The Care and Feeding of a Negative Introject

So yesterday I ran across a question somewhere asking about how to go about shifting those negative voices, let me just state right now you DO NOT have to have D.I.D. to be plagued by negative voices in your head I think lots of singleton people get them too.  How do you change those old messages that you received in childhood, the ones that repeat over and over “You’re not good enough”, “You’re not loveable”, “You’re a failure”, whatever it may be that you hear and it maybe more violent than those examples. Recently I managed to sway my negative introject/Dark Alter part over to the “good” side and that voice has stopped (I am still working on my own beliefs about myself though but that’s more manageable). Here is post that talked a little bit about how I started working with that part https://insidevoices.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/when-protectors-attack/  you can also search for more background on that part and negative introjects in general by looking through the tags for “Negative introjects” and “Dark Alter”.  The negative introject was something I learned about from the book “The Family Inside” by Doris Bryant – listed on the left side bar LibraryThing widget.  The bulk of what worked for me is what I’ve written below, I did have input from my therapist and was seeing her regularly at the time, we also did a lot of EMDR that was really helpful in learning about that voice, where it came from and what was behind those messages. This is just what worked for me WITH my therapist, stressing that because I personally would not do this on my own because that voice was too strong and to terrifying.

 

I think those voices are often like the little kid that gets labeled as “bad” but is just acting out for attention.  I think they just need to be listened to and taken care of.  I think those voices are the things that we were told not to talk about, not to think about, or told that it wasn’t important, or that just got stuffed down for whatever reason. Those messages are messages from the past that haven’t been brought up into the present. It’s a lot of work to change those messages to fit the present, for some it might be easier, but usually I think that lessens those messages.  It takes a lot of work because you have to figure out what is your present reality, what are the real messages about you now? What’s really true about you? What was really true about you as a kid? Do you really believe those awful negative messages? If someone said those things about a child you know (or make up a kid) what would you say then? Then just when you figure that all out you likely will get challenged by those old messages. So it can feel like a lot of little steps or half steps forward and 10 steps or giant leaps back.

 

I think another thing that’s difficult to do but that helped for me was learning how to both give space for those messages to spew out and then containing them.  I did at some point start to view those messages as that “bad” little kid who needed to be heard but had zero communication or social skills.  Seeing those messages that way was really difficult too and stirred up quite a lot of things but…that’s another story maybe.  I decided to try out time limits and containers with the messages, it’s something I do with other things in my life such as worries that seem to crop up at the least convenient time (just before work or just before bed).  I just let those angry awful messages spew for say 2 minutes or 5 minutes or however long I could let it go and not have it get to me.  I had been finding the more I tried to just shut down those messages or scream back at them the worse they got later.  So no talking back, no screaming back, no shutting them down in any way, I let them spew for a limited amount of time ( maybe 1 minute a day, or 5 minutes a week, whatever worked). Sometimes I did take notes for later.  Then when the time was up I visualized putting them away in a box and putting them in a safe for later (sometimes I had to draw that for myself. Not sure why but sometimes that made it easier for me to really get it to stop).  This wasn’t the same as stuffing, burying, or ignoring those messages like in the past, I had to tell myself that a lot in the beginning, it was just putting them off to the side for later when I had more time and more energy to deal with them and give them the attention they deserved. 

 

I think once I started to see those messages as some thing in my life that needed attention just as a message such as “I’m really hungry right now” would need attention and to be taken care of, and once I learned how to get the messages to slow down and not bombard me every 10 seconds, it got easier.  There were other rules too such as if I thought the thoughts would spill over into actual physical actions the time limit was up or sometimes I knew I couldn’t handle any talk of violence so that was off the table and if it came up then the time was up and usually cut off for a couple of days.  I think rules only got broken a handful of times, mostly that voice was just so eager to be heard that after a while it followed the rules just so it could talk. So what is it in those messages that needs attention? Are they there trying in some strange round about way to protect you (that was the case for me)? Are they there because maybe you haven’t dealt with the emotions around those messages and what your reality/truths tell you now (can you get angry at the lies? Can you let yourself be sad over the old messages? Can you be proud of who you are now and, or who you are becoming? Are you afraid of letting those messages go?) On the note of being afraid, what would you do or could you do if you were free from those old messages? Is that thought of freedom from them liberating, scary, or both? Even though I’m free of that voice that spewed the majority of those old messages I still have to deal with and reshape certain beliefs about myself and I feel it’s both liberating and scary but often scary. I’m just not used to that freedom. Yet.

 

The nutshell is, we get told a lot of things about ourselves growing up and we believe those messages are true.  Some of us really hung on to those words and replay them over and over in different ways. Once we get older things start to clash around as we see more and learn more about ourselves and the world.  All of a sudden those things we were told don’t seem to match up but they came from major players in our lives so it tangles us up trying to make sense.  Looking at those messages as grown ups now and seeing those things weren’t true then and aren’t true now takes a lot of work and it’s difficult to knock those major players (parents, relatives, teachers, etc.) in our lives off the pedestals we might have put them on.  Those messages though, they sometimes do need space to be heard. It’s kind of like someone saying “Hey, you need to take out the trash!”. Those parts of us need to know that, that world we lived in as children doesn’t exist anymore, we aren’t children anymore, they need to be let out to see the world that exist now or that we are trying to learn to navigate now (which hopefully is more safe and secure than the childhood environment)  Ignoring them or trying to shut them up usually doesn’t help and for some can make it worse, like ignoring a ‘check engine’ light.  Put rules in place for yourself and follow through on them. Learn techniques for containing, not stuffing, not burying, containing – setting aside for later and actually following through on coming back to the issues. Sometimes it might be easier to write it all out or draw it out and tuck it away for later when you need to. Your brain needs to catch up to you in the now, you’re not a child anymore, you see the world differently as a grown up. Take care of those issues and memories behind the messages.

My Mental Vacation

I’m having a pretty nice break at the moment from just about everything.  My therapist says I’m in the rest stage of living with trauma, or something like that.  It’s frustrating sometimes because I am so not in touch with certain feelings.  I mean don’t get me wrong it’s nice to be happy and content etc. but there is this background feeling of “Who cares!” that gets rather annoying.  I can’t seem to get angry, frustrated, or sad (although I did get sad in my last therapy session, even cried).  It’s a weird experience because there are events that happen through out the day were I know I would normally feel a certain emotion but I don’t feel that at all.  It’s like I say to myself “that makes me mad” but at the same time I’m totally numb, I don’t actually feel mad.  I keep thinking of that episode of “Scrubs” where JD is dating that chick who constantly says “That’s so funny.” but never actually laughs or show much emotion to that effect.  Just the other day I fell from the last step of a short stairway and bashed both knees into the adjacent doorway and all I did was say “Ow. That hurt.”  I twisted one knee that was already bad to start with, and scraped a good hunk of skin off the other knee.  I kept thinking of how weird it was that I wasn’t and didn’t scream or yell and that I wasn’t crying, somewhere in my head I knew that I was in more pain than I was feeling.  I don’t know if that’s my Fibro pain threshold or the dissociation (or both!).  It happens a lot that if I injure myself it doesn’t hurt (except paper cuts, holy crap! What’s up with those!), people are always kind of shocked that I don’t react more to the injuries I’ve had.

So frustrated but good.

I added a couple new site links because I get so many people looking for info on hearing voices.  The links I added are to a international group that covers the subject from a number of different angles as well as a link to the U.S. group (though if you look on the international site you’ll find links to branches in other countries).  I’m not a member of the group, I’ve just on occasion looked through the international site and found it interesting.  I like that they have this goal of not just trying to unite people so they are not alone but also to reassure people they aren’t nutso! People hear voices for any number of reasons and it’s not always a sign of some major mental illness.  I know a bi-polar person who hears voices, I know people who hear voices when they get stressed, or have lost some one close, lots of little kids I think probably do, people who meditate a lot (look at medicine men), people who are religious sometimes say they hear the voice of God. Check it out, you’re not alone if your experiencing voices.

That’s about it for now.

First Venture into EMDR

Ugh I was really hoping to be back with it this weekend a bit more but guess what?! I’m now working on getting rid of a 4th virus! 2 colds, the ear virus, and now a throat thing! So excuse me if I am way more out of it than usual! I took a Benadryl a bit ago so…I’m hoping to do this really fast before it gets completely swept under the rug.

I went to my session this past Tuesday after a really rough week.  I was at such an end that I finally messaged a bunch of friends to let them know what’s been going on with me (many of them didn’t know before about what’s going on and I only told them in my message about the Complex/PTSD. Not comfortable with letting them in on the other just yet only three of them know I think cause I did feel comfortable and that was an in person conversation). ANYWAY…they were really great and just more proof to me of what real support is and that I can trust myself and others.  So that made me feel a little more grounded.  I got to my appointment and let the therapist know what was going on and she asked me if I’d be ok with trying out creating a ‘safe spot’ using EMDR.  I said I was game and so she went about showing me all the equipment and how it would work.  I had just hear things here and there before but wasn’t really sure how it worked, I guess probably every therapist does it differently.  My therapist has 3 different ‘tools’, one is a light strip that has lights that blink from left to right, head phones that play a beeping noise from the left side to the right (kind of like those hearing test head phones), and then these little round disks that vibrate/buzz that you hold in your hands (they also go from left to right).  So she told me I could try it all out or pick one or two, I picked out the last two.  Then we went through this whole process of creating a safe spot, I picked out a spot I’ve always loved and that I didn’t think held any bad memories.  She’d read my description of it to me to help me envision it and then ask how I felt about it to get me to concentrate on that feeling too.  So we went over it a couple times, all the while the equipment going.  It was pretty wild I have to say.  Each time it seems like I’d remember some old memory about that spot, so I can see now what people were saying about how important it is to have a really good therapist doing this and really having knowledge for dissociation.  I mean if that much was coming out on a good memory…eeps I’m trying not to think to much about the bad ones.  It got interesting on the third practice, I heard some insider tell me “But, you do realize this has always been your safe place right?”.  That got me really feeling emotional because I wasn’t entirely sure why I picked that place (I was debating between two places at first and almost didn’t go with the one I ended up picking), I remembered how several months ago I was looking at a doodle I did.  I just thought it was a silly doodle but shared it with some people and one friend said something about it that triggered me into realizing that the scene I doodled was from my childhood!  Not just that but that it’s been a scene that I’ve doodled over and over again through out my life.  So it’s a pretty strong place for me I guess and I do believe that voice, that this was also a place that I used to escape to in my head.  Then the test came, she asked me to think of something that bugged me not a lot, just a little.  I thought of my work week had been going ha! Then she asked me to think of the cue word we had set up for my safe place.  That was really weird, I have to say!  I was so chilled out for a good many seconds, my feelings of frustration did kind of wax and wane after that but it wasn’t nearly as bad as before I thought of the safe space.

So, I’ve been trying to practice it and it’s still helping pretty well.  The funny thing was I think I was having a nightmare a few nights ago, I was trying so hard to wake up I think, and all of a sudden I heard some voice in my head telling me to go to the safe space! I thought “Oh, yeah!” then I woke up shortly after and thought “Holy ….it works in my dreams too!”.  I don’t know how other multiples are but seems like my insiders are so much louder and have more ‘power’ in someways in that in between space of sleep and waking life.

I’m so glad my therapist really understands all of this (she did point out a few things before we started for me to keep in mind because of the dissociation, like I’m thinking when/if we use the EMDR for the other memories I might be better using the light strip. )  So that ended up being one of my best sessions so far, I left feeling like “Ok, maybe I’m really getting somewhere and maybe I really can do this!”  I’m kind of nervous about this Tuesday though because, I handed in my ‘events’ timeline last session too.  I think we will probably talk a little more about what I put on that.

I think I’m gonna just chill out for now though, get some sleep.

Security Blankets

I wrote a post over on my LiveJournal Blog (link on left panel: Into the Darkness), not sure why now I put it over there lol.  Anyway, it was on trauma as a security blanket.  Sounds weird maybe but I realize that sometimes I’m really afriad of what healing might mean, fear of the unknown.  Now I’m thinking again about all of my other security blankets, I’ve talked about this before I think with some people but I can’t remember if I posted here about it.  I know a few people have said they do similar things either consciously or unconsiously to cope and feel safe.

Mainly I think about these kinds of things as night coping or saftey mechanisims. For me it’s sometimes I sleep with my clothes on.  Sometimes that’s a totally conscious thing, like I know I don’t feel safe and I know the only way I’ll get to sleep is to sleep in my clothes.  Sometimes it’s more subconsious and I wake up in the morning and realize I never changed.  (And yeah a lot of times there is one of the little insiders that I hear in either case.)

Same with lights.  Lots of times I wake up in the morning and realize the lights have been on all night, other times I’m just to afraid of the shadows, to afraid of my door opening or something and not being able to see.

One of my probably truely subconsious security blankets is …mess! It drives me nuts though! It took my old roommate pointing out how strange she thought it was that I slept with so much crap on my bed to realize what it was I was doing all these years.  I can’t remember if I said it out loud to her or not but my instant reply was something like “that way I know I’m safe”.  I realize it’s the same with my floor. I remembered being a little kid and quiet delibrately sometimes setting up mazes or ‘booby traps’ either so I’d know if someone had been in my room or to alert me and hopfully stop someone if they did come in.  Eventually though I guess it just became a habit and I didn’t know why my room was so messy lol! Actually as fall has worn on I noticed how much this old habit has really kicked up and it’s really driving me nuts! Everytime I try to pick up it’s just back the next night.

I guess I have some security blankets during the day but I think I did talk a little about this in another post about triggers.  Anyway, having a rough night and just thinking about the fact that I’m still up and still dressed and probably won’t change.  I’ll probably fall asleep in a bit, clothes still on, buried under whatever is all on my bed, my floor only half picked up…

Tomorrow is therapy, second session.

Seeing Red

So my mom bought me this jacket a while ago while she was on vacation, I was really pissed off about it at first and I was really mixed up about it for a while.  The jacket is a fleece jacket, it’s warm but light weight, it’s a zip up type, no hood, and lots of pockets.  That was really great, she knew I had just decided to give away my yellow fleece pull over (the one I was wearing the night with ‘d’), I have problems with hooded items because of my fibro (those hoods can really throw your upper back out of wack!), and well lots of pockets are always awesome.  She said she only had two choices in color because I’m small, she was afraid to get the green one because well with my skin coloring green can be tricky!  So the only other choice was red and so she bought that one.  She knows I don’t wear red, she doesn’t know my thoughts on that color though and yet I was still really angry that she bought it.

I am honestly not completely sure what it is about that color, I just know the commentary that runs through my head.  It’s always been a bit of a drag to me because in the past even if I liked something red…I got this immediate backlash commentary from myself.  “Only wh*res wear red!” (I’ll admit I’m getting slight feedback right now for even talking about this but, I’m gonna try to push ahead) A lot of my childhood pictures show me in red, I guess mom really liked me in that color ? Other than that though, I’m really not sure what the hatred is about, where it comes from, if anything…maybe it’s nothing?

Earlier in the year however, I decided to get some new dress shoes and I was really trying hard to listen to the inner parts of me.  I’ve been trying so hard to just go with somethings, just try to let somethings be ok, you know? I mean as long as it’s not physically or mentally harmful to anyone.  So, I wound up with two pairs of shoes.  One pair were cream with red trim and the other pair were all red.  I really like them a lot. I haven’t had a chance to wear them yet but, I’m pretty sure I would.

Now, this red jacket has been sitting on my bed for quite some time but the other day it got cold…  I was having a bad fibro flare with most of it centered around my upper body and I was reluctant to wear what I might normally reach for, a hoodie!  I picked up the red jacket because it was also light weight, no hood was a bonus.  I put it on, it felt really nice! I was a bit shocked with myself and I wasn’t entirely sure about it.  My mom liked it, lol! Today it was cold again, I had one of my regular hoodies on but it was too hot after awhile.  I picked up the red jacket again and this time…I’ve actually looked in the mirror a little.  I think I do like it!  So I guess I’m gonna have to figure out wearing it out.  Right now that seems too huge, it gets me dizzy and nauseated to think about (so mostly I don’t ha!). Might have to start small with those shoes or something first (I have on occasion done red nail polish 😀 )…dunno the real Fall cold is coming fast though.

Friday

Feeling rather blah. Remeron grog all day.

I wrote a couple of therapist, probably should have called but I’m feeling so scatterbrained. I do better with writing than phones. Hate phones. So hopefully I hear back. I called the Safe House too and got some names.

I know that all this scary feeling stuff will end, just like it did the last time I went through this. I just am exhausted and overwhelmed by it though. I don’t really feel much like saying anymore about what happened. I’ve stopped thinking about it a bit for now and just need the break.

Thinking a lot lately about old memories of the others trying to reach me. They are so funny now to remember. Like how I used to hear kids playing late at night and I thought it was coming from outside. I’d be kind of mad because I’d be trying to go to sleep and wondering why these kids were still up playing and wondering where their parents were. I think a couple of times I even told my mom about it haha. Of course everytime I sat up and opened the window to try and figure out which house it was coming from it would be silent. Sometimes it was a radio with music playing. A friend brought up how she used to hear her male insiders talking as she fell asleep. I often hear mine clearest then too. I used to (still do I guess) go “what? what? what are you saying? your going far away I can’t hear. What?”. I used to think it was just because I was so exhausted that my brain was playing tricks on me. It’s funny how in hindsight it’s all there. It all makes snese. Watching T.V. some movie about something traumatic and a little voice would jump out and say “that happened to me too once”. Scared the crap out of me, I knew it wasn’t outside my head but I was so scared anyway that I looked around at the other people with me just to see. Of course they were still watching the T.V. like nothing happened. I’d think to myself ‘No, nothing like that ever happened to me. There was that thing with D but that was different.” the voice would say something back and then disappear. I feel bad now I didn’t listen and just shoved it away. I’m not sure what the movie or shows were or what was happening in them that the voice was talking about. Just keep hoping it will not be afraid again to tell me. This time I’m listening I promise and I will try not to shove it away.

I want to put some more art up but I’m so tired. Oh I added some more people to the permissions on our Info blog and uploaded some new maps and things to that. Too tired to remember what else.