Because of childhood abuse from infancy at the hands of both parents and others, I was unable to develop a single cohesive identity. Instead, my young mind coped by developing multiple ego states or identities, leading to a condition known as dissociative identity disorder.
Here are our alters and shortened descriptions we’ve recorded to keep track of them and of changes in our system. Numbers following the # are the order in which we became aware of each of us, out of a total of 54 as of 12/30/2016.
*** INFANTS AND TODDLERS (age 0-2) ***
Adam 8 months, #5. The core or original; drowned, choked, smothered by mother; much healed due to time in body, usually at bedtime; loves wolfie plush toy
Zeb 1, #22. Sweet, giggly; has positive response to nice physical touching; came due to weird SA by father
Clark 1, #36. Strong fear of knives and hands being held down or trapped; when triggered, makes continuous clicking sound and holds hands up to face
Edward 1½, #17. Little knight holding mission to be good, not bad like the bad people (parents); our moral compass; not frightened of dark or drawn to stuffed animals like other littles but more like other littles over time; loves brightly colored things
Henry 2, #23. Boy used to being lost in public, deserted by careless mother; loves dogs; doesn’t panic when lost
Ashár 2, #8. Wolfdog enduring ritualized torture for being male from DID mother's animal alter; feral, can't speak, made weird creeking sounds; originally only crawled; once highly triggered by anything rope-like being draped over body; ended abuse by biting mother’s hand; loves blue spongy car toy to orient to having hands
*** LITTLES (ages 3-7) ***
Little John 3, #2. Stayed quiet and out of everyone’s way; unnoticed = safe; adamant about not wanting or needing anything; more assertive nowadays; due to being awake for decades, he grasps some things beyond his age; gives us the ability to go without and be okay with that; loves puzzles
Max 3½, #16. Spunky, though originally frozen and terrified; much time out so quite healed; ability to see what alters look like inside; loves toys for little boys his age
Pip 3⅞, #33. Untraumatized; imagined/planned running away from home; looks for escape routes
Scott 4, #54. Kept us in one place when separated from mother, who often switched and wandered away in public; likes butterscotch; may keep us stationary, unchanging, when trouble arises, which has advantages and disadvantages
Casper 4, #32. Ghost of a dead boy; took mother’s physical abuse in his bed after rest of family asleep; tends to keep us awake if anyone in home felt to be unsafe
Raisin Annie 4, #37. Originally we felt there were no females in our system, but if there were, she would be stuck in another dimension, a parallel world; name corrupts “raising Annie,” as in rescuing her; knew her name years ago but thought she was a family myth, not part of our system; likes princesses and such
Wats (Watson) 4, #48. Sweet kid locked in a box in basement by mother; came same time as Ulric; self-assigned mission is figuring out how to escacpe
Hansel 4, #10. Bubbly, supportive twin who helps Johann feel better, adventuresome, fun-loving, quite mischievous
Johann 4, #11. Somber twin, adventuresome but more responsible and serious than Hansel.
Both twins have spent so much time in body, they’ve healed, which helps other littles near their age; arose from same abuse as Quato
Inky 5, #21. Originally terrified of any moving vehicle since mother tried to lure, push him into traffic; a bit immature for his age; stumbles in his speech sometimes; visits frequently
Kent 5, #29. Traumatized by father’s SA in law office; generally sad; highly triggered by legal, official or financial matters or lists
Michael 5½, #30. Originally mute; gentle; SA from mother in ‘the darkness’ of the closet
Caleb 5½, #43. Quiet boy who listens carefully for approach of bad people, causes us to speak quietly; can be hyper-alert for potential danger
Estes 6. #52. Feels like hope personified; sees silver lining in dire circumstances?; not yet met
Godwin 6, #31. Took physical punishment, punches to groin by mother for non-family members praising us for any reason; avoids excellence that could lead to praise
Carter 6, #15. Significant role influencing John, who succeeded him; extremely sentimental, emotional, sensitive and responsible; piano lessons
Greg B. 6, #24. Afraid of policemen though named after one policeman’s kid we knew; likes lifesaver candies
Andre 6 or 7, #38. Still protective of SA memory of pedophile group, associated with great shame and confusion; steadfast, brave
Chase 7, #14. Rich, privileged boy who doesn't believe he should do manual labor; very polite; proper diction and behavior but has loosened up; insists on nice clothing; strongly influenced by English grandmother; abused by English grandfather
Cole 7, #27. Sustained early morning father’s SA in basement so always wants to wake up early and leave house, go for a walk; energetic in morning
Matt 7, #35. Paradoxically gentle kid who holds vividly imagined violence against mother and father with an ice pick; feels connected to Godwin; likes airplanes
*** MIDDLES (ages 8-12) ***
Hank 8, #40. Angry (?) kid, manipulated by father towards “enjoying” abuse
Luke 8, #18. Farm boy, rural; loves physical movement; oddly skewed gait; only alter preserving attachment to both parents; abused by paternal uncle; hates selfishness
Yanni 8, #49. Pretends to sleep; does ‘forced’ sleep as defense mechanism against parents or bad situations
Sky 8, #45. Holds father’s threat (in poem form?) to hurt us and family if we told anyone about abuse; may hold instructions for self-destruction also; original name means wolf
Vince 8, #46. Choked by father as a warning never to reveal abuse; came same time as Sky; no anger or bitterness
Brody 9, #19. Tough kid, resilient; a “free agent,” the only alter reachable and participating even when no one else around
Ty 10, #20. Slim English redhead boy who seems to mimic English grandfather; like Chase, now uses American accent
Randy (Randall) 10, #44. Boy who protected Jonathan from his conflicting thoughts; may have helped hold in place Jonathan’s desire for escape or annihilation, thus has caused us to retain suicidal thoughts (?); name means wolf
Zane ~10, #51. Holds overwhelming despair (neverending pain) so deep he has to exist in another dimension; no real communication with him yet
Abraham ~10?, #54. Seems to limit us from progressing or making changes; the words “programming” and “mission” suggest bad things from the father; avoids responding to us directly via words but some communication
Jack 11, #4. Most independent alter, most in line with natural body; hillbilly from Appalachia, speaks dialect learned from an actual hillbilly; arrived age 7 from father’s SA; gregarious, curious, loves plants, wilderness; led the charge to make John aware of the alters; casually Christian
Nigel / Oberon 12, #50. Drives an interest in tarot, the occult, mysticism, earth religions; unlike others, comfortable with the inexplicable; Oberon is his magic name (?)
*** TEENS ***
Mxyzptlk / Mick 13, #42. Mischievous, truant, causes us to procrastinate, filling hours with unproductive, somewhat repetitive activities, though great at calming us down; dislikes authority, like Quato; has fronted or influenced us for perhaps the majority of waking adult hours
Faolán 14, #25. Detaches for us from people who hurt John, makes us go cold and be "over" anyone; less extreme in reaction than Ulric; name means wolf
Daniel / Dan 15, #6. Jock, macho, loves physical activity, fitness; “working class” due to different childhood friends; held rage but mellow when not triggered; killed internally from fear he was “bad” but we resurrected him a few years ago; holds the natural (straight) sex drive
Kyle 16, #39. Holds such rage it feels he could kill (hence Kyle)
Quato 19, #9. Bitter, sarcastic, easily angered, defiant; sexual alter; hates power structures, conservative people; averse to Christianity; drawn to weirdos and outcasts; likes dark hopeless things like post-apocalyptic lit; bit of a masochist; beatnicky speech; fronts to deal with dangerous people; accomplished, effective liar; was quarantined by Jonathan and Dan for suicidality; sometime trickster towards Johnny
*** ADULTS ***
Neville 20, #26. Reads aloud to us in his British accent when we need to focus or understand something better; much confusion with Nigel; formerly thought an age slider
Jonathan 33, #3. Rather conventional, likes business; upscale, neat, stiff, conservative clothing style; holds career and financial ambition and drive; attached to father for us; bookish like John; straight
Ryder 40, #34. Host or near host; work guy who does focused organizational thinking, number-crunching, computers; little emotion and distracted by it; brass tacks, masculine; sees Johnny as too distractible, John as too sentimental; prefers little interaction with people; likes to stay busy, be “in the zone”
Aaron 44, #13. Philosophical lumberjack is how we describe his personality; created by accident when a host tried “making” an (ideal) alter in case he was actually multiple; seems tied to (based on?) Jonathan
Marc-Dominic 40s, #12. Sophisticated, formal, proud, suave, gentlemanly; hates sloppy clothes ; effectively prevents feeling insecure or unequal despite other people’s power, wealth, or credentials
Ulric (Uthar) 50s, #47. A bogeyman, dead by choice, with attitude "you're dead to me”; triggered out when hurt by people close to us; originally created extreme pervasive detachment and dead coldness that lasted for days but has modified towards healthier temporary detachments; name means wolf
John 50s, #28. Primary host, except socially; tends towards low energy; bookish; strongly influenced by some alters; arrived at age 6 at death of paternal grandmother, replacing Carter (?); does empathy, sympathy, and attachment under influence from Gwen; attached to mother for us; sexuality confused
Gwendolyn / Gwen 50s, #41. Arose at age 6, when told beloved, protective paternal grandmother died; twin-like to John but behind a wall; primarily influences John, which creates sense of his being motherly, feminine; source of our commitment to making vulnerable, frightened people feel safe; recent revelation that name is actually Gwendolyn came with awareness she began as a fairy godmother
Johnny 50s, #1. Extroverted social and work host; high social skills, especially with “difficult” people; warm, self-effacing, joking; high energy but may sap body of energy after he’s been out; arrived age 2½, replacing Little John; sexuality dampened
Sphinx ∞, #7. Gatekeeper, internal self-helper, ageless, robotic, unemotional, genderless; fronts at will, rarely, overriding anyone; needs to be asked questions; mysterious short answers resulted in nickname Sphinx; surveys central nervous system to identify which alter is out; can access life event history to assess validity of an offered supposition or calculate number of similar events that occurred
Alters #55 and up below in comments