By the way welcome to the new Parts vs alters" thread.
somehow yesterday my posts that were supposed to be in the first alters vs parts thread ended up being broken up into their own thread. Im making a guess its because I have people on my ignore list now that I didn't when I first made the first thread. …
to recap the first thread so that people don't feel like they are missing part of the conversation......
I explained that for me, my therapist and my location parts and alters are defined as being completely different..... first I explained what a "personality was in the normal, not disordered sense of the word....
In general a personality is who and what you are, how you behave and react, your feelings/ emotions....... are you funny, happy, sad, do you walk with joy in your step or do you tend to walk slow with a purpose, are you shy or out going, do you look at life from a reality, serious, or do you enjoy life as a prankster, do you bounce with lifes ups and downs or do you tend to fall hard, do you wallow in self pity, or are you a kind of person who feels life owes you something or are you a go out there and get it, make life what you want it to be. are you a morning coffee person, or a juice person, are you a skip meals or a full breakfast bacon and eggs person, Are you a famous person or are you an average jane or john doe, are you a good worker or a slacker, or are you somewhere in between all these extremes.
then I explained that you find your normal personality by looking at your own normal every day things that make you, you.... one way to find what your normal every day run of the mill personality I look at yourself in the mirror and notice what you see and feel and think about …………...yourself...……. its all right there from the color of your eyes and hair, whether you like or don't like what you see, whether you playfully stick out your tongue or not, why you chose that clothing you are wearing, how your shoes make you feel.. its all right there when looking at your self in your not dissociated, and you are fully aware state of mind. whether you like to tell jokes and pull pranks or if you are the serious type of person....
you can also find out what your normal, not dissociated, every day run of the mill personality is by those pictures you have stored in albums or boxes or chests, check out those smiles frowns, how your hair has changed, whether you are having fun or not in the picts, pictures say a lot about how we are in the normal sense of things.
you can also find your every day run of the mill normal personality through those funny and annoying family stories that get told during family get togethers.
Right now if I had to describe myself in terms of personality I would say that I am a wife, mother, I love the summer season, Im a do'er not a complainer do nothing kind of person, Im compassionate and love helping others, Im outgoing and organized, Im firmly bonded to my children and wife (I will go to no ends to care for and protect my wife and children) Im resilliant (going through a hurricane and work related trauma proved that with a bang) my eyes are blue my hair is indian straight and black, my religion is a variety of beliefs in other words theres something in every religion that i find helpful in my life at one time or another.......I can see my personality in every choice, question and answer from the moment I woke up this morning, to present, how I slept last night, what positions I slept in, how I am feeling and wearing and what my daily plans are, right down to what I am writing right now, its all there. what my personality is like.
(now that you all know what a personality is I bet you can read your past posts and discover what your basic every day personality is like, especially if you are a frequent / daily poster, your every day personality is right there in print for you and others to see and know. )
some of my "parts" are....
Mother (Im a mother of 4 children. thats a part of my whole personality of who and what I am.)
Lesbian( I am a lesbian, thats a part of my whole personality of who and what I am)
Comedian (I love telling jokes, thats a part of my whole personality of who and what I am.)
so if parts are normal why is there such a thing as "parts work"? because sometimes these normal everyday run of the mill parts of our selves can cause us some problems...
example... what if my wife is trying to have a serious conversation and I am making jokes that could cause some problems... or what if I talked to my children using the same adult words and phases that I would to my wife,... that could cause some problems... what if I was sitting at the breakfast table and started treating my wife like I do with my children... cutting up her pancakes, telling her to sit still and eat her breakfast, elbows off the table... that could cause some problems. and my favorite slip into the mother part is when my wife is driving and she hits the brake her arm shoots out in front of me to brace me like she would do with our children. every parent who drives can connect with that normal part of self lol
there are many different therapies that includes "parts work" in fact just about every therapy out there deals with normal parts of self. why because having parts is normal, everyone has them and everyone has times when their behaviors end up causing problems.
the most recent "parts work" approach is called IFS, its actually not so new, its been around for ages called by different names "transactional analysis therapy" "Structural dissociation model" "CBT" "inner child therapy" terms like the Ego, Id and super ego, Parent adult child, the child with in.... its been around for ages. the difference is a new name and a more structured way to do it.
I have done parts work just not in the same formats as the structured versions. my therapy was more on address things as they come up rather than textbook style, formal structured ways.
A quick and easy short cut to this Parts vs alters is that you remove dissociation, dissociative disorders and your dissociative symptoms out of the picture and answer the questions ….
I am...………….a mother
I am …………...a student at the college
I am …………...feeling excited
I am …………… remembering when I went to the lake.
parts are how a person is and the roles they have in their normal every day lives.
and there you have the basics of what the first thread entailed.
