Relationships among alters
So we are trying to figure this out. Who are we to each other? What do we call each other?
big problems in therapy on Tuesday, something that is really an ongoing problem.
Basically, we get scared/anxious/too nervous, the adults (most of the time) go away/ disappear, leaving one of the kids (many times its Mae) alone to deal with a situation . But a 5 year old doesn't need to be left alone.
HOWEVER. Mae would rather be left alone. She doesn't WANT any "grown ups" or "big people" staying with her and telling her what to do. She wants to do things on her own, so she'll get big and learn how to do things by herself. But its not always approriate for her to be alone.
So even if we (adults) disappear, and then realize we shouldn't have and try to front again, a lot of the time, Mae makes it impossible. Its hard to explain... with us the person in front is the person who has the most energy at the time I guess... :think their energy makes them "bigger" somehow (internally taking up more space, somehow) and that way they can get in front of everyone and not let anyone else take over. Does that make any sense? That's not quite explaining it right, but its something like that.
Anyway. Mae gets left alone. Not ok. But she doesn't want us there. T says Mae NEEDS a parent there... a real 5 year old would have an adult with them all the time (not when I was growing up, but okay....). However Mae doesn't want a mom. She wants HER mom, not US. She doesn't want US at all, in fact. She says that we are NOT the boss of her.
Eh.
We need to come up with another word for us that Mae would like that isn't "parents" "sisters" or "teachers".
What do you all call yourselves to each other? What are your relationships?
We looked up words in a thesaurus, like companion, buddy, ally, colleague, helper, guide, advisor, etc. But none of those are quite what we're looking for.
Don't know what else we could use.
Any ideas?
Posted by pilgrim | Filed under:
Thanks for the comment, Anna. We have only 2 or 3 people that we trust in our life and that is very hard even. Relationships have always been very difficult for a variety of reasons. So yah, its no wonder that Mae doesn't know how to have relationships either.
Hi,
This is a great topic and something we've struggled with as well in our own ways.
One of the things we've sort of accepted as terminology is "system member." We have a really hard time thinking of our entire system as a 'family.' We don't feel that way at all, or at least not ALL of us or enough of us. There are some inside that are sisters to one another or have friends inside, but for the most part, there is a lot of separateness, being alone, disconnected from others, etc., even while having a very large system with a ton of groups.
Anyway, we've been working on thinking of ourselves as members of a community or members of a (multiple) system. I think we've thought of other terms, but I can't think of anything else at the moment.
Also, we completely understand about the internal energy thing. It makes total sense to us. And perhaps ya'll could consider Mae as an equal partner, voice, member of your system, and hopefully she will do the same. I know, easier said than done, and I know she is still a kid. I worked on parenting some inside kids in therapy before, and I know that is important. At the same time, I think it is important to have the balance of equality, partnership, listening, respecting, etc. So that we (bigs or others in here) aren't the "boss" of any of the kids. I don't know. It's a mixed up and difficult subject for us and I keep erasing and then retyping similar stuff and want to erase this again, so I will just leave it as it is. We hope you find something that works for your system and helps all of you.
Julies
I've had the same trouble...don't need a whole hand to count the people I really, really trust with my life...
Good luck though, not trying to be pessimistic, just I know it's really hard.
Hmm...interesting...is the resistance from Mae to having you or other adults around because of broken relationships with adults in real life (trust) or something else? My little ones were/ are very, very suicidal and it was only when I learnt to lots of arts and crafts with them and do things to help myself when they took over that they decided to stick around. They would take over when I was paying attention to how bad they felt, often when I was trying to give attention to work or something instead of them...I had to explain that I needed to keep working if possible but promise time for them. It's been a bit easier for all of us to be there since then. Sorry long msg!