When do you switch?

I've been noticing when I switch. So far, it's been either one of two times. Either:

A) I'm high. This makes it really easy for another alter to come forward, usually Jenny. I feel pleasantly dissociated and tend to fade out pretty easily. Does anyone else deal with this?

or B) I'm upset. I mean, incredibly upset. At this point, either A) I'm somewhere where I can receive comfort, and Jenny comes out, or B) there is no comfort forthcoming, and Raine comes forward instead.

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

With me it is really dependent of whats happening. Like when I'm tired it is very easy for another to take over, but as long as there is no reason to stay awake I'd just fall asleep.

if I'm upset I switch as soon as I allow it, but mostly I want to solve it myself.

I do switch if I'm under a huge emotional pressure or when I'm scared because I don't know what to do

Hello. I know I switch when I'm really distressed and overwhelmed. I also think I sometimes switch when somebody says something I'm really interested in, that's a kind of micro-switch, doesn't last long but I miss parts of the conversation!

There's various reasons why we switch.

1) We're high off of marijuana, rolling on MDMA (aka Molly), or drunk off of alcohol. When we're high or rolling, we find it's much easier to switch and it's a lot more fluid. We're also able to have a lot more people "up front" at once and it's not overwhelming as it can get when we're sober. When we're drunk, usually the adult/older alters find it easier to switch between themselves, and some alters are only interested in being out while drinking (like Valera). (Not that we drink specifically to "bring out" alters. Though we do smoke specifically and roll specifically for those reasons. Especially rolling- it seems to bring everyone into the same "room", kinda like a family reunion type of thing. But we don't do it enough to where it'd be considered a problem or unsafe or anything).

2) Someone is triggered out. This can be by a PTSD trigger, a certain situation (such as if we're in a hostile situation, Kat will come out), we're around certain people, we're in distress, stuff like that.

3) Someone is better suited for dealing with a situation. Like Rain's better with phone calls than I am, Kat, Marie, and others are better at driving than I am, L.C.'s better at not letting things get her riled up (because she's so apathetic), etc.

4) Someone wants to be out enough to force their way out. Like if we're at a party, I know I'm not going to be out front for long. Kat and Rebel are the "main party-ers", so while they'll let me be in the background and party with them, they'll almost always shove their way "up front" while at a party. Or, like with Cassie, she just loves to be "out" so she'll sometimes barge her way through to be "out". Or if Luna wants to smoke, she'll force her way "out" to do so. Stuff like that.

5) Whoever's up front doesn't want to be up front anymore. If I have no desire to deal with something, or if I'm already tired with the day, I'll just step back and let someone else take control. It's not always that easy, and I'm not always able to do that, but usually when I reach that "screw everything I really don't care anymore" point, a switch will happen.

When we encounter a child, one of my littles about that age comes forward and wants to see and connect through the eyes and a smile if possible. If anything of interest to an alter appears, cartoons, certain types of movies or TV shows, something in a store window, that alter will move forward, react and suddenly be in front. When one of us is out and starts getting upset, we usually call them in and send someone else out who mostly isn't upset because it wasn't them thinking that. But if the upset is sudden, powerful, flashbacky, we let it ride because it's stuff coming up and we need to learn what it is.

Right after I leave work, everybody's been cooped up inside all day long and I'm tired of running things, so unless I'm in the midst of strong worry about something, I seem to just vacate and someone else takes over. It can be a unpredictable who it is and the person out is sometimes surprised it's them and they're not sure why they're there. But the surprise only registers once I ask who it is. They were perfectly fine with fronting and walking along. Quite often there are pretty random switches, someone's in front whereas a minute ago it was someone else.

Some switch in only when I call them, as when they haven't been out recently and I don't want them going too far away from the life.

We also get super-triggered by stuff sometimes and whoever was triggered takes over and gets overwhelmed. Sometimes I don't understand why a particular alter got triggered by something that previously had only been a trigger for another.

Johnny, would it be okay with you if I shared here my subjective experience of you in a switchy moment?

Sure, I trust you.

I switch either when Mae feels I need to be protected (whether I feel that way or not--but I guess she knows what's best for me, nothing's gone wrong so far..) or when I'm high, it's easier to switch. Or if someone wants out, we assess the current situation and see if it's safe. Once, under severe emotional distress, and I wanted to disappear entirely, and I broke down, not even Mae could intervene.. and Alice took over. From what my friend present at the time said, it wasn't very pleasant. First she hid in the garage under a table saw for twenty minutes. Then she was forced out to see my mother.. She's normally a mute, and she was put into a situation in which she needed to speak, and it took her a full ten minutes to figure out how to work her tongue. And off to the hospital we went, because my mother was there. Great.

Anyway, I suppose it just depends. Sometimes, Mae just wants to freak out a friend I'm with (who knows her too) and switches.

-- Thu Oct 11, 2012 2:42 pm --

Well, I am not a monster. I may protect you, but I can have fun, too.

We switch when necessary.

If the trigger is bad or sudden enough we switch. Otherwise it gets noisy in here.
When emotions of a particular alter get strong enough to go away or to take over. Sometimes we can stop it or be co-conscious and sometimes we cant or wont.
When we make a deal with each other about being out for a set amount of time/to do a certain task.

Okay, having received the go-ahead from Johnny, I will share this with you all.

Johnny-Jack wrote:When we encounter a child, one of my littles about that age comes forward and wants to see and connect through the eyes and a smile if possible. If anything of interest to an alter appears [...] that alter will move forward, react and suddenly be in front.

I have spent some time face-to-face with Johnny-Jack's system, and seen this. Those with DID and SOs who are in the early discovery phase might like to know what I experience when this happens.

By way of context, I am sure we have all had the experience of being with someone who becomes enthused, whose attention is seized by something in the environment. For me, when someone who has DID the experience is greatly magnified.

A relatively integrated adult person will verbalize their interest, or consciously set aside the interest, long before the physical energy expression of their interest reached such a high intensity that it can be sensed or even seen by others. But with animals and little children, even babies, the interest is preverbal and fully expressed in their bodies. Parents who carry their children a lot will know exactly what I mean when I say the objective and intensity of a child's attention is palpable. The parent has a felt sense of an almost magnetic pull in the child toward the object of attention.

With Johnny, and in my experience with a few other adults who I know or think also have DID, I experience an especially intense felt sense in my body of a rising activation energy in the other person's body that is being held in check. This quality reminds me of a keen dog or horse straining at the leash. A well trained dog or horse will not pull against the handler's hand but will be quivering with readiness to leap forward on cue, waiting for their release. Johnny has not released his insiders with me but when other DID systems who have (apparently against the host's intentions) switched in my presence I experience a sense of them in some way slipping free of the leash. There is a lurch, a moment of instability, and a new and distinctly different quality of energy.