Your experience in uncovering alters-time line

I understand all systems are different and this will largely be influenced by the level/frequency of support, therapy, and internal harmony one has...but anyone care to share the length of time for the (majority) of your alters to appear?

First conscious-for-host switch was just April 1st of this year. We have 9 now. It seems like there are hints/implications of one more alter and several (fragments? representations?) buried....I am just wondering how many people have most of their system identified in the first year... Like, where we are now - is it any indication of, you know, 80% of the system being identified...just the tip of the 50-person iceburg.... ??

Someone once said "he will have as many as he needs" and I am not complaining; but just wondering now about some of the things I've heard bits and pieces of and don't quite understand, but may start being applicable to us. Layers...or levels.... how they interact...how one might help regulate things like time 'out' with the busy-ness of every day life (school/work) etc when the numbers keep growing... Thanks!

At age 15 we discovered 9 alters. We thought we had 10, but one was a fragment who faded and her characteristics were absorbed by two other alters. We are 20 now, and have had 3 more alters arise because of traumatic events in the past year. They weren't dormant, but newly split. Like you said, DID varies so much, it is hard to tell when new alters will stop being revealed. My advice would be to encourage communication within the system. Maybe one of his current alters will know more. Also, maybe you can assign an alter to take care of any "new arrivals" until your son is in a safe environment where the new alter can come out. Does your son have a T? Have you asked them this question? Since they would be more familiar with him, perhaps they could offer a prediction? I tend to believe that alters come as they are needed, and if many are coming at one time, it can mean that you are now in a safe environment to express them. If they are co-conscious, this is a step towards healing.

HopeIsHere wrote:how one might help regulate things like time 'out' with the busy-ness of every day life (school/work) etc when the numbers keep growing... Thanks!

If your son is in college, I have heard that most places have programs or ways to help students with psychological difficulties, or however you would say it. Some schools offer lighter course loads, or even grants, if you can find them.

This is when I became aware of them, not necessarily when they came to be.

age 10/11ish: Copper (but she has been around since before my memories)
11ish: Seika and Damon.
13: Freya was born/split/emerged/something.
14: They all either 'died' or dissapeared following a very bad point in my life.

Summer of age 16: Freya first re-appeared in a visual hallucination, then Melodie appeared for the first time.
school year, 16/17: Noah appears, then Damon reappears. Near the end of the year Seika seems to make a very brief reappearance before regressing back inside again.

And so now, I'm wondering who else (if anyone) is going to make themselves known.

Hope,

Our story will be a bit different since we don't count anyone who doesn't want to be counted - but I'll tell you all the same and add what we feel comfortable with.

A year and a half ago I was in in-patient and no one seemed to understand what I went through thoroughly except a very small handful of people. They eventually started noticing the very subtle switches to an alter. They also noticed that I didn't always recognize them or even acknowledge them. Then came the kicker -- a little girl who would always hide around the ward. Within a 2 month period we saw there were 4 alters (Nin, Lianne, Little & 18 y/o) but we now know we mixed up who was who a lot due to not knowing them. We thought these were the only ones.

Leo let herself be known in January. No idea why she chose that time but she did and I had no idea she was in there because I don't communicate with her much at all yet and never had and she isn't really interested in anything but keeping the system in order and us healing.

Fighter announced herself a month and a half or so after a traumatic event in late February. She had been "unlocked" by the event (e.g not created, but started being out again). She was obvious from about two/three weeks after the new event but not from before.

The baby was found out about a month or so ago. I think mostly because the system felt safe enough with our SO to let her out a couple of times and felt safe letting her presence be known "officially". She was more or less a surprise, having not really noticed the switches to her much for more than a few weeks (but now recognizing the feeling I get when we switch to her going way back).

The keeper/silent said she was there a few weeks ago. We had known about her since a week or so after the traumatic event mentioned earlier. She was also not a new split and was either "locked" or just hadn't been noticed up until then.

Then today, an hour or so ago, another little girl introduced herself to our system She's a 3 y/o little toughie and a tomboy to boot. She's the quiet, down to earth type and we welcome her with open arms and have known about her for about 3 weeks now, I think, without counting her yet.

So now we're 9 and it's taken 1 1/2 years.
Hope this was helpful in any way - if not feel free to keep asking questions; we'll answer anything we're comfortable with

- Nin

As far as mine go, there were a couple introjects when I was little, dating back to before I remember - earliest age I remember is about 8-9. They were still around when Jen showed up when I was 15.

Jen came in sophomore year, about age 15, when I started messing around with some meditations I should not have been messing with unsupervised. From day one of the meditation, I noticed an extra door when I looked "inside", and it wasn't long before Jen came out of the door, told me she'd been there for a while but wasn't sure how long. She claimed to be a spirit possessing me, and with no other explanation, I went with it.

Then Jen disappeared a year later, so I was about 16. She caused me to have a breakdown and I got pissed and basically banished her. Where? How? I have no clue. She just got quieter. Half a year or so later, I couldn't hear her at all.

It was that year or the next year that the two introjects... changed. Not ready to talk about the details, but I think they sorta merged... Or were never completely separate. Not too sure.

The introject was then weird for a year or so, getting weaker, and eventually all but disappeared completely. I was pretty happy with that. But that happened by freshman year of college, so about 18 years old.

I had an event that sent me spiraling downward the summer of my sophomore year of college, so about 20 years old, since my birthday is in the summer, which included the discovery that Jen was not a spirit and it was somehow all in my head. I kept getting worse and decided to do something about it the next year, the summer I turned 21, when it got to a point where I hated my life, hated who I was becoming, and began to feel suicidal. I couldn't get out of it, but I'd never stopped missing Jen, only been too terrified of what she would do if she came back. But at that point, I was desperate and nothing previous had worked. So I brought her back, she describes it more as waking her up from a really deep, nightmare-ridden sleep. She helped pull me out of it and I was feeling back to my old self within 3 months.

Things were fairly normal this past year, aside from me being obsessively paranoid about her disappearing again. But then this summer, my third summer of regular marijuana smoking (I didn't smoke during the school year, but I smoked at least once, usually 2+ times, a day in the summer, and something I've recently decided that I cannot mentally handle and have now stopped altogether), I had LEll show up randomly. Yes, I was high, and yes I was confused, and yes I waited until she came out while I was sober to decide she was there. She was. She still is. And recently (since I've stopped smoking) my introject has started becoming more stable again, though it's still very weak. So two events within the last three months is worrying me.

And thus ends my timeline (as far as I'm aware). As for time sharing, Jen and I split everything as evenly as possible - including classes. No idea how we'll work this in the future. And so far nothing has been decided with LEll. Jen still doesn't even admit that she exists, and not only does she rarely want out, but she pretty well decides when she wants out. She will bug me about it if she wants out, and if she doesn't want out, then convincing her to come out is like pulling teeth. But she avoids talking to Jen at all. The introject doesn't take over, just watches from the outside. And so far he has only ever shown himself to me. So no time sharing is needed in his case. LEll only knows of him from my mind, and Jen doesn't know about him at all. So life is getting pretty confusing pretty fast, and I'm taking every possible action to get a T. Until then, I just take it as it comes and get by however I can. ^^ Hope something in this ramble was helpful to you.

Just felt compelled to add:
We welcomed another one today too! A 9 y/o girl. She's very shy but seems very sweet. She likes girlish things but isn't as much of a princess as our 5 y/o. We've known about her for about a month now and today she decided to share her age and let herself be counted So that's our time-line and we're 10

- Nin

This is helping... seems there are some commonalities... like one might have met or known their alter earlier in life and they might retreat or be mistaken as playmates/not part of (yourself) until identified as an alter later.

My son remembers 2 alters as playmates...not part of himself when he was little. And when I asked when Ying/Yang were born/created - he remembered the day (at aprox 18 months old) but then doesn't remember ever thinking of or seeing them them again as separate (or even part of himself) until they showed up a couple weeks ago...

It seems it is and isn't predictable... like trigger can 'awaken' someone or kind of open the awareness of the current host. And safety can allow someone to come forward. But even when things seem pretty normalized - a new event might trigger someone new or someone who was buried deeper.

These are good things to know even if it might seem 'common sense' to some at this point. Thank you all for sharing your own time lines and histories with me!

I would say my timeline looks like this. I am guessing about some of the months; I can't be bothered to check my journal.

Month 0: Entered therapy aware of Alter 1 and Alter 2
Month 3: First contact with Alter 3 and guessed existence of Alter 4
Month 6: First contact with Alter 5
Month 8: First contact with Alter 4

I am now at month 19. I suspect there may be other alters. I am aware of significant lost time that has not been "claimed" by any of the known alters. Also, now and then I have intrusive suicidal thoughts and feelings that seem to come out of nowhere. Now and then I have moments of fear of abandonment. I think I know what that fear relates to and it would seem to be from an ordinary ego state within myself. However, on one occasion a voice in my head said something that, to me, suggests a link between the suicidality and fear of abandonment.

I'm not quite sure who or how to count, but here goes...
Age of 5ish-1 other I knew and related to as a guardian of sorts as well as a father figure.
**may trigger**
-Then when I was a bit older, I did try to kill a part of myself off(to please my mom; she would point out aspects of myself she hated and I would kill that part of me.) At that point I knew of another part of me, I could identify.
-Then 15ish(?)a mother introject came forward, who I also suppressed and knew was an internal "mom."
-Then by 20s, there was a teen one who did math, and another ISH, but rather quiet.
-Then more recently it started to happen in I guess weird occurrences, like groupings.
So first month, 5 alters(protectors), + 2 introjects, +1 ISH/Guide-like person alter
Then there were groups, the twins next, youngest split, called 6 & 9.
Then it gets rather messy....each of the first alters(first 5) also protected various littles, the littles were mostly grouped in 3, with one protector each, and one parental introject each(in general, although I did have one non-parental introject).

It's like an onion effect or a babushka doll.
I got to know one layer, then they are like, wait, there's more, bada-bing.

Then it got quiet for awhile, and more recently been, kinda worried that another pair(little-parental introject) might be lurking, so I guess time will tell.

1989: Little John and Jonathan encountered via therapy. Not enough confirmation of multiplicity

2010-11: months of looking into, reading about DID, getting closer

2011
APR: Jack arrives, DID is confirmed. Days later gatekeeper Sphinx begins speaking to John. Little John and Jonathan now understood to be alters
MAY: Sphinx tells John there are two more "babies." Weeks later baby Adam triggered in. Sphinx confirms a Dan once existed but he died. Sphinx says that's it, eight individuals. Wrong.
JUN: Quato introduces self via a prank. Hansel & Johann announce selves while John journals.
JUL: Marc-Dominic announces self. Ashár, the second "baby," triggered into body via flashbacks
SEP: Dan returns when he realizes he's not really dead. Most alters now spending some time in the body

We've had exactly 12 alters for months and figure that's it.

2012
JAN: Aaron just shows up, unsure who he is
FEB: Ashar begins visiting body instead of just being triggered in
MAR: Charles triggered into body
MAY: Carter had been in the body before but felt like an ego state or age regression of John the host; we now make distinction he's a separate alter

I think our timeline is not unusual, except for the stupid 20+ years between meeting the first alter and realizing this was DID.