We have DID, and want to talk about it.

@The-red-centaur,

It's not confusing at all, we're happy to hear from you no matter which part of you is fronting.

It's great to hear that you're relationship with your alters is getting better. It is to put it mildly, an uphill battle at times.

It was hard at the start for us, we were constantly fighting with each other, hurting each other, and sometimes even frightened by each other. Thankfully we've come a long way since then, we had to forgive ourselves or we couldn't move forward.

We were actually just thinking of reaching out to you @The-red-centaur, we just had a meeting in our inner world, we call them roundtable meetings, and only a few of us can make them happen.

Anyway, we do this sometimes whenever one of us has a concern that involves the system, or to come to a decision as a group. We were just wondering if your system does anything similar?

No pressure to answer if you're not comfortable doing so, we were just interested in how other systems work.

We're glad that you're safe, and moving forward regardless.

Thank you for your post and for educating me, @L3G10N (and @The-red-centaur too). I appreciate learning about DID and dissociation.

I'm sad @L3G10N that each of your alters has some trauma 😢

It's okay @NatureLover, honestly the mechanics of living with DID are hard for us to wrap our head around at times, so writing it out helps us as well.

We should clarify that even though all alters within a system exist because of trauma, not all alters are necessarily a trauma holder.

For example, one of our Littles, Littles are alters who are mentally and emotionally stuck below the age of twelve, carries no trauma whatsoever, and is generally a joyful and carefree member of our system.

We suspect she exists this way because she represents the way we wish we could have existed when we were children, but that's just an educated guess from us.

The point is, every alter within a system is as unique as any single minded person is, and the reasons they exist within a system are often a reflection of how the system needed to protect itself.

@L3G10N I'm happy to hear that not all of your alters are trauma holders, and that you have an innocent, happy alter too.

I learnt since I joined these forums 3+ years ago that some alters can be a different gender, and some can be animals. I admire you for keeping track as it must be so difficult.

I find it all interesting, and I really feel for your traumas. Thanks for sharing.

@NatureLover, now that you mention it we don't actually have any trouble at all keeping track of each other, at least not after the Host becomes aware of us. We're just speaking from our experience, but we think it makes sense that we wouldn't, like, how could you really lose track of such an integral part of yourself?

And yes, you are absolutely correct that alters can be extremely varied within a system. Alters can vary amongst many spectrums, from gender, to age, and even humanity. Alters can visualise themselves as basically anything, animals, plants, animal/human hybrids, ghosts, superheroes, mermaids, anything.

Obviously, these alters logically understand that they are part of a human mind, and can act accordingly, but they do not see themselves as being human as individual parts of the system.

That is fascinating, @L3G10N ...thanks for explaining.

I'm glad all your alters are easy to keep track of....that makes sense.

Any time you want to talk about your DID, you will have a listener in me. 👍 (Best to tag me though as otherwise I can't keep track of all the activity on the forums)

Heaps of good wishes, @L3G10N ...

Thank you @NatureLover.

We don't believe that we are entitled to anyone's attention on this, but the support we have received from this post has already been beyond what we were expecting, and we feel humbled by everyone who has engaged with us so far.

The subject of non-human alters is especially personal for us, because none of the alters in our system are human at this time, not even the Host. We have a few theories as to why this may be the case, but nothing conclusive, and even if they were, we wouldn't feel comfortable sharing them here.

Of course, the fact that we don't see ourselves as human emotionally, doesn't make us feel like we're not real people, even if we feel isolated from others by this somewhat.

Alters are created from the result of an extremely traumatised child's mind, and are created to protect that child from harm. If the child has been traumatised predominantly by other human beings, and has no one else to turn to, it makes sense for the newly created consciousness to adopt the visage and mentality of literally anything else.

We're not too sure how common our situation is amongst systems, but we know that non-human alters are generally fairly common amongst them. Additionally, non-human alters should not be treated any less like people than the ones who are, not that we've ever had that happen to us intentionally, but we feel like it's still worth mentioning.

@L3G10N

Hey there! 👋 Just came across your thread, it's been a while since I've logged into this forum. We have DID too.

We don't have an exact number, but most days we accept that it's probably around 40 alters. It's admittedly getting harder lately, with more trauma-holders coming out and communicating with us. I know that this is a good sign, it means they're feeling safer now or that we're doing something right since they're willing to talk to us. But it's definitely not easy to reassure them and ground them. 😓

But still, we feel the same as you. We feel that we know ourselves so much better and are able to express ourselves so much more freely. We feel more open and confident with other people because of it. It's also a relief not to have to keep the system locked down all the time anymore and to allow the others to switch in freely. Admittedly, I might have become a little too lax with that in recent times, and am now trying my best to dial the switching back a bit – it'd gotten to the point that we were switching many times a day, with trauma-holders coming out often...it's definitely been chaotic. I'm hoping to achieve more balance and stability. (Context, I'm a gatekeeper, I can to a certain degree control who fronts) Many of the others resent me for my role, but it's hardly something that I take joy in. It was necessary to survive and it still is.

Letting the trauma-holders out hasn't been all bad though. Some of them have over time developed a growing interest in the outside world and everyday life. It's meant a lot to one of them to be able to develop his own interests and see that the world isn't all bad. And while before he was hurting the system, now he has become an ally. It's significantly eased the stress that we were under.

We have been wanting to try the round table type meetings internally with the 'leaders' of our system. But our first attempt didn't go all too well. We don't always get along too well, and accessing the inner world is hard. We've had more luck with meetings through text messaging though. But it takes a lot out of us to do and we end up very dissociated.

We've also been trying out having our main caretaker help address conflicts between alters. He's very good at his job, he can empathise with the others really well, and helps them to feel more understood. Some of the feelings certain alters have towards each other are quite complex though, and it's hard to imagine them ever finding a way to resolve them. But I think we'll get there eventually.

Hey @LonePhoenix ,

Thank you for reaching out, we're always happy to open up dialogue with another system.

We get what you mean, it's always challenging when a new trauma holder makes themselves known, not just because of the pain they've been carrying, but also figuring out the best way to communicate with them without pushing them away. Of course this is ultimately a good thing, but the additional emotional cost is noteworthy. Still, it's important to keep trying because it's always worth it in the end, at least from our experience, it's also worth remembering to take breaks from the work when you can, this is something that our primary caretaker keeps trying to get us to do more often, because when we don't listen to her we end up burning out.

We've also been trying to balance letting any alter front as often as they like, without causing unnecessary chaos within the system, and we honestly haven't found the right balance yet either. It is so good to hear that for the most part your system is growing more unified and confident as a result.

It's actually interesting that you bring up your systems resentment for your gatekeeper, because a lot of members of our system also feel a lot of resentment for our gatekeeper. We obviously try not to, but it makes sense that we do, when we have bad days or when an alter becomes triggered by something and no other member of the system has an explanation for it other than the gatekeeper, and the gatekeeper is constantly keeping you in the dark, it is hard not to feel resentment, even though that is such a huge part of the gatekeepers job. I wonder if this is a common problem amongst DID systems?

Is there a way that your system has figured out how to mitigate that feeling of resentment? This has been an issue in ours that we haven't found a good solution for, to be candid, it doesn't help that our gatekeeper is particularly antisocial, flippant, and stubborn, but that doesn't change that we want a better relationship with him.

Anyway we don't want all of our responses to become mini essays, but please feel free to reach out to us again if you want to discuss anything DID related, or you need a sympathetic ear, or even just to chat about whatever, we'll always respond eventually. Thanks again for reaching out.

@L3G10N, I'm really sorry we never responded to this!

That resentment is honestly still a struggle for me, personally. For me, it comes from being locked away. For a long time, our gatekeeper was responsible for shutting many of us out. Even while understanding the logic behind why he probably felt the need to do it, the feeling's still there.

Building a better relationship with members of the system that I have a poor relationship with for me is a gradual process. It's hard to think of what specifically I've done to improve it. I think for us, it took some realisation on the gatekeeper's side that locking others away is not sustainable in the long run, did he really want to keep going on like that forever? Trauma and alters can't stay repressed forever, it will naturally start to come up sooner or later. Parts of him realised that he didn't need to do that anymore, and could find other ways of managing the system, our life is different now. He decided he wanted to change, but didn't necessarily know how he could do his job differently. But that resolution made it easier to approach him, I think there were times where he initiated and came to us first. We're currently still working on trying to co-operate more, I'm not sure if we've gotten very far. I think him making the effort to communicate what he's doing or what he wants, instead of making demands, has helped a lot though.

On my end, I've tried to understand him better and why he operates the way he does, even if I don't actually agree with it. There is a logic to why gatekeepers keep the others in the dark, they're trying to prevent us from destabilizing due to learning too much too quickly. We've been trying not to dig too much into getting answers of why we get triggered by certain things, and focus instead on practising self-compassion and caring for ourselves as best we can when the triggers come up. I think pushing just stressed our gatekeeper out more, y'know?

Particularly lately, I've found that things unfold slowly in the system, and we learn things over time when the time is right. I know it's frustrating, but that's the way I currently look at it.

It's also interesting, our gatekeeper is a little bit similar. He's very emotionally flat, detached, and difficult to work with. In the past, he tended to do things his way and didn't listen to anyone else. I definitely empathize. It's hard building a better relationship with alters like that.

I've rambled a lot, but I'm not sure I've shared anything all that helpful 😅 but it's nice to have someone to relate to, and I'm willing to lend a sympathetic ear too!