Why Offering Choices to Your Parts Can Be Healing in DID and OSDD

(Summary) Many parts in DID systems carry the belief that their needs, opinions, or preferences don’t matter. Offering genuine, low-stakes choices can provide repeated experiences that communicate something different: your voice matters, your preferences matter, and you matter. Even seemingly insignificant choices about food, clothing, or everyday activities can become opportunities to build trust and gradually challenge beliefs that developed when choice wasn’t safe or available.

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Many parts carry the painful belief that they don’t matter. It’s heartbreaking! Today I’m going to talk about a simple but powerful way to begin teaching them that they DO matter. You do this by giving them choices. Offering choices is about more than being fair or polite. Every true choice carries a powerful message.

Trauma often takes away choice

Children growing up in traumatic environments frequently have little control over what happens to them. They may be offered choices only infrequently or they may have been given impossible or intentionally cruel choices. Not only that, many children in these environments learn that their opinions, preferences, and needs are ignored because they aren’t important. Over time, children can learn that THEY don’t matter.

This is about safe choices

For some people, the word “choice” doesn’t feel safe. You may have been given impossible choices, manipulative choices, or choices where every option led to pain. That’s not the kind of choice I’m talking about here. I’m talking about genuine choices where there isn’t a right answer and your preference is sincerely wanted.

Every genuine choice sends a different message

You might think it’s no big deal when you ask your system, “Should we have tacos or spaghetti for dinner tonight?” but that would be incorrect. You aren’t just deciding dinner. What appears to be a simple question communicates several important messages:

• I care what you think.
• Your opinion matters.
• I’m interested in your preferences.
• Your voice matters.

Small choices are enough

Not only are small choices enough, they are actually the best place to start. Small choices mean the stakes are low. Many young parts may worry about choosing incorrectly. Perhaps as a child adults became angry when they felt like you made the wrong choice. Small choices make it safer to participate.

Another benefit of small choices is that they are much easier to come by. You can find small choices everywhere:

• Should we wear the hoop earrings or the diamond studs?
• Should we eat by candlelight tonight or keep the light on like normal?
• Should we eat cereal with our right hand or our left today?

And so on.

Each small choice is an opportunity for a bit of healing. With each small choice you are sending the message “You matter” to your parts.

Follow through respectfully

Make sure you are willing to honor the choice your system members make before you offer it to them. And if you offer a choice but are unable to follow through:

• acknowledge it
• explain why
• look for another opportunity

This communicates that you take this seriously, that you respect them and their wishes, and that they do matter.

37 Fun and Low-Risk Choices

Over time, these moments add up

One choice may seem like a drop in a bucket. Insignificant. But dozens, hundreds, and eventually thousands of choices can be enough drops to fill that bucket. Repetition is powerful. One drop doesn’t wear away stone, but many drops over time will. Imagine that the belief that they don’t matter is the stone. Each choice is water, wearing away at that old belief.

If you try this and immediately think, ‘But what if my parts all want different things?’ or ‘What if nobody answers?’ or ‘What if I can’t give them what they want?’ I put together a follow-up troubleshooting video in the free membership that walks through the most common challenges people run into.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why might making choices be difficult for parts with DID?

Some parts may associate choices with punishment, conflict, manipulation, or getting something wrong. Others may have had so little opportunity to develop or express preferences that they genuinely don’t know what they want. Beginning with small, safe choices can give them opportunities to learn that having a preference doesn’t have to lead to something bad.

Why can small choices matter so much to parts?

The importance of a choice isn’t necessarily proportional to the size of the decision. Asking a part what they prefer communicates that you are interested in their thoughts and wants. Repeated experiences of having their preferences considered can gradually provide evidence that their voice matters.

Can offering choices help build trust with parts?

It can. Genuine choices give you repeated opportunities to demonstrate that you are interested in what parts think, that you take their preferences seriously, and that you will respond respectfully. Those experiences can contribute to greater internal trust over time.

Why start with small choices instead of important decisions?

Small choices have lower stakes. A part who learned that choosing incorrectly could have negative consequences may find a decision about food, clothing, music, or another everyday preference safer than an important decision. Small choices also provide many more opportunities for repeated experiences of being heard.

 

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