Can Alters Touch? In OSDD and DID

In this part one video from The CTAD Clinic, Dr Mike Lloyd (Clinic Director) discusses how a person/system may experience their alters using touch. With examples from clinical practice, Mike talks about how alters in Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) can apply touch, looking also at the therapeutic skills and outcomes of this. #otherspecifieddissociativedisorder #osdd #dissociativeidentitydisorder #did

[conniehankosky]

My alters will often project into the space around me and it’s like that phantom limb thing where it perceives them in that space. It makes communication so much easier, and we’ve learned that it can work with touch as well! One time our caretaker washed my hair in the shower while singing to me and it felt so comforting and safe. We also have a specific plushie that our child part projects into so we can hold her and soothe her. These are very useful tools!

[liamware]

when we've had distressing nights sometimes we will "feel" someone come in for a hug or to hold our hand. sometimes one hand will stroke the other comfortingly, sometimes hugging a plushie makes it feel like we're hugging an alter. it's nice to know we aren't just making it up.

[ellissvannish]

In times of great distress I find it comforting to hug a pillow (better if it's a body-sized pillow) and talk to my parts during that moment. The pillow alone provides some comfort but the association with an alter makes it that much more soothing.

[the_leaf_muncher]

Never expected a clinical take to come out on this subject! Awesome! Touch is a huge part of the internal communication in my system, and something we’ve been doing as part of healing work even at home. It’s nice to hear a clinical perspective that sees this as a positive tool rather than simply a sign of severe levels of dissociation.

[itisdevonly]

Once I learned how to do parts work and self-regulation, I developed a much kinder relationship to my headmates. When the littles are co-conscious, I'll often carry them or hold their hand while we walk together. They find it reassuring to finally have an adult who loves them and will protect them, tend to them, and comfort them when they need it.

[jazminebellx]

Will never forget the shock of the first time we felt an Alter put the boot in and kick us. Also, therapeutically, this has been essential to learn about gentle touch and hugs from them. It is of great comfort when it happens. The outside world can so often feel so cold and alone, but knowing they can help in those times is inmeasurable. Thank you so much.

[lilladybug]

This was incredibly validating as a system since we experience touch inner world all the time. I would believe that even if you had disagreed since we experience it but still, means a lot that a person without DID understands that as well. Thank you for your work 🙏🏻

[thisbetheverses]

This is a really good subject for a video and we appreciate how you handled it.

It’s a really good point the way it can solidify the experience and it’s reality, for sure that was absolutely terrifying for me as someone who’s spend a long time being a host. At first it would give me panic attacks because it was so uncontrollably, inescapably Real in a way that could offset the denial for me as well.

It was really comforting and validating to hear you describe about the internal pushing which is something I would experience a lot growing up and at the time didn’t really understand what was happening.

Now it’s not terrifying at all and it’s so, SO comforting and reassuring when other people in our system does something like holds my hand or hugs me when distressed. It’s gotten to a really therapeutic place now where it helps me to feel grounded and safe and supported even when I’m dealing with a lot of trauma. It’s something that makes me feel so grateful now, both that it’s something we can do as a system and that it’s something other people in my system Want to do to support me.

We’re learning to be able to reach out to people inside not just when someone’s fronting to offer hugs and holding hands and maybe just back to back leaning for support for some people.

I honestly can’t put into words how comforting the fact that we can do this and how tangible it is really is now.

Thank you for making this video, this is so important and helpful for systems to know about and it was really cool to hear about you talking about things we’ve experienced so much.

[curiouslyme]

Dr. Mike, you're such a caring & loving clinician. I wish my therapist was similar. God bless you.

[plumblossomed]

Touch between alters in our system has always been a great comfort rather than something we found off-putting or fear inducing. For a myriad of reasons, ASD being one, I find it really very challenging to accept touch from other people irl, but intersystem touch is almost always experienced as positive.

I can see how it might cause fear in someone the first time they experience it, and part of my comfort around it might have been because of how it was framed for me in the beginning(it was read as something spiritual rather than a mental health disorder and had to be reframed later), but yeah. It's one of the few things I consider a positive with my DID.

[chronicmedisorder]

its interesting because this is something that I think we've always done. physical touch is really important to us as a way to show and receive support, and because we often didn't have anyone around us when we were in distress, we relied on each other to provide that support. its really interesting to know that not only is this a relatively common experience, but that it can actually be a healthy way to deal with stress.

[TiffanyTeaLeaves]

This is incredibly helpful and validating. I get literally “knocked” out of the front, at times, kinda violently, in the way described in the beginning of this video. It’s always surprising how much these kinds of validations mean to us. Sometimes just knowing you’re right is in itself healing. In this case it’s validating because as fairly athletic person tripping, stumbling, having my knees buckle, etc all felt very inauthentic for my “body” to experience, upon hearing anything triggering. Knowing it’s my alters pushing me out of the front feels very authentic. It’s nice to have that sorted.

But since learning about my diagnosis, and working past years of denial, we started using hugs to comfort each other when any of us are triggered.

The first time we tired using hugging our actual body, to calm down an alter(s) or the whole system. I fought it so hard. I felt like such a crazy person going to intentionally hug myself in the attempt to comfort myself the way it would feel if the hug was coming from a person I was missing. But my alters were literally clamoring like a cacophony in my head to just do it. So I did. And it WORKED! It felt amazing. The alters inside who needed that hug felt it, in the emotional way, when getting a hug from someone you’re specifically missing feels. The whole flood of oxytocin washing through our heart, calming its cadence, etc. we felt the love hormones no differently than if that hug was coming from an actual external source and was actually connecting to another human.

Knowing hugs between our system work in the same way as hugs between a spouse, child, parent, sibling was the moment our healing truly began.

I never thought of these things in terms of “touch” before. But that’s exactly what it is.

[SharronDope]

I appreciate and am so incredibly grateful for this channal. Dr.Mike & CTAD Clinic I’ve brought your videos into my therapy setting and they are invaluable. Thank You so much. Hope everybody over there is doing well. 🇨🇦

[Lenergyiskey]

This is an amazing video and something that needs to be spoken about more often. I have been conscious of my alters move me around since about the age of 27. I am now 57 and it has taken this long for the diagnosis to be made. I have them hug me as in, I'll be sitting, crying or something and my arms move without me and hug me. It has been happening for so long and with such frequency for me, that I know the difference between when I move my body and when they do. It happens all the time and it is a very distinct feeling. They push me, pull me, hug me, move me in various ways. For years and years, I thought I was possessed.

Anyone I spoke to about it, did not know what was happening and that is including clinical and spiritual circles. I have searched for decades to understand what is moving me and who the people I speak with are and until I had the most recent full blown amnesia episode which went for about a week and others witnessed the changes of personalities that came through, and me telling them I'd lost days of time, did the question of DID come into play.

Even then, it was mistaken as Bipolar for a little while until further investigation. Now, here you are, speaking about this and I am so elated to finally have this validated for me. It is the weirdest feeling to have your body 'moved' for you and you cannot explain it to people because mostly they think you are crazy and in religious settings, you are possessed by demons or something. It has been an incredibly challenging, scary and at times, wonderful journey for me but finally, there are answers, and I cannot express enough how unbelievably freeing this is.


So, through your videos and now having the right diagnosis to be able to investigate it further, it seems I am covert and overt and also coconscious and experience bouts of Dissociative Amnesia. It is an extremely complex and sometimes disturbing thing to have, but now that I have a far better understanding of what it is and how the system works, I am so much more able to settle with it. Thankyou Dr. Mike for approaching Dissociative Disorders in this format to help us but I am extremely grateful for you for approaching this side of DID which I have not seen discussed anywhere else.

Keep up the good work, you are helping so many of us 💜.

One thing I would like to see discussed is something I have experienced. That there are alters that seem to be untouched by the trauma, that actually are able to 'guide' you through some of the more traumatic experiences of traumatised alters, and help you also to understand yourself more. It's like for me, they have such insight into my full system and how it works and even the ones that remain hidden, they seem to know about them and help me to understand that for my protection these ones are not ready to be brought forward or worked with. Like, they are not ready, and I wouldn't cope, but these ones that help me, know that.

So, it's like there is an inner consciousness that has made itself known but only fully in the past 5 years or so. One of the personalities that presented itself during my most recent amnesia episode, seemed to be one of those ones. I was told they were smiling and calm and not traumatised at all. Whereas others were confused and scared (during that last one there seemed to be several that presented but I don't remember it at all. I had to hear it from those who witnessed it).

Does something like this come up for you with the people that you work with that have DID?

[J.-L]

Dr. Mike, u may have saved my sanity! I've learned so much from ur videos. Thank u.

[The_Cyber_System]

It's definitely pretty wild to experience the first time around, and certainly quite a powerful interaction.

[andersonsystem]

Good video Dr Mike we have experienced this but did not have the language to explain this and haven’t seen anyone talk about this happening in systems. This is a confirmation for us wow thanks ❤

[TheMysticTable]

This is exactly what I experience when one of my alters try to sooth me when I am not feeling well. It is kinda surreal. It was at first. But also comforting. It does feel like real touch. Like a hug and being stroked. I was recommended this by a friend, and seeing this explains so much for us.

[TheVortexCollective]

Thanx for this, didn't expect this from a clinical perspective.
Thought we were delusional, we've done this for a while now, never discussed it with the therapist, now I know that it's possible, I will.
Appreciate this.

[RayneNikole]

Thank you for this, it's reassuring. We've done this, but stop occasionally because one of us thinks it's not healthy. But it's to relax and ground ourself when we're struggling, especially with interacting with people