DID : Opening Up the Lines of Inner Communication

I always liked the part of the film/book 'About A Boy' where Marcus comes to a realisation that his life has more chance of improving if there are more people in it - 'we need lots of people'.

Suddenly I realized - two people isn't enough. You need backup. If you're only two people, and someone drops off the edge, then you're on your own. Two isn't a large enough number. You need three at least... 
I used to think two was not enough. But now things are great; there are loads of people... It's like that thing Jon Bon Jovi said: 'No man is an island. (Marcus, About A Boy).

I think what he meant was that with more people, there is more support, it doesn't all fall down to one person - we need people who are on our side.  I know that DID systems are not made up of lots of people, rather many parts that make up one person but I think that it can work similarly.  Perhaps there is some truth in the idea of strength in numbers, so long as everyone is working together of course.

If you are unsure as to what Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is or you would like to read more about it, here are some previous blog posts I have written about the condition:
~ A Life in Fragments: Dissociative Identity Disorder
~ How a DID System Works - Navigating Being Me :)

Inner communication is so crucial in coping with Dissociative Identity Disorder:

~ You can encourage cooperation between dissociative parts of yourself

~ You can help to orient parts to the present, making them feel more safe, secure and not so trapped in traumas of the past.

~ It can help you to better understand what is going on inside of you and in making decisions within your daily life, bringing stability.

~ Communication between parts is a step forwards towards integration - the ultimate goal of recovery from DID.

In short, when the parts of your system are working together rather than against each other it makes for a much easier time.

All this sounds great but I know it may come across as easier said than done.  

There is no essential 'handbook' to inner communication and because it is such an internalised process there is nothing to check against to see if you are 'doing it right' but that's the great thing about it - there are no rights or wrongs.  Nonetheless, it can be difficult to know where to start, especially as DID, by it's nature, entails such a separation between various parts of yourself.  It is difficult to know how you might go about trying to bridge the gap.  If it's any consolation, from experience, I can say that once you do start to achieve some inner communication, it tends to automatically breed more communication.  However, I can relate to the initial bewilderment in not knowing where to start.  It is for this reason that I am going to share a few pointers that helped me in achieving better inner communication within my system.

Try to get over the fact that you might feel like a complete nutcase.

This probably sounds quite harsh but those kind of feelings forged such a barrier for me.  Before you are able to achieve any effective communication, I think you have to first reach a certain level of acceptance with yourself and by that I mean, you have to accept that DID is a happening part of your life.  I spent a long time battling with denial and all it did was make things worse - it was as though I was running away from myself.  It can be all to easy to get 'freaked out' by the fact that you are hearing voices, having conversations in your head, talking to 'people' that other people can't see but pushing these kind of experiences out of your mind often serves only to make them louder.  I found that once I started to let some of what was happening in and listened, it all became quieter.

When your everyday experiences feel so different to those of others around you, it can be easy to push them away in fear that you're 'mad' or 'crazy', when in fact everything you are experiencing is completely legitimate and valid.  It took me a while even in therapy to talk comfortably about my experiences with different parts of myself, there were many moments in which I thought to myself OMG! I can't believe I'm referring to myself as 'we' but with time, reassurance and feeling understood, I now have those conversation without feeling the slightest bit 'weird'.

Having a good therapist who really understands dissociative symptoms really helps.

Another thing that really helped me was reading this book...

I can't even begin to describe just how amazingly helpful this book is.  

It really helps to normalise some of the symptoms you are experiencing - you start to realise that what you are experiencing isn't anything 'crazy' or 'odd', it is a normal response to what you have gone through in your life and there are other people out there who are experiencing similar things to you.

A lot of communication happens already on a sub-consious level.

I know that you can almost feel under pressure to achieve better communication within your DID system as it is such a crucial step towards becoming more integrated and recovery.  It can be easy to overlook the fact that a lot of communication is probably already happening on a sub-conscious level.  Each part will know its job well and so communication must occur for one part to take over from another in certain situations.  Sometimes it is more about recognising when and where communication is already taking place and building upon it.

Think about how you might respond to a person of a similar age and character.
As the host of a system you may also feel pressure to be the responsible, understanding person that the rest of your system needs.  With quite a number of younger parts, I certainly felt almost a burden of responsibility to be the adult that these younger parts needed when I didn't feel as though I had much experience of being an adult at all and to be honest felt quite ill-equipped.  In these cases, I think sometimes it can help to take the focus off of how you respond to your own needs and instead think about how you respond to others who have similar needs.  I often think that we tend to be a lot kinder to others than we are to ourselves and we can therefore learn from how we treat others.
I have quite a highly critical teenage part who could be quite insensitive towards the feelings of other parts.  Initially, I found it very difficult to know how to approach her or try to encourage cooperation from her.  However, I suddenly remembered that I work with young people of the same age and so thought about how I communicate with them and applied the same kind of principles.
It can help then to think about how you would communicate with a child of a similar age - communicating with them using language that they understand, thinking about what they need from you.  I think I also came to an acceptance with myself in that I admitted to both myself and other parts that while I felt ill-equipped to be the adult they needed, I was going to give it the best go I could and they could help to put me right along the way.
I suppose that's the most anyone can expect of themselves.

Try not to be judgemental, just listen.

As an ideal this is great, yet more difficult to achieve in reality as parts of yourself may have certain thoughts or behaviours that don’t sit well with the rest of your system, or that you, simply, don’t like.  Sometimes it can be difficult to accept difficult thoughts and emotions as happening inside you.  However, rather than fighting what you are experiencing or trying to shut it out completely, it can be more helpful to think about why parts of you may be experiencing these things – what are the reasons behind it.  Every part of you was created for useful and important reasons, it's about trying to understand what those reasons may be.  It may be that a part of you is responding to a past traumatic situation rather than a present one and that is why their thoughts and feeling may feel very removed from what is happening in your life in the present.  In this case, you can reassure that part of the differences between the past situation and the present situation, helping to put their and your mind at ease a little.  Generally, everyone wants to feel heard and listened to, the parts of a DID system are no different.  If you just listen to what they have to say, you might find their thoughts and emotions quickly become far less intense as they are satisfied they have been heard and so it doesn’t escalate.

Be patient.  You might not always understand what they're saying but it can become clearer with time.

Communication will be more clear at some times than at others.  Often all I can make out is jumbled up background chatter and that can feel quite frustrating as well as disconcerting.  From experience, I can say that usually it all becomes clearer with time – I believe that things will only become clear to us when we are in the right time and place in our lives to face it.  There is no use in trying to force communication to happen, it only creates more strain and tensions.  By accepting that at the moment there are a lot of things that are unclear but they will become clearer in time, often causes that clarity to come sooner.

Trust your instincts - you're probably right!

At the same time, it is important to have confidence in your ability to know and understand how other parts of your system are feeling.  They are parts of you after all so you are the best guide to understanding them.  If you're not completely sure about what a part might be trying to tell you but have a vague idea, usually that vague idea will be right and if it isn't, that part of you is sure to set you straight!
There is an intuitive knowing that comes with DID and it is important to go along with it and trust it.

They might all try to jump in at once.
I have found that when I have made a bit of breakthrough with communication with one part, other parts all seem to jump in at once as they all want to be heard too.  This can be very chaotic and loud so it can help simply to be prepared for it.  It is understandable that all parts want to have their say but as in communication with other people, you cannot hear them or communicate effectively if everyone is talking at once!  As the host of a system, you often find yourself playing the role of mediator and negotiator.  You have to try to instill strategies that allow all parts to let each other have their say - it could be like chairing a meeting.  Whenever I check in with my system, I always do so in a certain order (going from youngest to oldest!) - they are now used to that process and so wait their turn!
As long as you try to be consistent and persistent in the strategies you use to manage communication within your system, it tends to get easier as parts get used to and find comfort in the predictability of the communication strategy.

Make time to listen even if that means listening later.
With DID, you have try and balance your time as much as possible and that can feel like quite a tall order when you have so many different characters to contend with who all have their own wants, needs and ideas about how they may want to spend time.  It is important that all parts have an opportunity to be heard, don't feel neglected or as though another part is getting more attention than them.  I find that if a part is feeling a bit left out or as though they are not getting enough attention, they will generally let you know and then you can be sure to make time for them.
Sometimes parts of you may want to communicate with you at a really inconvenient time, for which the 'I'll listen later' technique can be a life saver!  For example, when I'm at work it is really important that I keep the adult part of me present so that I am able to function effectively in my role.  If a younger part wants to communicate with me when I'm at work, it just doesn't feel appropriate so I tell that part that I will make time to listen to them later and I make sure I do so.
It is important to keep the promises you make to parts of yourself as it builds trust within your system.

Prioritise safety and grounding.
In communication within a DID system, as well as encouraging cooperation, it is also important to prioritise building a sense of safety and orientating parts to the present.  I have previously written a blog post on building a sense of safety, which may be useful to refer to.  However, in brief, it is important to try to bring a sense of safety to all parts.  You can create internal safe places for each part of you, based upon any preferences they express to you - so it is something you can create together.  Below, I have included a collage of the individual safe places for each part of my system.  Safe places can be really useful in the sense that if there is a present situation that a part of you finds very difficult to deal with as it triggers trauma related reactions from the past, you can temporarily send that part of you to their safe place, allowing them some respite.  As well as having individual safe places, I have found it useful to also create an internal safe house that all parts can inhabit.  In certain situations I have found parts feel safer when thought of as enclosed in the safe house and some find safety in being around other parts.

Get creative - there are lots of different forms of communication.
As you have probably already worked out, I am a big fan of journaling and scrapbooking.  I find it a really helpful way of documenting positive experiences that all parts of me have been involved in and also helps me visualise and express what is occurring inside of me.  It is important to remember than communication can take a variety of forms, it doesn't have to be strictly verbal.  It is about finding the form of communication you find most effective for your system and also bearing in mind that different parts of you may prefer to communicate with you in different ways.  You may want to allow space for parts of your system to communicate through writing, they could even send emails or messages to each other.  If you are quite a visual person, as I am, you may find it useful to try to draw your experiences - you don't have to worry about whether the drawings are any good, they are just there for you to express and try to make sense of what you are experiencing.

Find activities that bring you together.
As well as simply listening, it can also encourage inner communication if you do activities that respond to the wants and needs of your parts.  I often find that certain activities cause parts of me to become more present and then it can provide a good opportunity to communicate with them.  In order to balance time between parts, I find the best thing to do is to find activities that lots of different parts enjoy.  For example, if I plan a day out I will try to make sure there is something that each part of me will appreciate.
You can run into difficulties in that some parts of you may want to engage in activities that you don't feel are particularly appropriate, especially when out in public.  Some of my younger parts have wanted to bring out cuddly toys and another has an urge to climb trees (one's that I'm probably incapable of climbing!).  If I was to allow them to carry out their wishes, older parts of me would be worried that my behaviour wasn't very age appropriate and it could also make me quite vulnerable.  What's good for one part won't necessarily be good for the others!
You therefore have to make compromises.
I will only allow that part to have her teddy bear in the comfort of our own home.  You could bring out the cuddly toy with you but agree that it has to stay in your bag.  Personally, when I'm out, if a younger part needs comfort then I will offer them their teddy within our inner space - ie. imagine giving them the teddy.  It can help to ground and settle parts if they have an object that they associate and identify with.  This could be a bought object, but I would avoid that or be careful with that.  I think buying things that other parts want can encourage them to stay more separate when you should be encouraging togetherness and connection between them.  I also think it is important that the host part of you is responsible and in control of adult things such as money and budgeting.  I have found that parts of me have tended to become attached to objects that I already have at home and also things that we collect on our travels - they love collecting shells, pebbles and feathers (which is great because they are free!)

  

Ultimately, all parts of you want to get better.

I know there can be such a deep fear towards inner communication, which almost forms a barrier to it.  I think this is because getting in touch and accepting dissociative parts of yourself can mean also coming closer to the trauma they were born out of, the trauma you may have always tried to forget ever happened.
It can be easy to overlook that those dissociative parts were also created out of the strength inside yourself that came from living through those traumas and surviving them.
Those parts of you represent the fact that you wanted to survive and go on living and I've come to see that my life wouldn't be the same without them, for better and worse.  Getting in touch with those sometimes seemingly lost and separate parts of you may also put you in touch with a strength you didn't know you have.
As I said at the beginning, there really is strength in numbers.
I think it's true that you can be your own worst enemy but I also like to think it's true that you can become your own best friend too.

Love and Strength,

The One Day Seeker