#sunflower posts
Got my booster shot even tho I’m fear of needles lets goooo!
Let’s talk about full integration / final fusion where the parts are never erased and where being a whole-yet-multifaceted person is the goal of the fusion.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone talk about this. Then again, I don’t think that there are many systems on Tumblr who are at this point in therapy with this particular goal.
Final fusion is usually thought of as the merging of all parts into one self. Before fusion, there are metaphorical walls of dissociation between you and other parts of your mind. Whichever part of the mind is active is perceived as “Me” while the other parts are perceived as “Not Me”. After fusion, those metaphorical walls disappear, allowing all parts of the mind to become “Me”.
In the past, the westernized approach to self often led to therapists pressuring fully fused systems to stop valuing (or even acknowledging) that they had parts. It makes sense to me why those older systems would often compare fusion to death. In the present day, the plurality of self is being valued more. Especially with therapeutic practices like internal family systems, it’s more normalized to acknowledge that everyone has multiple parts to themselves.
When I fused with all of my parts for the first time, we still felt each other. We were one person with full access to each other, but also somehow still parts. We were connected parts and a single person at the same exact time. I thought that maybe I did it wrong, or maybe I wasn’t fully fused yet, but my therapist (who is from a culture where having parts is more normalized) told me that this is just another way that final fusion can be experienced.
So, full integration / final fusion doesn’t mean that parts have to go away. Maybe that’s how some people want to still do it. If someone wants to recover like that, please let them. But this is a type of final fusion that I have never heard talked about before.
I often felt alone with this experience. I felt like no one would believe me if I brought this to Tumblr, because people can get so aggressive about fusion. Something that can be so beautiful is often shoved aside and attacked. I think it’s important to talk about this, though. Hearing about this can probably really help some people.
I want to share some statements from former DID patients who have fully fused, from this professional study. These statements helped me feel less alone with my experience.
Rebecca:
“Today I feel I am fully aware and present both as the collective of parts and as any individual part. That is, even when a part of me is present, there is a collective awareness of the experience.”
Irene:
“It gradually dawned on me that I could get some relief if I paid enough attention to the voices and their pain. I understood they needed to be heard… . My integration is about being in control, being aware, being able to understand myself. Whenever I’m anxious and I can’t understand why, I turn inside and I ask: What’s going on? I usually get an answer that either helps me deal better with an external problem or guides me as to how to calm myself down… . There is a clear advantage to my situation: I have better access to my subconscious than most people do. I call this ability Creative Disintegration.”
Loraine:
“I think the best way to describe my integration process is as a progressive one. First, there were brief moments of integration; later on I was integrated during some of the time but wasn’t on other occasions. This developed into a period in which I was integrated most of the time and then, into full integration with only momentary periods of disintegration… . It is a process of forward and backward movement on the dissociation continuum, but the general trend is towards a decrease in dissociation… . once you’re integrated, you don’t feel fragmented anymore, but in emergency situations there is a proclivity to utilize the mechanism for brief periods of time to help with coping.”
Some notes from the study:
“It is noteworthy that integration was not always described in terms of a renunciation of dissociative capabilities. Rebecca, Loraine, and even more so, Irene described occasional post-integrational awareness of the old psychological entities that once formed the personality alters… . Whereas Sara and Tina talked about their lives as ‘one,’ others were clearly continuing to utilize some of the advantages of the dissociative process. It is probable, though, that rather than representing ‘imperfect’ integrations this variance portrays the naturally occurring distribution of dissociative phenomena in the population. It is, perhaps, not only an unreasonable expectation but also an undesirable outcome to have a useful defense mechanism, naturally occurring in society, completely abolished in this particular population.”
I think maybe it’s important to recognize that the boundary between multiplicity and fusion isn’t as clear cut as social media likes to make it out to be.
Been in the process of making another resource masterlist! Just waiting on some of the places I contacted to respond before I finish it up. (this is mostly a note to self)
- Sunflower
Thinking about potentially hosting a magazine about healing from trauma/dissociation/multiplicity. The online community here just doesn’t feel safe anymore. I’d love to create a recovery-focused creative space for people.
I made a little survey about this! It’s only 4 questions. It’d help me out if you guys could take it!
Thinking about potentially hosting a magazine about healing from trauma/dissociation/multiplicity. The online community here just doesn’t feel safe anymore. I’d love to create a recovery-focused creative space for people.
@ anon, thanks for letting me know!
