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I created this image today from a drawing I did last night, which I reworked in photoshop. I call it "Home."
For six years I've been working towards integration. An odd thing was happening, and I was somewhat aware of it but also somehow oblivious.

The pieces I've integrated that were eight years old or younger joined one aspect of me--an aspect I've been calling "the eight-year-old."
The piece I've integrated that were older have all joined another aspect of me--the one I simply think of as "me."

I say simply... but it is anything but.

These two remaining aspects of me have been battling recently--vying for the rights to all of me. I have really struggled recently, dissociating frequently when there has been almost no dissociation in my life for the last two years. I have felt a constant swarm of emotions and feel close to tears a good deal of the time.

I am responsible for myself. I am responsible for my happiness. If I'm unhappy than I am the one who needs to do something about it.

But who the hell am I??
One side blamed the other. Every bit of anxiety was proof that the other side was wrong. It's been approaching the ugliness and brutality of a presidential election...

Last night I finally gave in. When I say that, I mean both sides of me--all of me. I gave in to the fact that I have done all the right things to survive, and that without every part of who I've been I wouldn't have made it this far. The image above came into my mind. I closed my eyes and held up my hand--from both sides--and I felt the energy of the other
both sides of me felt the energy of the other.

I am moving towards that very uncomfortable part of integration in which I will feel two separate sets of emotions at the same time, in which I will think two separate stands of thoughts at once, in which the very confusing double motives and desires, likes and dislikes, will pull me in two ways at once. I've done it before. Both sides of me have lived through it before.

This time I think is the last. Accepting each other now is the final thing I have to do to become whole. I'm scared. I'm still fighting it just a little. From both sides, I feel a strong need to be in control. But... I don't really see any other way to move on with my life. We've shared this body all this time, so I guess it's time to share our mind, too. For a time I think it will be co-consciousness rather than true integration. Maybe it will always be that way. I can't really know from this side of the bridge what I'll find on the other side... but whatever happens, whatever this is... it feels like coming home.

Co-Consciousness and Integration: New Thoughts

It's Day Two of the Consciousness Cleanse. I did my morning routine and read the exercises, which I will do this afternoon. For anyone who’s been in a twelve-step program, you can understand the Day Two exercises as a mini-fourth-step. My only concern with this is that I need to be able to do it in a reasonable amount of time. My fourth step took months. Debbie Ford suggests thirty minutes for the exercises. I’m going to try for an hour and make myself give up the thoroughness that I am sometimes obsessive about. (sometimes?)

I’m excited to be doing this process, and already feel shifts taking place inside me, just from reading the book and remembering to connect first thing in the morning. That said, I have something else, which is pressing on my mind.

I’m talking about the eight-year-old.

In my obsessive way, I've been exploring co-consciousness and integration for the last several weeks. I have been looking all around the internet and re-reading old message board comments I remembered seeing years ago, and writing long journal entries about these concepts.

This morning, I'm a guest blogger at author/therapist/blogger Mary Armstrong website. an excerpt from one of my blogs about the eight-year-old, on her website. The post is about the concepts of co-consciousness and integration.

Over the past few years, I’ve gradually been integrating lost pieces of myself, into the whole which I think of as “me”. This is not an easy process. It’s stressful and confusing, time-consuming and disorienting. It’s also well worth it. To have access to these parts-of-self which were previously closed off to me, is amazing. To be able to function from a place of wholeness instead of from only a fraction of who I really am, brings me a kind of peace I didn’t know was possible. It is allowing me to be more active and less reactive.

In any given situation, our actions and reactions are not only based on the current circumstances. In an instant, without effort, our minds take in our situation, categorize it based on past experiences, and then offer possible courses of action. If this didin't happen, each experience would stand alone, there would be no connection between what happened yesterday and what's happening today. It's necessary for us to exist in a time-line to have stored memories and use them in our decisions about what to do now.

For the most part, we aren’t aware of the process. In fact, it takes a great deal of effort to become conscious of this process, and even more effort to look at the suggested courses of action before moving into action. Moving forward without making a conscious decision is living reactively. Looking conwsciously at the situation and then deciding whether the messages from the past are warranted or should be ignored and then moving forward is living actively.

The more emotioanally charged your past situations are, the stronger your mind’s "suggestions" of action will be when they are triggered. If your mind categorizes your current situation as the same as something traumatic from your past, the “suggested” course of action may feel more like a demand.

For instance, if you are aware that there is something extremely hot in front of you, your mind is going to say, “don’t touch that.” If you move closer to the fire, your mind may begin screaming at you to move away. It may take a great deal of will and self-talk to override this message. If it was necessary to touch the flame – say to rescue someone else, or to keep something important from burning – you could override the message, but it would cause you a great deal of inner turmoil.

If you’ve experienced trauma, there may be unusual links inside you which trigger this same kind of turmoil. Personally, I am uncomfortable thinking of sunflowers, or dolls with eyes that open and close, and I panic if I think of something covering my face. (I actually drew in a deep breath just writing that sentance.) These may seem irrational on the surface, but because my mind has linked them to danger, it feels the same as the 'don’t touch it – it’s hot' message.

Before I began integration, I stayed in one aspect of myself most of the time. This aspect was unaware of a lot of the trauma and the links my mind had set up. I knew I didn’t like dolls or sunflowers or having my face covered, but I didn’t know why.

Because denying my past was a survival strategy I'd become used to, I didn’t look too closely at the why. I sometimes wondered about it, but the memories were not available to me and I moved quickly into another strategies. It is not possible to override the messages without looking at them closely, and that seemed impossible, so instead I would go into panic-mode. It left me feeling out-of-control, as if the world and my experiences had power over me and I had no power of my own.

As I’ve integrated the pieces of me which carried the memories attached to sunflowers and dolls and the hand over my face, I understand where the messages are coming from, I’m not afraid to look at them, and I can take that moment to decide how reactive I need to be. I calm myself down. I think, This isn’t really hot, at all. Eventually, I am able to put my finger right on that imaginary flame, and when I do I find that it can’t burn me, anymore.

So integration is the answer. Right? Well... it has been the answer that's worked for me, thus far, but then, we come to the eight-year-old.

I’ve lost count of how many pieces of my past have integrated into the person I think of as me. I thought I understood what integration looked like, for me. Although each one has been different, there were certain givens I’d come to expect.

The eight-year-old has been different from the beginning. She is much more complex; more complete. The other parts I’ve integrated were connected to specific memories, or specific ages. Despite her name, the eight-year-old is really not just eight. She seems to be made up of all the ages up until eight.

I think she is who I was before I became “me”. I’ve been trying to integrate her into me, when in reality I may have to integrate into her… and I’m not even sure what the distinction is. It feels very different in my head, but when I try to explain it, it doesn't sound different at all.

I feel a bit like I’m the infecting virus.
She seems to be the one who was here first… doesn’t that make her more worthy than me?

The things which are triggering for her are the exact things I still can’t look at closely, and consequently the messages they bring up for me are very hard to override. When she is angry, I feel angry and the anger doesn’t easily subside even when I know it is about something from the past and not about what is happening right now.

When she feels slighted, I feel an intense sense of failure but at the same time, I feel very defiant. Her message may be, I need. Mine is, I have to meet that need but I don’t want to.

I know this eight-year-old part and I have to be completely open with each other if we are ever to get past these old trauma-based triggers - and I'm not the only defiant one. She is fighting this as much as I am, even though she is pretending that it's all my fault.

I haven’t really been discussing my obsession with co-consciousness versus integration with my therapist, until today. It may seem like a surprising oversight. So much other stuff is going on and I send her so many emails but sometimes I just don’t seem to get the right pieces out there and she will say, in the kindest way possible, "you should have brought this up sooner." Unfortunately  I don't always know what is most important, and that’s probably because I am reacting to the messages being triggered by current situations.

You see why I need a consciousness cleanse?
I see that I’ve been reconsidering my position on co-consciousness, but I am aware that I am doing it out of fear – which is exactly what I’ve seen in others. I’ve felt as if integration was the more functional choice and avoiding it in favor of some kind of agreement between parts-of-self was going to be confusing and distracting. It’s interesting, to me, that now that it feels like I am the one who may be lost in the mix, I am much less willing to move into a full integration. And this feeling - this fear of being lost - is not based in reality because as I've gone through this process nothing has been lost!

The idea that she is the "real me" is bringing up a lot of stuff from the past, and so I am aware I am being reactive in not moving forward with integration. Logically, I understand that we are both real. I know that we need each other and that we are truly two sides of the same coin.

Emotionally, I feel as if my sense of being real or valid is being threatened, and this is something that's come up again and again, in therapy. Although I've worked with old messages of "I'm not real" or "I'm not important" quite a lot, it still seems to be screaming in my head, right now.

So, I am trying to override this particular “don’t touch-it's hot” message. I’m trying to get myself to walk into the fire, and accept integration with the eight-year-old, whatever that takes. I am also allowing myself to hold back until I feel more comfortable. I've had many years of separateness. I am still here, and so is the eight-year-old. I can give it time to unfold.

Holding back rather than pushing my way through is a huge step for me. It shows that I am looking closely at what's happening and so when I do proceed it will be actively and not reactively. Patience is what I need right now - for myself, for the eight-year-old - for the “us” which I'm hoping will one day simply be me.

*****

Meeting the Rainbow Lady

With a son graduating from high school last weekend and a daughter graduating from eighth grade this past Monday, it's been a very busy, emotional week. Somehow or another I made it through all of the inner turmoil I felt as I thought of my children moving up and moving on. We got through the dinners and award nights, the "I can't find my dress shoes" and "Why do I have to iron my shirt if I'm putting that robe over it anyway" and "Can I have fifteen friends over for a bonfire in two hours?"

Mostly, it was fun... but I'm glad to be in the lull before summer really kicks off. In just over a week, we are heading out of town for a family vacation. We are returning to a place which was our Summer destination at least a dozen times when the kids were little. All four of my children will join us for at least part of the two week trip - and my future son-in-law is also going to be with us for a few days.

But first... I'm going to see the Rainbow Lady.

I mentioned a few posts ago that a friend of mine had told me about an experience she had that sounded a lot like Soul Retrieval. Since this is something I've been looking into for some time, I was naturally intrigued. I referred to her as the rainbow lady because my friend mentioned something (of which I am not entirely clear) about finding a rainbow symbol that defined her in some way, during a session with this therapist. My friend also told me that she has seen a regular therapist for years, but has seen "the Rainbow Lady" a few times, as well.

Today, I'm going to meet the Rainbow Lady for an hour. After that, the plan is to return next week for a two-and-a-half-hour session, if all goes well today.

I'm not sure what is going to be included in today's session or the one next week... from what I understand, there is a massage table in her office, there are pillows that are for throwing, hitting and probably comfort as well. There are candles and a there is a teddy bear. I know this from what she and my friend told me, and because there are pictures of her office at her website.
I also know there will be hypnoses involved.

What am I hoping to gain from this?
I'm not really sure.
I'm not going in with any specific expectations.

The original reason I was looking into soul retrieval is because since I've been integrating these compartmentalized thoughts/alters/other sides of me, I have been able to communicate with and understand these very separate pieces. However, most often they do not feel like me. Instead, when I am aware of other sides of me, it is like multiple threads of thought running through my head at the same time. Sometimes this is quite confusing and can cause anxiety if these sides don't agree.

As a fictitious example, imagine you are standing in a grocery store trying to decide what to eat for dinner. In your head are eight different opinions. It is not a reasonable conversation as one might have with any decision. There is not just, not spaghetti, I had it last night, I know I should eat more fish, but I really feel like beef.
Instead, it’s more like this:

BEEF
I can’t eat beef every night!
I should eat more fish.
i hate fish

I’m not hungry

Let's get out of here



All at the same time, followed in the next two seconds by

BEEF
the candy looks good
I’m not eating anything except macaroni and cheese.

I’m not even hungry!

If you get that, I’m not eating it.
Get me out of here!

And so on. Meanwhile, I’m standing still, staring through the glass at the beef and fish on ice while the butcher is waiting for a response.

What I’ve read about Soul Retrieval makes me think it could help further integrate these pieces of me – help bring them all the way home.

Do I expect that the Rainbow Lady is going to be able to do that in two sessions?
No.
I only hope to gain a little more insight into myself, and to try something new.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Circular Illogic

What is this about?
           Like you don’t know.
going along as if everythings fine
Continue to shove this aside and pretend and deny there’s anything there.
(It’s something)
Of course it’s something.
its always something why cant it just stop

Because we need to talk about this. There is something unfinished about the ceremony.
[A sense of let down]
i did what I was supposed to do
          Like that matters.
I did everything right.
I did it for me
thats selfish
And so maybe I don’t deserve to ask anything more of others?

(But there is such a let down)
I did everything right.
           You said that.
(You are both repeating)
A lot of hard work and a real commitment to something important and it is only important to me, I guess, but it feels as if there should have been something more.

I should just be happy with what I am gaining.
These are the most important things.
Those are the things that make reality unimportant – at least as it’s seen on this planet.
          The true reality.
(And at least we can talk about it.)
Yes, but in a way this makes me feel different and alone.
separate.
Set apart.
alone
(That’s my fault. I wanted it that way)
how else could it be?
          Yes, it’s how it had to be
(We agree on something)
Are we going to talk about this, or not?

It feels as if there should have been some kind of celebration.
You don’t want much, do you?
(Is it really too much to ask?)
Or at least recognition.

To make this feeling go away.
I don’t even know what that feeling is.
[There is a feeling of… what is that?]
Holding back, not wanting to share but doing it because it’s what’s expected.
Why?
          The feeling is the why.
its about i’m not going to tell you because you hurt me
(It’s about punishing others by withholding myself.)
My real self
          Push and pull
(Always so cryptic. It makes it hard to stay with this when you interject that stuff.)
          Fuck you
(that helps.)

It’s about wanting to share who I really am and not being able to and it feels hopeless – as if I will never be able to figure this out.
Maybe I’m not meant to.
         Fear
Is it fear?
is it?
[More like anger]
More like a childish kind of “bite off your nose to spite your face” anger.
(It’s the - Do you want ice cream? - No, I’m angry at you - But you like ice cream - I don’t care, I don’t want anything from you - You’re only hurting yourself - Kind of anger)
And hurt is underneath
Anger is the other side of hurt
          You think you’re so wise.
(haha)
Sometimes anger is the other side of fear, but this kind of anger is about hurt.
And maybe the fear of being hurt more?
Does it always have to be about fear?
If it is, then yes.

But it’s also about feeling hurt - and that’s why the tears are so close all the time.
i wanted the part that comes after a ceremony
(And I never expected that I would want it)
          I never even thought of it.
After a wedding, there’s the reception
and after the graduation there’s a dinner or something
You didn’t even go to your graduation.
i went to one
(That wasn’t yours)
          Seriously? That again?
(She gets no credit for that. She was never there!)
i was too little
          This is not helping anything

Even after a funeral there’s a gathering of some kind and it feels like…
(Closure?)
Acknowledgment?
kind of like honoring what happened or something
Yes, something like that.
Damn it, I hate feeling like this.
          Shall we have one more round of “anger is the other side of hurt?”
Why do you always have to be like that?
He wants to stop us from getting to what this is really about.

all these feelings just keep washing over me why dont you help me
I’m trying.
im pushing them away again its too hard
Pushing it away doesn’t do any good. You can’t push them far enough.
i don’t know how to cry about this anyway
(I don’t know what I’d be crying about)
but the tears are right there all the time
I hate that
          Yes

Its so much easier to get lost in the syntax, the semantics, the limited meaning of spoken words, than it is to imagine – really picture and understand – what the conversation would be like.
Just thinking about it brings a feeling of closing up, of hiding.
(and sadness and of hiding that too)
Sometimes it feels like it would be a relief.
Maybe the tears are just waiting to feel that relief.
Yes – it’s as if I need to finally say all the things I feel and then I would feel that relief and the tears would not be about sadness or anger.
Or hurt-
Right. It would just be about relief, about letting go.

That’s what the ceremony was about.
i feel hurt that she left right after
          What good does that do?
(hedging – immediately)
It isn’t wrong for her to go – it isn’t her life
It isn’t her responsibility.
(True, but that doesn’t have anything to do with a FEELING!)
I have no right to expect – I have no right to ask – I have no right to hope
          You can’t tell her that
Why not? If that’s how it feels, why not?
it was so important to me and i wanted it to be important to her
          She never said it wasn’t.
she never said it was
(Really? I’d have to go back and check… but I bet she did.)
          She did.
i wanted someone to understand how important it was
(Who are you talking about, anyway? Do you even know?)
          That’s a good one. There seems to be constant confusion about that.
Great distraction.
[Why do you pick on her? Let her be.]
(It’s not “mommy”)
          That depends on who you ask.
(Can we get back to the issue?)
Can we even remember what that was?
Acknowledgement of a big step
There was acknowledgement – on the blog, in email
it isn’t the same to write it down
          Really? Since when?
It isn’t the same to send it off into cyberspace and wait for a word
(What word?)
Acknowledgement
          Now you’re being difficult. Who’s going to say that. “I acknowledge… blahblahblah”
That isn’t helping.
If I wanted to hear it then I have to say that. It’s my responsibility to bring up what I want to talk about.
          Yeah like some damn business transaction.
Why do you always have to be like that?

This is impossible. No wonder I don’t even know what I feel. It’s such a confusing mess in here and there’s nowhere else to go.
it was just over
(what did you expect?)
And then I drove home.
And went back to exactly how it’s always been.
No, you can see a lot of change.
          Even this conversation is change.
(It sucked to get home and find it was just over.
[“How did it go?” “Perfectly.”]
          What else was there to say? Why is that not enough?
I still haven’t unpacked my suitcase.
i cant even look at it
And the all-important jar still sits where I put it the day I carried it home.
No place of honor
No recognition
          Get over it!
(Yeah, fine.)
whatever
          It’s just over now get on with your life

Well, that was it.
Here they come.
          Seriously? Now you’re going to cry about it?
(About what?!)
finally
(I knew it was there.)
          Does it help?
It’s a drop in the bucket

Yes. There is so much more.
Fear of not being loved as much as I love
Anger
Hurt
Yes – the hurt is the sadness.
And the anger.
(You already said that.)
Anger isn’t always about fear, it is also about hurt.
          One more time!
(Don’t you think you’ve said enough?)
Not even close. I haven't said anything.
          You rarely do.
I don't know how to in the future.
Oh, here we go. Are we going to have THAT discussion again?
you are supposed to talk it isn’t my job
I don’t know what to say. My mouth is silent and if I imagine saying what I really want to say—
(Want to say?? Really?)
— I close up, my mind becomes fuzzy. The thoughts are gone and I’m only left with the feelings.
Sick stomach
          Excuses.
A sense of giving up - This is all there is - Don’t expect more.
it isnt important
(it’s hard to hold on to)
Already, I can’t remember what I’ve written… and I know if I go back and read it, it will be a surprise and it will make me cry again and then it will be gone.
Again
And it feels so pointless.
          Is that another excuse?
(Another reason not to try.)

It’s a waste of time to go in there if I don’t say what I need to say.
          Fine. Cancel.
When I try to throw blankets over the whole mess and talk about something else, the blankets cover everything else, too. It is the cause of that fogginess in my head.
          Thank you, oh wise one.
And most interesting of all is that when I force myself to write the words I can’t say, only this comes out. The strongest feeling, the one that is most overwhelming is unmentionable.
Why?
if you say that it makes all the rest even harder because then she knows
          She already knows.
Then she wins.

I would like to stop looking at everything as a competition.
(nobody wins the way it is now)
          This is so pointless.

Chimera Survival

The defiant one
Jaw set and arms folded
Stares at her door
As the lock clicks open

The compliant one
Peace exuding from her eyes
Turns the knob
Of her identical door

Two steps beyond
Two newly opened doors
Strength and surrender
Now stand together

Will ever-sought stillness
And coveted control
Finally be found
As two become one?

Keys to Integration

A day of chaos. It isn't the first, not the beginning, but the culmination of a few weeks of inexplicable turmoil. Even now, trying to describe what’s been going on is sending me reeling around in several directions.
Where to start...?

Often, I've written about things after the fact. It’s quite different to be in the middle of it and try to blog. By giving you the retrospect view, I believe there is one fact that has not been obvious – and that important piece of information is this:

When I am beginning to integrate a part of me, I am unaware that it’s happening.

 So, for the last few weeks, what was I aware of?

• A general sense of unease that was growing each day.
• Blocks of missing time that were increasing in length and number almost daily.
• An increase in the amount of support I needed from outside of myself.
• Overreacting to situations.
• Being completely aware I was overreacting but unable to stop it.
• A growing sense of panic.
• A sense of impending doom.
• Emotions that had nothing to do with what was actually happening in my life.

So, how do I define integration?

1. I accept the concept of the “inner child.” There is a part of me that was formed in childhood that stays with me, forever.
2. I accept the concept that my current situation can sometimes trigger emotions about a similar situation from the past,. This can cause me to overreact or react in ways that I might not if I were able to be completely rational about the current situation. I believe this happens to everyone – not just people with emotional issues. Someone complains that you made a mistake and a forgotten event from your childhood is triggered somewhere in your subconscious. You don't even remember the teacher who wrote a bad grade on your paper and how you felt you didn't deserve it, but the unresolved feelings come up in a similar situation. The anger and frustration from the old situation makes you react strongly to the situation of the present.
3. "Compartmentalized memories" is concept I accept. To some degree, everyone pushes some things into a side pocket of their brain (like the forgotten school paper I spoke of above.)

When you put your keys down because you are distracted by something else, and then can’t find them later, where did the memory go? You eventually track them down, and then think, "oh, yeah, the phone rang right when I came in the door." You answered the phone, unconsciously put your keys down, and you know you did it but you have actually setting them down.

Where did the memory go?

If you forget someone’s birthday, even though you know the date and meant to send a card, that is another form of a “compartmentalized memory?” You obviously have the knowledge somewhere… but it wasn't available at the time you needed it.

And in accepting the three premises above, it seems to me a good way of  understanding dissociative disorders. From my own, personal experiences, I could never doubt the reality of DID because its real and present in my life, but seeing a logical explanation helps me understand it on another level, and maybe it will help you understand as well.

So, the last few weeks have sucked and it only dawned on me yesterday that all the chaos is because I've been bringing home another fragment of my inner child. "She" is "me" and always will be... and now I have access to more of those hidden pieces of my past.

What Integration Means to Me

Once again, I'm deleting the text that I will be using in my memoir. I've left the image and the comments
~Shen 2-21-12

Gains in Therapy

After I sent the first Alternate Hand Writing I'd done to my therapist, I regretted it. It seemed too strange, too “crazy” and I was afraid she would judge me in some way. This has been a common fear throughout therapy. I was judged so relentlessly growing up, that it’s hard to remember that my therapist has never judged me at all.

As I fretted over what her response to my left/right writing would be, a memory popped into my head out of nowhere. It wasn't a new memory, but for some reason it seemed to have a lot of new emotion attached to it. Maybe it's because I didn't acknowledge my feelings much, as a child. I let them build to the breaking point and the, often, I dissociated from my life. Emotions were a pretty foreign thing to me. Mostly, I didn't acknowledge my feelings at all until I reached the breaking point, and then I often dissociated.

But in that moment so many years later, after doing the left/right writing, I felt anger, indignation, sadness, and resentment all pounding in my head, together. I had to keep reminding myself that this was progress. It sure wasn't fun and it would have been easier to just avoid them in one of the myriad of tried-and-true distractions I'd developed in my life.
But I didn't.

The image is of the Resources, the protective side of me, the nurturing side of me and my "Spiritual Core Self" as described in the DNMS process. The Resourses are holding the two dissociated parts that I felt inside, that day, They are (I am) keeping them (me) safe.

At the same time, it felt as if the Resourses were keeping "me" (the part of me that most often feels like me) safe from the dissociated parts. It was like setting a boundary with my own memories and feelings, so that I could put the work on hold until my next appointment with my therapist.

This is something that has been a real struggle for me - trying to work on things when it is time to work and put them aside when it isn't. And this is a small bit of encouragement that I will not always have to wallow helplessly in every feeling that emerges.

Images and Tools

A Brief Reprieve

For more than a week after Father’s Day, 2008, I had the longest string of good days I had experienced in years. We got two puppies, that week, I spent a lot of time with my children, and I felt generally happy and full of energy. My journal entries were all positive and incredulous, with an underlying fear that the fall would come.

Back to Work

The big drop in mood did indeed come, and a rush of reactive, memory-induced anxiety came along with it. I say memory-induced not because I remembered something specific, but because I was aware that the feelings I was experiencing were not about anything that was currently happening in my life. I knew that they were driven by things from my past.

This understanding was, in itself, a big step in the right direction. In the past I had always viewed my moodswings as something beyond my control - something that happened to me sometimes, often out-of-the-blue, for no apparent reason. Understanding that these mood swings were caused by something felt like hope because it meant I might be able to find the cause and be in control of my life in a whole new way.

One tool I've used a number of times to help me figure out what part of my past is triggering my present anxiety is “Alternate Hand Writing”. Briefly, the idea is to talk to the part-of-self that is being triggered, whether it is a dissociated part or just a set of memories from the past.

With the dominant hand (for me this is my right hand), I ask questions. The questions are directed at the triggered part-of-self as if this was a separate person. With the non-dominant hand (my left hand) I answer the questions.

Every time I've tried this, I would have a nagging doubt in the back of my mind as to whether any answer to my questions would come. I needn't have worried. Almost always, the answer popped into my head soon after I switched the pen to my left hand. It felt almost mystical or magical, the answers almost seeming to write themselves.

This is a tool anyone can use, any time. It can help you identify what you're feeling and why. I've included examples in my memoir, "Through the Tiger's Door".

What Am I?

I've been thinking a lot about who I am for the last few weeks. I've been trying to understand the phrase "unconditional acceptance."

I have come to understand that I should unconditionally accept myself. What exactly would I be accepting? How can I accept myself unconditionally if I don't know who or what I am?

Am I my thoughts?

If I am my thoughts, then all the convoluted paths my thoughts take would be part of me. Every passing notion, each unbidden idea, would be a piece of me.

If I am not my thoughts, then I am only observing them. I can decide which ones are valid and which ones to disregard. I can take charge of them when they race down a dark and dangerous path.

I think they are mine, but they are not me.

Am I my feelings?

If I am not my feelings then they are only passing chemical reactions, something that happens to me and is outside of my control.

If I am my feelings, then they are valid reactions to what I am experiencing.

I think my feelings are part of what I am. I don't think I would be me without them.

Am I my actions?

I would not hold someone responsible for behaving in ways that were unpleasant or harmful, if the person couldn’t know the outcome.

I have often told my children I didn’t like something they did. Of course this never meant that I didn’t like them.

I have been told to be angry at a choice someone made, but not at the person.

If I behave badly, make a poor choice, it doesn't change who I am.

It seems I am not my actions.

Am I my body?

If I lost an arm, would I be less of a person, less me than I am now?

If I woke up one morning and was looking out of a face I’d never seen before, would I still be me?

My body has changed a lot in my lifetime, but I think I am still the same person.

I do not think my body is me.

Am I a collection of my experiences and memories?

If I am, then who was I when I was born? I existed. I was alive. I must have been someone.

There are things I didn’t remember until quite recently. Am I a different person now because I remember them? I feel differently about some things, but I still have a sense of continuity.

I think I was the same person the day before and the day after I lost my virginity. I think I am the same person today as I was when I skinned my knees rollerskating as a child, started college, and gave birth to my children.

I would be different if I had been raised in a different country, or been born to different parents. There are a million things that could have happened or may happen that could change my life.
But does that mean they would change who I am?

I think it would still be me, no matter what happened along the way. I do not think I am my memories and experiences. I think I learn from them, but they are not me.

Are my dissociative parts me?

I often had the sense that “I” wasn’t there when I would dissociate. My body was there and functioning, speaking and thinking, but it wasn’t me. Someone else would appear to protect me, to take over when I couldn’t handle something, to have fun or take care of me when I was punishing and denying myself.

Are these parts really me?

I have been thinking of these parts as individuals, friends, children, protectors, sometimes even as enemies, but not as me.

I have been letting them in a little at a time, but still, I have kept this one section of me separate – the part that feels like me. These other parts of me are there, I am aware of their thoughts and feelings and wants and needs. They feel like more than a memory or an experience.
I think these must be part of me.

Like my feelings, I have looked at these dissociative parts of me as things that happen TO me. I have been letting them in, "integrating" them, but still I am not really accepting them - not accepting that they are as valid as every other part of me.

I need to learn to accept my emotions and these other sides of me unconditionally, and completely, because they are parts of me.

Just thoughts... if you're looking for answers, you'll have to look within.

Dissociation and Fear of Integration

From what I've seen and heard, the word "integration" is often feared by those with dissociative disorders. I understand. The first time I read about the concept of integration, I was terrified. I feared two things:
what I would remember and what I would forget.

But like so many things I've feared in my life, it was unnecessary. I've recently begun integrating those lost pieces of myself and I have NOT lost and part of myself. I have found myself.

I hope you do, too.  

What's Wrong with Me?

Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is the current name for what used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. Under any name, this disorder has been sensationalized in books, movies, and on TV. The idea seems to fascinate some, while others become staunch disbelievers.

Since May 2007, I've been searching for answers. I have "lost time" for as long as I can remember. I would "wake up" in places and have no memory of how I got there, with hours missing from my life.

These gaps in time were a problem. I wasn't supposed to have them. I had to adapt by learning how to cover up my missing time, unexpected absences and sudden appearances. At a moment's notice, I could come up with a story to explain why I had not returned home from school at the expected time, or where I had been when I was sent to the corner store with five dollars to pick up milk and returned hours later without the milk or the money.

It was a mystery to me where those hours went, but it was just part of my life and one more thing that seemed to be wrong with me, to be ashamed of, and to hide from the world.

I hope that my journey will be a guide to others who struggle with mood swings and depression, find it difficult to find closeness in their relationships, are beginning to admit to themselves that they live a multiple life, or are simply suddenly aware of an emptiness within that just can't be right. There are ways to put your life back together. I know, because I have.