wanttoheal, way to go!! Congrats on your progress. I know from experience that progress can be so painfully slow.

What you described is what I went through many years ago when I started my healing. It sounds like you are definitely on your way. I guess like most other things, integrating and progress depend on the individual. But for me, getting the knowledge of the memories was the beginning. In my experience I didn't lose any fragment of the parts, but the memories were a starting point for communicating. My T showed me healthy ways to communicate with each part and what to do when the memories came and that is what actually started the communication within the system. And from what I understand that is the beginning of integration. The noise in my head didn't lessen until much later (years) after I started getting the communication. These days the noise comes and goes and is at differing levels at different times.

I think I'm starting to realize I've only really dealt with a couple parts, and only 1 completely. Another one just recently, the past couple of weeks, came forward. Its been WAY easier this time.

Thank you for your reply bipolar_bear. What you posted made me realize that if its working well and its healthy, it doesn't matter if its called/labeled/diagnosed as integrated or not actually. Maybe I'm just hung up on being able to say whether I'm integrated or not.