Dissociative Identity Disorder:
Learning to Feel
An Alter (Insider) Learns
How to Enjoy Life and Health
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FeelingsEmotionsHappyPainHealth |
For several years my joints ached. My hips hurt and I limped. I had shoulder pain and any weight on it hurt like crazy. I would wake up at night crying in pain. I was afraid of going crippled. A doctor told me I would need hip replacement surgery, but no tests were done to prove it. Then my feet began to hurt. I freaked out. All my life I had been told that my family has joint trouble and I’d be no exception. My feet got so bad that it was agonizing just to walk. Although I loathed going to doctors I finally felt compelled to see one. He ran tests and said. “You need a leg brace for four weeks, and do stretch exercises every morning.” I asked how this was going to help joint trouble. He looked at me strangely. “What joint trouble? Your joints are fine. It is a tendon injury in your foot, that is all.” I walked out thinking I must be nuts. But then when the joint pain came back, I said “No! I am not falling for that. I haven’t got bad joints and I am not living anymore as if I do.” It was then that I realized that for perhaps the first time ever, I really wanted to live. My joints haven’t ached in months. I am truly living now. Inside, I used to cry all the time. I was deeply depressed and couldn’t see beyond it. I have other alters (insiders) living with me who cried even more than me. I wanted to tell them not to cry, but I didn’t even know how to stop myself from crying. I wanted to die. I figured that was the only way I could escape all the inner pain. But now I want to live. My host (I call her Mama) takes us little ones out for various activities such as walks. At times some of us don’t come, but she never forces us. Walking was hard for us back when my hip used to hurt, but now my hips are fine. I know that I don’t have joint trouble. Mama reassures us that it is okay to be okay. It is okay to smile. On our walks we stop and giggle at a bug, we look at the clouds and we know it is okay to feel the sun. We never knew it was safe to feel the sun. How sad and depressed we were, living in a dark cave in our hearts, locked away from other people, isolated and never feeling human – just zombies with pain as a constant friend. Now I get to giggle as the sun warms my face. I get to watch a sunset and talk to my Daddy God about it. I get to be me. Sometimes I don’t know who that is but I am learning who I am. I don’t have to live in pain. I choose not to. I had to deliberately work at changing my thinking. Alters are super-sensitive. We take everything so personal. We had to be taught that it is good to live outside in the real world, instead of hiding inside. Most alters want to be good but believe it is hopeless and that they are freaks who deserved what happened to them in the past and deserve to be miserable for the rest of their lives. A very important thing we learned is that feelings must not be allowed to lead us. When we let our feelings control us we end up in a mess. Feelings should be followers, not leaders. I make the decision to be happy and my feelings eventually follow. Sometimes it takes a while for feelings to catch up and for alters to understand that it is safe, but that is okay: God understands. Sometimes it can seem scary to feel. In the past, we had times when we felt horrific things. We needed to learn that it is now safe to feel. That is why we needed to guide our feelings. I had to teach myself to feel. For example, we would put our hands in the sink, letting warm water run over them, and I would tell myself, “Okay, now we are feeling warm water on our hands.” Or, when outside I would say, “Now we are going to feel the sun on our faces.” My sister alters and I did this over and over until we came to realize that is was safe to feel. Then we alters became interested in water and the sunshine. We knew what wet felt like and what a warm sun felt like. I ached for so long to have my hand held. When someone is holding my hand I have to process how I feel – not just how my hand feels but how it makes me feel inside. It is confusing, but I tell myself, “I am safe. I am not alone.” It evokes emotion – inside feelings. Inside feelings are a bit harder to cope with than outside feelings, but once you grow accustomed to outside feelings – such as cold, warm, wet, dry, smooth, rough, hard, soft – then you can try the inside feelings. This is how I learned not to cry all the time.
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