Got Parts?: an Insider's Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder

by A T W, Rick T Ritter (Foreword by)

Overview

Finally a book for survivors written by a survivor!
Got Parts? was written by a survivor of DID in association with her therapist and therapy group. This book is filled with successful coping techniques and strategies to enhance the day-to-day functioning of adult survivors of DID in relationships, work, parenting, self-confidence, and self-care. Got Parts will help you introduce yourself to your internal family and improve its communication, integration, and well-being. Although written to carefully avoid triggering, it delivers well-grounded guidelines for living that DID people need to do on the way to recovery. Coping strategies included help you with issues related to triggers, flashbacks, and body memories. Got Parts also includes a detailed list of outside resources you can draw on. This book is intended to be used in conjunction with a therapist and is not a substitute for therapy.

Once thought of as a rare and mysterious psychiatric curiosity, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is now understood to be a fairly common outcome of severe trauma in young children most typically extreme and repeated physical, sexual, and/or emotional abuse, and often lack of attachment. Formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder, DID is a condition in which a person has two or more distinct identities or personality states that recurrently take control of the person's consciousness and behavior. Symptoms can include depression, mood swings, panic or anxiety attacks, substance abuse, memory loss, propensity for trances, sleep and eating disorders, distrust, detachment, lack of self-care, and distress or impairment at work.

Acclaim for Got Parts from Therapists and Survivors

"Got Parts? is a very well conceived and useful tool, particularly for those treating DID from a more functional perspective." -- Peter A. Maves, Ph.D., ISSD Fellow

"Got Parts is great tool for working therapeutically with ones internal family." -- Patricia Sherman, LCSW

"I particularly liked the chapter which emphasises the importance of taking care of body, mind and spirit holistically." -- Kathryn Livingston, Chairperson, First Person Plural (UK)

"I strongly recommend this book as a easily read, straightforward and insightful recovery tool for my clients with DID." -- Ian Landry, MA MSW RSW, Nova Scotia, Canada

"I will require got parts for new clients, refer it to other therapists and have even recommended it for others." -- Karen Hutchins, MA LPC

"ATW's approach reflects that of Truddi Chase, a DID victim who prefers her alters live in a harmonious community." -- Metapsychology Online Review, Dec. 22, 2005

For more information please visit www.GotParts.org
From Loving Healing Press www.LovingHealing.com

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615995875
Publisher:	Loving Healing Press
Publication date:	05/01/2021
Pages:	136
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

Just a note about the writer of this book... We live in a female body, 44 years of age, single, a college graduate, with no living children. We share our life and living space with a beloved cat. We are beginning to work part-time, after being unable to work for over a decade. We were diagnosed DID in March 1997, though we had been in therapy intermittently, un-diagnosed and misdiagnosed, for years. We survived physical, sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse and torture for the first 30 years of life, and intermittently for the next 9 years. The length of time, severity, and the extreme nature of what was done to us resulted in the creation of a very (very) large and diverse System. Perpetrators included family members, neighbors, school-mates-as well as the fathers of two school-mates, strangers, persons in authority in churches and schools we attended, and persons in the medical and mental health communities. We are also a survivor of SRA, and organized mind control programming by several different groups of individuals. We self-mutilated for decades, attempted suicide several times, and ended up in a psych hospital once. We hated ourselves, we hated our life. We held no hope of anything ever changing, of the pain and horror and evil ever stopping. We didn't know life could be any different. We finally found our way to a remarkable therapist, skilled both in treating trauma, and in accurately diagnosing DID and knowing what it takes to manage this diagnosis and re-integrate. We do not believe we would be here today without his skill, courage, compassion and unflagging belief in us, and his commitment to fight for us as long as we fought for ourselves. Although we are not 100% in following what is in this book 100% of the time, we continue to work toward ever-higher levels of this, because the ideas contained in this book are what have saved us, and what gave us a real chance at a healthy, satisfying life. There is a lot of us in these pages. Our successes have been hard-won, and they have not come quickly... but they have come. Accepting the diagnosis, learning to accept each other inside and work together instead of trying to vex each other, learning through hard experience the critical importance of good self care, doing the wrenching work of remembering what was done to us and working through it-speaking our truth, feeling the feelings, doing the homework assignments... these are things that were incredibly, unbelievably difficult and time- and energy- consuming... difficult beyond what we believed we were capable of doing. Yet, standing where we are today, we say to you that it was worth it. And if sharing any of this helps you, it was worth it. -atw January 2005

Table of Contents

Foreword—by Rick Ritter, MSW v

Preface—What is Dissociative Identity Disorder? vii

What are the symptoms of a Dissociative Disorder? ix

Where can I get more information? xi

Chapter 1—got parts? 1

You are not alone 1

Getting To Know You 3

Respecting Each Other 9

Getting to Know You 9

Celebrate Diversity in your System 10

Parts and the Roles They Play 12

Inside Kids 14

Chapter 2—Ideas, Methods, and Approaches? 15

The Safe Space / Dome 15

Daily Meetings 22

Four Commitments to Doing Whatever It Takes to Get Better 24

Lockdown 25

Addressing Secondary Treatment Issues 26

Contracts 27

Ever-Increasing Co-Consciousness 28

Chapter 3—Self Care 29

Therapeutic Benefits of Outside Interests and Activities 30

Self-Care and Boundaries 31

Making Self-Care your First Priority 32

Medical/Health Care Issues 34

Time Management 36

What Else Does it Take? 39

Trauma Recovery/DID Re-Integration 41

Chapter 4—Therapeutic Approaches 41

Emotional Release Work 43

The Daily Log 45

Therapeutic Approaches, and New Techniques and Modalities 47

DID Group 49

Chapter 5—Fallout from Trauma 51

Triggers 51

Flashbacks 52

Body Memories 54

Chapter 6—Relating to Others 55

Disclosure 55

DID and Sexuality / Intimacy 57

Unhealthy Sexual Expressions 59

Keeping the Littles Safe 60

DID and Relationships 62

DID and Parenting 70

DID and Working / Employment 74

DID and School 76

Chapter 7—Guidelines for Living 77

This May Not Be Something You Want To Hear Or Believe, But 77

Important Questions 78

Guideposts 78

The Power of Belief / The Power of the Spoken Word 79

Things to Remember 80

For Healing / For Re-integration / In Order to Create a Better Life 84

Chapter 8—Helpful Resources 85

A Word about Outside Resources 86

Books 88

Books for Younger Parts 90

Websites 91

Music 93

Movies/Videos 93

Appendix A — What's it Like to Be DID? 95

Appendix B — Letters You Can Use 99

Appendix C — About the Author 103

Index 105

Editorial Reviews

"Highly recommended for newly diagnosed DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder) Survivors. This book is very concise, very clear and very compassionate towards DID survivors in general. Lots of information on how to help yourself manage DID issues related to day to day life, as part of your therapy and overall healing. I would highly recommend this book to any DID survivor, because there is a lot of information in there that I try to teach fellow DID survivors in order to manage their DID issues in terms of day to day life. As we struggle with the internal issues in between therapy sessions, this book gives you lots of ideas and suggestions so that you can do the things such as work, school and have a social life. Kudos to you, ATW .. and thank you .. you did a wonderful job writing this awesome and amazing book."

-- Stephanie Bryant, Founder, Multiple Treasures, http://www.multipletreasures.org

Got Parts is an excellent book: it is wonderfully clear, concise and compassionate. I have worked full time with MPD clients for 15 years and this book would be the first required reading. It is a good reference book because often things that are said to the client don't get retained. Having a resource book such as this would have made my client's lives much easier. I will require it for any new clients, refer it to other therapists who do this work, and have even recommended it for clients who are much farther along in their healing. It is a definite keeper and I would recommend that you let the International Society of Study of Dissociation know about it when you have it published,

-- Karen Hutchins, MA LPC, Cicada Recovery Servicea

From the Publisher