Punk's not dead, just dissociated

Something my therapist has expressed to me that I haven't seen talked about online is building mutual, temporary space between parts to lessen flooding. I am in no way an expert in DID nor a MH professional, but I was curious if others have worked with their parts like this before. It has been really helpful for us.

Our youngest parts are not very developed and are stuck in trauma-time. When I first started making significant progress in therapy, younger and younger parts started to reveal themselves, relieved they could finally be known.

I've had instances where I, for no apparent reason, felt dangerously unsafe and afraid and had to leave work or school, or needed to hide somewhere (bathrooms, under my desk, restricted employees-only sections...). Obviously this is bad, not just because I could've gotten in trouble, but also because it's not safe. It's not like these young parts were doing it maliciously, and it's not like I could just ask them to stop it. They can't control how they feel.

My therapist suggested asking them to hold onto those feelings. I was kind of revolted. What do you mean, ask them to hold it? Aren't I supposed to be helping them? Isn't that why I'm here?

Yes, they said, and we are going to help them. But we can't help them if the adult parts aren't able to function. You need to be able to go to school, to go to work, to go outside. You can talk to them, hold them, tell them that you appreciate all that they've done and know how hard this must be. That you want to hear them. That you're working on being able to handle it. But that they need to hold onto their story for a while longer.

We try to also help them relocate to a more comforting/comfortable area in the inner world, and leave an adult helper part there with them if possible. I agree that this approach has made it way easier for me to approach them and interact with them without completely losing it or becoming totally flooded with flashbacks.

Also, I wanted to add that when you are going back to them and inviting them to share their story, we’ve found it helpful to visualize sitting on a bench together where they’re on one end of the bench and the adult listener part is on the other end. Imaging physical space between us helps prevent flooding too. And then if they’re showing us a visual memory we try to imagine putting it on a tv screen so we can be like, hey, we’re just watching it together, it’s not happening right now. It’s never going to happen again. We’re safe here together.

And last thing, even if you’re not in a space to hear the memory yet, you can (and in my opinion probably should) still go back to those parts to provide comfort and support or just to check in when you’re able to. I’ve found that I don’t always need to know a part’s specific memory in order to help orient them or comfort them or reassure them or co-regulate with them.

But yeah, all of that is only possible by maintaining separation between us. I can’t help them if I feel like I am them, like if I get so blurry that I feel like I’ve become them. Healthy distance is necessary for maintaining regulation, pacing, titration, stability, etc.