Rachel

I do totally agree with you, I in no way discard outerguidance as my Paypal account will testify too, I love teleclasses and ebooks from other practitioners to learn from.  In the case I mentioned I went with outer guidance because a part of me still did not fully trust my inner guidance to chose the correct outer guidance.  Hope thats not too confusing, it sounds like a riddle:)  This outer guidance was wrong for me and I knew it, but still I doubted, and what I learned from it is every practitioner attracts the clients they fill the need for.  And different does not mean better or worse.  I am continuing to learn from outer guidance that feels congruent to me.  I also dealt with the problem and learnt a fabulous new approach to EFT in the meantime, Inner Theatre, which Jade Barbee had a case study on this week.  HIghly recommened new source of Outer Guidance:)  www.creativeEFT.com

I appreciate your comments and also am starting to feel more connected with the place you are coming from too. 

Gill

 

 

 

 

I just wanted to say, reading quickly through these posts, that your analogy is awesome. I do not have MPD but I have DID which to me is described as aspects of myself, I just have ages that I flip back to and then a few monsters that who knows where they are they just know when and how to scare the life out of me. But my point is: The analogy about the cracked window. Yes, I see through cracks so to speak. I think there used to be so many cracks. One EFT'er said over a hundred, but I know that they are memories that hold a part of me, keep me stuck there. Some more severe than other. Some still unknown to me. I also like your discussion about the panic response. Since my agoraphobia has controlled my life for over 25 years, my panic is very ingrained and I don't understand how to stop it, or talk to it etc. I remember my therapists, when she met one of my mother aspects in a full rage, She said " I am not afraid of you! I will not be scared away by you" WELL, wowee, that was a shocker. And she tries to get me to keep tapping, which also helps to kind of keep me "rooted" in my present moment, but often she just has to tap for me while I am venting. I just keep processing her statement that she is not afraid of my mother. Everyone who meets that part is terrified by what she will do, my hubby, my kids, my friends who have met her(only two). That gave that part more and more power. Now with my eft therapists tapping for me, even when I cannot, and standing up to my mother aspects, when I still cannot, there is some real thinking going on about maybe I might find a way to some day not be afraid of what that mother aspect will do to me, though even as I type it, I feel scared and like I must now run and hide and start begging for safety. Holk on tapping now. wait. wait.WEll see i should go now. I need to go now. but i will talk and tap and try to help us now. sorry

Oneandthensome

The reason your therapist is not afraid of your mother part, although may not necessarily like the way she is being spoken to by her is that she knows she is NOT your mother.  She is a part of you who believed whatever it was that your mother said to her and believed she was bad, and to blame. This part develops so she can maintain the relationship with her mother.  It becomes easier to blame yourself than blame the mother, especially if you are being told its all your fault.  Your therapist will probably have a pretty good idea what you went through by hearing this part repeat the language that was used on you without you having to tell her yourself.  She will also be feeling honoured that you feel safe with her to share all this and your parts  feel safe enough with her to come forward in this way.

I have written privately to you but want to share this information with anyone else who saw your post and would wonder or worry about what is happening.  This is a taste of what life is like with DID for people.  There is also some advice on how we can use EFT for this challenge.

One of the main, and most challenging truths people with DID need to realise is that all parts developed to help them survive the trauma they went through and the fact they are still and functioning so well in many ways are due to this.

It has to be acknowledged though that the function of some of these alters seems on the surface to be less than helpful and sometimes can feel terrifying to both the person and their family and loved ones.  It can be very hard to meet or dialogue with these parts when we are convinced they want to kill or destroy us and everything we hold dear to us.

Most people with DID have alters which represent the trauma and abuse they endured.  These alters, 'the persecutors' are personalities which formed from the original trauma.

Because of what happened to them and the messages they were given many with DID believe they are bad, dangerous or evil.  This is not helped when the general public and even our own families believe the same to be true due to lack of understanding of what is happening and why!   

Its very common for abusers to tell children they are bad and deserve to be punished.  The  children internalise these messages and believe themselves to be bad or evil and may go as far as to perpetrate violence on themselves.  It certainly appears to try to sabotage things.  Generally these alters are rarely allowed to emerge.

An understanding of DID helps us to see that although each part feels separate, and may as Bold Alter explained in another post, need to be seperate for a long time, they are indeed a part of the whole person who has had to fragment and compartmentalise for survival.

There is much more information on all of this to be found in the excellent book Dissociate Identity Disorder sourcebook by Deborah Bray Haddock and Amonst Ourselves by Tracy Alderman.

 

These 'parts' are referred to as interjects (characteristics of the abuser that became internalised by the abuse) and can to the abused person feel like the abuser still lives with them,  These parts can be frustrating to both therapist and client as they appear to be halting the progress made.

These parts may be trying to protect the individual from danger perceived from the outside world, but if they operate from a distorted sense of reality, they often ‘protect’ in ways that do not make sense.  They may also be trying to protect the individual from the toxic shame of being defective in some way in comparison to others, particularly if someone has been singled out in a family to be abused.  They may appear grandiose at times or attacking as a means of insulating the DID person from the outside world,  These parts may emerge when the individual feels threatened, perhaps trying to silence the person to prevent secrets from being exposed.

All parts can be thought of as protectors with some having a very distorted view of reality.

Where EFT can be helpful is in helping the individual with feelings of fear or revolt, disgust, hatred or dread of this ‘monster’ or abuser part. 

The goal is to learn to accept that there is something challenging occuring, any change or planned change of previously held behaviours can cause a problem for the system.  If we are not scared of the parts and learn to view them with compassion and help them to understand the reality of now, we can do much to stabilise the whole system and prevent self inflicted harm.  Again the main person has to learn to appreciate the function and reassure the parts that it is over, and they never have to or can possibly go back there again!  

 

I find that by getting the main person to imagine the 'monster' who is trying to kill them they at first feel such fear so we tap on the fear of the 'monster', although I do affirm I believe all parts are trying to help.  Sometimes they have to put the 'monster' behind a screen or a cage.  As the main person taps on their fear it becomes less scary to see the monster and often then they find that instead of a monster is a little girl or boy who had to take on the energy to survive and is very confused and afraid, dialogue can eventually take place, along with tapping. 

 

Remember we can all be terrified of an angry 4 year old.  They can have such power!  And if we are afraid of our children, this makes them more insecure and act out more, they take on more power that they do not want.  Any child would rather be safe, loved and secure than have to scream and swear and threaten to have her needs met. 

 

That part needs help to see that although perhaps this was needed to survive and to make sure they are not hurt so badly again, that time is over now and they can find a different way to do things and that no one can hurt them and make them feel so powerless anymore.  An adult has many more resources now, including being able to walk away, leave, phone a friend, phone for help etc.  Its a form of inner parenting where the strong calm parent voice has to let a child know when behaviour is not acceptable.

 

I wish you all the best in going through this challenging stage of acknowledgement and acceptance of this part which has held so much power.  I am sure she will be relieved to not have to handle all this for you anymore. Its a big job for a little girl.  To big a job!  I am glad you know you have the tapping to hlp you through this and that you feel you can talk and tap and help yourself.

 

Gill

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gill,

wow.

Thank you for that amazing post. I'll add a few choice statement: but please remember, I don't have any medical or psychological training, this is just EFT knowledge and (what i hope is) pure love passed along.

Even though this part of me (here you can add what the part is doing, or feeling, or saying, or perhaps just don't add anything, it's just a tentative step in acknowledging that you are fragmented), I choose. (i was going to add what to choose, but I think step 1 should be just to establish that the parts exist, and that there may one day be an option to have a choice. So I didn't add in what that choice is. That will come of its own. First, that there may be an option to make choices. Currently that is not really believed. You don't have to believe the tapping script below for it to be effective. In fact, it's designed as if you don't believe it at all.)

Even though this part of me, I choose.

Even though this part of me is doing all these things, I choose, I choose, I choose.

Even though, this part of me, this part of me, this part of me. I choose.

I choose (tap all the points). This part of me. (tap all the points). I choose. (tap all the points). This very scared part of me. (tap all the points). I choose. (tap all the points). I choose (tap all the points). This part of me, who is very scared. (tap all the points). I choose. (tap all the points). I choose (tap all the points). I choose (tap all the points).

Even though, this part of me, this part of me, this part of me, even though this part of me, this part of me, this part of me, this part of me. Oh How Iove this part of me.

no i don't (tap on a point for each phrase)

yes i do

I'll never love it

i do. i do already.

these parts! I hate them! I hate them! I can't anymore! I can't! I can't!

what i have been through

what we have been through

these parts

oy

these parts

poor things!

BAD things! I hate you!

(keep going for as long as you want, expressing hopes, fears, choices, dreams, honoring what the part has been through, and the damage it has caused to the other parts!, the pain, the sadness of having parts. The idea with this part of the tapping is to keep alternating between expressing the pain and believing that a change might happen, supporting the parts that are looking for something different; acknowledging the grief and why it's important to NOT change, while also adding why it would be a shame to stay stuck.)

Even though this part exists, I choose to handle it with love and care.

Even though this part persists in persecuting me, I choose to be a person who absorbs only love.

Even though I can't anymore, I choose to find ways to increase the love in my life.

love Rachel

Gillian, Thank you for your instructive helpful and supportive post. 4 agrees with alot of what you say, and the rest of us do to. But I think I am safe to clarify some things about me. I was diagnosed several years ago. Now, everyone, you will hear different timeframes on when I was diagnosed, that has to do with my refusal to HEAR it when I was given that diagnosis. But it did really happen about 3 years ago. Amazing my time confusion on that and many things. Which takes me to the next thing: I identify my "parts" well, NO THEY IDENTIFY themselves by their age, 4 is 4, 46 is me, 46, 13 is 13. The only ones that seem to get confused about their ages are 8, 11, and 12. 9 and 10 have yet to present themselves, but I know they must be there because most every year of my part has had more than one "part" and it has been 20 plus years of therapy off and on that has helped me to move past enough of the trauma's that I can come back more fully into myself. I was diagnosed once with hundred of parts. I don't know, I think of aspects as different than Alters, like aspects are small pieces pretty easily fused ONCE they are found. Alters are the ones that operate and I am still figuring them out. But now I know, because of the events of the last few rough days that my 20 plus years of "agoraphobia" and panic attacks has been ALL About my did. I have tried every way to "fix" my panic and anxiety. HA! No luck. It is figuring out WHO is panicing, screaming at me, terrified etc that allows me to heal that panic episode. So this path I am just beginning and it is a big shift in how I see how to handle my panic and agoraphobia. The monster mother and big stick (ok these two do not identify themselves by age) really run the show in my life. I did NOT realized this until someone said to me "You are in charge, you are one person, just (I LOVE that word "Just" when I have DID) create for them a safe place and tell them that you will be in charge and they don't have to be scared."  I thought that person was suddenly speaking Latin! Just Just Just. Good God, what an idiot. If I could "JUST" I WOULD!!!!~  But it caused me to think differently about all of this. Those two really mean scary ones do run the show, they sit quiet as long as I follow their rules. That is what you all read from me the other night. I started to think about not having to be afraid of them any more, to see that I might really be able to stand up to them and then.....Rough Night. But I am so much better now. I know there will be more rough things, I am still afraid of driving, but I just think differently in a way I never have before and I think that seeing the Alters, Knowing they really are calling the shots, allowed me to begin to think that I can change the way I handle them. I hear them now. as Separate from the me who does not like this terrorizing, who would like to not be bullied and badgered into submission any more. I get what you are saying, talk back to them, and more than that, open a dialogue, question them, question their logic or threats or abuse.  My husband has said this to me for 16 years. I never got what he meant, just went right over my head, FOG. What did that mean to "talk Back" was he Crazy??? Well now I get it, or am beginning to. The parts of my mind that are controlled by the fear and the part that terrorize are PARTS. Man I am rambling, this is probably basic stuff for most of you, but this is reallllyyyy NEW to me, realllyyyy important for me to understand, it is all NEWS to me!! To LOTS of us. I'm exhausted! My brain is trying to make sense of so much, there is much discussion and confusion and all sorts of things happening. I know, I am talking to much. I apologize if I am rambling out loud to much, but here is the first place I can do this OUT Loud.

oneandthensome.

Rachel, Those are all very good. I appreciate your posting them. EFT helps so much and when it gets bad it is the best thing I can do for myself. I will use more of these statements because it felt helpful just to read through them. It was nice of you to give your time and post them. Gillian as well, gives us such great time and support. Thank you all. I am really glad to find a place that does seem safe for sharing about who I am and this journey. Wishes for joy to all of you, Oneandthensome.

Rachel

Thank you!

Gill

Oneandthensome

What great progress.  Yes it is rough, I have had a rough week too.  You see I can research this, logically understand, just as you and 4 understood SOME of it, but it doesn't make it any easier to face the monster or believe they are acting in our best interests, in the parameters of their experience and beliefs.

I will share openly today I met my 'monster'.  I had to observe her at first hand being viewed by others through a one way mirror in a psych ward, she looked crazy, dishevelled, dirty, but after some tapping I realised that I didn't trust the people looking at her through the mirror, they were just looking, observing, not helping at all, just making sure she didn't harm herself but no offer of support or understanding of why she is in such a bad state. (pretty much what happened to my sister in psych, couldn't even go to the toilet in privacy) so I guess I was also working through that part.  

Then I threw the guys out, I knew what she needed and I was having no nonsense.  First she needed privacy, curtains drawn, and a hot shower and clean clothes.  She was terrified, scared, alone, confused and mad as hell and justified in that!  But then I got such a strong sense that I was safe to go in with clothes and she smiled and hugged me and we sat for a while,  We have not dialogued yet, but I sensed we needed to leave there, plus my time was up!!, There was no comfort in this place, so we opted to go for a spa session. Interestingly a spa I had created during a magical EFT session with Carna Zacharias Miller, as part of my inner sanctuary.   That has meaning to me as this is where a friend took me to comfort me after my mum died, and I then took another sister.

Please bear in mind we were tapping through all of this and for some very painful emotions that were coming up, so much reflected in my sisters experience and what I feared may have happened to me.  It also reflected the struggles I have had to find empathetic therapy.   But I got there:)  

Strange thing is I am going to a spa this weekend, so I guess she can soak her weary, aching, bruised body along with me and soon we will talk and I will hear her story.

I worked with Betty Moore Hafter and she is quite wonderful.  Although not a specialist in DID she understands all about parts and values highly the power of the subconcious.  For this kind of work it is so wonderful.

My sense of peace is so strong.  

Fusion of many fragments of parts is easy, but these tough ones who have been keeping us going, they need so MUCH healing.  I know its hard to see them with compassion sometimes, but believe me I have compassion for them, even though at times its hard to be compassionate for myself:)  But thats the way it goes.

Rachels tapping statements will be very helpful for you.  There are so many wonderful creative ways of using EFT to heal these wounds.  And I can tell you, they work:)

Gill

 

 

hi, yes...it...can...be...a...constant...
struggle...with...the...where...or...we...
can...focus...on...the...when...and...who...
us...and...act...on...that...here...now!

peace&love...

I posted this recently on my blog.  It's helped me explain my dissorder to other people.  Maybe it will help? See, I kept waiting to be normal and being frustrated when it didn't happen the way i expected.  Until I realized......

I had a unique thought about dissociation today.  Many of my friends know I recovered from severe dissociative fragmentation (DID) a few years ago.  But there have been people who haven’t understood that recovery means learning the operating manual, not learning a different way of operating.  I liken it to different models of car.  All of them get you down the road, but the way in which they do it is different.  My brain developed with a different operating mechanism than other people when I was an infant.  It took me a long time to realize that and accept that I would always be different but I could be cohesive and function better. 

 

Kirsten

Thank you for sharing this.  I have been away for the weekend so could not reply sooner.  You are not different, you are whilst a unique individual, displaying a natural and very common mechanism, which makes you different from those who do not have it, but not worse because of it!

Understanding and appreciating the mechanism is perhaps the most important goal of therapy, not 'curing' it. 

I got a wonderful email from a psychotherapist using EFT for DID today. '

'I have no personal experience with severe dissosiative symptoms regarding my own personal life, but the mechanisms are easily understood as a part of being a human being.'

That sums up all my research.  Dissociation is a normal part of being a human being in certain circumstances.  A very creative and wonderful human being at that:) 

I am at present compiling a list of all the many positive benefits of this condition, excellent multi-tasking being one of them!

I have just listened to one client tell me horrific trauma whilst I tapped for her, and then all come to order quickly to become the main person for her husband coming back for lunch.  I know she will do it too.  What a talent! 

Its what helped me bury my sister on the Tuesday, put my 57 year old mother in a nursing home on the Friday, start a full time job doing something I never had done before on the Monday and carry it off faultlessly to be told I was the best they had ever had.  Its what it helps us do, perform brilliantly under the worst circumstances.  I think it is a very wonderful talent.  Without it very important jobs in my life would not/could not have been done and now I have the time to deal with it, I can now allow it to come up for healing.  Very efficient I think:)

Gill

"I am at present compiling a list of all the many positive benefits of this condition, excellent multi-tasking being one of them!"...

 

 Marvelous-ness...is...a...foot!

 

peace&love...vern

Kriss that was perfectly put:  I've also discovered since then that the parts don't want to *have* their beliefs restructured by any type of energy. They want to see, meet and harmonize with any energy in their vicinity then come to an agreement,

I appreciate being able to read your posts, everyone's posts. But you seem to be on the healing side of this.

Vern, I really do agree with you on this. I find my struggle though is that I am amazingly creative. Now I know that is bragging and I feel the rush of fear for doing it, but I don't mean it as bragging. I get that as a child I was way too insightful. I could sing, write poetry, tell lots of tall tales, imagination running amuck. I do like that I can multi-task, but I would like to develop the ability to really focus more. Calming myselves down. I still sing and I am actually trying to write some of my stories down, but I have no confidence in myself to develop them fully, atleast I am finally getting them out of my head, maybe that will help some of the chatter. Singing always helps me to feel better and tapping is becoming more of a daily thing even if only for a minute or two, atleast I am doing some. I just hope with time I find a way to organize all of my multi tasking!!!!

I hope you are doing well. I hope everyone reading the post is doing well! Happy fourth of July, may you have a cool weekend. I also will add that I

Thank you! I do feel on the healing side, finally! I also think what happened, and why EFT *does* help some people with DID is that as a child, extreme circumstances caused me to flip inner energetic switches. First with outside stimuli, like turning off that I cared about say, watching birds fly by (this done to please an abuser). Then turning off the switch that said I could smile spontaneously when pleased, then to parents (or probably that came before), and on down the line until finally I turned of the switch to myself--my core self. That is what I am working on healing. I think that EFT does help to turn switches back on, where the energy is blocked. But since I have such primal switches turned off, I need to find other ways. Also the act of switching back on can be very disruptive. Love & Light: Kriss