From System To System My Heart To Yours The Tools

By Shiilia Marie

For a long time, I thought the voice in my head was just my intuition. So, when my Therapist and I discovered that I had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), I was shocked and upset. I had heard about multiple personality disorders, and they were scary-the stuff of horror movies. How could that be me?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shiilia Marie
• Release date: Jul 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9798988437222

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Copyright © 2023 Shiilia Marie

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. Trademarked names appear throughout this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, names are used in an editorial fashion, with no intention of infringement of the respective owner’s trademark. The information in this book is distributed on an as is basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor the publisher shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this book.

ISBN: 979-8-9884372-0-8 (paperback) | 979-8-9884372-2-2 (eBook)

Dedication

To the one who sat with me in my pain

Who gave me validation every day

Who even though he was hurt he chose to love me through the worst

The one who showed me promises can be kept and was there to hold me while I wept.

The one who said his love was true and proved it to me in all he would do .

I used to think that love was pain because of him that has changed

To My Husband

I don’t think we can ever understand what true love is until we experience the sacrifices one is willing to make to be your hero.

Thank you for being mine

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Conclusions

Acknowledgements

Resources

Introduction

I want to start off by saying that I am not a therapist. I am just a person like you—or actually, more like a couple of people with a few added on. What I mean by this is that there is me, and there are my insiders: my alters or my other personalities. I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), also known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD).

The name was changed to DID in 1994 to reflect a better understanding of the disorder. DID is a dissociative disorder that is caused by childhood trauma. It’s a coping mechanism your brain uses to protect you from that trauma. Your insiders are a part of the personality system that split—instead of fully developing—in order to protect you from the trauma. As humans, we are made up of systems. Our bodies contain eleven different systems, which include the integumentary, skeletal, muscular, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, urinary, and reproductive systems. The brain is also made up of different parts that work together as a system to complete the functions of thoughts and decisions, memories and emotions, movements, balance, coordination, breathing, heart rate, temperature control, regulation of organ function, speech and language, and perception of sensations like pain.

Similarly, we all have parts that make up our personality—or identity system, as I have also heard it called. Some examples include the inner child, the teenager, a protective part, and, yes, even the part that most of us don’t want to admit to—the dark side. The part of you that thinks or wants to do something entirely out of character. The difference with DID is that your brain has dissociated and split into these different parts while continuously creating new ones to protect you from your trauma. This is known to happen in the early adolescent stages of brain development, leaving that part of your system fragmented—unable to fully develop.

I have created this handbook as a way to help others learn how to build and navigate a whole and happy system. I apologize in advance for my lack of use of or changes to usual terms in the language of DID. For example, I call my parts—or other personalities—my insiders, when I have often heard them referred to as alters. I call them parts, insiders, and alters interchangeably for the purposes of this book, and I often refer to our selfs (as opposed to simply myself) to indicate how—though all of them are a part of my whole fragmented self—each of my insiders has its own fragmented self.

I think we all have different experiences concerning how and to what we connect and how we make that work for our selfs. I am also in no way trying to take away from the work of a doctor or therapist. I truly value the work I’ve done and the tools and lessons I’ve learned on my therapy journey, as well as my experience with a DID specialist.

I highly suggest working with a caring and compassionate therapist who believes in DID. However, if that is not an option, you can still use these tools and help yourself to become a whole, thriving, and happy system. That being said, I also think the player in the game has a greater advantage and deeper understanding of how to properly navigate the plays—or, shall we say, how to implement the tools. My hope is that sharing my experience, the tools I have been given and learned, and how I have used them will show you that you have a choice. The suffering need not continue. Not only can you have a whole and happy system, but you can learn to use your particular system as an asset to yourself instead of something that works against you.

I know it may not feel like that right now. You may be sitting there rolling your eyes and thinking how crazy I really must be to think your disorder could actually be an asset to you. Or, worst-case scenario, you’re in such deep pain and confusion that you can’t get out of bed, let alone have even a small piece of hope that the suffering will stop. I completely validate that and all the other feelings you may be having right now. Yes, I do understand. My own pain has been so unbearable at times that I wasn’t sure I would live through it—or if I even wanted to.

This new person was nothing like me, either. I had always been a hopeful and positive person, regardless of my circumstances. I could never have imagined myself in this position where I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel or the light in my life.

This is part of why doing the work is so important. I had been fighting my whole life for something better—and now, I have finally achieved it.

Chapter 1

The Illusion of Happiness

I was not only smart, successful, and ambitious—with more drive than most people I had met—but I was also a mother and one who took it very seriously. It was my purpose to give my child a completely different life than I had experienced. At this point, I had managed to break almost every destructive cycle of dysfunction from my childhood.

What I didn’t realize was how much my quality of life was suffering.

I am not talking about money or living status. We lived in a nice house, had nice vehicles, went on vacations, and I was able to give my son almost anything he wanted within reason. We not only had a good life, but I was a loving and fun mother. I was very affectionate and played with my son. I had excellent communication skills and was very patient, never hitting, screaming, cussing at, or treating my son in any way how I had been treated in my own youth. I was not an alcoholic or drug addict, and I protected him with my life.

Looking at my life from a certain angle, things seemed great—especially to many of my friends and family. Compared to where some of us had come from, things seemed pretty perfect: to them, I appeared to be rich (I was not), and I’d achieved nearly everything I’d ever wanted.

I think I was just as fooled as they were. I had no idea how bad things actually were for me, the nightmare I was already living. If you had asked me then or spent time with me, I’m sure we both could have agreed that things were fine and I was happy.

The reality was quite different, though. I had no idea how unhappy I was, and my marriage was on the verge of falling apart. But I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t seem to piece it together. I felt like that about a lot of different parts of my life—not just my marriage. For example, it would seem like things would be going well for me, like I had a great routine with work, exercise, and relationships. Then, it was like things were completely different. My husband and I would be fighting, but I would have no idea why or what he was talking about—frustrating him even more.

Or maybe it would be something like my having been in this great workout routine, and now I wasn’t working out at all and was smoking cigarettes. I wouldn’t be able to remember why I had stopped working out or started smoking cigarettes again when—really—I hated them and they made me sick. Things like this would happen with my friends sometimes too. Occasionally, I would run into someone who seemed to know me, but I would have no idea who they were. Or maybe I did know them, but I had said something to them that I couldn’t remember.

I also had a hard time letting people into my life, and even when I did, I kept them at a certain distance—even my husband. One of his biggest complaints was that he could only get so close