hi, we're scared to tell our therapist we're a system, do you know how to heal at home? half our headmates think we're faking it and most of us don't have a lot of faith in authorities of any kind, but the symptoms are so annoying :(
Three chapters to this response (not sure if its actually three or if Ill remember all three main points, I'm just being flamboyant)
Chapter One - Communicating with a Professional
Honestly? While it is totally valid and it's not something you should rush into if you don't feel safe, my best advice would be to try to work up to telling your therapist in some way or form the reality of your symptoms as they are - even if not "I am a system" but just slowly drop the mask. If you don't relate to something you said before - whether its an alter or not - its fine to say so, same with memory gaps or anything.
You don't have to state you are a system or think you have DID to explain your issues to a therapist and have the real situation handled and discussed. I understand the fakies and I also understand distrusting authorities, but they are a professional and either they should be able to appropriately handle it, or there should be someone else in their place because you deserve care that you are capable of genuinely expressing your issues in so that you can address those issues.
DID recovery and treatment can be really difficult and sometimes dangerous without guidance so before anything else, I really would recommend trying to figure out a way you can at least communicate some of the aspects of the symptoms that are bothering you to your therapist and giving them a chance (unless there is a reason other than general distrust, to which if there is, then thats another story)
Chapter Two - The Fakies
TOTALLY understandable, been there done that (not meant to be disregarding) and honestly getting through the fakies is a journey in its own - but in regards to that specific topic, I did want to say some food for thought that might be unpopular, but honestly?
Who cares if you are faking.
Genuinely. I don't even mean "are confused" but like, actually genuinely trying to force yourself to present as separate people to cope with whatever you've been through. What are you doing that's so horrible? As long as you aren't spewing dangerous miss information, if it helps you, I really honestly don't care nor do I think its my business to tell you to stop (within the realm of dangerous topics and safety).
And to be honest? Any good therapist shouldn't care either.
If you are faking, you have something you are trying to cope with and are not doing well - you still have an issue to address and you are allowed to go through the phases of healing. If you aren't faking but feel like you are faking, you still have something to work through. Discussing your symptoms as they are will eventually get you down to the root of whatever is going on and you'll either outgrow it and find better coping mechanisms, or you won't and you'll get your real issue handled.
Personally, realizing that even if I was 'faking' - as long as I wasn't spreading harmful information - there was literally no real genuine moral consequence or whatever to expressing my mental illness in a form like DID really let me stop worrying about it.
If you are faking, what does that REALLY change? If you are confused, what does that REALLY change? If you are a system, what does that REALLY change? In the end you still have an issue that needs to be talked about and worked through and healing and recovery is a process that is going to be worth it albeit ugly in the process cause healing is Just Like That.
I really hate the notion "You would know it if you are faking" and "If you question if you are faking, you aren't" cause that shit just doesn't help cause as someone who was there, you just go "yeah deep down I do know" and it just makes shit worse. I prefer "if you are faking its whatever, what harm are you doing to any one in the NOT ONLINE world"
If your symptoms are distressing you as they are, they are distressing you and you have a right to mention it. The only difference is where the root stands when you investigate it professionally.
Chapter Three - Answering the Damn Question
Anyways, to answer the main question asked, assuming we take this ask and question's preface as unchanging unfixable situations and you want to completely ignore everything above (fair and valid) - most of what OP and I said here would apply as it is the general theme of recovery with DID imo
Past that, I would recommend steering clear from addressing and trying to process trauma unless it come to you. I am personally of the opinion that intentionally seeking out trauma processing without a professional to help you when you have DID can be a risky game to play and as someone that's done a lot of healing, it is UBER important to "clear" what is known as the Stabilization Phase before getting deep into the trauma.
The Stabilization Phase is essentially focusing on a few things:
Establishing basic self care and coping skills
Establishing something of an external support system around you
Establishing something of a stable enough living situation (or as much as you can at the moment)
Lessening stressors that you can lessen at the moment
Reviewing your current friendships, coping mechanisms, and behaviors to see what is helping you and what it hurting you
Getting to understand yourself and selves - ie knowing who you are and your skills, drives and dynamics, then having that done for a handful of regular fronters
Getting to know and building communication with parts of your system
Building trust and synergies with those parts to be able operate with them
Generally building a sense of safety within the parts internally and externally as a way to build up resilience and prepare yourself (as a whole) for stress, trials, and trauma
Typically, you would want to have a decent progress on all of those before intentionally diving into hard trauma processing and building all of that can take a while to do.
Of course this isn't to say repress trauma and trauma holding parts - if trauma comes to you, its a good opportunity to work on building that list of things as the actively surfacing trauma tends to be relevant to parts or your current living situation that could use improvement or deeper understanding of.
This is more to say to let sleeping dragons lie - ie, if the trauma doesn't come to you and isn't howling, don't wake it up. If there is no trauma, if you can't remember the trauma, cool - take it as a blessing for now and focus on understanding the big picture and helping improve your life better.
As for some ways and things to do to help build some of those?
Figure out what kinds of things you would like to do in your life or just things you would like to do in general
Figure out what matters to you, what do you value above other things
Interact with your social webs and people around you and see what works and what doesn't, what makes you feel good, what makes you feel bad, what is triggering and what isn't and work to fine tune who you spend your time around
Work on any self sufficiency stuff you are able to work on (physically, time, emotionally, etc there are limits and work with where you are)
Try to communicate with your parts and the IMPORTANT part of this is to just have fun with it. Trauma and DID is enough pain as it is, be silly, have fun, play games and try to go on dates (platonic or not) with yourself. Poke fun with yourself / among yourselves. Tease one another. Make inside jokes. BE CRINGE ITS FINE. ITS FREEING
Try to make friends with at least one part and build that relationship well and then try to branch out and keep doing this
Keep an open mind and a large amount of patience when dealing with any part - especially if they are causing problems or being Mentally Ill TM. Unforuntately most parts are going to be "stupid" in their own way and its important to accept each parts faults while focusing on their strengths
Once you know those part's strengths and weaknesses, try to lean on the unique strengths each have to cover eachother's weak points and - if possible - take a weakness and try to convert it to a strength. This varies from part to part so I can't get much more specific than that plus, honestly, Team Curation as Ray calls it is Coach Ray's job as he does most of that stuff in our brain so me talking about it is a bit abvove my pay grade
Just really
Have. Fun.
Shits bad enough and hard enough with healing and recovery. At home? Just try to enjoy the moments of peace when they come and have fun with your parts and just try to live your life when you are given breaks from the waves of symptoms.
Anyways. That's a bit of my take on the thing and some tips.
TLDR though?
Try to find a way to talk to your therapist honestly if you can, whether you are faking or not really doesn't matter in my opinion, and just have fun and live your life to the best of your ability.
