We will sometimes experience situations where we can’t figure out how to regulate ourselves or how to solve a problem and just using more Orientation and Grounding is not doing the trick. The experience isn’t happening only in the present, only for us as a part or only within our person. Things got mixed up. We can’t resolve them unless we untangle them first.
A simple tool to untangle mixed experiences is to ask ourselves what the components are and use percentages to determine how much of our experience belongs to each component. We can then take care of these components separately, using different strategies. This is sometimes taught as the ’90/10′ tool but percentages can vary and don’t have to be 90/10. Anything you identify in a given moment is valid. It can help to imagine a pie chart.
Steps:
- identify the mixed experience
- define the components
- estimate the percentages
- separate the experiences
- cope with each separately
Different kinds of flashbacks
With complex trauma, our flashbacks can often be more fragmented. We experience emotional or somatic flashbacks or we get stuck in old thoughts and beliefs and cannot find our way out of that cycle.
Once we notice that something is off, we can ask ourselves how much of the emotion, sensation or thought belongs to the present situation and how much of it belongs to the past. A rough guess is good enough.
Separating past from present experience usually leads to more clarity and helps us to decide how to proceed. What belongs to the present can often be taken care of in the present. For things that belong to the past we need our trauma tools (containment, sharing, pendulation, reality checking, trigger discrimination, emotional integration ect)
Different parts
It is common that dissociative barriers aren’t perfect and that some of the personal experience of parts will leak into that of others. Leaking can happen within different categories of experiences (like emotions, thoughts and beliefs, sensations, impulses, memories… ) and it is severely uncomfortable and confusing. In these cases, we use the categories ‘me’ and ‘other parts’ to identify percentages. The results can guide our actions and help us to choose an appropriate intervention. It usually starts by asking the other part to give us a bit of space so we can untangle and help them properly and then move into different options to eg calm younger parts. Maybe other kinds of exchanges are needed. Once we get untangled it can become clearer.
Different people
If we grew up with enmeshment we will keep experiencing it until we formed safe boundaries around us. Maybe we take on too much responsibility that belongs to other people or we pick up their abandoned guilt or shame. During conflict we might try to solve everything by twisting ourselves into impossible shapes just to avoid a confrontation. Aware of our own appeasement patterns, we can regularly ask ourselves how much of a problem belongs to us and how much belongs to other people. It might be none of our business at all. Sometimes we need to confront an imbalance. Boundaries, assertiveness and confrontation are relational skills that can be learned.
Society
Living conditions and circumstances of survivors can cause a lot of suffering. This will need help from outside, but we should check how much of our situation is within our power to change by getting access to existing support options (they usually exist in some form and it is ok not to know about them right away) and how much of it is simply social injustice that needs to be addressed by the government and laws. Knowing the percentages can help us to feel more empowered because the things we can do ourselves are usually more than 0% and we don’t have to feel like an utter failure when we are truly facing a system of injustice. Nobody could thrive there. Separating our mixed experience could help us out of despair. Then it is time to do what we can and also find allies who will stand up for change.