Three Kids in a Trench Coat

In the dissociation & parts lingo, you might hear people talking about something called, “passive influence”. This is where a part that isn’t currently “fronting” influences the part(s) up front through thoughts, behaviours, urges, sensations, etc.

These influences may be experienced as, “ego dystonic” – i.e. as not arising from oneself. Sometimes, you might come up with one explanation for why you’re doing something to avoid that dystonic experience, without realising that’s what you’re doing.

Here’s an example of the latter from today:

—

“Just stretching my le… oh.”

This morning I went to the corner shop to get a fresh vape – a 1 minute walk to the end of the road.

I came out of the shop and thought, “I feel like stretching my legs some more, so I’m just gonna keep walking. Maybe I’ll go to Ally Pally park.” – a very familiar walk indeed, we go at least 2-3 times a week.

So I started walking that direction. Then got the urge to turn off pretty quickly. “Ok, let’s go this way & keep walking – haven’t been this way before, let’s see where this goes!” We keep going. Another unfamiliar turn, walk, turn, walk, all down unfamiliar roads.

“Oh I know this place! If I turn off here we can get to the park this way…” Start going that way. Nope, not where I thought we were. We turn off again, walk, turn, walk. “Oh, this isn’t the right way at all, this is…”

“Wait – why are we at our dentist’s surgery?”

Yup, set out for 2 min vape run, and ended up 30 mins out of our way at a place I didn’t think I had any reason to be. Checked our fam Trello board:

Apparently we were supposed to call to make a dentist appointment this morning & I hadn’t been checking the board – so the part that left the note walked us there instead. Well, message received, now.

At no point while I was out did I feel like there was any shift in identity, and was present with my surroundings and the sensations in my body, my thoughts, feelings. No fugue, amnesia, switching, nothing like that. Sometimes parts just passively influence from behind the scenes, and it’s just another type of communication to be open to.

Parts taking the drivers seat if needs go unmet is a whole thing, and dental care is something I’ve been avoiding for a while, but they’re right – we need to go, however scary we find it.

I’m going to message the practice after lunch, and include a note about dissociation, as we haven’t been since we learned about it, and dissociation explains a lot about our relationship with dental stuff over our life so far.

I really should get better about checking our shared message spaces more regularly It would have been much easier just to message or call this morning xD – but I also appreciate my fam looking out for our body ^^ ❤

Until next time, take care of yourselves, kiddos ❤

Riley & fam x