Is there such a thing as splitting?

Considering the fact that having more than one ANP would be classified as DID, the ANP's would have always been there, but not necessarily always active/"awake"/needed, and just like any other alter, they might be "new" only to others' awareness, not in actual existence.

Not all parts have memories from when they were "made", and not all parts have ages (look at me, I don't know my age, and as far as I know, I don't have one). I have no idea when I was "made", but I have all the memories and knowledge of the others. (It's shared memories and knowledge, but I still have it, and can still references it as if it was my own).

Just like an ANP, an EP might have always been there, but they might not have been "awake"/"active"/needed/known about.

It's like, a soldier being activated for duty. They're not always a soldier, but when they're up to serve, they become "active" for duty. That's how parts/alters are. They are always there, but not always "active". Their memories will start from when they are "active"/activated. Does that make sense?

All parts, all ingredients, are there to begin with.

Then, with proper development and stuff, they mix together to create one whole personality, one whole cake.

Some cakes start out frosted (EP's within DID/DDNOS-1)

frosting can be taken off (processed trauma/integrated EP's)

and some cakes are never frosted (non-DID and no EP's).

tylas wrote:No, the ANP's were not always there.

tylas wrote:No, neither were created before needed, but they did not split from an original part.

tylas wrote:Sort of, once they do exist, they get triggered into action.

tylas wrote:Umm.... well.. yes.. no..... There are a bunch of neurons there to begin with.

tylas wrote:This last bit really confuses me, but I will TRY (that is not a promise!) and decipher it....

Some cakes start out frosted (EP's within DID/DDNOS-1)

Everyone starts out as a bunch of neurons. No EP (emotional parts), no ANP (hosts).

tylas wrote: We do not split. All humans begin life as a bunch of neurons and when one has DID, those do not integrate due to trauma. So we do not split. It is just the opposite - which is what the top experts that research and write on DID try to get people to understand, but that old notion is so ingrained! It's hard for people to let go of it. Behavioral states of an infant will begin to integrate, these will form ego states or personality parts. If you have DID - you will have alters because the parts did not integrate. They are isolated from the other parts.

Tom's Cloyds reply to this:

Generally speaking, I'm inclined to agree with this (the quote from me above). My only hesitation is that it IS possible that some identity (alter - an ego state with a sense of self) might contain multiple capacities, only some of which have ever been activated. (I need to make a picture of this, and will - I promise - right after sending this off. That will be a fun little project, and might be quite useful.) Some of the capacities are approach oriented and some are retreat oriented. If the first group are active, and then the second become powerfully activated by some awful event, we might get what might be called a split. BUT, this would require that part of what was originally one ego-state/alter either now goes with the split part, or remains accessible to the split part, in the same way that all alters which can talk (and I'm convinced that we cannot assume that all can, at least no initially) have access to the how-to-talk parts of the brain. Again, a picture would be useful. I'll make one.

Certainly, some people will conceptualize this as splitting. But of what? I don't think we really know, but here are two ways I could see this happening:

1. Given that we enter the world with basic neurological responses which, at the most basic level, are about either approach, or retreat, as time passes these basic responses get connected to various memories, and groups of memories. Initially, these are just ego states, for example: me-who-eats / me-who-sleeps / me-who-snuggles-with-Mommy / etc. They are turned on and off in response to cuing or triggering stimuli, external or internal.

Here I might say that it seems correct to think of the brain as a self-programming organic computer, whose task is to navigate the environment so as to sustain itself. It learns the structure of its environment (both physical and social), over time, and thus increasingly is able to respond to internally derived needs and impulses (desires, etc.) on its own, without external assistance.

These organic programs are initially just sets of environmental "maps" with associated responses. A simple example: I may learn that mommy is often in the kitchen, AND that she is a food source, so when I'm hungry, I'll crawl into the kitchen and get fed. Problem solved! But what if mommy is a drunk, and gets abusive at times, when I approach her? Or just passes out, so that she is only responsive to me some of the time? Problem NOT solved!

This complication may well be beyond my ability to resolve, and so I begin to get chronically anxious, in relation to my frequent surges of hunger. Hunger can lead to food, the experience of abandonment, or being slapped. I cannot predict. Add to this additional complications, all involving distressing levels of distressing feeling, and my little brain will become so overwhelmed it can barely function. THIS will seriously interfere with the natural process of integrating my hunger-response-program with my I-want-a-cuddle-response-program and my I-want-to-play-program. They may not integrate as all. As my sense of self grows over time, it will grow in these separate areas of my brain, as separate identities.

There can also come to be a me-who-got-attacked by that big dog. This might be developed from me-who-plays-outdoors (during which at one time I got attacked). The play-outdoors is basically an elaborated (programmed) approach system, but the attack stimulates a retreat response. The question is whether or not the two can be brought together. That there is an INITIAL "split" is true because consciousness is a small place. The emotions associated with the attack WILL utterly take it over, crowding out all else. THAT creates that mind-state, which then goes into memory. What does the plays-outdoors part do with this? If it's strong enough, it can integrate with it. But that may not be the case.

2. But maybe it was NOT a split. Maybe plays-outdoors just got "turned off" by a more basic burst of energy - "I'm being attacked and I'm going to die!" Something new gets created at that point, and it may remain an entity to itself if it cannot integrate with some other part of the self.

So, which is it? I have no way of definitively answering that question. But, do we really need to? The problem we have to work with is that of achieving functional (which is NOT "complete") integration. How the parts which benefit from integration came to be is a great question, but answering it is not really a high priority matter, I think. And until we can actively identify living neural circuitry in the brain which holds identities, and which can be tracked over time, we just won't be able to really know what's going on.

In psychology, and in many other fields, the classical solution to this problem is to build a "model", which is just a theory-plus-some-data, and try it out. If it produces reasonably reliable predictions, we usually trust that at least some of it is correct. This is a very practical solution, and it's often the best we can do.

Tom Cloyd wrote: "Part" is a conflated word, here. That always breeds confusion

definition: to conflate
1 a : to bring together : fuse
b : confuse

2 : to combine (as two readings of a text) into a composite whole

Neurons ARE parts of a brain, but "part" in the context of DID means "personality part", or "part-personality", a far different thing.

Brain-part does not equal DID-part. Mixing that up is the conflation.

So, no, the DID part was not always there, although the brain parts were.

Tom Cloyd wrote: Well, that sentence is OK; there is no conflation there. Note that if the neurons form a DID part, then obviously that DID part was not there before it was formed.

A complication: if the DID part is made of a pre-DID ego state, then we have a complex neural assembly that is not mere neurons, but neither does it hold a sense of identity. When it DOES, it become a DID part.

The conversion of what Siegel call selfs or mind-states (not exactly the same thing, by the way - to be explained later) into alters happens only if normal integration does not occur. Generally, that happens only under conditions of extreme stress, although there are some cases where we simply cannot tease out the cause, and this leaves open the possibility that there are other causes. An analogy would be a baby who is born with an exposed spinal cord (spina bifida) - as far as I know there is no external cause for this. It is simply a developmental failure, probably of genetic origin.

Tom Cloyd wrote: No problem: "...it's those parts/neurons that create and develop into ANP's and EP's when needed."
Again, though, we have to consider the possibility of the prior non-identity-holding ego state that gets made into a DID part.

Tom Cloyd wrote: Oh, really? How is this known? If one utterly believes the stories the system tells, and blindly accepts them as true, then one simply does not understand how memory and those things taken for memory by the brain, really work. Just because one is told by the brain that something is a memory does not mean that it is.

I know this is hard for some DID folks to grasp - a great demonstration of the well-documented tendency to think concretely if you have DID. However, it remains true.

Tom Cloyd wrote: Neurons do not possess identity. There can be no Dallas neuron. Utterly impossible.

Tom Cloyd wrote: I love metaphors and analogies, but it is very valuable to use, and teach, the correct terms, because then the relationship between what is being said and what is being talked about is more precise. With complicated things like the brain and DID that is helpful, even if initially there is a bit of a learning curve. Technical language tends to have well worked out and precise meanings, and this is good. Why not take advantage of that fact?

No. Not mixing. Structuring. And the initial ingredients involve neurons and their connections. What actually happens is that connections are removed. It's literally like sculpture. Remove marble not needed and you have a sculpture. Remove the neural connections not needed and you have a functioning brain, including the parts that are ego states and alters (if alters happen at all).

This fact explains why it is far easier to learn two languages before the age of about 3 than it is later. You have all those neural connections to work with. Bilingual babies have been shown to have far more complex brains than non-bilingual babies, because of all the neural connections that are NOT discarded. They are needed to hold that second language!

Non-proper personality development = keeping /some ingredients separate = DID/DDNOS-1
The analogy breaks down here. The contrast is not mixed/not-mixed. What it actually is would require more time to describe than I presently have tonight, but I WILL do it, elsewhere, with pictures.

EPs, ANPs are the same sort of thing, except that EPs contain memories which provoke strong retreat responses, and ANPs do not. EPs also often have a sense of being younger, but not always.

tylas wrote:Tom Cloyd is on a roll tonight! He answered the cake post for you Tomboy! And you did not even have to pay him! I hope you see this as help, and not as something bad. If you think it's bad then I will delete it. Just say the word.

tylas wrote:Tom Cloyd wrote: "Part" is a conflated word, here. That always breeds confusion

definition: to conflate
1 a : to bring together : fuse
b : confuse

2 : to combine (as two readings of a text) into a composite whole

Neurons ARE parts of a brain, but "part" in the context of DID means "personality part", or "part-personality", a far different thing.

Brain-part does not equal DID-part. Mixing that up is the conflation.

So, no, the DID part was not always there, although the brain parts were.

tylas wrote:Tom Cloyd wrote: Well, that sentence is OK; there is no conflation there. Note that if the neurons form a DID part, then obviously that DID part was not there before it was formed.

A complication: if the DID part is made of a pre-DID ego state, then we have a complex neural assembly that is not mere neurons, but neither does it hold a sense of identity. When it DOES, it become a DID part.

The conversion of what Siegel call selfs or mind-states (not exactly the same thing, by the way - to be explained later) into alters happens only if normal integration does not occur. Generally, that happens only under conditions of extreme stress, although there are some cases where we simply cannot tease out the cause, and this leaves open the possibility that there are other causes. An analogy would be a baby who is born with an exposed spinal cord (spina bifida) - as far as I know there is no external cause for this. It is simply a developmental failure, probably of genetic origin.

tylas wrote:Tom Cloyd wrote: No problem: "...it's those parts/neurons that create and develop into ANP's and EP's when needed."
Again, though, we have to consider the possibility of the prior non-identity-holding ego state that gets made into a DID part.

tylas wrote:Tom Cloyd wrote: Oh, really? How is this known? If one utterly believes the stories the system tells, and blindly accepts them as true, then one simply does not understand how memory and those things taken for memory by the brain, really work. Just because one is told by the brain that something is a memory does not mean that it is.

I know this is hard for some DID folks to grasp - a great demonstration of the well-documented tendency to think concretely if you have DID. However, it remains true.

tylas wrote:Tom Cloyd wrote: Neurons do not possess identity. There can be no Dallas neuron. Utterly impossible.

tylas wrote:Tom Cloyd wrote: I love metaphors and analogies, but it is very valuable to use, and teach, the correct terms, because then the relationship between what is being said and what is being talked about is more precise. With complicated things like the brain and DID that is helpful, even if initially there is a bit of a learning curve. Technical language tends to have well worked out and precise meanings, and this is good. Why not take advantage of that fact?

tylas wrote:No. Not mixing. Structuring. And the initial ingredients involve neurons and their connections. What actually happens is that connections are removed. It's literally like sculpture. Remove marble not needed and you have a sculpture. Remove the neural connections not needed and you have a functioning brain, including the parts that are ego states and alters (if alters happen at all).

tylas wrote:Non-proper personality development = keeping /some ingredients separate = DID/DDNOS-1
The analogy breaks down here. The contrast is not mixed/not-mixed. What it actually is would require more time to describe than I presently have tonight, but I WILL do it, elsewhere, with pictures.

Tom's Cloyds reply to this:

Some of the capacities are approach oriented and some are retreat oriented. If the first group are active, and then the second become powerfully activated by some awful event, we might get what might be called a split. BUT, this would require that part of what was originally one ego-state/alter either now goes with the split part, or remains accessible to the split part, in the same way that all alters which can talk (and I'm convinced that we cannot assume that all can, at least no initially) have access to the how-to-talk parts of the brain. Again, a picture would be useful. I'll make one.

Certainly, some people will conceptualize this as splitting. But of what? I don't think we really know, but here are two ways I could see this happening:

1. Given that we enter the world with basic neurological responses which, at the most basic level, are about either approach, or retreat, as time passes these basic responses get connected to various memories, and groups of memories. Initially, these are just BEHAVIORAL STATES, for example: me-who-eats / me-who-sleeps / me-who-snuggles-with-Mommy / etc. They are turned on and off in response to cuing or triggering stimuli, external or internal.

Here I might say that it seems correct to think of the brain as a self-programming organic computer, whose task is to navigate the environment so as to sustain itself. It learns the structure of its environment (both physical and social), over time, and thus increasingly is able to respond to internally derived needs and impulses (desires, etc.) on its own, without external assistance.

These organic programs are initially just sets of environmental "maps" with associated responses. A simple example: I may learn that mommy is often in the kitchen, AND that she is a food source, so when I'm hungry, I'll crawl into the kitchen and get fed. Problem solved! But what if mommy is a drunk, and gets abusive at times, when I approach her? Or just passes out, so that she is only responsive to me some of the time? Problem NOT solved!

This complication may well be beyond my ability to resolve, and so I begin to get chronically anxious, in relation to my frequent surges of hunger. Hunger can lead to food, the experience of abandonment, or being slapped. I cannot predict. Add to this additional complications, all involving distressing levels of distressing feeling, and my little brain will become so overwhelmed it can barely function. THIS will seriously interfere with the natural process of integrating my hunger-response-program with my I-want-a-cuddle-response-program and my I-want-to-play-program. They may not integrate as all. As my sense of self grows over time, it will grow in these separate areas of my brain, as separate identities.

There can also come to be a me-who-got-attacked by that big dog. This might be developed from me-who-plays-outdoors (during which at one time I got attacked). The play-outdoors is basically an elaborated (programmed) approach system, but the attack stimulates a retreat response. The question is whether or not the two can be brought together. That there is an INITIAL "split" is true because consciousness is a small place. The emotions associated with the attack WILL utterly take it over, crowding out all else. THAT creates that mind-state, which then goes into memory. What does the plays-outdoors part do with this? If it's strong enough, it can integrate with it. But that may not be the case.

2. But maybe it was NOT a split. Maybe plays-outdoors just got "turned off" by a more basic burst of energy - "I'm being attacked and I'm going to die!" Something new gets created at that point, and it may remain an entity to itself if it cannot integrate with some other part of the self.

So, which is it? I have no way of definitively answering that question. But, do we really need to? The problem we have to work with is that of achieving functional (which is NOT "complete") integration. How the parts which benefit from integration came to be is a great question, but answering it is not really a high priority matter, I think. And until we can actively identify living neural circuitry in the brain which holds identities, and which can be tracked over time, we just won't be able to really know what's going on.

In psychology, and in many other fields, the classical solution to this problem is to build a "model", which is just a theory-plus-some-data, and try it out. If it produces reasonably reliable predictions, we usually trust that at least some of it is correct. This is a very practical solution, and it's often the best we can do.