On my blog entry entitled Recovery from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a reader posted the following question:
Can you explain terms like ‘core host personality in more detail? ~ Jolson
I got the term host personality from Chrystine Okasana’s book Safe Passage to Healing. Here is an excerpt from that book (page 115):
Some survivors develop an alter to function more or less steadily in day-to-day life. This self typically has no awareness of the abuse and may be known as the host. The host, too, feels overwhelmed. In the November/December 1992 issue of The Sciences, Dr. Frank W. Putnam writes:
“Typically, the host is depressed, anxious, rigid, frigid, compulsively good, conscience-stricken…and suffers any number of physical symptoms, most often headaches. Host personalities usually feel overwhelmed by life, at the mercy of forces far beyond their control. In many cases a host is either unaware of the alter personalities or, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, strongly denies their existence.”
I was not overly wild about the term “host personality,” but since this is terminology known in some DID circles, I have adopted this label for Faye, who was my host personality.
The term “core” is all my own, and I used it because I have not yet found a label used in DID circles to describe what I mean by this. If anyone is familiar with a commonly used label for what I describe below, please let me know.
My experience is that I had numerous alter personalities and personality fragments (well into the hundreds) who “hid” behind the “mask” of the host personality. However, there was still a continuity within my spirit, which is what I call the core. My “switching” was always seamless with the appropriate alter part coming out at the appropriate time to handle any given situation. I believe my core was the glue that held all of these parts together.
As I began integrating these formerly “frozen” parts (which I define as loving and accepting each part as “me”), they “melted” back into one “body of water” inside. That body of water is what I refer to as my core. My host personality “melted” into this core, my inner child Annie awakened and melted into the core, and numerous other alter parts also “melted” into the core. Today, I feel like the majority of myself is in this core, with numerous formerly separate parts now interwoven and working together as one (like pouring a bucket of salt water back into the ocean). My core is now the part I view as “me.”
I still have alter parts that I need to “melt” through love and acceptance. They hold frozen memories and emotions that I have yet to process. As I heal them, those parts will join the core. If I live long enough to work through it all, then all that will be left inside is one core – nothing is lost, and all parts are now part of one big ocean.
Photo credit: Amazon.com
Hi, first time here. There are three of us. Inner child-Savannah, Self-(teenager) and me (adult self) Renee. Self and I are like two pieces of paper put together, you think you see one person but if you look at the paper on its side you see “us” two -in- one! We like it this way because Renee can get help in a moments notice. The child wants to come out and sometimes Self wants her to but it is to dangerous for her because she gets abused and hurt. So it is our job to keep her safe and we like it this way. Sometimes Self and I get into arguements because she wants free time, yeah right she is wild and care free. But that is how we function and though this week has been rough we do like it this way.
Thanks,
Renee and girls
For over three years I’ve been working with my therapist using a process called DNMS (Developmentle Needs Meeting Strategy). Before we could begin this process I had to imagine (or find) what DNMS refers to as “The Resources”. These are three aspects of self . In this process, these aspects of self are called The Nurturer, The Protector and The Spiritual Core Self.
I identified (whether you want to call it found or created) these parts by associating past experiences with the labels. For instance, to identify The Nurturer, I concentrated on times when I had been nurturing with my own children. Since I knew I was capable of nurturing through these past experiences, I could isolate this part of me and focus on “her” until she became like a real parent – to be used for the reparenting process.
I had the most trouble with the “Spiritual Core Self” because spiritual abuse was part of my past. God was not allowed in our home and while some people who don’t accept any religion or God might not see this as abusive, it was really just another way of isolating me, of keeping me from having any connection even to an inner spiritual guide.
Since I had an immediate and wickedly strong reaction to any words associated with religion or spirituality, I had a hard time bringing myself to think of any aspect of myself as spiritual. (I’ve come so far in this… one of the biggest areas of growth I’ve attained through this process is a sense of spiritual connection).
The point of all this is that I called the third aspect of the Resources my Core for a long time before I began to bring the spiritual aspect into it. When you were writing about the Core here, I could completely relate.
I’ve written this in various places in my blog, but one thing I’ve postulated is that DID is not really about creating seperate “personalities” – at least not in the way I think of a personality. When I switch, it is always still me who is acting or reacting. It is me with one set of memories and experiences – it is how I would react in any given situation even though I may seem very different.
Because we compartmentalize memories, we are often only working with some of the truth. If I come into a situation with no knowledge of abuse or neglect, I am going to behave differently than if I come into it with full knowledge – but it is still me.
I loved the quote from the book which talked about the host. My “host” lived my life alone for about eighteen years, following the birth of my first child. She fit exactly into the description above – “depressed, anxious, rigid, frigid, compulsively good, conscience-stricken…and suffers any number of physical symptoms, most often headaches. Host personalities usually feel overwhelmed by life, at the mercy of forces far beyond their control” – thank you for a very thought-provoking and enlightening post. Sorry for the overly long comment… obviously you have me thinking.