Coming to terms with child selves
Do you have a child self, selves? How old are they? Did they get stuck and why? Are they integrated parts of you or hidden in shame? Do they try and communicate with you and how? Or have they given up? If you have them, how do you try and help them have experiences so they can ultimately get past developmental blocks and ultimately integrate? What could/would you do for them?
I have two who are developmentally stuck, Polly and Carol. Polly had been around 3-5 and Carol around 5-7. Carol has recently begun to shift toward 7-9 and Polly has shifted to around 5-6. Da used to be around 8-10 and recently also progressed to being capable, responsible and still as much fun and fun loving as Da ever was. Those who live with ‘Littles’ or child alters will know what a wonderful achievement this is. And, no, the ‘littles’ in my system do not use baby talk, never did. Many people with DID presume the original or core self would be a ‘Little’, especially if one developed DID around age 2-4. My core self split away probably somewhere between 6 months and age 2-3 but was always ‘the observer’. Even though rarely presenting in the body, she had degrees of co-consciousness with most of the others throughout our 47 years so is not a Little.
Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.myspace.com/nobodynowherethefilm
http://www.donnawilliams.net
http://www.aspinauts.com
Hi Donna and gang,Â
Recently I decided to talk directly to one of my littles. She is known as Miss 10, Â ( because she has always been, and is currently ten years old ). So armed with what I thought were some new perspectives on myself, I went inside and sought her out. I then proceeded to talk to her and let her know that even though she was born out of pain and fear, that situation was over now. And that I am a grown up now and I can look after her, and she need no longer be afraid. I then went over to her and gently hugged her patting her shoulders. Well the next thing I knew I had this little fireball raging at me saying, how dare you come here to where I live. To seek me out and touch me. This is my safe place, how dare you bring the outside in here. And what a gaul you have to think you know all the answers now. I can’t believe how arrogant you are to think you can come in here and in a few short words make everything better. And to touch me, you know no one is allowed to touch me. Yet you of all people come here and do this to me. You have betrayed me. I hate you. I hate you. Betrayer!Â
Well to say I was shocked was an understatement. Here I was thinking I was talking to my inner child and consoling her/me and this would be a great therapeutic and symbolic moment, only to find I had violated one of my little’s personal space and safe haven. Well I felt aweful, because not only were her words painful to hear, but as she yelled at me ( for a long time, I only abbreviated the conversation here ), I felt her pain, and her absolute disgust and horror at being touched as if it was my own. Obviously this is not what I had planned.
I have other littles, but I brought this up to show that littles are complicated. All with their own personalities and experiences, and should be respected as full members of any DID team. Also I suppose, if it was that simple to just talk littles out of their past pain and into the present, every person with DID would be doing it quick smart. But these situations are complex, and their answers will also be so. I suppose as with everything time is needed for any significant change.
I too would love to hear from other people about their littles also. Â
Hi Kerri,
yes, as the core self who had finally started presenting in the body and our ‘life’ for more than moments, I had similar difficulty with Polly and some difficulty with Carol. Carol was toying with me, like a child who is not sure they can trust you. She was doing lots of singing and blocking, singing as if she’s shouting, singing in sadness, singing in defiance etc. She’d told Chris I was an invader, there to steal her place and discard her, that she wouldn’t teach me anything because then I’d take her skills (she’s our most enthusiastic singer). Then she guided/dared me to play her DVD (Annie) and some of her CDs (she likes Grease) and next thing I was having flashbacks, good and bad, of her world. A rather full on meeting really, but it moved me deeply and then she had empathy for me and felt I liked, valued and trusted her.
Polly was rather different. She and Carol had been back there bantering (don’t know if any of yours pair up and do the tag-team thing, but these two have recently paired) and she kept breaking through and telling Chris how she felt about me, that I was an invader, and what she wanted to do about that (the nasty feelings a 3-5 year old can have). I’d been making the bed when she broke through and told Chris she wanted to pee on it. Not nice. Luckily Chris has a great relationship with Polly and told her what goes around comes around and that in fairness the others would all then get to pee on her things. The next day she was getting expressive with her marbles (she uses them to represent people and changes) and taking one that represented me and smashing the ones that represented those in the team.
I managed to be co-present with Polly and using the marbles guided her through what had happened and where we were all heading. She still had quite a tirade for me, 3-5 year olds sure can blame in their black and white world. So to her, someone had thrown her out of the inner world, left her out there to be abused, and obviously that must have been me and surely it must have been conscious, intentional, selfish. Anyway, she’s decided that in spite of my vastly faulted abandoning character that we can have tea parties provided I accept that I am Peter Rabbit’s mother (she’s Peter Rabbit in this scenario) and that I’m caring, and sorry for not being there, and that from here on I’m staying, consistent and look after her.
To those without Littles that probably sounds crazy, but I have learned a lot now about how they got stuck and what they need to be able to move forward. Carol went from 5-7 to now 7-9, Polly went from 3-5 to now about 6-7. So this is great. It’s very hard to be a whole self when parts of you are stuck, lost and can’t emotionally, cognitively, linguistically reason at any other level yet.
Beware, this is long because it’s the first time anything has triggered writing on all of this and it just came spilling out.Â
I am not plural so I don’t have littles in that sense. (Although what I do have is part of how some people up to no good managed to convince me I must be plural.)
But I have always had something I don’t even fully know how to talk about because unlike classic ideas of either plurality or ‘inner child’, I’ve never found any discussion of anything like it, and since I don’t use language internally I can’t use that either. I’ve rarely even dared to try to explain it to anyone. Â So treat these words as clumsy fumbling at best.Â
What I have always had is… something like people for every single age I have ever been or will ever be. Â (I don’t experience time in a typical way at all, possibly due to odd temporal lobes.) We experience ourselves as at the same time separate and together (which means “we” and “I” aren’t adequate). When I learned to write, one of the first things I did was write notes for the others to find. Â Otherwise we communicate wordlessly by ‘being’ each other or resonating with each other.
One aspect of my outer behavior that has always confused other people (because I have only met one other person in my life who has this experience) is my attempts to tie knots through time. This means introducing objects or people associated with one of us, to others of us, and forming a connection. Not a social connection but an experiential connection. This could mean telephoning someone associated with a part of age seven, telling them my location, and hanging up, for example. When these knots-through-time are tied, those of us on both sides  feel a very intense glee. (Sometimes though time ties itself in ever more complicated knots, and that turns out to be the first part of a seizure.)
While there are different people for different ages, that’s only one part of it. (And the ages are not counted off by year or anything like that.) There’s also something about different developmental eras. And something about different emotional lives within each age. This is a very fluid thing and doesn’t lend itself to easy word-based explanation.Â
(Nor should it be confused with plurality, whether DID-type or ‘natural’ plurality, both of which I’ve known a lot of people who have them and have a pretty good grasp of the different terrains. Â It seems different than most people I have met with any of these things, similar to only one person I’ve met who doesn’t identify as plural either. Â This isn’t dissociation, isn’t ‘splitting’, and isn’t like just happening to be born with several selves. All of which I’ve known people who genuinely are that way. (Not everyone plural is like the textbook ‘DID’ theories, just like autism isn’t all one thing.) I’m making this distinction because so many people in my life have tried to force me to consider it the same (and then to play a part that has nothing to do with my life) and it’s not. Â It’s hard to explain the differences though. Â I do have severe dissociation but it manifests in a totally unrelated way that has nothing to do with DID or my ‘time traveling’. Â It’s like I experience the world as simultaneously fully overimmersed in it and floating at a huge distance. This is caused in large part by pain levels that never got below 6/10 until I got treatment in my early 20s, so dissociation was my only option. Â Psychologists and psychiatrists saw dissociation but I couldn’t communicate the pain so I was diagnosed with DD-NOS, and they claimed I had a mysterious biological predisposition to dissociate, rather than an actual reason.)
So… as I said having no language for this makes it hard. I can’t talk of splitting and core selves because things didn’t happen like that. Â I have sometimes referred to myself as a time traveller. That fits a little better but isn’t all the truth either. What I feel like is as if I have connection or resonance through time to every way I have been or will be. Despite not always being able to perceive ‘will be’ until I get there, I can perceive that resonance.
I can also ‘be’ any age. Once when I hadn’t fully come to terms with this I was very sick, and suddenly ‘became’ a seven-year-old version of myself and had an intense interaction with her. Â (Interaction is a hard term to use when it is more like ‘being’ each other.)
I was terrified to be in a young adult situation so connected with body (vomiting) when feeling myself as the age I was when I was just beginning to connect to having a body, which was resulting in intense physical pain. (I have a pain condition that even without autism can cause a severe disconnect from body due to the brain’s gating mechanisms. And unlike a lot if people with it I appear to have been born with it. Â So at 5-7 when I started connecting a little more to my body the pain became much more felt than it had been before.)
Later that same year, I spent a lot of time ‘being’ an even younger me who had no connection to body or the way the body perceives the world. Yet at the same time being the 18-19-me that was native to my time. It was surreal to be these two simultaneously. Â In that year of so much more intense being younger and older me at once, I wrote a poem with the line “a child observing mere adults”, and another poem where me of different ages accessed my current word-bank and each wrote different parts of the poem.Â
It isn’t as if parts of me are stuck, but more as if I’m very unstuck in a way. I don’t lose a time because it has gone away and I don’t feel that I lose the me of that time either. I so much wish someone like me had come before me and given me words for all this but it doesn’t seem to be happening. So I am trying my best but fear misleading by mistake. Â I hope that what I have written can make sense despite being outside of usual experiences. Because I have suddenly run out of words despite there being much more about this I have not said.Â
There is splitting, being ‘haunted’, co-consciousness and simultaneous being.
I’ve experienced each. Splitting, as you’ll know is lost time, like having a broken gear box, disorienting, never knowing which you will be there or when the last you will be back.
The ‘haunting’ thing is where there’s you but one or more others can be felt just outside of you, around you. I’ve been haunted and the haunter.
When I’m the haunter the others have sensed ‘someone’ watching them. From my perspective I was outside of the body watching ‘their’ lives (often trauma).
The ‘haunted’ feeling is where I feel one or more of the others are ‘hovering about’ as if they are tuning in me but quietly and back there.
Co-consciousness is feeling the others internally whilst still present in the body ‘you’… so you would have your own mood, thoughts, actions, but you can feel theirs inside… its like being partly possessed, but one is possessed by a self which derived originally from a split off part of oneself. And one can be on either side of that co-consciousness.
Simultaneous being is like hanging out with a ghost which is also presenting in the body, but unlike switching, neither of you disappears. So one might be in the hands showing, another in the eyes and observing, or one might put on music the other is urging to hear and then the other may dance to the amusement of the one who put the music on for them… so that’s an odd experience but probably more like channeling parts of oneself. As the core self I have been the typist for the team since around 1991-92 to the degree I became more like a conduit for all of them, stopped considering myself a self in my own right. I have features, feelings, values, akin to the other selves but in me these are relatively integrated but not as developed as in the others who are split off versions of these who then ran with these as their own lives so its kind of like having shadows and echoes that have their own lives outside of yourself.
Hi Amanda, I’m so glad you got to tell even part of your very unique story. It was compelling reading, and even though I do not experience my reality as you do, I understood what you were trying to convey.
I hope that someone out there reads it and communicates with you, because I have found one of the worst things about being diagnosed with DID is that feeling of isolation that comes with not being able talk to others about your experiences, and feeling like you move through the world in a way that no one else will understand.
And to Donna thanks for your story. It really makes me feel better knowing that others have their unique challenges with their own littles, who have very powerful personalities. And that I ‘m not the only one who gets bagged by their alters. Â
Hi, Donna. Thank you for your explanations of splitting, being ‘haunted’, co-consciousness and simultaneous being. I didnt know about this things… and congratulations for your achievement – raising your “children”. I have 3 littles. Two girls – their are very similar in appearance – like twins. But one is more “alive” lets say. She is a defender. She “hides” the other one – cold, betrayed, frightened… The first is 1 year older (she is 3-4) and has the name Lada, the second named like me – Luda. When I first tryed to find Luda. I was told that it`s impossible “Luda is dead, nobody sees her for many years”. I came into trance. I found Lada. She looked at me with suffering. She started to cry and went out of me. I heared this crying inside my head before… I continued to “visit” her. She told me one day in despair that I left her alone. I am the one who causes her pain. I was shocked. Me?? How? I told her again and again that now its nothing to be afraid of, I can defend her. I want to help her. She finally allowed me to hug her. At this moment I started to remember my childhood not as an observer as usual, but through my own eyes. But it didnt last long… then I had even more memory gaps.. I was looking to myself in the mirror every day and talked to the girl… i wanted her to be ME. Only recently she started to be integrated.. with all her sadness, anxiety, and joy also. But I still have no idea about the other girl. There is also 7 years old boy. He feels so betrayed by the people and the world that he even doesnt want to be around people. He wants everyone leaves him alone.
I feel the presence of someone near me, behind me. This “ghost” is frightening me, I am afraid of him so much that I dont know even how to allow him to come near me, to understand what is he. But I know that I talked to him when I was a child…
Hi Luda,
the one behind you, is he an alter?
Willie was always adult and male. By now though Willie has come to terms with being female and the same size and build as me – the Core Self.
So the one that frightens you, is behind you, is this a memory of an abuser or one of your alters?
If its an alter ask him to help you remember how you talked to him as a child… what was his role.
I’m so glad you found Lada and that she’s come home to you.
With the young Luda, if she’s frozen, best to just sit in gentle peacefulness with her, like in a safe place, even make a haven for her to be with you.
With the boy, I’ve had toughies too. One needed goldfish and rock climbing. The other needed to go horseriding. We got both happening. For them these are steps in even starting to build trust and long before building it with people.
All the best to you and your team.
Warmly,
Donna et al.
Donna, I am still thinking who is the one behind me. I am not even sure if its he or she… I assume that he is a male and this is my alter, one who carries the information, memory and feelings of primary trauma. I have an “abuser” self, and the team is quite aware of him. He causes me a lot of troubles. Because he says that I am a God`s mistake and everybody will feel better if I kill myself. For him, its the only possible way for the team to stop feeling pain and to be released. But others are afraid of him as well. Especially, littles. Nobody is aware of the “ghost” or doesnt want to speak about it. I feel like I will die if I allow him to be closer to me. Even to ask something – is very scary. I read that your Core Self is an observer, not the child one. I see all my memories as an observer. Can it be that I see myself throught the eyes of the “ghost”? I am confused. I also supposed that he is my child, traumatized self? Luda? So why I am so afraid? The “frozen” girl never tried to contact me. I dont remember at least. And as I know, the only alter who knows her, is Lada.
Yes, first of all, the characters have to learn how to trust each other, and only after – the world.Thank you for your support and hints about how I can come to terms with my team… Its very imporatnt for me, as I dont have many opportunites to talk about all these. Good luck!
[…] and the basics of synthetic psychology, let me try to set the stage for the present inquiry with Donna’s question : “do you have a child self, selves?â€. What a surprizing question! As I always had such a […]