Here are the April meeting topics – discuss any that you want!
1) Controlling internal kids
2) Experiencing anger
3) Putting blame in the right place
4) Where do you feel that you have power in your life?
5) In what areas do you feel hopeless?
6) Being late to therapy
7) Feelings about switching
I think that switching used to be scary, before different parts of the system learned to trust each other more. The adult parts were afraid that the younger ones would do something embarrassing, or that the adults didn’t approve of. The younger parts were afraid that if the adults had their way, they would hardly ever let the younger ones out (and definitely NEVER the teenagers). As we learned to stop resisting it, things got a lot smoother for us. It got easier to keep track of what was going on, and less scary when someone else was out, even if we weren’t aware of it at all.
It’s sometimes surprising, when we stop to think about who is doing something. The answer isn’t always what we think.
With our system, I’m not sure if it would work to try to control the other parts inside. I guess for us, what works is to have some ground rules about what is or isn’t acceptable, and then let whoever wants to be out, be out. Some things require there to be someone older out at the same time, but there are very few situations where the younger kids can’t be at least co-present.
In our system, the teenagers were the ones who seemed like they needed to be “controlled,” but as they felt more welcome, they got more willing to follow ground rules.
We just went to a meeting that is usually our “host’s” thing – and well – we went instead! We are pretty good about not making her look stupid in public though. And if we know an alter is coming out who won’t be able to manage in public, we try to get away and hide.
Anyway – I think we freaked our “host” out last night! But we were good. We didn’t screw up her reputation I don’t think 😉
Samantha–I’m glad it worked out for you!
Thinking about being late to therapy–it’s interesting. In all my years of therapy, I think I’ve only been late once or twice, if that often. I haven’t cancelled therapy more than a few times, either. In fact, I think my therapists have gotten there late more often than I have. I’m not sure why that is, but it’s how things have gone for my system.