I am working through a series on integration from dissociative identity disorder (DID), which begins here. I am using Rachel Downing’s article, Understanding Integration , as a starting point and then building upon what she says with my own experiences.
Downing talks about her experiences in integrating various types of alter parts. My experiences were similar, and I was immensely grateful to have this article as my guide. Since I had found so few resources to explain how to integrate various types of alter parts, this article became a wonderful roadmap for how to interact with and heal various parts of myself.
Downing talks about a “cooking girl” alter part who had been spared from the abuse. My “innocent part” was my host personality, Faye. Choosing to integrate Faye into my core was challenging because I had to accept that no part of myself had been spared from the abuse. This was a painful reality that I had to grieve. However, most of myself already knew that the abuse had happened and that I hadn’t been spared, so once Faye was integrated, I actually did not need to spend much time grieving this loss.
Downing next talks about integrating “dangerous personalities,” such as those who are aggressive toward others. I actually struggled more with parts that were dangerous toward myself. I had multiple parts that were self-destructive, such as banging my head through self-injury or fantasizing about suicide.
I believe my experience was consistent with Downing’s that integrating “dangerous” parts was immensely healing. It was easy to love the wounded child parts but not as easy to love the self-persecuting parts that told me that I deserved to suffer. I accepted that every part was me and that, for this reason, all parts were “good.”
I chose to love and accept each part no matter how much it frightened me or how much it lashed out at me. As an example, I had parts that were filled self-loathing (I called them persecutor parts). They would flood my head with messages about how worthless I was. I would tell these parts thank you for the role they served in helping me survive my childhood. I would then tell them that their anger was actually toward my abusers rather than me. I would offer to let them “kill” whichever abuser they wished through visualization. I would scroll through a mental rolodex in my head of various abusers until that part of myself attacked one. I would let the visualizations get as graphic and disturbing as they needed to.
Once a persecutor part was given the freedom to direct its anger at the source and was reassured that I loved and accepted that part, I no longer had a need to keep that part separate, and it would integrate. Because these parts of myself were some of the most wounded, my choice to love and accept them as “me” resulted in amazing healing.
I am going to continue this series next week. I apologize to those who aren’t getting much out of the topic of integration from DID, but I hope that some are finding this series useful. I would have loved to have read something similar when I was trying to figure out how to integrate from DID.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
This series has been validating and I am appreciating it.
Hi, Barbara.
Thanks for the feedback. :0)
I don’t like to talk about DID-specific topics too long because I have many readers who don’t have DID, but I thought this topic was important enough to invest this much time. I hope my other readers will bear with me. :0)
~ Faith
Faith, you have said several times how you’ve chosen to love and accept all of your parts because they are you. I’m doing a pretty bad job of that. The parts I’m aware of are like orphans. Even tho I understand that some of them exist to protect me, I find they have traits that I would run away from in other people. How to do you make the decision you did, and has it been an ongoing process, or a one-time decision that you’ve been able to stick with?
I hope my comments are not seen as opposing. I am just expressing there are different ways.
That being said. Downing was at the leading edge when she wrote this piece . Ingratiation was the “I” word at the time.
I see her now as old school. The edge being coping is not all that is possible, not dissociating is the cause of DID and multiplicity and not to be avoided and processing trauma is necessary. Pretty much some therapists now understand they do not understand and never will and that does not matter as they are therapists not the ones doing the healing.
Expressive therapy and mediation with moment replacing cognitive therapy and staying present, coping temporal as a way to do the work not the end result.. Some are still stuck in the old school. Nothing new about that.
My therapist started years ago with all are welcome here. We changed it to all are of equal importance and we do not have an parts for no good reason.
Seen in the context of when a part existed or was created is so important. I was in a cage an there were rats. My brother and I liked those rats. They were our friends. We do not need to see it as horrible as it was not. I was a prostitute . Good duty in my life at that time. Much better than the other days.
I never had dangerous parts. I had parts that took care of the suicidal programming Good thing I did. It was just a matter of finding out where they came from and what they were doing. That caused change.
I used to head bang. I discovered that going deep in the water was a better way. If I did not have water I would hold my breath until I turned blue.
I am a trained assassin. I excelled as a sniper. I did so as to try and avoid the close work, Does not mean I have the heart of a killer. I do not I just have the knowledge. In a way I am not dangerous as I know how to be real dangerous.
One way I am different is we do not tell each other anything. None of us likes to be talked at. It is about listening. None of us were good at listening or being heard. First some had some horrible things to tell second you learn to listen by being listened to and that had never happened.
Some early therapists listened for a while then they told. They explained to me that this part was that and this other part needed etc people with trauma,,, That only went so far. I need to be listened to and then not have me explained to me in the context of others.
In a way we created us and so we have the map. We used others maps for a while we abandoned that and discovered or way.
We have for the last few days come to understand that we are more groups than parts. It is an adjustment for us not for our therapist. She has never told us. We are not sure if she wanted to we would not let her. Been there done that.
We did write our therapist and tell her that it is all messed up that we are groups and not separate parts and it was her fault as she made us conform to DID and that she might not have noticed as she did not. We like it when it is all out therapists fault. She does not mind. She pretends to polish and apple meaning she is doing her job well.
I just made a decision. What I am doing will be old school in the future. I am going to make sure that nothing comes up in the future that I want to do.
I really didn’t know how integration happens, just that you’re supposed to do it, if you have parts, so this series is real helpful Faith.
Faith, I wait in anticipation each day for your blog. Although I don’t comment very often on your healing journey, please don’t think that your posts on the different aspects of integration are not helpful. I am always ready to comment and give great advice, to represent the underdog, to fight and give a voice for others but when it comes to me I am just learning to say ‘I think, I disagree, enough and can you give it a break’.
I want and enough.
I too read Rachel’s article and even spoke with her on the phone. What is missing in the article is that ALL of her alters wanted to integrate. She even says if there is one alter that does not want to integrate, this should not be pushed. Integration can be like death to some alters.
Hi, pachipres.
I view this situation differently and disagree that integration results in the “death” of an alter part. This has been my experience…
One of my “fuller” alter parts is a wolf (named Wolfie) who comes out at night to protect me while I sleep. While I succeeded in integrating hundreds of alter parts, Wolfie refused. I think that Wolfie is still partly integrated and partly separate, depending upon how I need him to be.
Wolfie did not have the power to “veto” integration of any other part or prevent me from feeling like more of a “singleton” than a “we.” The key point is that Wolfie IS me — just another part of myself. It is not “Wolfie” who doesn’t want to integrate, even thought that is how it feels. It is **I** who do not yet feel safe enough to integrate Wolfie because **I** have not yet healed the part of myself that fears being awakened during the night to be abused again.
I cannot “force” Wolfie to integrate, nor do I have the power to “kill” him off. I continue to love Wolfie and respect my need to keep him separate for now (although, as I said, I do think he is in the process of integrating). Wolfie is simply an internal representation of own own fear of being harmed while I sleep.
I do believe it can be harmful to view different parts as “him” versus “me,” and this would be an example. Just because a part does not want to integrate doesn’t mean that integration is not possible for you, but I can see how someone with DID who wants to integrate might fear having to stay an “us” forever because of the “veto power” of one alter part. That has not been my own personal experience, so I don’t want people thinking that is the case for everyone.
Each step toward loving and accepting each part of yourself as “me” or “mine” is a step toward restoration of the whole. Anyone who is healing from abuse is going to have some areas that are easier to heal and other areas that are harder to heal. I see the reluctant alter part as an internal representation of those parts of healing that are more challenging for you. Just because you might struggle in one area of healing won’t “veto” your ability to heal in other areas.
~ Faith
Pachipres,
Some alters integrating caused deep grief. This was not from the alter dying rather grief they ever had to be.
For me the term interrogation is really the end of processing the trauma in the same way. Kinda like making a putt for a million dollars. Lots had to happen to be in a position to make that putt.
Sometimes it went like this. It would start with well you can not integrate as you have not met our therapist. Then I would come to know they had. Then I would get very angry and refuse to listen. Then I explain that I can not do with out them. Then would be sadder than sad. So sad I thought I would not survive.
That is a general outline it is different each time. Go figure.
this is a quote from Michael
“all are welcome here. We changed it to: all are of equal importance and we do not have an parts for no good reason.”
This is an approach that I find resonates with me…. I recently have written:
“I love them all. I want them all. All are Acceptable to me. All are worthy to be LOVED, believed, held, protected, sheltered, kept warm & nourished. Everyone is allowed to talk, discuss, share, ask for help, expect help, expect care, grow and enjoy fun.”
No part is wrong, incorrect or faulty. We are not disposable or delete-able.
No part is wrong, incorrect or faulty. We are not disposable or delete-able.
Hey Prism,
You wrote that you were starting hydro-therapy on Tues. I can not find the comment.
I have a suggestion that you can take or leave. After hydro-therapy sleep as soon as you can an make sure you have food that is available so you do not have to do much thinking about it if you become hungry.
Something comes to mind while I read this. I wonder if the parts of people who are the hardest to accept or love are the parts of them that resisted the abuse. The parts that had to be kept down so they wouldn’t fight back or tell…. therefore perhaps the abusers directed their verbal abuse toward that part of the victim’s personality, the feisty parts… programming them to hate themselves or that part, saying that they are worthless and etc… merely to keep them down.
I’ve learned in my own research and experience that the mind believes what you tell it. That is why mantras work so well for so many people if they have the discipline to keep it up. As children we mimic what we see and we develop our sense of self by how we are treated and what we are told. Like little animals we imprint. Which is a very core and primitive and I believe involuntary process.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say here is that the fighters may be the most helpful in many ways and the most disrespected of all the personality parts. (Whether or not they are actually split off parts or just a regular part of a non splintered part) They may be the most needy in terms of love and acceptance, and the most resistant to getting it, but by no fault of our own. Again, it come down to being conditioned to feel that way or worse yet, know it as truth at least in our minds. This to me most insidious and down right vile fallout from severe abuse that makes it unforgivable. It’s crippling and pure hell to get through to the other side due to the mirroring loops and patterns and layers that our minds create over time.
Great post as always Faith. And I say to everyone, if you hear yourself saying your worthless, stop and turn it around. Find a replacement for that thought whether or not you actually believe it or feel comfortable with it. Say something like, “I’m lovable and i love myself and others”. or whatever works for you.
Good luck all, blessings to you.
m
mia – I’ll have to consider that possibility for myself. There are other parts that I think have knowledge that I’m afraid of – and find difficult to love.
Hey Barbara,
It helps me to remember when I have bad thoughts about myself that I wasn’t born thinking those kinds of thoughts, I was taught to, and they are not true.
Best wishes in your healing,
m
Hey Mia,
“Something comes to mind while I read this. I wonder if the parts of people who are the hardest to accept or love are the parts of them that resisted the abuse.”
That struck a cord with me in that those are the hardest to think of giving up. Good news is you do not have to give anything up to integrate. We had a real hard time until we understood that the Iceman did not have to be separate to be.
It also resonated with me in that I am very good at adversarial relationships. A I kinda practice what I am good at.
Micheal,
That’s really interesting. I like the name Iceman. 🙂
I have met so many people and myself included that believe we have to be doormats to be accepted or just not rejected. It’s so frustrating to know that something is wrong or off and feel unable or ill equipped to navigate how to communicate that without being a downright butt head. (Which I have been known to do when backed into a corner)
I’ve become better at it, but not where I want to be yet. I feel for people who always roll over and don’t feel they have the right to say what they need. It’s so obvious that they have been conditioned to be this way because our natural state is to want harmony. I also feel sad when I hear that a person has self deprecating thoughts because I do not believe that the thoughts are their own. I believe they are planted there and if we dig deep enough, we’ll find out who’s voice/thought that really is… and the hell of it is that those who said it don’t really believe it either, they just need US to believe it so they can continue to carry out their ugly agendas.
Anyway, I’m glad something I said connected with you.
Peace,
m
Learning to love those parts you hate, as Faith said, helped ‘me’ greatly; I did that last year over in Puerto Rico as well as making some changes in my head. Lost the ‘shame’ as well.
Unfortunately I do have some ‘parts’ that need kept under control and ‘locked away’ for good. (I mean ‘good’ in both senses of the word.) Those parts were part of a plan for dealing with nuclear warfare and an apocolyptic situation while I was a child, and appears to be (I think) something the parents had done; not really certain (a lot is dim misty memory and on our ‘recollections’ from the ‘recovery memory’ pile which we won’t disturb at all; just dust it off; we don’t beleive those ‘tales’). But apparently while we were overseas they were preparing us for nuclear war . . . just in case, and in case the parents did not survive. Again, really not sure.
I also really appreciate that theory that “these are the parts that resisted” approach. Though we did not resist the sexual abuse, not at all. We sought out the thing. It was the mental/physical/emotional and social torture and abuse thing that ‘broke us’. But ‘parts’ were built to resist soldiers; fight in a war; handle things; organize other children into units, present an active resistance . . . just a few of the things we learned. And we were ‘all’ suppose to do it ourselves. (I don’t know how familiar ya’ll are with war and things . . . but the one we anticipated was a bad one – nuclear, 1960’s-70’s period; chemical warfare and all that kind of thing.)
and yes, we can and will kill people quite readily – given the right situation. That point is just moot. We were taught to ‘defend’; however, and ‘it’ (violence and action) is only when necessary to save someone’s life or our own.
I have not been diagnosed as DID but I am finding these article very helpful nevertheless. Thank you.
Hi, Marjorie.
Thanks for the feedback. I am glad this series is helpful to some non-DID readers as well. :0)
~ Faith
“I would let the visualizations get as graphic and disturbing as they needed to.” I still have a hard time realizing that this is not something to fear because I know I would never go through with it… it is not something to run away from, it is neither good or bad it just helps…but as tempted as I am, I will never write them down.