NOS New person talking to inner child

Hi,

I want to check in and say that I am a new person NOS. It is nice to see other people dealing with the same issues.

After two years, I am finally able to talk to my little girl. Currently, I am talking to her about her feelings of badness. Since something bad happened, she feels she should die. I am telling her it is not her fault and she did the best she could. She deserves to be treated very nicely. Previously, I didn't have discussion with her when she made negative statements.

Thank you for listening,
Sisterlink

Ah, right I assume this is what you meant by "little girls" in your previous post.

It is good that you are starting to communicate more with your inner child so that she doesn't feel she is dealing with what happened alone.

Keep at it,

Bourbon

It seems really good that you are able to reach out with compassion to your inner child. My t is always wanting me to be self nurturing. But when I am feeling strong I do not need to nurture self and when I feel little there is no way to feel capable and nurturing.

What is the difference between "inner child" and having a "part?"

All my adult life I have had times of feeling in a child-state, mostly mute. I remember and don't lose time, but it is the way you remember a dream, it takes effort to recall details it is more like a memory of a feeling or state. It usually happens when I am under stress and some small incident sort of triggers it or with someone I really trust or sometimes, not a stressed child, but maybe happy and intensely alive, just for a minute and no one notices. Honestly I have no desire to talk to her, it kind of freaks me out. But sometimes I do just to make her kind of go back when I have to do something adult. This seems different than what, say, Bradshaw is talking about re. inner child, but then I don't think it is like a full blown personality in DID. ?????

Can't wrap my mind around this DDNOS, DID, Parts, Inner child thing.

Sisterlink, congrats on your new communication with her. It sounds great. I LOVE interacting with my littles, even when they hurt. A little attention and soothing can go such a long way.

Oh, Littlevine, I will tell you that I once met a young part of me that I assumed for years was only my inner child, some ego state or something. He was so quiet and polite and sweet and never pushed. He visited me many times and I liked his visits and was kind to him. This is even after I remembered in therapy that he was in the body before me and I remembered replacing him quite young. So I knew he must technically be an alter. Still, he just seemed so simple and uncomplicated. Even after I met other alters this year, I didn't focus on him much, he still seemed untraumatized. I had never lost time when he was out, though I felt fuzzy and couldn't remember that well after I came back into the body. It really felt more like I was shifting into a very young mood or something when he came into the body.

I was way, way off. Months after I knew about my now twelve alters, while he was out one day, he had a flashback that proved he had been horribly abused. He had learned to avoid triggering abuse by being the way he was, quiet, avoidant of any attention, saying virtually nothing, and expressing no need whatsoever. He acted this way in order to protect the body, to keep it safe. He was a little hero I never gave him credit for being and I had dismissed him in a most cavalier way because he never demanded any attention.

An inner child is a non-dissociated part of a normal person according to some theories of human development as championed popularly by John Bradshaw.

A child alter is a very different thing but could easily be mistaken for this so-called inner child. I did it and it would have changed my life for the better for the past two decades if I hadn't made that error and accepted Little John for what I at some level knew he must be, an alter. If you can talk to her, do so. She certainly sounds like an alter to me, a part of you who you once were when your body was much younger. If it turns out she's not, what harm was done? Don't make the same mistake I did.

Thanks for your reply, Johnny Jack.
Can you tell me how you are kind to little John and how do you talk to him?
Also, what is the difference between an ego state and part?

I think maybe I have a young ego state and a mean voice introject...but not "parts" or personalities?
I find this all very confusing. I know I am dissociative, but don't think DID, but maybe just have a confusion disorder!!!

Lately I keep feeling like I am thrown into "states" of feeling young and insecure or scared. Sort of like flash backs but more of a mood or state. When i feel little it is more like a complete change, but Mean Voice is just like a constant heckler.

Feel worried I have fooled my t into thinking I have parts and have had a traumatic past when I don't even remember what may have happened and am probably just grasping at straws trying to make sense of my self.

-- Sat Nov 12, 2011 12:09 am --

Sisterlink,
Sorry don't mean to hijack your thread.
I am also wondering how you talk to your inner child. I find that concept so difficult.
I think mostly Mean voice does the talking and it is something like "shut up, you're fine, quit being ridiculous."
What other dissociative symptoms do you have Sisterlink?
I am trying to understand the difference in diagnoses such as complex PTSD and DDNOs and DID.

When he wants to come into the body, I let him. Even if it's at work and really not a good idea. I figure he has a reason and he suffered being ignored for most of his life and I just don't want to do that. I started doing it a bit earlier this year and then realized how cruel it was to ignore him or not give him the attention he needed. When he is in the body and I'm watching, I try to engage him from inside, talk to him. Actually a younger alter Jack engages him more than I do. If he does talk, it's usually just a few words, but he's becoming more expressive, including expressing negative emotions. I almost rejoiced when he was first able to pout to me for not doing what he wanted me to do (look up a photo of him on the computer, which he had no idea how to do).

Now if you don't have DID but dissociated ego states, this may not work. But sometimes you can converse with an ego state. Whenever you're in one of those states, see if you're present in any way and can talk to her who is in control of the body. If you can't or if you feel like it's really you in control of the body still just in a very different state, then maybe it's an ego state.

Mean Voice could just be an introject ego state, an alter, or a tape recording of probably a verbally abuser parent or other caregiver. Just tell the T everything and you should be able to figure it out.

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I see inner child is the wrong use of the term; my little girls just appeared when I was dealing with abuse memories. They have been somewhat intrusive but are less so now.

For me, the big difference between NOS and DID seems to be whether or not a state 'takes over' for a time. Since that doesn't happen to me, I am NOS.

-SL