aging

its kind of weird and i am not sure if i know what i want to ask.
i have been pretty sure that i am 16 most of our life. but lately i am feeling older than that.
i wonder how others know how old they are and if they experience aging.
why do i feel like i am aging now when i havent been aging before? why do alters age? are there like specific conditions for that? does it come with more responsibilities? cause i have way more responsibilities than before...
i think its not just me. Maya feels a little older as well, but Thamara hasnt changed.
why would some age and others wont?

I have one little thats aging normally like an actual child and one that isnt at all. I had a little that turned into an adult within a month cause they were aging so fast. Me and scar age normally however hes just two years older than me. From my experience it really can very im not sure why some age and some dont but i wont question it.

I suspect each alter has a purpose... and some are simply stuck in a moment therefore don't age - perhaps they don't even want to age]. while others age because they learn or experience stuff....
It was also my understanding that each alter "has a world of their own" .. if this is true, those worlds operate according to different rules and laws and these also include the aging process.

what i said may or may not be true, but it kinda makes sense [to me] and i hope it does to you too.
best wishes to you.

could aging indicate growth?

As the alters interact with the world and each other, they can mature and age. But when they stay isolated inside and not interacting with others very much, they remain frozen in time.

Little Emily is 4 and always will be/has been. None of us really age I don't think.

- Jaxx

Hey Annett,

I wonder about this too. My first instinct is to say that I'm aging with the body, because I'm the main front and believe myself to be our "original". But when I remember that my birthday/my body's birthday is coming up next month, I'm like, "What?? That doesn't add up".

Even weirder for me is that one of us age slides depending on if he's in or out. It really makes me think about how we think about age and what age really means...

Some alters might have more responsibilities than others even if they are younger, but maybe it's connected to how much one feels "responsible" for things? I don't think of myself as responsible even though I'm basically juggling my future right now, and I definitely don't feel a month away from being 18.

I'm not really sure if that theory checks out, though. One of us is an adult but he hasn't had the chance to show what he does or what he's responsible for.

maybe if an alter appeared to deal-with something that was too advanced-aged for someone... a decrease in age could also indicate growth?

like 'i know that your past experiences required you to set aside your youth, but you can have it back now and experience it in a more-comfortable, less restricted manner.

birdsong87 wrote:its kind of weird and i am not sure if i know what i want to ask.
i have been pretty sure that i am 16 most of our life. but lately i am feeling older than that.
i wonder how others know how old they are and if they experience aging.
why do i feel like i am aging now when i havent been aging before? why do alters age? are there like specific conditions for that? does it come with more responsibilities? cause i have way more responsibilities than before...
i think its not just me. Maya feels a little older as well, but Thamara hasnt changed.
why would some age and others wont?

Hi Annette,

Yes we have experienced aging but nothing permanent really..

Asile has aged the most, from 8 to 22. All of the kids age slide 2 years give or take.

Perceived age might have something to do with the hierarchy of action tendencies. This is a concept that I am still grappling to understand. At the most basic level of action tendencies are the automatic reflexes. A little more complex are the reflexes that you can control, like hunger. This hierarchy goes on to define increasing sophistication of mental activities, like understanding concepts of choices and consequences, up to self-reflection and long term planning. The higher the level, the more energy it takes to operate at that level. Children operate at lower mental levels because they are not yet mature. Stress and illness cause us to operate at lower levels. Maybe the perceived age of the alter correlates with the mental level of the alter.