@Amyjay

I am so sorry you are struggling with this. I hope I did not trigger you. If so, please forgive me.

The road I took to integrating the perpetrator alters was long. The perp alters were encouraged to talk. But over 10 years ago, they shared online and got me kicked off of online support groups. I was hurt. But I understood the need to ban me. I was alone for many years until now, this being the only site I chose for support since there are mental professionals around.

But back to integration... I spent years in therapy. Some for DID, but some for PTSD. The persecutor alters were initially mean, angry, threatening, intrusive, and verbally harmful. I was depressed and my entire system was chaotic. The T told the persecutor alters to go away and for me to ignore them. That only made it worse. I left T and went with another T. The other T did not believe in DID, but the other T got to hear only the persecutor alter. The other T gave the persecutor alter some skills, but we wound up getting put into a psych ward. The T got scared. The persecutor alter just laughed. I cried. It was a mess.

Later, I tried to work with other Ts who somewhat understood DID. The internal family systems worked eventually. I kept writing to the dark, persecutor alters. They kept writing me back. We all worked to help them change. We eventually showed them consistent kindness but firmness whenever they threatened me or my parts. They were trained by helping alters through writing and internal talking to become better. They did some of the exercises we learned in the trauma hospital called relapse prevention, a form of CBT. We used CBT all the time with all of the alters. It helped us all to change eventually.

Then, after crying and shaking in a therapist's office, I had to deal with my feeling like a bad.person because of the persecutor parts of me, even though they changed. I realized they were there to really help me and protect me during the scariest times. I had lots of nightmares and depression. But about a year or so later, I realized that I felt some of the anger, fears, and memories. I could only remember bits and pieces before I blacked out. But it all made more sense the more the alters explained. We all needed to control our anger, paranoia, and fears, not just the persecutor alters. I needed to face it. I did, and I painfully accepted those parts as me. I fused with them during this entire time. I integrated and since then realized that I am in more control now and have more compassion for myself and others because of it. My emotions and memories were not as painful, though they are still there.

That is how I did it. It took about 5 years or more.