Integration

I remember the first time I tried to cook after one of my alters had naturally become one with me. I was dating my now wife. We had made plans to have dinner and a movie in our apartment. We had just got our first apartment together and as a celebration of our new life together we were going to have lobster dinner. now I as an alter had cooked lobster before so all the information was right there but yet I was not prepared for the actuality of what cooking lobster entailed. I got as far as putting cold water in a pan and putting the lobster in the water, but I could not take the next step of cooking it. (leaving out some details here so as to not trigger others) I stood there at the table looking at the pan of lobster, I knew what needed to be done but could not do it.

I stood there trying to reconcile and use logic with this bit of information that this was not the first time I cooked lobster. any other time I had had no problem doing so because frankly my ability to dissociate even on a normal level protected me physically and emotionally. But here I was standing there staring at this pot of water and lobster and having an emotional debate with myself and feeling physically sick to my stomach with tears flowing down my face and physically shaking feeling like a rubber band. this was how my love found me.

She removed the lobster from the pan and carried it to our indoor aquarium, turned to me and said "So what shall we name her Lucky Lucy?" We both burst out laughing for Lucy show was one of my favorites and we could both picture this situation as a Lucy episode. Lucky Lucy floated down to the floor of the aquarium and showed she was happy in her new home. Lucky Lucy still enjoys her new home even when her room mates have come and gone over the years. To this day neither one of us cook nor eat lobster, not even take out or fine dining out.

that day I learned that though I have all of that alter as part of me, doing what she did was / is not always the right thing to do and whether I do the things my alters did or not is completely in my control to do or not to do.

This and many other situations with life after integration has taught me that bing integrated like not being integrated affects a persons whole life and how they function, making decisions, how you do things. Sometimes it means making changes in your life that you don't realize you need to change until you are face to face with the lobster.

"the hypothalamus gets the news that for this trigger the response is lack of emotions flight response and starts shutting down the emotions.

the brain stem gets the message that the hypothalamus has shut down the emotions and slows down the breathing and heart rate and blood pressure because there is no more emotional responses happening. Because there is this emotional disconnection from the physical going on the brain stem slows things down almost but not quite entering a dream or sleep state. more like a foggy, everything is moving in slow motion, just here but not physically doing anything state for physical functioning called autopilot, automatic instead of consciously participating.

now because of being afraid of heights I am in a dissociation state physically and mentally."

I don't understand how a flight response shuts down emotions, I would think it would be an avoidance response. I sure understand the trigger increasing heart and breathing rates. That is how I know I am being triggered. But for me, if I am with someone who triggers me I do say I can/t talk about it and remove self from situation. If I am alone I just experience the physical signs, feel strong emotion and think "fighting" thoughts about it.

[That would actually be an interesting thread topic or interesting for others to discuss in this thread,what integration means to them,what they think it means,etc.[/QUOTE]

42 years ago I was in Transactional Analysis therapy but not diagnosed DID. I had been aware of two personalities for a few years and was dealing with severe conflicts. One felt very held back by the other. Apart from therapy, I arrived at my own solution for manipulating the other personality into giving me its energy. There were some bad consequences and I can't go into what technique finally actually did something (through a spiritual counselor). After that the conflict was gone and I went on to a new career.


An example of the difference is a therapist had me say "I like to fight". She asked me does that look like me. I had admitted it did - pretty combative in a lot of ways. She asked me how saying it felt. I had to admit it felt wrong - I really did not like to fight. After the integration, I was assertive and related more to liking to argue and win, but it was much more normal and productive. The negative feeling about it was gone.


This past year I was doing a Celebrate Recovery step study where we identify offenses we suffered and what the effect was. My sponsor noted my original split probably occurred through one when I was 4. I could remember what happened just before and what happened afterwards but not the actual beating. I was surprised when others expressed sympathy b/c I had no such feelings about it. Then it suddenly occurred to me I had no feeling about it because it happened to "her" not to me.

That part was created to take punishment b/c in my 4 yr. old mind the punishment had to be something Mom did to keep me from doing something worse. A few months later when living with relatives one overreacted when I hit my cousin in the head with a metal gun. She said I could have killed her. That was the worse thing and it made me feel terrible I was so bad I could kill someone without meaning to. It confirmed to me I had to be very careful to keep from making mistakes and to punish the other one whenever I did. I'd been doing that for so many years that part which was supposed to Do Nothing but take punishment started acting out. For quite a while I would lose things I knew I had put in a particular place. Could look in that place several times. It would not be there but then one day it would be there just out of the blue.


My sponsor thought that part still existed, did not integrate with the others. My first response was "It is scary to think I might not be real", meaning maybe I am the one made up like in the movie the 13th Floor. She said we are all real.


I had to know if she was losing these things so I prayed to find out. I went to a party 2 hours away one day and was baking a salmon in the oven. I know I turned the oven off before I left thinking the heat in the oven would be enough to cook it and it would be ready when I got back. When I got back the oven was still on. That really freaked me out. I had to talk to my sponsor about it. I was scared b/c she is only 4 and could have burned the house down. And I was mad because I created her for one purpose and she was not supposed to do anything on her own (I didn't create her to have a "free will")


Anyway what made the difference in this case involved a big emotional conflict I had with another person who triggered her on the issue of punishment. There were a whole host of things that upset me emotionally that day so I could not sleep all night. Had to take something. Next day I was calm enough to realize I had to do a forgiveness exercise. I had already realized I held a lot of resentment against God for making me the way He did and had to ask forgiveness for that resentment once I realized the Big Picture of why humans are born with the limitations we have. Then I had to forgive myself for punishing myself all those years and I had to ask the 4 year old to forgive me and to really stop the punishing. And I had to forgive the person I disagreed with.


I felt immediate peace in doing that. Then I had a good talk with someone else about it and he had me deal with the limitations I so resented. I told him what it was that I feared the most, killing someone by accident. He has a reputation as a prophet and said he doesn't see that happening to me. I asked if that part would integrate now and he said yes.


One big change is I used to have a spider phobia so bad I once actually crashed my car because of a small spider crawling on the windshield. All of the sudden it was gone. I got in my car and there was a medium sized spider on my steering wheel. I just angrily smashed it with my bare hand. I would have never done that before.

As far as the integration goes, something I realized is all my empathy was put in that part. The one thing that has kept me from doing bad things on purpose that would really hurt anyone is empathy. So in a weird way she did keep me from doing bad things but not b/c I punished her. I still have trouble accepting the "mercy" side of me because it feels weak and my assertive, fight against evil side feels strong. So while I believe the losing things problem is gone, the full integration of who I am is still in process.