How do you know a fragment from a full alter?

Fragments

My ISH found the first fragment known in our system. They were ALL outside of the sublevels! There were so many. My ISH kept finding them.

How did he know they were fragments? I asked him that today for someone in the group, so I should share it.


* Can you easily see/know the difference between a fragment and a full alter?
No.


* Does it have to do with how much history they have?
Yes and No.

* Or how specific their task is?
confused


* Do you ever not know if one is a fragment or an alter?
No


* Do you use the information you have read to determine which is which?
Yes and No


* Do the fragments have a complete sense of self?
No. (They do have some sense of self however)


Fragments desperately want to be adopted by alters. Alters are more complete and not so desperate.

ISH spells out: Just mention it in others too.

I ask - mention what? laws of inner world

Other fragments? YES

Does this have to do with your work in finding out who is EP, ANP and Fragments? Yes

(Note: this was not quick to find out. We are still working on many to find out if they are ANP or EP. Fragments were easy.)

Fragments do not have something alters have? ISH agrees.
I ask ISH to spell what this is. Keen

What is Keen?
Like this? Yes!

keen: Full alters appear Acutely sensitive and responsive compared to fragments.

"It's like comparing an infant to a minnow." They are simply different.

Thanks for posting this and helping us understand

lifelongthing wrote:Thanks for posting this and helping us understand

You are very welcome. I should summarize that other bit I sent to you in my own words and post it. I will work on that.

FRAGMENTS
In childhood the process of fragmentation is normal, but when severe early childhood trauma is constant and the child has no one to turn to then another part of the self can occur. Parts that are isolated due to the trauma. Normally the trauma memory will be processed and it will integrate with the Self, but this is not the case in those who develop DID. IF there is not a normal sense of the self (like those with DID have) then where would this memory go to integrate? It can't. A bit of trauma memory can now become a fragment. It has only a partial sense of self, unlike a full alter - yet it is isolated like a full alter with its own memory, both of which full alters and fragments become active only when triggered - after all they are bits of memory.

*Those without DID can also have memory fragments that are excluded from their sense of self. It is common in PTSD, BPD, etc...

Thanks for this precious bit of info!

Most of our parts seem to be almost or fully developed 'alters' rather than just fragments of alters... I'm really confused of what to think about our fragments and where should we guide them to. =/

Might trigger*
I just pointed some light into the darkness outside our system to see if most of our fragments are still there and everyone just screamed/hissed and ran away! So not yet for them...not yet. I can feel inside that our fragments carry enormous amount of confusion, anxiety and "drug-induced-state-of-mind". Not knowing who they are, why they are and where they are. They're like severed human arms walking around without their rest of the body!

I have noticed that many fully developed parts of ours are missing arms or their sense of touch or sight... Maybe the fragments are holding these? Now we have just coped with the lack of senses and such by calling out parts that have the senses others are lacking. And we co-operate like that. But fragments...? Naah...they don't have a good safe place to stay yet... *End trigger

We gotta search into this once our fragments are ready and once we are ready! Gotta deal with the terrible anxiety and not-feeling-reals for good!

This helps a lot, both Tylas and Adameil, so thank you both for posting. Despite knowing the differences between alters and fragments, we've been wondering how to recognize them within our own system (if we have any), so reading both of your descriptions has really helped us to know what to look for and gives us something to recognize if we notice it.


-A mixture of us(?)

This has been really helpful and actually explains a lot of resembles a lot within my own system.

I have discovered 4 fragments so far. An animal, an introject witch, a hipster, and a pirate. The recognition of two of these fragments has really stressed me out, to say the least. I'm not really sure how to deal with these fragments, relative to dealing with alters. They seem very, very different. Much more independent, and more singularly motivated, like they are simply a piece of motivation that has taken shape, and will.

We're thinking of people as "fragments" when they only hold one emotional state or motivation, as opposed to alters who have a wider range of emotions and goals. We also find that grouping fragments together by, er "theme" I guess helps them link up and form a cluster so to speak, so that potentially they could all integrate as one. So we have a group of feminists for example who cover everything from "righteous man-hating" to "sisterhood" into a sub-group (we think of them as a committee )

also, we have invented what we call a "buddy-system". when we find a fragment who has very painful/problematic feelings we find someone else who is very good at this particular issue and ask them to pair up for a while. For example, we have a girl who has severe body image issues, and another girl who is very confident and likes the body. We buddied them up a few weeks ago and they're best friends now and are hardly seen without each other. We think maybe they will integrate into one alter eventually, but even now we notice our body image is a lot more stable and neither ridiculously-bad nor ridiculously-good.

us

tribeofone wrote:We're thinking of people as "fragments" when they only hold one emotional state or motivation, as opposed to alters who have a wider range of emotions and goals. We also find that grouping fragments together by, er "theme" I guess helps them link up and form a cluster so to speak, so that potentially they could all integrate as one. So we have a group of feminists for example who cover everything from "righteous man-hating" to "sisterhood" into a sub-group (we think of them as a committee )

also, we have invented what we call a "buddy-system". when we find a fragment who has very painful/problematic feelings we find someone else who is very good at this particular issue and ask them to pair up for a while. For example, we have a girl who has severe body image issues, and another girl who is very confident and likes the body. We buddied them up a few weeks ago and they're best friends now and are hardly seen without each other. We think maybe they will integrate into one alter eventually, but even now we notice our body image is a lot more stable and neither ridiculously-bad nor ridiculously-good.

us

Wow, that is just so very insightful. Thanks for that. But as far as clustering them goes... what do they have in common? I mean, the four could hardly be any more different--a modern hipster, a mythic witch, a pirate, and a magic animal. How could any of them integrate together? I don't understand any of them. Maybe the pirate and the witch, I have some connections between them I guess. I don't have control over either of them, so I'd be hesitant even if I could pair them.