Thread: can't remember
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Old Sep 23, 2009, 02:55 PM
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amandalouise amandalouise is offline
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Member Since: Mar 2009
Location: 8CS / NYS / USA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by treehouse View Post
How does this work? Can you tell me more about the process? T is talking about integration, and I want it SO badly, but if anything, talking about it has made things WORSE. it seems like it's stirred everything up.
if I was you i would first talk with your therapist. Integration means different things to different therapists. my therapist doesnt believe in using the word integration because of the bad thoughts reactions and images that are related to that word.

my therapist instead uses the words "working together as a team" and the words "working together as a whole". Those words for me bring to mind a baseball, softball, swimming, teams where each person has their set job on the team but the team must also work together as one whole team or everyone on the team ends up losing the game.

now with that idea in mind what my therapist and I did was first work on getting me used to the idea that I had DID. I was not very receptive because I had seen the movie one flew over the cockoos nest and the three faces of eve so I wanted no part of hospitals and no part of people living inside me trying to take over my body and life. So it took a while for me to even begin to talk about hearing voices inside my head and not remembering I saw my therapist the week before.

when I finally settled down and talked about my DID related things my therapist who is big on journal writing, documentation for your own personal information stuff had me keep a journal that I would be sharing with her. and keep a journal that was just for me and to share if I wanted to. this was to start working on getting communication going among all the parts of me. in the therapy journal that was shared everyweek my therapist would give me a word, phrase, general topic to write on. At first I was afraid of having homework but it turned out to be things like the word this week is "balloons" and I could write as much or as little that I wanted to about balloons. it took awhile but eventually all parts of me were taking part in doing the homework journal.

it was around this time that the voices in my head started to be even clearer to me so that I could recognize what was being said. before this it was like being in a crowded room abuzz with lots of low sounding conversations and words. So my therapist disclosed to me that right from the first day she met me I had been switching into these parts of me and having conversations with her and she had been helping all parts of me to realize that we are safe now, that things have changed, that they dont have to hide what they know from me any more.

my being able to understand the words and conversations was all the parts of me starting to "come together with me to work as a team" and my being ready to be a part of them "working as a team" too. She told me that some people call this part of coming together to work as a team being co conscious. I was now co conscious with the other parts of me and the other parts of me were co conscious with me.

From there sometimes the voices were very loud and clear and thoughts and images entered my thoughts at odd times and in my opinion it was annoying, in my therapists opinion "this is good, go with the flow". and she started showed and explained to me how those things voices and images and thoughts, came from things I went through but could not own as being my memories so they became separate parts of me. Then she explained to me now that those parts of me and I were ready to share those memories, its now time for me and those parts of me to own those memories as belonging to all parts of us. So I had to admit to myself and her that those things happened to me and let myself feel and know those memories in every way.

Each time I stopped denying the abuse as being something that happened to me and let myself own and feel and know those things in all ways. I could feel the difference in me. I was no longer living as me and 25 other parts of me. Slowly I was becoming one whole person. all of us working together as one whole person now.