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Default Sep 08, 2019 at 12:51 PM
  #1
lets continue this thread shall we...

my treatment providers and I had a sudden and unexpected detour in regards to my "parts vs alters"...

after posting about my "rescuer part" in my non psych central forums many took it to mean I was unintegrated, that my rescuer part was an alter. I got told all kinds of crap every time I logged in to those sites. this went on for a week to the point where I started questioning myself and my own experiences and began to wonder and fear whether this "rescuer part" of me was a DID alter that we had missed integrating 10 years ago. this wondering and fear built until I ended up contacting my treatment providers.

it was then that I discovered a new diagnostic label now applies to me....Other Mental Disorder - No disorder, No condition. what that means is I got worked up over whether or not a completely normal situation and whether my completely normal problem of having a rescuer part was an alter that it impacted my life in very important ways. My treatment provider diagnosed this situation as not being a disorder or even part of any of my existing disorders but rather a symptoms and problem that we had to work through.

It was such a relief to know that we did not miss integrating any of my dissociative type alters and that this was just a normal part of me, but I was also shocked because Im not the type of person to fall into internet induced panic, Im not one to fall into questioning my own problems and reality. Im a person that usually keeps her feet firmly planted in reality, not looping all over the place with worry over my "parts vs alters" not to mention the new NOS name is not something anyone looks forwards to getting diagnosed as Other Mental Disorder - No disorder, No Condition.

so there we have it, I knew this rescuer part of me was normal parts not alters and now its been diagnosed as not a disorder or condition kind of alter.

My treatment provider and I are still talking about the differences between parts and alters....

on of the recent ways my treatment provider knew this was not an alter but was a normal part of me was the dissociation factor... I was not dissociated when I slid off the "pool swing" into the pool to rescue my daughter. I was not feeling numb, spaced out or disconnected, I was fully aware with no depersonalization nor derealization symptoms, I knew exactly what had happened and remembered in full detail exactly what happened. even now when I think about that day at the pool my memory is clear and detailed and does not contain any dissociative symptoms. I have full recognition and recollection of my thoughts and actions when it happened and even now.... no dissociative amnesia (memory loss) no tachypsychia or any other of my OSDD symptoms / problems. this was just me watching my young beginning to learn how to swim daughter slip off my lap into the pool and like mothers do I went after her so that she would not drown.

one of the differences between my parts and alters that my treatment providers and I are talking about is the fact that new standards state a person has limited amount of alters versus the unlimited amount of parts a person can have.

by this I mean, there is a point where a person has so many alters that they are ............by professional standards............considered to be "out of touch with reality"

DID diagnostics since 2013 is that in order for a person to have a diagnosis of DID reality remains intact. this opened the door for my treatment providers to assess whether I had so many alters that there wasn't a normal self, the me that I was with out being an alter. if so that's one way of assessing whether I fit that diagnostic of reality remains intact or not...……..my losing touch with reality would have meant I had so many alters that I was always in an alter state of mind (dissociated)

Since I had times when I was considered clinically not dissociated, not an alter, that meant I was not out of touch with reality, I had times when I was not feeling numb, spaced out, disconnected and my other dissociated symptoms and had times when I was not an alter....

to illustrate my treatment providers point that there is an actual limit to how many alters a person can have before they "lose track with reality" she had me do an experiment...

she went to her desk and with out telling me what she was writing ( because people with DID dont always know their alters exist) she wrote, a list of twenty names on a paper. under each name she wrote a basic composite (sense of agency for each name - complete with basic likes, dislikes, favorites, behaviors, tones of voice, triggers.... a basic representation of what alters wit DID are and what happens with people with DID when their alters take control)

my instructions were for three days pretend I had these 20 alters. not just when I felt like it. from the moment I woke up, and 24/7 I was to follow everything my treatment provider had wrote on that paper. no matter what my plans were for the next three days or who I was with, no matter what I was doing, in every aspect of my life this is how I was to behave, talk, dress, eat and drink, walk everything that represents who and what alters with DID are. she made sure that none had any likeness, or commonalities to my real alters that I had before integration so that I could not use that experience. like people with DID I had to go into this blindly and with no preparedness.

my kids had a blast most of the time watching mommy so out of control and unpredictable and at times incoherent, and being so disjointed in things., my wife was pulling out her hair at times and laughing at other times and I was a mess.

I went home to my family. first I told my wife and showed her what and how I must be for the next three days. then we sat down with my children and explained to them that my therapist wanted me to do some homework of playing a game of pretend for three days and so they needed to understand I really was ok and that Momma Sandy would be right there, that everything was ok, just playing a game of pretend and that this game of pretend can get a bit strange and not so fun.

knowing it was pretend my children were not adversely affected and my wife made sure they were safe and well taken care of emotionally and physically, which was my main concern when my treatment provider assigned this activity.

After the experiment one child told me "mom if I hadn't known before hand this was therapy homework I would have called 911 myself, it was like you completely lost your marbles. I had fun sometimes but it scared me, I didn't like how unpredictable you were first doing one thing then suddenly doing another, it sure is dangerous to have DID isn't it. I mean you could have really gotten hurt, we could have gotten hurt if this was for real you having 20 alters, nothing got accomplished for taking care of yourself or us by you, Im glad Momma Sandy was here, because you were "switching" so many times, and you could have burned the house down for real by walking away from the stove while cooking ….

(keep in mind my wife was here the whole time and there was no actual real danger this is one of my biological children's point of view on the game),

……. and could have flooded the house by switching so much and leaving water running because of that bathroom trigger, I think you should tell your therapist no more homework like that"

I can say after this experiment that I am very glad that there is now a limit to when a person is considered to fit the "reality remains intact" diagnostic and when a person is "out of touch with reality".

I am very glad in reality I had no where near that limit for number of alters....

I am purposely not disclosing the actual limit number due to posting actual numbers can cause others problems. think of it like in the eating disorders board where numbers could cause others to feel like they have to create more or less to fit in.

in online forums the ..................….in general...……….. rule is everyone is to post only supportively which means that you have as many as you need...... no one is supposed to tell you that you have too many or too little ….

the bottom line is that no one online actually knows how many is too many unless your own treatment provider tells you, because that's a treatment providers only information kind of thing. Usually they just change your diagnosis from DID to a mental disorder that includes being "out of touch with reality", in certain situations they do disclose the actual number and that's what happened to me, I was given this information because its relevant to an important part of my life, that I do not discuss here on psych central.

Last edited by bluekoi; Sep 09, 2019 at 10:13 PM..
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Default Sep 08, 2019 at 02:51 PM
  #2
Quote:
Originally Posted by amandalouise View Post
lets continue this thread shall we...

my treatment providers and I had a sudden and unexpected detour in regards to my "parts vs alters"...

after posting about my "rescuer part" in my non psych central forums many took it to mean I was unintegrated, that my rescuer part was an alter. I got told all kinds of crap every time I logged in to those sites. this went on for a week to the point where I started questioning myself and my own experiences and began to wonder and fear whether this "rescuer part" of me was a DID alter that we had missed integrating 10 years ago. this wondering and fear built until I ended up contacting my treatment providers.

it was then that I discovered a new diagnostic label now applies to me....Other Mental Disorder - No disorder, No condition. what that means is I got worked up over whether or not a completely normal situation and whether my completely normal problem of having a rescuer part was an alter that it impacted my life in very important ways. My treatment provider diagnosed this situation as not being a disorder or even part of any of my existing disorders but rather a symptoms and problem that we had to work through.

It was such a relief to know that we did not miss integrating any of my dissociative type alters and that this was just a normal part of me, but I was also shocked because Im not the type of person to fall into internet induced panic, Im not one to fall into questioning my own problems and reality. Im a person that usually keeps her feet firmly planted in reality, not looping all over the place with worry over my "parts vs alters" not to mention the new NOS name is not something anyone looks forwards to getting diagnosed as Other Mental Disorder - No disorder, No Condition.

so there we have it, I knew this rescuer part of me was normal parts not alters and now its been diagnosed as not a disorder or condition kind of alter.

My treatment provider and I are still talking about the differences between parts and alters....

on of the recent ways my treatment provider knew this was not an alter but was a normal part of me was the dissociation factor... I was not dissociated when I slid off the "pool swing" into the pool to rescue my daughter. I was not feeling numb, spaced out or disconnected, I was fully aware with no depersonalization nor derealization symptoms, I knew exactly what had happened and remembered in full detail exactly what happened. even now when I think about that day at the pool my memory is clear and detailed and does not contain any dissociative symptoms. I have full recognition and recollection of my thoughts and actions when it happened and even now.... no dissociative amnesia (memory loss) no tachypsychia or any other of my OSDD symptoms / problems. this was just me watching my young beginning to learn how to swim daughter slip off my lap into the pool and like mothers do I went after her so that she would not drown.

one of the differences between my parts and alters that my treatment providers and I are talking about is the fact that new standards state a person has limited amount of alters versus the unlimited amount of parts a person can have.

by this I mean, there is a point where a person has so many alters that they are ............by professional standards............considered to be "out of touch with reality"

DID diagnostics since 2013 is that in order for a person to have a diagnosis of DID reality remains intact. this opened the door for my treatment providers to assess whether I had so many alters that there wasn't a normal self, the me that I was with out being an alter. if so that's one way of assessing whether I fit that diagnostic of reality remains intact or not...……..my losing touch with reality would have meant I had so many alters that I was always in an alter state of mind (dissociated)

Since I had times when I was considered clinically not dissociated, not an alter, that meant I was not out of touch with reality, I had times when I was not feeling numb, spaced out, disconnected and my other dissociated symptoms and had times when I was not an alter....

to illustrate my treatment providers point that there is an actual limit to how many alters a person can have before they "lose track with reality" she had me do an experiment...

she went to her desk and with out telling me what she was writing ( because people with DID dont always know their alters exist) she wrote, a list of twenty names on a paper. under each name she wrote a basic composite (sense of agency for each name - complete with basic likes, dislikes, favorites, behaviors, tones of voice, triggers.... a basic representation of what alters wit DID are and what happens with people with DID when their alters take control)

my instructions were for three days pretend I had these 20 alters. not just when I felt like it. from the moment I woke up, and 24/7 I was to follow everything my treatment provider had wrote on that paper. no matter what my plans were for the next three days or who I was with, no matter what I was doing, in every aspect of my life this is how I was to behave, talk, dress, eat and drink, walk everything that represents who and what alters with DID are. she made sure that none had any likeness, or commonalities to my real alters that I had before integration so that I could not use that experience. like people with DID I had to go into this blindly and with no preparedness.

my kids had a blast most of the time watching mommy so out of control and unpredictable and at times incoherent, and being so disjointed in things., my wife was pulling out her hair at times and laughing at other times and I was a mess.

I went home to my family. first I told my wife and showed her what and how I must be for the next three days. then we sat down with my children and explained to them that my therapist wanted me to do some homework of playing a game of pretend for three days and so they needed to understand I really was ok and that Momma Sandy would be right there, that everything was ok, just playing a game of pretend and that this game of pretend can get a bit strange and not so fun.

knowing it was pretend my children were not adversely affected and my wife made sure they were safe and well taken care of emotionally and physically, which was my main concern when my treatment provider assigned this activity.

After the experiment one child told me "mom if I hadn't known before hand this was therapy homework I would have called 911 myself, it was like you completely lost your marbles. I had fun sometimes but it scared me, I didn't like how unpredictable you were first doing one thing then suddenly doing another, it sure is dangerous to have DID isn't it. I mean you could have really gotten hurt, we could have gotten hurt if this was for real you having 20 alters, nothing got accomplished for taking care of yourself or us by you, Im glad Momma Sandy was here, because you were "switching" so many times, and you could have burned the house down for real by walking away from the stove while cooking ….

(keep in mind my wife was here the whole time and there was no actual real danger this is one of my biological children's point of view on the game),

……. and could have flooded the house by switching so much and leaving water running because of that bathroom trigger, I think you should tell your therapist no more homework like that"

I can say after this experiment that I am very glad that there is now a limit to when a person is considered to fit the "reality remains intact" diagnostic and when a person is "out of touch with reality".

I am very glad in reality I had no where near that limit for number of alters....

I am purposely not disclosing the actual limit number due to posting actual numbers can cause others problems. think of it like in the eating disorders board where numbers could cause others to feel like they have to create more or less to fit in.

in online forums the ..................….in general...……….. rule is everyone is to post only supportively which means that you have as many as you need...... no one is supposed to tell you that you have too many or too little ….

the bottom line is that no one online actually knows how many is too many unless your own treatment provider tells you, because that's a treatment providers only information kind of thing. Usually they just change your diagnosis from DID to a mental disorder that includes being "out of touch with reality", in certain situations they do disclose the actual number and that's what happened to me, I was given this information because its relevant to an important part of my life, that I do not discuss here on psych central.
"parts" on the other hand have no limits.... a perfectly normal person in life can be a mother, a student at a college, can hold down a job as a janitor as well as a fast food chain employee or even own their own business which means they are a CEO, or boss or manager or employee,

a person can be of any religion, race, sexual orientation or handicap that they may identify with.

these no limits on how many parts a person can have because theirs no limits....

example.....

Im a mother so that means I have a mother part, I went to college so of course that says when Im taking a college class Im also a student as well as mother, I have job that keeps income coming into the home to take care of my children and wife, that means of course part of my time I am participating in life as an employee, mother, co worker... theres just no limit to how many different and diverse roles that I have in my life.

when I am caring for my children I am being a mother, when I am with my wife alone I am being a wife, when I am sitting in a classroom at the college I am being a student. …. see no limitations on how many "parts" a person can be in their life. the only limitations is those that they put on their self...

when I was at the pool with my family the roles or as the new term calls it "parts" I was...

mother (I was taking care of my child)
swimmer (I was sitting in a pool at the Y on a "swing" lowered into the water with my child on my lap)
Teacher (I was teaching my child how to swim)
Rescuer (I went into the water to save my child from drowning after she slipped off my lap into the water.)

when you look at one moment in your life just look at what you are thinking and doing and tack on the letters "er" or "or" on the end.....

if you are reading the part you are in right now is being a reader
if you are eating right now you are an eater or consumer of food
if you are walking then you are a walker
if you are talking you are a talker....

see no limits … since a normal person in life can be doing, and participating in life in unlimited / countless ways there is no limits.

right now I am posting on psych central so tack on "er" at the end of post and its called I am being a poster

later I will be cooking dinner for my family so my role is as a cook of the family.

my point is …….

Parts have no limits of how many there are.... vs..... Alters there is a limit to how many alters a person can have before they lose touch with reality.
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Default Sep 09, 2019 at 11:29 AM
  #3
By the way welcome to the new Parts vs alters" thread.

somehow yesterday my posts that were supposed to be in the first alters vs parts thread ended up being broken up into their own thread. Im making a guess its because I have people on my ignore list now that I didn't when I first made the first thread. …

to recap the first thread so that people don't feel like they are missing part of the conversation......

I explained that for me, my therapist and my location parts and alters are defined as being completely different..... first I explained what a "personality was in the normal, not disordered sense of the word....

In general a personality is who and what you are, how you behave and react, your feelings/ emotions....... are you funny, happy, sad, do you walk with joy in your step or do you tend to walk slow with a purpose, are you shy or out going, do you look at life from a reality, serious, or do you enjoy life as a prankster, do you bounce with lifes ups and downs or do you tend to fall hard, do you wallow in self pity, or are you a kind of person who feels life owes you something or are you a go out there and get it, make life what you want it to be. are you a morning coffee person, or a juice person, are you a skip meals or a full breakfast bacon and eggs person, Are you a famous person or are you an average jane or john doe, are you a good worker or a slacker, or are you somewhere in between all these extremes.

then I explained that you find your normal personality by looking at your own normal every day things that make you, you.... one way to find what your normal every day run of the mill personality I look at yourself in the mirror and notice what you see and feel and think about …………...yourself...……. its all right there from the color of your eyes and hair, whether you like or don't like what you see, whether you playfully stick out your tongue or not, why you chose that clothing you are wearing, how your shoes make you feel.. its all right there when looking at your self in your not dissociated, and you are fully aware state of mind. whether you like to tell jokes and pull pranks or if you are the serious type of person....

you can also find out what your normal, not dissociated, every day run of the mill personality is by those pictures you have stored in albums or boxes or chests, check out those smiles frowns, how your hair has changed, whether you are having fun or not in the picts, pictures say a lot about how we are in the normal sense of things.

you can also find your every day run of the mill normal personality through those funny and annoying family stories that get told during family get togethers.

Right now if I had to describe myself in terms of personality I would say that I am a wife, mother, I love the summer season, Im a do'er not a complainer do nothing kind of person, Im compassionate and love helping others, Im outgoing and organized, Im firmly bonded to my children and wife (I will go to no ends to care for and protect my wife and children) Im resilliant (going through a hurricane and work related trauma proved that with a bang) my eyes are blue my hair is indian straight and black, my religion is a variety of beliefs in other words theres something in every religion that i find helpful in my life at one time or another.......I can see my personality in every choice, question and answer from the moment I woke up this morning, to present, how I slept last night, what positions I slept in, how I am feeling and wearing and what my daily plans are, right down to what I am writing right now, its all there. what my personality is like.

(now that you all know what a personality is I bet you can read your past posts and discover what your basic every day personality is like, especially if you are a frequent / daily poster, your every day personality is right there in print for you and others to see and know. )

some of my "parts" are....

Mother (Im a mother of 4 children. thats a part of my whole personality of who and what I am.)

Lesbian( I am a lesbian, thats a part of my whole personality of who and what I am)

Comedian (I love telling jokes, thats a part of my whole personality of who and what I am.)

so if parts are normal why is there such a thing as "parts work"? because sometimes these normal everyday run of the mill parts of our selves can cause us some problems...

example... what if my wife is trying to have a serious conversation and I am making jokes that could cause some problems... or what if I talked to my children using the same adult words and phases that I would to my wife,... that could cause some problems... what if I was sitting at the breakfast table and started treating my wife like I do with my children... cutting up her pancakes, telling her to sit still and eat her breakfast, elbows off the table... that could cause some problems. and my favorite slip into the mother part is when my wife is driving and she hits the brake her arm shoots out in front of me to brace me like she would do with our children. every parent who drives can connect with that normal part of self lol

there are many different therapies that includes "parts work" in fact just about every therapy out there deals with normal parts of self. why because having parts is normal, everyone has them and everyone has times when their behaviors end up causing problems.

the most recent "parts work" approach is called IFS, its actually not so new, its been around for ages called by different names "transactional analysis therapy" "Structural dissociation model" "CBT" "inner child therapy" terms like the Ego, Id and super ego, Parent adult child, the child with in.... its been around for ages. the difference is a new name and a more structured way to do it.

I have done parts work just not in the same formats as the structured versions. my therapy was more on address things as they come up rather than textbook style, formal structured ways.

A quick and easy short cut to this Parts vs alters is that you remove dissociation, dissociative disorders and your dissociative symptoms out of the picture and answer the questions ….

I am...………….a mother
I am …………...a student at the college
I am …………...feeling excited
I am …………… remembering when I went to the lake.

parts are how a person is and the roles they have in their normal every day lives.

and there you have the basics of what the first thread entailed.
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Default Sep 10, 2019 at 09:49 AM
  #4
I guess it's hard for me to understand how there can be a limit to the amount of alters.That someone can decide that number for everyone that has DID.To me it seems like there would be differing amounts depending on what was needed in order to survive.And maybe some do indeed have a higher amount.

Pretending to have a certain amount of them like you were told to do is so completely different than actually having them. So I really don't understand how that exercise was beneficial.

On the other hand though,I do see and get how it would be nearly impossible to function with an extremely high number of them.And I get the logic behind it

I'm wondering though how many times there aren't actually a high amount and normal parts are included along with parts that hold a portion of a memory or just an emotion. My therapist had told me I was confusing normal parts and emotions as alters so I do know that's possible.My number wasn't as high as I was assuming.

But then,also,my therapist realized I had different layers and subsystems and the amount increased after being lowered.

I won't disclose how many I had,I think that's a bit too personal.I don't know what the "limit" is supposed to be but I don't think the amount should really matter as much as treatment and healing.The amount I had might be considered a little high to some,nothing extremely high or anything, but I did recover and heal and that's all that matters.
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Default Sep 17, 2019 at 10:30 AM
  #5
On friday my therapist and I talked about which approach would work for doing "parts work" with this normal part of me called rescuer....

Do I want to do CBT where I keep track of my behavior and make changes in my behavior by noticing and changing my behavior accordingly, to change this behavior of my trying to rescue others when they don't need to be rescued,

do I want to go with inner child therapy where we would use pictures of myself as a child, imagining myself as those children I used to be and imagine rescuing myself, type of parts work that goes more in depth to discover what the underlying / root of my feeling like I need to rescue children, friends and family and sometimes strangers.

Do I want to do Expressive Art therapy where I would be doing a meditation exercise to focus my thoughts on my normal rescuing feelings and create something to represent that feeling.

or do I want to do something more structured like IFS that goes even deeper into these normal parts of self where I would be doing guided meditations, role playing talking as if I was this normal part of self, my therapist asking me special structured questions, and my asking myself structured questions that will during this role playing type of therapy find the answers inside myself and journaling about my sessions and this normal part of self and eventually roleplaying my rescuing the rescuer,

IFS terms don't put it in those exact words. but that's what it is.

you pick a trailhead (problem to work on)
locate the normal part of yourself that is the problem (IFS calls this the protectors, firefighters and exiles) parts are your normal emotions, or the imagined picture in your mind that you get when thinking about the problem.

then you make sure you are in whats called self (if you are not dissociated, you are instead calm, caring compassionate with yourself, you have courage and curiosity about yourself your life and the problem you want to work on its called being in self mode)

then you pretend that the problem/ normal part of self is a person and give it a name.

then you answer special quesitons while you are pretending to be this normal part.

you keep asking and answering questions finding the answers inside you until you have nothing else to find out about that problem/ normal part of self.

sometimes other normal problems, other normal emotions, and reasons for those problems comes up,. IFS calls this another trailhead and another part of self. when that happens you ask yourself if one part will step aside so that you can get to know the second part. in normal words it means are you ready to stop focusing on the first problem and emotion and move on to the next on. if not you keep gong with the first one, if so you start working on the second problem and emotion.

After you have found out all you need to know about this normal part of self you pretend you are having a conversation with this problem/ emotion as if they were a real person and imagine what it would be like to help that problem/ emotion to understand that everything is ok now. in IFS this is called unburdening and integrating this normal part of self.

(please keep in mind that this is not integration of DID alters in the terms that my treatment provider and I understanding and definitions of alters and parts are different from each other.)

IFS and inner child therapy approaches would not work in the structured way with my DID alters but Im thinking with the normal part of myself this may be the way to go about discovering why I have this urge and need to rescue those I know when they don't need any actual rescuing.

eiting to add...forgot to copy paste the last paragraph in reference to betty's post...

after betty had posted to me I took my reply to her to pm, but since then I have noticed I have some people upset over this number thing....

in short the numbers thing is a severity scales numbers, not the black and white 1, 2, 3, kind of numbers.

at some point in the severity scales it shows when a person is out of touch with reality or reality remains intact.

out of touch with reality means a person is in an altered state of mind 24/7 with no times when they are not in an altered state of mind.

think of it like functional "Aunt Ethel" (not a real name here) who may be able to take care of herself and her basic needs but who and what she is, is so disjointed that you know she's living in altered states of mind instead of all here, in the here and now.

At some point her out of touch with reality ends up getting her hospitalized over and over again, and maybe permanently in special mental health programs / facilities or long term state mental hospital until some of the alters have been integrated so that she is no longer living in altered states of mind 24/7.

a severity scales numbers thing not the black and white numbers 1, 2, 3,...of alters.

in every ones brain functions there is a limit to how many times a person can dissociate and still remain in touch with reality,

I think of that point as when I am under stress and that one thing that "breaks the camels back" I know what my brain can and cant handle. when I reach that point what happens I leave reality behind and day dream, distract myself or when I was not integrated dissociated and was in an altered state of mind. just like my consciousness has limitations my unconscious / dissociated side had its limitations too. thankfully I didn't dissociate to the point where I was in an altered state of mind full time (in other words out of touch with reality.)

Last edited by amandalouise; Sep 17, 2019 at 01:08 PM.. Reason: finished a sentence and paragraph
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My Support Forums is the online community that was originally begun as the Psych Central Forums in 2001. It now runs as an independent self-help support group community for mental health, personality, and psychological issues and is overseen by a group of dedicated, caring volunteers from around the world.

 

Helplines and Lifelines

The material on this site is for informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

Always consult your doctor or mental health professional before trying anything you read here.