[Claritytoo]

During last session when I was wanting to hide my t asked me to look at my hands to ground myself into the present day. She said that when my part sees that our hands are older the little one will realize we are no longer little. I have no idea what she is talking about. My little one and most of the young ones don't have a concept of what their hands should look like for the age they are. My part that is three doesn't know that the hands she is looking at are older. Can someone please explain this better to me. Is it possible for my little parts to not have knowledge of what their hands should look like?

[geis]

No one grounding technique works for everyone. We as a group have a spatial processing disorder, so something like that wouldn't work for us. Visualization-based stuff doesn't work for us either.

It's okay if you need to find other grounding techniques. I spent two months in an inpatient trauma program thinking I was stupid because none of their techniques worked for me, until finally another patient suggested that maybe those techniques weren't working for me because I'm not a visual learner. I'm a strong auditory and kinesthetic learner, so grounding skills based on those senses work better for me.

Do you know what kind of learner you are or what sense[s] you use most? That'll make it a lot easier to figure out grounding skills that will work for you.

And it's okay to tell your therapist that the grounding skills she's suggesting aren't working. She may have other ideas for alternatives that might work better for you.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by Claritytoo

During last session when I was wanting to hide my t asked me to look at my hands to ground myself into the present day. She said that when my part sees that our hands are older the little one will realize we are no longer little. I have no idea what she is talking about. My little one and most of the young ones don't have a concept of what their hands should look like for the age they are. My part that is three doesn't know that the hands she is looking at are older. Can someone please explain this better to me. Is it possible for my little parts to not have knowledge of what their hands should look like?

children automatically have their own sense of age/sizing. example how do you know this little is three, she had to have some sort of concept of age in order to tell someone inside or out how old she was. I have a friend who has a three year old. ask them how old they are they hold up their fingers. when I ask who is older me or them they point to me, why because Im bigger, why because I have wrinkles, why because ... three year olds have their own concepts of aging.

the same with alters. DID type alters are a very special kind of alter, they have their own concept of who and what they are, their own job, purpose, reason for being. this distinction carries through with things like the alters concept of self, how they interact, what they wear, how they behave, they even have their own concept of sense of aging, the DSM 5 explains alters this way.....

Dissociative Identity Disorder 300.14 (F44.81)

A. Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states which may be described in some cultures as an experience of possession. The disruption in identity involves marked discontinuity in sense of self and sense of agency, accompanied by related alterations in affect, behavior, consciousness, memory, perception, cognition, and or sensory-motor functioning. These signs and symptoms may be observed by others or reported by the individual.

B. Recurrent gaps in the recall of every day events, important personal information, and or traumatic events that are inconstant with ordinary forgetting.

C the symptoms cause clinical significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

D. The disturbance is not a normal part of a broadly accepted cultural or religious practice.

Note in children the symptoms are not better explained by imaginary playmates or other fantasy play.

E. The Symptoms are not attributable to the physiological effects of a substance (e.g. Blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or another medical condition (e.g. complex partial seizures)

along with this diagnostic criteria are 5 pages that go into more detail in categories of diagnostic features that explains the above diagnostics in more detail, Associated features supporting diagnosis, the statistical prevalence of the disorder, the development and course of the disorder, Risk and Prognosis Factors, Culture Related Diagnostic Issues, Suicide Risks and the Functional consequences of this disorder. The DSM 5 also addresses Differential Diagnosis (other dissociative disorders that share the same symptoms) and Comorbidity (having more than one diagnosis)
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in short what criterion A means is that there are sure fire ways alters distinguish their self from the person in which they reside with in. even though your alter is only three they will be able to discribe or draw the differences between them and the person they reside with in.

example my non verbal three year old when asked what I look like drew her perception of me and then when asked what the three year old looks like, the alter drew a very different picture of how she perceived herself to be. then when the therapist asked the alter look at the hands, who's hands do you see, she pointed to the picture of me. when asked how does she know the alter drew pictures of hands hers were smaller than mine.

my suggestion give your therapists idea a try it may surprise you to discover how much your alter really knows about the differences between you and the alter.

[Claritytoo]

I know she is three because I can see her in my mind. She does not seem to view the body as her. We all see the body as its own self. Some times we are surprised to realize we are female. But the body isn't us. We live in the body. I think that is where we are unable to comprehend the question. The hands look like the body's hands. We might be moving them in a certain way depending who is near or who is out but our hands belong to the body. Our behavior and thoughts belong to us. That is why we stopped hurting the body. The body protects us and now we protect the body.

[possum220]

I was talking to my T about this recently. He said that alters maybe be good in capturing memories, they are not so good in being able to recognize the passage of time. They got stuck back when the alters were formed.

You could try and talk to your parts about how time has passed.

[Kiya]

My old T has tried this too. They don't understand that often when our alters are IN BODY, they are in THEIR body. And their body looks different to them than it does to me. Sometimes one will be in and stare at their face in the mirror for a long time to see what they look like.
I really liked your comment about why you stopped hurting the body - how it protects you. I asked my peeps to take note.