I'm holding all my blood inside this skin
Apr. 1st, 2004 11:28 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
ex-khailitha846.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
multiplicity_archivesGreetings to all!
I have a question.
Seems that almost every multiple I know has at one time or another dealt with a self-destructive system member that cuts, or engages in activities that are similarly dangerous to the body. The multiples I know have all been involved in trauma's of some sort (the most interesting one had for a father one of Fidel Castro's ex-bodyguards - serious freakiness there, but I digress).
Since interacting with this community, I have been introduced to the phenomenon of natural multiples, which makes sense to me and, I think, addresses some of the unanswered questions about why many horribly abused kids don't develop DID but use other coping mechanisms. I don't really want this to turn into a big discussion about the natural vs. trauma thing, but I am curious...
How many systems here deal or have dealt with self-destructive members and do you think is this an experience more closely linked with trauma-involved multiples or is it a trait shared equally across the full spectrum of all multiples? +edit: Or, do you think self-harm and multiplicity have no intrinsic connection, given the number of singlets who also engage in self-harming activities.
All comments and experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Sending good vibes to all!
Jess
I have a question.
Seems that almost every multiple I know has at one time or another dealt with a self-destructive system member that cuts, or engages in activities that are similarly dangerous to the body. The multiples I know have all been involved in trauma's of some sort (the most interesting one had for a father one of Fidel Castro's ex-bodyguards - serious freakiness there, but I digress).
Since interacting with this community, I have been introduced to the phenomenon of natural multiples, which makes sense to me and, I think, addresses some of the unanswered questions about why many horribly abused kids don't develop DID but use other coping mechanisms. I don't really want this to turn into a big discussion about the natural vs. trauma thing, but I am curious...
How many systems here deal or have dealt with self-destructive members and do you think is this an experience more closely linked with trauma-involved multiples or is it a trait shared equally across the full spectrum of all multiples? +edit: Or, do you think self-harm and multiplicity have no intrinsic connection, given the number of singlets who also engage in self-harming activities.
All comments and experiences would be greatly appreciated.
Sending good vibes to all!
Jess
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no subject
Whether MPD or DID, it is usually the case to have at least one alter that is angry with the core. Alters have suffered through everything. Thier lack of trust and security with the core is usually very strong and has to be worked on.. Alters can act in dangerous behaviors(sexually,drugs, alcohol) and can also revert to SIB(Self Injur. Behav.). Most multiples stem from some for of trauma. It is rare to have multiples w/o trauma.
S.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 10:42 pm (UTC)If you really want my opinion, I think self-mutilating, especially cutting, is actually often a meme-- an idiom of distress among young women in particular. We have actually known people who never self-mutilated at all until they were in psychiatric wards with other people who did, found online support communities where other people talked about doing it, or just met other people who did it, and then became addicted to it as a release from pain, and then begged for support outside those communities asking someone to help them to stop it.
I don't think it has to do with multiplicity per se; rather I think this pattern of behaviour is expressed most often in people in general who have some kind of trauma backgrounds, whether they are multiple or not. Because so many of the multiples posting online do have trauma backgrounds (whether or not the trauma was the origin of the system), or system members with some kind of emotional issues, they're much more likely to have found the SI meme to be an outlet for their emotional distress. This isn't to say there aren't people who start doing SI of their own accord before knowing that others do, and are downright relieved to find out they're not the only ones who do it-- but there are also a lot of people we know who never started until they heard of others who did.
That said, this isn't a slam against you, but I get a little prickly whenever it's implied that it's 'normal' for multiple systems to have members who do SI. Remembering the person I knew who begged for someone to help her stop cutting, I kind of cringe at the idea that such a person might come in a multiple community looking for help and simply be told that it was normal for multiples.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 10:46 pm (UTC)You may want to read this if you think that's always the case: Layman's Guide (http://www.kitsune.cx/blackbirds/layman/)
Trauma-based systems (or systems which have experienced trauma) have received the most attention in psychiatric literature because smoothly-functioning systems generally had no need to see therapists-- it was a classic skewed sampling. It was like how in the 1950s therapists assumed homosexuality was always an illness because all the homosexuals who came to them seeking help were experiencing some form of emotional distress, so they assumed that distress was intrinsically connected to the experience of being gay.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 10:55 pm (UTC)"Remembering the person I knew who begged for someone to help her stop cutting, I kind of cringe at the idea that such a person might come in a multiple community looking for help and simply be told that it was normal for multiples."
I cringe at this scenario also - thus the question.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 11:09 pm (UTC)It was part of the badge of membership in communities like alt.sexual.abuse.recovery, which had a heavy multiple membership, and alt.support.dissociation, which was a spinoff of a.s.a.r. devoted entirely to multiplicity. Or should I say MPD and DID. I'm not saying that these women didn't have anything really wrong, I'm saying that they did, and the self-harming was their way of signalling that something was wrong -- I often felt it meant they were frustrated, that despite spending many hours a week in therapy, their "T's" weren't getting it or listening to them.
I think it is sometimes a way of letting off steam when nobody is hearing you -- I've seen perfectly normal toddlers bite themselves out of rage that they couldn't express themselves in words in a way their parents understood.
I also know that cutting has become fashionable and stylish among Goths or those who consider themselves same. For some it is related to blood games which are a form of vampire play. And messing around with mediaeval torture devices and the like. Were they all traumatised as children? Perhaps.
The difficulty with judging any of this by whether or not people were traumatised as children is that most people have experienced some form of trauma in childhood. Life is still cruel and brutal, even with parents who try to be kind and give their kids a good life. Andy has a rant (http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/ourtruth.html) on our web pages about sustaining trauma in daily life. If trauma caused people to split, everybody would be multiple.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 11:09 pm (UTC)try this....
get a dull blade and 'cut' yourself with it.... one that mearly is sharp enugh to leave scratch marks at the most... lol... and just draw it over you a lot...... enugh you can feel it.....
the kinda rituatilstic mocking of self cutting can relax those urges quite a bit.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 11:10 pm (UTC)Goodnight
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Date: 2004-04-01 11:11 pm (UTC)If you feel like breaking glass when you're uptight, freeze water in a tray and break it. It feels very realistic.
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Date: 2004-04-01 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 11:13 pm (UTC)Yeah-- we've had moments where we were just so frustrated about something and there was nothing we could do in the moment to make it right, so we just wanted to hit our head against a wall or something. We found out that for us, though, physical exercise is a much better way of expressing those frustrations. (If it's a question of wanting to feel pain, you can also do that with exercise, just be careful.)
We've seen plenty of kids do that kind of thing also-- like you said, they just run out of words, and the feelings have to go -somewhere.-
no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 11:26 pm (UTC)I feel it is important to clarify one thing. Forgive me if I am misunderstanding..we are having a brutal night..but I noticed someone say self-injury was a meme for young women. We were hospitalized at age sixteen for a very dramatic self injuring episode. The member of our system who did it, Blue Morpho, had no idea that anyone else in the world had ever done such a thing, nor had she ever heard of it before. The idea occured to her, you might say, out of the blue. What Blue Morpho did, in such an automatic, zombieish way, was later taken up by Roman as a learned behavior to bring emotional release, but most of all as a sort of trump card, to frighten a world that frightened and sickened her. She knew most people found it to be a deeply disturbing, even viscerally repellant, behavior. That newfound ability to repell made her feel safe.
Roman has..barely..sworn off such behaviors. She has been severely tested in this regard, and has learned that the price one pays is that there are times when one must simply writhe like a worm and feel horrible feelings. There are some odd rules in place to prevent her from returning to old ways. One of the oddest is that if she ever feels she must act, she calls the person she is closest to, in this case her fiance, and talks about why she feels she must act, first. So far, it has worked.
The important thing is to not place too much emormity on the behaviors, even as you set in place rules to control them. If you have a trauma background, be you multiple or singlet, it is quite likely that the feelings that prompt self injury are.. are almost awesome in their magnitude. At times controlling the behaviors may seem to be a hollow triumph, but that is not to be taken as a signal to revert to the behaviors again. It is only a sign that it is time to face the slavering beast you are running from; the feelings and memories which you feel cannot be endured.
be well, my friend.
Tir Nan Og
no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 11:31 pm (UTC)Letting off steam: Yes. In Our case, Dandelion likes to cut (although she no longer does it), wanted to cut before ever being told is was fashionable or necessary to cut, and, near as I can tell, cuts out of frustration at the inability for her and other members to communicate their reality AND BE HEARD AND UNDERSTOOD by the Outside world.
Blood games: this also makes sense on a deep, instinctual level. Somewhere in our hind-brains, as evolving part-time carnivores, there must be a blood trigger of sorts. Hmmm...
Question: has anyone in your system ever wanted to self-harm? I'm guessing not. But someone in here wants to ask.
Danke.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-01 11:33 pm (UTC)You did not, I notice, answer any of my questions.
Hmmm...
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Date: 2004-04-01 11:37 pm (UTC)I've never cut myself enugh to draw blood becose of doing this... (intetionaly anyway lol)
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Date: 2004-04-01 11:39 pm (UTC)Round 3 anyone?
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Date: 2004-04-01 11:43 pm (UTC)Must be said
Date: 2004-04-01 11:54 pm (UTC)Shawn
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Date: 2004-04-01 11:58 pm (UTC)It just seems that as you are fairly informed about the topics discussed here, that understanding should also predispose you to respond with compassion to some of the issues on the table here - unless you are yourself a multiple who is here seeking support and advice. I don't feel that my request was out-of-line. It's okay for me to ask someone about their intentions if what they are doing makes me feel uncomfortable. Just as it is okay for you to become offended and take issue with it. But, if you lack the necessary understanding to respond with integrity and care to my concerns, then you manage to cast doubt on the assumption that you are here to help. Which maybe means that you are here seeking support for yourself. But it is hard to offer you support when you haven't been forthright about your intentions.
I am truly not trying to manipulate you. I'm not sure what your level of education has to do with this....
I wish you well, you are obviously entitled to your view of reality, as I am to mine.
Namaste.
Re: Must be said
Date: 2004-04-02 12:00 am (UTC)If you would like to give the male perspective on multiplicity, please jump in and say whatever you like about your own situation. There is no need to feel isolated on the basis of your biological gender.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-02 12:04 am (UTC)Well done!
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Date: 2004-04-02 12:09 am (UTC)Advice is not something that can be given as an Authoritarian unless you are not perceived so because it will be rebeled against. It works much better to offer a humble opinion and leave it up to the listener judge as they see fit.
And I have no real territorial boundaries to speak of. Only ideas of what is offensive and arrogant sounding.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-02 12:12 am (UTC)I'm so sorry to hear you are having a brutal night. Sending lots of hugs and support. Sometimes I really wish there was more I could do than that.
"...there are times when one must simply writhe like a worm and feel horrible feelings."
How well We know this. Goddess hon, if I ever come up with a better way, you'll be the first to know. Hmmm... although, we negotiated with Dandelion and Char using cigarettes as bait. Instead of cutting, they could smoke. Now several of Us smoke to avoid the horrible feelings. I'm trying to work up the courage to face whatever cigarettes manage to obscure, but it's not solely up to me, and We keep wimping out.
&Oh, shoosh, We are not wimping out. You have no idea what you're asking.&
See?
I agree with everything you said here, and you, as usual, said it very well. This is mostly a fishing expedition. This question has been bugging several of Us for a while, from a purely intellectual viewpoint, and tonight seemed like a good night to ask it. Thanks for answering, what, with the flaming going on and all, it helped to see you here.
I think We're for bed now.
Sending light and comfort.
Agreed
Date: 2004-04-02 12:13 am (UTC)Demitri