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Johnny-Jack's Musings and Some Alter Stories
Hi, all! I finally figured out a few years ago that I am multiple, having suffered yet to some degree succeeded in life with dissociative identity disorder. Like many with DID, there had been areas of and moments in my life that were confusing and dysfunctional but I could never figure out why.

I had periodic depressions and my memory was often poor. But I didn't experience the hallmarks of DID like losing chunks of time. In my search for answers I spent a fortune on books, seminars, and therapists. I considered the possibility of having DID many times, but the clues I had gave me no certainty and no therapist helped me focus on the potential root cause of my problems. Blocked awareness and inaccessible memories are how DID works. A blessing in childhood, problematic later.

Several years ago, trauma memories started coming to me in images and flashbacks, and alters "woke up" and communicated with me. It was easy to admit then that I had DID. I had always felt a bit like a counterfeit. But it was impossible to fathom how the "good" parents I remembered were randomly monstrous abusers of me as a child, psychologically, physically and sexually.

I will never, ever, ever understand how a person, let alone a parent, can hurt a small, innocent, utterly defenseless child, not once but hundreds of time. It is contrary to the most basic human instinct to nurture and protect one's offspring. But it happened. Though it wasn't necessary, I sought and discovered external proof it happened. Now I work in therapy and in life to reverse the damage these warped people caused.

In 2011 I began communicating with a teen with DID and, when it looked like he would become homeless, I hired him from across the country -- knowing it would be a challenge -- as a live-in personal assistant to cook, drive and run errands. We soon began to rely on and support each other the way healthy families do, so I adopted him. Really, I adopted them, dozens of sons and daughters.

Over the years we've learned how to attach to another person, safely and in a family context. I sometimes feel rage when I think about his parents or mine. Still, both of us are prospering. Living well is the best revenge.
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Nigel, age 12 but slides to 21. Alter #26

Permanent Linkby Johnny-Jack on Mon Apr 13, 2015 4:22 am

We learned a couple interesting things about our alter Nigel yesterday. One is that he doesn't just read aloud for us, though he does that in order to help us concentrate when we're all over the place and really want to start understanding something. He has an interest in reading Tarot cards for people. More in the realm of Jungian psychology for someone's benefit to open up their minds to possibilities they're not seeing rather than any interest in the occult. I don't think he believes the cards are anything but random events but he sees value in supporting broadly symbolic thinking.

He knows the fact that he's English and speaks in a variety of English accents would tend to make his interpretations more palatable for some Americans -- though not any people we know because I don't think he's comfortable speaking American English! Unless we could pass him off as an act. No, it'd never work, his voice is younger. We've imagined others coming out at, say, a costume or Halloween party and taking on a persona but that just will not work, it's just a daydream.

The second interesting thing is that he is an age slider, our first. When we initiallythought he was here, we guessed him to be 21, then later changed that to 12 because he seemed young, if mature for his age. He didn't appear to us like the others. He had already been around a lot, reading, we just never considered that when we switched into the English accent to read aloud, it wasn't one of us, the host probably. We didn't feel at all dissociated, which would have made what was read less followable, not more. We definitely did have the experience of being read to, which was the entire point. It didn't occur to us there could be an alter who was so visible, right under our noses. In fact, unlike almost everone else, we don't have a specific date when we identified and we found him. It happened from suspicions over time and we only tentatively put his arrival in July 2014.

We also heard Neville a lot starting maybe a year ago. We thought they might be alternative names but maybe there's another (English) alter? As always, we started out thinking this guy was much more uni-dimensional than he is. We made the distinction about his interest in tarot yesterday when we drove up to Salem, Massachusetts. We were ready to leave but he felt driven to go buy what he wanted even though I just wanted to go home.

The English grandparents were clearly an influence. But I've felt him paying attention to variations in British accents and felt what I realize is now his compulsion to try verbalizing what he's heard. He's able to seem mature, as old as 21, though his natural state seems to be a 12-year-old English boy. It's the reading which pulls him older, in order to understand and pronounce what's being read. It feels clear he was around until college, when he stopped aging, though he's always read to us aloud when we need that.

Dx = DID. My blog. My personal Periodic Table of 78 alters.
Ab Ad Al Am An Ar As Ba Be Br Ca Cb Ch Cl Cm Cn Co Cp Ct Cu Cv D Eb Ed Er Es F Fl Ga Gd Go Gr Gw He Hk Hs Ht I J Jh Jk Jn Jy Ke Ki Kn Ky Li Lu Md Mi Mt Mx Mz Ne Ni O Pe Pi Q Ra Rd Ry Sc Se Sh Sk Sx Tk Ty U V Wa Wi X Y Ze Zn


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Re: Nigel, age 12 but slides to 21. Alter #26

Permanent Linkby Johnny-Jack on Sun Dec 11, 2016 5:01 am

We've learned over time that Nigel is 12. Neville is 20. Two different alters, both originally spoke with a British accent, like the grandparents, and both are connected to each other somehow. I guess I should have been thinking that an age slider would most likely slide from one age up through various intermediate ages to another. In this case, it just seemed like there was a 12-year-old and an older one 20 or 21.

There's a lot of mix-up above between the two but at least I was seeing it a bit then.

Ty and Chase are two other alters who originally spoke with an English accent, but Chase definitely started talking with our normal American accent and I think Ty did too, but he has been out so seldom.

How were these two, Nigel and Neville, formed and why do they feel so connected? That remains to be discovered.
Dx = DID. My blog. My personal Periodic Table of 78 alters.
Ab Ad Al Am An Ar As Ba Be Br Ca Cb Ch Cl Cm Cn Co Cp Ct Cu Cv D Eb Ed Er Es F Fl Ga Gd Go Gr Gw He Hk Hs Ht I J Jh Jk Jn Jy Ke Ki Kn Ky Li Lu Md Mi Mt Mx Mz Ne Ni O Pe Pi Q Ra Rd Ry Sc Se Sh Sk Sx Tk Ty U V Wa Wi X Y Ze Zn


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