Last night, I integrated a big part of myself. This was the wounded little girl who had such a fit this week, but she is so much more than that. This is HUGE. This is Annie, the part that “went to sleep” when I was in the height of the abuse. This was the original child.
Here’s the really disorienting part – From the time I was a baby, I was called Annie. My name on my birth certificate is Faye Anne, and my mother/abuser’s name is Faye. So, my parents (and everyone else) called me Annie. After experiencing some particularly severe trauma, Annie went to sleep, and I woke up as “not Annie.”
Everyone kept calling me Annie, and I could not figure out why. Not one ounce of me related to this name, and I HATED this name. I took a standardized test and learned that my full name was actually Faye Anne, so I insisted upon being called Faye from that moment on. I have related to the name Faye with no internal connection whatsoever to the name Annie ever since … well, until therapy when I came to realize that Faye was a host alter part. Since she integrated, I have related to Faith more than anything else but have people continue to call me Faye to avoid widespread social confusion and explanations.
So, last night, Annie integrated, and it will be interesting to see what the day brings. I already feel different, the biggest difference being my first connection with the name Annie since I was a little kid. If I ask myself, “Who am I?,” there’s a connection to the name Annie again. Not a 100% connection, but that’s OK – there’s some connection now where there was none before. My belief in reincarnation has helped me not to get too disoriented based upon a name. My name changes with each incarnation.
Here’s the really cool part – I now have access to a bunch of childhood memories that I had “forgotten.” I took a mental tour of my childhood house last night and remembered things with vivid detail that I have not remembered in decades, such as where the closets where, the weird décor by the front door, etc. I remember where we put the Christmas tree and that my room was yellow before it was pink. I even remember some happy times with my father and even my mother, which was a real blessing. Apparently, when Annie went to sleep, she repressed the happy stuff along with the bad.
I am going to take it easy today because this is a huge step in healing for me. I have been through other integrations before, and it’s disorienting. I am no longer the “me” I thought I was. I am more truly “me,” but I have to adjust to who that is exactly. What gets interesting is that other people will have to adjust as well, but it will probably be a while before I talk with anyone about it. One or two friends read my blog sometimes, so they might learn about it here, which is fine. If they do, I hope they mention it to me offline so I have someone to talk with about it face to face. If I feel the need, I’ll schedule an appointment with my therapist, too.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
This is wonderful news, Faith. I’m really pleased for you, and hope the adjustment period to the difference the integration will make will be swift and (as far as is possible) unpainful.
Sending kudos and good thoughts to you
Pan x
Thanks for sharing and good effort!
Faith,
This is great news to hear and it’s comforting too for me as I didn’t really understand the phenomena for myself. It just hadn’t dawned on me that I was experiencing integration. Ahhhhh and yes seriously disorienting.
Can you recommend any biography’s written by abuse survivors?
Thanks!
Not being flip here. You are reading one now.
Thank, Michael. I had not even thought about my story being a biography, but DUH!!
Karen — Click on “Faith Allen’s Story” at the top of the blog to read my biography. :0)
- Faith
Two I like are Obsidian Mirror and Switching Time. Switching Time is written from the therapist’s point of view, but the patient helped edit the book. The writing in Obsidian Mirror isn’t as good, but the experiences feel much more immediate because they are told from the subject’s point of view.
You can go on Amazon to read reviews and see if either one of these are a good fit for you. Personally, I’m triggered by Christianity, and there are many memoirs I choose not to read because of this. Some of those might (or might not) be a better fit for you.
i can recommend tiger, tiger
(((FAITH!!)))
So happy for you! This sounds totally cool and exciting! I’m also sensing that you will become more and more grounded in your life as a result and more compassionate with yourself. It’s so great that you have a larger view of your past and are remember good stuff too. This can only make your core self stronger.
It will be interesting to know how it might affect your sister and her memories and healing. Sometimes all it takes to jog someone’s else’s memories is just to say something like, “do you remember that goofy green lamp by the TV?” or whatever.
Wow. So so happy for you. Congratulations Faith and Annie.
Peace,
mia
Wow! That’s huge! Good work!
Hope getting adjusted to the “new you” goes as smoothly as possible.
Thanks for sharing, gives us hope.
Bay
How does it happen? I listened while you were in so much pain, but how did it turn into integration?
BA,
This is such a great question… Makes me sort of wonder also. Maybe a future blog post at some point.
Ditto, I have the same question! I do not have any idea what ‘integration’ means in practice. Maybe I’ve already done some of it, I just don’t know! When I remembered the trauma done to my 11-12 year old self, the terrible agonizing pain she had been holding in her womb melted away and I no longer suffer from it, would such physical changes be part of integration do you think? Anyway, Faith, well done and I kind of have an image of you with your arms and whole body wrapped around poor wounded Annie now who is sleeping a proper, regenerating sleep rather than the sleep of terror she has been locked in until now x
@ Ax
“I kind of have an image of you with your arms and whole body wrapped around poor wounded Annie now who is sleeping a proper, regenerating sleep rather than the sleep of terror she has been locked in until now!”
That is a beautiful image and a great way of describing it!
I was glad to read this update Faith, I discovered your story yesterday and was shocked and saddened to read what youve been through so I’m really happy youre making such good positive step towards healing.
The way it works for me is I integrated by experiences my whole life. Some experiences were “integrated” in this body by being stored in the place in my brain that stores traumatic memories. Think a child that is learning to walk and when they fall down it does not matter. At some point the child falls and gets hurt and “learns” that this hurts. That falling down hurts is stored as a traumatic memory. The conscious mind then prevents falling down when it can.
When I process memories in the now they come from the place where traumatic memories are stored into my consciousness. The moment that the memories start to come into my consciousness I integrate my life in a different way. Over time they are processed and they become just a memory. I do not forget them I just do not relive them. I could if I needed to as some point there is no need.
This process is painful physically and emotionally I learned to trust that now when I process it is better for now. In a way learning that when I fell it hurt but that was part of learning.
During the processing many things happen one is I get mixed up that is when there are some of us out and about with others that they have not been with before, it is different than being confused which also happens. . Another thing that can happen is my brain does not work right it is over taxed not by the memories rather than the effort of processing. It feels like my brain is drained.
Some where in the process we have a sense that one of us is done processing. That is when I can grieve there is an saying good-bye to part of us that is now in the past. For some reason they need to go away and be separate before they can go in the past. During this separate time we are all aware of them and what they accomplished. We are then sad they ever had to be. Sadder than sad and we do not think we can take it. Then we notice that they are back. We call it that they are now in our heart. Over time we notice that things are different.
There were many wrong turns where the pain of falling did not result it any learning. Most notably cognitive therapy, DBT ect and some of us believing that what was told to us about us was true. It was not until someone listened in psychoanalysis and expressive therapy that we could all start listening to ourselves. Someone who understood they did not understand and that we had experienced things that did not fit what they had learned. Much as a child is not “taught” to walk I could not be “taught” how to process I had to discover. What I discovered that I had to process was horror. Nothing for it I did not choose it.
It is a long non linear process my brain had to over time change and we had to deal with the changes.
In a real way we worked on the trauma and the multiplicity took care of itself. An adaptation to the now.
It is all about choices. The choices that were made for me. My therapist does not make choices for me other than when necessary within the context of a psychoanalytic relationship.
.
You still make more sense to me than you can know. There is so much I need to integrate so I am not held back by it, but the pain and the fear of not surviving it holds me back. They are things that I know, but do not want to believe to be true.
Hey Elaine,
I am glad you are working on your trauma.
I do not accept your or anyone else’s limitation on what I can or can not know and it irks me.
Just so you know I well understand I make sense after all I am writing about me.
I almost fell out of my chair this morning when I saw the title of your post. I’m going through the exact same thing – a big integration which finally came about starting yesterday afternoon. This has been coming for a long time – it involves one of the only parts I’ve ever named – the Rag Doll.
I have name issues, too. It’s one reason I reacted so strongly when someone put my real name up on a blog, recently. Most of the parts of me are nameless and I only refer to them by their age.
As off-kilter and disorienting as this is, I know you’ll be okay. We both will. As you said, you are more YOU than ever. congrats on bringing home another one.
Listening in awe…
I am so extremely pleased for you.
This is an amazing experience of growth.
Faith,
I am so happy to hear that this is occurring for you and for Annie’s sake. I hope that you will be able to sit with the varied/various emotions that undoubtedly will arise (I would think the full spectrum from grief to joy) from this deep integration; but mostly, I hope that it brings both you and Annie a stronger feeling of peace.
Take care,
wtr
This just made my day.
Faith, I am sooooo happy for you! Thank you fo sharing, and congratulations!
I’m so happy to hear this. Well done Faith and Annie!
I am so happy to hear this, and I look forward to continue getting to know you.
Congratulations and kudos! And thank you so much for writing about this.
I too would be very interested in reading more about your integration, how it happened, and what it’s meant for you since.
I’m particularly interested in your ‘new’ memories. I don’t have alters (that I’m aware of), but I have very very few memories of my childhood, and almost no memories of ‘types’ of events, particularly around subject areas where I have my biggest triggers: bathing, dressing, meals, almost anything to do with working in the kitchen or certain types of housework. I only have two memories of ‘bedtime’, and one of those is a ‘flash’-type memory of the colour and texture of my bedspread – nothing more. I have no memories of eating breakfast or morning routines until the age of 14. I’ve been told that I probably won’t be able to retrieve any memories, which in itself is terrifying. But something inside me doesn’t believe that’s entirely true, because every so often I get ‘flashes’ of memories that I had forgotten; always innocuous things but they tell me there is more stored there than I currently have access to. So I was fascinated, and so happy for you, to read that you retrieved all kinds of forgotten memories (especially the happy ones) that were vivid and clear, and that you were able to take a tour around your old house.
I’m wondering, did these memories and your ‘tour’ just come up spontaneously, or did you remember one thing and then consiously decide to explore to see what else you could remember?
Also, are these memories new only for Faith, or were they suppressed up until now for Annie as well?
I hope you’re taking good care of yourself, and thanks again for sharing this with us.
Birdfeeder,
When I read “I’ve been told that I probably won’t be able to retrieve any memories” I became very angry. Not at you at who ever thinks they know what you can and can not do.
I am to angry to write.
Michael
Hi Michael,
I just wanted to say thank you for your earlier post – particularly the paragraph that started “There were many wrong turns where the pain of falling did not result i[n] any learning.”
That has been exactly my experience so far, and I got a lot of validation from your post.
The things that have caused me the most difficulty in life are the very things the many therapists I’ve had have always looked away from and been reluctant to touch. My shame around them has, I believe, been made much worse than necessary because I so easily picked up my therapists’ reticence to even look at them; I just put them away out of sight and mind. So of course they only ever got worse, and stronger.
So I particularly appreciated reading what you had to say about the wrong turns. Thank you for that.
I ‘searched’ ‘integration’ as a keyword to read what you’ve written about it before Faith (doing my homework!) and found a link you included to a really good article on the Sidran website. I love the way that the writer explains she couldn’t do many things in her life before integrating, because she couldn’t trust that she would stay an adult, whereas now she can. You’ve described so well over the past days the difficulties we face when unintegrated child personalities come out, and I have the same feelings as you have (I think) of wanting to give them a voice, feeling I can’t help them, then finding a way, processing it. However I know i am – despite over ten years healing work – early in this process as I have so much dissociative amnesia still and definitely can’t trust myself to live in the present as an adult 100% of the time; I am always negotiating or battling with inners, trying to hear them out, etc. I just hope I’ll find a therapist and/ or a process to get me to the point the writer of the Sidran article has reached, and you are clearly further along that path too – not that it’s a race!
I’m so glad you’re one more chunk more whole, Faith.
SDW
Michael- I never doubted that you make sense to yourself in relating your own experience. What I meant to convey is what I said before, I “relate” in some odd way to how you express yourself. It seems familiar to me in some way. My belief has always been that everyone is their own best expert on themselves. That is the issue that makes me totally irate at times- I don’t like it when anyone tries to impose their interpretations on anyone else. It is somehow the utmost of disrespect and invalidation- like above when Birdfeeder said that she had been told that she probably won’t recover any memories. That stuff is so awful. Most of my pain/trauma in life has been through invalidation by people I gave too much power to and came to believe them over myself. It is sort of like a non-physical way of allowing someone to kill you. But we all seem to do it so easily. Or maybe not everyone is that way, but I know that has been my issue and the one I find in so many people that I deal with. I can go through long periods of time where no one could knock me off my feet psychologically, but when I am in times of experiencing increased vulnerability, I tend to be very susceptible to feeling invalidated and losing myself. That is the “part” of me- although different than the kind of parts that many of you have that seeks healing and integration, so it doesn’t pop up and sabotage me. There are types of “switching” that those of us who are not multiple in the sense of DSM criteria experience, and it is very painful to experience one’s life being taken over by something that feels uncontrollable, and yet have total awareness of what is happening.
Hey Elaine,
I make sense outside of my personal experience and it matters little to me if you or any one else doubts it or not. If most did or all did than it would be an issue.
Singletons do not switch at all. Common mistake not being able to imagine it is totally different.
Physically being assaulted is different in a meaningful way than being “disrespected or invalided” Having been physically assaulted seems to change the dynamic of being disrespected or invalidated.. This is not a mistake that most people make.
In my opinion the DSM only has a use for insurance companies.
I know what it is like to seem to have everything about me chance- the way I think, feel, act and look at the world. It feels like it is being “not me.” But I know what is going on too. Maybe it is like or not like you, but if feels very helpless to me too.
Balancing Act- Everyone experiences things differently. If the ways you experience yourself as being “not you” cause you distress, they are always things that can be worked on. However you are feeling at any moment is valuable because it gives you more information about yourself. Sometimes I like not feeling “like me” because in those moments I feel like I’m doing better that is “normal” for me. Other times, the “not me” feelings limit me more because I feel very anxious or hurt, or helpless, and in those times it is hard for me to act like a grown up functional me. So I keep working on those things.
Michael- I am glad that you do not worry whether something makes sense to someone else or not. I was simply saying that often what you say resonates with me. I was thinking about this at church this morning, regarding how every once in awhile I will hear a preacher who says something in a sermon that resonates with me- i.e. inspires, spurs my own thinking, etc. Most of the time i do not find that. So simply commenting that I often find things that you say tend to resonate with me. Similar to when someone else said she felt affirmed by some of what you say.
We are all on our own paths toward whatever healing we need. When I contribute to this blog it is from the perspective of just another person trying to heal. Of course my experience is different than yours, or Faith’s or anyone else here. Others on this blog have also expressed that they do not have DID, or consider themselves multiple, but they are also here trying to heal.
My experience, or anyone else’s does not take away from yours. All of our experiences need to be allowed to be heard without being invalidated, or this is not a safe place for any of us.
There is no attempt to compare here.
I agree that the DSM is for the purpose of insurance companies, and also perhaps short hand speak between clinicians. The problem with diagnostic manuals is that they tend to be written by people who only see what someone goes through from the outside, and often feel very invalidating by the actual people trying to heal. And of course the DSM only speaks in terms of observable behaviors. It can never speak to anyone’s internal reality.
That is essentially true of all of us. I cannot speak for anyone else’s subjective experience, and no one can speak for mine. The best we can offer anyone is to listen respectfully.
Elaine,
I reject your explanations and instruction as not credible..
Journey on
Michael
It is time to stop now Michael. I do not invalidate your experience here, or when you sought me out individually. You already said distinctly to me that you do not care about my healing. Please take up your agenda with the people who really hurt you.
Now you are just making things up.
I never sought you out I wrote you specifically to try and persuade you not to treat anyone as a therapist who has experienced RA as I felt and feel you would likely do harm. That was my purpose and I stated it a such and that in that context I was not concerned with your healing.
You do not have the power to invalidate or validate me.
Your assumption that what I write is somehow related to those people that really hurt me is bullshit. My agenda was to not let your non-credible statements stand with out rebuttal.
What an amazing post! It’s wonderful that you recovered some positive memories in the process.
Lothlorien