Couldn't decide where to post this here, PTSD, or DID, this seemed like the most general so here goes.

I had T tonight for the first time in over a couple of weeks and we got into some pretty heavy stuff. I told T how su I was feeling, and that a part of me was always su.

T and I do alot of ego state work and I have as I like to think of them 7 distinct parts of my personality that each holds different emotions/memories/traits. (I'm not DID - I'm aware of each part, none of them ever take over, and I can communicate with most of them, and they can communicate with each other) hope this made sense. Anyway one of my parts is a much younger me who I call the witch. She's a protector ego state who holds a lot of the bad feelings of despair, sadness, anger, and fear. All of my other ego states are afraid of her, because they think they'll be overwhelmed by her.

Tonight, in bed where I feel really safe, I thought I'd try communicating with her. So I pictured myself holding her, and hugging her really tight and telling her that she wasn't alone and no one was going to hurt her. That it was ok to feel sad / scared / hurt whatever but that we're grown up now and nobody can hurt us the way she was hurt. I told her all about my apartment, my job, my new car, my friends, my passport and credit cards, to try to reassure her that we're safe now.

I got flooded with despair and sadness and cried for awhile, which was ok - she felt calmer. But then I asked her why she was afraid. Big mistake, this was clearly a "we're not going there" question. See I somatize everything emotional. I'm not talking about body memories which I also have, I'm talking painful physical reactions to emotional stuff (happens all the time in T). The minute I asked her why she was afraid I got this huge cramp that felt like I was being stabbed from the inside out, in my but right around the area of the sciatic muscle. Intense pain then radiated from there up my back, over the front of my pelvis, and down my leg. I was in intense physical pain for about 20 min. It's still kind of sore now, hours later.

This is the worst physical reaction I've ever had, and all I did was ask a question. I hate to think what my reaction is going to be when she starts to share her memories and feelings with me.

Sorry this has been so long.

Anyone else get somatic symptoms when they try to get in touch with younger parts of themselves?