Hi, this is Liang's partner. You can call me Kou! We met when we were kids and have been happily married for a number of years. We lived in the same world together, and now exist together as introjects the same system. I love everything about Liang and he is the world to me. I don't want to make too many posts on here tho because this is supposed to his blog.

Liang is out at the time being but I really want to talk about something, what I think is a really important coping skill to have if you have traumatic memories that are starting to come out of repression.

A polyfragmented friend gave us the idea from a text by Allison Miller:

[beginning of excerpt] purposes that are the opposite of the abusers' intentions!

However, in order to keep memories, and parts of memories, contained, you might want to make a new system of your own. In addition to the original storage for the memories which have not yet been worked on, you can have your internal builders (who built your inner structures in the first place) construct in your inner world a place where partially processed memories and feelings are to be kept in containers and some containers in which to put them, such as a cave containing barrels, a bank with a vault with storage lockers, a well with buckets, or a storage room with jars on shelves, or anything you think will work. Both the containers and the place in which they will be kept should be able to be locked, but there should be a way to put things in the containers after they are locked. A spout or straw might work (if the memories and feelings are thought of as liquid), or a "doggie-door" which snaps shut may be created. Let your mind come up with the image best for you. As with all such creative solutions, it does not matter what the image is, as long as it works for you. It helps if you draw a picture of the storage place and containers. Some survivors discover that their insiders have already created such storage but their front people were not aware of it.

You probably need two types of storage:

1. Containers where the feelings (emotions and bodily sensations) of a memory in progress can be stored temporarily while your insiders watch the "video" of the memory (to be discussed in the next chapter) to get the storyline.

2. Containers where unfinished memories can be stored between memory work sessions, or where flashbacks can be put.

Once you have these containers, try putting the emotions and bodily sensations from some easy memories, and eventually entire memories, into the containers. (Make sure you put only feelings into the containers, not inside feeling-holder people.) For example, the emotions from an argument you had yesterday with your partner can be put safely away first, or the taste of the milk that went bad, and then, the flashback of the hands of someone who abused you. It gets easier, and you get better at it, the more you do it.

When to begin memory work

Often, dissociated survivors are in a rush to get their memories back. When asked why, they say they "just want to get this recovery stuff over with". It certainly would be nice if all you had to do was recover the knowledge of what happened, but that is not the case. The process takes a long time. It takes that long because you need to take care of yourself, not push yourself too hard (as the abusers pushed you, and it is very hard work, and the memories you have to discover are traumatic and create strong emotional reactions.

You cannot rush into memory work such as this. You need to be at a stage in your life where this work will not disrupt important daily life tasks, such as raising children or full-time paid employment [end of excerpt]

Allison Miller's work is intended for sufferers of ritual abuse/mind control, or systems with a polyfragmented structure that was rigged to serve abusers, but if you have a high tolerance for reading about triggering content it's worth checking out.

So every system is unique and what kind of memory container(s) you need is probably going to vary based on your specific needs. That's something you'll have to figure out through experimentation. But I can talk about what I made for Liang in our system:

As soon as I heard about this idea, I immediately thought of two things for our container in headspace: an urn, and an altar for paying respects to the dead. On the altar was a picture of Liang as a child, at the age he was when the abuse happened. It makes sense to me that our container is like this because we were processing his memories by literally grieving what happened to him as a child.

After a little experimentation I figured out how to work with it -- whenever we are attacked by a piece of memory content, what we do is we compress the feelings, images, sensations, or whatever it is into a clump of ashes, and then put the ashes in the urn. The urn is sealed with paper talismans to keep the content from getting out. The urn sits on the altar, and we then make a rice offering to pay respects and appease the vengeful spirit of the memory.

That's our containment system, it's what works for us. For everyone it will be different. I hope you can figure out something that works for you.

--Kou