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Default Oct 11, 2019 at 10:28 PM
  #1
Host/core (me): I'm doing relatively well. No true emotion, except some laughter and some relief and some stress and some anxiety all mixed into a calm package - that's the best way I can describe "me."

Inner child: She's crying, but she won't say why. I think we read something that was triggering, but she doesn't know. She's crying and wants a hug. I go inside to try to give her a hug. She's still crying.

Host/core (me): My reaction being back out again is that I don't know what is going on. There's a lot of new changes in my life - from the move out of state to the contact with various mentors to my grad application for Fall next year to a new treatment team at the new VA next week to being on PC and processing some stuff. It's enough to make me feel small and little and miss some things, but there's something in my past, in my young part's past, that I haven't gotten over or even acknowledged, but I'm affected - my parts are affected.

Being integrated with some of the others, I feel a bunch of different emotions connected with blank thoughts. Just emotions. Just wanting to crawl into a ball and sleep and cry while hugging a pillow. I don't do this, but inside my little does this. I'm cleaning up my apartment or doing some other adult person task, and in the inside background I see my little part just crying.

Does this mean I want to cry but can't? Does this mean there's something I'm not acknowledging to myself (i.e., my part)?

I sometimes get these responses from teen alters, but most have integrated with me and I deal, regulate. In the past, the teen alters would be vocal if I asked them a question, but the hardest part is acknowledging an unnamed inner child who is so tiny, so alone.

I don't want to cry on the outside. I want to just be happy and positive and move forward. And all my fears of new treatment teams and applying to grad school and worried about what any authorities in my life are thinking about me do tickle my emotions, but I just don't want to think about it all. I just want the fears to pass me by, and the emotions to pass by with them. I just want to wait patiently and see what happens, and not worry about the outcomes. I just want to sit here and feel proud of my accomplishments, and be patient and wait.

The little one inside me wants to cry.

The me integrated with teen parts wants to fret and to be upset and feel that life is unfair, so I tell myself calmly that life is not about fairness to me. Life is about me being fair with me and others, and that's all that I have within my control. I can voice, and I do. I can acknowledge memories and the pain that comes with them, and I do. I can acknowledge what is going on inside, and I do. And I'm patient with myself and my parts, and so I wait and try and communicate and wait some more.

The inside tears are invisible to those on the outside and therefore only visible to me. The inside tears long for something more than what I've ever received, and such longing can never be fulfilled by anyone because it is a part of grief. All I can do is acknowledge that pain in a detached way right now.

If I attach to that pain, I fear I will never come back out of it. I fear that I will screw up in my recovery because I'm trying to do this all on my own. I also fear that if I try to express this in recovery, I will be iatrogenically harmed, if not intentionally.

So I still see the inside tears from a distal perspective - me, but not me, detached, but living within.

I will eventually be able to have outside tears, but the inside tears need comforting and space to heal. It's not a decision I can make overnight. For me, it's a process.

I'm sorry, little one inside, I wish I could make you feel happier and more comforted, but all I can do now is just hold you and tell you that things will eventually be okay - in time.
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Amyjay
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Default Oct 13, 2019 at 01:28 AM
  #2
I hear you. I have tried to write a proper response to you several times here - this resonates with me - but haven't succeeded yet.
Still dealing with fall-out from this week's spanner-in-the-works therapy session.
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Default Oct 13, 2019 at 01:35 AM
  #3
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Originally Posted by Amyjay View Post
I hear you. I have tried to write a proper response to you several times here - this resonates with me - but haven't succeeded yet.
Still dealing with fall-out from this week's spanner-in-the-works therapy session.
@Amyjay

Thank you for your reply. Your response right now is really good enough for me. I know that this is probably something that many other people deal with, so I'm okay with no responses or any responses, really. It's nice to know that you thought about how to respond and self-cared while doing it; it seems you were trying hard to respond and really cognizant about your response. That means a lot to me. Thank you for being so thoughtful. I'm okay, but yes, I deal with these things.

Please don't worry too much about being "proper." It's okay to just be you, and it's okay to not answer if it is something that is too painful for you to read or answer. I totally respect that, too.

I'm sorry you struggle with this too.

BTW, what is "spanner-in-the-works" therapy? I'm sorry you are dealing with whatever the fallout was with this. I'll check your threads to see what you posted in this regard. I'm still getting used to using these forums, so I will try to read more of other people's posts as I get to know more people here, and recall their tag names. Meanwhile, I hope you are okay. I'm sorry you are struggling.

Safe hugs
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amandalouise
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Default Oct 13, 2019 at 11:35 AM
  #4
Quote:
Originally Posted by lillib View Post
Host/core (me): I'm doing relatively well. No true emotion, except some laughter and some relief and some stress and some anxiety all mixed into a calm package - that's the best way I can describe "me."

Inner child: She's crying, but she won't say why. I think we read something that was triggering, but she doesn't know. She's crying and wants a hug. I go inside to try to give her a hug. She's still crying.

Host/core (me): My reaction being back out again is that I don't know what is going on. There's a lot of new changes in my life - from the move out of state to the contact with various mentors to my grad application for Fall next year to a new treatment team at the new VA next week to being on PC and processing some stuff. It's enough to make me feel small and little and miss some things, but there's something in my past, in my young part's past, that I haven't gotten over or even acknowledged, but I'm affected - my parts are affected.

Being integrated with some of the others, I feel a bunch of different emotions connected with blank thoughts. Just emotions. Just wanting to crawl into a ball and sleep and cry while hugging a pillow. I don't do this, but inside my little does this. I'm cleaning up my apartment or doing some other adult person task, and in the inside background I see my little part just crying.

Does this mean I want to cry but can't? Does this mean there's something I'm not acknowledging to myself (i.e., my part)?

I sometimes get these responses from teen alters, but most have integrated with me and I deal, regulate. In the past, the teen alters would be vocal if I asked them a question, but the hardest part is acknowledging an unnamed inner child who is so tiny, so alone.

I don't want to cry on the outside. I want to just be happy and positive and move forward. And all my fears of new treatment teams and applying to grad school and worried about what any authorities in my life are thinking about me do tickle my emotions, but I just don't want to think about it all. I just want the fears to pass me by, and the emotions to pass by with them. I just want to wait patiently and see what happens, and not worry about the outcomes. I just want to sit here and feel proud of my accomplishments, and be patient and wait.

The little one inside me wants to cry.

The me integrated with teen parts wants to fret and to be upset and feel that life is unfair, so I tell myself calmly that life is not about fairness to me. Life is about me being fair with me and others, and that's all that I have within my control. I can voice, and I do. I can acknowledge memories and the pain that comes with them, and I do. I can acknowledge what is going on inside, and I do. And I'm patient with myself and my parts, and so I wait and try and communicate and wait some more.

The inside tears are invisible to those on the outside and therefore only visible to me. The inside tears long for something more than what I've ever received, and such longing can never be fulfilled by anyone because it is a part of grief. All I can do is acknowledge that pain in a detached way right now.

If I attach to that pain, I fear I will never come back out of it. I fear that I will screw up in my recovery because I'm trying to do this all on my own. I also fear that if I try to express this in recovery, I will be iatrogenically harmed, if not intentionally.

So I still see the inside tears from a distal perspective - me, but not me, detached, but living within.

I will eventually be able to have outside tears, but the inside tears need comforting and space to heal. It's not a decision I can make overnight. For me, it's a process.

I'm sorry, little one inside, I wish I could make you feel happier and more comforted, but all I can do now is just hold you and tell you that things will eventually be okay - in time.
this may sound a bit strange but when I felt like crying on the inside and wasn't crying on the outside I would put on a sad movie like "Beaches" , watching sad drama movies would release the tears for both my inside child and I.

its a weird situation with Dissociation that I learned about in a psych class. you are integrating so I have no problem sharing this with you....

theres this natural brain activity thing that goes on. everyone has the normal brain activity called "flight or fight response" dissociation is part of the flight or fight response. its not something a person can control just the way the brains electrical impulses naturally does things. it knows based on what is stored in your brain what goes where.

the more you know and learn the faster this integration works. Think of it like that broken vase in the corner. you look at it nothing gets fixed you google you go to ceramics DIY and other classes that teach you how to repair things, you learn enough that one day you pick up the vase and repair it.

integration is where the brain stops sending whole things through the flight response to the unconsciousness (dissociated storage tanks) when the dissociative side doesn't have the answer it means the answer did not get sent through. the brain kept that trigger on your side but sent the response to her side. you can see this in your post where you state in your words "I think we read something that was triggering, but she doesn't know. "

you have healed enough to face the trigger but not the response to the trigger (the crying)

By watching something sad that releases the sadness in me to that the alter inside me no longer feels the sadness. why because Im dealing with sadness rather than my brains flight or fight sending sadness to the dissociative side. watching something sad and crying about it also gives my brain another pathway so that its no longer sending sad things through the flight route (dissociation)

That's how I solved this situation. by teaching myself how to cry on the outside, that its ok to cry. by doing it in a way that I can control (a movie where I can pause it, rewind, fast forwards, watch it again,...)

my point is since you have the information of what the trigger was (reading something) and she has the response to it (needing to cry) maybe there is a way that you can reconnect the two things reading something and crying while at the same time you are in control of how you are reading something, pick a book or movie that has something sad in it and go through it as fast or slow as you need to in order to not have the response (need to cry) go through your brains flight response. use your tools you learned in therapy to keep you grounded while doing this.

that's what worked for me, maybe it will help you.
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Arrow Oct 13, 2019 at 04:51 PM
  #5
Quote:
Originally Posted by amandalouise View Post
this may sound a bit strange but when I felt like crying on the inside and wasn't crying on the outside I would put on a sad movie like "Beaches" , watching sad drama movies would release the tears for both my inside child and I.

its a weird situation with Dissociation that I learned about in a psych class. you are integrating so I have no problem sharing this with you....

theres this natural brain activity thing that goes on. everyone has the normal brain activity called "flight or fight response" dissociation is part of the flight or fight response. its not something a person can control just the way the brains electrical impulses naturally does things. it knows based on what is stored in your brain what goes where.

the more you know and learn the faster this integration works. Think of it like that broken vase in the corner. you look at it nothing gets fixed you google you go to ceramics DIY and other classes that teach you how to repair things, you learn enough that one day you pick up the vase and repair it.

integration is where the brain stops sending whole things through the flight response to the unconsciousness (dissociated storage tanks) when the dissociative side doesn't have the answer it means the answer did not get sent through. the brain kept that trigger on your side but sent the response to her side. you can see this in your post where you state in your words "I think we read something that was triggering, but she doesn't know. "

you have healed enough to face the trigger but not the response to the trigger (the crying)

By watching something sad that releases the sadness in me to that the alter inside me no longer feels the sadness. why because Im dealing with sadness rather than my brains flight or fight sending sadness to the dissociative side. watching something sad and crying about it also gives my brain another pathway so that its no longer sending sad things through the flight route (dissociation)

That's how I solved this situation. by teaching myself how to cry on the outside, that its ok to cry. by doing it in a way that I can control (a movie where I can pause it, rewind, fast forwards, watch it again,...)

my point is since you have the information of what the trigger was (reading something) and she has the response to it (needing to cry) maybe there is a way that you can reconnect the two things reading something and crying while at the same time you are in control of how you are reading something, pick a book or movie that has something sad in it and go through it as fast or slow as you need to in order to not have the response (need to cry) go through your brains flight response. use your tools you learned in therapy to keep you grounded while doing this.

that's what worked for me, maybe it will help you.
@amandalouise

Thank you for sharing and for your response.

I had a nightmare last night, and I think it had to do in part with all of these inside tears. I posted the highly triggering nightmare in the sleep forum somewhere on PC.

The problem with grounding tears is the lack of expressing them, therefore reinforcing the secrets and the silence, which is painful in and of themselves.

I master grounding quite well, given my co-consciousness and handling life the best I could with the limited resources I have.

Crying is scary, a taboo, a "emotion dysregulation." It appears that there is no acceptable time to cry, unless you're happy. It appears that people cannot handle crying from others. And those are all lies. There are times when crying is welcomed, acceptable, and understandable. There are some people whose cries are more received than other people, whose cries are shunned, dismissed, undermined.

It's not just childhood that causes these feelings, it's also the reinforcements in adulthood as well. If more people, especially men (I'm a woman, not a man by the way) were able to feel safe to cry, maybe their other emotions or behavioral problems would be less of an issue. Crying is not weak; crying is an expression and a form of communication that something is painful or highly rewarding (in the case of those who cry after having a dream come true, such as winning a contest). Silencing cries influences my inside tears and their hiding, their captivity. --IMHO.

But yes, I am doing what I can to process all of these things here.
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Default Oct 13, 2019 at 04:57 PM
  #6
Quote:
Originally Posted by amandalouise View Post
this may sound a bit strange but when I felt like crying on the inside and wasn't crying on the outside I would put on a sad movie like "Beaches" , watching sad drama movies would release the tears for both my inside child and I.

its a weird situation with Dissociation that I learned about in a psych class. you are integrating so I have no problem sharing this with you....

theres this natural brain activity thing that goes on. everyone has the normal brain activity called "flight or fight response" dissociation is part of the flight or fight response. its not something a person can control just the way the brains electrical impulses naturally does things. it knows based on what is stored in your brain what goes where.

the more you know and learn the faster this integration works. Think of it like that broken vase in the corner. you look at it nothing gets fixed you google you go to ceramics DIY and other classes that teach you how to repair things, you learn enough that one day you pick up the vase and repair it.

integration is where the brain stops sending whole things through the flight response to the unconsciousness (dissociated storage tanks) when the dissociative side doesn't have the answer it means the answer did not get sent through. the brain kept that trigger on your side but sent the response to her side. you can see this in your post where you state in your words "I think we read something that was triggering, but she doesn't know. "

you have healed enough to face the trigger but not the response to the trigger (the crying)

By watching something sad that releases the sadness in me to that the alter inside me no longer feels the sadness. why because Im dealing with sadness rather than my brains flight or fight sending sadness to the dissociative side. watching something sad and crying about it also gives my brain another pathway so that its no longer sending sad things through the flight route (dissociation)

That's how I solved this situation. by teaching myself how to cry on the outside, that its ok to cry. by doing it in a way that I can control (a movie where I can pause it, rewind, fast forwards, watch it again,...)

my point is since you have the information of what the trigger was (reading something) and she has the response to it (needing to cry) maybe there is a way that you can reconnect the two things reading something and crying while at the same time you are in control of how you are reading something, pick a book or movie that has something sad in it and go through it as fast or slow as you need to in order to not have the response (need to cry) go through your brains flight response. use your tools you learned in therapy to keep you grounded while doing this.

that's what worked for me, maybe it will help you.
@amandalouise

Oh, and more replies to your reply.

(((Hugs))) for struggling with this at times, too.

I LOVE your idea of integration, and I want to try that. Sad movies do help me sometimes, as do sad songs. But I still mostly feel the inside tears, or they are deflected to the other persons. It's easier for me to cry for others than to cry for myself. The moment I start to cry for myself is the moment I begin to shut down, dissociate. I want to integrate. It's hard for me to integrate with these parts. I know now how much of a defense mechanism DID is! I want to heal, but I don't want to do it alone.

I need a therapist, but I'm so used to not having long-term therapy to process all these things.

I wish there were groups for Integration (not just DID) that were IRL to help us go through a workbook to express our emotions, with safety protocols in place. Unlike "emotion regulation," which seemingly subdues emotions for those who have trouble with that (including aspects of our alters), it seems that the opposite is true for the final remaining alters that need to integrate. I don't know, really, but this is what I'm feeling for me.

Anyway, I like your suggestions. I do want to be happy right now though, and I'm hungry, so I'm going to eat something.
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