August 2, 2009
20 Types of Dissociative Splits
It always amazes me when dissociative trauma survivors tell me that after they’ve met three or four of their inside alters (or maybe even a few more than that, but not many), that they think they’ve met everyone in their system. They think they are “done” meeting their insiders.
That never makes sense to me. Oh, I understand why the survivors would want to believe they have so few others inside, but that hope rarely matches with the actual amount of dissociative symptoms that they experience in their lives.
For example, if someone is still losing time, but they believe that have a good solid relationship with the parts that they know – then why are they losing time? Yes, it is possible that someone you know in your system can still block you out of awareness at certain times. Then again, if everyone you know in your system said they did not know what happened during a period of lost time, then it only makes sense to realize there are other parts of the system out and in charge during that missing time. If all of you are losing time, then there are more insiders yet to meet.
In my definition, meeting new insiders is a sign of progress. The survivor will not be creating new parts by meeting new parts – they are simply finding the parts that have been hiding from them all along behind strong dissociative walls. Any time you can reclaim more of the information that had been previously blocked from you via dissociation, you are making progress. Learning about your system and your history are always steps of progress.
So who should you look for or when will you know if there are more parts to meet?
All dissociative trauma survivors have their own unique system, of course. No one’s system is exactly like anyone else’s. There is no right or wrong for how big or how elaborate your system is. You would have split as many times as you had to, and you will have as many parts as you needed.
However, there are some common types of alters that exist in most DID survivors. This is a non-exhaustive list:
(Please note: alters may start off in these categories, but their roles can change.)
.
1. Host parts – check to see who was the host at various times in your life. This role can change and be assigned from part to part to part through time.
2. Child parts – your dissociative splitting would have started prior to age 7, so you will definitely have at least one child part, however, most DID survivors have bunches of child parts.
3. Parts that are relatively happy and trauma-free. These parts do not remember any trauma whatsoever. They can be of any age, but they believe they had a completely safe and happy childhood / adult life. Some parts might believe there was childhood abuse, but they can be blocked from the awareness of abuse happening in the adult years.
4. Parts that are created to manage the outside world. These parts may be the ones that went to school, or go to work, or handle social situations. They are typically quite separate from the trauma-holders or those that hold intense emotions. These parts may not be aware of a lot of trauma, they may hold a lot of denial, and they have the job to look as normal as possible. They will help the person get through life by doing normal things.
5. Parts that don’t remember anything “good” happening. If there are parts that only remember good things, there will absolutely be parts that only remember painful, not-so-good things. They contain the information that the normal daytime “happy” parts were not allowed to know, experience, or remember.
6. Parts that know a lot of memory information. These are the parts that either experienced or witnessed the trauma, abuse, neglect, etc. Getting to know these parts will involve listening to stories about the trauma, body memories about the trauma, flashbacks of the trauma, etc. It is common for there to be numerous parts to handle various types of abuses by various perpetrators. For example, one part may have managed a specific kind of abuse by perpetrator A. Another part may have handled a different kind of abuse by perpetrator A. Another part may have handled the abuse by perpetrator B. Yet another part handled the abuse by perpetrator C. And so forth.
7. Parts that contain a specific emotion. Many people split off various emotions into certain parts to contain those intense overwhelming emotions. If you believe, for example, that you never feel anger, you will likely have other parts in your system that do contain those emotions for you. These parts often have names such as “the sad little girl”, or “the angry one”, or “the scared one”. Getting to know these parts will mean starting to accept and experience these emotions.
8. Parts that split off at particularly traumatic years of life. These parts could also be memory-holders, but during years when there was more stress in the external life, there will likely be more parts. Years of more extreme abuse can lead to more parts being created of a similar age simply because more selves were needed to manage the overwhelming abuse.
9. Parts that are loyal to the mother. All children love their mother, even abusive, neglectful mothers. However, this emotion might need to be contained within certain parts, especially in the case of abusive mothers. Some parts are created to agree with the mother’s abuse (defining it as anything but abuse), and others are created to be obedient to the mother, even if they are terrified or in pain.
10. Parts that are loyal to the father. Just as with the mother, the father may have a variety of parts that are loyal to him, his beliefs, his ways, etc. They may learn that it is safer to align with the perpetrator and to separate themselves from the child-survivor.
11. Parts that contain loyalty to the perpetrators. These parts are often rewarded by the abuser-perpetrators and are encouraged to view themselves as separate from the rest of the system. It will take a lot of work to bring their loyalty back to the person they were created from.
12. Introjects created from external people. System introjects are internalized parts of the system that act – think- feel – believe themselves to be a mirror image of the external person that they are replicating, except they often believe they are the actual person (and not the replication). They may adamantly believe that they are a different person from the survivor-self, complete with a different body from the survivor. These parts contain a lot of memories, factual information, emotional realities for how it was like to be near the outside person.
13. Parts that contain the programming / mind controlled messages. These parts are often created by design and on purpose by organized abusers. These parts are given specific learnings that function as “rules” to control the survivor’s overall behavior. They are often separate from the host parts, and quite hidden within the depths of the system. The other system parts will experience their influence, but have trouble recognizing them as specific alters.
14. Parts that hate the mother or father. Hating the parents may be a difficult dilemma to address, especially since there will be parts of the person that naturally love their parents. However, years of repeated abuse and neglect can create the need for parts to contain the hatred felt towards parents who would allow such atrocities to happen to their child.
15. Parts that are created along the lines of family dynamics. Some survivors will internalize their family into their own DID system. You might find internal replicas of the sisters, brothers, parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. The family dynamics will be played out in a variety of ways but will most obviously be noted in the way the survivor splits off their system.
16. Floaters and other parts that separated themselves from the body during times of trauma. These parts may have risen above the body, and from the out-of-body experience position, may have specific information to share with the survivor about the kinds of things that happened.
17. Internal self-helpers. These parts would have been created by the system themselves and not necessarily during a state of trauma. They are typically leaders of the system that are considered to be holders of wisdom, or gentle peace, or spiritual guidance. They are devoted to the survivor system as a whole and work towards maintaining safety, stabilization, balance, etc. They typically do very little with the outside world, and focus most all of their energies towards helping the system to survive.
18. Parts that are specifically parental figures to the outside children. It is not uncommon for a survivor to split off “parental parts” just to be focused on raising the outside children as well as possible. These parts very often work hard at being different from their own outside parents, and strive to be the best parent they can be.
19. Parts that were involved in abusing others. This is a very difficult area for survivors to reach, but it is more common than not. Especially for those people who have been abused by organized perpetrators (ie: cults, sex slavery groups, etc) there will be parts who were forced to have the perpetrator role and required to do things that harmed other people.
20. Parts that contain a specific skill or talent. Certain parts can be created to develop positive talents and abilities, often as a way to help manage or express or avoid the pain that is felt so deeply by the others in the system. Maybe one part is better at playing a musical instrument than anyone else. Maybe someone else learned how to write poetry. Or maybe someone was created to be an athlete and to run, jump, excel at sports, etc.
As you can see, there can be a large system just by having parts to fulfill the different roles that are often needed to get through the abuse. Some parts may have a variety of these jobs, overlapping from a variety of categories.
But don’t be surprised if you have a variety of parts in each of the categories listed above.
Many survivors do.
__________
By:
Kathy Broady LCSW
andbenrow said,
August 2, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Every time you write a new post I am amazed by your understanding. Our system is made up of many parts like you describe and often I worry that I am just imagining the people inside that I meet I still lose time, and have parts that I can “feel” but don’t know who they are or what their purpose is. I would just like to ask what happens when some of you don’t want to join in the whole and deny that they are part of the system.
missinginsight said,
August 2, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Kathy,
You’re post really seems to hit home. Now that I’ve me some of my members and was ready to say that’s it, your post helped me realize that loss of time and awareness indicate there probably are more members closer to the inside.
I found thing in your description of different alters that scared me because I feel I fall in several categories. It’s scarey to know that there may be others that we have to meet and form a relationship, and i feel so exhausted i know if i can meet anyone else. what must they want from me.
Missing In Sight
gobbies said,
August 3, 2009 at 11:59 am
We have a lot of insiders who are not human. Dwarves, hobbits, elves, mermaid, dragon, etc. What do you think the significance of that is?
Gobbies
Paul from Mind Parts said,
August 3, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Thanks! This is one of those informative posts that I cannot absorb now, but will bookmark and come back to later. I read through quickly. I think people can have just a few parts. It comes down to what defines a part. People can have a few alters and yet have many many parts to themselves. Paul
Wounded Genius said,
August 9, 2009 at 5:36 am
Great work Kathy, thanks!
Serial Insomniac said,
August 9, 2009 at 6:34 am
I don’t have DID, but as someone diagnosed with BPD, there are some overlapping tendencies, however more subtle. In any case I have a genuine interest in psychology, and this article has really made me think. It is an excellent discussion of a disorder that many laypeople (and even non-laypeople, I’d wager!) sadly know little about. Thank you!
Kathy Broady said,
August 9, 2009 at 8:04 pm
Thanks, wounded genius –
It’s nice to meet you here. I hope you have the time to read thru’ other articles on this blog.
Warmly,
Kathy
Kathy Broady said,
August 9, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Hi Serial Insomniac –
Thanks for your comment, and welcome to Discussing Dissociation.
Yes, there are definitely some overlapping tendencies with BPD and DID — we’ve just had a long discussion about that over at my forum, http://www.SurvivorForum.com .
If you are interested in learning about Dissociative Identity Disorder, I certainly invite you to read thru’ this blog. I’ve been working in this field for over 20 yrs, and one of the reasons I am writing this blog, is to provide solid information to people wanting to learn about DID. I’ve been listening closely to DID survivors — all kinds of different people from all over the place — so when I write, I’m pulling from all kinds of different DID / trauma-related experiences.
I hope you continue to find the other articles helpful as well. Thanks so much for stopping by, and I appreciate the kind comment!
Kathy
Kathy Broady said,
August 10, 2009 at 10:39 am
hi Paul -
Thanks for your comment.
I have certainly met people with a few parts. And even those DID survivors with lots and lots of parts typically have a few main parts that are more central to their daily functioning and personal decision-making. In my experience, I’d say that I have met bunches more DID people with over 20 parts, and only a few with less that 20 parts, but of course, it only take 2 parts to be DID in the first place.
Yes, you are right about the question becoming “what is a part”, vs. what is a fragment, etc. I was struggling with that concept as I wrote the blog post in first place. Also — the process of splitting works differently for everyone – no two systems are exactly the same. Some people are adamant about assigning a different part to every different feeling / experience / attitude — giving them dozens and dozens of “single-reason” parts, easily making them polyfragmented. These people define their splitting as a “shattering” effect – much like how broken glass can shatter into hundreds of smaller pieces. Other people are much more comfortable having fewer actual splits, and letting each split / part handle a bigger range of events and emotions. To follow with my metaphor, instead of having shattered glass with bunches and bunches of fragments, these people have 10 or 20 bigger parts (plus maybe a few smaller pieces as well).
Paul — can you say more about what you mean by having many parts to themselves? Before I comment about that, I want to make sure I understand what you are saying.
I hope you’re having a good day -
Kathy
Paul from Mind Parts said,
August 10, 2009 at 10:57 am
I have less than 20 parts. But I think the number is really irrelevant.
At times I have had more parts. Sometimes they are more distinct, other times they appear as fragments.
As you say, everyone is different.
I also rather think that “what is a part” is somewhat not relevant too. I am personally against assigning a part to every different feeling/experience/attitude. I think that’s counter-productive to healing. If they are adamant about doing so, it’s your job to discourage them from doing so.
With my comment about “people can have a few alters and yet have many many parts to themselves”, I was saying that it’s important for parts to broaden their experiences so that parts do not have to be so functioning in a unitary way. It has to be understood in terms of “normal” people having parts of themselves too. So, part of this has to do with bringing the DID experience into some context with non-DID experiences. It’s not helpful to label everything that doesn’t fit as a part. This requires education.
Is that clearer? I’m sorry I cannot be more clear… as this is not so well formed in my head. But I can make a better attempt based on your response to this.
Paul
Kathy Broady said,
August 14, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Hi Paul,
Thanks for writing back.
I agree that the number of parts is completely irrelevant. When DID’ers stress about the numbers of parts in their system (ie, when they are upset about hearing there are more “new parts”), my typical response is — “you have as many as you needed”. Splitting happened when it was emotionally – physically required. So… depending on the trauma in your history, the circumstances surrounding that, the emotional resources you had at the time, the amount of support you had at the time, etc, etc …. all those extraneous things factor into to whether someone needs to split / create a new part during a specific situation or not.
I really don’t think that dissociative survivors tend to create new parts “just for the fun of it”. Parts are there because they had to be there…. And the “having to be there” time was usually not very pretty at all…
The assigning of roles / jobs / functions of the various parts does not happen via me. When I work with a survivor with DID, I will ask them (and the alter parts, as I speak to each of them) about whatever role / job / function / feeling / emotion they managed for the system. People’s systems already come “as is”, so I’m not actually the one assigning feelings to whoever — the system would have done that long ago during the splitting process. So I will start wherever the person / alter part is, and then the goal will be to gradually develop everyone’s ability to manage all (more of) the feelings and life history information …. in tiny baby steps at a time, of course. But the starting place depends on how the survivor has already divided up their emotions in their splitting process that already happened thru’ the years of time.
I think I might be understanding what you are saying about broadening the experiences. That might be very much the same as what I was just talking about in terms of working with parts of the system to be able to develop more and more abilities to handle a bigger variety of situations. This certainly applies to the main leader parts anyway. I think that some of the single-purpose parts (who really aren’t necessarily going to become more developed than that) become more blended into the whole of the person over time — after they do their piece of the healing work. I don’t think they can just meld back in without doing their healing work… but I do think some of the smaller “fragment type” parts can incorporate more into the others.
Some of the concepts are a little hard to put into words, aren’t they? I’m not sure I’m explaining it clearly either, but… maybe this is at least a piece of it.
Thanks for your comnment,
Kathy
Kathy Broady said,
August 14, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Gobbies –
Hi – and thanks for your comment.
You’ve brought up an interesting situation. Yes, many dissociative people do split off parts in their system that have the appearance / role / job of being nonhuman.
You’ve asked me what I think the significance is of that. My response is… I think it totally depends on the person. I really believe that people create who they need to create to get thru’ a specific situation that is happening for them at the time. So, if someone has parts that are dwarves, hobbits, elves, mermaids, dragons, etc, there will be a very good reason for that, but the answer for “why they have them” will have to come from the survivor-person themselves.
I think sometimes, the nonhuman parts could be wearing internal “costumes” , so to speak, as in hiding their humanness for a specific reason (ie: maybe it felt tooooo scary to be a little girl and it felt safer to be an “elf”) …. Another thought is that even when the survivor needed to split off nonhuman parts, there will be a human part that can explain that and knows why the nonhuman parts were necessary. Parts like dwarves or elves may be able to speak for themselves, and may be able to add information that helps to explain things. So if the part can communicate in any way at all, that is very important to start there.
Bottomline — do a lot of system work. Ask everyone who can see them, check with any other parts that are part of their world. Someone inside will know pieces of history that can explain the presence of these kinds of parts.
I don’t think there is an overall answer that applies to everyone here, except the idea that each dissociative person created the parts that they needed to get thru’ the ordeals they were being put thru’. Some parts are internal self-helpers, and if the person, for example, believes that people are cruel, and they’d rather be helped by an elf or a mermaid, then maybe they split of internal elves and mermaids to do helping roles for them. The “who” that gets split off will have a specific reason and a purpose. They will have a function and a meaning based on who the survivor needed at the time, and on what the survivor believed at the time, and what they were feeling at the time.
Here’s another example. If a child grows up watching “The Little Mermaid’, they may cling to that movie as their fantasy safe place. Splitting off parts that function in their system much like the external role models they saw from “The Little Mermaid” are in some ways, and internalizing of positive introjects.
My point is — the survivor person will have created parts that matched what / who they needed at the time, so even nonhuman parts would serve a purpose. Part of the healing work would be to explore that detail and ask questions within the system until there is an understandable answer.
Great question. I hope that helps!
Kathy
Catatonic Kid said,
August 25, 2009 at 8:24 am
I was just wondering, and hopefully it’s all right to ask here, whether you’ve encountered dissociation that doesn’t split information off according to feelings/parts of self etc. but rather operates by splitting traumatic information off via place? I can’t honestly explain it particularly well because it’s a little more complicated than I might like but I was wondering if that’s at all familiar to you?
Basically I mean that traumatic memories are hooked solely to a specific environment and outside of that there is no conscious recollection of them. So rather than being attached to an element of self they are cued and ‘alive’ only when you are in the location that they occurred and then that function generalises, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on stress or whatever?
Kathy Broady said,
August 29, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Hi Catatonic Kid,
Good question, and yes, it’s ok to ask.
Yes, I think people can contain / organize their trauma memories / trauma material in any way that works for them. Yes, I have heard of others who remembered via location only, and used that as their foundational “time line” for putting the pieces of info together for them. If I understand what you are describing, it sounds like certain “parts” of you (I realize I don’t know if you are DID or not, but I’m still going to use the analogy) are connected to the specific locations, and going back to the location “wakes them up”, and if you are not in their “external world”, they stay nicely tucked away in their own internal world. Basically, it’s not their turn until you are in their assigned environment.
This type of external trigger is probably no different than any other ‘trigger’ that wakes up certain parts of the memory, (or the parts that contain the memories). For you, things have been very contained and organized within the context of “abuse happened here”, and NOT here… “abuse happened there”, and NOT there….. It sounds like a great way of defining when you were safe from when you were not. And maybe that is how your history actually was??? Were you safe from abuse as long as you were not in any of the specific places that remind you of traumatic material?
If I’m understanding what you are saying, it sounds like your environment dictated how safe you were. Rather than connecting / attaching the abuse to a certain person, or to a certain event, or a certain time frame, you have attached the trauma info to a certain location. I don’t see anything wrong with that. It makes perfect sense to me.
If you are dissociative, you might find that your parts are tucked away and hidden in inner worlds that look exactly like the exterior places you are describing. It is understandable that they may very much stay tucked away until your external physical world matches the coinciding interior physical environment. Walking into the actual outside environment can be the “key” to waking the inner parts that were created / formed / required in that particular environment. And while those parts (environments) are away, your memories get filed away with them.
As you work process more of this material, the info/knowledge won’t have to leave your awareness once you are away from the trigger (the environmental place). But for now, while you are still working thru’ it, yes, it makes sense that the info can ‘vanish’ from your recall as soon as you are not there anymore.
I’m not sure that I’m saying that clearly either, but the short answer to what I think you are asking is “yes”.
I hope that helps.
Warmly,
Kathy
Catatonic Kid said,
September 1, 2009 at 5:33 am
Wow, thanks so much for your detailed response, Kathy. It does help! Nice to know I’m not alone on that one. I am dissociative but not DID. Somewhere in the vicinity of chronic PTSD on the spectrum. Hard to say.
I’m not sure my environment dictated how safe I was so much as things split that way because of what I was responsible for where, if that makes sense. More of a functional prioritisation, I reckon.
Anyway, more importantly, extremely useful to know that environment can function like a ‘key’. That makes a lot of sense and very well put, in fact. Cheers
tosh2 said,
September 6, 2009 at 6:23 pm
OMG!!!
This has helped me understand myself sooooo much!!
I was diagnosed with DID about 7 mos. ago. I had been dx as C-PTSD with major depression/anxiety prior to that. After many years of stress being capped off by the loss of a loved one, a severe physical illness, and the loss of my job/career, my selves introduced themselves to me over about two weeks.
Initially, I couldn’t speak with my therapist about this because I was too scared. I had been dissociating a lot more and she was aware of this, but the thought of telling her I had different people inside scared me and I was afraid she wouldn’t believe me. One of my artistic parts made a video about us and put it on DVD and shared it with her. Although she worked with trauma/abuse survivors she only did basic work with us and got us a referral to a psychologist for an eval and diagnostic testing.
Now, I have transitioned from her to a new therapist that specializes in DID and the sessions go well. It’s hard, scary, and confusing, but at the same time it is a relief to finally understand how it is that I feel so eternally internally broken and why nothing my old therapist would say about that ever made much sense.
Now, I have times where I still think that maybe I don’t have DID and maybe I am just faking it and there’s nothing really wrong with me. Maybe my mind is just sick and I am just attention seeking…only I can’t stop myself. I don’t REALLY believe this, but something, or someone, inside keeps thinking that.
It’s weird….what you posted here makes so much sense and I actually see alot of these different splits you mentioned throughout my system. I never really thought of it that way before and didn’t know that the different parts had categories. It makes a lot more sense to me now…hopefully at some point I will be able to stop questioning myself about whether this is all real or if I am just a sick and evil person making it all up. As scared as I am to delve into the darkness of my system and the DID, I am also quite fascinated at what the mind can do to help one get through traumatic experiences.
Thank you so much for this!!
Kathy Broady said,
September 6, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Hi tosh2,
Welcome to DiscussingDissociation, and thank you so much for your comment.
It’s always good to hear that my articles have meaning for someone, and I am really glad to hear that this article helped to make sense about some things for you.
It often takes a little while to come to terms with the diagnosis of DID, but… it sounds like you might have a lot of “proof” of DID if you can already relate so much to this article. Have a read thru’ the blog, and maybe you’ll find other things that you can also relate to…
And if you keep relating to it…. maybe just maybe you’re DID?
Here’s a tip: the more you get connected to your internal parts, the more “real” they will feel to you and the less you’ll feel like you’re “faking it”. Keep talking with your insiders, because that’s crucial in your healing process for all kinds of reasons.
Thanks for stopping by and posting here. Good luck, and I wish you the best –
Warmly,
Kathy
sammicans said,
September 27, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Hey Kathy,
I think number 14 hit home for me, as I was reading your descriptions. I had a lot of resentment at the both of my parents for not knowing about the abuse that went on during my childhood. As a young adult, I can’t help but get frustrated that they didn’t see the signs that I portrayed when I was young. I was angry all the time, lashed out at my older sister, I didn’t want to be held or shown attention when I’d get it, these are some examples of how I responded just as a child. After thirteen years I decided to tell the both of my parents about the abuse that happened to me, both believed me when I disclosed the information, which was a good thing my therapist suggested. I am trying to rewire my way of thinking as far as having animosity towards my parents for not knowing, which I’ve made myself look at, no family is perfect and yes, we all make mistakes. This is my mentality period, on a lot of things, but according to your site, it’s okay to have these ‘feelings’. After eight months of therapy, my mom is trying to be supportive of me but I think she is stuck with number 18. She has her issues as well, but I think she’s gotten in that survival mode, that’s what she’s use to. She wasn’t abused as a child, but was later on in her life and never sought counseling after that marriage. I want to work on the relationship between me and my mom but when I’m ready to talk to her about how I feel, or how I felt as a child, I freeze up. I don’t want to tell her how I truly felt because I don’t want to bring turmoil and hurt, and then I tell myself, I’m fine. I’m so use to coping with my emotions by myself, which has definitely made me feel “in shock”, but I want to change the way I’ve always been towards my mom. She is supportive and she loves me very much. How do I address my past with her? How do I overcome feeling “the distant little child” and let my mom love me now, the way she wants to and the way I need her to?
Kathy Broady said,
October 11, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Hi Sammicans,
Thank you for reading thru’ the Discussing Dissociation blog and thinking about how to apply the things I’ve been writing about to your own healing. It’s really cool to see when people do that.
It sounds like your therapist has been giving you some good guidance in terms of talking with your parents. That’s excellent.
It sounds like neither of your parents were your abusers (ie: because you wrote that neither of them knew about the abuse), and now that your mother has voiced a desire to be supportive of you, it could be very helpful in your own healing (and for hers too, frankly), for the truth to be told. Even if your mother didn’t catch on to the abuse and the effects of the abuse years ago, that doesn’t mean that she didn’t realize that “something” was wrong, even if she couldn’t figure out what it was or if she didn’t look hard enough at the time. It also sounds like she might have been abused in one of her adult relationships – maybe she was too busy protecting herself to realize what was happening to you??? That’s not really a good excuse, but.. it might provide a context. Any which way — if the both of you are away from that abusive situation now, it could be very healing for the both of you to work thru’ more of what was happening during that time.
Try to find ways to be creative in telling her what you need to say. If it’s too hard to speak, trying writing some of it. Maybe put it in a poem? Or maybe a journal entry? You could draw a picture or make something out of clay… It doesn’t actually matter where you start, or how long it takes, as long as you are on the journey towards healing. Telling your story in whatever way you can is important.
And maybe – you need to do a little more personal healing before you can tell you mother what happened? If it’s hard for you to speak about it, then clearly, it’s very very unprocessed and raw info for you as well. If you can’t sit with it yourself, it will be a whole lot harder to say it to someone else.
So maybe, you just need more time to work thru’ things? And that is ok. And yes, it is ok to have all kinds of different feelings about what has happened to you. You really will have all kinds of different feelings, so… as far as I’m concerned, the truth will do….
As far as telling your mom — go little bit by little bit. Are the secrets about the abuse, and all the feelings attached to that (in all the different directions) a big part of what is making you the “distant little child”? If so… gradually telling her about what happened, as you can, and as she can hear it, will help to bridge that gap. But give yourself time to do that… it doesn’t have to be during one big dramatic “tell all”. You can tell her a little bit at a time.
And if you really want that relationship to heal – then keep that in mind as the biggest goal. Building a connection in the here and now will be as important as working thru’ the old stuff…
But yes, in my experience, if abused children (including adult children) have the opportunity to heal with their parents positive involvement, that is sooo much better in the long run….
It will be a lot of work, but keep at it…..
Warmly,
Kathy
Catatonic Kid said,
November 11, 2009 at 1:03 pm
why prior to age 7? just curious.
multipixie9 said,
November 13, 2009 at 2:42 am
hi kathy,
i counted 15 i can honestly identify using. it makes me cry. that would make my t happy as we are trying to get my pixies to accept and express their feelings. we are being poisoned by all the long-supressed emotions. they said they will kill me/us slowly and with enormous pain if we ever talk. i couldn’t figure any way to keep my mouth shut than to hide the information inside my mind and then turn out the lights and fill our host with confusion.
it’s time the feelings came out, probably past due by a few decades. right now i can only cry or express anger if we are triggered externally. so i watch grey’s anatomy and cry over the sad things that happen to the people and i try to let my pixies know we are really crying or fussing for our own hurts. you really surprised me when you listed a kind of split where the part/parts have NO good memories. it made me feel better, like i am not just hopelessly full of self-pity or whiney narcissism.
i am so bummed to identify with 15 or the 20 and yet glad i didn’t “ace” the test and have all frickin 20. i’ve been told my DID is complicated and that sucks. do you know how hard it is to run a system that is in the dark and has a host who is run on confusion as soon as anything triggers. we feel so damn lame. i ust wish i could have something fun like alts/fragments that have cool talents. i keep waiting for something for neat to happen. i DO NOT want an epitath on my tombstone that says “She was a great survivor and then she died”!!!!!!! i keep hoping i will be like Grandma Moses the painter who took up painting for the first time in her 60′s and did awesome “primitives” style of paintings. i’m 56 so i have a few more years before i’m too damn old to have any energy to start something new or creative. just surviving a holocaust childhood is NOT enough. i want to be someone more than that.
i do appreciate all the information you bring to these posts and discussions. you seem to have a wonderful knack for explaining things in illuminating ways. it helps. thank you Kathy.
multipixie9 said,
November 13, 2009 at 2:49 am
Kathy,
PS it would be nice if there was an edit button. i had a lot of typos in my post and i can’t fix them. it’s annoying. oh well, life goes on.
leslie
kiyacat said,
November 15, 2009 at 3:50 pm
Multipixies – you said it all. I can say that I recognize humor that I’ve not seen in your posts before (PC) so that is certainly a skill – but i totally get what you’re saying about accomplishing more than just surviving. That’s me too. I want to LIVE, not just survive. I also want my T to not be so frustrated.
C u soon.
Kiyacat
shatteredsystem said,
January 10, 2010 at 3:04 pm
First of all, hi
We just found this blog off another site, and it been really interesting and helpful to read all of your amazing articles 
.
I just have one question: Would an internal parent (as in, protectors or people who were created specifically to care for the children inside) count for #18?
And what if these overlap? Like if you have an insider who feels one specific emotion and hates our mother?
Thank you
Thaleia
Paul from Mind Parts said,
January 11, 2010 at 3:57 am
There is no “right way” to be DID. So, yes, you can have all of these that you say.
10 DID Therapy 101 Tips « Discussing Dissociation said,
February 10, 2010 at 3:41 pm
[...] Get to know your system. Build the courage to find and meet your insiders. Remember, they were formed and created to [...]
10 DID Therapy 101 Tips « Discussing Dissociation « Kay’s Place said,
February 16, 2010 at 6:12 pm
[...] 1. Get to know your system. [...]
juxtapieces said,
March 26, 2010 at 7:10 pm
This may be the completely wrong place to ask this, Kathy, and you know I’m fine with you saying so if it is. I have a couple of insiders who were named by perpetrators. I don’t completely understand their function yet, but I have some parts that are named for feelings or have negatively connotated names.
Is it ever okay to rename, with their permission, insiders? I don’t find it helpful for a little one to be named Brat for instance. I can remember or keep track of who is who and what they came to me with as far as a name but I’m just wondering if this is a bad idea or could it possibly be helpful? It’s pretty complex as is and I just don’t want to make things any worse.
JP
Kathy Broady said,
March 26, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Hey JP –
Yes, it is absolutely ok to change the names of your insiders, especially with their permission, and especially if they’d like to have a different name. Your insiders belong to you, not to your perpetrators, and changing the names of your insiders to names that are pleasing to you all (instead of trigger cues used by the perps), is a great way of reclaiming everyone in your system for yourselves. Lots of times, if you ask the insiders themselves, they can come up with their own preferred new name.
So yes, that is a very good idea.
And I don’t like to call insiders names like “brat” either. Sometimes I might suggest a more positive nickname if they don’t yet know what actual name to pick. It gives the insider time to think of just the right name, and yet, immediately, I can start using a more positive and productive name.
I mean really – who’s going to feel good if their name is something icky, demeaning, or degrading? Having a name you can be proud of is important!
Kathy
juxtapieces said,
March 26, 2010 at 9:38 pm
Thank you. We know why this is so important for me and mine, and it’s good to know that they don’t have to carry that bad, awful feeling of a name that someone else gave them, just because they could. It feels really huge for that child to have any freedom at all, and to have some choice about this. The particular little one I’m referring to already had a name she wanted but I needed some help with this because I wasn’t sure. The other hasn’t come to front yet, but I know about him/her and will address this with them as soon as we meet.
Thank you for affirming what felt right.
JP
Jason Alkema said,
November 1, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Kathy, Is there an academic resource of which you know that succinctly details common alters by system type, role and function.
Thank-you for any direction you might be able to give me.
ekaterinavlas said,
November 27, 2012 at 9:48 pm
I love your blog, and this post is amazing. I am a multiple and just reading how you have everything broken down so simply helped us draw out an even more detailed yet easy to read map of our complex system for ourselves but also our therapist. Thank you so much for what you are doing!