How to Calm Your Sudden Surges of Overwhelming Painful Emotions

T suggested this could be the next step for me if I could swing the $50 cost (I can). He said it is worth every penny. I suspect he is already doing this with me in session.

http://https://www.dnmsinstitute.com/web4info/

Do you talk to your younger parts and does it help to calm things down? I do not know if I believe this. When T does it to me in therapy it works but it just has not really worked as well when I do it myself.

I couldn’t open the link. I’d say for a small investment you have nothing to lose in trying it.

I’m now on anxiety medication and remove myself from the upsetting situation giving myself positive talk and distracting myself. This has been working well. Then I take note of what happened that set me up to get upset and will try to avoid that. So far I have not yet been successful at that but maybe I can learn. For me the trigger is always the shock of someone who claims to love me acting very much the opposite. This slight is not my imagination. It’s real. I’m just hypersensitive to it when I guess other people are not.

I fixed the link

I try to talk to them and they try to talk to me; we (me and my parts) have been working on how to "hear" each other. So far, it's like they are unable to connect to each other, so there's not been any calming down of things. We are starting to feel like there's less judgement towards the younger parts and more trust towards the older parts. I'm not sure what's really happening, because it's all weird and hard to explain.

I can't get to your link but yes. My T suggests things to say to all of my parts. I am not always up to it but when I do, I have made a lot of improvement.

As I learn more and get more in touch with my DID self, I notice that the reason I feel overwhelmed with feelings is due to the parts being activated and in need of assurance, love, and attention.

The more I work with them by talking, understanding, explaining, being coconscious together and doing things they want to do...the more they build confidence and are able to better control their emotions. This in turn helps me to not feel so overwhelmed by the contant spinning emotions.

It is a lot of work though. It is very time consuming and I lose progress when I am not constantly working with them.

The link works. I just checked it.

I talk to my parts and try to connect to all parts. I haven't fully managed this yet. When it comes to younger parts they are well defended and almost barricaded that no one other then my self are allowed to engage with them. Others defend oppress or bully themselves but don't open a dialogue. I realised the other day that the child in me didn't know some other parts and was actually frightened of them or was upset that they pushed people away or didn't recognise that as them self. Since I have been introduced to this process I have found this journey amazing

One thing that helps me is to remember that strong and overwhelming emotions are a physiological response to a threat to life. Why does it help to remember this? Because when it happens in response to a fairly typical life event where there is no threat to life (say a conflict with another person) then it is a trauma response from the past.
If it is a fairly normal everyday incident and there is no immediate threat to life and you are flooded with overwhelming emotions then your experience is due to a physiological trauma response from the past.
Once you are able to connect the current feelings with the awareness that it is an activated response from the past you can begin to apply grounding strategies to calm the trauma response. Use strategies to connect to the physiological experience of the present moment. Multi-sensory awareness of the immediate surroundings works best for me. And then verbal comfort - There is no threat, we are well, we are safe, we are right here in this room in 2019, here and now we are perfectly safe etc.
Once grounded THEN you can begin to ask parts about what was happening for them, why the current event triggered that response etc. Grounding and connecting to the present, and calming the overaroused amygdala comes first.

If you are unsuccessful talking through to the younger parts when you are triggered you could try thinking of it all in terms of physiology. What IS happening when triggered IS that the amygdala is activated the prefrontal cortex is essentially hijacked. once the amygdala is calmed by grounding techniques you can then begin to support the younger parts. It always works better when they are not in an activated state.

i am not sure if this is an out and out lie but yes, I have embelished the truth on occasion or exaggerated things for the sake of emphasizing my feelings and corresponding reactions. In the past, I have had a therapist overlook something I have said. I have thought that perhaps I had not then communicated just how the events or situations had made me feel. By exaggerating I am able to draw attention to it and better justify my emotions and reactions. At least this is what I choose to believe.

Oops, I misunderstood the question and answered how I deal when in a situation outside of therapy. In therapy, if I start crying, I can’t speak. I don’t have DID. I don’t get very far with therapists, as I just feel embarrassed and not understood. So I don’t go back. Why pay them to listen to me cry? Plus, they always seem to say something that hurts me deeper and really gets under my skin, insulting me.

I’m sorry the link still didn’t open for me. But, I still think you have nothing to lose in trying something that may help.

Webinar 4 Info – Therapists – DNMS Institute, LLC

copy and paste....maybe that will work.

I think I need this post tattooed on my arm