Quote:
Originally Posted by innocentjoy
I spoke with my counselor this week, and we went over the alters that I know of right now. There are 8 of us that I am aware of. She asked if my doctor was aware of them all and I told her he was. I asked her if that was a lot and she said it was, which now has me worried.
How many of you are there? And how does the number of alters relate to the therapy process? Does it take longer, is it harder, etc? Also, I'm not fully DID, as we have the same memory bank, for the most part.
I'm stressed about what this means for my prognosis, or if it has less impact than perhaps the reasons for me splitting in the first place?
|
my therapist and I stopped counting at 2. she said it didnt matter how many alters I had other than whether or not I had 2 of the type of alters that met the diagnostic criteria for having DID. She told me regardless of how many alters I had it would take as many years to become one with two alters as it does for having many alters. it isnt numbers of alters that count its healing from the trauma and learning how not to depend upon dissociation as a coping tool. two alters can hold the same number and severity of traumas as hundreds of alters.
the more alters just breaks down/ categorizes /departmentalizes that trauma in more ways...
example ...
one internal system of alters can be one alter can be the embodiment of anger, frustration, emotional abuses and the second alter be the embodiment of fear, happiness, sadness, depression, physical abuses.
where as another person may have an internal system where they have...
an alter that is the embodiment of anger,
one that is frustration
one that is getting yelled at
one that is getting threatened
one that is afraid
one that is happiness
one that is sadness
one that is depression
one that is physically abused.
its all the same when dealing with treatment....whether its 2 alters holding the bag of many abuses/traumas/emotions or many many alters holding only one trauma/emotion/abuses.
what makes the treatment go longer for some and shorter for others is the pace in which each person and their internal system can go through the process.
some people have to at a snails pace where as others can go through the process relatively quickly and others are somewhere in between with how fast they can go through their therapy process.
example with me it took many many many years like at least 10 yrs to become one whole person again where as I know someone who was comparably equal in how categorical her internal system of alters was to mine and it only took her 4 years to become one whole person again.
give it some time and please dont compare what is going on with in you to others. your internal system is the way its supposed to be for you and mine was the way it was best for my internal system. you will see many peoples internal systems on here that are less and more categorical / compartmentalized then your system. it doesnt mean you were or were not abused as severe as they were. it just means they are the way they are because thats what their internal system had to be in order for them to survive and your internal system is the way it is because thats what was needed for you to survive.