This article is a Stub.

This can often be related to depersonalization. Someone gets stuck in front and can no longer switch due to either having been triggered front in some way, or because of anxiety issues.

Emotional. Rebel got a Dear John and he froze [in front]. It was funny, you do the funky hand jive and it just did not work. It happened for about a day. A co-worker was sympathetic, and kind of knew what was going on, and suggested we take the day off. It's almost like being paralysed, you know you should be able to move, but you can't. You did the right combination; the tumblers fell into place, and, nothing. --Miss3

Something happens, and suddenly someone is front and can't step aside for someone else to take over. Often there's anxiety involved (cf. Rebel's reciept of a "Dear John" mentioned above) and the panic stops people from being able to switch.

The anxiety connection becomes even more significant as the people become aware of the situation. The realization that something is wrong, and that you cannot switch, is enough to make members of the system even more anxious. This can prolong the situation, and perhaps even make it worse.

A key to getting unstuck can be finding ways to become more present New, lowering anxiety, working on allowing New as a skill, or mentoring one another by using a Buddy System New at least temporarily to help guide someone who is stuck out of front.

Sometimes there's a period of time where a system is under high stressors, or triggered. We might revert to "tried and true" methods of system-wide protection, not because specific headmates consciously "want" to lock down the system, but because the background system (analogous to the subconscious or the autonomic nervous system) has memorized this system-wide pattern as a self-protective "habit".

So our inner world may shift to opaque walls, depersonalized fogs, internal communication methods may be hampered or even seem to disappear, co-consciousness may wane for portions of the system. We are suggesting that this isn't due to meddling of any specific headmates, nor due to a failure of the co-conscious system in terms of making progress -- but a factor of the self-protective mechanisms of the system as a whole and working to lower SUDS i.e. working on presence and lowering stressors should help the system regain their former levels of fronting ease and communication, co-consciousness and information sharing. It will be helpful for those who retain consciousness (those stuck-front) and those who end up in the fog or amnesia to maintain a sense of belonging and welcoming, inclusion and trust -- rather than getting frustrated, blaming, panicking or withdrawing and isolating. It may raise abandonment issues, or feel like someone has betrayed you.

Please have patience as our systems are all unique and don't come with owners' manuals. The most important internal regulating mechanisms we have found all circle around managing shame New internally. So maintaining a welcoming, forgiving, understanding, patient, trusting environment can help bounce back faster.

Our suggestion: when a headmate (or a group) gets stuck in front, it can be distressing for everyone. Notice the stuck-ness and the distress, then work to affirm that this is an undesirable situation for everyone and do what you can to mitigate the stressors and triggers that may have gotten y'all there. Reduce shame by increasing a sense of belonging, inclusion, rank and status. Avoid blame and shame, perfectionism, or thinking of things in black & white like "right" and "wrong" or "mistakes". Once the incident is resolved, y'all can "postmortem" the situation i.e. go over how it happened, what helped, what made things worse, and start to come up with strategies to shorten the length of discomforts if it happens again in the future.

A good tool for logging resources and methods for managing stressors and triggers is to create a system safety plan. We have a free online course for creating one, including downloads & printables here.

Vitals

Young, presents male, pre-teen.

Distinguishing Traits

Thoughtful, gets excited about creating stuff and building stuff.

Favorites

Rory loves working with LEGO products.

Some systems are "polyfragmented" which is to say that they have a more complicated or layered system structure than others.

(pulled from The Crisses' answer about Polyfragmented systems on Quoroa for now)

There’s several presentations of what is called polyfragmented DID —

• a strictly headcount-based and generally that’s over 100, but some therapists start considering polyfragmentation at lower numbers. This is very arbitrary when strictly based on a number, because it’s questionable that it’s not polyfragmented at 99 but is at 100.
• the system is many-layered, so there’s subgroups (Sub-Systems) within the larger/meta-system, and layers of complexity in the system. This can come across as an inner world with say many different houses, towns or cities, various worlds, different folk in different rooms, etc. So there’s internal representation of groupings of headmates, and boundaries between groups.
• explicit fragmentation itself in the system. Myriad, not always sentient or aware, discrete “parts” that may shift and blend and merge and fall apart again. Some folk have subtypes of polyfragmentation that aren’t groups of headmates/people, but are groups of tiny mental pockets that merge, grow, shift — so these may be ad hoc DID or modular DID systems, for example. They “whip up a persona” to deal with a situation and subside into a more depersonalized mass after. Some of these systems do have discrete parts or people within the system. Ad hoc has at least one headmate controlling the process of assembling personas to handle situations. Modular is more unconscious. We have a subsystem that is modular we call the LegoCrisses: so we end up with DealsWithCashierCriss or HandlingRedTapeCriss. This is in addition to other people-subsystems in our metasystem.
• a headmate is also plural. This is a variation of the many-layered theme where the internal perception is that someone in the system is shifty, blendy, and traits or panic reactions for this individual change and they have modes, moods, aspects, etc. until one day it’s discovered that they, in themself, are actually plural and the system was under the impression they were 1 discrete system member. Oops! We didn’t think of that! So a system member can be covert plural in themself, thus containing others in their own right. The headmate we thought they were can be a gatekeeper of that subsystem, or a veil/mask of that subsystem like a singletsona (singular persona), only internally.

By the way, a system can have all of the above. Headcounts can be basically limitless especially based on fragments themselves. We have never even attempted to count the bits in the LegoCrisses subsystem — we have 156 system residents/entities we’ve counted.

One of the important things to consider with polyfragmented systems is the stigma we face. It’s like double-jeopardy. Not only do we face all the same stigma of DID, we also face additional stigma of weighing trauma (whether what we went through was “bad enough” to warrant such a layered/complicated system), and internalized stigma regarding facing our amnesia due to fear of “how bad” it might have been.

So we want to state that it’s not necessarily about how “bad” the trauma is — it’s about how complicated we needed to be or become to survive our life situation. Some folk are just polyfragmented because they are. Pushing anyone to poke around for why or trauma and to push them to justify trauma or weigh trauma is insensitive, ableist, and a violation. It can push people into digging up trauma well before they’re ready and supported properly. Folk in any support community just need warmth and compassion, not poking at them like a bear on exhibit in a circus.

Polyfragmented systems may also require some additional considerations in treatment. There may be plenty of opportunities for fragments to merge into full-blown headmates with distinct names and traits, the system may have a lot of spontaneous merges on their way through recovery, and they may also be (like many other multiples) plural/multiple for life. There’s some additional upkeep internally to manage a large system (some folk use spreadsheets and hold very large internal meetings or work with a representative or democratic voting system). But, also, there often can be breakthroughs and lower amnesias that can ripple through a polyfragmented system and do internal work on a grand scale.

References

• We don't like Kluft, but this is useful anyway.- Kluft's list of subtypes of DID

My work centers disabled folks, mad folks, and those living with chronic illness and pain, while also welcoming and affirming LGBTQIA2S+ communities. Everything I do is rooted in Mad liberation, harm reduction, and disability justice, shaped by lived and living experience.

I’m based in the U.S. and work online, so my offerings are all remote.

The Body Grief Coach is plural-owned and operated.

Welcome to It's Complicated, a series by The Crisses that we are producing on relational trauma & shame specifically intended for people with C-PTSD and those who care about them. The views contained herein are our our own, based on our own research and observations, and crunching a lot of information in our neurodivergent brain. Our research includes many trauma, work resources, personal observations, work with our clients, discussions we've had within the Plural and DID community, and with professionals. When we can, we will cite specific sources below.

Episodes

It's Complicated: V01 Adaptive Shame

This recording brushes on the concepts of natural or adaptive shame, basically the types of shame that people without relational trauma are most likely to experience, the evolutionary role that adaptive shame plays, brushes on the ages where we first experience it, and a couple examples of how it shows up. It also goes into the "F-Words" or panic reactions and how we can divvy them up into 2 survival strategy groups -- those that are mainly about individual survival (Dino brain responses), and those that are about survival-in-groups or social survival (Buddy brain responses).

We recorded this in January 2025, then immediately thought we had omitted something very important, shelved it, and due to other circumstances in our life we had many months of physical and mental health struggles and couldn't work on it after. We are doing much better now (September 2025) and decided we let perfect be the enemy of good. We are publishing with no further edits, we can make more content to bridge any gaps, leaving in flubs, pauses, etc is proactively anti-shaming.

We are not perfect. We have decided not to selves-edit and pretend we are. We may get negative comments because of flubs and pauses. So what?

Resources

Here are some of the related works and writings that inform this series.

Our Related Works

• Shame, Shame Spirals, Toxic Shame, Carried Shame New
• Panic Reactions New
• Let's Talk About Shame video from the Plural Positivity World Conference in 2022 (45minutes long)

Other Publications

• Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame - Patricia A. DeYoung
• Unshame: healing trauma-based shame through psychotherapy by Carolyn Spring
• Unlearning Shame: How We Can Reject Self-Blame Culture and Reclaim Our Power - Devon Price
• Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives and Breaking Free: A Recovery Workbook for Facing Codependence by Pia Mellody and Andrea Wells Miller
• Healing the Shame that Binds You - John Bradshaw
• Facing Shame: Families in Recovery by Fossum & Mason
• NICABM Shame series (full disclosure: they gave a refund after we gave feedback on some of the "bonus" content regarding how re-traumatizing and disrespectful it was, which they pulled from the series)
• more to come…

Downloadables

These are diagrams and documents that relate to describing shame situations and emotions around relational trauma that we use with our clients, group participants, and in this series. They will be used in the series, referenced in the series, etc.

• PDF of C-PTSD shame cycles including mentions of buddy brain. Note Page 2 is a proposed escape from the catch-22 cycle.
• Carried Shame infographic
• The "Fame-Shame Triangle" - something we came up with to describe a really awful dynamic that repeats itself over & over in the world -- and in plural systems sometimes too.

If you're in crisis and need support (mostly in the US), please click for a list of resources.

Turn your collective life around with minimal help

The Kinhost.org mission is "encouraging internal community".

Discover progressive ideas on improving internal relationships for plural systems (aka dissociative identity "disorder", multiple personality "disorder", Partial-DID, OSDD/DDNOS, and more…), trauma & abuse survivors, and people living with C-PTSD and PTSD. To get started with self-help & selves-help resources see Self-Help Indexes (in progress) New

This website is a group collaboration by & for plurals & multiples, and their supporters, friends & family. While most content nowadays is by The Crisses, Kinhost.org has always been a community wiki project and accepts comments, submissions, contributions and collaborations, whether anonymous or attributed. Trusted folk can request password access to the site, or a SubSite of their own on the site New.

Need help getting along? Where to start??

This is the best stuff for absolute beginners:

• Check out our 6-episode mini-series called "System Trust Issues New" on the Many Minds on the Issue podcast (start at episode 009: Welcome to DID - We are not the enemy).
• United Front is a self-help trilogy, being completely updated, and available on a sliding scale basis or as we're still working on it. Jump straight to the Books
• Prefer FREE help getting along? Try the United Front Boot Camp and get started right away. This series of self-help articles and exercises from 2011 encourages your system to work together and build internal community and communication. Jump straight to the Boot Camp Steps

News

September 16, 2025. New "subsite" for shame series It's Complicated opened. New

February 3, 2025. New domain name (https://kinhost.info). Will begin nudging traffic to new server. It's a mirror for now.

Latest! November 2024 United Front: Welcome Back is a 1-page solo journaling TTRPG available pay-as-you-will on itch. It's based on Decording and Emotional Fragment Recovery New. Learn about these self-help tools by playing a character struggling with loss & attachment issues.

New Summer 2024 United Front: Ship's Logs, undated planners New planners ready for order/download. The Ship's Log Planner as an Undated Planner (v3) New

• We're moving United Front & other DID or plural-related self-help announcements, including coaching group applications available, tweaks to online courses, and other free offerings to our new United Front Substack - see our latest newsletter here.
• "The Power of the Here & Now (and how to find it)" - video from the Plural Positivity World Conference 2024.

Plurality Resource with Online courses by-plurals, for-plurals. Includes a free System Safety Plan course, and about a dozen free or sliding-scale self-help & related courses. Also, feel free to create your own courses there, by plurals, for plurals!

You have NOT missed the Plural Positivity World Conference! See the Plural Events website for all past sessions. Also see the pluralevents YouTube channel.

Got specific questions?

…about Dissociative Identity (disorder?), multiple personalities, and other ways of being plural…

Check out Multiplicity: The Missing Manual — a manual for plural people and those who love them.

• Jump straight to the Manual Table of Contents
• Self-Help Indexes (in progress) New for self-help paths through the website.
• Use the search bar at the top of the site.
• See if Kinny Bot, the little bubble at the bottom of the site, has any interesting answers for you.

For singular folks who have seen too many movies…

Are you new to the whole idea of DID or plurality? Not sure what to believe? Listen to Beyond the Movies: Debunking myths about DID & plural systems New.

Prefer listening? Problems between headmates?

Try the Many Minds on the Issue podcast. New! Full list of podcast transcripts New.

Of special interest — check out our 6-episode mini-series on System Trust Issues New.

Latest Episodes:

…More podcast episodes…

Intermediate & Advanced Stuff

Plural Activism

If you're interested in plural rights and accommodations for group entities who are living plural lives, check out the new section on The Plural Movement New — and please feel free to contribute content!!

Get on the map: The Multiple Mapping Project New

Mini Multiple Manifesto!

Let's bypass making the situation worse before it gets better, skip twiddling our thumbs for years based on therapies that are inhumane and when you think about it make absolutely no sense. We can leave our past in the past, cut years off our recovery, live our collective life, trust in ourselves, love ourselves, and make the absolute best of our situation. We must refuse to hold out on having sanity until the “good doctor” can see us again!

Come get a taste of the Manifesto!

Most Recent 50 Updated Pages

If a page was updated more than once in the time shown, only the latest modification is listed.

Page Group: Page title - the date/time it was last updated A summary of the last modifications, if available
Below it is the page description in italics, if it has one.

…straight list of last 500 pages updated, no duplicates… New

Content Warning: Language use on this page. To us a parental unit is someone installed in the parenting position or role who may or may not be filling the full idea of what "parenting" is. Deciding someone is a "parent" is an honorific that needs to be earned and includes nourishing, protecting, caring, attending, assisting, and role-modeling behavior that many parental units fail at. When we use the term "re-parenting" we are describing an attempt to do-over a failed or inadequate initial attempt to parent children (regardless of age) in every appropriate way. We only grant the honorific "parent" to people who do a good job at parenting. Our biological parental units never earned that honorific. Our internal parents have earned it. Your mileage may vary with the terminology used on this page, and until we have better terminology, we're going to consider what to do about this issue for some of our readers.

Something you may see kicking around boards and forums is the concept of re-parenting. Many folk feel a need to experience proper parenting relationships to correct some of the damage done by detached and/or abusive caregivers, and reparenting is supposed to be something along the lines of finding another person (whether internal or external) whom you can trust to develop a healthy parent-child relationship with one or more of your system's residents. In a perfect world, you get all that you were denied by your guardians during your childhood, fill heretofore unmet needs, and replace the unhealthy dysfunctional parenting/authority model you gained earlier with a more secure, safe, and attached paradigm.

The Crisses (and their system kids) talk about reparenting issues in a podcast episode here New.

To take this to the next level, check out The Crisses' 2020 Plural Positivity World Conference session Building a Reparenting-Focused Community.

We also have a sliding-scale, self-led online course to work on reparenting in your& system here.

What is Re-parenting

Re-parenting is a very important concept for plural/multiple systems who have any hurt children and even teen residents who are poorly attached, hungry for love, or insecure.

The idea of reparenting is to find a safe person (or persons) who can provide the unconditional love and constant attention a young child should have, or in the case of older children, slowly transfer responsibility for their life (as it is earned and reasonable for their life-skill-level) to the child.

Choosing External Reparenting Figures

Sometimes a child in one's system will chose someone external to reparent them on their own, without negotiation, clinging to someone, calling them by parental labels, pouring their attention, neediness, insecurity, etc. towards this person. There are many ways this can go wrong, or be inappropriate, so we will address some of the issues as candidly as possible. If you are currently in such a relationship with someone, please proceed with caution as the ideas on this page could be disturbing since they actually may apply to your situation. If you've had such a situation go sour for some reason, you may find yourself nodding in agreement.

Caution: choose healthier reparenting figures

I cannot stress enough how dangerous it could be to put yourself in a reparenting position with someone who may (deliberately or accidentally) reenforce the dysfunctional models you are trying to replace. Even someone who is well-meaning may have their own unhealthy parenting models or internal insecurities and needs for validation/attachment that they are working from. This may also apply to intra-system re-parenting arrangements, but with different potential outcomes.

When one considers the track record of government and non-profit organizations which have made it their business and primary concern to place abused, neglected, or orphaned children in the hands of those who can be trusted, it should be clear that external reparenting relationships are not something which should be jumped into without seriously checking the waters, and it should be avoided if at all possible. Raising children is an enormous responsibility, which challenges even the best of people. As we'll see below, raising traumatized system kids has it's own unique issues and challenges as well.

Let me repeat that! [from the original page, unedited]

As a person in part responsible for aspects of reparenting in many reality-contexts, I cannot stress HOW important it is to be cautious about this. Nonetheless, it's sometimes the only path. The key is knowing the prospective reparenter is utterly ethical and a skilled parent in a practical sense. - BP, for the Firewheel

It's very important to note that reparenting the youngest of inner children is a 24/7/365 job. There are no vacations or times off. A very young child can need intervention at any time of the day or night. Someone with office hours cannot be this for you. If your spouse has a job, they cannot be this for you. If your blood or adoptive parents have their own lives now they cannot be this for you.

What healthy therapists, spouses, or parents can do is help support the adults in your system by giving great advice, being great role-models, by giving loving and caring support as "grandparent" or elder figures to the adults in your system, by giving internal parents a little break by spending some time with the youngers in your system and playing or coloring with them, or giving them an occasional hug (for non-therapists), or taking them out for a treat or watching a movie with them, etc. At most, they can be co-parents with the children, but the internal parent should be the closer emotionally supportive parent figure that they go to when they have a nightmare or when they need hugs and cuddles, when they need emotional support and nurturing.

More about this below.

Myth Busting for System Kids

It's important to realize that the community and therapists have built up some unhealthy ideas around what small folk in the system need in order to make progress, and what they're capable of, that aren't true.

System kids do not need to front or age up to:

• live a happy and healthy life.
• get their emotional needs met.
• heal.
• play or color or draw.
• have treats.
• work out insecurities or build self-esteem.

Some systems have difficulty regulating when their system kids front, and it threatens their stability, income, relationships, and may raise their overall anxiety level especially if the system kids fronting are trauma holders or triggered front, having panic attacks or anxiety attacks, etc. By helping your system kids to have appropriate internal outlets for exploration, art, healing, etc. you can help them grow and heal, both when internal and when fronting.

Fronting is a privilege. We discuss this more here. System kids deserve time out, just like anyone else in the system. That said, they also don't need to be given front at times that are inappropriate or create problems for your system, like any other system member. It would be inappropriate for a non-driver adult to front when driving a vehicle. There are times and places when certain internals should not front, and this becomes part of your system's culture and the negotiated agreements of your system.

That said, it's also fully possible to have system kids who can drive responsibly and should not be additionally restricted based on their age being a number. Each inner child should be assessed based on their abilities and ability to take responsibility for their actions, rather than the number that represents their age.

The overall idea is to regulate system kids' front-time, not to take it all away. Small children have both the need and the energy to be active and play or explore for many hours in the day, and they do not need to be front to do this. By building up to internal enrichment, exploration, learning, and needs-fulfillment, encouraging growth and healing, etc. internally so that they do not disrupt your external life at inappropriate times and you can negotiate fronting time as a reward and privilege for good behavior. It doesn't mean they will never front at all, it means they will take turns as appropriate along with everyone else.

Important Factors

There are several important items to note about what young system members need to be reparented.

• An inner child can easily soak up every available moment of their parental figures to get their needs filled. If these needs are being filled externally then they will front more often and throw the balance of your life off. Others (youngers or otherwise) may start acting out if they are unable to get front time, so these young folk need to have regulated front time like everyone else. But a young one's attention and affection needs can't be put off. This creates a system-wide catch-22 between externally reparenting the inner children versus having time to adult or have hobbies or blow off steam or take care of setting and keeping appointments. This is a major reason we suggest reparenting system kids within the system.
• The best reparenting relationships provide constant attachment parenting (especially for infants and toddlers), monitoring, and leading a child through skills-development and developing self-responsibility, all balanced depending on the age and abilities of the unique child in question. Young children need constant care and need to be able to explore their life's boundaries and their privileges, then anchor back to their parental figure for check-ins to get their security needs met.
• There is no known reliable timeframe for individuals with PTSD to fully absorb that it is safe to "age up" or move from one self-responsibility "level" (capability) to the next. It could be 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years before any given system kid is ready to age up to the point where they are an independent member of your system, no longer in need of reparenting. Or they may need reparenting for the rest of your system's life. And that's ok.
• Losing a reparenting relationship can be an enormous setback for a system child. Having already had lousy care when they were a body-child the first time around (for any of countless reasons), extreme and sudden changes in the reparenting relationship can set back progress and make it more difficult to build trust and rapport again, regardless of any reason that the system kid might lose their reparenting figure.

External Parental Figures

Putting this level of trust and responsibility into the hands of people external to the system might seem to have some benefits, but generally the drawbacks far outweigh the benefits. Here's an example of 2 types of external reparenting relationships we have seen, and a list of some of the issues with relying on these people for reparenting.

• Reparenting with an intimate partner is inappropriate.
  • In the case of a spouse or partner being a reparenting figure, it could unsettle the system if more co-consciousness develops (which is heading towards easier internal relationships and more functional dealings with the external world). Your system kid(s) may become aware of "adult time" moments with their parental figure that perhaps they should not be aware of.
  • In this day and age, marriage and partnership is not guaranteed to be permanent.
  • It could create creepy crossover mental images that could disturb one's partner.
  • Parents choose whether to make sacrifices for their children. Your partner may have chosen to make these sacrifices for physical children for the number of years expected for children to gain independence. This does not mean they are prepared for how long it could take a system kid frozen at some age to get unstuck and make progress.
  • There are other people in your system who need your partner for a variety of their own reasons, to have their needs for intimacy, communication, etc. met. This creates additional conflicts of interest when you have time to spend with your partner.
  • Having a partner who is constantly in touch during work hours, or where crises at home interfere with their ability to work could also strain partner relationships, interfere with a partner's ability to work or be away on travel for their career.
  • As with any stressful relationship that drains energy, a parental figure needs some time off and a life of their own in addition to caring for a child. A traumatized child needs constant access. This isn't compatible.
  • The system kid's time front could overpower or outshine time between partners and interpersonal connections and adult communications can easily take a back seat to the child.
  • The system kid's needs for a caretaker could also prevent the partner from meeting their own needs to connect with their adult partner(s) in the system. This can create resentments and turn into a fight at some point which by its very nature could be extremely damaging to your inner kids.
• Reparenting with a professional is inappropriate.
  • It is a violation of professional ethics.
  • It's not a permanent relationship: professionals move, retire, change careers or get new jobs if their practice isn't working out, etc.
  • It's not appropriate to have a child wait until an appointment to be able to get their reparenting needs met, and then only for a set amount of time.
  • Filling the system kid's needs could completely usurp the professional relationship. Working on other issues can easily take a back seat to a child's sometimes literally bottomless needs for love, care and attention. This undermines a therapeutic relationship as no other needs for the system, such as processing trauma or learning new coping mechanisms, are being met.
• Reparenting with your actual parents: proceed with much caution.
  • This is rarely a good idea — they didn't get it right the first time around, and all their failings and habits are probably your system's triggers.
  • No matter how well-intentioned, no matter how much more healthy or enlightened they are now, there may be a great deal of resentment from other internals around this. You may need to do a great deal of soul-searching to make sure that everyone in your system, including system rebels and stuck residents most especially, is ok with this.
  • Your bio or adoptive parents may have their own plans and have moved on as an "empty nester" assuming you are already an adult. Even if you are not an adult, they have likely planned a total of 20 years (give-or-take) to assist you in achieving adult-level functioning and were not expecting to be raising young children for decades. System kids aren't on a biological growth schedule. It is entirely reasonable to have a discussion around this factor, that your system kids could still be quite little and clingy or needy even when you are 40 or 50 years old.
  • When it is a good idea, still find auxiliary internal parental relationships to back it up. We would suggest shifting relationships over time so that your physical parents are secondary parental figures with internal reparenting groups as your primary parental figures so that you can adult and take responsibility for your system needs internally.

Healthy Reparenting Relationships

It's important to find people you can trust to develop a healthy parent-child relationship for your inner kids. Finding great external parenting role-models who are available in the ways that a little needs, and with ironclad guarantees that they're in for the long-haul can be difficult-to-impossible.

It's also important to caution that, in addition to backing out when the going gets tough, externals may accept this important position and then reenforce the dysfunctional models you are trying to replace. Or create new dysfunctional dynamics; even someone who is well-meaning may have their own unhealthy models that they are working from.

Given all the downsides of trusting the externals you should be able to trust the most (your professional care team, your chosen intimate partner, and in theory your own body-parents or adoptive parents), the situation would not be improved by relying on friends or other family members.

Internal Reparenting

Since inner children need permanence and security, constant access on an ongoing basis, etc. it's our recommendation that you find ways to work on reparenting internally.

• Build an appropriate environment to reparent the children in your internal landscape (using internal landscaping techniques).
• Partner adults or at least elder teens in your system in parenting relationships with your youngers.
• You can use a team model, like 3+ inner adults to one little if you have the numbers to support such a relationship. This guarantees that they can balance the load and also keep an eye on each other's styles of parenting.
• Provide consistency of care and boundaries/limits by making sure the caregiving team discusses their care methodology and the rules for what is and is not acceptable. Also, the team should be flexible about changes as the little's needs change and they begin to grow.

What are good qualities for reparenting caregivers in one's system?

• Impeccable ethics and trustworthiness.
• High empathy and nurturing ability.
• Time on their hands in the internal landscape i.e. not the host or major fronts of the system if that's at all possible. If not, at least have it so they can swap.
• We strongly believe that caregivers and attachment resources be accepted and approved by their charge(s). So you may end up with a group of caregivers and some kids may not work with certain caregivers. We typically advise allowing the kids to pick their primary caregivers. In our system, our kids weren't satisfied with only having a couple parental figures…they actually wanted back-ups to feel even more secure so we let them pick “guideparents” (a blend of godparents and grandparents) in case their parents went deep or dormant. Our system's guideparents act as advisors/mentors to the parents in our system as well, serving an “elder” role. And will step in as primary caregivers should something happen to a syskid's parents.
• Patience. This could take years, even decades.

You may be able to group reparent your inner kids, but every child will still need their own 1:1 time with caregivers. It's very helpful if the number of caregivers outnumbers the group of youngsters they care for — if that's possible. There's no strict rules… get creative to make it work for you.

Internal Landscaping for Reparenting

How do you set yourselves up for success in redirecting system kids to use internal resources instead of fronting?

You build internal landscape/inner world features that appeal to children and help fill their needs.

More info on how:

• Internal Landscapes or Inner Worlds
• Internal Landscaping
• Home Renovations
• Home Renovations: Intercom or Holodeck?

Aphantasia note: you may have an inner world without being able to see it. It is the place where your headmates interact. Please don't get hung up on the idea that an inner world needs to be rich and colorful and very visual. Our inner world is more about touch, texture, warmth, direction…and when we see anything it's grey and indistinct. And that's fine, so long as we are getting our needs for touch & interaction met, our system kids get their enrichment, care, activities in our inner world whether or not we can see the colors of their coloring book drawings.

Reparenting Center: nursery, daycare, playground, etc.

Creating areas that are attuned to the care of system kids is important to help them remain engaged, distracted, and have their needs met internally. You can use external role-models such as a family room, nursery school, kindergarten classroom, daycare center, playground, etc. as a role-model for what you can create or build internally for your kids.

Whatever you create, we suggest a few features:

• An indoor area with doors & windows that can be shut/shaded to help shield inner kids from adult time or external activities that may be disturbing. The doors/windows should normally be open, and allow the children to experience coconsciousness while allowing them to distract themselves with toys, puzzles, art, activities, etc.
• A cuddle and low-sensory area where system kids can be consoled and calmed down. Loads of pillows, blankets, blanket forts, perhaps books to read to them, stuffies, etc.
• A more outdoor or outdoor-like area with larger activities for energy-draining fun like ball pits, slides, climbing bars, small rock walls for climbing, soft surfaces for landing, some self-powered rides like see-saws or swings, etc.
• You might consider other things like a petting zoo, a small amusement park that's age-appropriate, sports fields, etc.
• There could be a food prep area or a place to serve treats internally.
• Whatever would help the bigs or caretakers in the area be more comfortable being on-hand and monitoring the children.

Teen Center: recreation hall, amusement park, library, etc.

Older kids and teens in your system also could use some fun and amusements in-system. You might consider allowing them to create their own space and give them more responsibility and input into what they create.

If you need it, you could have agreements that there are "indoor times" when you have external adult time, etc. so that your teens are distracted and shielded when need be.

Here's some ideas:

• A large indoor building, perhaps multi-floor or multi-purpose, with rooms for their special interests (arts, sciences, etc.)
• a gym (basketball, handball court, etc.)
• outside sports areas (soccer/football, volleyball, tennis, baseball, etc.)
• a movie theater
• outdoor amusement park
• mini golf range, or even a full golf range if that's what they enjoy
• library or research center
• separate rooms for special interest clubs to meet
• kitchen for cooking and making treats of their own
• pool or water park

Raising Your Parenting Game

How does one become a good parent? What should the caregivers in your system do to work on their own parenting skills, especially when they haven't been handed great role-models?

• Understand that these are not just children inside your plural/multiple system — they're traumatized children. They may have additional needs to those of children in individual bodies who are not traumatized.
• Spend time in therapy discussing good parenting, and specific problems one is facing in being a good parent and setting appropriate boundaries for your inner kids at their age/stage of development. This is a "teach someone to fish" model — one hour of therapy coaching on this topic can lead to years of better parenting skills for your inner adults to use with your inner children for the rest of your shared life, rather than one hour of good parenting experience for your inner kids.
• Take a class on parenting skills. If you can find an online course on parenting, no one will know that you've got internal rather than external children. (An example of a well-rated online course in parenting skills — prices on Udemy drop to about $9.99USD once a month. We have not vetted the course itself, so please note that it is not likely it is trauma-informed and to exercise self-care while watching. We get no kick-backs for giving this example.)
• Read up on child development and attachment parenting, discipline and setting boundaries. Argue with the materials. It's OK to disagree and come up with your own ideas.

This is just a starter list. There's many ways to learn better parenting skills, hopefully this is helpful.

Please check out The Crisses conference session on Building a Reparenting-Focused Community from the 2020 Plural Positivity World Conference.

Some Last Caveats

Others in your system may want to check in with the reparenting team periodically and help them out. Relieve them for a shift, make sure their needs get met, give them spoons or some hugs and gifts to help them stay energized and focused on their task.

If the others in your system are attentive to the needs of what is essentially a nursery school or school system in your head, then things could go much easier. Being on hand to do internal landscaping tasks to help compensate for the little's changing needs, or visiting for playtime is fine! Your inner kids can have friends they associate with.

That said this is not a ploy to keep youngsters from fronting. When they front, their caregiver should be at their elbow, making sure to steer them away from trouble and perhaps help them understand what is going on in the world outside, also to guide them back to their care area when front time is done. They may interact with your therapist or spouse and even be affectionate and have moments of getting redirection or lessons and knowledge from external people. However, this puts those relationships into perspective as these people would not be parental figures — they would be more like adult friends or temporary carers.

Those who have insomnia due to little's evening antics: internal caregivers can also be put in charge of nap and bed-time including rituals that are carried out internally to help the little's fall asleep.

Reparenting for Middles & Bigs

Note that while reparenting your system's children is of the biggest concern, middles, teens, and adults in your system may want or need reparenting as well, and by no means are the concerns or techniques much different for anyone of any age in your system. The point is for the parenting relationships to be healthy and appropriate for the "child" party's current age and developmental milestones.

One thing that may be somewhat different, however, is that once Middles & Bigs have appropriate boundaries, are able to detach and reattach in an age-appropriate manner, can perform accurate reality testing, and have some means to know right from wrong in the world, it is easier to have and hold accountable external reparenting figures. It's easier for Bigs, however, since Middles still may want daily "check-ins" with parental figures, where Bigs may be perfectly find checking in with "mom" or "dad" once a week or every few weeks. Also, should something ever happen to the reparenting figure(s), Middles and Bigs can experience a more realistic grieving process and while surely saddened, they can learn and grow from even losing appropriate role-models for being a good parent.

In this way, Bigs and older Middles can themselves be reparented by appropriate external adults and taught how to be a better parental figure for the younger children within their system.

So it will depend on your particular system and your particular needs. Just remember that no one is perfect.

Shame is one of the more challenging issues for trauma survivors, and affects many people who have C-PTSD very deeply. Please exercise selves-care on this topic, take everything very slowly, and please bring your professional team into the loop if y'all are experiencing shame issues or identify with the issues on this page.

What is "normal" shame?

Shame is a complicated set of fear-reactions based around social survival needs. It specifically monitors threats to belongingness, inclusion, rank & status in our social groups.

It's helpful to examine adaptive shame — we could call it "today shame" or "normal" shame — which is fully rooted in something actually happening right now, and pretty time-limited so long as it doesn't trigger additional shame issues. In essence it says, "If others find out, my social needs may be threatened." Or, others have actually found out, and it's time to make amends or it may affect your social connections.

This shame comes with the message "Oops. I made a mistake; I better fix it." We may be embarrassed or humiliated; these are shame-based emotions. But so long as it's only about what's actually going on in the Here & Now, about this single incident not deep past and other people, then it's "normal" shame. A realistic corrective emotion about something actually happening.

Shame & Human Development

Shame is an emotional reaction developed alongside mobility and language acquisition, typically around 9 months to 3 years old. It's initially an emotional leash that helps parents to alert a child to a mistake before it is deadly, and keeps a child within a certain range of their caregivers. The emotion of shame is tied closely to our need for love & belongingness. Shame tells us that something we have done may go against the rules or violate the ethical boundaries or membership guidelines of those around us, such that we might be expelled from or punished by the community to which we belong, or by those who love & protect us. (see also Social Self-Preservation Theory)

At the earliest age or phase of shame, children start to wander farther from their caregivers, exploring their environment, and as they learn what is OK and what is not OK to do, they develop their first introspective models, before they know why something is wrong to do — "Will doing this get me in trouble?" So a child develops the ability to consider their actions during this time, and judge by past experience whether their choices will be reproached or met with disapproval.

Thus the perceived threat to belongingness adds another dimension to the equation. The child who is reproached or met with disapproval gets frightened at a core existential level (are my supports going to vanish?) — and may be afraid of complete rejection. The appropriate caregiver response to this fear is to comfort the child after correcting a mistake, letting them know that they are forgiven and still are loved or belong to the community. That what they have done is not so egregious an error that they no longer belong or are rejected. This reprimand & reconciliation is part of a child's normal development around shame and helps build a good model of acceptable vs unacceptable behaviors.

Shame & Survival Needs

"Love & Belonging" is a need on Maslow's Hierarchy right above safety & food/clothing/shelter physical needs. It's not really optional — as humans are interdependent beings and we are tribal by nature. Being in a close-knit tribe enhances our ability to survive. Children are born helpless and take a long time to become more independent, thus at minimum — instinctually speaking — need a family or clan unit to thrive. The potential of being exiled or ousted from one's group is thus a threat to survival for a young child.

Shame for children raises panic reactions New for good reasons. It's our internal alarm system for threats that may get us exiled or ousted from our family, clan or tribe.

The "Buddy" Brain theory (by Crisses)

We now talk about the basic 4 panic reactions that are attached to the oldest parts of our brain as "Dino Brain" -- that's fight, flight, freeze and flop -- and they are common with many animal kingdoms.

Shame, however, seems to be a range of reactions that come from social or living-in-groups fears. We liken this to when mammals started living in groups for enhanced chances of survival, such as when there's an ice age. We "buddied up" to be able to store & process more food, take down larger prey, share defense, share warmth, and more.

Buddy Brain shame-based fears are based on maintaining belongingness, inclusion, rank and status with the tribe. These fears monitor and avoid discomforts and dangers of being outright exiled, of losing access to safety in numbers & resources stored within the group, and of being pushed to the outside (even literally, like closer to the cold cave mouth) due to loss of privileges.

The panic reactions we've proposed that seem to be most often resourced by Buddy Brain are fawn, follow, fabricate, fitting, flocking, funny and fuckit. Most of these reactions are meant to maintain or ensure belonging, inclusion, rank or status. Fuckit is Buddy Brain's equivalent to flop -- "I give up, this isn't recoverable, I'm going to resign myself to living in isolation."

It's important to note that (in theory) Buddy Brain is part of the autonomic nervous system, a layer that supplements and is built on top of older layers (Dino Brain) and that both Dino & Buddy Brain are survival reactions that are stuck in the past, and do not understand the modern world.

Buddy Brain cannot tell which group is our most important group for our survival. It developed in a time where we would only have one tribe: your family, your friends, your co-workers, and so on all belonged to one tribe, and even interacting with another tribe was generally brief and it would be pretty clear that you didn't belong to the other tribe. Unfortunately for Buddy Brain, in the modern world we may interact with many separate groups/tribes -- we may have our household, several extended families (our own, and those of our parents, partner(s), plus offshoots for any re-marriages or divorcees, etc.), friend groups, special interest or hobby groups, a group at our school or workplace, many online groups, etc.

We are much more social in the modern world than Buddy Brain is set up for, leading to potential panic-induced tunnel vision if there is a threat in any one of our social groups. Buddy Brain may take over and behave as if one's very existence is under threat, setting off our anxiety or panic, emotional dysregulation, and spinning off whatever panic reactions are close at hand. Meanwhile, the group where we are having the issues might be a casual group we recently joined and barely have acquaintances in. Due to Buddy Brain not understanding how large and convoluted our social world has become, even an encounter with a total stranger can start a shame spiral.

So one helpful tactic is to remind Buddy Brain of who our "real tribe" is -- that these people are "not tribe" -- that our belonging, inclusion, rank & status in our "real tribe" is not under threat, we are safe, our food stores are not threatened, we will not be tossed out into the elements, and we're doing OK. Many of our clients have found this framework to be helpful in redirecting Buddy Brain to have more realistic priorities in what to monitor for social threats.

Raw Shame & Self Isolation

If we do have a fallout with a group, and are ousted, we often have an instinct to hide and collapse in on ourselves, self-isolate, and hide away from people. In terms of the ancient survival brain, it's like we've been exiled or outcast from a group, and have to come to terms with being alone. "I'm going to huddle in my cave with my berries, and try to stay alive." Like we try to make our peace with having lost "all" our supports.

This instinct is based on times long gone. Nowadays we usually have several support groups. Family, online support, friends, distant relatives, coworkers, schoolmates, headmates, etc. And unlike ancient times where relocation alone would be arduous and dangerous, requiring trekking long distances to distant tribes and hoping they would take us in — we have other new groups we can try to belong to very easily now.

Still we may fall into this instinct, and it's good to pay attention when we're trying to isolate ourselves, when we cut contact with people we would normally interact with, when we are sullen and dejected, and go deep inside of our cave. Shame may be lurking in the background, not big roaring shame, not knee-jerk angry reactive shame, but quietly trying to survive in spite of being cut off of supports shame. Even if the loss of supports isn't true, or we have only lost a small percentage of our supports.

Ancient brain only knows 1-tribe that we're almost completely dependent on for survival. And it acts like it.

The best thing to do when tempted to sulk into one's cave (bedroom, blanket fort…) is to reach out to someone and be reassured that you still have supporters and you are not going to have to survive alone.

Toxic Shame

Toxic shame is what we're calling a verbal form of shame we usually get as messages we can't get unstuck from our mind's ear/eye.

This form of shame is one that may be used to manipulate someone — to use power/control over a person's natural shame to leverage it as a tool to gain their compliance. In this case, though, it crosses a line to manipulate people to get what one wants. Bullies use shame as a weapon against children and adults, for example.

When a young child experiences shame, the shame isn't always repaired and reconciled in a healthy way. Some adults shortcut discipline & love (some of the traits proper caregivers or parents should have) by way of power & control instead — and shame allows other people to dictate the rules of love & belonging in a way that shame becomes a stick and belonging becomes the carrot and a child is controlled by deliberate/explicit shaming cycles.

Carried Shame

Then there's carried shame. Much more convoluted but basically when abusers treat a child wrong, they feel their own shame — and the broken boundaries between that adult abuser and the child victim means the child senses the shame and can't figure out what the child did wrong, and becomes something the child feels is inherently wrong with them, that they deserve bad behavior from others because they're inherently unworthy/bad/wrong/tainted/etc.

This acquired or carried shame (carried like a contagion from someone else passing it along) becomes lifelong feelings of insufficiency and something being "wrong with us" — being a bad person, sinful, etc.

To work on carried shame, we have to learn how children are innocent (externally) so we can internalize how children are worthy, lovable, needy, naive, and deserve love/care/attention/protection. We can fully realize and absorb that we were being hurt and the person who OUGHT to feel the shame is the abuser. There was nothing wrong with us or about us that made us deserve being treated foully by our caregivers or other adults.

Hopefully this helps us to mentally/emotionally hand it back. Truly realize we were wronged, we didn't deserve it, that all kids deserve love & care — and we don't want their garbage shame anymore.

More Details

When adult abusers cross the lines of what their tribe/society thinks is "OK" behavior towards children, they repress their own shame about their actions.

And when repressing shame, usually it's covered up by something else. Often anger, sometimes very deep denial or delusions about reality.

Children are highly attuned (via raw empathy — a lack of emotional boundaries, also their Mirror Neuron Network if you're into the more geeky neurology point of view) to their caregivers and other adults in their environment. Not only do they pick up on the shame, they actively absorb it from the caregivers. It becomes something like an introject (and for those who develop DID or are already plural) and can become its own headmate which we call the shameholder — a specific type of traumaholder who is carrying their abuser's shame.

Shame-Bound (family, group) Systems

We, Crisses, would add to this that a shame-bound group &/or family system is one in which the culture includes the constant threat of loss of belongingness, inclusion, rank or status based on that particular culture's rules of what is and is not acceptable. It's a group culture in which unconditional acceptance is lost to a set of rules that define whether or not one is acceptable and welcome to be a member. Thus the constant threat is to remain acceptable to the group's rules, and hide or edit everything else keeping secrets from the group, so that one is never allowed to be fully authentic while still remaining a member in good standing.

One example of this is a particular culture with "disallowed emotions" -- some family cultures will use shame & control tactics to eradicate certain emotional displays, under threat of retaliation, shunning, or loss of status or privileges.

Control-Release Cycles - Using Shame to Control Someone

Our vulnerability to shame also becomes a mechanism by which people can control themselves or each other. Of course, as plurals, we have both (self-control, and internal headmate control) issues.

We'll bring in Buddy Brain again. It's not lost on humans that Buddy Brain can be exploited to control behavior. We can use self-shaming to push ourselves into certain behaviors, and we can use other-shaming to attempt to control others.

And this would be something fairly normal, probably something that people have done since before there were written words and cave drawings, so what's the big deal?

Unfortunately this "control" attempt has — like so many things — an "equal and opposite" reaction. First described by Fossam & Mason (Facing Shame: Families in Recovery), and made famous by John Bradshaw (Healing the Shame that Binds You), when someone is under the pressure of a control attempt, there's also an attempt to "release" elsewhere. It can happen simultaneously, or it can be a delayed reaction creating a cycle.

This cycle ends up becoming something like a see-saw, with perpetual motion of its own. Bradshaw grabbed onto it because he came from addiction recovery, and could clearly see how these control-release cycles played into addiction & addiction recovery.

Here are some common/known control & release behaviors, note they're not meant to be shame-inducing (this would kinda go against the whole point of the article which is to educate folks about these absolutely normal human condition issues, not make them feel bad about having them):

These are just starter examples and not meant to diagnose anyone or to be an absolute exhaustive list. The original lists in the books above, being from the 1980s, are not appropriate today, nor are they exhaustive either. They're definitely informed by the authors working in family therapy & addiction recovery.

The importance here is understanding that when one person (or headmate) is exerting control over another (even themself), there is a bounce-back effect. Doubling down on control is not the answer to this issue. It almost always comes back to finding a release somewhere. Even if we extinguish one undesirable behavior, it often will come back somewhere else.

Personal experience as an example -- after extinguishing Workaholism, we went on an 8 or 9 month Lego shopping spree and spent nearly all our non-appointment-time playing with Legos. We allowed ourselves to do that kinda on purpose, to not shame ourselves, not exert pressure, to allow headmates to front and have some excesses we normally wouldn't have done, to let us "get it out of our system" until we could gently come back into more of a balanced state. Now we are trying to keep an eye on our see-saw's balance between control & release and be careful not to push down on one side or the other too hard.

The Fame-Shame Triangle (by Crisses)

Outside of family units, dynamics of rank/status and illusions of belonging & inclusion can dovetail into dangerous (but interesting, in the way that storm clouds gathering on the horizon is interesting) dynamics. One of the more important ones to reflect on and start to notice out in the wild is what we (Crisses) call the Fame-Shame Triangle. We came up with this, but once you think about it it's pretty evident out there in the world. We see it in cults, in devoted gushing fans of famous people, musicians and rock bands, political parties, and in social media influencers & followers. Let's look at the dynamics, because it's potentially dangerous for everyone involved. (click image to open in new window for a closer look)

We will give a full image description below, in the text, so if you can't see the image please bear with us.

Our system member Buck has always had a "thing" about "No Pedestals" -- his personal rant about the dynamics blossomed into the dynamics that we describe below.

We were trying to figure out why people wanted to fangush at us. We were very uncomfortable with that -- and why did it make us so uncomfortable? Why did other plurals who had a fanbase seem to think we were encroaching on their "territory" and try to shove us away? Why do famous people end up so miserable? Why does criticizing the ideas of someone looked up to end up with a dogpile?

First, someone becomes elevated in terms of rank &/or status. That person is the Exalted and placed at the top of the pedestal or triangle in our diagram. There are those who have placed them there or keep them there; those are the Adorers. And there are those who want to level the playing field -- we label them Critics.

Fame-Shame Divisions

Exalted

Those at the top of the pedestal/triangle. Typically a person with a "platform." Authoritarian leaders, famous & elected persons, powerful, wealthy, visible/influential people, those uplifted such as honored persons: justices, bosses, CEOs, enlightened persons such as leaders in the clergy, cult leaders, and those who attempt to self-appoint themselves to an elevated position.

Adorers

Those who support those at the top of the pedestal/triangle. Compliant, followers, fans, acolytes, congregants, fawners, roadies, worshippers, converts, the unquestioning people who believe in or champion the Exalted.

Critics

Those in opposition to those who are elevated. Oppressed, rebels, detractors, envious, whistleblowers, questioning, disobedient, opponents, excluded, don't fit in, etc.

Fame-Shame Dynamics

Adorers->Exalted

Adorers look up to and attempt to emulate or seek the approval of the Exalted. They pin their hopes on the Exalted's success, perhaps live vicariously through the Exalted -- and sometimes will offload their own personal responsibility and personal potential to the Exalted. Their activities are basically pushing energy towards the Exalted, keeping them up on top of the pedestal. They will idolize, fangush, worship, hold the Exalted in very high regard, and have a lower threshold of critical thinking regarding anything their Exalted does.

Adorers->Critics

Adorers cannot understand why the Critics are displeased with the Exalted. How can they not see how fill-in-the-blank (honest, giving, wise, wealthy, smart, enlightened, disruptive, innovative…etc.) the Exalted is? They may try to educate or convince Critics, try to make a case as to why the Exalted deserves higher rank/status than the rest of us. At times, the Adorers will actively shun, silence, or exclude Critics on purpose (which is incidentally shame-triggering, and makes the divide/gap wider between Adorers & Critics).

Critics->Adorers

On the other hand, Critics see Adorers setting aside their critical thinking and under the thrall or spell of the Exalted -- or unnecessarily elevating them even if the Exalted is not playing into it. They want the Adorers to "wake up". They also might lean into the divide by denigrating the Adorers, treating them as sheeple -- the hypnotized/mesmerized flock that isn't thinking about what they're doing, and is unable to see the flaws of the Exalted. This induces shame by pushing the Adorers away, othering them, attempting to lower their status or denigrate them.

Critics->Exalted

The Critics, at best, see the Exalted as a person who is -- like everyone -- flawed and imperfect, only human. They openly criticize the Exalted to try to bring them back down to earth (or perhaps to knock them off the pedestal, even if it hurts). They will use the mistakes of the Exalted to reinforce their position and continue to attempt to pull the Exalted back down to earth to "level the playing field."

Exalted->Isolated at the Top

The Exalted may intentionally or unintentionally recruit Adorers, and intentionally or unintentionally clash with or create Critics which can be especially be shame-triggering if they try to silence, control or discredit Critics. These dynamics can be incidental to their activities, or central to them, however one of the important issues is that the Exalted ends up in a shame catch-22 regarding their Adorers & Critics: they do not want to let their Adorers down -- and simultaneously they can't show any flaws that Critics may weaponize against them or use as proof to discredit them with their Adorers. They're stuck in a loop of having to project success, happiness, flawlessness, and invulnerability in order to remain Exalted. They do not want to fall from grace (on the Adorers side) or be torn from their roost (on the Critics side) by being imperfect.

So the Exalted who wants to remain Exalted feels they must self-edit, hide any vulnerabilities or flaws, from the public. They become deeply inauthentic. They are afraid of scrutiny and judgement, or will contort themself to avoid being revealed as flawed or a fraud. Note how much these emotional stances match the RORT "shame spirals" (that can lead to suicidal depression) below. The saying "It's lonely at the top" is all too true. If they cannot bring a more authentic self to their relationships, they miss out on deep connected relationships. So the relationship between Exalted & Adorers is ultimately unfulfilling and shallow, and the relationship between Exalted & Critics can become hostile and guarded. Neither is a fulfilling, authentic, secure, connected relationship.

We included 2 quotes on the diagram page that illustrate some of these flaws:

Shame Spirals

This is where an instance of normal or today shame sets off deeper/older shame in our system — but it's also involving control-release cycles on top of that.

So for example if we make a mistake (drop a glass) and it brings up shame "oops, I made a mistake someone might get mad at me if they find out" this can then bring up toxic shame (instances of being told we're clumsy or incompetent, that we can't do anything right, or that we're a slob or pig, etc.) which in turn may bring up carried shame (feeling like we're a failure, unworthy, wanting to shrink/get small/blink out of existence — which may also trigger selfharm cycles, or sui ideation, etc.). Then we may want to over-control ourselves ("I'll never use a glass again! I'll only use plastic from now on.") which also may bring on release issues somewhere else (perhaps more gaming).

Essentially it's a regression and emotional flashback feedback loop that activates deeper and deeper levels of shame messages — whether those messages are verbal/auditory/written — or if they're emotional shame messages accidentally gleaned from abusers who violated the social contract of how to care for a child properly, or ignites fears around loss of belonging, inclusion, rank or status in some way.

Here's an article we wrote with one C-PTSD shame cycle. We'll eventually add more info here on Kinhost as we continue our dive into shame issues.

Dumping Shame

Before we get to the discussion of pride (below) which is perhaps outdated, there's a few ways to work on dumping & eliminating these toxic & carried shame messages in our lives.

At their essence, they all involve rejecting the shame in a visceral believable way as not being ours. Even verbal toxic shame messages are a form of someone else trying to hand us more-than-ordinary amounts of shame for all the wrong reasons. Neither toxic shame nor carried shame is ours to own & hold. Though the messages got stuck in our brain or body, it really comes down to the shame itself becoming stuck-held forms of being traumatized by others. Others who never should have treated anyone that way.

Children are Fundamentally Innocent & Need Caregiving

Abusing Kids is NOT Ok

Everyone is Valid & Worthy of Attention

Shame Solutions

Shame vs Respect

Shame vs Authenticity

Yeeting Carried Shame

Distributed Leadership/No Pedestals

Shame Work Menu

You definitely don't have to do all of these things, but this is a general list of work that can be done (descriptions pending) for shameholders, shame defenders, or systems that have been affected by shame. It's not a prescription, not the only cures, these are ideas we are taking (mostly) from Bradshaw's Healing the Shame that Binds You as placeholders before we have more information.

While these are listed in a general "order of escalation", it's not a prescription and does not need to be worked through in order, and you don't need all of these ideas. People have been working on shame in myriad ways through the ages, and being perfectionistic about it may complicate shame feelings.

1. Coming out of hiding
2. Choosing Intentional/Safe "Family"
3. Sharing Secrets
4. Feeling feelings
5. Dumping Shame
6. Grieving Losses
7. Acceptance, Welcoming, Belonging
8. Self-love, self-compassion
9. Reparenting inner kids
10. Openly accept & talk about it
11. Paying it forward
12. Accepting your authenticity
13. Empowerment

Old Article

Shame is an instinct or emotional reaction tells us to hide, that it's dangerous to be seen or found out. As such it's a natural instinct gained around the age a child can walk and wander, and makes a child freeze to consider their behavior and what they've done wrong. Natural shame is temporary and healed with proper attention and care from a loving caregiver.

Shame, as a trauma survivor, is an internalized injury from an ego or self-esteem attack. It can happen when a child is made to feel that they are bad, that they are not worthy of being seen. If a child blames themself for something that goes wrong, internalizes it, and is shamed, they feel as if they are not worthy of fitting into their clan, tribe, social network or society. Instinctually this creates a response that to survive (fitting in is an instinctual part of survival) they will have to hide the thing they have been shamed about. That if anyone were to find out how bad or unworthy they are, they would be exiled.

Some might say DID is built on that instinct to hide. That this self-esteem blow could be enough reason that a child can't live with themself and starts to hide the injury even from themself. Internalizing the shame, pushing parts of themself away, the child creates pockets to even hide the shame along with the shameful circumstances. Because being ousted from the support of their tribe is unacceptable. This deep moral injury creates so much conflict it becomes a survival crisis.

As adult survivors, we may develop this deep need to hide, not be seen, and not understand where it comes from. We may act, but feel we are unworthy of attention or love. Hiding can come in many forms, so sometimes it may just help to assume that we have this issue and ask "What am I hiding from?" or "What are we hiding from?" and see what answers arise from it.

The shamed insiders may come paired with protectors and defenders. They may or may not be more accessible than the shamed internal folks.

Ways to address shame include bringing the shame itself into the light. Not necessarily exposing the people, but talking about the fact that the shame is present. Interestingly, this doesn't have to trigger more shame in itself (though it can) because it's not talking about why there's shame; it's not exposing the reason for the shame. Understand that shame is a survival response. There should be no shame in protecting yourselves. Ask yourselves how your shame helps you take care of and protect yourselves.

Another step in dealing with shame is reframing the circumstances more objectively and realistically. If this happened to someone else, would you blame the victim?

Shame is a good situation for recruiting their protector to help take care of the shamed system member. Acknowledging the real blame belongs with the situation or the adults who failed to protect them, dealing with the hurt and traumatized headmate with love and compassion, and helping them to see that they are worthy, and helping them recover from their flashbacks (see Rescue Missions New and our podcast episode about Onboarding Residents).

System-wide, pride is a good foil to shame feelings or a legacy of shame. Those headmates who are able to be prideful can carry the banner of plural, multiple or DID system pride for a while until others are willing to join in. Knowing that you/y'all are valid, that you were a victim, not to blame for what happened, that it's OK to be seen, heard, and loved — are all very important parts of healing the self-esteem and coming out of hiding which are the legacy of this self-esteem injury.

Y'all don't have to go straight from shame to pride. There's plenty of middle ground — healing boundaries, reframing abuse situations and putting the blame on the people or societal structures that disempowered you, or harmed you, and fighting for yourself and others can be helpful milestones on a road between shame and pride.

Shame is a natural emotion. It's a survival instinct, it's adaptive and it's OK to feel shame. Remember that shame is healed by love and compassion, by being understanding, and by putting the responsibility where it belongs and taking responsibility when it really is our fault (but it's not our fault as a child, we mean as an adult).

Sometimes shame is at the heart of self-harm. Balancing out harmful behaviors with new loving behaviors, reaching inwards a little bit at a time to send love and comfort and compassion to the hurt inner child, just a little bit each time, may be able to help.

Going from shame to pride is not a lightswitch. It's more like healing a plant that didn't get enough water. And the answer is love. Sometimes you have to nurse a plant back to health. Dumping water on it and walking away isn't enough. It needs warmth, protection, to be turned towards the light, and cared for.

Consider setting up a re-parenting situation for headmates buried in shame. They need love and to be seen and cared for on a consistent basis over a long period of time.

If you believe a headmate is struggling with shame, and you have a professional team, please bring it up with them if you can. This is a situation where y'all could use a lot of support.

In terms of building pride gradually, the conference session on Plural Activism & Selves-Advocacy talks about going from advocating for each other inside your system and being internal activists through eventually (over time) advocating for yourselves externally and eventually becoming community activists externally — basically the whole journey of standing up for each other internally as individuals through standing up for yourselves individually or as a whole, inside & out.

Why be proud of your& system?

Here's the answer The Crisses gave to someone who was dealing with hopelessness & despair, shame, etc. regarding having DID:

For us, this is in case we accidentally delete our system's journal, but we're also happy to share our work with others as a PmWiki cookbook author. Use at your own risk.

We have started using a wiki "website" journal on our laptop by enabling PHP on our mac laptop and installing and tweaking PmWiki software to create our own journal application.

This is the homepage of our journal.

It's based on http://pmwiki.org software, just like Kinhost.org is. There are a few extra plug-ins added to extend the number of "color words" available, and add shortcuts and a few other goodies to the site.

Download & Set-Up

You can download a bare-bones version here. Then you can follow instructions on PmWiki.org to upgrade either the plug-in recipes from the Cookbook (in the pmwiki/cookbook folder) or the main application itself.

You will need to modify the pmwiki/local/config.php to change your password and possibly to properly point your browser to your website on your computer or on your webserver.

You can email us if you get stuck, or use the enormous help system both in the website application or at http://pmwiki.org — it's rather well documented.

Requirements

This is a website application and requires PHP and just about any type of website server. It doesn't require a database application.

You can either enable web services and PHP on your local computer (mac instructions), have a web server of your own (in which case you may want to use a subdirectory so that people can't easily guess your journal's URL as another layer of protection on top of the password, and you can add htaccess password or similar to access the directory), or follow the instructions to create a "Wiki on a Stick" thumb drive that you can plug your journal application into to your computer and everything will be saved on the thumb drive including the PHP application and web server.

Security

The public interface of the website can be made to require a password. As described above, our default package has a passworded public interface. Locking out read and edit permissions will stop anyone from accessing your journal through the website interface. Make sure you change the password from the default "yourpassword" in the package.

The other serious security issue is if anyone can access the server files on your server, thumb drive, or laptop/computer.

You can encrypt the thumb drive or your hard drive to protect your content; otherwise if someone has access to the file system they can read your journal entries — but they'll have to know it's there and/or search for words to find the files (who would think to look for your typed journal entries in your website folder?). All data is stored in flat text files, so you will probably want an encrypted drive or folder to store this journal in.

Make sure to back up your thumb drive version occasionally, too. Just because it would stink to lose your journal by losing your thumb drive or it breaking.

If you have this journal up in the cloud on a website, then use an obscure URL on your server like http://example.com/this/is/my/journal/ and bury it in folders to use it without people being able to guess where it is or stumble on it. Then they have to both guess your URL and your password to find it. Also be careful about external URLs — everyone collects referrer website data nowadays, you can be giving someone's Google Analytics a direct link to your journal. It's really much more secure to have your journal on your laptop or computer.

Learn How to Use It

In addition to all the documentation available on http://PmWiki.org and in the documentation section within your own MultiJournal website, we have videos available at our business website — click here and a cheatsheet we created for the base software. We do short videos on each topic in the tutorial, and there is helpful text below the video in case you can't see the screen.

We need to create a video showing how to use the Multijournal specific features, like a quick set-up guide, etc.

If your web server has PmWiki available on it, and you want it set up as a multijournal with the plug-ins & set-up we're suggesting, contact us and we'll make sure to package it as a recipe for already established installations of PmWiki.

Technical Info

This is not our own application, it's just a bundle: config files, plug-ins, sample pages, and "logo" over already-available PmWiki software. We have not created anything original for this package other than the "logo" and how it's all set up so that multiples have a way of creating visual "WikiStyles" for headmates and easily using shortcuts for styles to help facilitate faster conversations than would otherwise be possible if you had to color and style every paragraph of text manually.

We are a plug-in developer for PmWiki, but this set-up doesn't contain any of our recipes or original work. It's all GPL licensed. You can modify or share whatever you'd like so long as you don't violate the GPL license.

If the plug-ins or PmWiki have been updated since we created it, this package has not been updated. You may need to update items especially if you're going to use it on a live web server in the cloud.

New: Check out my video on
finding a therapist & more..
See our Privacy Policy New
for why we won't embed videos.

NEW! Refractory Directory for plural professionals. The Refractory is a community of various plural professionals (especially therapists, a few coaches, researchers, peer specialists, etc.) who are collaborating on trainings, documentation, and more for the plural community & those on our professional teams.

Choosing a therapist for any presenting issues has been challenging enough over the years, and finding a good trauma specialist for a neglected and supposedly rare condition was already over the top — but now pandemic crisis burnout & trauma has led to trauma survivors having a new surge in symptoms and seeking treatment alongside new trauma for front-line, hospital & emergency workers, who would likely not have had PTSD had there been no pandemic but — well, now they do. [November 2024 update -- some of these new PTSD cases may have hit the avoidance wall and not seeking treatment (yet?). PTSD, as we know from DID, can take years to show extreme enough symptoms that people hit rock bottom and get help. So there may be more availability for therapy at the moment than we feared.]

New therapists cannot be trained fast enough to fill the need. So trauma specialists have waiting lists and it's very challenging to find an opening.

Please don't despair, plan for it to potentially take longer & even more effort and know that y'all are definitely worth it. Get on some wait lists — in the meantime, y'all can continue work on making progress before getting in to an appropriate therapist. See the Self-Help Indexes New & https://pluralityresource.org for some of the available options (many folk start out with the United Front System Safety Plan course which is free). You also may want to check out the United Front Boot Camp (free), and the United Front book series.

Y'all can also refer to the No Therapist page for advice on going without a therapist while y'all are still looking.

Ask for referrals

If you have the ability to be picky, it's probably best to go to a professional association whose beliefs are not anethma to your own, and ask for referrals in your area. If you choose just any therapist, it's possible they don't believe in multiiples. If you choose someone who belongs to a professional organization dedicated to education and research on multiples, at least you're unlikely to end up with a member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation (FMSF) -- a group who deny the existence of multiplicity, childhood abuse, ritual abuse, and similar on the claim that therapists hypnotize their patients and thus it's all made up.

Ask for Documentation

When you are about to make the appointment, ask for the therapist's CV or curriculum vitae. This is a long resume type of document that should list all schooling, supervision, continuing education, residencies, papers written, research done, special trainings attended, etc.

We are INTERVIEWING them. They ought to have this ready and kept up-to-date in the first place, otherwise they're just stuck in their office all the time and not ever actually doing anything (like presentations) in the world. And it's not a private document or something rude to ask for.

Heck, I'm thinking of asking my therapist whom I've been with for a couple years for hers. Why not.

What you're looking for: their training above and beyond getting their degree (degree programs rarely have any useful information about DID), continuing education that shows an actual interest or specialty or training in trauma, whether they trained under or were supervised with a known trauma or DID specialist, whether they did their dissertation or any papers on trauma or related issues, participated in any studies on trauma or treatment appropriate for trauma, membership in associations related to trauma — but that's not sufficient — participation in sub-committees, conferences on trauma, any lectures or presentations they have done about trauma or attended on trauma, where they may have done a residency, agencies they worked for, etc.

It should be pretty apparent whether or not they have any real interest or experience in trauma & DID, and whether or not they've just checked a box on a form claiming they have such experience, or hung out a shingle with no experience other than maybe reading the ISST-D guidelines.

Things to Look For: Be Observant

Your first time in the office, you're there to interview the therapist. Make sure you bring some questions with you. If you're going to tell the person that you're multiple right off the bat, you ought to ask something like "How do you feel about integration? Is that a suitable goal for treatment?" And make sure you agree with their stance on that pivotal issue.

If you're going to spend time feeling the person out and not come out as multiple right away, you may have other questions, as to length of the sessions, and questions about whatever your excuse is for being there -- say it's anxiety issues, you could ask: "For every 10 patients you have that seem to have an anxiety issue, how many have you put on medication?" "How would you treat anxiety without medication?"

Look around the therapist's workplace. Do you feel comfortable there? Listen to all the instincts/voices, and pay attention to your anxiety level -- if the pit of your stomach is responsive to questions (some people's are) you can play litmus test or twenty questions with it: are you just anxious because you're meeting someone for the first time? Or is it the environment? Do you think you can work with this person? Do you like them? What's your initial impression?

If something about them makes you uncomfortable right away -- whether it's the color of their nailpolish or hair, or you can't put a finger on it, you might want to find someone else. You really need to feel comfortable with the therapist and you might miss clues consciously that other people in your head are trying to give to you.

Also, you probably don't want a therapist that you could be sexually attracted to. Keep that in mind.

Therapist Interview Questions

Contributed by Hodgepodge (unless otherwise noted)

Here are the questions I mentioned that I asked when interviewing the therapist during the first session:

1. How many clients with DID have you worked with? And for how long? [made sure they used the word "client" and not "patient" when answering]
2. What kind of training and/or experience have you had with DID?
3. What is your approach to trauma work?
4. Do you believe integration or fusion is necessary?
5. Are you aware of the concept of functional plurality?
6. Are you comfortable working with younger parts if they want to speak to you in therapy?
7. How do you respond when a client tells you graphic trauma? [This was a very important open ended question that can't be a yes/no or fact based type answer. For example: the therapist answered that they "listen closely with attention and compassion.")
8. What happens if one of us doesn't show up anymore? (will they check in with you, cancel your appointments, send you bills, etc.) [Suggested by Stronghold System]

Crisses suggestions (non-leading questions)

1. "What do you think about integration or unification?"
2. "How would you deal with a client who has already been in therapy for a decade?" (however long if you're changing therapists and already have begun serious treatment in the past)
3. "How do you address members of a DID system?"
4. "What are some successes you've had with DID clients?"