Topic: Different views of integration. What does integration mean to you?
New Landscape ~ DID/MPD Support Group
New York support group for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) / Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)
Topic: Different views of integration. What does integration mean to you?
the awareness ribbon we designed–the crazy quilt one that’s in the site logo–represents how we thought of integration. well that, and our online name–jigsaw. we thought of it as pieces that are distinct to themselves, but also part of a whole. we didn’t think that integration in a major sense would come, but that we’d just learn to cooperate and all of that.
but some stuff happened, no idea what it was that brought things together… really, it was most likely a whole bunch of things that had slowly been accumulating, and that came together all at once.
anyhow. we’re pretty sure we’ve integrated. it feels incredibly different. the funny thing is, it really seems like what brought us to the place that we consider integration is the fact that everyone finally seems to have accepted that we are different people who share a body. we’ve all always been clear on the sharing a body part, but never so clear on the fact that if we’re different people, things like we can’t hear each other talk are also true. and once we all managed to accept that, it’s like we suddenly fit together in this really amazing way.
and somehow, fitting together like that opened up this fountain of joy and happiness and just LIFE that makes even the hard stuff feel so much more manageable.
plus, we’ve realized that there are parts who have kept us safe all our lives, and not only will they continue to do that, but now that we’re feeling better enough, they can put that energy outwards, and start helping the world a whole lot more.
it’s not that there’s no pain or unhappiness or discomfort or any of that. it’s just that there’s this flow, and things can come and go, and it’s not a problem. and we can live in our body, and feel our emotions, and it’s pretty wonderful (except that our body still has stupid fibromyalgia, which means it’s gonna keep on being painful. dangit. we’d hoped the fibro was psychosomatic or something, but nope, actual illness.)