Thoughts from a DID Systems Specialist
This article, originally written in 2010, still has important information to remember today, considering we are back to another change of season again. Can you feel or recognize any of these changes happening in your internal system this week?
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The changing of the seasons…oh, man. It’s March now. Winter is leaving. Yay. Spring is coming. Uhhh. Well, I can’t remember what happened last year or the year before or on and on but I have this internal sense of how I deal in spring. I get manic. Trying to outrun something inside. I’m glad the deep dark is going. I’m getting kinda freaked about what’s coming though.
Hi Kennedy,
I know what you are feeling. I get this way in the fall. I try to put it together with something from my past but nothing seems to fit the timeline. Yet, I get this panicked feeling in the pit of my stomach and I sense something bad is going to happen but I have no idea what. There is a sense of desperation and needing to run away. I have tried talking with my insiders but still no information on what this is all about.
Hang tight Kennedy and remember that you have all of us here to support you through this time. It is time to get all of your safety tools out to see you through this spring. I think that we both need to try and talk with our insiders and see if they will help us understand. It can’t hurt to keep asking.
Just keep coming here Kennedy. I really care about you and want to help you in any way that I can.
ME+WE
03/11/2018
ME+WE, I also get the feeling of dread in fall. Suicidal ideation sparks, wanting to flee. Also not fully sure why. We think maybe the return to school meant sleep deprivation and stress and walking to school.
Spring fever for sure, Kennedy. We were hiking 17-25 miles per week before winter set in. The universe did not like our fast pace. Too much dissociating. Not present. Lots of ankle sprains.
We will try to use our senses in the present this year.
House finch males are red already. Goldfinches are starting to yellow. Robins can be heard. The great horned owl chicks must be getting ready to show themselves. Canada geese are back. We even saw a sandhill crane! Spring! 3/12/18
Birds change colors when seasons change????? No way! That is so cool. I wish we can see them.
Elizabeth Anne, for mating purposes, male songbirds get bright and flashy to catch females’ eyes. If you can take a picture of a bird, you can put the picture into Google and it will try to identify it for you!!! Ask whoever in your system figured out your lovely kitty avatar to try this if you want to learn some birds.
Have a tweet day!
Hi T.Clark,
Say, thank you for the idea that fall meant going back to school and that, maybe, that is where your dread comes from. I was looking for a more overt trauma memory. Your comment helped me to settle down with my “expectations” (BTW … what you said in your post to “.” in another blog was spot on brilliant) of why the fall is so hard for me. So, I went back to my insiders with no expectations and opened my heart and mind to what they wished to tell me.
Turns out that the fall meant that I would be tethered to the house once more. As a youngster, I would pack a lunch in the morning and off I would go on my bike all day, usually to the park and woods not too far away. I never felt that I fit in at the house. It was not a place that was safe and welcoming for me. When the fall would come, I would sit out in the back yard between some of my favourite trees. My parent’s back yard was very big and had a little wood lot on it. I would sit there in the cold and dark and watch what was going on in the house. The lights would be on and I could see my mother making dinner in the kitchen, my dad coming in and out of the kitchen and the light on in my sister’s room. I would just sit in the cold and darkness watching a life that I did not belong to knowing that eventually they would figure out that I was not there and would call me inside. I dreaded being called inside because then I could not be myself.
ME+WE
03/13/2018
What a poignant memory, ME+WE. If it was anyone’s responsibility to help us find our place and make it safe, it was our caregivers. What would you tell that Little you if you could visit that wood now? Would you offer a hand to hold? Would you watch the house together? Play? Maybe you can stay outside longer now when you think about it. You never have to go inside now! You’re free! 3/13/18
Hey Me+We,
I’m so glad we met and are friends. Our friendships here are what will make huge differences in how well we can get through tough times, ya know? I spent years and years in isolation and all I can say about that is I am so glad we are not there anymore.
I’m looking forward to shorts weather! What’s in like in Canada right now? Today will be around 70 F. 🙂 I’m thinking ’bout breaking out the grill and bbqing a steak. Yummy Nummers.
Hi Kennedy,
I am so honoured and humbled to be counted as one of your friends. You are absolutely right – our friendships here are precious lifelines that we can hold tight to. And yes, we do not have to be alone any more. How incredible is that? While I have a few friends who try to understand my reality, they really do not “get it” like our friends here do. How can I possibly explain to a singleton what goes on in my mind, in my everyday reality. I rather tire of trying to do so actually. And then some of my reality is just too disturbing for them to hear. I know that that is not the case here. I also know that I do not have to express the deepest secrets of my truth here to be understood. That is liberating beyond measure.
Oh wow … 70 F … I woke up to more snow this morning!!! I would have to put on my parka to BBQ. I have been known to sit in a lawn chair in the snow to watch the stars though. Like T.Clark, it is marvelous to see the birds colouring up. The hawks are back from up north and I have heard robins, finches and cardinals heralding in the spring. Now Mother Nature has to catch up and stop with the snow already! Oh and I will send you all of the Canada geese that you want T.Clark. We are rather overrun with them here year round … hahahaha.
ME+WE
03/13/2018
ME+WE, LOL on the geese. We’re in Minnesota. March is our snowiest month (and meltiest)? Maybe a bit warmer than your neck of the woods. People in shorts jogging because it’s warmer than freezing.
We started a “book club” with the Unitarian Universalist minister where we’ve attended “worship.” At my request, we’re learning Nonviolent Communication. Learning to be nicer to our insiders. We put our Angry part—AJ—in charge of the effort! Let’s just say that so far AJ is a bundle of energy and is being a great sport…and we’re pissed as fuck about everything LOL. The Rev is learning our parts. AJ swears like a sailor, so there’s easy recognition. 3/13/18
Anybody that cusses like a sailor is an instant friend of mine! LOL. We knew we found our people here! Hey AJ!
We grew up close to BC Canada. In Newport WA which is close to Spokane. I read you guys talking about snow in March and ohhhh. Nope. I remember summers there though, the highs in the mid 80s. Gorgeous! Here the highs can be 110s. Meh. We are fixin to hit tornado weather here. Oh my! The tornado sirens go off and they dont faze us anymore. We listen and try to tune in for the train sound that comes with a tornado. If we cant hear that or the sky doesn’t look ominous green we ignore it.
You can’t beat the kind of pretty the north has to offer.
We were caught outside during tornadoes in 1986. We saw one form. Beautifully terrifying. We still dream of it sometimes. We went into an unlocked house and hid in the basement. Homeowners came home and didn’t mind!
Hey T,
We love MN! Had some great vacations there and loved the scenery and the wildlife! Incredibly beautiful. And we saw our first tornado there. Didn’t quite know what it was, but soon figured it out!
I wanted to mostly comment on your ‘Book Club’. We were in a church for many, many years. Got quite comfortable and felt quite loved. Parts started coming forward. For the most part, it was OK. Except of our angry, f-bomb dropping, teenage part. Long story, short….We were betrayed in a huge way by the Pastor and our church ‘family’. The pastor thought he and the church could ‘love’ that part and handle our history and reactions, but really, they couldn’t. And it turned our very badly for us.
The damage done still has not been sorted out nearly 7 years later. My angry teenage part’s original anger stems from deep familial betrayals. A second betrayal experience with the pastor and the men and women of the church was absolutely devastating. We live in a very small town in a rural area. They were our friends and our support system. Their betrayal was devastating in many ways for all parts of my system and left us very isolated.
Please be careful with AJ and your other child parts. They do want love and connection and to be heard. It is important. But please, for the sake of your inner kids, choose wisely and proceed slowly. My pastor thought he was trained and equipped to handle people’s emotions, but he wasn’t really.
Not like a therapist is.
~ neo
Wow, Neo, so sorry they screwed you over. Thanks for the heads-up. We’ll proceed with caution. Our Rev is herself a survivor and so we have let our guard down a lot. We just meet at our house. We don’t even attend the fellowship. We have seen people not tolerated there, too.
Thanks for looking out for us. You are a valued friend. 3/15/18
“I also know that I do not have to express the deepest secrets of my truth here to be understood. That is liberating beyond measure.”
Totally agree! It’s so nice to not have to explain.