#parts work

[subsystems]

Developing an Inner Safe Space for Parts

Note: This post was written for people with dissociative disorders, but anyone else can use the methods here if they're helpful!

This post is all about inner safe spaces! What is an inner safe space, though? Here's what Coping with Trauma-related Dissociation says:

"Inner safe spaces are images of places where you can be safe, relaxed, and cared for. These images have been shown to be helpful to many people, not just those with dissociative disorders. This type of imaginal activity is well known to produce a feeling of relaxation and well-being in those who use it regularly. If your inner experience feels so jarring, unsafe, and frightening, as it often does in individuals with dissociative disorders, the ability to imagine these spaces becomes especially important and helpful."

Inner safe spaces can be useful for many things. You can use it to relax & alleviate anxiety. It can be a tool for soothing dissociated parts of the self, or aide in your communication with them. You or other parts can enter your inner safe space to protect yourself from feeling overwhelmed or potential triggers. Overall, creating an inner safe space can help make your mind a safer, calmer place.

So, how do you make one? All you have to do is imagine it!

Your inner safe space can be anything you want to imagine. There are no rules and it can always be changed! You can create one imaginary place for all parts of your system to share & add to. Or, each part of your system can create their own inner safe spaces to match their own needs. Some people already experience some sort of inner world, too. This can always be changed in order to make it feel safer and calmer for all parts of the system.

🌟 Ideas for inner safe spaces:

Outdoor areas like a meadow, beach, forest, mountain, etc.

Buildings like a cabin, tree house, castle, library, etc.

Vehicles like a car, pirate ship, submarine, spacecraft, etc.

Something underground, underwater, in the sky, or in space.

An entire planet or world of your own.

A fictional world that brings you comfort.

An inner safe space isn't a safe space if it doesn't make you, including all parts of you, feel safe. A good place to start is by writing down things that make you feel safe. If you don't know what makes you feel safe, try looking at what makes you feel less unsafe. It might also help to ask a loved one or therapist for help!

Invite your system to include their own needs, too. Try not to judge them even if you disagree. It's important for all parts of the system to feel safe.

🌟 Ideas for things that you can add/adjust to make your inner safe space feel more comfortable:

Add games, food, and movies that you like

Create individual rooms for each part of the system

Give yourself an inner appearance that makes you happy

Add your favorite colors, sounds, smells, & sights

Add people, characters, animals & creatures that you like

Give yourself a comfortable bed, with soft blankets & maybe even some plushies

Add pride flags!

Create a protective force field around your safe space

You or other parts may want to have a safe space that no one else can intrude upon and that's okay. It's important to respect each other's privacy. You can also adjust the inner safe space to make communication between parts easier! For example, you could add intercoms, mailboxes, telephones, or even a meeting area for aiding communication.

🌟 Having trouble visualizing, or can't visualize things at all? Try...

Drawing or painting it.

Writing about it.

Building it. You can use a video game like the Sims (get it for free!) or Minecraft.

Basing it off of a real place.

Collecting photos/videos of what you want it to be like. You can find royalty-free images on Unsplash and Pixabay. Or you create a Pinterest account!

Filling a journal, document, blog, or discord server with pictures, writing, and anything you want about your inner safe space!

Trying guided exercises for creating inner safe spaces. (IMO this is best done with a therapist's help.)

Asking your friends, therapist, or loved ones for their suggestions.

Creating a physical safe space instead of an inner one.

#actuallydid #actuallydissociative #actuallyosdd #actuallytraumagenic #actuallymultiple #multiplicity #dissociative identity disorder #dissociation #parts work #working with parts #DID recovery #DID support #headspace #inner world #inner safe space #long post #resources

[healingchildhoodtrauma]

#parts work #reparenting #inner child healing #structural dissociation #internal family systems #healing from abuse #trauma healing #cptsd

[selkie-ifs]

Parts work is challenging when your loudest part is avoidance

#avoidance #parts work #internal family systems #umbra is so loud this month #i have an appointment tonight and i want to cancel it so bad hahaha

[arcane-sync]

I want to talk about something that I have never seen mentioned on this website before. That is, the duality of alter lists. And tangentially, switching multiple times to chat with people online.

When I was first coming to terms with this diagnosis, I too made an alter list with basic info and shared it with people I talked to. It was a trend in the groups I ended up in.

What is interesting was the info I dug up for those lists was TRUE but not AUTHENTIC. Let me explain that.

Factually, the information was mostly accurate. But I am not sure exactly how I came up with it. I dont know if it was a mischevious part sharing personal info behind their backs, if the info was floated to me willingly, or if I ripped the info out of my own mind (probably doing some damage in the process). At the very least, it seemed to do some damage to my relationships with these parts.

Actually MEETING these parts has turned out to be a radically different process than learning about them was. It has been a process of years and building up trust. And yes, my original info was true, but it lacked DEPTH. My 4 or 5 main parts are so, so much more than the pithy information I originally had. Reducing them to some simple info on a list simply does not do them justice. Getting to know THEM and not facts about them has been a radical and humbling series of events. I am so much more connected to them now, and I am coming to love them as fully developed parts now. These 4-5 main parts were all ANPs at one point, and were around long enough to develop their own trauma before passing the torch to a new primary ANP. They really are fully developed, and it will be a long time before they integrate, if they ever do. Those alter lists also reduced the EPs as well though, reducing their trauma to words on a page, intellectualizing information that desperately needed to be experienced, felt, and processed. Again, nothing on those lists were wrong, and they had their own uses. But they were... awfully reductionistic and left me wholly unprepared for the complexity of those alters.

Getting the information on those lists from the mouths of the parts themselves means so, so much more than having the factual info. It is useful and has its place, I think, but its not an end-all, be-all.

Now to the tangent mentioned at the beginning. If I am only recently meeting these parts, how was I switching multiple times to talk to people online? Honestly? I do think that was a different part entirely. I think they knew each alter well enough to know how they would respond and fed me that information. I think it was a third party alter who was helping me adjust to the idea of having DID. Without the added stress of bridging the gap with these parts to genuinely interact with them. A form of exposure therapy, essentially, from one of my own parts. None of that info was WRONG, but again, it wasnt AUTHENTIC.

So this is how I've made sense of my journey with my personal growth and online communities. I would love to hear any thoughts, reflections, or experiences others have.

#actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #parts work

[daughterofanarcissistwoman]

I find it hard when I see old pics/videos of me not because I think I was "cringe" but because I can see how vulnerable/trusting I was and see clearly now how the people around me were taking advantage of me and it infuriates my inner protector

#inner child healing #reparenting #structural dissociation #parts work #internal family systems #trauma #abuse

[kitschmyart]

#rabbit #forest #speed paint #digital #snow #shiver #parts work #protector

[unwelcome-ozian]

#Trauma recovery #parts work #DID #healing #abuse recovery

[sophieinwonderland]

i mean, in a sense, your home self might fit as an exile and your work self might be a manager and your party self might be a firefighter or something

but now that you do mention the literal roles in IFS, I haven't seen one anti endo mention them.... like ever

Right?

And the home self and work self are referenced all the time despite having no basically no role in IFS in what I've read.

It's like all the anti-endos are just getting their (mis)information about IFS from other anti-endos.

Just for reference:

I think if work selves and home selves were separate parts at all under this model, they would probably both fall under the categories of Managers most of the time. But I do think a "party self" being a firefighter makes a lot of sense.

#internal family systems #psychiatry #psychology #ifs therapy #parts work #ifs #syscourse #endogenic #pro endo #pro endogenic #plurality #systems #system #multiplicity #system stuff #real system #actually a system #therapy #mental healthy

[multiplicity-positivity]

we recently told our therapist about ourselves and we was quite understanding. She has a focus on trauma reprocessing so I think she has a background in this in some way.

Anyway, she sent us some information on Internal Family Systems. it was out first time hearing about this and as a general framework this makes a fair amount of sense for us.

We brought it up to our partner system who shared reservations about IFS and after reading more about it, we see where they're coming from.

Have you encountered IFS before? If so, is there any literature you've that you recommend? We're generally curious for the opinions of other systems, as we see the value in it as a framework for understanding ourselves and also the problems with it for what feels like reducing the experiences of other systems, particularly those with DID/OSDD.

hey, we have a little bit of experience with ifs through therapy and reading about it online. online, we have seen how it has been used in the past to dismiss and discredit dissociative disorders (some say that the parts mentioned through ifs disprove did systems being parts themselves). we have also seen it used to prove and affirm plurality, even plurality without trauma (some say that the parts that make them up through ifs do in fact make them plural).

our own host (hi) greatly benefits from ifs, and has been trying to understand the different parts of himself (not parts as in headmates, but parts as in parts through the ifs model) in order to show himself more kindness and self compassion. treating the different aspects of himself as separate individuals in need of care and attention has really been helping him, and we’re trying to support him in this however we can. we hope to be able to share this mindset with some other members in our system who similarly struggle with self hatred.

we think that recognizing each individual alter as their own multi-faceted person, each made up of their own parts with wants, needs, and desires, has really helped to humanize those of us in our system who were so dehumanized in our youth. each alter, each part, is complex and is capable of having their own parts that come together and make them up. does that make sense?

as far as literature, most of what we know about ifs we’ve learned through therapy. however, we currently have the book no bad parts: healing trauma and restoring wholeness with the internal family systems model (<- amazon link) on our reading list. we haven’t read it yet, so we can’t say for sure how helpful it is, but it looks like it’s going to be a good read.

we don’t believe that there’s any framework or model of viewing the self out there which is 100% good or 100% bad. not everyone is going to get something out of the ifs model, and that’s okay. if you find that ifs works for you, and that each member of your system coming to understand their own parts helps them heal and become better people, then awesome, you should definitely use it! if you find your system feels dismissed or demeaned by the ifs model, you shouldn’t be required to use it at all. not every framework is going to work for every person all the time, and that’s okay. heck, for systems, not every headmate may benefit from the same frameworks that the rest of their system uses, and that’s okay too!

sorry if this response seems frazzled or all over the place. we had completely finished responding when tumblr crashed, so we had to try and rewrite this from memory (oops). we hope that y’all can learn and grow together, with or without the ifs model. if you choose to not use it in your recovery process, hopefully your therapist will be understanding. wishing y’all the very best.

🐢 kip and 💫 parker

#ifs model #internal family systems #parts work

[healingchildhoodtrauma]

#inner child healing #reparenting #parts work #cptsd #healing from child abuse #healing from childhood trauma

[monika-symphony]

A Story in Parts

While I was walking along I found myself in pieces.

I found myself as an angel with rage of biblical proportions that I'd never known. And I said "you can feel angry now so long as you use it to protect us." And she calmed.

I found myself as a confident girl with no inhibitions. I said "you can exist so long as you help me feel self compassion." And she agreed.

I found myself as a child who couldn't speak. I said "you can make up for the rest you lost for others." And she sleeps soundly.

I found myself as an artist struggling to continue. I said "you can create as you please without judgement." And she was overjoyed.

I found myself as a teenager with no memories. I said "you can be whoever you are today and nobody will stop you here." And she is.

I found myself as an alien who never felt stability. I said "you have a home here now." And she stayed.

I found myself as a popular girl with a reputation to maintain. I said "you don't have to conform anymore." And she loves herself.

I found myself as a princess who never wanted to be one. I said "you can experience normalcy now." And she does as she pleases.

I found myself as a poet who lost everything. I said "you don't have to be afraid to share what's inside." And she isn't.

I found myself alone. I said "it doesn't have to be this way."

#art #poetry #poem #sysblr #plurality #system stuff #parts work #internal family system #spilled ink #writing #writblr #upload #monika mutters

[rachelleacomics]

#inner demons #monster #illustration #monster design #mental illness #parts work #ifs therapy #black and white illustration #religious trauma #trauma #drawing #religious guilt #ex christian

[daughterofanarcissistwoman]

#inner child healing #reparenting #parts work #structural dissociation #cptsd #internal family systems

[theorionissystem]

I made a game not too long ago involving some system-y stuff.

Despite having finished a playable version I didn’t really feel comfortable playing or recording it until now almost half a year later haha. But here it is:

The story isn’t really uhhh, coherent. I mostly just wanted to play with the “PT style looping” thing but in a pokemon game, and the system stuff kinda just got sprinkled in here and there, so much like my internal communication, its a bit all over the place lol. Which kinda hits the vibes I was going for but perhaps it could be better given some more planning. Or less glitchy mapping tools.

But it was fun to make and occasionally stressful but mostly fun.

#dissociative identity disorder #did/osdd #actuallydid #did system #actually did #my art #parts work #integration #alters #Youtube #Pokémon #pokemon #pokemon emerald #pokemon e’merald

[bpd-seikokimura]

Remember to nurture yourself. Listen to your parts and their needs. Compromise and accept them. Learn from each other. You can work together and grow together but that has to start somewhere. It will be tough, and grueling, but harmony is so worth the trials you go through to reach it

#seiko speaks #menhera #positivity #mental health #recovery #bpd #parts work #plurality #plural #system #sysblr