The fear of overwhelming memories

   When I first opened up communication with my insiders I was hit with memory after memory. The flashbacks were horrible and my startle reflex was extremely high. For those who don’t know much about DID, most alters/insiders are like locked doors behind which are memories that have been locked away so the host person can survive, live and function. I think that by me initiating open communication freed some of them to open their doors, but that is my opinion. Anyway I say this as a bases of my fears. I am not mad that they shared the memories with me because it filled the rest of the puzzle in of the memories I already had, it was just difficult to go through.

   Two years ago, after being gone for 25 years, I moved back to the hometown I grew up in. At that time until recently I had tried to “close off” my insiders partly for their protection, partly because I didn’t want people to walk away from me if “they only knew” . But thinking about it, I think the main reason, well actually I know the main reason was because I didn’t want to get overwhelmed with memories again.  When I first moved back I would get panic attacks just riding the bus past buildings where abuse took place.  I didn’t want to have a panic attack in the middle of downtown, so I foolishly decided to “close off” my insiders. The reason I say foolishly is because the way my DID system had gotten to the point where different ones flowed freely so we could function normally.  If we were having a panic attack then there was someone who could front who wasn’t affected and others could calm the rest of the system down.  If whoever was front was having a flashback, then the one guarding front would pull them in so someone else could front and the one flashing would be taken care of.  By me “closing off” my insiders, I threw a wrench in my ability to function normally.