Transcript Age and Development

 TRANSCRIPT

Epidsode 20: Age and development in DID

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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]

Hello, this is Dr. E. I got a question for me from a listener, so I wanted to address that today before we talk about other things. The listener says that they watched a video about age and DID and that it was a good video, which is great, I don’t know which video. I was not given the link for the video so I can’t reference who did it and if we can find that out, we can add the link on the blog.

But, this listener says that age with alters in a system was explained as a time capsule of when the event that brought them happened. So, I didn’t see the video so I’m not sure what they’re talking about or how to clarify that or explain it. But, what I would assume that what that system was doing was trying to explain how they understand that different alters inside can have different ages.

And so it sounds like for them a visual or symbol or metaphor of the time capsule is what works for them. So that’s great. That is an excellent explanation. What I could add to that is just simply that everyone inside does have different ages. We are some of us older and some of us younger and different ages scattered in between there. I don’t know if it’s the same as what this other system was explaining, but as far as us and our system, I can only speak for us.

What we understand is that some of them are sort of stuck in time and so the ones who are younger is because something significant happened at that time. So, either there was some trauma or incident or relational issue where that alter no longer could progress or was not needed to function in the same role and so someone else took over that job. Or there was further splitting internally due to an issue and I want to be careful with that word because I know some people are pretty sensitive to it, because terms like split personality are not appropriate. And especially if we’re talking about a structural dissociation kind of perspective where it’s about development. These different states have not joined together through normal development because it was disrupted...because that process was interrupted by trauma.

But at the same time, there can also be a sense of splitting as far as like a little s as far as different roles being shared amongst other people that now feel like new alters. So for example, if we had one alter that specifically only dealt with the parents, and then for us in our system, when some specific things happened, then that job for a lack of a better phrase, that job got split, lower s. Meaning our survival depended on having to take care of those issues or take care of ourselves by sharing that job. And so it became where the one who was only dealing with the parents was then too who dealt with the parents - one for the mother and one for the father. That’s just an example from our system and it was due to some specific issues and in the context of that story it would make sense. In the context of the greater narrative, it would make sense. But, I think rather than arguing about theories on points of this, I think it’s more about...part of it is specific to each system and unique to them. Part of it is specific to the trauma itself, the type of trauma, who the abusers were, where the trauma was coming from and how the survivor really needed to...what they needed to do to be able to get through those moments and deal with that, what was going on.

So, in this case, when I use the phrase splitting, I’m not necessarily talking about the personality splitting, although in some language that’s how the phrase is used but I think that’s more about the limits of language rather than what’s actually happening. Because really what happened wasn’t so much that the person split as much as the roles and jobs and mechanism for dealing with what was going on, that got split.

So, rather than this job being assigned to one person, this job is now assigned to two people. And that for us is how some of the new alters came about or presented themselves with the things that they are now responsible for - some of those positive and some of those being traumatic.

At the same time the reverse can happen as well. So for example, a few weeks ago, Emma Z and Emma T and Emma S shared a little bit about becoming more co-conscious and part of that is possible because of the cooperation and communication and part of that is possible because those roles have shifted. And so it’s not that they have gone away or come together or somehow turned from ingredients into a brownie mix, which someone told us once, it’s not so much that, as that the job itself has changed and the requirements for doing that job have changed and so they can share those responsibilities. And the need for the wall between them is not so great or so desperate so to speak.

And so it’s more about that wall coming down through cooperation and communication and compassion for each other, but then also the responsibility being shared. So, they are all three still present, but they are not as distinct as they once were, but not yet entirely together either. So, I don't’ know if that’s too off track, but part of it depends on what theory of dissociation you subscribe to or how you understand dissociation. So, whatever video this listener saw, I’m sure that that system was presenting as best that they knew how what fits for their system and how their system understands that process.

The other piece is that developmentally these needs change over time. So, a seven year old being abused has different needs than a three year old being abused who has different needs than a 14 year old being abused. I don’t mean that any of those are okay with being abused or should be abused, I just mean the needs in dealing with it, the kind of help they need in healing, the kind of care that they need to feel responded to and rescued and made safe and helped and comforted will look different based on those ages as well as other factors - their personality or other triggers they have or who they are as a person as a unique individual within the system.

So, when we’re talking about littles or young alters, this is part of that same thing where there may be an infant inside because such and such happened to that infant specifically. And so they stayed an infant because that happened or it could be because this was going on as an infant and then that stopped happening as an infant and now something else is happening instead. That’s another part inside that’s dealing with what’s happening now. Maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe that infant was rescued.

And so now there’s someone else who is dealing with foster care for example, while the infant is still stuck in time dealing with what happened to them in the first place. Or maybe the type of abuse changed or the person who was abusing them changed. There’s so many factors, but I promise that everyone that’s inside a system is there for a reason and I promise that every part of a system has some kind of role or contribution or strength that they bring the system that makes them very important and helps explain why they are there.

So, even someone like Sasha, who on her podcast talks about being silly or being this or being that and blowing off like she does not have an important role or a job, that’s part of her job. I, for example, am not going to just hang out with the husband or play with the children or go make snacks when some people want something to eat. That’s just not my personality. It’s not what I need, but it is a need in our family externally and it is a need for us in the system as a whole.

And so the things that she does or who she has become as she herself has grown up and as much as she has grown up in her own way, and the role that she plays both internally or externally, is very important and just as important as what I do. It’s just a different job. So, the same thing for me, it’s important that we as a system pay our bills, just like any other person. It’s important that we as a system develop intellectually or academically or professionally and so that’s what I did. I went to school. I got a job. I gained experience. I developed my own practice. Like all of these things that are a part of what is unique and specific to me, but those are sort of my limitations because we have these walls between us. I am not able to then also go home and deal with the family. I just don’t, but also Sasha could not come to my office and do what I do all day.

So, it’s very unique and very specific and it’s the same with the children. If there are different children or younger alters or littles internally in a system, they’re there for a reason and a role and some of those may very well be related to trauma directly or specifically and some of them may not be. And then the same as with the adults, where some of them are helpers or some of them are protectors, that may happen with the littles as well. There may be some who are more protective of the other littles or some who help connect the other littles to the therapist or the other littles to the functioning adults in the system or the littles to safety.

Or, like John in our system, is pretty much the one in charge of making sure we eat once in a while, right? So they all have different roles that they play and gifts that they bring and strengths that they add and contribute toward the functioning of the system, no matter what functioning looks like at whatever particular season in life, that the system has been in or is now.

So this listener who says that they watched this video about littles and age and DID says that in the video they based how functional a little is off of the Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. She said that their alters are treated all like adults, but she doesn’t explain what makes the littles want to go to the park or color or that kind of thing if they are adults, so I was hoping that you would explain that.

Okay, so again, I can’t speak for that system and I don’t at all mean to insult or isolate anyone because I don’t know what video was seen and I have not watched the video myself and so I’m not sure what they were doing. I don’t understand this perspective at all. In fact, I would probably say I disagree with it, but also I have not seen it. So, I can’t actually disagree with it, but treating all of their alters like adults is something I don’t understand unless all of them are adults, because if they are little or stuck in a time loop, then they are not going to be present or functioning in an adult way. So, I’m not sure what that part is about...about why you would treat littles like adults other than we as a system, as a whole, are responsible for the system as a whole. And so there is that, but I’m not sure why you would treat littles like adults or what that is referring to or meaning so I’ll have to follow up on that and ask about it.

But, the other piece about littles wanting to go to the park or color or those kinds of things are exactly that, because they are age appropriate activities for those alters at that ages. And so, when the system was at that age, if they had this particular interest or that particular interest or maybe have gained a new hobby or interest as the system has grown, maybe during the season of healing and therapy, they may have new safe items of comfort or activities that they may enjoy, but they are still age appropriate for that alter, whatever their age is.

Whether that is Sasha going out to the movies with the husband or whether that’s John going to the park - those are age appropriate activities. So, that’s why the littles would want to do those things because they enjoy those things, because it’s age appropriate for where they are in development. Does that make sense? So I’m not sure what was said in the video and I apologize for responding to a video I have not actually seen, but I wanted to answer the listener’s questions.

As far as Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, I can definitely talk about that, but I don’t know how you would measure how functional a little is from that, because trauma disrupts all of that. So it’s not going to be an accurate measure if someone is using that to assess littles internally...using Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development is not going to be an accurate assessment necessarily of littles inside a system that has been traumatized or is plural from trauma, because trauma disrupts all of that.

So, either I’m not understanding what the video was about, which is very likely since I’ve not seen it, or this is a system that has made a lot of progress through therapy and is definitely not at the beginning stages. Because otherwise, that’s not consistent at all.

So, when we talk about Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development, we are talking about how he laid out development for all people. Well, I mean he was really studying white people in the 1960’s, but that is assumed to be applicable to all people, but he laid out development through the lifespan and talked about at each stage of development what the crisis was of that period of development.

So, for example, from infant to 18 months, about that time is trust versus mistrust. Eighteen months to three years is autonomy versus shame and doubt. Three to five years is initiative versus guilt. Five to 13 years is industry versus inferiority. Thirteen to 21 years is identity versus role confusion. Twenty-one to 39 years is intimacy versus isolation. Forty to 65 years is generativity versus stagnation and 65 and older is ego integrity versus despair.

But, when we talk about these stages in a context of development, it has a very different picture. So, for trust versus mistrust for example, when we’re an infant, the infant is learning about whether the world is reliable or not and it’s the time of object relations development. So, is my mother still there even when I can’t see her? Is she going to meet my needs or not? Will I get food when I’m hungry? Will my diaper be changed when I’m dirty?

All of these needs that teach the child whether the world is safe or not. So, it’s not just about if the child knows the world as safe then they’re in a different stage of development or if the child thinks the world is not safe, then it means they’re still at this state. That’s not what it means at all. What it means is that if at this age they determine that trust wins out over mistrust, then they also develop traits like hope for example. But if mistrust wins out over trust because their needs are not met, then they develop instead defense mechanisms instead of hope such as denial and projection.

So what that’s going to look like is an axis-II disorder or a personality disorder that begins to develop at this time because we stay safe through defense mechanisms as opposed to we have hope, even when things are hard, we will still be okay. Does that make sense?

And so I don’t know how you would tell by that...how functional a little is unless they just have a different understanding than the clinical understanding of the psychosocial stages of development. So really, what happens in the past, whether the alter is a little who is stuck in time or whether it’s a grown person that’s a different alter altogether, what that looks like is, when something new happens which defense mechanisms does the person use to protect themselves based on what happened back then at that time.

So, is that person able to develop hope? Because in some way through some means, even if it wasn’t the primary caregiver, like for us we’ve already talked about or shared last week, about good neighbors that we had nearby. So through that, those experiences can develop some hope, then we have access to that even when things are really, really hard now instead of only denying our role in things or denying how hard things are or projecting our issues onto others and things that start to look like what sometimes called Borderline Personality Disorder.

The other time this shows up, this very early, early dynamic is in the process of therapy itself. When a system is in therapy and they are trying to trust the therapist, which is going to be hard if you’ve had trauma anyway, but if you had trauma at that age, between trust and mistrust, when that developmental crisis was going on, then what that’s going to be looking like is not just, is this a safe place but are you a safe person and it’s going to take more time to trust that therapist and engage with that therapist. But then also stay with that therapist. And if you take that into context with culture in society today when it is so hard to find a therapist who knows about DID or who is trained to help with DID or you have access to that therapist because of insurance or how much it costs or time or like us, even distance. We drive four hours just one way to the therapist and then four hours back again.

So, all of those layers make it more complicated. The thing that is going to look different in the alters who have struggled with this developmental piece is one alter who’s stuck in time may think that the therapist...that the family put the therapist up to this or that the therapist will tell the family or another one may just think that they therapist just wants to take their money...things like that.

So, it’s going to present differently based on the uniqueness of each alter, but that development affects all of the alters as a system because it’s a system experience at that age. The unique perceptions of each alter will present the questions or the crisis differently than each other and uniquely to themselves. Does that make sense?

So, maybe that’s what the video is talking about...that they can tell by how the present crisis presents to each alter, what that means to different ones. Maybe that’s what they mean being able to assess. But just based on the stages alone, that’s not a thing. I don’t understand what that was talking about.

So for example, we just had the difficult weekend of the anniversary of the mother being killed by the drunk driver, right? And so we all have, as a system, some sort of response to that, based on how we as a system developed through each of these stages of Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. But, uniquely as alters, that’s going to present differently to us. So, it’s Em who’s in crisis because she should have been driving that day. So, it’s her fault the mother died. Which is not at all true, but she’s the one who’s going to present that and feel that and express that because that’s her unique perspective internally.

Whereas Sasha, in a completely different perspective, based on her experiences through those same developmental periods is going to be like, no, it’s good that she’s gone and we’re okay with that so get over yourself. Which, I believe was a direct quote and not necessarily appropriate at the time or helpful.

This is also the same reason that boundaries with therapists are really important and connection with therapists are really important. Again, if you read some works by Patricia DeYoung for example about shame-based therapy and dealing with shame in therapy, you can’t heal those attachment pieces without authentic, vulnerable connection. You need that with a therapist if there’s going to be actual healing because of these very developmental stages that we’re talking about today.

That said, you also need good boundaries, not just for your safety or the safety of the therapist or so that everyone’s healthy...all of that is true, but part of it is, if the therapist is doing too much work or too intrusive into the system, without letting the system solve things on their own internally, still being responsive, still connecting, still being authentic, even being vulnerable when it’s appropriate, but letting the system solve the problems internally. That’s the only way that they are going to be able to adopt a hopeful recovery, because they’re meeting that trust versus mistrust need.

That is what is going to be a strength-based, individualized, unique, client-driven recovery plan. Anything else is going to foster dependency in an unhealthy way and also delay the healing because the therapist is doing too much work or retraumatizing the client with the poor boundaries in some really severe examples.

The second stage - autonomy versus shame and self-doubt kind of comes right into this next. It’s about the struggle for personal control and separation from others. Think of that in the experience of trauma, where you have no control over what’s happening to you, but you also can’t get away from them.

So, there’s this layer where as a two or three year old, you’re supposed to be feisty and independent and becoming your own person. The reason they call if the terrible twos is because toddlers are separating themselves, not from the parent, but from the baby that they were and from the parent who parented that baby and the toddler is initiating relationship building with a new parent within the same system of the parent-child dynamic. So, it’s almost like it goes back to structural dissociation without the dissociation. So, it’s almost like there’s a developmental stage of parents as well, but when there’s abuse involved at this early age or trauma or neglect of some kind, then not only does the child have no control over what’s happening to them, they also can’t escape it. So, the trauma keeps happening because they can’t get away, but it also interferes with normal development when there should be some normal, healthy separation.

This goes right back into how survivors can so easily fall into unhealthy relationships with either partners or with bad therapist’s because they are seeking either control or trying to regulate that safety. So, what this looks like is actually there’s a word for it called attunement.

So, if you search on YouTube for the flat face experiment, this shows you what attunement is. It has a mother with a child in a highchair and it shows their normal interactions - how they copy each other, mimic each other and they’re so in tune and it’s very tender and sweet. But then, for the sake of the experiment, the mother turns away and when she looks back at the child, she maintains a flat face and does not respond. So you can see the child go through all three of the stages, at first trying to get the mother’s attention and then trying to get mad because the child is hurt and so they’re tuning into that wavelength of the pain the mother is sending out. And then the third thing the child does is physically, literally turning his face away because the mother has not responded and so that’s as flat as the baby can go because the only way to find attunement was to match the disconnect from the care of the parent that was not happening. Does that make sense? It’s kind of mind-boggling. It’s like watching the process of dissociation from the outside at that early age.

And then of course because it’s an experiment and so they want to repair that misattunement and bring it back to attunement, then they show the mother repair that and recovering and get the baby’s attention and comfort and console him and everything’s okay, whether you think the baby was traumatized by this or not. It brings it full circle to show how that can be realigned if it’s repaired.

But with trauma that’s never repaired. So what’s supposed to happen at this stage of development is the crisis is supposed to resolve with the cognitive understanding that healing is not returning to the ideals of the past but moving forward with your life as it is now.

So, this is why things like functional multiplicity or functional plurality are so powerful because it’s not about... you are unwell until you have been completely healed which looks like this which we say it looks like this, because that’s the psychosocial development of not having control and not having separation. Someone else is telling you what healing looks like, so that’s still just a second stage of development. But survivors are healing beyond that and because we have these online communities, we’re able to connect and have compassion with each other and grow more than what we have been in the past because we have access to all of this. And so we have an understanding now that no, it’s not okay for you as the therapist or you as the researcher to tell me that this is what healing looks like, because it’s an incongruent and inconsistent message.

If they are saying that we are disordered because of amnesia and because of the distress because of this disorder, the Dissociative Identity Disorder, then as Sarah Clark shared in one of her videos, which I can link to from Power to the Plurals, then when we work through cooperation and communication and compassion enough with ourselves internally to bring down those amnesia walls and are no longer distressed by what’s happening, then even though we are still plural, we are no longer disordered.

And that is an example of meeting this developmental stage and progressing beyond it. That is about being autonomous rather than dependent on therapy. Now, you can still seek therapy and some people may want to go full integration or this or that or maybe need help with therapy for this specific issue or that specific issue and that’s fine. I’m not at all saying therapy is a bad thing. Therapy is a good thing when there’s connection with a good therapist and everybody is feeling safe and participating to the degree they want to and are able to.

But when you don’t have that or you are stuck in this developmental phase, then what that looks like amongst different insiders would be externalizing anger, internalizing anger within the system. So, persecutors or those who get labeled as “persecutors”, these are stuck at this stage just trying to protect the system, just trying to have some control over what’s happening for the good of the system, and trying to escape what is not good for the system. Like it’s really that simple.

It may also look like conflict with others or engaging in self-harm or other self damaging behaviors. It may be intense emotions. It may include losses or changes in functioning and these can be misdiagnosed as things like mood disorders. So again, just like struggles at the first developmental stage is going to be misdiagnosed as a personality disorder, struggles at this stage is going to be misdiagnosed as a mood disorder. So, does it make sense?

It’s not really about littles or what age they are or meeting this stage and being that age, it’s more about how the system as a whole presents and what that presentation looks like under that umbrella distinctly amongst different alters, in ways that are unique to each of them.

So, when you’re doing therapy well, when you’re healing well on your own, when you’re talking about functional plurality or functional multiplicity, then what this looks like as this stage resolves is healthy boundaries, internally and externally, and more of an independent posture, both internally and externally. And even some peer caretalking, meaning not codependency, because this is not stage one, but more like being able to support others who have gone through similar things or issues you can see more clearly because they are not yours or just being present with others without being overwhelmed by it or invaded by it. Does that make sense?

The next stage is initiative versus guilt or really in modern day language, what he’s talking about isn’t initiative like, oh, I’m willing to try this or oh, I’ll start this before someone else starts. It’s not about that. Taking initiative in this context, if we translate it from how the word was used in the 60’s to how we use it today, it would be more of a concept of empowerment, of empowering your own self and minimizing what is not functioning and focusing on what it is functioning.

So what that means is more about instead of focusing on all of the things that are wrong and all the things you can’t do well and all the challenges that you have as a system, it’s about focusing on what you are doing well, how you are caring for yourself, and the strengths and positives in the way that that gets applied internally as well. So again, using the example of persecutors, instead of being afraid of them, instead of trying to keep them locked up, instead of punishing them or being just generally disliking them or blaming them or labeling them, instead identifying with what strength they give the system and how they help the system and using that for good and helping them fulfill their potential rather than also being held back because they are the only ones with not a safe place, which holds ultimately the system back as well.

So, the empowerment phase would be about building new skills, being able to do new things that you couldn’t before, new coping skills. That said, the guilt stage isn’t so much guilt as self-blame. So again, there’s been a language shift over time that doesn’t quite explain it so well when you just read the words now like on someone's chart or something. When he’s talking about the guilt stage, he’s talking about being mean to yourself about what’s not good. So, instead of not focusing on the strengths of persecutors for example, it’s more like what’s wrong with you? Or if you’re depressed, why don’t you snap out of this? Or if you’re not functioning as well externally because you’re doing so much internally, then being hard on yourself, why don’t you work? Why don’t you get out more? Why don’t you do this? All of that.

Which really are terrible questions because the answer to that is because I’m doing so much inside. There’s so much happening inside. That’s really where I’m using all of my energy or all of my spoons or all of my functioning. I can be very high functioning internally, even if I’m not high functioning externally. So, I get to define for myself what high functioning means and looks like.

When people get stuck in this developmental phase, in this struggle, how that presents externally is about the strong emotions with the need to repair it right now. I need to feel better right now, like immediate gratification. But doing that work is so difficult and takes so much time, this is where people fall apart. So, what that often looks like is sex addicition, drug addiction, alcoholism, suicidal behavior, self-harm behaviors. All of this is about feeling, I am not empowered and it’s too much to handle and I can’t make it better. It’s never going to get it better. All of these sorts of thoughts, which are misdirected because of not having the help or support to understand the struggle is for empowerment. So yes, we can’t solve it all now. But how can you empower yourself for this or this or this or whatever that looks like for you. That’s how that can be resolved and it resolves by using what you’ve learned from the previous stages of development.

So for example, you hold onto hope. You hold onto hope when hope is all you have and you hold onto your own autonomy. I have the power to help myself. So no, I can’t control what other people do and no, I can’t always change my circumstances, but I always, always have the right and the power and the capacity to choose how I respond to those things.

So, you take the hope you learn from the stage one development and the empowerment you learned from the stage two development and that’s how you’re able to get through the struggle of stage three. And when you don’t, what that looks like are the fugue states of running away or suicidal ideation or changing jobs or changing where you live or changing where in the world you live. These kinds of things to physically escape is what that looks like. And this is when the comorbidity personality disorder gets misdiagnosed. So, that means there’s a personality disorder, like borderline for example, and also some alcohol or drug use.

This is the stage where it’s very important to remember things like spoons. When you’re in this developmental phase, you have to focus on reasonable goals that build your self-esteem and help you remember your self worth, connect you to external networks for support and also in some way find ways to serve other people because of the way that empowers you and gives you opportunity to be outside of your own headspace in helping others who need it.

That brings you to the next stage which is stage four of recovery - action versus inaction, which would be the modern way to talk about Erikson’s fourth developmental stage of industry versus inferiority. So the struggle at this stage asks questions like, do you just want to stay sick? Which is different than working on healing and you get to define healing. So, I’m not saying that DID is being sick or that being plural is being sick. I mean, being sick as in unwell because trauma has done this to me and I’m going to stay in this state instead of doing something about it or the energy stage of activity versus isolation. Am I going to let them win is the question of this stage. Am I going to let that abuse win? Am I going to just drown in this or am I going to use that hope and that empowerment and that capacity to respond to what I’ve been through to find out who I am and be myself and do something to connect with others who also need to know those lessons?

At this stage of development there is an ability to seek out greater levels of purposeful work and more meaningful activities or hobbies, while also struggling with the question about how to continue therapy or improving yourself or your own healing but without jeopardizing how far you’ve come already just because it’s hard work to keep going.

It’s a time when people often quit therapy right when they need it most, because they become distracted by being able to function in all the ways they couldn’t function for some time and forget that the therapy is foundational and such a critical part of their own healing journey. Clinically this is called distraction nonadherence and means like people missing their appointments or disengaging from their therapist in other ways, only talking about superficial things instead of the work that you’re there to do. Or maybe you are committed to treatment but you have a therapist who doesn’t understand this developmental struggle that’s happening as it’s been impacted by trauma. And so if they don’t understand what’s going on, they may not be flexible enough or collaborative enough to work with that or be too rigid and actually fire the client or the survivor instead of working with them through this stage and offering some flexibility while the survivor navigates this new level of functioning and how to maintain it while still doing the continued work of healing.

For those with alcohol or drug or other addictions, this is often the time that people relapse. Or if people have been stable on medications, this is often when they stop taking their medications instead of staying on them because that’s what was helping.

So then Erikson’s fifth stage is called identity versus role confusion. Some of the research is referring to this now as the new self versus the sick self. Who am I, as a survivor, or even beyond a survivor, including all of those aspects of me whoever makes up the system and whatever our roles are or whatever levels we’re able to work together or not, just as we are, with deep, deep compassion for ourselves, what does that look like for me? What does healing look like for me? How do I define who I am and who I want to be? Which is different than that sick self we were talking about and the sick self is the one who is defined only by the abuse.

So for example, when we hear those who have been in recovery longer talking about functional multiplicity or functional plurality, that is a new self perspective. As opposed to a sick self perspective that is, I was abused, I’m not functioning, my world is falling apart, I can’t do this, it’s too hard, da da da. So, the new self is focusing on who I am besides and beyond what happened to me. Does that make the difference? So because functioning is higher, one of the challenges or the struggle at this stage is about unfocused or nonconstructive anger that internalizes either examples of or interactions with things that disrupt healing.

Negotiating this includes having to resolve this rather than internalizing it. So this looks like several different things, there may be a connection aspect where you find a community with other people who are DID, like this podcast or the online groups or books that are helpful or you resonate with in some way. There may also be some sort of coming out process where you tell, maybe there’s a supportive family member that you tell about the DID or a spouse that you tell about the DID or a child or a best friend or someone who is a safe, supportive person and you let them know about your healing journey - not in a dependent way, not in a over disclosure where you’re unsafe way, but in an appropriate with healthy boundaries kind of way that allows you to have more support than you had in the past when you were hiding from people or not able to fully be yourself.

Not seeking support from others or from others like you is going to lead to more isolation and sort of leave you in the previous stage. When this stage of development is not resolved, it’s going to look like those cycles when we go back into denial or we try to quit therapy or we put the DID books away or delete ourselves from the groups or stop listening to podcasts or videos that are actually helping us, things like that. Disengaging from the process, quitting therapy, missing appointments, things like that is what this stage looks like when it’s not resolving.

When it is resolving, it’s more about reengaging in a new way and exploring who am I? Coming out to yourself, coming out to your therapist, coming out to supportive people, making connections based on the trust and the hope that you have then empowered yourself with the capacity to do your healing. It is healing. That’s what’s happening at this stage.

The sixth stage of recovery is intimacy versus isolation. This stage of recovery is not so much about feelings or internal dialogue or relationships or happenings inside so much as connecting in intimate relationships with others. And by intimate relationships, it could have to do with finding a life partner, it could have to do with seriously dating someone, and it could even have to do with actually making close friends with healthy boundaries. So, like Sasha and Taylor both talked about not kissing your friends, not crossing boundaries, loving someone enough not to hurt them or reenact trauma with them. And so healthy relationships, close friends, dating that is primary relationship or committed partners in some way and connecting with others through this.

Now the reason this is a big deal is because connecting externally, or it could also be reconnecting with your previous therapist after you quit or took a time out or finding a new one who’s better for you at this stage, it can look like that as well. But the reason it’s a big deal is because whether you’re reconnecting with new people internally at this stage or whether externally, you’re connecting with others, it brings you all the way back to the first stage, back to trust versus mistrust just by the nature of your interactions.

So, at this stage there are lots of things that could be triggered, lots of emotions that could be triggered and lots of fears that can be triggered. Not resolving this stage is going to look like relapse or self loathing coming back or suicidal ideation coming back because you are doubting or questioning the trust versus mistrust stage. Does that make sense? So, it’s another phase that also can look very personality disorder and is often misdiagnosed like stage one or two that is misdiagnosed as personality disorder.

On the other hand, if you have long term continuity of care with one therapist or stable relationships with people you are committed to or dating or in a partnership with, then that brings value to your ability to discern what is safe and strong in you and for you. It also prevents relapses and prevents reemergence of new alters and disruptions to the recovery process.

As you resolve this phase successfully, it will also include layers of mastering some of that internal anger or need for justice and bring healing even to the layer of so called persecutors or protectors and maybe even some peace for the first time because of the stability and level of safety, as well as the quality connections that you have through intimacy.

Stage seven in recovery takes Erikson’s generativity versus stagnation and finds a life strategy for living well despite what you have been through. So rather than your life being focused on what is wrong and what has happened to you and what has not gone well, it focuses on this is my context, this is my circumstances and now I know who I am and so this is what I want my life to look like and this is how I can function well within that context.

And that’s using your agency and that same empowerment to say I am autonomous and I am on my own and I am able to function in these ways, redefining what your life should look like for you because it’s your life. It’s the stage where you find purpose and also may for the first time be able to navigate conflicts without damaging yourself or others in the process.

The last stage of recovery - integrity versus despair has to do with taking this new life that you’ve now defined for yourself and focusing on what changes you have made despite what you’ve been through and then looking honestly at what that is and that may include mourning the loss of some things you had but had to let go of, like unhealthy relationships. It may include mourning the loss of what you didn’t have. Like maybe you never had nurturing parents or maybe because of what you’ve been through you weren’t able to have children or to have children the way you thought you would or maybe you have another layer of shame from some of those stages that had some relapses while you continued recovery.

This phase is about reviewing your life in the context of what you’ve been through and having compassion for yourself to process those feelings, bring closure for grief, and reaffirm your new life as you have sort of risen from the ashes.

So maybe that was more information than you wanted to know but that’s how trauma impacts Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development. And so it’s more about how each of those phases impacts the alters inside and how each of the alters have their own presentation of those different stages and what that looks like for a system as a whole, wherever they are in the process of healing.

This is your very resilience, the ability to overcome symptoms or setbacks or challenges or circumstances that are due to what you’ve already been through, but empowering yourself to live beyond just surviving those things into creating your own life now. Using positivity, adaptation skills, learning coping skills, relaxation techniques and all the aspects of healing that you get through good therapy and good support and even hope, all of which you have every right to regardless of what you’ve endured in the past.

I hope that helps some and answers the listeners questions. Feel free to contact us any time on systemspeak.org to ask any other questions you have for the podcast or for me specifically. I’m glad to help. Thanks.

Thank you for joining us with System Speak - a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. You can listen to the Podcast on Spotify, Google Play and iTunes or follow along on our website - www.systemspeak.org. Thanks for listening.