Registration Issues? Login Issues? Need General Assistance and can't access our onsite Help Desk? Shoot us an email at our email address: moderators@aftersilence.org×
To recap, my exiles are Lucy, the bitter red fight-response one who holds violent penetration; Alice, the sad blue negative-fawn-response one who holds transportation and verbal abuse; and Daisy, the confused yellow positive-fawn-response one who holds grooming. Lucy and Alice are girls I'm pretty sure, but I've now learned Daisy is a boy. I also have a core self, the purple one, separate from my manager ("me," the gray one) but more associated with her than any of the others are.
I've been
i'm sorry for taking up this space. i was torn between posting a vent topic so i don't show up as the most recent blog entry, or posting a blog entry so i don't show up as the most recent vent topic. since the difference is basically meaningless, i almost just kept my mouth shut. but i couldn't.
i think i'm in an efb. or just coming out of one.
it was just a good cry first. well "good" isn't the right word. it was a bad cry. that's how it always starts. the kind where every tear is phy
this dream was strange. i know i'm a verbal thinker, and all my parts are articulate to various extents, and them literally speaking to me is one of the most common ways i reexperience. but normally nightmares are different, normally nightmares are visual and tactile. but this... i dreamt of a part talking to me.
it wasn't any of the ones i thought i knew. i see now. little jaime wasn't secretly three other parts. she was secretly protecting three other parts. when she leapt from the tower
"If she even could hear me, what am I supposed to say? 'I see you, I love you, you're safe now?' What good would that do? She thinks she's happy to be in pain.
Like if I said 'I see you...'"
"Do you like what you see?"
"I love you..."
"Aww, I love you too! [lie]"
"... You're safe now."
"I know that, silly! There's no safer place to be than in his bed, where he's going to violate me again and remind me I'm wanted."
Until I finished writing this example of why I
I didn't think Lucy could speak through me. To me, sure, but not through me.
Today I was proven wrong. On her behalf, I said something really inappropriate in someone else's thread. It was intended as sympathetic, but it was actually really not okay. I wasn't in control enough to catch it at first. Then I did, and I edited it out. If you are that person, I'm sorry if you saw that. I hope you didn't.
I think accepting her enough to give her a name has emboldened her, but she's too angry
Late last night, thanks to the help of a friend, I was able to bring Alice home. The one I had been calling "Plead."
I have a gut feeling as to why she chose that name. She seems to hold things around the suitcase. "Why am I here?" She holds a memory of waking up drugged in an unfamiliar place, as if taken to a twisted sort of wonderland. And she holds mom yelling at her, but also the grief of losing her... And I projected mom into a stuffed rabbit... Alice wants to follow the rabbit. She w
Lately I've found it really helpful to identify ways my body responds to triggers. I can't always identify my mind's responses. Feelings come up that I don't allow myself to feel. But my body can't pretend not to feel them.
Earlier today someone told me my toxic way of looking at trauma is because I want to be able to feel like I deserve to be saved, because I'm caught between not feeling like I deserve it and feeling like I need it. That cut deep, but the only way I could actually tell for
One of several promises i made to my fight part to try to show her i really care about her was that i'd stop thinking about this stuff. Let it go. Let her and the other two show me whatever they need to at their own pace, and just stop worrying about it in the meantime.
And i'm realizing it doesn't work like that.
I can't stop thinking about it even if i try. That's how this whole sudden decline in my mental health started and it's not any different now. How it started was, i withdrew
I've been reading about structural dissociation. There's no question that either primary or secondary structural dissociation is what I've been dealing with, and for awhile now I've been assuming primary, because I thought the only EP was little Jaime. That's why I called her that, after all.
But can one EP hold multiple traumas? Does it work like that? Or do you always split off into a different one for a different type of experience?
The highly vocal and articulate EP, the one who wa
Tonight I've been reflecting once again on the fact that I do not have two parts including myself, I have four. (At least. I don't think there are more, but I don't want to make any assumptions.) Only two of them are actually me: little Jaime, who holds the trauma; and big Jaime, the front, the "tower." The other two are people I've absorbed: my mother, who holds self-compassion; and my father, who holds denial, and is the trauma.
And I don't know why I never really took the time to think t
please pardon that i've been posting a lot since i came here. this process is just suddenly happening very rapidly for me. it's caught me off guard and is overwhelming. i do want to heal, of course i want to heal, but i wouldn't mind if the healing would maybe calm down a little bit.
since my experience a few days ago ive felt bad and icky about being naked for any period of time. this has made it emotionally challenging, albeit doable, to do things like showering and changing clothes. i fe
this is what i wanted to ask for advice on in that thread, the one where i then got really upset and edited it to "please disregard" and then had that somatic flashback.
whatever was stopping me, maybe i worked through it with that. i was able to tell them the truth about why i've been away.
no one has reacted yet. doubtful they've even seen it. but i halfway don't care anymore how they react. i've done what i needed to do. now i can only wait.
this is a little mean and pessimistic for the what are your lies topic and also i don't want to show up as the last person who posted in the wellness forum. but: because of my freakout that i deleted (i transferred abuse emotions onto an unrelated subject and prevented myself from safely asking about that subject as a result) this is what's on my mind tonight, and it hurts a lot.
edit: woke up and thought i was better. i'm not better. the bad just took time to wake up too. and again with