Really, REALLY angry alter is active! *Trigger warning!*

*Trigger (Angry alter- violence)*
I've been doing pretty good lately,
and I've had mostly a quiet rest having gone through a lot of the worst parts of therapy.
I've been mostly just ME for the past few months, with help from my kids.
Dealing with life as it comes, and doing generally pretty well for myself.

Then, when I was looking at some papers a few days ago, stuff I don't know about got stirred up.
The papers were things S had written a few years ago I was curious about. She was okay with me reading it, but afterwards,
S freaked and took a bunch of pills (Thankfully we only ended up stoned even though she was out the whole day).
I have to mention she did this because she was trying to stop this one alter from waking up!

After that we seem to have lost control over the freaking angry scary alter.
We've always had it, but never feel it's safe enough to let her out.
But for some reason, after years of holding her at bay, she came out during therapy.
Guess you gotta get there sometime.
The problem is what happened at therapy!!!

I was about to talk about something that had been nagging me for a while, and was bothering S, and I felt was
really important, then BAM, the really angry alter that's always yelling death threats at us (but is usually in
the background and has never been out for more than a few seconds, we always push her back in)
and to my utter surprise it's another very young kid with a very young voice.
But all of a sudden I'm watching her grab the nearest object and beating me mercilessly over the head with it.
My boyfriend managed to get it away from her, and she's beating me all over the face and tearing at my hair,
and he holds her down while she's crying her face off and yelling that she won't let us talk.
My poor T wants to make sure I'm safe and is pretty worried obviously.
I'm embarassed to no end. Thank god F comes out (F, BUDDY! <3) and stops the bruising and yelling from continuing.

I'm scared because for the first time we were unable to stop this one from coming out, UNABLE to put her to sleep,
and I was WATCHING it happen, but unable to do anything!
Her demands were "Don't talk or I'll make you stop" and so we all agreed we would stop (because our session was at an end)
and she calmed down after that.
My T wants to bring us in within the week (for the first time, a session so soon) and talk to her.
Afterwards the alter was an ecstatic giggly "I made you stop!" and thankfully didn't hurt me again but kept up with
the death threats I'm so well used to by now. (It's kind of sad that I'm used to them.)

I don't know how to reason with this alter and she's come close to trying to choke my boyfriend before.
I don't want her to hurt anybody and I'm terrified at the prospect that she actually came out in therapy.
(My system usually follows my "absolute rules" but apparently my "absolute rule" is wavering somewhere in my subconscious)

I am embarrassed at the idea of hospitalization, but if I have to I will.
The thing that KILLS me is that my boyfriend is going through a really tough time right now and I WANT TO BE THERE FOR HIM
and I WAS until I looked at those papers, then stuff rolled downhill.
I need to be healthy enough for him not to worry! I need to be healthy enough to help him out! To be there for him!
And right now my whole head is a swelling lump because this alter decided to beat me with the nearest metal object (Ouch!)
right in front of him.

I am really upset right now. F and I proposed the idea to my T that we tie ourselves up for therapy when we let her out.
He laughed. Not in a mean way, he just hadn't heard someone say that before. But we'd feel much safer if we did.
I kind of wish I had some tranquilizers right now T_T

So! It appears I'm hitting the really, really raw stuff in my system now. Something that has been a long time in coming
and something that has been deeply, deeply buried. I am really, really happy that I've come this far.
I'm really excited at the prospect that the constant yelling and death threats in my head will stop.
But I'm TERRIFIED of what this alter is capable of.
And my poor head is feeling pretty raw right now
She doesn't seem to want to really HARM me, except if it means I talk or try to approach the subject.
The closer I get to talking it seems, the more and more harm she's going to cause.
I've never had an alter get away on me that badly before. (That I'm aware of)

Does ANYONE have any idea about how to calm her down? When she's awake my whole body is on fire and
freaking out, and it feels like the only way to make it stop is to kill the body.
I'm not suicidal in the least.
But oh my GOD it's near impossible to handle living in my skin like this!

I want to overcome this!
I know I can do this!
I've dealt with angry alters before,
but never one that scared me so much.
I've tried so hard to keep her in as long as I could and it seems NOW is the climax where she's to make her scary debut.
Help!

Wow, that sounds very upsetting for you and your BF. Maybe for your therapist too. Embarrassing too, of course, but that is not as important as your physical safety, is it? I imagine your alter is relieved to have stopped the talking without actually killing your body. That must have been a big fear for this alter. Likely a lot of the fear you are feeling right now is coming from the alter. It makes a feedback loop, fear causing more fear causing more fear. How does your angry alter feel about the body being physically restrained? Maybe you could enlist help from a local BDSM master, someone with restraint equipment and experience using it safely and effectively? Discussing this, and other elements of a safety plan for you, might help to calm your angry alter by ensuring a level of safety.

Your sensation of being on fire, and your experience of watching but being helpless to intervene, are common symptoms of severe dissociation. I get the "on fire" sensation a lot nowadays. The other is co-presence. Both are awful. Do you have self-soothing activities you can do for relief? Breathing exercises, meditation, stretching, yoga, swimming, taking a long walk, washing a floor or scrubbing a bathtub, maybe even folding laundry?

Yes, you can do it. You are doing great!

Wow, broken_mirror, I really wish safety for you and all your alters. I don't think I have an alter who is capable of self-damage in a major physical way, unless it's me, who has pounded my head sometimes with my fists and thought about bashing my head against a wall. But my alter Jack, who took abuse for me as a kid, did smack me in the face a couple times when I kept trying to pretend that he wasn't there and that nothing happened.

Jack showed up at first almost as pure anger and I was scared of him. He was very protective of the memories and got furious with me for trying to make him think of what happened while we were sort of co-conscious. I fought his coming through for about a month of therapy sessions, effectively locking him away. I knew somebody new to me was probably there, but I didn't want to include or acknowledge whoever it was. His job was to hold on to the memories, to protect me from them, and he took it seriously. There's no question in my mind that he saved my life as a child by doing that, none.

When I finally admitted in journaling that whoever he was and whatever his issues were, I needed him and would work with him, make room for him (and the key was that I meant it), everything inside shifted within an hour or so. All of a sudden, I was feeling happy and the mood was shocking because I hadn't felt that giddy happiness for decades! So the 'angry one' had become the 'happy one' very quickly. No guarantee that would happen with your alter, of course, each system is different. But the fact that she was ecstatically giggly at her success at being listened to is a good sign of her not being just a one-dimensional alter.

It's only a guess based on my system, but I imagine that your angry alter may see her role as having saved you. If there were threats -- stated or implied -- from an abuser, she may well have been right. It seems your alter is very angry because you're threatening to divulge the secret or moving toward it too quickly or carelessly (those were my alters' concerns, they tell me). She may well be capable of more emotions and thinking than just the anger, perhaps that's all you're seeing now and for a reason that was at one time a very, very good one. Could you call a temporary moratorium on the return of memories? Could you allow her to contribute or even control when and how quickly the information is released to you? Could she somehow participate in where you are all going instead of being entirely locked away and stifled? In exchange, she would obviously need to agree not to damage the body for a period of time with the punishment for breaking the agreement being as much lock-up as you can muster.

Jack and I wish you the best of luck in finding a way to work together. It wuz tough but we hadda try not to be enemies. It don't work and it ain't no fun.

I'm not sure how this alter feels about being physically restrained.
I'm not talking BDSM, kinky sort of restraining, more like restraining for our safety, because she can cause harm.
My boyfriend does know some lock ups but I don't want to put him in that position.
And I would prefer to have a situation where I wouldn't need to lock myself up!
My poor head is all sore and sensitive.

The "on fire" feeling is probably the worst I experience. It comes from a sensory overload I think.
I used to have an alter that "shut down" the system whenever this alter woke up or feelings got that bad,
but I don't know where it went! I think we lost the ability to "shut things down" when we realized it wasn't
helping the system, and we learned to keep ourselves awake, so we'll just need to learn to deal.

My alter views what she's doing as beneficial, I can see that clearly. She's trying to protect SOMETHING desperately,
and seems to think that it's so sensitive that we would be destroyed or would die if it were unearthed (or unshielded?).
I personally think she's shielding my absolute inner core/soul/original self, or something like that...
So much is she adamant about protecting it she'd rather the body die than have it tarnished or stamped upon.
But I don't believe anyone can ever truly destroy the thing she's protecting.

She normally talks in loops and repeated phrases- there hasn't been any real 'communication' except one way.
The only clue I have to her being is (and saying this makes me fuzzy) a thought I had earlier today that she reacted to.
My thought was "What she is saying sounds dreadfully like all the things we wanted to say to our abusers" or something
like that, and all of a sudden there's this excited, ecstatic "YOU KNOW ME!" looping in my head.

That's an interesting idea, giving her control over when it's divulged, but I get the idea that it's not INFORMATION she is
protecting, but some sort of inner core/spirit I get the feeling that she is so protective of.
The problem is, as long as she's protecting it, I don't think I'll ever be able to get close to another human being again.
I haven't felt real love since I was very, very young. I LOVE my boyfriend, but I can't get close to him.

I think I'm going to ask her to write to me on paper. Maybe I can find out what's up and if there's something we can work out.
Problem is she doesn't see a reason to cooperate because she knows she can hurt me to make me stop.
But what if I don't stop? Hmm..
If she acts up again I'm going to have to take some meds to knock myself out until the morning. I don't think my head can take another pounding.

Right now the only thing that works for when I'm on fire is to stay away from people and sleep.
And the only way she's quiet is when I leave the whole issue alone.
I get the feeling it's not that it's too soon, or I'm pushing too hard. But that it's the scariest thing in the world for her to do?

Thanks for your responses. If anyone can think of anything else regarding safety I'd love to hear it.

I just spent some time trying to communicate to the angry alter.
In my system some of my alters are either blind or deaf.
This one turns out was deaf and stuck which is why should couldn't hear me.
I tried the writing thing and after a lot of angry attacks i finally got a conversation.
Took quite a while but got a really long conversation out of it.
Thank goodness she wasn't blind too, huh?

I think I'm going to be okay.
I still don't know exactly what she's hiding but she seems okay to talk about it in therapy.
She's still on fire but I tried to explain things to her over and over until she understood her
situation and what was going on. I think she's still a bit confused but she's really, really happy
that that fire is going to stop.
And I got an apology for the head beating!

Wish me luck and thanks for all your suggestions
I'm really tired now but glad I finally got through to her. <3

What a great development. I can't tell you how much your situation resonates for me. I'm all teary and I feel it's coming from the toddlers, like we're getting somewhere. I haven't even considered whether they're deaf or blind, but they're definitely hiding and seem to get my feelings about them, that I want to do something for them, protect them, hear their story, comfort them. Yes, very activating.

So there seems to be the core being protected. That makes sense. It sounds like a big issue is trust. If you or an alter or the core can't trust, real love doesn't seem possible.

By process of elimination, one of my toddlers has to be the core, the original, but I don't know which one. I don't know if one is protecting the other, but, yes, I feel that's possible. Wow, I just never considered that one toddler could protect another.

Then again I feel I stopped dissociating and splitting at age two and a half when my younger sister was born. I needed to stop 'going away' so that I could remember things and help save her from a monster. For years, I wouldn't go away unless I got locked in the basement and knew I couldn't get out to help her. I dissociated there because the body became so cold, I had to 'make it hot' then 'go blind while I could still see' (self trance!?) and float away for a while. No matter how cold it would get, I seemed to have some immunity from freezing and practically always under-dressed for winter because I could. Other kids just didn't seem to have my 'super power.'

What a horrible, horrible thing to feel like you're on fire, to be on fire. I'm very happy to hear your poor deaf alter now has hopes of that stopping and that she knows someone, you, have figured out some of her pain and how to communicate with her. Sounds like she has a lot of an original pain and terror. She is really brave.

It seems my toddlers are listening now and wondering if I can figure out how to communicate with them. I will figure it out, I promise. One of them just did a quiet high-pitched self-calming sound of some kind for about a minute and looked around. Yes, we're getting closer.

Is she the only one who damages the body? If so, it sounds like she's the one that needs to be reassured about something. You could promise her you'll help her. It sounds like you already may have in a way. A promise, if it's real, is a powerful thing.

Johnny-Jack, thanks for your response.
It sounds like something resonated with you. I think the heart of it all is protecting yourself no matter what
no matter what you've gone through, no matter what you encounter.
It's amazing how such little children can protect themselves, even adults!

I really do think it's more core being protected. And it definitely is an issue of trust- an issue where I am
unable to experience feelings fully outright because that would allow me to get close to someone again.
In my system we had mind games played with us for around ten years where everyone- everyone would
make us doubt ourselves and win our trust over and over just to throw it in our face and destroy us again.
They got a cheap thrill out of trying to destroy us. No wonder she's so terrified about letting us close or trust again!

It sounds like you were a very loving young child who just wanted to protect his sister. That's incredibly heart breaking
for me to read that you had to endure that and protect her at such a young age. You must have been so incredibly filled
with love to protect someone like that. I tried to protect someone too by being their friend even though it drew more
bad attention to me. I went years and years doing my best to remain myself.
I'm so sorry you had to go through such horrible conditions. When things get so bad you learn how to control your
brain function, as in DID. You had to learn to stop freezing. My "super power" was I learned how to cry out of the side of my face that faced away from everyone, I learned to stop myself from sweating and how to make myself seriously ill by willing it.
I also learned to read people with a sixth sense so I could tell when they were lying, but when everyone constantly denies your
reality, you stop being able to read body language or vocal tones. I'm still struggling with that, I take everything super literally.

My alter must be very brave. She's not the only one in my system that has resorted to trying to hurt me or kill me
to try and keep me from getting to the bad stuff. In each situation the pain was extraordinary. But in every situation
I've also managed to send my love to them eventually and try to help heal them.

I find that not all my alters are able to see or hear because it would shield them from the outside and keep the memories
from being activated, because they are unable to be triggered.
It sounds like your younger children in your system could hear my story.
If you're having trouble talking to your alters or sending them love, try different methods.
I've tried thinking- that works when I'm co-conscious. I have tried talking out loud- that works when the alters are blind.
I have tried writing on a screen or paper- that works when the alters are deaf. I have tried leaving messages- that
works when the alters are completely cut off. Alternatively, I can think of pictures or words in my mind for them to see.
Imagining pictures of hugging them and protecting them, or drawing them, or talking in a gentle, loving, patient tone really helps communicate with preverbal alters.

To try and help gain her trust I told her some secrets of mine. That was always very important in my system, to be
a secret holder was a very powerful position to hold. So I told her some secrets, promised to try to do my best, and even
told her she didn't have to tell me any secrets of her own, so she felt more safe and powerful.
She's my penpal now

I say hello to your children and all your alters, and I say you're all super brave, and talented, and I'm so happy and glad to have talked to you all. Any pain you feel will stop eventually, and the scary people will go away. You can feel good again!

Something I found helpful that I told my alter was this-
You know when you get a cut on your arm and you put on rubbing alcohol to clean out the bad germs and dirt?
It hurts a little, then it feels better, and you put on a bandaid and it feels a lot better.
When we were little people told us only cuts and bruises hurt, but they didn't know any better.
Doctors and smart people figured out that feeling bad and people making our emotions hurt can be just as bad, even worse!
So since they were smart, they figured out a way to heal up our emotions too.
When someone makes you hurt, you clean it out (like putting on the rubbing alcohol!) by processing it- talking, singing,
drawing, crying. It is scary because it's going to hurt, just like the stuff you put on your cuts to make them clean!
But then, you still need a bandaid! The bandaid we use for emotional hurts is called love. You get lots of hugs from someone
who loves you (You can even hug yourself!) and you get comforted. If you're scared of hugs, you just need to show that person you love them. It's important to tell them the difference between love and abuse, since they are usually confused when we're young. Show them the difference, and let them know that love doesn't have to include abuse That puts on the bandaid.
Then it starts to heal up. It takes a little courage, but there's always a way to heal things up!
Our bodies were made for healing ourselves. We just need to know how to help it out
Be strong, be brave, and remember you're not alone! It always helps to have a friend. I'll hold your hand when you need to cry.
I'll hug you when you get it out. We'll get through this together. We always have a friend, because we have our alters,
and they've tried their best to protect us in any way they knew how our whole life.
Even if our alters hurt us, they didn't know any better. Little kids don't always know any better. Sometimes they're scared.
Sometimes they're in pain. People act different when they're in lots of pain. But we'll be there for you, and we'll help you make that burning fire inside stop!
And then... we can play, and have fun, and it won't hurt again... and we'll both keep each other safe.
We're not little anymore. We can stop bad people from being around us now. We can grow up together, and feel good again <3

That helped out my girl a bit, but it took me a really really long time to explain
She's really, really looking forward to the pain stopping, and she's super excited to have a friend!

Thanks again for responding, and for sharing your story with me. <3