[zoiecat]

I have been down this path unsuccesfully before but I am trying again. Has anyone else tried to deny the parts are real? Like I sometimes wonder if they could possibly just be made up like make believe friends? My T says no, I am not four.

I am trying to work hard at practicing mindfulness and controling my brain to deny the parts or block the out. I am actualyy doing a pretty good job the last few days. It has been a couple weeks of practice but things have been pretty quiet for the past 2 days.

I am wondering if I quit therapy and stop talking about or thinking about them if I can learn to block them out. I still know they are there but I am wanting to believe they are all made up.

Has anyone else thought this way? I guess I am trying to stick my head in the sand and am in denial again.

My T basically won't do EMDR with me any more and doesn't really want to do T at all until I accept the parts again. We gave it 2 weeks and he thought I would give up this plan by now. He did agree today to continue to work with me on other issues until hopefully I start to accept reality again.

[Amyjay]

Hi there. Yes I have been down this path too. Tbh I don't know if they are "really real" or not. I know they are there. I know they are repeatedly there. I know that without them there isn't really much of a me at all. What I mean is... the path I can live without them is exceptionally narrow. It means I can basically go to work, go to the supermarket, and go home. Anything more than that is beyond my coping abilities (aka triggers "them").
But at the same time they don't feel very real. Their "stuff" doesn't feel real.
So I don't know. I try to accept whatever is. In therapy I let it be. I don't know what else to do. I want to live a fuller life. I want to be able to experience life and accept life and engage in life. I know that denying them doesn't allow me that so.... what else can I do?

well,

they better be real..... the person who owns the body is no longer around- so all of us take over in sted.... if their not does it mean we're not alive?

seriously though, we have given thought for this.

some parts we understand come from the trauma, and some of the parts make perfect sense

yet their are some that... just seem to be their. no reason, or no reason we can see- and then we're ashamed to admit we do question it (or those parts), and we feel bad for doing that- because of course they are real, right?

we've done it to other conditions we have to.

we can be stable for a while and we think really... is this all fake?

then it hits us

I have been down that path many times also. I sometimes wish we didnt have so many inside people. But then I would not be here. I am very real. Our “real” outside / body person left many years ago. But I still try to deny having DID even though I am one of the alters. Silly, roht? My therapist says I am as DID as you can get. Oh well!

I still have parts that are in denial... that think that all this is mentally contrived....a super computer imagination run amuck...

Some part thinks that he did this to hisself by drinking and drugging the way we did...fracturing his mind causing uncontrollable thoughts from nowhere...

But the real kicker though is when the phantasmal manifests in reality....that the switches are really happening....there is no denying the reality of it all, the evidence is too far over staggering.

Denial is the opposite of acceptance....and accepting DID can be soul crushing for some...to others a welcomed explanation of what one’s been experiencing and living through (I.e. me)... not many would like to admit that they are out of the ordinary...especially to one’s self, but....to thy own self be true....so that the healing can begin.

So can it all be made up? For those that do suffer....no, for those feigning DID.....yes (and they may or may not know that they are).

Anyways....trust the outside observer because we can easily lie to ourselves to appease one’s desires.

[yagr]

It has been some time since I tried this tack, but I'm not sure that anyone with DID hasn't tried it at least once. My current and previous therapist probably have had as much to do with me not trying again as anyone. My previous therapist, and the psychologist he worked with, were two of these folks who don't believe in DID. They told me that my alter was a delusion (they knew of one only). I immediately went from 'peace, love and happiness' to oscillating between suicidal and homicidal. I fired them both, found another therapist and pretty much just threw myself at her mercy. I stepped into her office, and emotionally puked...when I came up for air she said, "I believe you."

She went on, "You either have DID or you do not and have a need to believe that you are DID right now. I've never actually met anyone in the second category, but that would indicate a real problem now wouldn't it? It's makes much more sense to me that you have it."

I love them, they love me. We have become 'Team Us'. Didn't start that way, but it's become this way. The way I see it, seriously, worse case scenario, I'm making this all up - it's imagination and nothing else. So what, there's more love in the world than there otherwise would be. My therapist is against integration because, as she puts it, we have become more than the sum of our parts. I'm good with that.

[zoiecat]

Thank you for the reality check everyone. I guess I will have to takw my head out of the sand soon. This is my second or third go ariund with denial. This time with the help of a LOT of mindfulness practice I have succeeded with a few days of peace and it has been so nice and hopeful.

All of my close friends and therapists tell me it is not made up. I want it to be so bad. I never lie but I would much rather admit I lied and made it all up over dealing with reality. I guess I just needed to hear it from those that have lived it. In the meantime I am going to delay reality for a little while longer.

[Amyjay]

Originally Posted by zoiecat

Thank you for the reality check everyone. I guess I will have to takw my head out of the sand soon. This is my second or third go ariund with denial. This time with the help of a LOT of mindfulness practice I have succeeded with a few days of peace and it has been so nice and hopeful.

All of my close friends and therapists tell me it is not made up. I want it to be so bad. I never lie but I would much rather admit I lied and made it all up over dealing with reality. I guess I just needed to hear it from those that have lived it. In the meantime I am going to delay reality for a little while longer.

Denial is so useful. It meets a need. Sometimes denial is just what you need to do.
In another day you will probably need something else.
"Go with that"!

IMHO....if you are here as a regular (which you are as we know it)....then no.

[YoucancallmeFlower]

Oh yes. You will certainly find my footprints on that path. It's such a
clever, complex, elusive disorder. Impossible to fake for any significant
length of time, though.
My bad alter is an excellent mimic and often pretended to be me. She
pulled it off for two years once, at the time of the greatest grief and stress in my life. But in doing so she saved me two years of what would
have been unbearable sorrow.
I don't hate being a multiple. There is no doubt in my mind of what the
alternative would have been. Withoit my samurai to send out during the
darkest times, my soul would have died and I would have ended up as a
sociopath, a fate worse than death to me.
And I recognize that this disorder is responsible for my superior skills
of survival, which have served me well more times than I can remember.
They are sleeping now, as far as I can tell. I have no parts, only five fully
realized alters, two being very dominant, that I refer to as.my tribe.
I can feel them, especially in times of stress, and know they will always
be there for I've reached an age where they will no longer be denied.

But If it gives you comfort to pretend they are not real, then do that. You
will, with age and life experience, eventually come to accept the reality and perhaps even enjoy the positive aspects of it

Me? I don't believe therapists are real.

[toomanycats]

I've crammed them down/shut them out for years at a time.
It doesn't actually get rid of them...it just means I'm in denial about them, don't recognize their hijacking for what it is, cram them down so much they have to hijack MORE just to be heard, and my relationships are chaotic, and I beat myself up for not being more in control of myself.

Originally Posted by toomanycats

I've crammed them down/shut them out for years at a time.
It doesn't actually get rid of them...it just means I'm in denial about them, don't recognize their hijacking for what it is, cram them down so much they have to hijack MORE just to be heard, and my relationships are chaotic, and I beat myself up for not being more in control of myself.

How do you do that...cram them down...shut them out? Is it like straight up ignore, visualization, over thinking...?

Do they take your body away from you? How do you stop that?

I wanna know.

[toomanycats]

Originally Posted by AlwaysChanging2

How do you do that...cram them down...shut them out? Is it like straight up ignore, visualization, over thinking...?

Do they take your body away from you? How do you stop that?

I wanna know.

It's kind of impossible to explain...
I make up my mind that they don't exist... do you remember what it was like before you were diagnosed? It's like that.

[zoiecat]

That is what I am trying but I am never successful for long. My 11 year old popped out while I was driving home from therapy on Friday and then started freaking out a few seconds later. It was a scary expwrience.

I can shove them down for the most part but it takes a lot of work mental work and control.

Originally Posted by toomanycats

It's kind of impossible to explain...
I make up my mind that they don't exist... do you remember what it was like before you were diagnosed? It's like that.

Actually....all of us talking and thinking, collaborating...operated as a singularity incognito like a very well oiled machine. We operated for years as a collective till we broke our vow of silence that we enveloped ourselves in out of fear....now we are individualized. We slip in and out of co-conscious giving the illusion of a continuous life line hiding the memory and time loss. Going back is impossible.

We are polyfragmented which means that there are hundreds of hundreds of bits and pieces with 20 or so mains...but the other pieces make their selves known.

We have no original or core...just a bunch of hosts for their moments.....so no one is in real control....like a snowball with a bunch of flake fragments packed together to make a ball.... except we are a very huge snowball.

[YoucancallmeFlower]

You break my heart, AC. I cannot imagine how chaotic life must be for you. Yet still you strive and show such courage.
Wish I had a magic wand to make you whole.
Is there any form of therapy that works for you?
Never forget what a hero you are.
Flower

We just do.

Basically...we all got a taste of the abuse...20 years is a long time..parts of parts of parts....because of our experiences....we hold each other tight out of common experiences.

Survival is our objective as always it has. Plus male pride helps rub a way.