Boyfriend with DID, advice

no offense but he sounds super toxic even our most messed up protectors wouldn't ask something like that. i've heard of them putting people through trials and stuff, but not to that extent, and some of our protectors can be flat out bum-rags to people. he sounds downright abusive and i would honestly think about if that's the kind of thing you want to be around and the kind of worry and stress you need in your life. he doesnt sound like he's going anywhere anytime soon. i don't know, that's just my opinion.

hope things go well for you and stay safe. -Alex

It's vitally important that your SO tries to work with his system. It's his life and he's avoiding responsibility. Denial is common but it's not necessarily healthy. It may well be exactly what gives Muerte so much power.

Please don't allow yourself to become a doormat and try to pretzel yourself to please Muerte. That's not going to help anyone. If he was harming your boyfriend, he was probably doing it before you came into the picture.

I have some very angry, toxic seeming alters that have behaved similarly.

Things to note for my system at least-

They do not like challenges. Whenever my alter was challenged, she upped her bad behavior to "prove" how strong and truthful she was being.

She was protecting something. Usually something that is outdated or misunderstood, through the eyes of a child... sometimes it's perceived danger, or threat, or anxiety. Her horrible behaviour was in her eyes, "protecting" me by removing me from the pain and threat of the situation (trying to kill me).

Sometimes they have been told they are bad, and they believe it, so they will act it out.

Your SO must be on board with helping his system and working with them. You cannot do it alone.
Before I began to work with my system, they literally ran my life.

Stay safe and do not allow his alter to abuse you. Set healthy boundaries. They may not like it, but it's important.
If a child is hitting you, you do not ignore it. You tell them, "It hurts me when you hit me. It is not loving to hit someone else. If you are angry you can tell me, but you cannot hit me. If you hit me I will have to leave the room until you can calm down. I love you and will not leave you, but you need to learn to control yourself."
Kids love to test boundaries. So do alters.
They like to puuuush and puuush and puuush and see how far they can get away with, because that is how they learn what is acceptable and what is not.
And when they push that boundary too far, you have to follow through with what you said.
Show them that you love them enough to not let them abuse you- because allowing someone to be abusive is never loving for either party.
If Muerte is threatening to kill his system your boyfriend needs professional help. You are his girlfriend, not his therapist.

Whether an alter can harm or kill the body depends on the inner rules of the system. Everyone has different ones. My particular system has very specific rules as to when suicide can be accomplished and all of the conditions have to be met for it to happen. However, I now also have safeguards set in place to keep me safe. We had to find out what the rules were, examine them, and rewrite them.
For my system we had to make the rules much more clear.
My alters felt much more safe when we didn't just change the rules, but added new ones to keep us safe.
So for example, instead of "Whenever I feel like breaking, I will take myself out of the equation to keep myself from doing so" from when I was a kid.
We ended up with alternate rules- such as "Whenever I feel like I might be reaching my breaking point, I will reach out to someone and slow down what I am doing. If I feel like breaking, I am dropping everything important and spending time having some fun, and taking care of myself. If I feel as if I have broken, I cannot do anything until I have (names of certain close friends) help me realign my thoughts and help me process what is happening. If I absolutely cannot do anymore, I will take a nap and let someone help me/take care of me."

These are things that come with time, and alters can change over time (I have scary, terrifying alters who have gently stepped down from their scary places when they felt it was safe and they could release a little bit of that guard, and slowly let love into them which is the scariest of all, but eventually became good buds of mine).

Whoever is currently "up front" the most of the time is the Host. I like to think of myself as the "core" or the template for whatever I was supposed to be, before all my different aspects ended up developing separately from me. It's possible for alters to become the Host for longer periods of time (I didn't actually wake up until a few years ago) depending on how much energy they have.
In my system at least, energy is everything- whoever has the strongest energy is the one who finds it most easy to be 'up front', and that also means they are in need of the most help at the time.
When their issues are addressed, they slowly lose that energy and become 'sleepy' and sometimes I don't see them for a long time because it's like they take a nap. They'll still show up every once in a while if their stuff is completely worked through, sometimes to have fun or to say hi. I find that the energy builds the longer it's being ignored.

I hope some of this will give you some insight as to how Muerte might be operating. Every system is different and it sounds like your boyfriend is before the healing stages which is when things are the most chaotic. In my case I needed a good IFS therapist to help me deal with my stuff and someone who loved me enough not to be scared away and listen to my tears.
Everyone has a different time frame for when they're 'ready' to work through stuff though and it is important not to force someone.
I've had trauma being forced to talk and it made things worse, not better.

As much as we with DID seriously need love and stability, we have the tendency to try and destroy it to make it more like what we're comfortable with and used to- chaos. Which for someone without DID might be very difficult over a long period of time. In the end, make sure you are taking good care of yourself. Reaching out on here is a good method of support.

printedparadise wrote:I'm not sure if Muerte realizes he is not in his own body

That would be typical. This idea is so common that there is even a name for it: delusion of separateness. Reinforcing this, in the inner world the individual alters do often experience themselves as having their own individual bodies, separate from the bodies of other alters.