Continued splitting as an Adult

Hi,
we have not posted in a very long time and I have missed these forums very much and all the lovely people.
The way we experience D.I.D is that we have 5 or so main hosts who run the body but no one takes the bodies actual name, some off us have different boyfriends/girlfriends/jobs/study and friend groups.
18 months ago our lovely psychiatrist who had treated us for 3 years left suddenly for personal reasons and closure was made via phone without any further contact.

Our system took this extremely hard and since then all our co consciences we had gained has depleted finding a new therapist has been near impossible due to obvious trust issues.

We are losing time and switching so rapidly that we are leaving our front doors opens,ovens on,have been in 2 car accidents,lost the tip of a finger due to a switch and we dissociate to the point we can rarely hold or listen to a conversation.

I use to host the body a fair amount off time due to parental reasons with 4 other hosts who we had a routine and a fair amount of co consciences.
It now seems we have split several times and all our habits have changed eating,sleeping,getting lost,not being able to drive,money going missing,forgetting how old my daughter is and the bodies age and many other personal history.

I feel scared that we are losing ourselves and splitting that we will slip back into full blown dissociative fugue states and create a whole new set of hosts and disappear out of state.

The usual hosts are being overtaken and it's happening so slowly as if we are fading away to make way for this other way off living,I don't want to fade out I am scared as I love my daughter I am her main caretaker that is my role but have been gone for 4 months already .
I need to know how to stay in and want to our old hosts back.
Has anyone experienced this before?
thanks

We can't say that we have.

And we don't know exactly what advice we can give you other than to try working on communicating with all parts, "old" and "new", work on grounding techniques (like deep breathing, self-talk, counting to ten, etc), work on relaxation/calming techniques (often times stress just makes everything worse and magnified), work on writing yourself notes/journaling/anything you can do to help yourself remember things and try to communicate with other parts, and see if you can get on the "same page" with everyone as far as possibly making a time-sharing guideline/schedule, or compromising on things, working together as a team instead of trying to all survive individually in different ways, etc.

This thread may be helpful to you:

-- How to gain control? (discusses how to accept, communicate, share, and work with alters): http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic101946.html



As far as splitting goes, it may or may not be happening, actually. There is a difference between the initial split and then when alters are actually developed/start developing as alters and come "into existence" as alters.


*Possible Trigger Warning, talk of DID development*
We believe in the "theory" (fact for us) that all alters/fragments/parts that people have, or at least the "blueprints" from which they are "created/developed" from, are all there since the beginning, and have always been there.

See, we all start out with neurons that make up our personality. DID is developed in childhood due to trauma and the disruption of the personality developmental processes (the processes the neurons go through to eventually form a personality).
With normal development, these neurons go through a structuring process. They sorta "meld" together, some will be kept, others gotten rid of, and they will become structured together until in the end, they form a whole personality.
With DID development, the structuring process is disrupted (usually by trauma or the "side effects" of trauma), and so the neurons do not become structured together, instead they stay separated. These separated neurons end up forming "sides" of the personality that later create/develop into alters/fragments.

So in essence, with DID, you basically start out "split". And all of the "blueprints"/starting point for your alters/fragments, if not the alters/fragments themselves, have always been there.



HOWEVER, there is a difference between splitting and development, and alters can develop at different points in time and at different rates.

The "blueprints"/neurons that end up developing into an alter can be there, already separated and "split off", but that doesn't mean they're automatically an alter or a fragment. It takes time (and usually a need) for them to develop into an alter or a fragment. Thus, the point that people often view as "splitting" is actually the point where the alter/fragment has either begun developing, or has finally "come into" conscious knowledge/awareness.

For example, imagine the blueprints for a car. Everything about that car, that will go on that car, how that car will look, etc., is already all there (or at least, the main idea for the car is). Now, over time, these blueprints may be changed slightly, but the same main/basic idea stays the same, and the blueprints do exist. But until that car is needed/wanted, until that car is put into production and actually built, it's not going to be realized/known that such a car exists, being developed, being worked on, etc., until it's finished and finally show as a fully-developed, fully-built, finished car.

This is how we view alters/fragments. The blueprints for them were always there, the neurons that they developed from were always there, and they were already separated/split. They just hadn't been developed into alters/fragments yet.


Alters can also develop at different rates and times. If an alter isn't needed often, it's possible that they won't develop as much or as quickly as an alter that is needed often. They're not going to know as much about themselves possibly, or they're not going to be that developed in the sense of an identity, etc., because they haven't had as much experience as an alter who's out more, or up front more, or something like that.
It's like... comparing someone who knows a lot about cars, has driven many different cars, and has had experiences with many different cars to someone who has never driven a car in their life. The person with more experience with cars is going to know what cars they like, how to drive different cars, how to drive different roads, what different styles they like/prefer, etc. While the person who has never driven a car in their life won't know which cars they like, they won't know how to drive different cars, they won't know what styles they prefer/like, and they won't know how to drive different roads.


*Related thread:
-- Is there such a thing as splitting?: http://www.psychforums.com/dissociative-identity/topic101763.html




We are sorry that things are so difficult with you right now. Is it possible for you to get back into therapy, or are you in it again? Because therapy could be a big help with everything, keeping yourself stabilized, having professional advice, etc.


We hope things get better for you soon.


- Mixture