Layering of Emotion in DID/OSDD

In this video from The CTAD Clinic, Dr Mike Lloyd (Clinic Director) discusses a way of trying to understand how emotions can suddenly intrude on a situation for people with complex dissociative conditions. Mike talks about how layers of dissociation within Dissociative Identity Disorder and Other Specified Dissociative Disorder can occur, and why simple situations can end up generating powerful emotional responses that seem to make little sense to the context (for exmaple, no trigger evident). This is a technique recommended within therapy settings.
#otherspecifieddissociativedisorder #osdd #dissociativeidentitydisorder #did #therapy

[theantiskiasystem]

Wow, this is such an accurate description. I (host) figured it out myself. When the littles suddenly start screaming, often they picked up a sound of emotion from me or 'the outside world' but didn't know how to interpret it. Thank you so much Dr. Lloyd. It seems like you really listen to your patients.

[enoch]

Positive change elicits deeper layer parts to front. They wake up to a storm and think we're at sea when we're really in a valley. It's a very frightening feeling to have co-consciousness with parts in the know and parts that just woke up YEARS later after a plethora of change. Confusing, shame inducing, isolating and distressing.

[ashedtogether]

This... pinpoints I'd say the number one problem in terms of our regular, day-to-day functioning.

Thank you Dr. Lloyd for this, it was really helpful to have it laid out so clearly. (And thanks for all you do!)

[skyewrite]

That makes so much sense! It never made much sense to me that what I learned in therapy was "traumatized people just can't handle the same amount of stress that other people can". Like, why? Why would it be different? Especially, when I see myself responding not very stressed to traumatic situations involving other people, while "healthy" individuals break down crying, unable to do anything. It makes way more sense that every day stressors just are stressfuller for me because deep down my body can't differentiate what the stressor is, so it defaults to what it has always known. "must be some kind of abuse again", instead of just the dishwasher breaking.

[jazminebellx]

Oh my gosh, this makes so much sense. Thank you for unpacking what was never really understood, and for making sense of it. We would go from zero to 100 in waves of emotions and not understand what was happening, or why. Thank you.

[professorg]

We have autism and D.I.D. we first observed this laying of emotion at around the age of 10. We labeled the phenomenon “primary, secondary, and tertiary emotions” many years later at age 34 we discover the body has autism and D.I.D. And are finally able to put our experience into Language that can be shared and understood. Thank you for sharing this!

[mksparrow]

I have suffered with this all my life...and I could not understand why I am reacting to a seemingly "not that bad" situation in such an over-the-top way. My family would just blow me off and eventually I was locked up in a mental institution...I have had full blown nuclear panic attacks that were started by "not so bad" situations...it wasn't until I got in a safe place, got in therapy and my alters started trusting my advocate. He knows my alters, he knows their position and job in my system...if I express to him I am feeling a certain way and I do not know why, but I am a mess mentally, he can usually identify within my system just who is feeling what and why...being able to assure and alter that they are safe, despite the perceived threat, then when I refront, those feelings start to dissipate, and I am better mentally, emotionally and all that...Your description of the thunderstorm is right on!!! Great video!

[AnnaGreenMoon]

It's even harder when you were born with a disorder that affects your emotional regulation... Thank you for this. Now i have a word for this thing. I was just saying that i can kinda sense emotion or emotions that are not mine.

[salemvincent]

emotional bleedthrough is a scary thing, and now i have a better understanding of whats going on. thank you.

[mollyleaf]

A thunderstorm is such a good example/comparison! I always describe it to my therapist as me being a "conduit" for tears and somatic reactions. Rarely, I can feel like a "conduit" for child alters' joy and giddiness. I'm able to see in the inner world who is hurting (usually, at least), and realize that I'm experiencing the tears/bodily sensations *for* them. That's the point of alters; I just think it's interesting that I, as a fronting alter, take on only the *physical* stuff. As one of my core alters -- a "primary protector" as I've heard them be called -- it absolutely makes sense, and honestly, I'm grateful that my child parts (it's usually those alters that are hurting) trust me enough to give me what they can't bear to feel. Might sound odd, but OSDD/DID are pretty inherently odd. :p
Thanks for the upload; I'll keep in mind the thunderstorm metaphor 😊

[thecoalcoloredfox]

hey, a few of my friends have DID, and your channel has been immensely helpful in helping us understand how systems function. thank you for your empathy and understanding <3

[MyDisavow]

This is so eye-opening!
It explains why there are periods of time where my brain is just filled with screaming. It's as if a banshee has just moved in. It's that terror response from a much deeper layer/alter who has no context for what is happening and is still trapped in an old time period.

But it makes it really hard to deal with minor stress IRL when you've suddenly got a banshee shrieking in your ear! It just gets more stressful because you can't think. So the shrieking gets louder. And the stress increases ... 😑

[mikeycomito]

you describe it exactly how we experience but could never put into word bc we don’t have each other’s perspective in the dif layers so this gives insight to that and explains So well, things make so mich more sense now, we cannot thank you enough

[TheSleepSteward]

The positive ones are not easy to deal with. Maybe easier than negative but they’re not easy. There’s a lot of fear that you’ll scare people away from how much love and gratitude you feel for them. It’s horrifying. And yet you feel an overwhelming urge to get it out and tell them. And for some people it’s just too much and they leave or take a break or feel like they owe you something or what have you. It can be hard.

[kristenmartin]

Being gangstalked as a hard target has made me thankful for DID but I am beginning to feel my emotions in my body and this is becoming unmanageable. This is a blessing to watch today! Thank you, Jesus Christ and this amazing man doing good with his time here!

[kairichardson]

This makes such a crazy amount of sense. It happens often at work to us that we get extremely upset and lose time. It makes so much sense knowing that little stressors can cause such a trickle down

[thisbetheverses]

Thank you, this was helpful to put an unspoken felt-sense of what happens to us into words.

[ZoeVexed]

Thank you so much for the video. We've had this issue off and on for a long while and always feel a lot of guilt around losing our day to repairs (we drove professionally) and our spouse would get confused why our whole day was ruined over what seemed like trivial to moderate stressors. It also helps clarify to us why we are usually ok if we are aware the environment is * going to be stressful * like when we do debates but struggle to handle things that go wrong at the grocery store.

[incanthatus]

That makes so much sense! We sometimes get huge freak out reactions in really minor situations, like a restaurant we wanted to go to being closed.
Especially this delayed terror reaction is super confusing like "I dealt with that so well in the moment, why am I crashing now?"

[Sanakedot]

This is exactly what me, myself and I :D needed to hear right now. Currently going through it almost every day, it has never been as severe as it is now. It makes perfect sense and will help a lot in the future to apply your advice ^^