When alters (in OSDD and DID) are 'stuck in time'
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ค. 2024
- In this video from The CTAD Clinic, Dr Mike Lloyd (Clinic Director) discusses the situation where some alters may appear 'stuck in time'. Within OSDD and DID, some alters do not always know the difference between the past and the present. This can be confusing and disorientating. Some reasons for this occurring are offered, as well as approaches which may be helpful. As with any such aproach, this is best done within therapy settings.
#dissociativeidentitydisorder #did 'OtherSpecifiedDissociativeDisorder #osdd #therapy #alters
We weren't diagnosed with DID until our early forties. But after our diagnosis our whole entire life made total sense to us and to our friends and family.
We have have a six-year-old girl that is is stuck in her trauma state, in the past. We are currently in therapy. It is just heartbreaking trying to help her come to the future
I have a 6 yr old alter that is also stuck in time. I (the host body)am 60, and my other alters are 62,33,25,38 and don’t know about another. They have all age progressed into adulthood but Ally (little). You are not alone. Be blessed
I experience this a lot and did so way before I even understood this as dissociative in nature; I explained this to my therapist as a "slingshot" in which things would suddenly transport me to a different time and for a split second I wouldn't be sure in which year I'm living. I can feel very strongly how I felt when I was a teen and a young adult (less so a child) and it can lead to derealisation as you mentioned (having longer periods in which I'd somehow think I was living in a previous apartment with a previous partner and truly think for another split second that I'd see that partner when I opened the door). It's very strange to explain because I *know* I'm not living in that time, it's not like a permanent state of confusion (as in mild cognitive impairment for instance), it's like I know and I don't at the same time. I feel those parts mourn not being on their timeline (because my present is also not great). It's also very exhausting and takes me away from feeling present. Thanks so much for addressing this in this video!
Are you also in the spiritual community, too? Still speculative, but either past lives and/or beings you can (re)intergrate with?
Excellent video as always. Several members of our system struggle with this and it's so incredibly comforting to hear from such a wise and experienced specialist. Your channel has been of great help to us and many others, please keep it up. I hope you and the clinic ducks are doing well 💙
Thank you, that means a lot!
I really like how you always talk about the importance of empathy towards each of us, and emphasize the idea that each of us has a role in the system. That role may not be obvious, and may even not be as relevant to the current situation, but we’re all here to help the system.
Something we really need help understanding, validating, and accepting is relational trauma. Especially relational trauma without physical abuse and how it can be equally traumatizing. If I may, I would like to suggest a future video on this topic.
Thank you, and that's a great idea.
Yes!
Indeed!
Thank you so much for this. We have had a massive problem with this for a very long time. All of our younger Alters are stuck in the trauma past, but the one that causes us massive issues is an Alter who has forever uplifted us and made us move towns, cities and countries around the world. Our worst experience of that was finding ourselves in Australia, she did this to keep us safe. It was only last year that we found that the Alter who keeps moving us is very much a protector and is very lost in time. She came out in a therapy session and it was a huge relief to finally find out about all the amnesia years of moving around the world. She did this because she felt she had to keep us safe. Trying to gently explain to her that even though we are deeply grateful for all her help, having to move all the time is exhausting. I have a post-it note that says what year it is, what city and country we live in and the body's age, as a way to try and keep us all in the here and now the world. It is just hard to remember to look at it.
Branching off of this, I would love to see a video about child alters specifically! Cheers
Second this wholeheartedly!
Great topic! It's good to get some validation that others experience this as well and that it also backs up the research we used for our video on Time and Memory with DID.
Virtually all of our Littles and one Tween are 'stuck' in the timeframe of which the trauma(s) occurred. They literally do not recognize that they are in another time or space than that which they were accustomed to. They will see themselves, physically, as the body was then.
For example, our Littlest perceives at it is 1974 to 1975; another in the following years and our Tween is perpetually in 1980- 84, primarily 83 and 84.
When she is unable to reconcile the world she knows with this time, it will set up a TITH headache so she's learned to 'skate over' those areas.
But each EP perceives the world around them as the one they know. It's the weirdest thing to experience the world as a child does; we forget that a child's sense of time and space are not that of an adult. Being able to experience that again is simultaneously wondrous and absolutely terrifying.
Research we've read indicates that this 'being stuck' may be due to the encoding of the memories during trauma(s) as the stress response cycle kicks in as the amygdala decides that NOPE WE CAN'T DO THIS and encapsulates the memory; essentially creating a biochemical recording of the entire sensory record of that point in time- including all temporal illusions currently being experienced by the child.
This makes sense for us, as each Little would be a cumulative 'memory set' or collection of 'snapshots' of their world at the time the trauma(s) occurred. It would also provide a possible explanation of 'age sliding' as each alter/EP would likely overlap with others; with the distinctness/division between each alter/EP being determined by the spans of time wherein no abuse/trauma(s) occurred.
As always, thanks so much for your wonderful and educational videos. They are greatly appreciated.
~Data, Infinity System
Are you also in the spiritual community, too? May also help the both communities and/or all?
Past life trauma and/or with fractilization? Or people that you can intergrate with? For example in the Sukisyo franchise and in the games, a spirit of a comatose character goes into another with DID?
Still speculative of course but if quantum physics and super position could also theoretically explain this, too?
I really like the compassionate and caring posture you take with your videos (and by extension, your patients). It is invaluable. - Regarding your analysis, i felt there was an additional aspect that didn’t seem to be considered. If an alter does not experience outside world wall-clock time, then their perception of ‘how much time has passed’ is decoupled from observed time. Consider a baby. You but the new born baby in a very dark and quiet room. There is no clock. There is no modulation of any signal that would represent time. No sound. No transition of sensory information. … If the baby is crying, from their perception, how much time has passed? Is it a second, a minute, an hour, a day? For this reason i never permitted my child to cry on their own in a dark room. I always made sure they had interaction, particulary when they were upset. I want them to have some clear perception of time. - I think, if an alter is running on “internal time”, which is decoupled from external modulation of sensory data (sun rising, sun setting, etc), .. their perception of time is completely decouple from wall-clock time. - So if an infant alter that experienced severe childhood medical trauma is not coming to the front, then every time they wake up there is no clear indication of how much time has passed. Was it a small amount, a large amount? Eternity comes into play. This was missing in your analysis. - To be clearer: it is not that they are stuck in the past… it is that the trauma has occurred for an infinite amount of time.
I agree, but that wasn't the type of situation I was describing. This was more about a part for example, traumatised in a moment in time and always seeing the present as being that moment.
This is a huge issue with me - I feel like after years of denial we are getting there
Thank you Dr Mike for the many videos you have posted as I have learnt a lot from you. You are such a calm, accepting and caring professional and you help me to be calmer with my Parts. I have asked this question before but would you consider making a video about dealing with Binge Eating Disorder and DID? My teenage part who suffered the worst abuse of us all, communicates with me through journaling and also communicates with me through binge eating. She is very angry about what was done to her and she uses binge eating in 3 ways. The first is to soothe herself and take herself out of her body, the second is to prove that she is in control now and no one is going to stop her eating sweets and the third is to punish us by making us feel sick in the stomach because of the shame that she feels about what was done to her body. It is so complicated as I have an adult part who is angry at the teenage part for making us feel sick and making us fat. Fortunately I am seeing an excellent psychologist who is helping a lot but I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject too. Regards from All Of Us 😁
You are always so calm, patient, and reassuring. Thank you for sharing! ❤
Years ago the one stuck in time came out and was extremely angry with the ANPs little children. She argued that a child of three could not be a parent. She did not want the children to be there. Fortunately it made us start therapy. Today she is still stuck but she is curious about what is going on and kind of relate positively to children. Thanks again for you videos. They make so much sense to us.
Thank you for your welcoming and accepting message. Very relevant topic. Every time there is non-judgement and understanding about aspects of DID, like in your videos, it adds up. To, I hope, in the end me/us being able to be accepting, patient and kind towards myself and all aspects and parts of me/us. This is a very important part of healing, I believe.
A very interesting video, thank you.
This made me wonder if this being stuck in time could have something to do with the fact that I seem to get easily triggered by anchoring exercises, those where I should calm myself by reminding myself that I'm "in the present now so there's nothing to be afraid". That kind of a thing just gives me a feeling of me or my needs not being heard or respected. It's meant to be comforting but to me it feels more like gaslighting.
[......wait what, I'm apparently having a stress response while writing this, I thought I'm not feeling much]
Continuing: This is the case especially when I'm reading or hearing instructions made by other people (on paper or in group therapy). At home, doing those exercises all by myself, I think I don't get triggered - not that it'd be the most helpful thing either though, because those exercises are so similar to what I do to dissociate.
I wonder what would help me then, if the grounding/anchoring exercises don't seem to work so well - at least at this point in time. Validation, maybe? Feeling/knowing that I do have choice and my needs matter? Asking about my personal needs and wants? I've actually started doing that to myself and it seems to be helpful. Others asking those questions from me feels confusing since it's so foreign but it's comforting as well.
So surprised I did not discover your channel in 2020. Was learning about the topics pertaining to OSDD and DID by 2019 and studying a lot in 2020. Glad I finally found you though. Catching up.
Great to have you along, and thanks for all your input on the comments!
So relate gosh wish I coukd have you I'm crying reading through listening to this it must resonate so much I need good help 8m stuck in all these parts amd I'm exhausted living like this in go through so many parts in one day
Such a relevant topic! Mike, can you address how to have a spouse or others close to me respond when A part gets stuck somewhere back in time? This is a huge problem for me and I’m not always co-conscious but lately I have been and can witness more but not control it. I can see where people are responding to me but I’m helpless to make any changes or to explain what’s going on to my spouse. Others can become defensive or instructive saying, “Just change your thinking!” But I find it impossible in that moment. How can I communicate what’s going on in a way that helps everyone… maybe you can address how others respond when someone with DID responds like this? Best practices so to speak.
Thank you so much, your words help us to acknoweldge that it's ok to be stuck in the past for moments, because the amnesia wall is breaking, but hard to be in the present to help ourselves to go to therapy. We're safe now, well we hope but we were so afraid that we didn't understood that it was ok to breath for a while. Thanks again from our whole system !
This is a well-timed video for us. We recently had an alter surface who experiences this, and since none of the rest of us do, it was quite startling. It isn't constant- she's in the present for some periods of time- but most often she has one foot (or both feet) in the past and clings to the present by a thread. When she's out she can walk around campus and yet all she sees are the halls of our high school. We haven't been able to visit parents without her either disappearing completely or bleeding overwhelming emotions into whoever is fronting, or accidentally taking front herself. Since we've dealt with new or re-emerging alters before, this was step one: compassion and patience. Working to understand her experience. Leaving her reassuring letters. Trying to reach her with visualization. And in the moments when she has been entirely overwhelmed, we've managed to have someone front so closely with her that they can share her feelings, on purpose. To sit with her so she feels less alone. While her presence kind of threw a wrench in our external routines, our internal ones have progressed a lot.
thank you!
Thank you again for your videos. They have helped us more than hours and hours of therapy. You are doing so much good! It's very soothing to watch these and to know that there is someone out there who gets it.
Thank you again for another video.
I find it reassuring that with pretty much everything you always make it sound ok, and that there’s always a way to work through it. Bit by bit.
Thank you for the work you do and sharing with the world.
I always look forward to your videos, Dr. Lloyd. I definitely think sometimes in order to move forward, you have to move backward first. I have a lot of essential oil blends, nature soundtracks, national parks artwork etc to help certain alters who are stuck in a period of our life that involved lots of camping/hiking. It soothes them and they are able to come out of fight or flight mode and start to operate a little more in the 'real world.' Doing this more and more, I don't think they exactly accept this as 'their world,' but they accept it as 'a world' and can function in it.
Another Good video DR Mike this is a very important subject for systems. Thank You.
Thank you for this video.
Thank you so much for this 🙏🏻❤️
Thank you so much for all your videos! You explain it so it’s understandable and that gives comfort in the middle of this chaotic experience of living with complex ptsd and difficult dissociation since early childhood. Thank you!!
You are so welcome!
Thanks Mike. Definitely relate to this. 💞💙👊
Thank you again. It has taken us awhile to comment. We have very much this going on with two new alters that have come through. Both are young traumatised boys. Since they have joined us we have heavy " flashbacks " to my hometown and parental home. This is making life for my family very difficult. We have now been passed to a psychology team by my psychiatrist, as he is finding us all beyond his reach now. A shame as we had all come to trust him.
thank you, Paul, I sincerely hope you get some success in your journey.
@@thectadclinic thank you. I'm sure the new team are going to be excellent. It will be slow road with my family but we'll get there.
We weren't dx till like 54. I always thought everyone was like us. Recently our initial primary abuser (maternal unit) died. The body is 63. Getting everyone to get that she died requires We get everyone closer to the present or the info isn't helpful. Can't allow relief to be felt. Some days feel more current. somedays some are so stuck in trauma time that they cannot seem to take the info in or have any concept that the pain causer is no more.
Thanks for this. I need a lot of reminders to keep asking inside. (Gonna get a tattoo to be a reminder. Somewhere no one else will see it, little) and need to be reminded to remain patient.
Sounds like you are doing some great work!
@@thectadclinic thanks. That means a lot.
We are a Male Body System. We were Dx at 48, 51 now. We also always thought everyone was like Us and had people in your head that you talked and argued and played with and who never ever shut up. We call our maternal unit "Egg Donor" and can understand quite well. Let us offer the thought that it IS okay to feel relief and also anger. These are your emotions and you have a right to them, to experience them. You have the right to your own lives now. You are LOVED. You are STRONG. You are NOT ALONE. 💕💪👥
PS: Also, on our channel we have created content specifically for Littles; we have created a Safe Space where our alter Percival reads stories- think Mr. Roger's Neighborhood but for DID Littles. It's called "Little Stories" and we have a playlist with over a dozen stories. Maybe they can find some comfort there. Please hang in there. There are others like all of you. ~IS
Thank you.
Thank you for the video, but I'm left a little confused. This doesn't fully address my experience of being unstuck or dislocated in time. I remember reading a Black Stallion series book in which aliens tell the main character Alec that it's much faster to shoot up into the sky from point A and drop back down to B than to travel along the surface of the planet from A to B. That's how being dislocated in time feels to me. It isn't that I'm still hanging out at A when everyone else has moved onto B. It's more that I've shot up to such a high perspective of the timeline itself, removing all sense of experiencing time, that the difference between A and B seem negligible. I feel literally outside of time. But it isn't either depersonalization or derealization (or not entirely.) It's something time-specific.
I was around 22 when my at that time current relationship was in narcissist supported by his family. I overheard the mom talking about me, however it was more in scrutiny and she was saying I had multiple personality disorder but it was more sounding like gossip and I was very intimidated to ever confront these people about anything they said. I didn’t know what flying monkeys were at the time or a narcissistic family. That family went on to challenge me by adopting my children and taking me to endless years of court. When I found myself talking to myself and reasoning with my selves and different characteristics and different personas and different voices even with County-based accents… It was only when I realized I was fronting or coHosts. However, being diagnosed with OSDD didn’t stick in the United States when I found myself in the Care of a medically burnout psychiatrist. He sent me to County for bipolar. They sent me back for not fitting the criteria. I’m sure I was masking. However, the only help the county gives you, here is extremely not utd. Still feels DSM-IV 😣😔 or $48k a month private care.
🐉 One of us is like this, when she comes out sometime she is in the here an now.
Other times when we encounter a bad situation or her negative trigger she comes out as if fresh in her trauma but not trapped in it.
Instead she seems to be ready and able to defend us and get us to safety.
In those times she's full of pain, rage and other similar emotions and she's very actively aggressive in her attitude.
Thank you..
For the little one stuck in time it is a matter of hope. A hope that kept us alive for a long time. She doesn't have to change or move into the present time. But I think it keeps us, the system from letting go of the past.
I will ask her, what she hopes for or will settle for, when she wants to turn back time and start living the perfect life without being wrong and evil.
I will try to tell her about the present time and that we are safe. And try to be her safe spot in the present time. And again and again reassure, that she is not and never were evil. When we are ready for that. Because if we were not evil and outlaws, what was the meaning of all his/theirs punishment, rituals and our hiding.
Ok this has to be worked out over time.
Many of my earlier parts are all stuck in time. They still feel the same as they did during a trauma or stress. Some of my parts do age and learn and grow, others can’t. I don’t know why and I feel so bad
What if you have an alter stuck in the past that has disturbing repetitive behaviors? How do you stop such behaviors if you are unable to communicate with them? It can be very scary.
Thank you for all that you do.
Sometimes it isn't about communicating, but know what the behaviours mean, what they are trying to convey. Therapy is like detective work in that respect, knowing what lies behind. This can be a really tough process.
Thank you so much. Time in all it’s weird and disjointed ways is such a challenge for us. It’s a massive challenge for our outside family and friends too, to understand that the person they’re with is not just one of us with our own individual experiences, but that sometimes we really are stuck in a past time & life. So disorienting. A question we have is this: are our kiddies and teenagers able to access our whole adult brain or just the level of their time in our life?
It could be either, really, highly individual
We have crohns disease and have tried many different diets. Now that we have been in remission for 18 months I notice other usual.old parts coming back who don't have crohns and prefer to eat much differently as diets are currently extremely and very restrictive dud to multiple and severe food intolerances that cause severe gastrointestinal distress when she eats old.foods.
What do I do in this case as nothing's working anymore and I don't want to flare and get sick again either.
She doesn't.care as done it my new way long enough and she's infiltrated back in. Plus doesn't want to exercise as much anymore as tired and overwhelmed from how much we did.
Such a huge battle ground and war zone it feels like. Am tired of telling them etc. It's draining and exhausting as we have at least 1000 parts.
They are slowly breaking the whole food plant based vegan diet and low sugar oil and salt. I get why but still the apain from eating the food and extreme nauseas not fun either but she doesn't deal with those consequences. None of them do. Have explained till blue in the face and practically.givd up now. They undo all my gd wk.
Please explore all the different ways to stay in present time and communicate with your system. There is nothing more essential, and it has to be done all day, every single day, over and over, in different ways, to get into the system. And your therapist can find out if there are parts that want you to be sick or die, want you to suffer, and want to harm you. Lots of people with DID have those. This is rarely successful without a therapist because trying to find this out alone can end up with you hospitalized or badly injured.
I've been in therapy for several months (this is not my first attempt) and for the first time ever I feel the need to revisit a traumatic event that took place 28 years ago because I never really experienced it (because of dissociation which occurred) and I think that this whole experience is blocked somewhere in my body and in my psyche. I've expressed this to my therapist but I also expressed doubts about this idea. My therapist seems to not want to suggest anything, I suppose he wants me to have absolute freedom of choice (maybe because the nature of my trauma is the loss of freedom and choice). I keep wondering how can I be sure that revisiting past trauma is the right step on my healing path? Do you have any suggestions? Or maybe you've made a video about it? I just can't imagine myself being sure about it since it's not something that I would ever really want to do but I can imagine that doing the hardest thing might be necessary to make a significant progress. So, my question is: how do I know whether revisiting/reliving trauma is the right therapeutic intervention and how do I know whether I'm ready for that?
Hi Anna, there is no way I can give you the answer to this as you are not my patient. You need to discuss all this with your therapist and make the decision. I hope it goes well!
My alters don't grow up or change much. And that is ok. Though one of the 4-9 years old live by the illusion, that if she will only be Right and do everything right then all the traumas and molestation will go away and she will relive her life in s perfect childhood. Even now three years after our mother died, she still wants to hang on to this illusion. We: The host and two teenage alters need to contain her grief, when she realizes that we cannot turn back time. Or maybe let her live within the illusion.
This patience thing is difficult.
Is it possible I am never going to be able or ready to help bring stuck parts into the present?
(If they are stuck in time, or otherwise disconnected?)
Even if I have gained a lot of skills and cultivated a lot of abilities to avoid and prevent more abuse and trauma?
I feel safe (as safe as I ever will in this world) and yet I do not feel like I can handle knowing what is behind the amnesiac barriers from earliest years or later years. [OSDD diagnosed more recently, but have been working on trauma recovery for many years with professional support.]
And, I do not suffer digestive issues (my somatic stuff is of another type, my psychoneuroendocrinological issues took form of fibromyalgia), but my stomach right now is in turmoil.
Had throat sensations too. And there are feelings that I can feel but they don't feel like they are quite mine. Big feelings.
As the Nobel prize for physics (we have a Part called Jaz who has studied physics for over 20 years) was just announced it has reminded me to ask a question that has annoyed us and confused us for years. We follow The World Science Festival, included in this field of science in neuroscience. Whenever they do a live stream or post with a panel of neuroscientists, we jump in and comment asking "what is your knowledge or thoughts on people with Dissociative Identity Disorder and how they have co-consciousness, and has this been studied as a field to help understand consciousness?" My comment always gets deleted 🙃I don't think the field of neuroscience copes, considering they don't even understand consciousness yet so the idea of Many Minds must blow their minds...😉Anyway, do you have any answers to this question, also do you know why neuroscience doesn't cope with us? Thank you.
😢 is their a possibility that if you keep falling into different " places " that there are unresolved problems in those places that are hidden trauma yet not realized? Or something that needs to be done or faced like as in ccptsd avoidance problems> that are wrapped up in a age of d.i.d that you didn't know you were?
I’m 52 and had a little show up two days ago. At first they were confused and then our head got pulled down, shoulders up to our ears and every muscle in our body locked up while they repeated ‘I’m sorry’ over and over again in a lisping voice… does this sound as if they may be stuck in a traumatic moment?
I can't concentrate, I have an unbelievable headache, I feel hopeless and worthless, that I'm bad, and that something is missing I want truth Clear in my language to understand well
My parts thinking that our past is safer than our present? Hard to imagine that ANY present could be as dangerous as my past. I have never met anyone with DID that has a present as scary as their past, even if they don't like where they are, and has less agency and autonomy now than then. Being an adult in a prison might be safer than in the past, quite frankly. Please mention all of the standard techniques to check reality and show parts size/proportion in the room, the current date, height, etc. These practical methods of showing the system the reality of current life are well known to trauma therapists. I learned them years ago from a therapist that created some of them for the ISST-D protocols. And they help me still!
We have alters that are quite fragmental (is this an English word?). They are stuck in a survival mode, and they are not very much more than a simple cue-response-mechanism. They are usually quite young, and if we as the everyday-alters get a glimpse of them at all, maybe in therapy, we have to realize that EVERYTHING frightens them to death. They "learned" (in a not-conscious way), that only that action is keeping them alive. Yes, of course our life is safer now. But so far we haven't been able to show it to them in any way, because they can't take our therapist in, they can't take us others in. How do you work with a technique to orient parts, if these parts are on conscience-level where normal thinking just doesn't work? (This is more a question for Dr. Lloyd than for you, Cathy.) Dr. Loyd, if you read this, could this be a relevant question to adress this in a video?
No, it's about trying to help those parts stuck to realise that the present is safer than the past.
Is it possible that an alter speaks another language, not understanding what happens in the present time bco the language barrier?
This is me all the time I wake baby trauma part all the time
😪