Is it possible? *Possibly Triggering*

*Possible Trigger Warning: random questions about what's possible for alters, systems, changes, etc.*

Is it possible?

Is it possible for us to be something other than human inside? I think some of us were originally...but when we realized we were all parts of the same person and what was going on, we "made" ourselves or were all just assumed as human.

Is it possible for us to have our own histories and backgrounds, really, truly? Despite knowing the truth, despite accepting reality, can we still have our own stories? Can we have them and accept that they're false, but still keep them as a part of us? Is that possible?

We always say everything is possible for DID. But is it really?

Were we this way first, or were we changed into these identities because they were more "acceptable"?

Kyra, or at least the name, started as a half-elf, half-halfling character in a story spin-off of Lord of the Rings that one of us started writing.

Kat/Kataki, or at least the name, started as a character in an anime "fanfiction" writing/story (the anime being Yu Yu Hakusho). Several of them, she was in, actually. Always some sort of demon, like in anime (Japanese cartoons), where they have powers. Like a fire demon can control fire, water demons can control water, etc. Kataki was always at least part fire demon if nothing else.

Most of us, either by name or description, "started off" (or at least, that's the first evidence of the beginning to being aware of us) as characters in writings, "fanfictions", short stories, etc. Are those really our stories? Or is that just something our names were attached to during the discovery processes?

We've spent so much time assuming things, such as that we're all human (aside from Ray), and accepting the reality of things, such as that we all have the same life/history/memories, that we never really stop to think "what do I identify with? what's my story up till the point where my memories start?" Basically, what we're starting to ask ourselves, is "Who are we, really? When you push aside all the boundaries made by reality, and look at who we really are as alters only, in our inner world only, who are we?"

Lately, we've been finding ourselves nearly obsessed with finding pictures that look as close as possible to ourselves, and we keep questioning things like "Am I this way naturally? Or was I molded this way because that's what we assumed at the time?". Is there some truth to the stories we/the idea of us appeared in? Or is this, right here and now, being all the same and human and such (except for Ray), how we've been all along?

That doesn't sit right. The idea that we've all been this way since the beginning. Or at least, since the beginning of awareness. Some of us find ourselves rather attached to the main idea of the story/ies we are/were a part of.

Is this even important? For some reason, we feel it is. We feel a strong need to know ourselves, who we are, not just as a whole, but individually. We feel as if we've spent enough time focusing on the reality of things, on being a "whole", on who we are as a "whole", and such. We're starting to feel as if we don't really know ourselves that well anymore. Or at least, not the "real" us. Not the us that wasn't covered up by assumptions and changes to fit "the norm" and such.


We don't know why we're having such a problem with this concept. We always say everything and anything's possible for anyone else. Why can't it be the same for us? Why does that not compute, exactly? Why is that so hard to grasp?
Maybe we've been so busy focusing on what we assume we are and such that it's hard for us to imagine who we are or were, who we started out as, who we might still be deep inside.

*Possibly Triggery*
Elf! Demon! Animal! Morpher! Half and half! Changeling! Vampire! Werewolf!
*End Possible Trigger*





I know that my voice was attached with the image my character was given. The character in the story that was based off of my voice is what Cassandra identified me with, saw me as, visualized me as, thought of me as, etc. I am not anywhere near this character today. I remember how I looked/was when I was more like the character from the story/ies, but I also realize and know that it was not real, at least not in the outside world. It was "real" in our inner world inside, though. But even I do not know- is that who I actually used to be? Who I actually still could be if you peel back the assumptions and changes to fit "the norm"? Because I was certainly not human. -Kat/Kataki


I barely, barely remember...looking like an elf. Possibly being an elf, but definitely looking like one. And having pointed ears. But that's not me now. Now I'm just a regular ol' human 13 yr old. But is that just 'cause, like, everyone just assumed I was human, and that's what they saw me as, or something? Can change like that happen? I mean, I went from being 21 and living in my own "reality" inside to being 13 and coming back "out", so I'm starting to really think anything is possible. And, if it was possible for me to change from that, can I change back into that...? 'Cause, I just, really want to be an elf or something for some reason... ~Kyra


I want to be pretty! Long hair! Long curly hair! Pretty hair color! Makeup! Jewelry! Pretty clothes! Pretty shoes! Pretty, pretty, pretty! Pinks! Purples! Blues! Sparkleys! Pretty! Obvious girl! Pretty girl! Pretty purse! Pretty coat! Pretty scarf! Pretty, pretty, pretty! ~unknown(?)





I really wish we could somehow just scan things like images directly from our mind....It'd make things so much easier... Because then we'd have pictures of ourselves and things and they'd look exactly like how we want them to, and it'd be awesome. (And whenever I try to draw stuff for ourselves, it either ends up not being that great, or I get too impatient with it and end up not finishing it).


I wonder if....I wonder what would happen, if I asked everyone individually, questions like "Where do you come from? What do you remember?", and had them dismiss everything and focus only on what they truly remember and what they identify with and such. Just threw away all the rules like the fact that we're human in reality and have the same life and such, and only focused on them/their knowledge/their thoughts/their memories. I wonder how everyone would answer if I asked each of them, "What's YOUR story, specifically?" Hmm... I may have to do that now.... That might help us sort some of this stuff out...


Sorry if this post was kinda pointless...we hope it was ok to rant like we did...


-A mixture of us(?)

I really wish we could somehow just scan things like images directly from our mind....It'd make things so much easier... Because then we'd have pictures of ourselves and things and they'd look exactly like how we want them to, and it'd be awesome.

Idon't know how many times I've wishes this was possible..

I'd say yes it's possible. I don't know how someone else in the system's perception of someone else would change that person, as an alter is, in part, an autonomous part of the personality. But if they themselves start viewing themselves differently, I don't see why their appearance couldn't change. Seems plausible enough I guess.

Some believe themselves to have past lives, some are introjects from othe fiction (and as such would, at least sometimes, retain the fictional characters back story), some are introjects from others (and as such can sometimes retain what is believed to be that person's back story) and some are just made with a back story one isn't aware of how or why have them.

I think a good idea is exactly what you wrote about, asking who they really are, without the restrictions of the body's back story and outer world logic. The inner world is trance logic - what you believe can happen, can happen.

I think it might be interesting to ask Ray though, how she has been able to retain her self if the others haven't been able to (assuming this is true).

Best of luck

I can totally relate to how complicated and confusing it is. I have found that letting the alters write us a way for me to get to know their story including why they have the name they do. For instance, I had a NoBody. Also, Shamer is named that because he thinks his job is to shame her (her being Desiree). Desiree is because of sexuality desires. By writing is how I learn stuff about their stories. Alysone

Shamer: I think we can change form. I'm in the middle of changing from a boy to a girl. I'm kinda inbetween right now. I needed to be a boy so it wouldn't happen to me, but T has helped me realize that it happened anyway and that I felt it physically like a girl. So I'm getting used to the idea I'm a girl. But when I look at my body I used to see boy features. I don't yet see girl features yet but the boy features are fading. So anything is possible. Shamer

Hope this helps you to know you're not alone in wanting to know how if works inside and whether anything is possible. Alysone

It seems inevitable to me that DID is confusing. We are separate people...now. I/we know we're not but it still feels more like that than not. We have moments of kinship and even the littlest seem to know they're in this big body, even though they feel small. They know they are taller than people who they can see are adults. Overall this is a plus because bigger means safer but it's still confusing.

I've come to appreciate the differences that each of us feel about ourselves. When Dan's out, it's fun feeling like a strong, boisterous teenager, it's fun being able to "see" a brief concrete image he has of himself with blond hair tossled on his head. It was fun listening to how Jack grew up poor in Kentucky, how he went huntin n fishin with his pa sometimes. His life was filled with images taken directly from stories of Daniel Boone. Even healthy kids do this stuff in their imaginations. It's just that we needed these stories and different selves more than those kids. We needed them to escape and survive. I can accept that. I think I would ask them as much about themselves as they can tell you and you can accept. You're getting to know yourself by getting to know yourselves and I think there are enough cliches about self-knowledge that suggest that's a good thing.

It turns out that everyone's backstories and memories aren't that much less connected with reality than my own. I eliminated all the bad stuff and recalled stories based, literally, on photographs or word memories I created pictures for. So I created myths as well. As we move more towards the sometimes harsher realities of the here and now, it's good to have all the details because they're ours too. It's like we're sharing the childhoods of a bunch of different kids, all of whom I like and respect.

lifelongthing wrote:I think it might be interesting to ask Ray though, how she has been able to retain her self if the others haven't been able to (assuming this is true).

Good point! We think it mostly has to do with the fact that Mike was the first one to actually meet Ray, not ourselves. And since she exhibited animal-like behaviour and didn't know how to talk, it was easier for us to keep viewing her as "different" from us, and not cover her with assumptions and such.

I also believe that at that time, we were learning about animal alters on here. Since others had animal alters, it was easier to accept/believe that Ray was possibly an animal alter herself (or "half" animal, as it turns out). That, and Ray didn't have a sense of what "should be". She knew herself and what was. She doesn't have the same thought processes or mindsets as the rest of us, she doesn't care about what fits "the norm", and she doesn't try to assume anything (such as all alters being human). So we saw Ray as she was inside thanks to a combination of Mike meeting her first, her not caring about what she "should be" (as far as being human goes), us not assuming as much about her, and learning that yes, animal alters are real and are possible.


We think that our biggest set-back has been the old/incorrect idea of "splitting". Because with that idea, we'd wrongly think "Ok, so since alters are "splits" from a supposed "original core", then they should be similar to the "original core" and all be human and stuff". Which is WRONG, as we've discovered! We are not "splits" off a non-existent "original core", there is no obligation to be human, there is no obligation for anything! It's been hard to realize and accept this after assuming and fixing things to fit "the norm" for so long, though!

-A mixture of us(?)

alysone27 wrote:I can totally relate to how complicated and confusing it is. I have found that letting the alters write us a way for me to get to know their story including why they have the name they do. For instance, I had a NoBody. Also, Shamer is named that because he thinks his job is to shame her (her being Desiree). Desiree is because of sexuality desires. By writing is how I learn stuff about their stories. Alysone

So far, all of our work as been to learn more about DID in general, to learn more about every alter (mainly in terms of who they are, what they're like, what their "purpose" is, etc), and to learn more about how we all fit together as a whole. It'll be interesting to see what gets shared now that we're working on writing all of our own "stories/histories" down without ANY restrictions (such as past assumptions, needing to fit "the norm", worrying about reality/the outer world, etc).

-A mixture of us(?)

Johnny-Jack wrote:I've come to appreciate the differences that each of us feel about ourselves. When Dan's out, it's fun feeling like a strong, boisterous teenager, it's fun being able to "see" a brief concrete image he has of himself with blond hair tossled on his head. It was fun listening to how Jack grew up poor in Kentucky, how he went huntin n fishin with his pa sometimes. His life was filled with images taken directly from stories of Daniel Boone. Even healthy kids do this stuff in their imaginations. It's just that we needed these stories and different selves more than those kids. We needed them to escape and survive. I can accept that. I think I would ask them as much about themselves as they can tell you and you can accept. You're getting to know yourself by getting to know yourselves and I think there are enough cliches about self-knowledge that suggest that's a good thing.

Good to see you posting, Johnny-Jack! We hope you're doing well!

You make a very good point! Thank you for reminding us that kids in general do stuff like this, and that the possibilities and "escapes" of DID can apply to alters' backgrounds/histories!

Johnny-Jack wrote:It turns out that everyone's backstories and memories aren't that much less connected with reality than my own. I eliminated all the bad stuff and recalled stories based, literally, on photographs or word memories I created pictures for. So I created myths as well. As we move more towards the sometimes harsher realities of the here and now, it's good to have all the details because they're ours too. It's like we're sharing the childhoods of a bunch of different kids, all of whom I like and respect.

We never really thought of it this way, nor did we consider anything that didn't really happen in the outside world/reality to be really important. We were so focused on what was real and possible in the outside world that we forgot realities and possibilities in the inside world are important too! So thank you for this!


-A mixture of us(?)

tomboy24 wrote:I really wish we could somehow just scan things like images directly from our mind....It'd make things so much easier... Because then we'd have pictures of ourselves and things and they'd look exactly like how we want them to, and it'd be awesome. (And whenever I try to draw stuff for ourselves, it either ends up not being that great, or I get too impatient with it and end up not finishing it).

Have you considered using art? Scanning isn't possible... but just like one would make a picture of someone's face, it would be possible to make a picture of the alters.
If art isn't your thing, maybe you could ask someone to draw for you? Just by describing what the alter is like (or probably better, that alter describing themselves).

TRIGGER WARNING for trying to explain DID and progressive brainw*nkery

personally I think of it like this: the self (every self, singlet or multiple) is nothing else than a process in the brain, a narrative that is constructed out of the sum total of memory. so the identity a person experiences is basically the brain constantly checking and revising its past data and saying to itself: "being me is like being a person who all of this happened to".

In DID, there is not one coherent memory track but several different ones, so several different processes/narratives. Every one of them looks at their separate memory track and constructs their identity accordingly - so if, say, I am the alter who has all the memories of being called stupid, I will assume "being me is like being a person everyone thinks is stupid - ergo, 'I am stupid'". The next guy will have all the memories of being praised for being smart, so he'll construct an opposing identity that says "I am smart". and so on.

if you think of the brain as a supercomputer, basically you can do anything on it that you can do on a regular computer - for example, you can create a virtual reality, or an inner world. In this world, all the different processes/self-narratives can create themselves a visual representation, an avatar if you so want (a bit like world of warcraft). What this avatar looks like will depend on the memory track - so a person with lots of outside experience will look "normal" while a person who doesn't get out much but has access to other data (stories, images and such stored in the brain) will draw on this to express who they are. so a process decides for example "my past data tells me that being me is like being someone who always protects and rescues people. As far as I know from stories, this is what knights do. so being me is like being a knight". and that's how they construct their avatar.

when they then acquire new data/new memories (through interactions inside and out), their feeling-of-themselves and thus their identity construction changes, and so does their visual representation.

Does this make sense to anyone?

Gabriel

tribeofone wrote:personally I think of it like this: the self (every self, singlet or multiple) is nothing else than a process in the brain, a narrative that is constructed out of the sum total of memory. so the identity a person experiences is basically the brain constantly checking and revising its past data and saying to itself: "being me is like being a person who all of this happened to".

This is what I always thought myself. Nice to see I'm not the only one. The rest of the post makes much sense to me too.

Does this make sense to anyone?

I very much enjoyed reading your post. It does make sense. Thank you.

thank you. I like to think being me is like being the guy who is hanging out in our right hemisphere, sifting through the astonishing amounts of data my dear colleague on the left has accumulated during a lifetime of procrastination

Gabriel