I’ve been struggling with this subject for months now. Maybe it’s part of why I’ve been quiet on her lately. I feel caught between the security and comfort of recognising I have DID and the chilly internal acknowledgement that years of therapy are leading me slowly towards a more 'integrated' self.
On one hand it makes me feel happy – I’ve been in therapy for 17 years now. 12 years with a therapist who didn’t fully recognise my DID although still helped me enormously, followed by 2 years of trying to survive alone, followed by 3 years of therapy with someone who has consistently affirmed my DID and worked with many of my different alters who had been badly neglected. Never, in those 3 years has she pressed the idea of integration onto me. She made it clear from the beginning that she wasn’t interested in changing the structure of my identity and I appreciated the chance to go at my own pace.
What has happened seems somewhat remarkable to me. Quietly and without anything being said certain alters who have needed and appreciated acknowledgement validation have moved closer and closer to my host personality. They haven’t disappeared but the gaps – by which I mean amnesia and oceans of emotional pain and conflict between me and them - have closed. Their experiences are fully in my consciousness. The way I live gives (mostly) full reference to their needs and experiences and they are not separate in the way that they once were. I have moved from a state of ‘co-cosciousness’ to something more like ‘co-habiting’. Not only are we conscious of each other but we share a life, a space. There’s arguments, struggles sometimes but mostly we are simply one. I notice it most by the absence of internal dialogue. We are sharing our consciousness.
The downside of this is that I feel dislocated from the DID community. Unable on the whole to share this part of my story, my existence for fear of upsetting others who are quite legitimately fighting to be acknowledged as having alters. I don't want to cause extra pain to anybody but I find it hard to say ' this is what's going on for me' though I long for affirmation too. I can relate no better to others who don’t have DID now than i could before. My history is still wildly different to theirs and on the whole I would still identify with having DID. It is part of my identity and one of the most affecting and fundamental part of me (or my selves). I can only quantify that by saying I feel less DID than I did. Less fragmented, less in crisis whilst diametrically opposed alters fight for space. Less dislocated and more on an even keel. More stitched together than separate. I'm journeying through it and the space I'm in now is different to the place i was in 3 years ago.
There are still alters – I don’t mean to paint a sugary picture of niceness. I have alters that are in pain and that hold memories I find hard to bear, alters that are obsessive and afraid to death of dirt and disorder, alters who are rammed full of rage. It would be disingenuous to say that is not the case but for 17 years I've been striving to move forward - not always that sure of where I was going but knowing that once I got there I'd recognise it. Finally it's happening. Life is a little bit easier, switches occur a lot less often, I'm less afraid of the world, less likely to hurt myself, more able to plan and less tormented with nightmares. How can I help but be happy about that?
But I’m sad that I can’t easily share it with those who I feel are my community, who I will no doubt need many times in the future and who I want to be there for too.
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