I remember being afraid of integration.
Afraid because I had no understanding of the concept. Afraid because other survivors too early in their own treatment told me to be, and I let their fears become mine. I even remember trying to warn our therapist away from mentioning the term, and if I could, I’d take it all back.
To integrate is to unite, incorporate; to form, coordinate, or blend into a functioning or unified whole. To take what is unknown and make it known. To share, to listen, to connect, to align. To integrate is to grow closer together. To integrate is to communicate, to cooperate, to harmonize.
When we learn something new, when we comprehend and apply it to our life, we have integrated this information; we have made it a part of us. Integration is motion, a moving toward, it is action. Integration is absorption, synthesis, evolution.
Dissociation is the opposite; dissociation is disavowal, denial, and distance. Dissociation is making things unknown, separating and dividing. Dissociation puts every little piece in its own box and buries each box far, far away from one another. With DID, we end up embracing division instead of connection; integration reminds us to remember when everything else in life has primed us to forget.
This fear of integration, this phobia of inner experience, is a fear of being seen, heard, and known. We are afraid to know our own history, our own processes, our own Self. Afraid to admit hulking giants lay sleeping under our feet, afraid to acknowledge the depths of betrayal a child can experience, afraid to accept the excruciating wonders a mind can do to survive.
Integration no longer holds any fear for us, and we choose integration every moment of every day. It builds bridges, opens channels, undoes disconnect, and allows us to see each other, help each other, know each other. Our life is no longer stagnant; we grow as both individuals and collective.
Every conversation and exchange is integration. Every internal name shared, every compromise offered, every scowl, smile, and tear witnessed is integration. Every journal written, to-do list scribbled, and lyric sung. Every time we reach out to a hurting part of ourselves or join in on a hearty group laugh, every time we admit, acknowledge, and accept, we are practicing integration.
Dissociation whispers to turn our backs while integration makes room for others to join the circle. Integration brings us together, and that might be the crux of this whole phobic phenomenon: our past taught us that love hurts, that closeness is dangerous, that connection is lethal.
With Dissociative Identity Disorder, it’s easy, maybe even natural to fear the idea of integration at first — it goes against everything we’ve ever known. We’d rather fear the fear than fear the connection; it hurts far more to fear closeness than it does to fear pain.
Integration was initially something to run away from, to avoid, something to project our fear of love onto. And it makes sense because, ultimately, what else is integration other than the active choice to connect with and love yourself?
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