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We help Dissociative Identity Disorder systems to quickly transform into a team so you can start living a functional, normal, and happy life!

Does your system have an alter in your system that can’t read? You’re not alone! When it comes to Dissociative Identity Disorder, it’s not uncommon for one or more alters to struggle with reading. Most of the time, the reason for this is that they simply haven’t had any life experience with reading. They just need a little love and patience to get them started. This article will walk you through how to get your alters started on their reading journey. Let’s jump right in!

Table of Contents

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER

Because of the nature of D.I.D., it’s possible that something in this article could be triggering to your system. Please use caution and your best judgement when reading this article. Safety first!

Disclaimer: We are not doctors, therapists, or mental health professionals. We’re just a bunch of alters that are speaking from personal experience to help other systems live their best lives.

Find A Teacher

The first step to teaching an alter how to read is finding a teacher. You’re looking for someone that is:

  • In the headspace (ie not an external person)
  • Able to read
  • Willing to teach
  • Patient

 

For the time being, it might only be you and that’s okay! If the teacher has a lot of fronting or internal responsibilities, brainstorm ways that the system can cover some of these tasks so that the teacher can dedicate time to teaching. They don’t need to dedicate a ton of time but you want to make sure that they’re not overwhelmed.

Teaching an alter how to read benefits the whole system so anyone that helps either by learning, teaching, or taking care of responsibilities deserves a big high five! Every little bit helps.

Remove The Stigma

As far as the student goes, the absolute most important thing to do is to remove the stigma surrounding learning how to read. The negative beliefs surrounding developing this new skill will be what hold them back more than anything else. By replacing negative statements with more uplifting ones, the student will have a better foundation moving forward. We suggest that your system avoid statements like:

  • You should know how to do this.
  • It isn’t that hard.
  • I can read so you should be able to do it too.
  • You’re too old to be struggling with this.
  • Only dumb people don’t know how to read by now.
  • You’re making our lives harder by not knowing how to do this.

 

Try replacing them with statements like:

  • It’s okay that you haven’t learned how to do this yet.
  • When you’re ready to learn, I’m sure that you’ll do great.
  • Reading can be tricky for some people and that’s okay. You’ll get it eventually.
  • Age doesn’t automatically make things easier. You’re where you’re at and you’ll grow when you’re ready.
  • Having the ability to read doesn’t make you smart and not having the ability to read doesn’t make you dumb. Either way, you matter.
  • Our lives will improve when you have this skill but what’s important is that you do it your way, in your timing. This is your journey and we’re here for you.
 

 

When it comes to developing any new skill, things work out better when the student feels like they’re in an encouraging, supportive, and loving environment. When you authentically show someone that they have value with or without a skill, they become much more effective at developing the new skill. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it honestly works wonders!

Pro tip: Never force an alter to learn how to read! This needs to be their choice. As much as them learning how to read would benefit the system, refrain from begging, guilt-tripping, or coercing them. That doesn’t work out well for anyone. Given enough love, space, and inspiration, your alters will come around when the time is right for them.

Show Them The Value

For the alter that will be the student, you want to get them fired up about learning how to read. When someone is curious or inspired about something, they learn better and faster. What worked best for us was to rent some books on a topic that we knew that the student was very interested in. Bonus if it has lots of enticing pictures!

So if your student has a hobby or a passion, lay some reading material around the house that will help them to become curious and motivated. What you want to see happen is that the student will see the value of learning to read in a non-pressured way. That’s when the real magic happens!

Give Them A Jump Start

The next step is to ask your subconscious mind to give them some help getting started. Your subconscious mind has access to all memories, information and skills so getting their help is a total game changer!

All you need to do is to enter into a meditative state, confirm that your subconscious mind knows that you’re talking to them, and say something like the following:

“(STUDENT) is getting ready to learn how to read. They are safe to learn how to read. Once they learn how to read, our whole system will benefit. It will lead to us being safer and healthier. (Insert very literal and specific examples from your system’s life). Please give (STUDENT) access to these abilities so our body can be safer and happier.”

Start Teaching

Now that you have a teacher, an eager student, and help from the subconscious mind, it’s time to start teaching! For us, we found that it was best to teach internally and for the student to practice externally. This means that the teacher and student worked on building skills inside of the headspace. Later, the student practiced while they were fronting and the teacher was co-conscious to give them positive feedback.

Pro tip: If either the student or teacher starts to get frustrated by the process, it’s okay to take a break! When it comes to learning how to read, any progress is good progress!

What Next?

Now that you know how to help your alters learn how to read, what’s the next step? Click here to learn how to use a journal to communicate with your alters. To learn how to share skills from alter to alter across your whole system, check out our course Of One Mind!