a therapist POV, with a few precise examples. Some people I know found it really useful to learn how to deal with their own persecutory alters, and heal from what happened with them.

Thank you. We'll start reading through it.

Violette