A Return To Structural Dissociation
I’ve talked previously in my content about my experiences with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), particularly of my experiences as an Integrated System. The past couple of months I have been exploring my remaining Structural Dissociation/Fragments further, Fragments that I had previously not been aware of, and it is has been fascinating. This has been in tandem with a course project that I have been working on for one of my Graduate classes on Attachment Trauma and Systems Theories. My journey did not begin voluntarily, but rather as a necessity as Dissociative Symptoms began intruding on my life again. Before we dive into more recent events, let’s go over my experiences with DID proper…
I was experiencing heavy Trauma Symptoms when I started therapy in 2015 when I started Undergrad, and nothing seemed to help them recede. When I experienced my Psychotic Resent in the fall of 2016, my Symptoms only escalated. Eventually I left college on full medical leave in January of 2018, and was promptly hospitalized for active Suicidal Ideation. Just a couple of days after my discharge, I experienced an episode of Dissociative Amnesia wherein I apparently did not recognize my parents or know what country I was in. (I do not really remember this episode, this has been told to me) The next day, I woke up claiming to be five years old. This was the first explicit appearance of Little Rose, one of my Alters, or distinct, Trauma-holding Self-States. It would also be revealed that I had a persecutory Alter that was myself frozen at the age of 13 and a demonic Alter that later split into a human protector alter named Bella and humanoid, lesbian succubus who had both persecutory and protector roles. I was rejected by the professionals I was seeing at the time and written off as hopeless. My DID left me spending the day in heavily Dissociative trances and the 13-year old Alter was causing severe eating disordered behavior and Suicidal Ideation. It was only by finding a competent psychiatrist who was able to get me accurately diagnosed and finding my current therapist, Ms. B, who knew how to treat DID, that I was able to recover. Ms. B primarily treated my DID using Art Therapy and it was a fantastic methodology for me, and I was able to process a lot of severe Trauma issues and Integrate the main Alters fairly quickly, within about 8 months of their first explicit appearance.
Integrating Alters in DID does not mean that the Alters completely go away, or that they “die”. It means that the Dissociative barriers between those memories and parts of the consciousness disintegrate, so there is no more need for the personality differentiation and amnesia. There is still an internal System, but it is more like links on a chain or beads on a string than the distinct blocks of DID. Remember, all the Alters in DID are expressions of parts of one individual that have been shaped by Developmental Trauma, they are not actually separate people!
Managing my Schizophrenia and work (Academic & Advocacy) became my focus for several years, and it was not until the past couple of months that I really began to focus on Myself-As-System again. My attention to this aspects of myself was really forced when I began noticing myself having brief episodes of Lost Time and going into episodes of Derealization. I realized that my return to graduate school must be Triggering an Unintegrated Fragment, and that I needed to do inner work. By “Fragment:”, I mean a Dissociated Trauma-Holder that is not at the full level of an Alter. The Lost Time did have me a bit worried about the presence of an Alter, but I was pretty sure I was only dealing with a Fragment here.
It was not A Fragment.
The First fragment to reveal itself was myself from 6th grade, a scared little girl worrying about proving herself, always feeling overlooked. I tried working with this Fragment, and at one point believed I had resolved the issues. However, only a few days later, I found myself hit by a barrage of Trauma-Ideation and I realized their must be more Fragments! I ensconced myself in my room and went into a deep meditation to access the Inner World, the psychological realm of Alters and Fragments. 6th-Grade Rose appeared. And so did 5th Grade. And 9th Grade. And 10th Grade. And Finally, Rose at 19, from the date of my Psychotic Reset. It was very chaotic, but eventually I arranged all my younger Selves into a group therapy circle with me as lead. The discussion that followed revealed several old emotional wounds that I had left ignored that were being brought up by my current life, and anger that I had at myself. The discussion was intense, but in the end I was able to establish trust and linkages with the parts. The Dissociative episodes stopped after that meditation.
Despite the intensity of the “group therapy” meditation, I had the feeling that I wasn’t quite don’t working with my Fragments. This inkling to fruition when I read No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with The Internal Family Systems Model by Richard C. Swartz for my Advanced Human Development course project. Internal Family Systems (IFS) assumes that everyone is a System, not just people who have experienced major early Trauma. Instead of Alters or Fragments, the parts of the Self are called, well, “Parts”. The book has several exercises for getting to know one’s Parts, and assumes that the reader is a novice to Systems Theories. I did not do every exercise in the book, but I did do a few and I was able to access Fragments that I was previously unaware of. One experience stands out in particular….
In the book, Swartz writes “If at any point you find yourself watching yourself taking this journey [in the inner world], that means that there is a part trying to do it for you.” (2021). I found this detail shocking and confusing, because in all of my memories and in all of my extensive Systems self-work, I have always experienced myself as an introjected character, viewed from above. At first I tried to deny what the book described, Surely it’s just a Schizophrenic thing or something! But I could not shake the feeling that Swartz had to be right. I felt a tugging from my Back-Mind. If you’ve listened to my Podcast, you might be familiar with the way I describe embodiment: I experience my seat of consciousness as living in an expanding from my prefrontal cortex (Front-Mind), with my subconscious sitting in and extending from my occipital lobe (Back-Mind). The precocious rests in a grey area around the parietals. I felt myself drawn into the Inner World and saw a Shadow Being, Who Are You?! I screamed, as the Shadow Being both terrified me and felt strangely familiar. There was a sudden feeling of overwhelm and my vision filled with inky black, then a sudden feeling of calm. Before I had the chance to process what on Earth had just happened, memories began to flash before my eyes and warp and twist, changing from the reconstructed images of myself in third person to how I had actually viewed them. Memories from my trip to Norway and Iceland to Middle School, flashing and changing! Eventually the trance ended and I was back in my living room, book and highlighter hanging in my hand with a sense of lightness in my body. When I described this experience to my therapist, I described it as a “Meeting my Shadow-Self”. I feel that in the moment I confronted the Shadow-Being, I released certain Anxieties but the experience is still puzzling to me.
What to make of all this? Truth be told, I am still working that out. I do not have DID anymore, not truly. But I also feel deeply alien in my experiences, even if everyone does have “Parts” to some extent. I have found many of the things I have experienced as a result of my Bipolar 1 features, Structural Dissociation, and Schizophrenia to be personally meaningful , beautiful, and profound; it is so painful living in a culture where talking about the positive sides of these experiences is demonized and pathologized. Neurotypical filmmakers, artists, and philosophers can talk about madness all they want, but when we who have actually experienced it discuss the nuance we are treated like we are dangerous or unhinged. I feel that my Dissociative experiences have helped me grow and become Self-Aware in ways I would not have become otherwise, and I am grateful for my unusual life, no matter what others might say.
Further Reading:
Fisher, J. (2017). Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors: Overcoming internal self-alienation. Routledge.
Swartz, R. C., & Morissette, A. (2021). No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma & Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Sounds True, Inc.
Stewart, J., & Hughes , D. (2018). Attachment-Based Milieus for Treating Child and Adolescent Developmental Trauma . Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
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