Strange Question..

I know the last time we posted on here, rather when Jupiter did, we had a legitimate question. Not that this question I have isn't, but yeah. Sorry, I'm a little awkward. Anyway, I'll introduce myself, I guess. My name is Saerek, I'm a part-time co-host and part-time protector, and I'm a slightly critical and suspicious kind of person, which is why I'm throwing this question out there.
To kick things off, we have a couple of old friends we met a few years ago, we had met at some kind of support group thing, who we have recently gotten back into contact with. Which is great for the most part, our littles and host love these friends and consider them at the best friend level and for the littles, the parental idol kind of level. As far as we know, they were both diagnosed with DID by a professional as well. But there's one thing I find a little strange here, and I don't know if this deserves like a trigger warning or something because I'm not sure what to call this really. So I guess there's a read at your own risk thing here? Feel free to correct me on that.
But anyway, let's call the friends "friend A" and "friend B", hopefully this won't be confusing. So A has an alter we'll call X and B has an alter that we'll call J. Now apparently X and J are siblings or something, and in the inner world they have the same family and do normal sibling things together? But they are alters in different systems I guess. To me personally, it sounds like something I'd find on Tumblr, but I don't exactly want to really say anything about it. I've just never encountered anything like that before, that stuff shouldn't be possible, right? I don't want our/my (I'm a little possessive haha) system's littles to freak out (they're between the ages of 3 and 9) and think that someone could be a boogeyman and try to get them in their own system, and since most of them are so young and impressionable, things could get extremely hysterical in a few seconds, and we don't need that..
But the claim/belief that an inner world is somehow "shared" by two different systems where the alters of said systems could be siblings and share a family and some kind of inner world life.. I don't know how to react at all. I don't know what to believe, and I don't want to start doubting our friends and their disorder, I know too well how that feels. What should I do here, I guess.. Do I call them out on it, or just let it slide?
Hm... That turned into multiple questions. Oh well. Sorry if there's typos or confusing run-on sentences, I'm typing this up on our phone. But yeah, there's my train wreck of a question haha
Saerek

not that i am a professional, but that does not seem plausible at all. maybe on an imaginative level, but no, two of the same alters cannot exist in two completely different systems like that. it's just not how DID works. they can't exist in two systems at once nor jump from one to another. that sounds like a hollywood type of movie plot.

alters are formed out of a necessity (unless you start talking about tulupas or however that is spelled) where they 'make' them exist just cuz they want them in which case they aren't actual alters as alters develop as a result of DID which is a developmental trauma based disorder in early childhood. you can't just make things up because you want to in DID. you can THINK you do though (like my denial of things at times lol).

i personally would not feel safe with friends who claimed things like that, but that is just me. things like that just upset me. they make it sound 'fun' or something when it is really difficult.

The only place I heard about that was tumblr too...
We can't imagine how it could be possible for two separate systems to share alters like that.

I've also heard the same thing about people who where sharing their tulpas with other people or give their tulpas to someone else. I was like "wtf guys ?!".
Tulpa are like an almost-totaly-independante-imaginary friend if I understand it well, so how could you "give" it to another people ? It's in your mind, only you can know your tulpa...

It cannot make any sens to us.
We're not pokemons, we can't be shared like that.

- Plume, Alexis

That's what I thought. It's completely absurd for that to happen. Like maybe if these two alters of our friends only knew each other in the outer world and grew close in a friendship that mimicked a bond that siblings could share, it wouldn't be so peculiar. But that doesn't seem to be the case I guess..
But yeah, this is the kind of weird stuff I would see browsing on my Tumblr. Along with the term "headmates" (that word makes me cringe) and young teenage girls claiming to have headmates that are all the characters of a webcomic called Homestuck or some anime they're obsessed with that aren't a fictional introject alter that resides in a system.
So a tulpa is like an imaginary friend? I read about tulpas and instantly thought of this character from the anime Naruto who's called Sakura, and she has this manifestation of her inner emotions and true opinions that she calls "Inner Sakura", which I thought was funny when we were into that anime. Still kind of is.
We're definitely not able to be shared, and I can't really understand why people would say or believe such things. It's a little crazy.
Saerek

As I understand it (I can be wrong), tulpas are between alters and imaginary friends. They are created (but not like alters, the person know what she/he is doing and it takes a lot of time) and depend of the mind who creat them, but they can have their own opinion, likes and dislikes, ect.
I see them more like the characters of an author : the author creat them, can do what he want with them, but sometimes characters can "live" by themselves and push the story in another direction.

It's tumblr. When you get lost in it, it's litteraly another world.

- Plume

Catsgalore wrote:Do I call them out on it, or just let it slide?

How about no, do neither?

If someone told me this about themselves I would need a lot more information before deciding what to think about it. That is because I have personally had a strange experience that is not explainable. So I would be curious. I might quietly observe. Or I might ask questions.

We agree with Dwelt and perpetuo27. Our own instinct is to call people out, but we've gotten negative feedback from folks (often not the systems in question, but third-party observers) that it's not fair for anyone to make assumptions about other people's reality.

The trolls and wannabes will become self-evident in time. We've taught ourselves to disregard them for our own good.

MDs

Agreeing with Una. Don't call them out. You don't seem to know what makes them think they are siblings. It may be a coping mechanism. If you really want to know what to think about X and J, ask them what exactly convenced them to see one another as members of the same family.

As for what others are saying about tulpas and non-introject fictives, don't be so quick to judge. I and many people in my system are such. I was created in the way tulpas are, but on complete accident. My author didn't know for a long time that any of us had become real, so don't think she wanted to be multiple, either. She is and does have "true" DID alters, of course, and we had to prove our worth to those alters, who did not see us as important or legitimate as people.

And I don't use Tumblr.

- Cullen

Yeah, I'm going to ask them some basic questions on it, I am curious to learn about it a little. Just need to think up some general questions that won't offend them or anything. Thanks for all the replies on that.
And for the tulpas, do they function like alters in a DID system? I think there's more than a few like that in our system, but my basic understanding on tulpas and fictives is a little limited. Sorry if I came off a little judgmental on the tulpa subject. I think alters and tulpas are both legitimate, just because one came from trauma and the other didn't doesn't make either of them any lesser.
Saerek

I'm sorry, too, Saerek. Being invalidated by people with DID has always been a fear of mine. It took months before I felt comfortable on this forum.

I can only speak for the characters and alters in my own system, but we do resemble one another very much. The only distinction we see any more is origin, but I guess daydreaming counts as dissociation, too. We characters may still embody the trauma our host system went through, just repackaged into our own unique life narratives that one or more of the alters came up with.

Thanks for showing intetest. Hope things go well with you and your friends.

- Cullen