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The following was written by a good friend of mine. I am cross-posting her articles here to ensure that they will always be on the internet and that her words will always have a way of reaching her intended audience. She has struggled immensely in her own life with family who failed to support her – who abused her instead of offering the love and care she provided them. Her alchemies run deep, and she has a perspective like no one else – a perspective I have decided to share with my audience. These articles date years back and through them you will see a firsthand snapshot of a remarkable woman’s growth.
-Eric
Not the correct term now, but having “multiple personalities” is … quite something. It gets pretty intense, for one thing. And there can be a lot of confusion, to add to it.
Yet the experience of DID has kinda directed us/me on a spiritual journey.
Our spiritual journey has no name, perhaps, but it is ours. And it’s been illuminating. In fact, we harmonized through our spirituality, rather than “death.”
Here’s what my DID experience has shown me about the core self..ves and consciousness. (Well, the actual experience of it. Not the clinical narrative dictated to us about the disorder. There’s a huge difference between the experience and the name, at any rate.)
Defining the Core Self
Being treated for DID is interesting, to say the least. For one thing, there’s all this talk about which identity is “a part of the core” and who is “not a core.”
That’s stupid. Let us tell you something. We’re all the core. That’s what Dissociative Identity Disorder is: multiple parts in a core self. Except maybe for trauma holders, whose job it is to protect the core from infection, basically. And I don’t know, they might have been a part of the core self, originally. Maybe not. (I’ve had three who’ve since left us, and I think it’s a mixture, perhaps. Something like that)
The core self is just another word for your personal consciousness. It’s the fluctuation (or rigid stability) in your awareness.
The core self is how you interact with “you.” All of you. It’s that thing that knows you, and the person you really want to be, deep down inside; who you are meant to be. The potential you probably run from. Your core self is who you really are.
When the Core Self “Breaks”
See, one’s consciousness doesn’t break. In cases like DID, the core self doesn’t form as one in the first place. It’s safer to keep the friends, essentially.
Well, there are theories that the core self does break. Everyone has their opinion.
As far as we go, it seemed more like a mixture of “how.”
I felt Simon (the trauma holder I bonded closest with) form, for example. It was during a particularly brutal verbal attack on my mind and perceived worth. He formed solely to protect me. It’s not like I was going to get away from the pain of emotional and psychological abuse by the very adults I needed to trust. So, Simon “formed,” and took the brunt of all that for me. Because I couldn’t take all of it. You know?
Actually Sophia was there, too, to whisper loving rebuttals and help me understand how people can be so cruel, especially to (their own) children so I wouldn’t internalize it quite as much.
But my Lucy? That bitch scared the piss out of me, for a very long time. It was when I stopped running from her (thus stopped running from a vital, core piece of myself) that I realized how magical and wise she is. Yea, people find her scary. She’s brutally honest, and lives in the dark woods (or something) in our inner world.
Plus, if she’s talking, people are gonna get angry, probably. She’s good at irritating dark spots, you might say. Either way, she was there, whether I wanted her to be, or not.
Still, there were parts like my baby girl, (won’t share her name) or Sophia, who I’ve always known to be with me. Parts whom I didn’t fear, but craved.
Even still, I have parts that just kinda showed up one day, and stuck around.
Whether “alters” (as parts are clinically known) form, break, or otherwise doesn’t really matter. And the truth is you may never really know, for sure.
A Puzzle of the Core Self… In Pieces
You can accurately say that (within the DID realm, especially) it’s clear that pain, abuse, and ongoing trauma prevents one’s authentic puzzle from being successfully put together.
Let’s just say the puzzle pieces are attacked with some sticky ich that keeps it from adhering to the other pieces.
You have the puzzle. You have all the pieces. But the picture is rather blurry, and so you have to rely on each piece to “make” its whole. However, the pieces can’t be too close to one another, for its own protection.
The ich would take over completely, if you tried finishing the image without first cleaning the mess. It would ruin the picture, and stain the puzzle pieces “forever.”
So all you can do is clean the pieces, and try to determine where they might be in relation to one another, to see the full picture (to the best of your ability.)
What is Consciousness? (As Explored By A “Conscious System”)
If the core self is consciousness, what the hell is that?
Exploring consciousness came about due to my soul-parts, too. They guided me on our spiritual journey, where exploring such is mandatory. It’s like chapter 4 in the 5508 chapter book.
Thank the Universe they did, because exploring one’s internal awareness opened up several doors of profound understanding for me. (My parts are consciousness itself, so they know most about it. Hence the singular “me.”)
Simply put, consciousness is your awareness of you. But it’s also way more than that.
Like your core self, consciousness is all the other sides of you, that were maybe stuffed down when you learned who (and what) to be.
Consciousness is the inner focus that calls to you.
So, it’s self-awareness, yes. But it’s also your attention to the awareness, to what is actually genuinely, organically, really you. Rather than whatever you were ‘designed’ to be by other people.
Actuality Vs. Understanding
The purest version of anything is, you know, untouched. It’s not translated, or stretched, or polluted. Actuality is what it is.
If you drink a beer, you know that you’re drinking a beer, right? You understand that’s what you’re doing.
Your understanding is your experience with it. The taste, and how it makes you feel. Maybe how much it cost.
But, there’s a whole lot that has to occur in order for you to consume that particular can of booze. The ingredients had to go through the whole process of becoming, so you could drink it. You know?
The actuality of the beverage is everything that made it, and beyond. That includes how it tastes, why it tastes that way, the temperature changes it had to endure; all the logistics, the factory workers, business costs, effects of consuming it. And everything else associated with the booze, in any way possible.
To put it another way, your understanding is based (maybe solely) on your response to every experience you have (around “it,” especially.) But what you’re trying to comprehend has a vast history. A story. There’s more to think of, to learn, and to realize.
The actual truth of what is only occurs as (and “where”) it is. Everything else is a contamination of it, so to speak.
Still, you need to explore, and process, the truth. Sometimes veracity relies on your contaminating it with your curiosity and attention. Naturally, it would exist without your experience of it, but it won’t be useful without your -um- using it.
Of course, the better you utilize something, the more use you get out of it. (Yep. We’ll just stick with that. It’s not wrong, is it?)
The Consequences of Names and Labels
In my system, there were no names for most of our life, except my birth name, of course.
Then, I just hit a point where I wanted to be more than a mental patient. I tried to explain what happens inside of me. In order to do that, names seemed required. I can’t just say “the light” or “the child,” or whatever. I tried, but it was just too confusing.
(I wrongly thought that my healing would come with the correct label.)
That had its consequences, though. And sometimes, I don’t think it was for the best.
It made us separate more. Because that’s what labels do. Things can be only what their names allow them to be.
You can’t exactly call coffee tea, and expect a coffee drinker to appreciate your trickery. Coffee is coffee. Tea is not. You know?
So, now, the names exist. But mostly in memory. Or in contexts. They really exist now as a tool, rather than a closed-off prison. That allows us to be us, each part to be the part they are. But it also allows us to be closer together, which is so much easier.
Interacting With Consciousness
You, consciousness, and your perspective like to tango together. That is to say your body (or the “you” this life has designed), your awareness, and your mind likes to dance. They interact with one another. Like any system, the whole is made up of all the parts that come together to create the entirety.
Each aspect reflects each other.
It’s a constant back and forth between you, and all of you.
(And you can take this to mean one person, or the whole world, depending on how you see it.)
Interacting with awareness is vital to understanding yourself. There is a whole world inside of you. (Whether that’s in a literal sense, or not, is up to you.)
Sometimes Life feels like an attack, right? Nothing’s going right. Everything is a mess. You have no energy, and you’re in pain all the time, in several ways. That might be due to your neglect, both as the neglected and the one who ignores- um- you. At least that’s often the case for me/us, anyway. But of course, not always. Still, spending time with your insides can be pretty beneficial.
In awareness, nothing means nothing. Everything holds meaning, on some level. You nurture your inner selves (or singular inner self) while your inner nature nurtures you.
There is no one without the other. You might think there is, but that’s just a one-sided, abusive situation. There’s no relationship there. Only chaotic pain, and being taken advantage of.
The Unity Found In Individuality
You wanna know how we harmonized?
I stopped viewing my parts as “demons,” and realized they are just the opposite. (As far as language goes, anyway. In actuality, my parts are neither. They just are who they/we are.)
I (the one who experiences most of the system?) found appreciation for “them.” I honored my parts. I listened to each identity, as they told me about their struggles and desires. I learned to love the “disorder” everyone either ignored, or tried to kill.
Well no. None of us is exactly a fan of the “disorder.” But I did find love for my parts.
You promote unity by honoring each individual aspect (of you). That’s even the case in a clinical setting. (We didn’t use a doctor for most of our harmonization.) You get to know each “alter” before you can integrate as one being.
(Important side note: In DID, when integrating, identities might lose their name, so to speak, but they don’t “die.” You don’t have to “kill” anything. Rather, all borders are loved away. They dissolve to varying degrees- including completely. That’s probably a better way to explain integration, for any professionals out there, by the way.)
I think that has a lot of wisdom to share. People try to gain unity by sacrificing the pieces, especially in a clinical setting. Which might not be the best course of action.
You can’t disable a part in a car and expect it to go anywhere just because you put the vehicle in “drive.”
The entirety of any-thing works because of the functionality of its individual pieces.
The strongest unity requires polishing the little bits that make up the whole. If you neglect one piece, the whole thing will eventually stop working. You are only as strong as your weakest link. Or so they say.
Why I Say “Harmonize” and Not “Integrate”
It’s not my “alters,” contrary to what the doctors would tell us. My parts weren’t afraid; they brought us all closer together. It was me- the one who experiences the experience of multiplicity. I was disturbed, as the one who has a system (rather than being a “part” of it- even though that’s not the most precise language ever).
I was consumed with fear when integration was explained to me. Me, I was. Because I couldn’t fathom killing my parts, especially like that. They said I’d “suffocate my ‘alters’ with love until they die.” Which, holy shit! Calm down, man. Why would you even say that?
Hopefully, you’d never tell someone to off themselves, especially your psychiatric patients. But here we were; there I was, with my support team telling me to kill my selves, without committing suicide. What?
My parts prepared me, through our spirituality, mostly. I fought the harmonization for so long because my parts used the “I word.” (Again, the fear of integration was all mine. The thought of murdering what is most precious in my life is as disturbing as it maybe should sound. My consciousness, I think, knows its awareness, so it wasn’t scared of dying because death isn’t a thing for them. Close enough, anyway.)
Finally, after months of preparation, conversations, and realizations, I gave my parts permission to harmonize, not to integrate. And that’s what we did.
Harmonization, or integration, or separation is simply a matter of how close your inner awareness becomes. My system decided to keep just a little bit of our borders, so the picture is seeable, but so are the pieces. So, we are one, and not separated anymore. But we kept some faint lines, I guess.
“Disorder” or Consequences of Surviving the Unimaginable?
Just a quick note here. We don’t like the word “disorder,” much in general. It takes away from the actuality of the situation, and replaces it with theories, meds, hospitals, and paperwork.
DID is challenging. There are a slew of unique obstacles when you live as a system. We’re not trying to minimize how disruptive DID can get.
With that said, we’ve been through enough to know that denying our personal experiences almost never helps.
I stopped seeing my parts as some horrific disorder before we were, uh, diagnosed as a disorder. So, our view of our very existence is more organic, based on our own life experience, than clinical.
Plus, we lost faith in the system. A decade is a long time to be pushed around by the very help you were trying to get in the first place. We deteriorated horribly in the care of professionals.
Besides, we’re not “sick.” Our environment was. I won’t punish “us” for surviving Hell straight from the gate. Why would I? We survived; with our authenticity and love intact, albeit pretty battered.
Plus, language does matter, quite often, to a surprisingly profound degree. Calling multiplicity a “disorder” never served us well. It made us feel hopelessly sick, which is actually far from helpful, as it turns out.
The word “disorder,” and the treatment of it, changed our inner focus to something “only bad,” while ignoring its full potential or genuine actuality.
And it made everyone treat us that way, too, as a “sickness.” So, my awareness closed in, and focused only on the “illness” aspect that was me.
Make sense? We became the disorder, in other words, replacing the actual selves (or authentic self) with a diseased version of it. No, thanks.
My Part, Lucy, Has A Message About Consciousness and Depths
The one with the birth name just saw that I’ve changed outfits, and she has to process it. (She being me and all.) I used to wear jeans with a red hoodie, but I guess it’s time to portray both my conscious light and revel in some darkness. I mean, I do that, anyway. Whatever.
Let’s get to the point. It’s crucial for you to explore what remains in you. That’s your foundation. It’s so deep, most people will never even know about it. But you will benefit from going there, to your base level. It takes time to work through all the “floors” (is that a good word?) but that’s where your strength lies.
The deeper you go, the deeper you strengthen. Don’t worry. Some of the foundation meets you halfway.
I glow consistently and brighter now, (since the makeover, or update. Whatever you wanna call it, doesn’t matter.) but I choose to reside in the darkness. It’s not what you call Hell, or Hades even.
It’s just the unseen. That’s my favorite place to be, unless I have to come to the surface, for whatever reason. I dwell in the unseen until I need to be seen. Well, “seen,” depending on your eyes, I guess.
Anyway, take from it what you will. Bye.
The Core Self Can’t Really Die, But It Can Hurt
Especially to the spiritual community, (whatever “spiritual” means) self-awareness is how you rescue yourself. The only way out is in. And we can attest to that.
But, to us, it implies that consciousness itself cannot be hurt, ever, in any way. There’s this sense that awareness is utterly untouchable, and that it will never know a single ounce of suffering, or pain.
That’s bullshit, if my system of consciousness has taught me anything. (They have. And still do.) Awareness can be attacked. It’s targeted all the time, in fact.
That’s like the whole point, actually. To protect your awareness. To visit your inner world so you can know more about your raw Essence. To protect yourself so your ‘pureness’ can stay pure. (Not sexually, per se. Just untouched. Un-fucked with; the truest version of who you really are.)
When your core self is neglected, trust me, you’ll feel it. When something within your authenticity is in pain, you’ll be in pain as well. If your consciousness hurts, you hurt.
But that’s also only half (or so) of the truth. There are levels of your potential you can never be harmed. It remains untouched, despite your attempts to destroy it.
Focus can absolutely be taunted, right? Distraction is a real problem, for some of us. (Sometimes.) But, not on all layers. Its foundation doesn’t move, no matter how hard you push it. You just might have to go deeper to find stability.
The core self (as one thing, I guess- but it doesn’t actually matter) is there for you as much as you are there for, uh… it. If you decide to sit with yourself, your awareness will sit with you. When you listen to your inner being-s, personified or not, they (or it) listens to you.
Your core self will fight for you, especially if you return the favor.
My Conscious System, Core Selves, and Self-Awareness
As you can see, we view ourself from a different lens than society would. Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder is highly demanding and intense. Non-unity is chaotic and consuming, regardless of what name you give it.
But how we treat our “selves” makes all the difference. The words you use create your perspectives. You become what you think, eventually. You limit yourself immensely when you aren’t fair to you.
A little raw understanding goes a long way. We mean, undisguised exploration of yourself has its consequences. Some of which are easier to accept than others.
Self-awareness is indeed the way. But that means giving attention to what’s inside of you.
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