Posted by Pfinstegg on August 27, 2005, at 10:58:25
It's so strange- having an Ego State Disorder. As you enter therapy and begin working on them, you know they are there- but you don't yet know how vital they really are to the way you function in life. You also don't really know in the beginning that they do not always agree with one another about how much to trust people, and how best to interact with others. You think the adult part is making all the decisions about things like that- and making good ones
Then you begin to realize that younger parts of you are very frightened about decisions you may have made to trust others and be involved with them in important ongoing ways. As therapy continues (analysis five days a week for me- a complete financial disaster, as I am a rather low-paid academic!), the younger parts come more out of your unconscious and feel more and more real. You begin to know a lot more, but you tend to feel sicker-almost crazy, really- trying to deal with all kinds of different feelings and impulses- and still feel like one person. I think that's the hardest part- you don't feel like a single person anymore, so it gets very hard to organize your life meaningfully.
But the thing that is so good is that as the parts feel more real, and express themselves more in therapy- at times almost fighting for their own time- they do begin to feel attached to your analyst and comforted by him. Each part (I think I have three) has to do this separately, in their own way. The baby part has special fears and longings which are just hers; the abused 6-year old has fears and terrors which are just hers, and the adult I've long since become has yet another set of needs and wishes- to remain connected, and to have as deep and meaningful experience as possible. Like it or not, you just have to keep expanding your sense of your own identity to include all the ego states pressing desperately for recognition!
I'm writing about this, because it's not exactly like most people's therapy-(I know Daisy's is like this), but I wanted people to know that it is really helping. I do mean REALLY. It was what was wrong with me, and working in this way has decreased the amount of depression and anxiety I had by a great deal, and has increased my confidence a lot, too. My therapist, who thinks many more people have an ego state disorder than is recognized (It;s not in the DSM except as DID-NOS, which is not exactly right), wrote recently that, if a patient with an abuse background of any kind is not improving as expected, a paradigm shift in the therapist's thinking towards an ego state disorder can break therapeutic impasses and result in wonderful rewards for both therapist and patient- if both can struggle through the initial panic and disorganization which is apt to occur.
This concept is not so different from the current thinking that we all go through life trying to feel like one while being many..
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:547215
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050824/msgs/547215.html