For me, dissociation has always been a problem of communication. One part did not communicate with another, I couldn’t communicate what reality I was in at the moment to another person, or something deep inside of me couldn’t communicate things it remembered and saw to my conscious mind.

I tried very hard to "will" myself to remember, to say what I was feeling, to express that anger that I didn’t really have any of, but all my professional help seemed awfully hung up on hearing about, but the results were less than ideal.

In my first week in the hospital, (the ‘less-than-ideal results’ I referred to) I was introduced to groups involving art, creative writing, music and dance, and crafts. Although I wasn’t close-minded to them, and I was willing to try, I really didn’t understand how this was going to help.

I soon saw that all of the parts of myself, and the places in my mind, and the forgotten memories were desperate for a chance to express themselves. A big part of why I was sick was because they never had that chance. I had been forced, trained, and then learned and carried out on my own, constant suppression and denial of things I felt, or thought of. "Don’t ever tell or we’ll kill you" happened to be my introduction to Stifling Expression 101, but everything else contributed. "Oh, honey, that never happened. It couldn’t have". Now those parts and places inside me had had enough, and it was going to be their turn. If it meant driving my car into another in a trance, finding myself in a strange place with no memory how I got there, or whatever, they were going to say something.

Still, if I willed myself in therapy to talk about these, they mysteriously vanished. But, given a blank piece of paper, and something to draw on it, or asked to write a short story or a poem about a photograph or some other evocative thing, things started flowing out of me that I had no clue ever had existed. It was as if the unexpressed parts of myself, having been closed forever from using the normal means to communicate, could only start to express themselves when a different means than simply talking was presented.

I would find myself drawing pictures of specific scenes with far more artistic ability than I have, showing people and places I didn’t know anything about, but they seemed to have some very intense meaning. Or I might just end up coloring shapes and when I was done, I would look at it, and it would jump out at me that I was feeling really angry, or really scared. If you haven’t does this much, you may really be astounded at how clearly things you express will say back to you something you realize you really did know, somewhere, somehow, but never were aware of.

I would write a poem (again, with no talent but suddenly words would come out even if it didn’t feel like I was writing them) about some picture of a scared child and the poem would drip with fury and outrage. For a long time, the child was always some other abused child, but I was amazed at how worked up and passionate I got about a fictitious character I had just invented.

After about four years of treatment involving expressive activities, so many important feelings, memories and thoughts have only come out through them, I doubt I could possibly have made what progress I did without them. If you, like I did and still do, find remembering and believing, allowing yourself to have certain feelings and thoughts, and, God forbid, actually expressing those feelings and thoughts to be a huge problem, expressive activities may be a path out.

There are a lot of ways you can try to do this. Of course, no one thing works for everyone, and you may find your own unique way of catalyzing this process. But some of the things that seem to work for a lot of people are:

[1] ART

Take a piece of paper and any media that appeals to you. Don’t even think about it. Just grab what seems to attract you. It may be finger paints; it may be black marker, or any one of dozens of other things. Sit at the paper and don’t think. Try to relax your mind and let whatever comes into it happen. Hold your hand over the paper, and if necessary, start making little lines. It doesn’t happen every time, but many times, you will find your hand being taken over by an unconscious part of you that will start drawing before you even know what it’s going to be. Or, you may become aware of a strong feeling that you should draw a picture of-.

If it doesn’t seem to be happening, one other approach is to take a question from therapy or a topic of your own, and try to put in on paper. Draw your family as they looked like when you were a kid, or draw what life feels like to you.

[2] POETRY/CREATIVE WRITING

First off, repeat to yourself, "this is not a class. It doesn’t matter whatsoever if what I write is complete junk. There is no reason to try to write something ‘good’. Stop worrying".

Then, let yourself start writing, but try to use poetry, or the creative elements of story telling to bring out more emotion. Many of us write, usually in journals, often without having any idea who’s writing, or why, and not recognizing any of it the next day. But it’s often pretty intense. Adding the element of trying to communicate emotion with the words will sometimes make a connection and you will find yourself writing your own truth, possibly for the first time.

Again, if you get stuck, try to use a topic to get started, or a picture or song or image and write about that. It may take several times, but most people I’ve talked to or been in groups with seem to be able to get a lot coming out pretty quickly.

[3] PASTE-UP WRITING AND COLLAGES

Why these should be effective, I’m not really sure, but for many people they are. Get a stack of magazines and a scissors (no, that would not be OK, put them down until you need them). Page through the magazines (they can literally be anything at all) and when a word or a picture strikes you, for whatever strange reason, cut it out. Collect a big pile of cutout words and pictures and lay them out. Then using a stiff piece of large paper, or a piece of poster board, and a glue stick, put them together- any way at all.

If you haven’t done this, it may be very hard to visualize, but people tend to end up with words like "little", "stolen", "die", "hurt", "never", "run", "father", "happy family", "lie", etc. and as you may be able to see, you can start thinking of some ways they might go together pretty easily. Some people use all words, some all pictures, and some both. I’ve ended up gluing a bunch of cutout magazine words to some paper, having no clue what words or why I used them, and then, when I read it for the first time, bursting into sobs that lasted for hours. Maybe it did have some meaning.

[4] MUSIC AND MOVEMENT

Music is very powerful for most of us in freeing emotion. If you’re stuck and detached about something you think you ought to have feelings about, even thinking about it, or journaling while listening to a piece of music you know is extremely emotional for you, make break the barrier. The first time in my life I ever used "I" instead of "they" in referring to victims of abuse came while rewriting some of the words to a song about injustice that had always been very emotional for me.

If you write songs or music, or want to try, that can be very effective. Putting the emotional context to your words, as music does, is pretty close to one of our recovery goals.

Movement is powerful, but although all of the methods here can be too intense or too triggering and need to be done with some sense of that and how to handle it, movement seems to do this more often.

Put on any piece of music you choose, close your eyes, and just start moving expressively. You might just use your hands, or gestures, or body position, but it is very easy to be drawn back into places you remember without words but which are still very intense and very important.

There are a lot of other ways to be creative with expression, and any of them that puts some part of you besides your immediate controlled conscious self in touch with expression will work. If you haven’t tried much of this before, I can’t say too strongly how amazed and greatly helped both myself, and many others I know of have been despite not having any sense initially of how this could do anything. You might want to think really seriously of trying one of these at least a couple times.

If you have done these before, and they worked a little or not that much, but you put them aside and haven’t done anything in a long time, consider trying again. I had completely put aside all the expressive activities I had been involved in when I was no longer in any kind of group, but within a year I found myself hospitalized. Looking back, a big part of that was drifting back into being stifled and living in the rational and the objective. (I don’t know about any of you, but for me, if there are two things life has absolutely not been, it is rational and objective).

Try to keep in mind, we are all struggling with the challenges we face because in some way, what really was reality simply could not be expressed. It was either too horrible to be true, or nobody would listen or believe it, or it would do some terrible harm, or we were too ashamed, but we were never going to tell. It never happened. For me, something very deep inside hadn’t bought that. It hasn’t learned to sit and talk about it, but given a different way to express itself, it has a lot to say. Injustice that had always been very emotional for me.

© 1999, John M. is a recovering survivor with DID.