It has come to my attention that the tone and perspective of the posts written in the DID Posts category may be mistaken or misunderstood by guests and readers.
Many of the posts about DID are written by one or more alternate personalities who prefer to use a “locked vault” system of writing. That means I (the one in charge of dealing with the outside world most of the time) am not directly involved in the creation and editing of all of them. Nor am I always the one to post the articles, re-read, edit, or check for potential miscommunications in tense, tone, or point of view (POV). And the authors do not always realize how their words and writing styles could be interpreted by our guests on the blog; especially the younger ones.
For this, we all want to apologize for any miscommunications or accidental insinuations that came from the post 2 weeks ago entitled: “DID Post: What does my internal system look like“. This post was written from the perspective of 2 alters between 10 and 12 years old with help from some of the other adults who related better to them. One alter is female; the other is male. They want everyone here to know that the post is written from the perspective of how they used the tools our therapist gave them and the process they used to get around, through, and away from many triggers that caused failure, frustration, anger, and grudging acceptance. The post is not at all about the approach or method that our therapist uses. In fact, it is the OPPOSITE of her approach in many ways.
The girl alter and the boy alter explain a bit about why they wrote what they did in that post at the end.
This will happen often with DID posts because writing a post about the DID experience is full of conflicting feelings, perceptions, attitudes, thoughts, and reactions. For many posts, there will be a “process” or “method” type post written from the perspective of the alter or alters sharing their story that focuses less on introspective feelings and thoughts and more on the steps, strategies, and tools involved. Later on, after the alters have had some down time to reflect on any changes between then and now, they might write about a similar experience with the introspective feelings and thoughts that show more of the therapist’s approach in offering strategies or homework; what their reaction was to that approach; and why they used that process. We write our posts this way because trying to incorporate process and feelings into the same post gets too messy and complicated – not to mention LONG.
IT IN NO WAY REFLECTS THE THERAPIST’S ATTITUDE, APPROACH TO WORKING WITH CLIENTS, OR POINT OF VIEW ABOUT THERAPEUTIC METHODOLOGIES.
As a reminder, I will say once again that these posts are written from my or my alters’ point of view and perception of how any one or all of us used the tools. It in no way reflects/assumes/insinuates/intimates the approach, attitude, therapeutic process, feelings, or intentions of any of the therapists written about here unless specifically noted within the article.
GIRL ALTER’S EXPLANATION OF THE POV: I spent too many years having to nag or repeatedly ask questions or do my own investigations to get answers from any female adults. The answers they gave me were evasions at best and lies at worst. Any creativity or intelligence/outside-the-box-thinking I showed got everyone in our system punished with verbal attacks, public humiliation, private beatings, bullying or increased sexual duties on top of doing my homework, by brother’s homework, laundry, housekeeping, and covering for my mom when she went into one of her moods. So yeah, I was angry and upset. I didn’t want to do the mapping exercise, but I wanted to know the rest of my family. I tried and failed so many times. I got lost in the dark. I got eaten by the monsters. I got trapped, stuck in mud holes up to my neck, dumped on, and had to relive every single punishment that came from being creative each time I tried to participate in the mapping exercise. It wasn’t until one of the other alters was passing by and stopped to help me rescue myself from the flashbacks that I understood what the mapping and communication meant to all of us. So yeah, I was pissed, angry, upset and confused. I knew there were more like me inside, but I’d never really “met” them; only hear our therapist and didn’t understand why she never talked directly to me before until I met that alter.
BOY ALTER’S EXPLANATION OF THE POV: I hated being trapped in a weak girl’s body. I was full of anger and resentment and confused about why I couldn’t be in charge all the time. I was a boy, much stronger than anyone else (not that I believed anyone else existed at the time) and exactly what mom and dad wanted. They wanted their first born to be a son not a daughter. It wasn’t a big deal until the body turned 10 years old; that’s when weird things started to happen. Instead of the penis appearing like it was supposed to according to mom, the body grew breasts and hips. And our stomach started feeling weird sometimes. I heard the therapist in session and always liked listening to her; she didn’t judge or push or force programs and lesson plans on me. She didn’t pretend I was invisible either when I talked to her. But I was in charge when I was out. And I didn’t want to give that up. I was the oldest, strongest, best and wanted everything to stay that way. The mapping exercise made the monsters come out more often and gave them ore power over me. I didn’t want or need help from the other imaginary people in here. Or that is what I thought until I got kidnapped and forced into reliving the secret rituals again. The alters who came and rescued me made time to teach me how to escape and protect myself first. That’s when I learned I wasn’t the only one there. They let me help rescue the others too; we all made it out safely. And that’s how I became part of the map. Grudgingly, with a chip on my shoulder. So yeah, that attitude was all me, not our therapist.
