Yes it will come in time. The way I learned to listen to the voice memories was that during therapy SKR asked me to answer her questions and let her know when the static and voices was changing - louder in volume, more of then and so on. And she was always asking what I was hearing. After a few times it just became habit for me through out the day and in journal writing to pay attention to the voices and writing down what I was hearing, what I was doing when the voices and static changed.

The rest of the stuff wasn't me adapting. it just came naturally as in I have always used relaxation visualizations. I just didn't know thats what dissociation was. Whenever anything upset me I went off to float in my tunnel area (the feeling of being far away but yet watching what was going on) or off flating in la la land (my daydream mental safe place. It wasn't until I was doing all my research that I found out that daydreaming myself out of the situations was dissociation which was using relaxation visualizations. I was always playing "pretend to be this character or that charecter from the books that I was reading or pretending to be my favorite singer when ever I got hit or other types of abuse when I was upset about something that was going on ." which again is the natiural act of using relaxation visualizations which is the act of dissociating.

The first time I tried to put relaxation visualizations to work as LL calls what I do was when I was reading this book by a DID person and in it it said her therapist could talk to her when she was her alters and it just amazed me that, could happen. (at that point I was still scared of the label DID so SKR hadn't revieled yet that she has been talking to me when I was in my la la land.) So that night I laid there in bed trying to force "Mary" to come out. I'd read that page, then lay down and say ok I want to have "Mary" come out. and no matter how I laid there and said to come out there was no "mary" standing in front of me. That made me even more deturmined. I hit the local library and researched the author until I located her and sent an email off to her asking how she was able to do that, if there was more involved in the process then what she put in her book. The next day I recieved an email telling me how she did it. It turned out that I was trying too hard. And she could not see her alter and I would not be able to see my alter when it did happen which it was most likely already been happening since the first time that I dissociated during an abuse situation. Her process was to just let nature take its course she relaxed with a focus point and at the same time her therapist asked her questions and when he got to the topic that was upsetting her, she naturally got triggered into switching from being fully aware to acting out that memory her therapist wanted to know more about. And then she gave me her therapist name and contact information and told me if she could help me or my therapist in any way feel free to contact her again. So then I took that email to SKR and told her what I was trying to do, She thought that funny in a good way and then revieled that she has already talked with me many times when I was off floating in la la land. From then on instead of my trying to adapt to my DID I just let things happen naturally and used that.

As for friendships again I didn't adapt because I had DID. DID starts in childhood. All I knew back then was I'm scared hurt whatever Im goinng to la la land. I didn't say Im going to la la land so that I can make friends. It just happened naturally that those around me when I did go off to la la land came over and played with me. I remember this one time I became aware and I was at a friends house and we were in her room listening to music and she said "you know I like you better when you are pretending to me this singer because you have a great voice and you are so funny" I had no idea who she was and what we were supposed to be doing and why I was in her room. I just thought ok she wants me to pretend to be this singer ok why not, at least until I figure out what the hell is going on. Then because I wasn't singing like she was used to we decided to go outside and play baseball with her brother. Course I didn't know I liked baseball either and struck out and apparently her brother too knew me VERY well. But having this situation happen to me was natural. People were always coming up to me and talking to me like they have known me forever and I had no idea who they were. One time I was in a public place and this adult person came over and started talking to me and knew about something no one else out side the family knew (a health problem) I went to my parents and told them someone had approached me and when I pointed the person out it turned out to be a doctor who took care of my health problem the day before. It wasn't until I was diagnosed DID that I found out that having friends and people that I dont know know me was part of having DID. I didn't have to adapt or learn how to do it. it just happened.

I didn't adapt or learn how to watch people faces either. that just happened naturally. Its instinct for children who have been abused to be hypervigilent. its not something they can control. I saw this too well when my child came home from foster care. He would be totally obsorbed in playing but yet if I made a sudden move like one time I threw a washcloth from the dining room into the kitchen sink being to lazy to grab my crutches and walk it in there. my son jumped like he had just gotten stung by a bee and asked me why I did that. He was in the living room and a good four feet away from me but yet knew exactly what I had done. When I asked his therapist during family therapy why he had reacted that way when he was in no danger. She told me that it was natural instinct. Just like a mother has instincts when it come to their children (which is where the saying moms got eyes in the back of her head comes from) Children also have natural survival instincts that they have no control over and when a child is abused that survival instinct of hyperawareness is naturally at a higher level. And she used my trigger reaction of if someone walks up behind me I instantly know someone is there and turn around ready to fight that person as an example. Then she told me to watch the children the next time my son and I went to a playground and I will see a childs natual instinct in action on all levels. She also called this natural instinct that parents and children have "bonded". Now that I knew my son was bonded to me in that hyerawareness level I made a point of saying what I was doing before I did anything that could possibly trigger him.

When I was working on the house project at my last therapy session LL commented on how precise the heating vents were, I told I knew how many there were because I had counted them. Sometimes I can hear my parents coming up the stairs in that house. And every time that audio memory replays Im counting the steps so I know that as a child I counted steps at night. I didn't plan to count those steps because I was DID. Being aware of people on the stairs just came naturally.

Maybe instead of fighting so hard to do things you can try to go with the flow and see what happens. Build your own therapy projects and activities around what has always been happening instead of trying to force something to happen kind of thing. I bet you will find you have more friends then you know about and from your drawings you already know that when you are acting out memory pieces you are noticing peoples eyes otherwise you would not be able to draw them accurately so on some instictual level you do watch eyes.So how about challenging yourself to notice how many eye colors you see in one day. It only takes a second to see the eye color and then look away. after a while you may find that you are noticing someones long eyelashes or a wrinkle, twinkle and so on. I actually have a friend that has one blue eye and one green eye. totally cool.

My project - still trying to locate the elusive "wall paper" rolls.. A friend was picking on me because I could not get off the topic of where the hell are those rolls. She said you watch, you have totally cleaned and searched your house and those rolls will turn up behind your therapists couch or desk . LOL I will soon know I see LL tomorrow and Ill be looking behind that couch. LOL.