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Memory Container
Jan. 31st, 2018 04:48 pmHi, 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:
( screenshot of a text by Allison Miller and transcription )
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
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:
( screenshot of a text by Allison Miller and transcription )
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
