We have been thinking quite a lot about this lately as we found that many of our selves experience that. It seems to become more noticeable when they become more comfortable in the head-community and begin to express their true feelings.

I think it is about providing companionship, at least that approach works well with us.

For example, our last host host felt terrifyingly lonely when he was left on his own, so we just used to take it in turns to co-front with him. The kids love to co-front, so effectively he became their caretaker. That seemed to work quite well both for him, and the system.

My young ones get huge bouts of depression. They will just be inconsolable. Each has their own personal flavour of sadness and loneliness that fluctuates between suicidal and rageful.

Obviously those are strong emotions and we don’t want anyone in the system to feel like that. Also, we can often trigger each other.

For example, there were occasions, where they were rapid-switching or blended and dealt with different traumas in the same situation/memory. In these circumstances, a memory may trigger many selves. Similarly, with sadness and loneliness, there are common overlaps between physiological expressions of emotional flashbacks so inter-alter triggers are common,

Again, we find spending time with them, validating their pain helps.

A lot of times we don’t talk. Just feel their suffering. Understand it. Live it with them.

We find a lot of us are willing to offer the company. Generally, those who have not had the same experiences will tend to be more inclined to put themselves forward. For obvious reasons, those who share similarities could be triggered, and we are very sensitive to that as we don’t want anyone to be retraumatised.

As a rule of thumb, the host will be available for everyone (they have almost no trauma), teens will support the younger ones (very different experiences), and the younger ones always volunteer their company to everyone (bless! 💖).

We find understanding the causes of the sadness and loneliness is important, but also a sense of hope helps wondrously. We try to provide a healing process that is comparable to what a person would go through if they received therapy for depression.

However, we do that in an informal and family-oriented approach. We don’t “work” with our fam. We spend time together and help each other.

One relevant consideration that we often forget, is that many of them don’t know what happiness is. Being sad and lonely is all they know. Some of them were specifically not allowed to be happy, to smile, or to show any degree of pleasure. For some others, the threat was not specific, but frequent enough to be a factor. Others just didn’t have the time, or the opportunity to know anything other than many different types of sadness and loneliness. They know all the nuances of those feelings. They recognise all shades of black that are visible in the darkness and that are indistinguishable to the rest of us.

So, we try and involve them in happy activities. Like watching something we know makes them smile on tv, or play a video game that engages them, or read something they enjoy, food is a good way to spend quality time, like when a family sits at dinner, etc. Create new memories.

Helping them learn to be happy is very helpful. Some of them just don’t know how to smile and it looks kinda creepy.

The kids chose this pic because they see the person as a kind of likeable creepy and with a lovely, warm, friendly smile. 😁

Understandably some of them are scarred for life and have some form of chronic depression/mood disorder. So, we know there will be remissions alternating with relapses. When everyone knows that there will be a remission, it is possible to see the light at the end of the relapse tunnel.

So, helping them experience happiness, even if just for fleeting moments, is the equivalent of planting a seed. With TLC, it will blossom. Eventually they will be not-sad long enough to be considered a remission.

I don’t know if you can relate to this. It seems to work for us. I wish you guys all the best, you’ll get through this 💜