Animal/fantasy alters

tragic guardian wrote:That is rather interesting. Though i wonder if, in another way, someone (host and/or alters) being therian could effect it too. It seems it would only make sense.

Had to comment on this. I used to be a part of the therian community cause I thought I was a therian and my best friend is a traditionally cat polymorph therian. I have since learned that the wolf I was hearing in my head was actually an alter that, due to being in a comfortable position with a best friend therian, I was able to accept that alter much earlier then my other alters. I'm not saying this will always be the case, but it was for me.

Each case of DID, to some extent, has its own evolution and its own logic. I personally have never liked the word split and it's never felt like it described what happened with us. I know that some use it simply as a shortcut to mean the formation of a new alter and I can't think of a shorter, quicker word for that phenomenon. But words have connotations and since "split" is associated with the old "split personality" idea -- yeah, I'm not very fond of it. Split suggests one united being being divided as if down the middle into two parts, one going one way, the second part going another.

I have specific memories of how some alters became part of our system. Some of us arrived in a matter of moments, often during an emergency but not always. I, the host, arrived suddenly at age 2.5, formed by our mind during an emotional overwhelm due to getting lost or being abandoned by the DID mother in a store. Jack and Jonathan were created quickly, as if a completely different person stepped into the body, due to separate instances of SA. Marc and Aaron arrived at age 12 and 44 respectively, sort of by the host wishing or willing them to arrive. These new alters were each formed with a strong basic definition or characteristic that is consistent even now with their own way of being or personality. So they feel like they came largely pre-formed. But the word splitting doesn't feel accurate. It feels more like an arrival.

How others came isn't as clear but what we do sense is that some of us began as a different mental state we shifted into to deal with bad things being done to us. These dissociated states shielded me, the host, from having to endure and remember them. As the bad things were repeated, these states became more distinct and took on their own characteristics, becoming alters.

The gatekeeper/ISH Sphinx remembers himself as always being there but once stepping away from the overwhelmed emotions of the very young body in order to act to save the life. In short, different ways our new alters were formed.

Back to animal/fantasy alters, I imagine the reasons vary widely too as lifelongthing's excerpt from Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder suggests. My wolf-like alter Ashar arrived extremely early to deal with the mother's physical abuse. I know he was immobilized and his only defense was to bite when he could. The DID mother's alter abusing him was an animal of some kind, a lion, we think. She didn't speak so Ashar didn't learn to speak either and still can't.

When my alters are thinking to themselves, I can't read their thoughts, though I can guess thoughts based on their actions, and might know later from words they speak to me. But I do see some images that they think of, just as they can see -- and are sometimes triggered by -- images that I conjure up when I'm thinking to myself. When Ashar has been out in the body, the movements are canine. He has crawled on all fours but he also walks now. Hands until recently have been used as if they are paws. I've seen images from him of wolfs and dogs, especially a combination of the two.

So the mother's animal alter abusing him and how he was trapped like an animal led logically (at least as I think about it) to the creation of an animal alter. A sister who I strongly suspect has DDNOS has shifted into what can only be described as a hissing cat in a corner and I believe the trigger that brought her was the mother.

I can imagine someone creating an animal or fantasy alter as a deliberate companion, much as Marc and Aaron came to us. I'm sure there are a few dozen other scenarios that describe how someone gained an animal alter.