March 22, 2009
Child Parts – When They Hold Suicidal Power and Influence
We’ve had some very interesting discussions on the “What do you think about Suicide?” blog article. Thank you to everyone who writes and comments on this blog – your participation is valued and appreciated.
One of the topics that surfaced on that thread is the idea that trauma survivors with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID/MPD) may have child parts within their system that can be suicidal, and that the ability to control the suicidal behavior of these child parts seems overwhelmingly difficult, even for the adults of the dissociative system.
I’d like to write an official response to that.
Typically, one thinks of child parts as a permanently young child – an inside part that holds the trauma memories, feelings, rememberings, and experiences that happened when the body was of a young chronological age. These child parts act like children, think like children, reason like children. Their thinking is often very concrete and their grammar / spelling / speech is child-like as well.
So, how does a child part, who is likened after an actual child, have the ability to be suicidal when typically, children do not even understand what death is?
How can these child parts have the ability to act outside of the control of the adults in the system?
There is at least one possible answer for that.
For dissociative trauma survivors, their childhood was filled with abusive perpetrators. Some — not all — DID survivors have experienced an organized type of abuse by organized groups of perpetrators. These organized groups could have presented themselves as sex slavery groups, or cult groups, or governmental / mind control experimental groups. Any which way, the abuse was more than home-based, chaotic dysfunctional family-crisis abuse. With organized abuse, there would have been a goal, a purpose, and a long-term plan for ongoing and continued abuse and total control of the victim by the offenders.
Organized perpetrators very often purposefully split off child parts and attach suicidal programming to these children. Even while the children are at a very young age, these organized perpetrators demand complete control of the mind and behavior of the child. These perpetrators know they are committing horrendous crimes to their victims, and are invested in keeping the children silenced about these crimes. They instill these controls early in life, and then have every intention of keeping this level of control over the victim for as many years into adulthood as possible. Organized perpetrators actually want life-long control. They begin their domination during the victim’s childhood with the intention of being able to keep that child under their control for their entire life.
Using suicidal programming as a way to control and manipulate behavior is one of the most effective ways for abusers to protect their secrets. Perpetrators have a variety of horrific techniques that they use to accomplish this goal.
The result is that a child part can be cued or triggered into suicidal thinking, can have a suicidal plan, and could potentially follow the instructions planted in their brain with the same level of intensity as any other mind-controlled person. The child part does not have to understand what they are doing, nor do they have to understand what death is, nor do they have to understand the effects of their behavior. They just have to know what to do, step by step. These child parts have simply been taught clearly defined, specifically detailed behaviors to follow upon command, and they have been taught to follow those controls without thinking.
Perpetrators attach suicidal programming to young children not only at the earliest point of intervention, but also because it goes to their advantage that these child parts genuinely do not understand what death is. The children know what obedience is and the mind control trainers take advantage of that. Children cannot reason past the orders to understand that they are being told to do something that is harmful to them. They cannot grasp the concept of death enough to fear it the way an adult would, but they know what happens in they don’t obey, so the programming is attached to this level of thinking without any risk of interference by “fear of death”.
In effective trauma therapy, these controls can be removed safely, and the person — both the child parts and the adult parts — can reclaim their own power and control of their behavior. However, as long as the programmed responses are hidden secretly within the child part, the person is at risk for suicidal behavior.
If you are experiencing these kind of suicidal controls, please work with an experienced trauma therapist while addressing these issues. It is imperative that you handle suicidal programming with great caution, and do not assume that just any therapist can do this level of work.
Find a genuine trauma specialist to help you remove suicidal programming from your child parts.
Your safety matters. And yes, you can reclaim the control of your own life.
If you are considering individual therapy work to address these issues, please contact me through AbuseConsultants.com. Be very careful about exposing too much of this kind of personal information on a public blog site.
Your safety is important.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
David said,
March 22, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Hmmmm. Any ideas regarding how to think about a suicidal child alter who didn’t undergo ritual abuse/programming?
dollswise said,
March 22, 2009 at 6:54 pm
I wrote more regarding this on SF – but I do have a question for here – what about when the suicidal part just is non verbal?
I get really strangely utterly not speaking at all when in such throes and this has been observed – so I am wondering – how do you communicate or reach or deal with an inside who sends very powerful vivid images that are basically inherently entrancing – and utterly non verbal? And when I slide into being entranced by these images – I get non verbal, and loosed from the threads of rational and lulled into that state.
You know I am incredibly verbal normally – so whats with this non verbal and its sometimes rather intensely strong pulls, and how does one communicate with what only communicates in powerfully entrancing imagistic means?
A – I do/am trying to get better at recognizing – “this is an influence from inside – not all of me”
B – but words get me nowhere with this and some very young powerful insides just are only imagistic – what are helpful interventions in such cases?
ivory54 said,
March 22, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Mmm, oh, I feel sucker punched. Since reading this post, I have wondered if I have an alter that has given you more information about me than I’d planned on doing. I don’t know how, tho.
This topic has come up in my therapy, but I had no idea they actually program the child. I didn’t know about that, but now other things make sense.
I have a 7 year old who doesn’t speak verbally, she uses sign language. To my T’s credit, he has learned how to finger spell so he knows what she is saying. I don’t think all my colors (alters) communicate and I don’t know how, or if, they talk – like in verbally, or if it’s just thoughts.
…This would explain the several years, the long months, the many days… I’m glad my session is tomorrow.
Shell-shocked,
Ivory
Kathy Broady said,
March 23, 2009 at 1:54 am
Hi Ivory,
I’m glad to hear that this post helps to explain some of the things you have been experiencing for years of time… AND, by the sounds of it, it is a good thing you have therapy tomorrow!
And the only things I know about you are what you have written as comments here in this blog — that’s it, and nothing else. I promise!
However, I’ve noticed thru’ my 20+ years of working with clients with organized abuse that there are a number of similarities in the types of things that these organized perpetrators do to children. While there are always individual differences, it seems that the perps often followed a few standard procedures. Since I’ve heard similar things often enough, it’s no surprise to me that someone else can recognize the pattern in their history as well.
I hope this information helps you and your therapist to have a really good session tomorrow.
Kathy
soulfulgrrl said,
March 23, 2009 at 11:04 am
This really helped me. I’ve never posted here before as I am a big chicken but, I hope I can maybe talk to my T about this.
Thanks,
lisa
behindthecouch said,
March 23, 2009 at 11:48 am
Following on from David’s comment – would be interested in hearing more about the ritual/cult aspect (though don’t want to trigger anyone of course). It seems that DID is often associated with it – more than I would expect and have personally experienced. Many of the DID people I converse with have not had ritual or cult encounters therefore how prevalent is it? Is it just the extreme of the extreme? Must abuse have been “organised” in order to create DID-type fragmentation? Apparently not..
Any difference or clarification between terms used “ritual” and “organised” – is there a difference?
Any clarification appreciated!
Kathy Broady said,
March 23, 2009 at 3:53 pm
BTC –
lol, I can always count on you to come up with the hard questions, lol.
I am currently working on a longer, more detailed response to that. Those are hard questions to answer quickly.
More later –
Kathy
Kathy Broady said,
March 23, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Hi Soulfulgrrl-
Thank you for being brave enough to make your first comment! I’m very glad to hear that this article helped you a lot, and I do hope that you and your t can find ways to work successfully with these issues.
Thanks for writing – I appreciate that.
Kathy
Kathy Broady said,
March 23, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Dollswise,
My first approach with parts that are non-verbal is to use the method of communication that they are presenting. These parts you are referring to have images — visual pictures. Am I understanding correctly? So… try communicating with them through pictures. Draw what you see, so your therapist can get a sense of what you are looking at, or describe the pictures in as much vivid detail as possible. Start from there, and see what you can learn at that point….
And yes, it is not so odd to have parts that either cannot speak, or cannot see, or cannot hear, etc . So to me, that means it’s time to get creative and find a new way to communicate with them.
Good luck!!
Kathy
Kathy Broady said,
March 23, 2009 at 5:24 pm
David,
A child part who’s mind / behavior is not controlled by programming *should be* talkable to. If there is no programming there, then the child part has the ability to think – feel – choose – decide, and that means they have the ability to learn. They do not have to stay stuck — they can progress and move forward.
Learning new things is very important, and showing the child new things, positive things, pleasant experiences, and meeting their needs should make a significant difference in how suicidal they feel. Ask yourself, and ask those kid parts what they need / want / hope to have in order to feel better. Give them something that provides joy, fun, excitement, interest, pleasure… and work really hard at understanding what is going on for them. Maybe they need someone to listen more closely while they talk more? Maybe they need more comfort? Maybe they need more playtime? Ask them what they need — they will be able to tell you.
If you are unsure as to what they need, think about what external children need for a healthy learning environment, and then duplicate that for your internal children.
If their mind is not being externally controlled by anything or anyone else, then finding that something that positively appeals to the children should be do-able.
Keep working at it — you’ll find something that “fits” just right for them.
Kathy
davidrochester said,
March 23, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Thanks, Kathy. We’ll keep pegging away at it.
I’m going to briefly mention my experience with this alter here, just in case there are other readers who relate to this; I’d be curious as to how people deal with it.
As far as I know, I have not encountered any kind of cult, ritual, or organized abuse. I do, however, have a suicidal child alter who is about six or seven years old. This alter understands perfectly well what death is, and that it is irreversible. This alter has wanted the body dead since the body was the same age as the alter, but as a child, we didn’t have the knowledge or means to accomplish that goal, and as an adult, we have more clearly understood the repercussions of a failed suicide attempt, and that understanding has kept us comparatively safe.
The interesting thing to me about this alter is that s/he ( the alter is completely androgynous) absolutely hates me, which makes communciation difficult, if not impossible. We’ve made incremental progress as far as my being able to explain that this alter’s habit of getting my attention by making me physically ill doesn’t help me to attend to his/her needs; and s/he somehow acquired a dog, which s/he seems to want, though I never see any interaction between them. However, there is nothing that this alter admits to wanting, except wanting our shared body to be dead. S/he wants only the cessation of our existence, and that’s it. Or at least, that’s all the communication I get. S/he hates everyone else in the system also, so there’s no communication possible through those avenues. And s/he hates our therapist. As far as I can tell, the only thing this alter ever does, aside from wishing we were all dead, is to sit in his/her room, watching static patterns on the television I gave to him/her so that s/he wouldn’t have to watch the dreams of another alter whose night-time mental rovings s/he didn’t like.
I’m quite baffled as to how to get through to this alter; anything I show is ignored, anything I give (except for the television) is rejected, and s/he simply will not admit to having any investment in the idea of living, or to wanting anything out of life that might allow me to meet needs or provide something different.
If anyone’s had an alter like this, and you found some way of communicating, I’d be very interested to hear about it.
ivory54 said,
March 23, 2009 at 8:37 pm
David,
I, too have a young alter who’s main purpose in life is to protect me to the point of dying to do it. She acted as if she had great contempt for me, but she doesn’t hate me; quite the opposite. I cannot “talk” to my alters, instead, I feel. It’s kind of like understanding from osmosis. Anyway, my point is that because I could not self-talk/communicate with her and she refused to communicate with me or anyone who would talk to me, I had become alarmingly close to slipping away on pills. My T was the one to finally make a connection with her – they played a child’s card game and then he found a toy top that lit up when he spun it. He said she was totally fascinated by it and developed a memory in the present that was good and fun. And it worked.
I don’t remember any of it but eventually, she learned to trust my daughter, too. Eventually, she allowed me to feel her presence and has offered her story to my T because she wanted me to know parts of it. Her apparent dislike for me was her way of keeping me from getting close and trying to “remember” all the sordid details of my past.
Trusting is the key. It always comes down to that, for me. I hope you find your “key” and make a connection with your little troubled one.
Ivory
castorgirl said,
March 23, 2009 at 9:10 pm
David, I wonder if your young one is using the static TV as a form of “white noise” to eliminate other sound? If that is the case, what occurs when other noise is heard either internally or externally? I wonder if there is a way to make some form of connection with them through an alternative sound?
I imagine you’ve tried this already, but thought I’d suggest it anyway.
davidrochester said,
March 23, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Ivory — Hmmmm, hmmmm. That’s very interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I do have reason to think that this alter holds a lot of missing memory, so perhaps the seeming hostility does have some protective element. I’ll have to see if I can get anywhere with that line of thought.
CG — Jamie uses the TV to avoid having to participate in current-day events that s/he finds to be triggering … it’s his/her version of safe space. It’s not an ideal solution, but it’s better than having him/her continually triggered. Yes, it is a version of white noise, and I think it is Jamie’s part of my brain that also can’t sleep without a fan in the background. I’ve tried changing the programming on the TV a couple of times, with disastrous results. This alter is in such an unbelievable amount of pain that s/he takes everything the wrong way, if you know what I mean.
Sam's the most (too much) righteously bold & creative alter said,
March 24, 2009 at 5:17 am
@ David – oh, my, I now understand a connection that was felt by some alters towards you despite the literary (intellectually) elitist defense that has frightened our other alters at your blog.
The alter, the suicidal (I prefer to label it self-hatred alter because I agree with my host that it is not the behavior but the extreme emotion what happens to be a driving force behind alters), you were describing above, is almost an exact copy of my self-hatred alter!
“(…) there is nothing that this alter admits to wanting, except wanting our shared body to be dead. S/he wants only the cessation of our existence”
Reading the above quote, I had to smile because that’s how he felt, and he was deaf to all reasons and arguments coming from the rest of us (our system) and encouragements that he, too, can learn to enjoy life if he only let us help him.
He hated to be offered (or getting) help by anyone at all (even more than I – the bold alter – do
)…
“(…) the only thing this alter ever does, aside from wishing we were all dead, is to sit in his/her room, watching static patterns on the television”
My self-hatred alter could be distracted by being shown the same cartoons over and over (any new cartoons would just make him want our body to cease to exist, no matter what.). Nothing could make him a bit happier or wanting to learn to enjoy life, those cartoons just distracted him (they didn’t make him any happier, though!). He had only one wish – to see me dead, and since I saw no other option but to let him express and fulfill his dream, a had a series of most vivid dreams.
In one of those dreams which I had in several consequent nights I have thrown my body on the knife (going through my heart and I died).
The other dream was of experiencing heaving brain stroke and I could see my brain dying one brain center after another – until there was dead body left on the bad and I was leaving the body).
The third dream was of our body walking, refusing to hide, in the middle of atom bomb attack, exposing to the explosions until the body was fried to death.
Making his dreams true in a way, make him feel valid and acknowledged and his extreme feelings accepted by the rest of us (our system). It felt a kind of gift given to him by the rest of us that made him a satisfied little boy, and now being able to learn to enjoy life with the rest of us…
multipixie9 said,
March 24, 2009 at 5:57 am
Hi David,
We really relate to your Jamie. We spent many years reading novels and also using tv as someplace to put our mind and stop constantly being upset, triggered. We also use a fan and earplugs at night and our children (in real life) learned to wake mommy VERY gently when they needed help, otherwise I would levitate off the bed with a heart rate around 150!
I am going through periods where I do better at staying involved in our real-world life and then if stress gets high, we tend to begin avoiding and distracting ourselves. Hang in there, I know it gets tough!
In which I share how I died in order to get my life back « Mybelovedalter’s Blog said,
March 24, 2009 at 6:06 am
[...] most (too much) righteously bold & creative alter under dissociation, recovery I have shared – replying to David’s reply to Kathy’s blog post – how I died in order to get my life [...]
davidrochester said,
March 24, 2009 at 9:46 am
Sam — Thank you for sharing that; I’m intrigued by the very creative solution you found to move your alter past his need to not exist. One of the most pervasive blocks, with my alter, is his/her perception that because my therapist and I would like him/her to experience change, s/he is “wrong.” S/he has no ability to see any change as positive; any suggestion of change simply reinforces the idea that s/he is wrong and bad, and that makes him/her even more uncooperative.
Anyway, I appreciate the fact that you took the time to describe your experience, despite your having found me somewhat … off-putting, I guess the word would be.
MPixie — Thanks; I appreciate the support.
soulfulgrrl said,
March 24, 2009 at 10:17 am
Hi, this is Dayna and I don’t think we were part of any “religious cult” or organized crime ring so to speak. The father was very much into having his “friends” help him in his crimes. So, maybe “unorganized chaos” should be the right term for that one. Interesting thoughts from everyone. Thanks for the great topic, Ms Kathy.
Dayna (hope it was ok for me to post)
castorgirl said,
March 25, 2009 at 12:58 am
I probably should have clarified David, I wasn’t meaning to suggest that you do something as drastic as changing Jamie’s TV channel. I was thinking more along the lines of introducing another TV, video, radio or something similar to have an additional soft sound or positive picture, as a small change. As Jamie wouldn’t see this as a small change, it could just go inside the room, near the door, so Jamie could still get rid of it if needed. It might be non-threatening enough so that it wouldn’t be rejected, but a positive change that expands Jamie’s world.
I like the term “unorganised chaos” Dayna. Not what it represents, but rather how it accurately describes the hellish situation.
That sounds like a stunning way to accept the extreme emotion of your young one Sam’s bold and creative alter. I wish we were brave enough to try something similar, but our fear that W will follow through with her plans is too strong.
I agree with the concept of the young one trying to protect in any way they can find Ivory. It is similar with our W. She often punishes us for telling the secrets and not staying invisible. Whenever someone reveals too much she comes forward to say that it is all lies. Yet she is the one who holds so much and is often caught in assessment between the need to please the authority figure (assessing psychiatrist) by telling the truth of her experiences and trying to keep the secrets.
Sam's the most (too much) righteously bold & creative alter said,
March 25, 2009 at 2:20 am
David — I had to search for the meaning of the word in dictionary since I am not… “native speaker” (or what is the right word, help me please :.-| ), and, yes, thank you for the word behind which is our envy of your masterful ability to express yourself in the language. I am becoming aware that this envy stems from the fear felt by my Misunderstood Alter – a five years old boy created when I was for indefinitely long time left in another country with another language when I was 5 years old and I/he was/is unable to tell correctly what his needs are because they didn’t spoke his language in the foreign climatic hospital for the asthmatic children and I/he didn’t/don’t speak theirs masterly enough.
Regarding the self-hatred alter, offering him to change just made him even more convinced that we hate him, as well. I know.
davidrochester said,
March 25, 2009 at 12:27 pm
CG — Oh, that’s a great idea … it never occurred to me to try to introduce an additional media source into the room. Sheesh! This is what comes of not actually having a television in my 3-D real life house; I don’t think of these kinds of things.
Sam — I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be hospitalized, as a child, in a foreign country. No wonder that little one feels misunderstood.
juliewtf said,
March 26, 2009 at 5:57 am
Hmmmm, this post leaves me without words. Most of my insiders are young.
I am wondering if there is something between RA and dysfunctional families?
Mom was a psychologist, so anything to do with the mind, became an art form…..maybe. ( Makes therapy easy….not LOL)
Parents and parents friends, all were very influential, so maybe just something to “do”?
This post makes me want to go back and read the previous one and maybe rethink some viewpoints.
So…..maybe not RA? Maybe just a game, to see how much she could undo my mind. A mind that she still has a hold of. (working hard on reversing that)
I have a few suicidal child insiders, each has a different belief as to why they “need” to die.
Good thing I am strong……..seems she couldnt take that away, no matter how hard she tried.
muffledones said,
April 26, 2009 at 1:54 pm
I got a part what panocs and just ‘wants it to stop’, and that one can be impulsive.
Like I almost eg rode in front of a bus.
It not suicidal per se, it just wanted to make it stop.
pilgrimchild said,
January 19, 2010 at 8:21 pm
mae used to be suicidal a lot. we had to watch her around knives and stuff. she is 5. we dont know where she got these ideas in her head. i don’t think our old T would talk to her about it. she probably told us to handle it. which was funny, because we didn’t know how. mae isn’t as sad now as she was back then, usually, only once in a while does she talk about wanting to die, but we don’t know why she says it. she understands death all too well though. but we have had friends commit suicide, so maybe she found out from them. i don’t know though.. as a little kid, i used to want to… it is hard to tell with her. mae won’t tell. secrets, you know.
multipixie9 said,
January 20, 2010 at 7:57 pm
we have had at least 20 programmed parts with this agenda. if we got close to certain information or got too close to revealing cult activity we had triggers in certain parts to immediately suicide out. it has been very hard work to break down the lies and the training so that we now know as a group of many alters that suicide in absolutely forbidden and is no longer necessary as the ones who hurt us are now dead or far far away.
the ones who did this to us are unspeakably evil and damnable and we livied in spite of them. yea us.
leslie
csunbean said,
January 27, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Multipixie
WOW is all I can say. WOW.. getting through to 20 programmed parts.. But HOW do you get to the WOW? People talk of deprogramming but I don’t know what that means other than repeating over and over and over that we are safe and the bad people are not going to come get us if we remember, share the facts.
multipixie9 said,
January 28, 2010 at 10:33 am
hi csunbean, that is a good and complicated question. we have been working with our T for many years and we both have the same spiritual beliefs and that has been very good to help with the programming. God has helped me through time spent with my T, to recognize the “patterns” of behavior and the triggers and lies they reinforced with pain and fear.
we were so intensely frightened by certain of our abusers that we did whatever they wanted, no matter how horrible or grotesque. they made us do cult things and then told us God hated us and would never forgive us. they used pain to reinforce all their “training” and just plain scared the shit out of us.
because i was verbal and chatty from the time i learned to talk i was very scared i might slip up and tell on them and so they did such evil things to me that we were totally focused on never speaking about the abuse – we buried it so deep we did not know we were dissociative until our later 30′s and i was told we had “complicated” DID. it took me quite a while to learn to trust my T and my God so that they could begin to set me free from hellish memories and programmed responses that produced self-harm behaviors.
i still feel grateful and kind of amused (dark humor i guess) that for every suicidal part there was always a part developed to do whatever it took to keep us from killing the body we share. sometimes there were several there one to block, one to absorb some of the pain, a spiritual part to pray for the help we needed when most of us didn’t know what the hell was going on with us. (sorry for the cuss words, sometimes they just seem to express things for some of my inside family)
i don’t remember what the rules are on Kathy’s forum so i can’t explain how the spiritual part is done and what that does for us. Bottom line is that we have a relationship with God and he has been rescuing us gradually from the devestating mess abuse made of our/my life. i hope this helps a bit, i want all of us who suffer from dissociative disorders to find a way back into real life instead of the nightmare that life has been. see ya,
multipixie9 said,
January 28, 2010 at 10:42 am
csunbean, oops i forgot one other thing. these little parts with suicide programming are hurt and frightened and have no other way to cope with the pain they feel. i learned to acccept them, praise them for what they did for us – all alts are doing something they believe helps us. my T helped me learn to be sweet to them and let them hold our rustybear and we rock them and tell them all the sweet words we never heard as a child. ultimately a suicidal part doesn’t WANT to kill themselves, they are just DESPERATE to make the pain stop and not get worse. they are so afraid and lonely, they need the love they never got along with others in your system probably.
i hold my bear and rock and tell them i love them and we both enjoy it. i’m late at learning to nurture my system so i just borrow from how i treated my human children and it seems to help whoever is upset.
see ya, multipixie
Pilgrim said,
November 29, 2012 at 6:05 am
This take me a long time to read
But it make me think
It make me wunder bout claire an jadie
And that little one that oways hits her legs and yell out out
And girls like angel that cant breth
And oways jodie
Speshaly how they be at sertin times of the year
Ther be sertin girls that oways think they have to die
Tuck