Me myself and me again

Yes,

I know this experience. Or at least my version of it.

For me, they are all parts of myself and while it might be a cliche I still feel like there is a lot in the explanation that when the parts don't get along it mirrors the conflict I was used to in those around me, family and society, particularly growing up.

I think everyone had a version of this to some extent, although not everyone is aware of it or minds it if they are: we all have different parts, it's a pretty human thing.

I don't know about who the person is that says one part of you has to be in charge. But I dunno...I can't help seeing the irony of that person imposing their opinion on you so freely, I guess it's not hard to see why they think that way ;-).

I find it helps to listen and get to understand the different parts of me. Usually when they are in conflict or seem fragmented there's a reason, like a conflict between say on the one hand wanting someone's approval or fearing what they'll do if we have our own opinion, on the other hand naturally having our own opinion and wanting our own autonomy and mutual respect.

Sometimes the outside conflict doesn't seem resolvable (eg, say we feel we really need or value that person or the power they exert over us is genuinely scary) then sometimes it can create inner conflict.

That's been my experience anyway. What's helped has been being able to work through it in a space where people do have mutual respect for me and genuinely want to help support me to finding an understanding of myself --- my understanding of myself, not theirs. Such people can be hard to find, and did have to be looked for. But I have found them well worth the search. The experience of genuine mutual respect has been quite amazing after it had been compromised for so long.

Unfortunately, not everyone who hangs out a shingle in the 'mental health' space has done their own inner work. And there is still an unfortunate amount of 'medicalisation' of people's living problems, without letting people know that is an analogy, not a 'fact'. I've found it really harmful that, among other harms, medicalisation couldn't encourage or support "looking under the hood", learning to understand myself as a person, in a context of other people - who I needed by my side, not looking down on me.

But there are changes happening and people who don't impose these things around (though unfortunately can still be hard to find). Finding people like this has been invaluable to me, without that genuine support everything was just a "symptom" or else something I was completely alone in trying to understand.

Now it's like slowly getting to know all the parts of myself that have been buried. And as I do it helps me resolve things and my parts get along better and better, get to know each other, work together as a genuine '''team" held together by mutual and self respect..

It's not been instant, by a long shot..but in time it's getting pretty awesome.

I guess it's like the outer 'team' becoming a bit of a role model or testing ground for the inner 'team'. But I can't stress enough how much that has depended on working with people who genuinely respected me and didn't force me into their philosophies.. that can take a bit of wrangling in todays world :-? Though it's hopefully on the mend.

That's been my story anyway...hope it helps in some way

Best of luck to you matey.

Hi @Fredd50

your story makes so much sense to me, it makes me cry. Thank you so much for sharing!

I can visually see images of my parts and I have given them the names they had at particular times in my life. Often I am scared or angry of my parts. I don’t think I know them all yet. What I find freaky is that I feel disconnected, I call it from rational thinking, when parts take over. It’s like I’m watching the part, but there’s no reasoning with them. I actually don’t like calling them parts, because I can feel the anger about being called a part. But I don’t know what else to call them, calling them other people would freak me out.

I have ‘disclosed’ two names to my therapist. She seems to be ok with it, but it’s early days since I’ve told her. I trust her and my doc, but I am scared that they’ll put me on meds or think there are other conditions that need treatment. Has someone diagnosed you with something? Sorry sounds weird, I’m not really keen on diagnosis, I would just like people to acknowledge me the way I am. I don’t really like myself and it doesn’t help me if other people tell me I’m different on top of everything that I think about myself.

Often I just want everything to stop, I’m so tired of myself.

Hi aeiou,

Thank you heaps for sharing, it feels good to be able to talk about stuff like this openly.

I can relate to a lot of that too although there are also some differences in how I describe or relate to it. I think that's just it - we all have similarities and differences in how we deal with things and why. I love that there is more momentum in people recognising that all experiences are completely normal once you know enough about each person's circumstances and worldview.

I did get diagnosed with a lot of different things over different years, but I started my journey in dealing with professionals over 20 years ago and thankfully things are getting different now - back then it was a pretty bad time. Nowadays, there is a lot more suppport for recognising diagnoses aren't for everyone and even open opposition to diagnoses among some professionals so it's easier to have a conversation with a trusted therapist about how that isn't for you if that's how you feel. They might try to put forward pros and cons but at the end of the day it's what's right for each person that matters. And it's you who gets to decide that, a good therapist won't force anything on you. It can take time and courage to work up to that conversation of course - if you even want to have it that's also a really personal thing. I say now how important it is to me to work without diagnoses (and that's true for me) but one of the therapists I see now started out from a diagnosis-point of view. Once she understood why it was so important to me not to have one she was cool with it. I guess with a good therapeutic alliance both people learn from each other. So it's ok even when things have to be worked out.. sometimes it takes a while but ends up building trust and skills in understanding and communication.. if that makes sense...?

I've been also frightened of different aspects/parts/selves/personas or even just different emotions and the way I've seen them or how it's felt right to explain them has changed over time too. (I feel like we each find the language that feels right to us, and that can change over time too?)

It's mostly been the anger that is frightening (however it presented itself) or criticism or guilt or shame, and for me anger comes out when I've pushed things down the most. I used to call my angry self "her" and say "I'm not her", It felt right at the time - it really felt like "she" was a different person and "she was horrible") but now that feels a bit mean because that part of myself (it feels right to me call her a part of me now, but not back then) was actually very hurt and frightened and doing the best she knew how to try and protect me/herself/us or communicate how she felt. It took time for us to get to know each other and feel like we were part of the same soul, in some ways it's still going on - there was a lot of healing and understanding to get through. And some of that was about acknowledging the hurt too, what happened in outside relationships that caused us to get so separate.

It's rough, that feeling disconnected. And it does take time to put the pieces together again. For me, it's taken the time to be patient and courageous in facing what happened to me to cause all that disconnection and lots and lots and lots of kindness. But over time, there's been incredible transformation.

I am really glad to hear you've got a therapist you feel you can trust. I can relate to just feeling so sick and tired of it but it does, really truly get better. It takes time but it is really worth it. Sometimes even that being really sick of it all can help because it's saying ''this is what I want and this is what I don't want" and that motivation can help. Everything pays off... If that makes any sense... like developing patience with ourselves can be really hard but then over time not only do we get the benefits of that, but it becomes easier to be patient with others. Or learning to soothe and feel safe when there's been nightmares or memories or scary inner selves can take support to get through and be hard too but then with time it gets better and then helps with outer situations too. It might sound strange, but for me as things have gotten better over time, it feels like learning and growing so much that I wouldn't wish it had been any other easier way. Though I would never have said that before, it really is all worth it.

Thanks so much for posting, would love to share your thoughts on this and any other stuff anytime.

🙏

Hi @Fredd50

I read your message for the second time and I can relate on so many levels and I appreciate you sharing your journey and giving me hope!

I will write more tomorrow as I find it difficult to write on my mobile and my computer needs repairing. I just wanted to let you know.

Good morning @Fredd50

@Fredd50

Here’s a song that makes sense for my parts 🙂

@Former-Member oh wow!

That is such a super awesome song! I don't know the tune but I'm still rocking out to it - so amazing. I can just picture all your selves jamming out on stage and its gorgeous😁

It's so out there that you just wrote a song because your post inspired me to write a story, I've been scribbling at it all day - love it when stuff like that happens.

I won't post the story here because it's ended up super long and rambly (and perhaps a wee bit bitter, just a bit 😂) but it's been an awesome exercise, I haven't written a story spontaneously for fun since I was a kid. Maybe if it works out I'll post an excerpt sometime.

Thanks so much for your incredible song, I hope the weekend goes well - for all of you 😊

Hi @Fredd50

awesome you liked the song lyrics 🙂 it’s not mine, so you can actually listen to the song, Godsmack - Under Your Scars. I just felt the lyrics really make sense, although it’s about people meeting each other. Not sure if you like Metal, but its a ballad.

That’s great that you’re writing, would be nice if you have something you would like to share, but no pressure.

I sometimes write poems and I’ve started writing short stories a few months ago. They’re about my parts and I let my parts write them. So not really anything to share, but they help me. It’s another way to express, I also paint, sketch and make collages. It’s not that I’m artistic or overly created, I only started in therapy and it’s not ‘pretty art’.

Do you have creative outlets?

its so great that we’ve met here 🙂

Oh, whoops sorry, but it's a great song whomever wrote it 😃 I'll definitely look it up.

To be honest, I don't usually have a creative outlet, but I was struggling to describe something in answer to your post and then it turned into a metaphor that just turned itself into a story. Very similarly to what you said, I just let it spew out of my stream of consciousness. It got rambly but I liked it, and I liked being able to say what it said, however bitter ;-).

I don't think ''pretty art" is actually art, sort of more like decoration. I'd love to see some of your stuff, even just an excerpt - I'll be brave if you will?

It's been awesome to meet you too, life changing to hear someone speak so honestly and candidly about this stuff thankyou so much for starting this thread and all you've put in it. What you said about your angry self being also your carefree fun rebellious self made me remember mine was the same and a massive gate unlocked. Starting to feel so much less 🤐 than I have in a long, long time.

I am sorry @Fredd50 if I unlocked a gate and left you feel so much less 😞 I didn’t want to upset you.

What you described about your process writing is the way I use writing, art etc. Often or mostly I don’t know what will happen. Like I will have an idea what I would like to express but it changes and develops and sometimes I do something and destroy it, by painting over it with black paint and stuff like that.

There is a thread here called ‘writing as a form of therapy’ I don’t know if you know about it. I sometimes post there:

https://saneforums.org/t5/Looking-after-our-wellbeing/Writing-As-A-Form-Of-Therapy/m-p/562484#M48978

This was my first hyperlink 🙂 so proud I can do it!

This is something I posted a while ago, it’s the beginning of a story I wrote, but I cut it to the intro, as it is a horrible but sadly true story. I wrote the initial story line according to the events and a few weeks later changed the ending, something my therapist is trying to do with me.

“Grubby little toes poke out of her sandals. Leo knows mum will buy her new sandals soon, her toes are coming over the soles. Her sandals are brown, scratched and bent from all the wild play with her friends. Leo thinks of her friends. She can hear them play outside. Laughter and shouting is coming through the closed window. Tim is beeping the horn on his new bike, unmistakably his, no one else has a horn like his. Leo stares at her toes. She doesn’t dare to wiggle them. She doesn’t want to be here. The room smells musky and it is warm. The sun is low and shining right into the room.”

I’ll think about some art I can share. It’s not because I wouldn’t like to share it with you, but some of my art would enable some people to identify me - and I’m paranoid about that anyway. I think it’s an unreasonable fear, but I struggle with that.

Always share what you’re comfortable with, unfortunately this is not a ‘private chat room’.