Two Approaches or a Third Option of My Own Design with the Help of My First DID Therapist

The first approach called integration is the eventual merging of all alters into one solid concrete personality. The second is newer and more holistic in my eyes even more realistic and focuses on becoming co-aware, developing strong coping mechanisms, dealing with trauma in the system, and getting rid of maladaptive coping mechanisms. Or my first really good therapist I’m currently waiting to find a new one since I moved back down south but she combined the too because she saw I was reluctant to be alone all the time which I felt intigration would eventually lead me too and also scared of some fragments and alters maladaptive coping strategies.

Be sure when you talk to therapists to see which if not both of these approaches they are willing to work with you towards. In my personal experience I believe a combination is best but it’s up to you and what you and your system and therapist come up with as a plan.

Stages of Treatment

There are 3 of Treatment depending on the approach choosen.

1st Stage

Is building trust, safety, and a safe environment for the whole system. As well as for the clinician to see and make sure DID is the proper diagnosis by meeting and seeing switching occurring. It’s centered on building trust between clinician and client, adaptive rather than maladaptive coping mechanisms, and addressing any behaviors such as suicidal ideation, self-mutalation, bulimia, anorexia nervosa, or addiction issues that could get in the way of the second stage. Also it is a time to treat any co-occuring conditions such as Bipolar, BPD, Major Depression, Autism, Learning Disorders that any alters in your system might have. Safety, stabilization, and symptom reduction. Development of Co-Consciousness is a main tenet of this stage and along into the second stage and third if chosing to keep a few alters around for company like I plan on doing.

2nd Stage

Memory work this is usually done doing psychodynamic or EMDR or and DBT combinations or a variety of different avenues your therapist can add or subtract to find the right one for your system. Memory work is the use of reconciliation between client and traumatic memories.

3rd Stage

Is either integration of all alters to a final fusion into one Identity or the fusion of some parts into other parts so there are less parts in a system then say anywhere from 2 to 5 in a system of 15 is example of fusion.

I was starting stage two in Ohio but my therapist quit to finish her doctorate and I moved back to South Carolina to get on disability and back into college so I will have to restart at Stage 1 because of some of my symptoms. But that’s not always the case.

So let’s take a minute to talk about switching and what that entails for both the clinician and the patient and my personal experiences of switches as some examples. Also switching can be consensual, forced, or triggered. Switches can be slow or fast. Slower ones usually being more consensual while more rapid ones tending to be triggered or forced switches.

So switching also know as changing alters can occur for a multitude of reasons. Mainly though in my experience some memory whether it’s implicit or explicit memory. Explicit memory is a memory that can be intentionally and consciously recalled. This is your memory of riding a bike, of falling over the handlebars and skinning your knee. The other is implicit memory, which is an experiential or functional form of memory that cannot be consciously recalled. So usually it can be anything from talking with my counselor about previous trauma’s to even an environmental flashback that can be a trigger for a switch.

Switching is usually unconsciously done by people with DID at least when starting treatment. As you start to grow and understand your system you can start to develop co-consciousness of switches. What helped me and helps me see my switching the most currently is journaling where I can visibly see my handwriting, grammar, and syntax change and even feelings as I am journaling change.

Personal Switching Experiences and Examples

I still currently have some switching that leaves me confused, disoriented, or even if really trigger I can experience amnesia of complete hours. For example not to long in I decided to see a friend of mine and drive my dad’s car without a license which was fine I am a great driver just didn’t pay parking tickets and lost it a while back anyways it was fine until he ended up doing airduster blacking out which I disliked being around and felt abandoned by him and therefore triggering me because he would blackout and forget I’d asked him to stop doing it so we could talk about some stuff and hang out. I then switched to another child/pre-teen alter who was triggered by abandonment took over my body and cussed at my friend and was not good because as I was doing that I crashed the car into the garage by accident kids can’t drive. I had no memory of the incident till the next day when I went for a walk and saw the garage door all messed up. So you can imagine how my dad reacted he doesn’t quite understand my diagnosis or that I literally am not 25 sometimes and have amnesia about things I say or do. Switching can also be more subtle. Like when my therapist is talking about the previous incident my protector/caretaker alter Jakob came out and I was co-conscious then and said “Why doesn’t my dad understand that I protect the kids but sometimes I fail and they call the kids liars because they don’t get it?” Or something to that effect.

Physical Signs of Switching

• Daydreaming, spacing out, or eyes glazed over
• Acting different, or using a different tone of voice or different gestures
• Suddenly switching between emotions or reactions to an event, such as appearing frightened and timid, then becoming bombastic and violent.
• Heavy blinking as if just waking up from sleep
• Mild muscle spasms or jerks as if a mild seizure
• Disorientation or confusion with surroundings
• Checking the clock or ones watch constantly
• Headaches mild or severe
• Adjusting clothing or posture
• Changes in syntax, tone, or vocabulary

Internal Changes With Switching

• Spacing out
• Depersonalization
• Derealization
• Blurred vision
• Feeling distanced or slowed down
• Feeling an alters presence
• Feeling time jumping
• Memory loss
• Sometimes even out of body experiences can occur

Two of those I need to go into more depth are depersonalization which is “the persistent feeling of observing oneself from outside one’s body or having a sense that one’s surroundings aren’t real.”. And Derealization which is ” Derealization is an alteration in the. perception or experience of the external world so that it seems unreal. Other symptoms include feeling as though one’s environment is lacking in spontaneity, emotional coloring, and depth.”

Why Switches Can Confuse Therpists, Families, and Friends?

So obviously I’ve written a lot about my experiences and signs of switching but why is it sometimes confusing, scary, or even at times unsafe for the people we care about or the therapists that are supposed to help use understand ourselves more?

I asked my first therapist treating me with DID this question and many times my alters have brought it up in therapy even before I was diagnosed with a simple “Why do my parents and friends sometimes say I do or say things and then accuse me of lying later when I say I had no memory of that happening?”

The simplest answer is it’s disconcerting for someone to overreact sometimes even drastically to a environmental or social situation or act childish when your a 25 year old male and you throw a temper tantrum and then have no memory of that occurring.

The more experience your therapist is with DID or trauma work in general will be a life saver when it comes to them understanding and being able to pick up on. To be a great therapist with this specific disorder you have to be a great body language reader and see the cracks before the patient does. Most therapists can engineer switches to occur and are taught to do this but only to ensure the safety of the system. For example, I used to be a self-mutilating and purging guy one of my alters still is though not anymore her name is Eabha and she’s 12. But this is how the conversation went something along these lines.

Host: I’m here because I’ve been cutting and purging again and I don’t know why I can’t stop.

********

Therapist: *recognized switch* Who am I talking to right now? And why have you been cutting yourself and making Andrew throw up?

Eabha: Eabha (childlike posture grabbed pillow to hug) Andrew (host) gets so emotional all the time and can’t handle the anxiety and depression so I help him numb it by cutting and purging because it ends the constant emotional stuff we go through constantly. I just want him to be happy. Life is tough but it makes him calm down we all calm down after that’s why. It’s not like I do it on purpose I just need a break and it’s easier.

Therapist: Eabha I understand you all feel so much but hurting yourself and making yourself sick is really not healthy is it?

Eabha: Guess not but works.

Therapist: How about this why don’t I teach you and Andrew some ways to deal with it without doing those things and you promise me to not do them for a week and just use them? And if they don’t work we can find something that does but you could’ve killed Andrew I understand you want a emotional break and are just trying to help so let me help you help him?

Eabha: Really? *shyly*

Therapist: Yes so can I speak to Andrew and you stay and listen carefully?.

Eabha: Okay I’ll do it for Andrew and everyone else *crying* (Side note I’m hazy but my therapist gave me her notes but this is where I became co-conscious for the first time)

Therapist: Andrew?

Me: Yes? *a little confused*

Therapist: Is Eabha listening?

Me: Yes *less hazy*

So that’s how a switch can be engaged would be a better word then engineered I think to be honest. But anyways my therapist taught me a EMDR coping mechanism called Containment Visualization where you contain your emotions or flashbacks or thoughts (be it a mind castle, house, or in my case I choose the titanic and a big safe sunken under the water) that you can’t handle until the next session and then can discuss them in a safe space. Therefore my therapist was able to let Eabha protect me and also able to protect my body and let Andrew eat and not damage my beautiful pale skin.

Summary

So sometimes my posts will have different syntax, vocabulary, or tone to them and that could be a sign that another alters present or as I did in this one I was co-conscient with Eabha to write about engaging other alters in therapy. The point I want to let be run home to all people with DID is that your alters are there for you they were adaptive coping mechanisms and yes switching at times can be scary even for me who is studying psychology and mostly know when it happens. But your alters are your biggest allies always going to be there to fight and protect you even those you think don’t serve a purpose or are hurting you are doing that for a reason. Now I have been diagnosed with DID for little over 2 years now and am just starting to become co-conscient and sometimes I do slip back as with my dad, my friend, and the car showed but the point is progress and Rome wasn’t built in a day neither were We so its going to take some time to rebuild and rekindle parts of ourselves through therapy work. Remember loving all your parts is the biggest and hardest step to take it took me a year and a half and 6 psych programs and 4 therapists to do so just take it slow. Get a good therapist that doesn’t judge you or classify you and one especially one you can talk to and all of your system can open up too eventually. It’s a tall order but We got this. DID PRIDE!!😊

Now there is a lot of stigmas associated with both professionals and people diagnosed with this disorder. Some professionals aren’t educated enough on what DID is or don’t even believe in its existence or believe therapists “give” clients the Disorder.

What really has pissed me off is the bad portayals of people often violent portrayals of the victims of this disorder. What professionals or laymen or sufferers of this disorder don’t understand is that everyone dissociates sometime. The way dissociation identity develops is usually before age of 7 from abuse, neglect, or any other traumatic experiences and since a childs psyche is so fragile their unconscious decides to split or compartmentalize the trauma away to deal with it. That’s why disorders dealing with trauma or neglect or abandonment like PTSD or Borderline Personality Disorder.

The stigma is mainly due to mainstream movies like “Split” or “Sybil” that inaccurately show DID.

Now concerning professionals only the stigmas often arise because most people who finally get treatment for DID have several previous mental health diagnoses, which had poor treatment outcomes, and in the course of an individual’s therapy you could switch or have what appear to be symptoms that don’t “add up”. So finding a therapist who deals with trauma and dissociative disorders is a priority once the diagnosis is made.

Any other reason is the stigma of Borderline Personality Disorder in the psychiatric community and some of the overlapping features of those. Actually most people with DID have a previous diagnosis or co-occuring diagnosis of BPD.

Thanks for joining me. I’ve intro’ed most of my alters on my main pages. But on the blog this is where you’ll be meeting the system and hopefully more will come to light for both of us.

Here are some commonly used types of Alters out there as well as not so common.

Caretakers: A caretakers role is to look after other members of the system and sometimes in the “real world” too. they are often a more gentle and caring person who sees the good in everyone. They also can be responsible for the internal and external environment and the safety of others.

Protectors: These alters are responsible for protecting the system as a whole and keeping the body from harm. They are risk minimisers and can be more firm and upfront about issues surrounding safety, wellbeing, external interactions and are often aware of trauma.

Gatekeepers: As this disorder is formed from serious traumatic events, these memories can be damaging and scary. It is a gatekeepers job to keep memories (and sometimes alters) away from the system to reduce the rick of flashbacks, new trauma, stress and worsening symptoms.

Littles: These alters are between ages 0-9. They are infants and children who are possibly stuck in the age of trauma or trauma time. This isn’t always the case but most often is. Littles can also be a distraction from trauma and memories and be completely carefree, happy, and living the childhood we missed.

Middles: This is the term given to teenage alters. These alters can represent rebellion, freedom, sexuality and other similar things that come with being in the stages of adolescents. These alters will naturally be very proud of who they are and be authentically themselves no matter what. This can be an escape for DID systems.

Persecutors: These alters are often called “bad alters” or “evil alters” because of what they where created to do. Persecutors are alters that are often more negative and difficult for the whole system and those in the external environment. They may self harm, leave scary notes, yell at others, destroy things externally that create joy, disagree with others about everything, be angry, overly sexual or emotional.

Fragments: Unlike alters, fragments are less 3D and may have only been created to serve one very specific purpose (cooking, cleaning, writing, exercise, showering, etc). They are smaller parts and have less responsibilities than that of alters but they are just as valid and important.

Introjects: These alters can be positive or negative with no in-between. A positive introject could be someone who looked after the child at times of distress (mother, friend, older sibling, etc), these alters are there to continue protecting the person with DID from similar situations and can often be very helpful. Negative introjects are often the someone who was the cause of trauma in the first place and this can be very distressing for DID systems.

Animal Alters: Yes, they are real. Animal alters are just as important as human alters as they can still protect and provide comfort. Animals like wolves, sharks, lions and bears are often seen to be strong and brave, this may help with feeling safe and protected. Animals like bunnies, cats, ducks and hamsters are seen to be soft, cuddly and gentle. This can provide joy and happiness to the system.

Internal Self-helper: Much like caretakers and protectors, these alters are caring, helpful and understanding. They focus on keeping the inner-world safe, enjoyable and clean as well as keeping check that everything goes to plan.

Host: This is simply the alter who is in control most of the time. This can be the “original” (like in my case), or be different completely. There can be more than one host in a system.

ANP: Apparently normal parts, are alters who seem to function without memories of trauma or any struggles with mental health. They appear to be completely fine and function as a normal person living a normal life.

Opposite sex alters: The purpose of having alters of the opposite sex or gender can be different across all systems. They are important and need to be accepted as part of the system like all others.

Sexual Alter: These alters can be created to make the body feel “loved”, “accepted”, “confident”, or “normal”. I put these in quotes as this all depends on the individual. These alters tend to be in late teen years or early twenties, but can be of any age.

Non-human alters: Much like animal alters, these parts can be created to provide, joy, protection or comfort. Dragons, fairies, goblins, wizards, unicorns, Pegasus or vampires can all be alters just like anything else. These mythical creatures can often be created due to what a child is able to imagine at this time of trauma to help distract from reality.

Supernatural alters: Angels, demons, ghosts, gods or spiritual beings can be created as a form of guidance and escape for the physical world. They are seen to be strong and influential beings that are there to protect.

Fictives/Factives: Fictives are characters from video games, movies, books, tv shows or other forms of media that a child has a strong attachment to and needed to replicate in order to feel safe and happy in times of trauma. Factives can be actors, singers, dancers, or just regular people that the child looked up to and, again, need in times of trauma.

NPC: This term means “none playable character” and is often seen in video games. As the name suggests they are not a normal alter but their role is to fill in gaps in the inner-world. Any of the types of alters I have written about above can also be NPCs and solely live in the inner-world.