Getting the Alters Up
This article comes from my personal experience as I went through the deliverance process. It also comes from my experience since that time, as a deliverance worker. Having worked with hundreds of multiples as I minister inner healing and deliverance, and having come through this process myself, I have a unique perspective that can sometimes help others as they struggle to come to terms with MPD/DID, and the inner healing and deliverance process.
When we minister deliverance we need to be able to get to the alters and deal with them directly. So we will tell you to sort of “get in the back seat,” so to speak, in order to let them come all the way up to the surface. This usually happens in one of two ways. Sometimes when the deliverance worker asks for an alter to come up, it is like they just come up and take over, especially if it is an alter associated with an amnesiac memory. If it happens like that, then it’s easy, but it doesn't always happen like that, especially with co-conscious alters. Very often you have to go to a painful memory in your mind, and allow the emotions associated with that memory to come up to the surface. We call that “going to the point of the pain.” Then when all that emotion is right on the surface, that is the alter. So when you speak out of that pain, that anger, that fear, or whatever it is, that is the alter speaking. It will only takes a few times for you to begin to recognize the difference between you and the alters.
If you struggle with this, then pray and ask God to begin to show you what is there. Ask him to bring the walls down on the inside, when and where it is safe to do so. You can't just drop your walls all at once; it isn't safe. You have walls because the alters don't feel safe, but God knows when and where it is safe to begin bringing them down. Ask him to let you see the parts and hear the internal voices. Some of the inner talk that you think is you, is really your parts. Then talk to your parts. You don't need to do it out loud; you can do it as you lay in bed before you go to sleep at night, or before you get out of bed in the morning, or when you have some quiet time alone.
- Tell them you want to know who is there, you want to see them, you want to hear them.
- Tell them you are not a little boy/girl anymore. You are an adult now and you can handle the memories; it's okay to let you remember. (Remember, they took the pain for you, maybe even the whole memory, at a time when it was too overwhelming for you to handle it.)
- Tell them you want them to come up and talk to the deliverance worker.
- Tell them that it's safe to do that.
If you still struggle, there are some steps you can take to help you get there:
- Step one is to begin to recognize when an alter gets triggered. Look for that BIG emotional response to things. When something happens, and you begin to feel the anger rising up inside of you, THAT feeling is an alter getting triggered. When you are watching TV, or having a conversation, and suddenly that pain and sadness is just there, and you are not even quite sure why, THAT feeling is an alter getting triggered. When someone says something and you don't like their tone of voice or their attitude, and you get that crushing stab of rejection, or pain, or rage, THAT feeling is an alter getting triggered. The first step is to recognize that when that happens, it's an alter. Just notice it and label it, “Oh, someone just got triggered.” There is no pressure or stress in this step, because all I am asking you to do is recognize it, not do anything about it. This helps you to begin to know when an alter is there.
- Step two is to begin to follow that feeling back to it's origin. That BIG emotional response is usually not there because of what just happened. This is how it works: When something unpleasant happens to us, there is a certain amount of discomfort or irritation, even pain, hurt, or anger that results from that incident. This is normal, but if there is an alter that gets triggered by that incident, they come up and dump all of their trauma pain, hurt, or anger on top of the normal pain that you have. Now if you don't know the alters are there, then to you it just feels like YOU. And if there are several alters that get triggered by that incident, they are all dumping their pain on top of your normal pain, so you can begin to see why your emotional responses are sometimes huge and out of proportion to the current situation. So what you need to do, is to trace that excessive emotional response back to the memory from the alter that got triggered. Try to catch yourself in the middle of that emotional reaction and ask inside, “Who is that?” “What is this about?” “What happened to you?” Trace it back to the origin. Again, talk to your parts and ask God to show you.
- Step three is to begin to practice getting the alters “up” while you are in a safe place with no pressure to make something happen. When you have some private time by yourself, just find a comfortable spot to be alone with God. Pray, then take one of those original incidents that you traced back to it's origin in step two, or if you couldn't do that then choose an incident of pain or abuse from childhood that you remember, something that still hurts when you think about it. We often ask people, “What's the worst thing that ever happened to you?” Next I want you to go to the point of that pain. Go to that memory, think about that incident in as much detail as you can. Get to the emotional trauma of the incident and let it all come up to the surface. If you get anger, try to go deeper until you get to the pain behind the anger. Anger always covers pain. When you get the overwhelming emotions up on the surface so you can feel the hurt, the pain, the fear, just like when it first happened, THAT is the alter. I want you to do this at home so that you learn what it feels like to let the alter come up, while you are in a safe place. There is no pressure, no embarrassment, no one can see you, you are safe.
- Step four, if you can do it at home, you can come to deliverance and do it here where the deliverance worker can help the alters get to Jesus and get healed. When I was going through the deliverance process I had no problem at all getting to the point of the pain. If I thought about the abuse I could be right in the middle of all that pain and trauma almost immediately. My problem was that I was expecting the alters to come up and take over, and that wasn't happening. I didn't realize that when all the pain was right there on the surface, that the alter was ALREADY up. It was a co-conscious alter, so it just felt like ME. I remember thinking to myself, “I don't want to go in there and pretend, but maybe that IS the alter.” So one day I made a conscious decision, “Today I am going to go into my session and when the trauma emotions rise up, I'm just going to speak out of that pain “LIKE IF” that's the alter. I'm going to “go with it,” and just see what happens no matter what it feels like.” So that's what I did, and at first it did feel like I was just faking it, but I didn't quit, I kept on “going with it.” Before long I started to notice that while the part was speaking, I was beginning to feel like I was just a little bit in the background, watching it happen. By the end of that session I could tell the difference between the alters and me, and soon it was really easy to let them come up in my sessions. So when you get the pain up to the surface, just speak out of the pain. Ignore the thought, “You're just pretending.” That is Satan trying to make you quit. Just go with it, and it won't take long before you begin to feel the difference between you and the parts.
SIDE NOTE: You can do the same thing with the demons. If you let them manifest fully and speak, the deliverance worker can get them cleaned out better and more thoroughly. It's easier not to miss something if they are up and talking. You can feel them rise up too, so do the same thing. When the “not nice” thoughts come to your mind, just speak them out. Soon you'll be able to let the demons up easily, and the workers will be able to deal with them better.
