I suppose at the bottom of everything, integration will mean something different to each person. I think that generally it is thought of as a merging of personalities, or parts of self, into one self. Many people who have several "selves" think of this in terms of certain selves going away and leaving a dominant self to live life.
In learning about my own parts, I have realized that this is not how I think of integration. I will digress briefly and hopefully make a point. When people talk of integrating disabled students into classrooms with nondisabled students, the assumption is that an environment will be created where all students can be functional, contributing members. A combination of everyone's strengths creates a unique classroom, and they all use their strengths to help others in areas of weakness.
This is how I think of integration. Though this is not always the case with people who have many selves, I am aware that I created my parts for specific purposes: to act upon certain strengths and to be responsible for tolerating certain weaknesses. In a way, I have a classroom with some gifted and some disabled selves. For the most part, my gifted selves are older and my disabled selves are younger. Integrating them means creating a lifestyle and mindset which is conducive to everyone's participation. The "disabled selves" in their weakness serve to remind the gifted selves of the limitations and needs of the whole person, and often the weaker selves contribute by risking what the stronger selves refuse to risk. In taking such risks, it often happens that the whole person gains the advantage of experiencing unexpected benefits: friendships which could only be made by trusting in times when trust was the last thing I would want to give and successes which would not have been possible without risking failure. And so it is that together the weak and the strong heal each other.
I don't think that any of my selves will ever go away, and I do not intend to make them go away or insist on having an identity without them. I know that their existence is based upon my role as a creator and upon my willingness and ability to allow certain emotions and experiences to be a part of my life. My selves are parts of my whole mind and spirit, and their individual names serve to help me in sorting out what is going on inside my head. I am never far away from what is going on unless I refuse to allow myself to feel or to know... In the moment that I do this, I make the way for my selves to go on living without me.
"Integration" is a highly individualized issue for each person to define. What integration means is likely based on what each person's existence as a person with selves means.
During the time when I was still living life mostly from the point of view of the others, I struggled against the idea of integration. Why was the concept so difficult for me to accept?
I found out with the help of Meg, a feisty 18-year-old whose responsibilities included dealing with and, most importantly, finding appropriate ways to express the anger which I could not accept.
I'm not philosophically opposed to integration. I've argued with people about it. Now that I sit here and think about what is going on, I understand why I feel the way I do. I'm a protector, and sometimes it takes me a while to realize what is driving me to do certain things or feel certain ways.
What I'm opposed to is the effect of the mention of the word integration. Maybe that's not it either. Maybe it is the fact that having these internal divisions is considered a disorder, something to fix. My job as a protector is to respond to triggers. Being expected to conform to certain norms is a huge trigger. There are certain norms I accept and conform to willingly without question. But those norms have to do with keeping society safe and keeping the person Sarah safe.
However, there is a norm which is in many ways unreachable for Sarah. There are many problems involved in living with a visual impairment which go beyond the fact that Sarah will never drive, read the paper herself, etc. There are a lot of conceptualization problems which make participation in a world designed for visual learners very difficult and sometimes impossible. Yet in spite of these things Sarah is expected to have the same social skills as a fully sighted person, to achieve the same academically, to hold a similar job, etc. I'm not saying that these expectations are wrong or unachievable. What I am saying is that there is a pendulum effect going on. Either you fit this norm or you don't. A lot of times there is no room for diversity. Whether it was intended or not, Sarah feels a whole lot of pressure because of this. If she falls short in any area, she is not good enough. There are areas where she falls short because she didn't try as hard as she could have, and there are areas where she falls short simply because she does not have the tools or abilities to achieve. But to her there is no difference. To her, failure is failure. It's what she fears--failure to make friends, failure to be employed, failure to live independently... It is all feared.
Failure is a very relative concept, though. You can make a 75 on a test, and one teacher might consider that a bad grade. But if you're used to making 50's on tests, 75 is a complete success. A person has to measure success or failure by a standard. For a truly healthy person, the standard of success will be within the self or perhaps some set standard which is observable. It will be a standard which is not changeable and which reflects the idea that goals can be achieved. But for many children with disabilities (and probably for a lot of abuse survivors), the standard is always changing. Achievement may not be achievement when it comes time to recognize it. Today's failure might be tomorrow's success, or vise versa. This is especially true if you are subject to many standards: the opinions of several teachers, therapists, parents, peers, etc. Standards set by peers can be some of the worst. Children are pitted against each other as a matter of course. Competition is considered healthy. It can be healthy. It can be very devastating if it is taken too seriously--and often it is.
All of us who make up Sarah have lived life trying to measure up to some standard which is unknown to us and always feels just a little out of reach. Now, to be living with a psychiatric disorder, to know that we are expected to "integrate" feels like another standard we have just not met. The temptation is to just close down, to go into a denial mode so that Sarah appears normal. That isn't the point of integration, though, and all of us know this. The point is to heal the hurts so that we don't have to be divided against each other. I know that, and I am not at all opposed to it. However, there is an additional part of this problem. It's not something that cannot heal, but it is going to take a very long time unless God provides a huge miracle.
Not all of our divisions have to do with being set in internal conflict against each other. The biggest problem is confusion. It's confusion about all kinds of things. Not just one thing. It is confusion about whether or not certain needs will ever be met--some of us are still stuck in very early developmental stages with deep needs that were never met. It is confusion about who Sarah is and how she comes across to other people. It is confusion about what her abilities and strengths and weaknesses are. It is confusion about what is an appropriate or achievable career goal. It is confusion about whether or not she can find a place where she belongs and is respected in the social structure of this world. It is confusion about whether she even realizes when she does find that place, confusion about who her significant others are.
All of this confusion is stuff that has to be waded through before there is any hope of integration.Every time I hear the word integration, I stiffen up inside because I know exactly what Sarah is thinking. "You want me to be normal? Ok, fine. None of these people ever existed." And she closes the system down. And she cannot survive without us. She is essentially saying that portions of herself do not exist.
Fortunately, I did not remain stuck in that frame of mind. With the help of a good therapist and several good friends, I am learning that I can define the standards to which I wanted to measure up. There are days when I still struggle with feelings of obligation to other people's standards. After all, everyone in the world is striving to get others to act in certain ways. If we don't like what someone else is trying to get us to do or the way the person is going about it, we call it manipulation. It becomes a "bad" thing. If the request is kind, we call it assertiveness. If the attempt is made by being pushy, we call it aggressiveness. But regardless of the way in which people try to influence my behavior, it is my responsibility to set the standard against which I will measure my success. If I don't do this, I fall into another psychological category: codependent.