In the wake of last week’s posts about undoing programming, let me reiterate again that internal communication is the key to making this work.
If you don’t know the other alters in your system – if people shift and move ghost-like behind and around you but you don’t know anyone’s name or what they really look like, or if nobody seems to talk to each other, or if they talk to each other but you don’t talk to them, or especially if you’re still at the point where you’d rather the whole problem just dissolved and went away by itself because you’re sure as hell not talking to any people in your head (only crazy people do that!) – then you are not yet ready to address any programming issues.
Everyone wants the quick fix. We all want to feel better, we want the programming gone, we want the other alters to be happy and quiescent (or gone altogether), we want to be “normal”, and we want it right now – or as close to “right now” as possible.
With this goal in mind, and the HMO concept of how long therapy “should” take spurring them on, both patients and therapists tend to rush in where angels should fear to tread and completely neglect the necessary foundational work.
Consider…
If you are flooded with memories from an alter you don’t know, can’t find, won’t talk to – then what do you do about the flood that is inundating you? How do you stop it? How do you comfort that alter? How do you comfort yourself? How do you process the information in a meaningful way when the alter who holds that particular memory is out of your reach?
If you are influenced by programming but you don’t know what the program is, who maintains it, who else is influenced by it, who supports it, who is against it, or who knows what valuable information that might help you undo it – then how can you address the programmed influence?
If you still have internal programmers in your system (and if you have been subjected to mind control in any organized way, then you very likely do have at least one) – if they are there, and they are not working with you – then what do you imagine they are doing?
I ask these questions only to emphasize the importance of building relationships within the system before turning to other focal points in therapy. From the most basic issue to the most complicated, there is no part of your healing that will not benefit from focusing on relationship-building first.
And focusing on building relationships doesn’t mean that other therapy work gets put completely on hold. In fact, the process is likely to necessitate processing numerous memories and possibly even addressing some programming in order to form a cohesive group from the disparate members of your system. However, the shift in focus means that the issues as they arise will be addressed by the system working together, even if all they are working on together at the time is simply learning to work together. It is still a shared effort toward a common goal, where the hardships and obstacles surmounted become memories that bond the group together instead of dividing it further.
But like everything else, building relationships takes time – and usually more time than we wish it would. It doesn’t happen in a day, or a week, or even necessarily in a month. And it requires consistent daily effort to make it happen at all – this is true on the days when we don’t feel like it, on the days when we feel discouraged, and even on the days when we don’t want to be DID. Each day wasted in pretending the other alters don’t exist is a lost opportunity to be doing something that is actually helpful.
How do I know? Because I’ve watched it work and felt it work – and because I do not assume that this system is any better or stronger or more capable than any other system. What we can do, anyone else can also do. What works for us in a general sense will likely work for others as well. We all differ in our individual details, but the efficacy of an approach is probably not limited to us alone. We just aren’t that special.
In fact, the only way I can see that we differ from any of the numerous other dissociative systems we know is in a few of the choices we’ve made. But anyone else could do that too – if they chose.
Excerpts from the poem You by Edgar A. Guest
You are the fellow that has to decide
Whether you’ll do it or toss it aside.
You are the fellow who makes up your mind
Whether you’ll lead or will linger behind,
Whether you’ll try for the goal that’s afar
Or just be contented to stay where you are.
Take it or leave it, here’s something to do –
Just think it over – it’s all up to you.
Nobody here will compel you to rise;
No one will force you to open your eyes;
No one will answer for you yes or no,
Whether to stay there or whether to go.
Life is a game, but it’s you who must say
Whether as cheat or as sportsman you’ll play.
Fate may betray you, but you settle first
Whether to live at your best or your worst.
