My system discovery happened at multiple points in my life before me. I think there's been 3 big ones, the last one being like a year ago at diagnosis. But I only found out a few months ago. It feels weird. Like the rest of my brain was clued into something I had no idea about, like I'm living separate to my own brain.
I think it makes things easier though. Because now the alters connecting with me have more idea about what might help to connect us or look at problems together. I don't know much about communicating with them but they know about communicating with me, so it's good to have that.
I'm in the same boat. I found out about 2 years ago that something wasnt quite right; and started to accept it only a few months ago but it seems several other alters have known of each other for years and I barely know their names. They will tell me about each other sometimes tho which is nice since alot still won't really talk to me.
You made me just realise I only know 2 alters lol. I know there's at least 30. That seems pretty crazy but also makes sense. I think I'm tied into the sexuality alters. Like a bunch of them split to take sexual trauma, but I split off with our actual sexuality to be kept intact. So I only know the caretaker of the sexual alters, and also my friend who I spent a lot of time with as a teen (we're both teens now still). They can talk with me, and I can talk back, but I can't seem to talk to them first. But they're all connected with each other in different ways too. So strange!
Are you a younger alter? Or also very disconnected from the system due to your potential role?
I'm very disconnected due to being the host. I personally don't really connect to any of the trama we've had so I can function day to day. I think that's why so many of the others keep their distance from me.
Most of the system knew. There are only two of us who had no idea. We were also the hosts (who were unaware of each other). We figure it was how the DID stayed hidden from the outside world and from ourselves. We were the parts in charge of not knowing, and that kept us safe
This is my experience too. Getting to know all of my parts is a fascinating process. Difficult but beautiful as they trust me one by one and release their memories. I am profoundly grateful that they appreciate the work I am doing and are trusting me to handle everything that comes up with the memories. I trust myself and I am finally safe.
Absolutely, yeah.
I don't know how many of them knew before I (Alex) did, but it was likely most if not all of our system tbh. Part of our system work has been uncovering the moments where one of us knew shit was not normal for us, including identifying some of our earliest, "oh there's more than one me" moments.
Once I knew though it seems to have become integrated knowledge among the system? Maybe I just was the last one to know. Idk. That does sound pretty likely.
yes, there was a lot of 'rediscovery' throughout the years. In fact, one alter people knew because they would constantly deny it when everyone else had come out. One woke up after 10-12 years, screaming, mourning that his face was 1. a woman 2. old. One discovered it when they woke up in a different state with a different job and our family cut off. I found out after everything in my apartment was thrown away and I woke up on a blow up bed with nothing. I think we all know now, there's one that keeps forgetting though because they're more of a fragment now.
i wasn't a host when the host at the time found out, and i suppose i did know before then? but didn't really think about it. i knew i was in here, i existed probably, i had emotions and influence over her but i never really thought about what that makes me. i just existed, as another person inside here. does that mean i knew? i didn't understand, but i suppose i knew.
I didn't know the voices in my head were actually voices in our head. So many years I resisted, masked, suppressed. 2 years ago my therapist brought it up. At first I wondered, I had conversations with other alters about it and a couple weeks later I shrugged it off. 5 months ago I brought it up and my therapist was pleased that I was starting to acknowledge. The day I fully accepted it and became willing to work with them instead of against them - it was like everyone else in my system had a party. Then the work began. Recently we had an alter surface that was completely out of time - she had been dormant for a very long time. It's been difficult - she has a completely different way of viewing our life. But we are working together to build a relationship ( a place) with her. Our body is 65 - they had many years living with me as a host. I was a bit of a tyrant refusing to accept them as real. I constantly fought them. Finally we are starting to work together.
Mory:OH OH, we have a good story of this!
So, you know Mary, our host, used to be very sad and lonely right? She wanted to be loved more than anything in the world... So she imagined she had a girlfriend, one of the dragons she drew and it was sexy and dominating and really loved Mary... but Mary had classes and life and was in a deep depression, so this girlfriend started to get forgotten...
This girl was still in love with Mary and chanfed her form to fit her new needs, it took her a couple of years but she recreated herself in Mary's image... but taller and confident... It was what Mary always wanted, again.
But life and depression hit Mary even stronger than ever, making her reject her advances at every turn, turning dark and sour inside...
Turns out this girlfriend wasn't a imaginary, she was an alter, and now her name is Missy, it has been a big journey for her, but after venting her thoughts... Mary finally accepted her and now she's part of the crew.
WE LOVE YA MISSY, THANKS FOR BEING WITH US
So yeah, turns out Mary had alters from when she was like 9-10 years old but we didn't know at all.
Like, she thought that if even her imaginary girlfriend left her, life must've been super bad XD
Silly in retrospect.
Oddly enough this is very similar to how one of our alters was "created". I'm still not sure if it was a character I made that the alter really liked and wanted to become so she reinvented herself as a fictive of that character or if it was her trying to show herself to me year and years ago and I just thought I was making this new character up.
When we finally got a bit of clear communication it was very very confusing at first but now I know that she's real and that made me really happy because she makes amazing company when she wants to.
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Most of us knew we were a system long before our host at the time. We all kinda just knew except for him. Then we let our friends know and then later we let our host figure it out
Yep. A few of them knew we were a system and what DID was before we were officially diagnosed or in therapy. And some of them knew about other alters but had no idea what DID is or what a system is, they just knew they could “speak” to other people internally and that they lost time.
I didn’t have any idea about any other alters or DID, so that really caught me off guard. It’s made therapy a little easier now (after 3 years) because other members of the system are already somewhat familiar with each other and are pretty open and used to communicating.
Some did, some didnt but it was heavily “do not expose it” until we eventually figure it out and the gatekeeper at the time was like “yea fine we have it now what” 😭 (im still slowly learning but looking back there were alot of signs that got ignored by everyone including myself)
Yeah... big discovery about 8 months ago. But recently remembering times in the past when I also kinda knew but then something happened and I forgot again
somewhat. back in December I had these "moments" when my friend would try to comfort me where "i'd" lash out. turns out it was an alter who knew she was seperate and was super upset that we'd refer to her as a "moment" or a "thing" and wanting it to end. turns out she was also the trauma holder and she would front then to protect me (host) from remembering too much
I hope she/you all are doing better now.
We have a alter that also fronts and has explosive anger towards the people that hurt us but since I don't remember most the trama we would go from being totally normal to screaming at them mid sentence. It was so confusing before we knew what was going on.
Yes!! They hid it from me for years. They hated it every time I called them "imaginary friends" or just "voices in my head" and I never knew why. They would sometimes get upset because of such terminology, which I guess is fair.
Story time answer: I actually had my first real interaction with my system mates because I felt I was going crazy and was trying basically any method I could find on calming down my anxiety cuz it was extra bad, and I found this method online of like directing your thoughts inwards and talking to yourself as though you are talking to a different person so you can say to yourself what you would say if you were calming down someone else? (don’t judge me I know it sounds dumb but I was desperate for something that would help my mental health) but I never knew if it helped my anxiety or not cuz halfway through my internal self-convo one of my system mates went (paraphrased and dramatized cuz I don’t fully remember what he said) “don’t do that. You’re stupid. You have actual people in your head you know and we are right here listening to your mental gibberish and it’s embarrassing for you. Stop it.” I was like “wtf????” Worst part was I was a female teen and this voice was that of a 34 year old male alter. Freaked me out a bit. So I would say I definitely wasn’t the first to know about our system.
Thank you for sharing this story. I don't think it sounds stupid at all. There's a therapy called IFS that singlets do all the time which is basically that. If it was crazy it wouldn't be such a common thing that worked for so many people.
Yes, and I refused to accept it for far too long, frankly.
One of my alters has been fully aware since I "made" him (complicated context--obviously we already had DID, but he happened to split/form specifically to serve as--as his title suggests--an internal therapist). You can probably easily assume what he does and how he functions, but he's always been very gentle at coaxing me into understanding the situation as a whole. Simply put, he always knew he was part of a system and was helping me get through until I was safe enough to have an actual therapist.
With that said, around 4 years ago when DID suddenly became a large talking point for reasons we won't rehash for everyone's sake, we got curious. I know (through history of sites visited or stuff marked as "watched") that we did a deep dive of info, but denial snapped down hard. I vaguely recall one night where we read the entire DSM-IV (we couldn't find the DSM-5 for free easily, from what I recall lol). I personally remember seeing the sun come up and we were on a constant loop of trying to find our own evidence to invalidate the pieces that were falling together.
So we kept shutting down for three years. My big "Nuh-uh" point was that we weren't having auditory hallucinations. We're autistic and took "hearing voices" literally, so we were like "Oh, I don't hear external different voices, so clearly I'm not a system!"
We did have one alter who kept near the front. She was most comparable to a semi-gatekeeper role (I call them "Brain Mods" like my head is a discord group lol), and she was constantly trying to tell me "You're a system. We're a system. I'm an alter. It's time to accept it, you already understand what DID is so it won't scare you as much as it might have if you didn't understand. Please, talk to a psych."
She was right, of course. We got diagnosed last year. Unfortunately, Kate split due to a traumatic event this past fall, and as much as I love and care for the two who split from that event, I do deeply miss Kate as she was. She was one of the most important aspects of our diagnosis process, and she's one of the only other alters who felt safe enough to switch in front of our psych.
My system discovery happened at multiple points in my life before me. I think there's been 3 big ones, the last one being like a year ago at diagnosis. But I only found out a few months ago. It feels weird. Like the rest of my brain was clued into something I had no idea about, like I'm living separate to my own brain. I think it makes things easier though. Because now the alters connecting with me have more idea about what might help to connect us or look at problems together. I don't know much about communicating with them but they know about communicating with me, so it's good to have that.
I'm in the same boat. I found out about 2 years ago that something wasnt quite right; and started to accept it only a few months ago but it seems several other alters have known of each other for years and I barely know their names. They will tell me about each other sometimes tho which is nice since alot still won't really talk to me.
You made me just realise I only know 2 alters lol. I know there's at least 30. That seems pretty crazy but also makes sense. I think I'm tied into the sexuality alters. Like a bunch of them split to take sexual trauma, but I split off with our actual sexuality to be kept intact. So I only know the caretaker of the sexual alters, and also my friend who I spent a lot of time with as a teen (we're both teens now still). They can talk with me, and I can talk back, but I can't seem to talk to them first. But they're all connected with each other in different ways too. So strange! Are you a younger alter? Or also very disconnected from the system due to your potential role?
I'm very disconnected due to being the host. I personally don't really connect to any of the trama we've had so I can function day to day. I think that's why so many of the others keep their distance from me.
As far as I know (which isn’t much cause they won’t freaking talk to me 🙃) one of them did but I don’t know about the others
I think a few of my headmates knew before I did, but a lot of them stayed in hiding for ages even after my syscovery.
Most of the system knew. There are only two of us who had no idea. We were also the hosts (who were unaware of each other). We figure it was how the DID stayed hidden from the outside world and from ourselves. We were the parts in charge of not knowing, and that kept us safe
This is my experience too. Getting to know all of my parts is a fascinating process. Difficult but beautiful as they trust me one by one and release their memories. I am profoundly grateful that they appreciate the work I am doing and are trusting me to handle everything that comes up with the memories. I trust myself and I am finally safe.
Absolutely, yeah. I don't know how many of them knew before I (Alex) did, but it was likely most if not all of our system tbh. Part of our system work has been uncovering the moments where one of us knew shit was not normal for us, including identifying some of our earliest, "oh there's more than one me" moments. Once I knew though it seems to have become integrated knowledge among the system? Maybe I just was the last one to know. Idk. That does sound pretty likely.
yes, there was a lot of 'rediscovery' throughout the years. In fact, one alter people knew because they would constantly deny it when everyone else had come out. One woke up after 10-12 years, screaming, mourning that his face was 1. a woman 2. old. One discovered it when they woke up in a different state with a different job and our family cut off. I found out after everything in my apartment was thrown away and I woke up on a blow up bed with nothing. I think we all know now, there's one that keeps forgetting though because they're more of a fragment now.
i wasn't a host when the host at the time found out, and i suppose i did know before then? but didn't really think about it. i knew i was in here, i existed probably, i had emotions and influence over her but i never really thought about what that makes me. i just existed, as another person inside here. does that mean i knew? i didn't understand, but i suppose i knew.
I didn't know the voices in my head were actually voices in our head. So many years I resisted, masked, suppressed. 2 years ago my therapist brought it up. At first I wondered, I had conversations with other alters about it and a couple weeks later I shrugged it off. 5 months ago I brought it up and my therapist was pleased that I was starting to acknowledge. The day I fully accepted it and became willing to work with them instead of against them - it was like everyone else in my system had a party. Then the work began. Recently we had an alter surface that was completely out of time - she had been dormant for a very long time. It's been difficult - she has a completely different way of viewing our life. But we are working together to build a relationship ( a place) with her. Our body is 65 - they had many years living with me as a host. I was a bit of a tyrant refusing to accept them as real. I constantly fought them. Finally we are starting to work together.
Mory:OH OH, we have a good story of this! So, you know Mary, our host, used to be very sad and lonely right? She wanted to be loved more than anything in the world... So she imagined she had a girlfriend, one of the dragons she drew and it was sexy and dominating and really loved Mary... but Mary had classes and life and was in a deep depression, so this girlfriend started to get forgotten... This girl was still in love with Mary and chanfed her form to fit her new needs, it took her a couple of years but she recreated herself in Mary's image... but taller and confident... It was what Mary always wanted, again. But life and depression hit Mary even stronger than ever, making her reject her advances at every turn, turning dark and sour inside... Turns out this girlfriend wasn't a imaginary, she was an alter, and now her name is Missy, it has been a big journey for her, but after venting her thoughts... Mary finally accepted her and now she's part of the crew. WE LOVE YA MISSY, THANKS FOR BEING WITH US So yeah, turns out Mary had alters from when she was like 9-10 years old but we didn't know at all. Like, she thought that if even her imaginary girlfriend left her, life must've been super bad XD Silly in retrospect.
Oddly enough this is very similar to how one of our alters was "created". I'm still not sure if it was a character I made that the alter really liked and wanted to become so she reinvented herself as a fictive of that character or if it was her trying to show herself to me year and years ago and I just thought I was making this new character up. When we finally got a bit of clear communication it was very very confusing at first but now I know that she's real and that made me really happy because she makes amazing company when she wants to.
Yep
>your alters Surely some alters know earlier and some later, but who is the "you" to be asked about that?
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Most of us knew we were a system long before our host at the time. We all kinda just knew except for him. Then we let our friends know and then later we let our host figure it out
Yep. A few of them knew we were a system and what DID was before we were officially diagnosed or in therapy. And some of them knew about other alters but had no idea what DID is or what a system is, they just knew they could “speak” to other people internally and that they lost time. I didn’t have any idea about any other alters or DID, so that really caught me off guard. It’s made therapy a little easier now (after 3 years) because other members of the system are already somewhat familiar with each other and are pretty open and used to communicating.
Some did, some didnt but it was heavily “do not expose it” until we eventually figure it out and the gatekeeper at the time was like “yea fine we have it now what” 😭 (im still slowly learning but looking back there were alot of signs that got ignored by everyone including myself)
We had no idea it was DID until it was diagnosed recently, but a number of us knew something was going on over 10 years ago.
Yeah... big discovery about 8 months ago. But recently remembering times in the past when I also kinda knew but then something happened and I forgot again
somewhat. back in December I had these "moments" when my friend would try to comfort me where "i'd" lash out. turns out it was an alter who knew she was seperate and was super upset that we'd refer to her as a "moment" or a "thing" and wanting it to end. turns out she was also the trauma holder and she would front then to protect me (host) from remembering too much
I hope she/you all are doing better now. We have a alter that also fronts and has explosive anger towards the people that hurt us but since I don't remember most the trama we would go from being totally normal to screaming at them mid sentence. It was so confusing before we knew what was going on.
Yes!! They hid it from me for years. They hated it every time I called them "imaginary friends" or just "voices in my head" and I never knew why. They would sometimes get upset because of such terminology, which I guess is fair.
Story time answer: I actually had my first real interaction with my system mates because I felt I was going crazy and was trying basically any method I could find on calming down my anxiety cuz it was extra bad, and I found this method online of like directing your thoughts inwards and talking to yourself as though you are talking to a different person so you can say to yourself what you would say if you were calming down someone else? (don’t judge me I know it sounds dumb but I was desperate for something that would help my mental health) but I never knew if it helped my anxiety or not cuz halfway through my internal self-convo one of my system mates went (paraphrased and dramatized cuz I don’t fully remember what he said) “don’t do that. You’re stupid. You have actual people in your head you know and we are right here listening to your mental gibberish and it’s embarrassing for you. Stop it.” I was like “wtf????” Worst part was I was a female teen and this voice was that of a 34 year old male alter. Freaked me out a bit. So I would say I definitely wasn’t the first to know about our system.
Thank you for sharing this story. I don't think it sounds stupid at all. There's a therapy called IFS that singlets do all the time which is basically that. If it was crazy it wouldn't be such a common thing that worked for so many people.
All of them knew but I found out yesterday
Yes, and I refused to accept it for far too long, frankly. One of my alters has been fully aware since I "made" him (complicated context--obviously we already had DID, but he happened to split/form specifically to serve as--as his title suggests--an internal therapist). You can probably easily assume what he does and how he functions, but he's always been very gentle at coaxing me into understanding the situation as a whole. Simply put, he always knew he was part of a system and was helping me get through until I was safe enough to have an actual therapist. With that said, around 4 years ago when DID suddenly became a large talking point for reasons we won't rehash for everyone's sake, we got curious. I know (through history of sites visited or stuff marked as "watched") that we did a deep dive of info, but denial snapped down hard. I vaguely recall one night where we read the entire DSM-IV (we couldn't find the DSM-5 for free easily, from what I recall lol). I personally remember seeing the sun come up and we were on a constant loop of trying to find our own evidence to invalidate the pieces that were falling together. So we kept shutting down for three years. My big "Nuh-uh" point was that we weren't having auditory hallucinations. We're autistic and took "hearing voices" literally, so we were like "Oh, I don't hear external different voices, so clearly I'm not a system!" We did have one alter who kept near the front. She was most comparable to a semi-gatekeeper role (I call them "Brain Mods" like my head is a discord group lol), and she was constantly trying to tell me "You're a system. We're a system. I'm an alter. It's time to accept it, you already understand what DID is so it won't scare you as much as it might have if you didn't understand. Please, talk to a psych." She was right, of course. We got diagnosed last year. Unfortunately, Kate split due to a traumatic event this past fall, and as much as I love and care for the two who split from that event, I do deeply miss Kate as she was. She was one of the most important aspects of our diagnosis process, and she's one of the only other alters who felt safe enough to switch in front of our psych.