One of the remarkable aspects of a multiple is the ability to create or modify their internal world to facilitate healing. Each multiple will have his or her own creation. Only that person can tell you what is there...what is seen, heard, changing, growing, etc. Much of healing revolves around the survivor's ability to work with the internal world.
What I'm offering here are both techniques suggested by others working with DID and/or what was implemented in my own internal world to help. I had about two years before I had a therapist. My healing was guided internally. I researched, read, joined safe online support groups. I realized I had already created quite an intricate safe place where *I* lived with my protectors. It was heavily guarded with security systems and I always had "bodyguard" protectors when I ventured outside (meaning outside of the safe place of my internal world or outside into the real world). Before finding my therapist, I already had an anger room, a very calming zen-like place, and a very large living room where I sometimes met others who were healing and were safe to meet.
An anger room is an internal place for any identity to use as a safe release for anger. As a therapist, I would have survivors create the rules of the safe place. Often the rules would include: no one can hurt themselves intentionally or accidentally, a protector needed to be present for littles or adults with self harm thoughts, lots of pillows and stuffed animals, walls made of something soft. Additions might be to soundproof the internal room so as not to upset others overhearing the words yelled out. No limit on words yelled or ability to scream. I would ask if the survivor might like a peaceful room connected to the anger room to go and curl up and cry or just to rest after the anger release. Many chose that option.
It was by working with others, I realized internal safety always had to be insured. One person created the anger room and threw glass into trash cans to hear the sound. Then she told me the glass had cut her leg. (The alter was experiencing being hurt internally.) From that point on it was glass that turned into pixie dust or similar harmless substance so it could never hurt anyone.
Sarah Krakauer's book, Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder, suggests an Anger Rock exercise which worked very well with clients. Her book has healing ideas that either therapists can use or survivors might adapt for themselves.
Because a survivor's safe place might take many forms, either an existing room might be used or a new room added to the structure for the healing purposes. Internal landscapes can also include outdoor settings such as a meadow, mountains, streams, the ocean. Anything soothing is good. Once a new healing place exists, all identities who would like to share in the new place are invited. I always had the survivor implement the rule that only identities who would honor the rule of peaceful cooperation could join. (If needed, a protector could enforce the rule.)
One aspect I found helpful as a new identity came forward who wanted to move into the safe place was he or she (regardless of age) could create their own room. Littles always knew exactly what they wanted. They could have as many toys or comfort objects as desired. Some littles wanted a door but kept open a little. Some wanted the privacy of a locked door (which was allowed as long as it was privacy for safe activities). Very interesting to hear what each created. Once the new self state was in the new room, the host would generally return saying the new one was in the room and okay.
Another important special room is the safe place for littles. A room inside a room without windows and several protectors. Lots of toys and activities. This is where littles could go if they were afraid of anything going on outside of the body and where the host could request the littles go if "adult only" activity were being conducted. That could mean going to work, being mom, engaging in behavior not appropriate for littles, etc.
At another time, I'd like to share how my protectors helped me to diffuse the self-harm, self-destruct alters. That internal room likely saved my life.
Showing posts with label self states. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self states. Show all posts
Oct 17, 2008
Sep 22, 2008
From internal chaos to cooperation
Children who have DID grow up as the most wounded of the wounded. Yet, because of their unchosen coping mechanism in childhood, their coming out of that state of amnesia can appear as anything from sudden mood changes to not even visible to anyone except one trusted support person. It is rare that a person becomes an ever switching person, going from alter to alter. Most can relate multiple personalities to the movie Sybil. While Sybil's story was an accurate depiction, it condensed years of treatment into a two hour movie. A few things I'd like to clarify about people with DID.
Switching (changing from one dissociated state to another and/or from consciousness to a dissociated state)
Prior to a survivor entering treatment with a therapist, it is possible others may have never noticed. It is generally with a safe person that a person with DID may begin to have dissociated parts come forward. Generally, when a survivor "switches" (think of changing the channel on a television), something has just been said, heard, or seen that triggers the dissociated self out. People who switch frequently are the exception. Someone who is triggered, however, may begin to switch suddenly and rapidly until the PTSD level of adrenaline calms down.
How many do you have?
Dissociated self states (a/k/a alters, parts, ego states) develop differently in each individual with that coping mechanism. Numbers are irrelevant. If a child has one self state who takes over when the host child is angry, that one self state may have that job for the entire life until healed. In another person, their mind might create a new dissociated self state for each trauma memory. Often several self states recall a single trauma but healing would still be the same. Yet another child may create anger self states at various ages. It is not uncommon to find the name of one self state at various ages. In addition to being irrelevant, someone with DID really doesn't know how many are inside. They only know what they know. In other words, DID has the component of amnesia. A person may be substantially healed but find themselves still occasionally working with a self state that surfaces.
I've been using the terms self states, dissociated states, dissociated selves, alters, and parts interchangeably. The literature is not consistent and some argue that there are distinctions among terms. As a therapist, I always asked my client his or her preference for a term. And that's what I used. Sometimes a little humor added to a very serious topic can help give the reader time to catch his or her breath. In that vein, to quote a certain fast food commercial from about 20 years ago, "Parts is parts." At least for purposes of this very broad explanation of a very complex process, the terms are interchangeable. Someone who has DID as the result of a main caretaker (and possibly one or two other family or relationship perps) is going to have less internal turmoil than someone abused from a very early age by many to intentionally induce dissociation. The process of healing alters is the same with some added complexity. But it can be done with a dedicated therapist and a survivor committed to healing.
As for the survivor, coming to terms with having DID can be daunting. While some find it easy to embrace that all parts of themselves did their best to help her survive, others fight it with denial which tends to cause more disruption. For people who have successfully healed, there has been a slow and steady journey of creating an internal world of cooperation and safety. Once that is established, identifying and working with new self states becomes mostly a pattern of allowing the part to speak and to be acknowledged—and especially to see that there is no punishment for telling or crying. Since most parts are dissociated from each other inside, each needs to hear the same messages of current safety. Sometimes, there are families of alters or pairs or groups. In my experience they also heal as a group.
It is important to know that most with DID have the capacity to heal and develop strong coping skills over time to stay present (not switch) and work with assistance from inside rather than alters having to take over externally. There are various phases to healing. I prefer not to label them because I’ve learned even those are different for everyone. The goal is to be functioning to where the survivor is back in control of his or her life rather than having dissociated selves disrupt existence.
Whether at the hands of one or many, the emotional impact is very damaging. Some of the damage is healed as internal parts heal. What remains after functioning returns is learning to work as a unit in a healthy way for interacting with society and in relationships. Realize, those with DID have had different thinking processes and only have known one way to process information. It has been proven through the work of Ellert Nijenhuis and others in The Netherlands that brain connections that disconnected through the dissociative process reconnect in healing. The transformation of a healing survivor is incredibly beautiful.
Unfortunately, while healing survivors have amazing courage and would like to share with their friends and greater outside world, we learn very quickly it is a taboo topic. People would rather not hear or know, some preferring to disbelieve. We hate the people who do this to children and then silence the adults who braved the years of abuse and came through their trauma to heal. It's a very unjust world in this respect.
Sep 18, 2008
The devil IS the disguise
Regardless of which letters have tended to identify a survivor, their memories often overlap each other. In other words, many who have remembered the trauma of ritualistic ceremonies have also recalled the same people being in a party or "auction" or kiddie porn setting. Kinda puts a different twist on the charade, doesn't it? Survivors of what might be described as abuse in a military/government and hospital environment, also include the masks and devils, as well as the kiddie porn and other reprehensible activities.
It may take years to have the complete memory to understand the layers but eventually answers come, to include the charade. Survivors have the capacity to "see" when they were tricked. A term used among survivors is "screen memory". The "screen" is when the organized pedophiles intentionally provided the initial "extreme horrific trauma" scenario in hopes it would cover what they are really doing. Perhaps it was a kiddie porn shoot but hidden beneath a layer of something heinous--the layer that would likely first surface and the survivor would be dismissed as preposterous.
Another type of layering is when an alter believes someone was killed in a despicable manner while another self state may see the charade. Usually a little is called out to witness the horror, real or made-to-appear-real because the little's terror and belief will help disguise whatever the next level is. Here is a series of a survivor's collages showing the same memory stripped down to the charade. We don't have to know what everything means. The common element appears to be someone's heart was isolated from the body.
This would be the horror as seen through images recalled by a child self.
The next layer strips away the scary ceremony and seems more clinical although the placement of the man as upside down indicates something awry.
What's important on the next collage is the image in the upper right. It may be difficult to see in this format, although you can click on it to make it larger. The hand fallen down to the right is hiding what appears to be an IV showing he is not dead. No hearts were harmed in the making of this memory? The survivor's memory is clear that she is being shown the death was "smoke and mirrors".
What does this mean? It means it all goes together. At the highest level of sophisticated pedophile, the elements of all the other lettered survivors are included. The pedophiles are the masked "satanic cult" are the doctors are the soldiers and officers of military bases and whatever else is remembered as frozen in trauma by the victims. No one could make this stuff up--and be consistent with what survivors around the world recall.
Because of the nature of dissociated memories, it is impossible to know exactly what happened because it comes up like a puzzle and each puzzle piece may go with the same puzzle or may go with completely different puzzles. This is what I view as a safety mechanism for healing. If an entire horrific memory were remembered all at once, it might be "too much". Whatever is missing is never something a non-perverted human could ever figure out logically. So that first memory of someone being killed is definitely horrid to remember and to process. It's also possible that down the road, trickery may be revealed.
This is not false memories. This is remembering all the tricks used to deceive the victims. Survivors who remember the entirety of the charade are hoping the perps never anticipated our minds could do that. It might be several decades since the abuse occurred, but it is exactly what is still going on today.
It may take years to have the complete memory to understand the layers but eventually answers come, to include the charade. Survivors have the capacity to "see" when they were tricked. A term used among survivors is "screen memory". The "screen" is when the organized pedophiles intentionally provided the initial "extreme horrific trauma" scenario in hopes it would cover what they are really doing. Perhaps it was a kiddie porn shoot but hidden beneath a layer of something heinous--the layer that would likely first surface and the survivor would be dismissed as preposterous.
Another type of layering is when an alter believes someone was killed in a despicable manner while another self state may see the charade. Usually a little is called out to witness the horror, real or made-to-appear-real because the little's terror and belief will help disguise whatever the next level is. Here is a series of a survivor's collages showing the same memory stripped down to the charade. We don't have to know what everything means. The common element appears to be someone's heart was isolated from the body.
This would be the horror as seen through images recalled by a child self.
The next layer strips away the scary ceremony and seems more clinical although the placement of the man as upside down indicates something awry.
What's important on the next collage is the image in the upper right. It may be difficult to see in this format, although you can click on it to make it larger. The hand fallen down to the right is hiding what appears to be an IV showing he is not dead. No hearts were harmed in the making of this memory? The survivor's memory is clear that she is being shown the death was "smoke and mirrors".
What does this mean? It means it all goes together. At the highest level of sophisticated pedophile, the elements of all the other lettered survivors are included. The pedophiles are the masked "satanic cult" are the doctors are the soldiers and officers of military bases and whatever else is remembered as frozen in trauma by the victims. No one could make this stuff up--and be consistent with what survivors around the world recall.
Because of the nature of dissociated memories, it is impossible to know exactly what happened because it comes up like a puzzle and each puzzle piece may go with the same puzzle or may go with completely different puzzles. This is what I view as a safety mechanism for healing. If an entire horrific memory were remembered all at once, it might be "too much". Whatever is missing is never something a non-perverted human could ever figure out logically. So that first memory of someone being killed is definitely horrid to remember and to process. It's also possible that down the road, trickery may be revealed.
This is not false memories. This is remembering all the tricks used to deceive the victims. Survivors who remember the entirety of the charade are hoping the perps never anticipated our minds could do that. It might be several decades since the abuse occurred, but it is exactly what is still going on today.
Sep 15, 2008
The telling from inside
We all hear voices. I know this because the majority of my clients were not trauma survivors. They had issues. Any therapist who works with DID needs to find a balance of trauma work and less intense work. It was my experience that any client willing to enter the domain of their mind and engage in imagery or do "ego state" work, would likely get to their issues more quickly and heal more quickly. Most people can grasp the parent, adult, child selves. I spoke earlier about mother, daughter, sister, wife roles. So we all have parts. It's normal. It's good.
You might not categorize what you hear inside as "hearing voices" but they are there. When you reach for that second piece of cheesecake, you might hear "You know you're going to have to pay for that" or some other critical message. You might also hear "Go ahead. You deserve it. You haven't treated yourself in awhile." You might categorize that as a thought. Either way, it's a message you "hear".
In the medical and psychiatric community, anyone admitting to voices was likely diagnosed as schizophrenic. While there are some similarities, a main difference is someone with schizophrenia will describe voices outside of the self telling him to do something (from the television, from aliens, from demonic voices).
An objective of therapy is to change the messages to something positive and supportive--not to get rid of the messages.
Anyone with DID is likely to describe her experience using different words. Those of us who have had that moment when the first horrific memory leaks through is beyond description. As depicted in one of the collages, "It sucks". It's like falling into a black hole. "It feels like my head is going to explode". Dizziness may overwhelm the person.
Responses to knowing there are other aspects of the self inside vary from terrified to feelings of reassurance. Many have initially described "a lot of noise" inside. For someone with DID, hearing a voice is good. It means a self state is crossing over into consciousness. Healing can't occur until a trauma becomes conscious. Trauma becomes known to the healing host when it is conveyed by one or more self states who experienced the trauma. The message may come from telling of the trauma, writing the trauma, conveying the trauma internally on a "movie screen" (less intrusive than a flashback), through art (real or metaphorical images), flashbacks (which appear as a "real" moment of trauma happening in the mind) where one or more senses engaged in the original trauma might re-enact images, pain, and/or position of the body as well as the emotions including terror. Flashbacks are intense.
All of my abuse feels like it was told to me by someone else. It has never felt "first person". I've had validation for some important information to know that at least some elements were true. I can never know how much was real or a very well orchestrated environment to make it appear certain things happened. Whatever happened--and something happened or a trauma would not have been stored--needs to heal. The self states who recall a trauma may come together to relay the memory or the host might receive the same memory from several parts at different times on the healing journey. The images shared in this post are two views of the same memory by alters of different ages.
Because of the fear to tell, sometimes drawing or collaging can feel less intimidating to the self states, all of whom were constantly threatened if they ever told. An advantage to art is it provides an outlet for the self states to process memories that the host may never need to know. She just sees images that have no meaning or may come to have meaning further down the healing path. The mind is incredible when it comes to watching how others have the capacity to heal. Several of the excellent survivor blogs I follow present art therapy. It's a wonderful tool. Art is telling in a different way.
This is such a complex topic and the purpose of this blog is to simplify the complex so readers can get a good feeling without all the details. Know that an objective of healing is for the host to embrace that she is multiple and work with her selves, as they become known, to heal. Are there scary insiders? Yes. But they all have the capacity to heal. And often the scariest parts turn out to be a very young scared child "made to be" mean or scary. They are so relieved to be rescued.
It's rare that a healing survivor does not discover protectors. Protectors can be a stabilizing, reassuring voice throughout the healing journey and beyond. Protectors come in various states of being, at various ages, with various jobs. Some might encompass very loving and nurturing traits much needed by littles who have never known safety in the outside world. Some may become internal friends to the healing adult. I often describe the major part of healing as becoming very internal. The survivor may well withdraw from her external world except for therapy and other support or responsibilities such as wife and mother.
On the far side of healing, either the host makes a natural transition back to the outside world or, in my case, protectors push you out because it's no longer healthy to be inside as much. Healing from DID is similar to watching a flower bloom. The host opens one petal at a time and learns how to maintain growth and nurturing and self care to continue blooming. It's an arduous process. Having those internal friends is a blessing. Knowing those selves protected us from the horrors is difficult for most to imagine. It allows for an element of internal trust to guide the healing when the survivor is not knowing who in the external world is trustworthy. It is for those with DID who have been so shattered that they constantly fear what is happening inside in addition to not trusting the outside world that self harm thoughts and attempts are increased and healing becomes extremely challenging.
People with DID grow up being silenced in every possible way. How tragic they awake to a world that continues to silence the truth and treats them so cruelly. Ignorance is not bliss for the world. Please open your minds to all of the voices trying to speak the truth.
You might not categorize what you hear inside as "hearing voices" but they are there. When you reach for that second piece of cheesecake, you might hear "You know you're going to have to pay for that" or some other critical message. You might also hear "Go ahead. You deserve it. You haven't treated yourself in awhile." You might categorize that as a thought. Either way, it's a message you "hear".
In the medical and psychiatric community, anyone admitting to voices was likely diagnosed as schizophrenic. While there are some similarities, a main difference is someone with schizophrenia will describe voices outside of the self telling him to do something (from the television, from aliens, from demonic voices).
An objective of therapy is to change the messages to something positive and supportive--not to get rid of the messages.
Anyone with DID is likely to describe her experience using different words. Those of us who have had that moment when the first horrific memory leaks through is beyond description. As depicted in one of the collages, "It sucks". It's like falling into a black hole. "It feels like my head is going to explode". Dizziness may overwhelm the person.
Responses to knowing there are other aspects of the self inside vary from terrified to feelings of reassurance. Many have initially described "a lot of noise" inside. For someone with DID, hearing a voice is good. It means a self state is crossing over into consciousness. Healing can't occur until a trauma becomes conscious. Trauma becomes known to the healing host when it is conveyed by one or more self states who experienced the trauma. The message may come from telling of the trauma, writing the trauma, conveying the trauma internally on a "movie screen" (less intrusive than a flashback), through art (real or metaphorical images), flashbacks (which appear as a "real" moment of trauma happening in the mind) where one or more senses engaged in the original trauma might re-enact images, pain, and/or position of the body as well as the emotions including terror. Flashbacks are intense.
All of my abuse feels like it was told to me by someone else. It has never felt "first person". I've had validation for some important information to know that at least some elements were true. I can never know how much was real or a very well orchestrated environment to make it appear certain things happened. Whatever happened--and something happened or a trauma would not have been stored--needs to heal. The self states who recall a trauma may come together to relay the memory or the host might receive the same memory from several parts at different times on the healing journey. The images shared in this post are two views of the same memory by alters of different ages.
Because of the fear to tell, sometimes drawing or collaging can feel less intimidating to the self states, all of whom were constantly threatened if they ever told. An advantage to art is it provides an outlet for the self states to process memories that the host may never need to know. She just sees images that have no meaning or may come to have meaning further down the healing path. The mind is incredible when it comes to watching how others have the capacity to heal. Several of the excellent survivor blogs I follow present art therapy. It's a wonderful tool. Art is telling in a different way.
This is such a complex topic and the purpose of this blog is to simplify the complex so readers can get a good feeling without all the details. Know that an objective of healing is for the host to embrace that she is multiple and work with her selves, as they become known, to heal. Are there scary insiders? Yes. But they all have the capacity to heal. And often the scariest parts turn out to be a very young scared child "made to be" mean or scary. They are so relieved to be rescued.
It's rare that a healing survivor does not discover protectors. Protectors can be a stabilizing, reassuring voice throughout the healing journey and beyond. Protectors come in various states of being, at various ages, with various jobs. Some might encompass very loving and nurturing traits much needed by littles who have never known safety in the outside world. Some may become internal friends to the healing adult. I often describe the major part of healing as becoming very internal. The survivor may well withdraw from her external world except for therapy and other support or responsibilities such as wife and mother.
On the far side of healing, either the host makes a natural transition back to the outside world or, in my case, protectors push you out because it's no longer healthy to be inside as much. Healing from DID is similar to watching a flower bloom. The host opens one petal at a time and learns how to maintain growth and nurturing and self care to continue blooming. It's an arduous process. Having those internal friends is a blessing. Knowing those selves protected us from the horrors is difficult for most to imagine. It allows for an element of internal trust to guide the healing when the survivor is not knowing who in the external world is trustworthy. It is for those with DID who have been so shattered that they constantly fear what is happening inside in addition to not trusting the outside world that self harm thoughts and attempts are increased and healing becomes extremely challenging.
People with DID grow up being silenced in every possible way. How tragic they awake to a world that continues to silence the truth and treats them so cruelly. Ignorance is not bliss for the world. Please open your minds to all of the voices trying to speak the truth.
Aug 23, 2008
Can you imagine...
You are at work in a meeting giving a presentation to your company. Let your mind absorb how you speak, your mannerisms, your responses to others, what it feels like to be in that situation.
Suddenly a secretary rushes in saying your child or other loved one has just been in a serious accident and the hospital is on the phone. How do you respond? Can you feel your pace change? Your voice? Your emotions? Allow yourself to feel that transition from in-control worker to frantic parent, sibling, or friend.
You are in the hospital with your loved one and she is okay but badly hurt. You are speaking to her at her bedside. Feel that transition...in your voice, in your pace, in your emotions.
Internal parts all represent an aspect of yourself, which is why I like the term self states. For someone with DID, all of the above happens, except there is no memory from worker, to frightened adult, to caring mother.
Maybe as you were running out of the conference room at work your boss said "Take as much time as you need. But at least take the rest of the week off." That would have been heard by frantic you rather than work you. You might call later that day or the next morning asking for time off. Your boss will write that off as you were too emotional to hear at the time.
The next time you visit the hospital, worker you is "in charge" because you just spoke to a co-worker on the phone. A hospital employee that you know by name in the "mom state" greets you by your name but you have no knowledge of that person's identity.
People with DID have constant inconsistencies but pretend. They have an internal sense of "somehow I just got here and have to figure out what's going on". That's been their life experience--missing gaps. "Oh right! How could I have forgotten? My mind was focused on something else. Sorry."
Most can't imagine what it's like constantly having memory gaps but for some with DID, it's invisible. The time gaps are dissociated too. Gee, that last four hours sure went by fast. The person may have begun reading a book and ended four hours later reading the book, but another part could have cooked dinner, done the laundry, and vacuumed. That person will not recall having done the chores but will figure she must have done it yesterday and forgot...or something along those lines. And the lack of movement forward in reading will be "I must have fallen asleep."
Life is an unknown puzzle. Each self state is unknown to the others.
Suddenly a secretary rushes in saying your child or other loved one has just been in a serious accident and the hospital is on the phone. How do you respond? Can you feel your pace change? Your voice? Your emotions? Allow yourself to feel that transition from in-control worker to frantic parent, sibling, or friend.
You are in the hospital with your loved one and she is okay but badly hurt. You are speaking to her at her bedside. Feel that transition...in your voice, in your pace, in your emotions.
Internal parts all represent an aspect of yourself, which is why I like the term self states. For someone with DID, all of the above happens, except there is no memory from worker, to frightened adult, to caring mother.
Maybe as you were running out of the conference room at work your boss said "Take as much time as you need. But at least take the rest of the week off." That would have been heard by frantic you rather than work you. You might call later that day or the next morning asking for time off. Your boss will write that off as you were too emotional to hear at the time.
The next time you visit the hospital, worker you is "in charge" because you just spoke to a co-worker on the phone. A hospital employee that you know by name in the "mom state" greets you by your name but you have no knowledge of that person's identity.
People with DID have constant inconsistencies but pretend. They have an internal sense of "somehow I just got here and have to figure out what's going on". That's been their life experience--missing gaps. "Oh right! How could I have forgotten? My mind was focused on something else. Sorry."
Most can't imagine what it's like constantly having memory gaps but for some with DID, it's invisible. The time gaps are dissociated too. Gee, that last four hours sure went by fast. The person may have begun reading a book and ended four hours later reading the book, but another part could have cooked dinner, done the laundry, and vacuumed. That person will not recall having done the chores but will figure she must have done it yesterday and forgot...or something along those lines. And the lack of movement forward in reading will be "I must have fallen asleep."
Life is an unknown puzzle. Each self state is unknown to the others.
Aug 22, 2008
Highway hypnosis
Nearly everyone who drives experiences some highway hypnosis as mentioned in an earlier post. This might include blanking out for a few exits or "waking up" long past your exit or after a lengthy (more than 10 minutes) period of time.
So when you are "zoned out", who is driving the car? What happens that you are still driving safely, haven't run off the road, been in an accident. You aren't consciously there.
What scenery can you identify from the time you blank out until you "wake up"? You won't remember because it is not your memory. The aspect of you who drove holds that memory. We all have a safe driver somewhere inside who takes over at those times, thank goodness. Do you believe you must also have a homicidal part because you experienced a dissociated state of a driving part? Are you afraid to share your experience with friends or family? Generally highway hypnosis is an open topic. We all do it so it's acceptable even though it is experiencing a dissociative state.
So why is it that someone who dissociates because of long-term childhood abuse is feared and dismissed and devalued as a human being by society? Just something to think about.
So when you are "zoned out", who is driving the car? What happens that you are still driving safely, haven't run off the road, been in an accident. You aren't consciously there.
What scenery can you identify from the time you blank out until you "wake up"? You won't remember because it is not your memory. The aspect of you who drove holds that memory. We all have a safe driver somewhere inside who takes over at those times, thank goodness. Do you believe you must also have a homicidal part because you experienced a dissociated state of a driving part? Are you afraid to share your experience with friends or family? Generally highway hypnosis is an open topic. We all do it so it's acceptable even though it is experiencing a dissociative state.So why is it that someone who dissociates because of long-term childhood abuse is feared and dismissed and devalued as a human being by society? Just something to think about.
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