How old where you when you alters came out

As a mom of a DID 12 yr old I am asking for those of you remember how old where you when your alters came forward? We have one consistent crystallized alter that is a slider age 2-7. In the past a very short showing of two others, that both my son and the little one insist there are no others and they are no longer there........

One, which at one point called himself satin, and one that was real serious. The Satin one came out during a time of great anger. He does go into rages still and last week he made a comment during such. "You think I am him" I looked at him and calmly asked him to clarify, he said never mind. HMMM hiding himself? very interesting I thought. But overall he is doing better with shorter anger out of control behaviors as we have been working very hard on whole brain power and not allow himself to focus on just the rage but allow other emotions and thoughts to come through.

I have assigned the little one the job of keeping my son safe, he says he understands and knows he is to come forward if Austin gets out of control. The emotions cross transfer between them but the little one is a lot easier to calm down than the big one. He also comes out on a regular bases not just in times that I have assigned him too.

I am wondering, reading, researching as we all do about sleeping alters and layers. I have read that many times with littles that there is a happy, loving, little but many times that is over layering littles that hold deep pain and the happy littles are created to help the littles who hold the pain. Has any one seen this to be true as I am thinking there are littles or other alters in there that are not ready to come out or are sleeping.....

The happy little has told me the day he was created, when my son was 7, the day he was sent to the principals office after Austin pulled the fire alarm and they evacuated the entire school, fire trucks the entire thing. His teacher suspected it to be him, but he was not honest. We told my son if he gets called to the principals office that he needs to tell the truth. The principal called and said how taken back he was that my son sat there and said. Yes it was me I pulled the fire alarm. He said he never seen a kid be so honest. Makes sense now, he was dissociating, he said Austin lied to his teacher and was so scared to go to the principals office. The day he was created but did not come out until middle school when Austin was being bullied so bad and could not take it. That is when he officially made his appearance to help Austin.

Hmmm am I to expect then that there are others just biding there time waiting, or maybe still being 12 the "states" are not as set as in adults minds. I clearly see different states, but we always have. Little Austie however has been true to holding his place as separateness.

Can anyone remember back when you were a child and how your alters came out and did many sit in waiting until you were older to "officially" announce themselves?

Your son is fortunate to have a psychologically aware, attuned, and increasingly educated mother.

I wish my insiders had announced themselves. Evidence points to some of mine forming very early and being active in early childhood. My own first inkling of having others inside was when I experienced 2 of them taking over during an emergency when I was a teen. At the time I thought they formed in the moment but on reflection I realized they seemed right at home inside me. Isn't that bizarre?

In my 40's they were all activated during another emergency. There were never any introductions as such, no "Hi. I'm so-and-so." None of my insiders were that self aware. All our attention was directed outward. After the emergency at first there was just a lot of screaming and some other phenomena. Only after I got into therapy and learned I could talk to them and they could hear me, did we begin communicating with each other and with other helping people.

hi, first of all props on doing what you can to understand your childs illness. so for me its a bit tricky. My name is Lauren and I am the host personality. My first personality came into existence when I was 3, then another when I was 6. I do not remember ages 6 to 8 because the 6 year old was in control.

now as far as me, lauren the host I didn't really realize I had these altars until my early 20's. I just knew I would lose time or disassociate or just have flashes of abuse.... it took me discovering the "littles community" to realize whom I had within me. I am in therapy now and we are working to create a "window" so that the altar, lizzy, who holds all the abusive memories can share them with me and I can deal with the trauma. not sure if this helped but feel free to private message me if needed.

Una thanks for your response.........It seems that fact that when the crisis hits is when the pure form, if you will comes forward. With anyone, during high stress, is when our coping skills fail, and the past trauma rears it's head. So it would make sense that during an high stress period, emergency so forth that the DID hits an acute phase. As with my son, the bullying hit a high peak and he could not take any more. Hence the little guy coming forward and the other two that we have seen. Also the conversion disorder.

When the alters started to show themselves he also started to go into severe seizures where we would have to sternum rub him to get him to breath. He ended up in ICU for three days while they were trying to figure out what was going on. The entire time switching back and forth.

Thank God my husband had past training in hypnosis and was able to induct him and switch him back. This is when we did not really understand what was going on. He also scripted the seizures out when he would switch back, along with severe headaches. In less than a month my son learned on his own to switch himself back and forth and break down the amnesia barrier. Once he figured it out, he thought it was cool as hell and played around with it, understanding how much power his mind has.

He also learned what he could pass through to other alters, such as abilities, and what he could take away. To "control" the little guy and act like a fool, such as swearing. The little one would say that my son was telling him to say bad words. Then he would switch back to big Austin and be laughing, almost like his own little puppet. But the little one is a snitch, he tells on the big one all the time so now the big one withholds some info from the little one so he will not snitch on him. GGRR big/little brother in one body mind.......

So from what you have said gives me a better idea of long term treatment/success.......It seems as with anything any one deals with it rears itself the hardest during crisis. So key is now to keep his states together as much as we can and handle stress/crisis as we have many years still for his brain to develop.

Sorry also I was not so much saying announcing themselves but finally coming forward to the surface and allowing themselves to be seen. But would it not be wonderful if there was an official introduction for all.........

-- Thu Jun 22, 2017 10:06 pm --

GiveMeAMotive wrote:h I am in therapy now and we are working to create a "window" so that the altar, lizzy, who holds all the abusive memories can share them with me and I can deal with the trauma. not sure if this helped but feel free to private message me if needed.

Thanks, this is what I am thinking, there is a part that holds memories that is still just hanging out that we do not know of and not coming forward. Being my son I have the advantage of knowing his history, as much as any parent does, of course there are always things that happen at friends house, relatives homes so forth that you do not know.

hello
I was 5 when my first internal being(alter) decided to take control over things it was one of my male internal beings(alters) he's still around though we try to keep him from taking control these days. He used to be really nice and look out for me but when my mum got really sick he started to be very cruel and evil. Now he along with some of the other mean internal beings(alters) delete my stories and poems and journal. He also causes harm when he's in control when he used to take care of things and protect me from harm. I don't understand how he turned to evil and cruel I just don't understand it he was the first to come and I figured he would always be there for me.
GrayWolf

I was approx 6 when they began announcing themselves in limited circumstances.

Just chiming in here...
I didn't start finding my parts until age 44/45 (just over a year ago...) and I don't understand the whole "layers" thing yet, but recently my Internal Self-Helper indicated "7 layers" to me...
So ~ this has me wondering if the "layers" are related to how "intense" the dissociation is (or something like that)... like, my dissociation was/is really severe, and it turns out I already had 5 alters before the CSA (child sexual assault) happened at age 4 (by an uncle)... there is very deep, intense shame at my core, and there were three "Hidden Self-Destroyers" that came out to commit suicide if I (or anyone) ever found out about what he had done to me.
I've just recently been trying to (gently) discover 'what in the world' my parts contain from before the CSA, and it turns out they carry deep shame and abandonment issues. This is odd because my parents "seem like" the perfect happy loving couple, admired in the family and in the community.
I've found the "catch phrase" for 3 of them; one is "I don't even matter," another is "I'd rather die than live like this," and another one holds feelings for being told "Don't be ugly; straighten up, act right, and "be a big girl" (one of my alters ended up with the name "Big Girl" but she was thrilled when I offered her to choose her own name ~ she chose "Claire!").
Anyway ~ the mystery was solved when I learned/figured out that my System Manager is a "Narcissistic-Mother-Introject" ...this came just after I learned the term for what my mother is doing to me is called "gaslighting," and also "crazy-making" behavior, scapegoating, and proxy recruitment... this is how I learned that my real mother actually does have pretty much EVERY symptom of Narcissism. Who knew something seemingly so "benign" could cause me to be so dissociated even before the physical trauma began?
Anyway, the reason I tell you ALL of this, is because I have also compared my very, very "covert" DID to others who have very "Overt" presentation, like Tomi Jamison on youtube. Her alters come right out, switch at will... mine stay inside, stay silent, and only 2 have EVER fronted, and they both pretend to be me when they are out, so NOBODY ever knew, my whole life! So then I compare the difference in our two trauma's; her twin was killed in some kind of random shooting accident, so it was a horrendous trauma, but nobody ever threatened her life, or verbally threatened her to keep silent, or that she would be killed, etc... whereas I received death threats from 3 different people (the abuser, my older cousin, and my aunt who caught him in the act) who all told me I was never to tell ANYBODY this happened (hence, the 3 Self-Destroyers). Furthermore, the next morning my mother saw the obvious "signs" of what he had done to me, questioned my aunt about it (who lied of course) and then told me to stop crying, act right... and be a "big girl" ...so that's another "layer" somehow, according to my ISH.
My point in ALL of this is: it seems to me that people who get diagnosed in childhood, like somehow their dissociation may not be as "deep" or perverse in some way. It seems like, the sooner/younger the alter's start "showing themselves," the more flexibility/less rigidity there is within the system... or something like that. Which is really good news for you and your son!
Maybe I'm not choosing the perfect words to explain it, but it's something that's been on my mind for awhile, and you post brought it up in my mind again.

crackerjack wrote:Just chiming in here...
I didn't start finding my parts until age 44/45 (just over a year ago...) and I don't understand the whole "layers" thing yet, but recently my Internal Self-Helper indicated "7 layers" to me...
So ~ this has me wondering if the "layers" are related to how "intense" the dissociation is (or something like that)... .

It seems like, the sooner/younger the alter's start "showing themselves," the more flexibility/less rigidity there is within the system... or something like that. Which is really good news for you and your son!
Maybe I'm not choosing the perfect words to explain it, but it's something that's been on my mind for awhile, and you post brought it up in my mind again.

From what I understand with layers is that each layer holds part of the memory and the memory is than broken up. Each layer has to be worked through in order to understand the complete story. Sometimes layers are missed in therapy only to arise up later causing further disruption.

I am thinking the same as you about alters showing themselves earlier, One dr said, who only treats adults, my son is showing adults type behaviors, not typical of a child his age. At first I took it as we have a larger than normal if you will with the DID situation. Such as bipolar and so forth younger they are DX the more severe it is. However with DID I am starting to think that with his brain still growing, and not set as adults are, we have a stronger ability to set positive coping skills, bring his brain back together as more wholeness. It has been explained that when babies are born their brain is in different states, that is why we see babies and little ones jump back and forth so fast in their emotions. As they grow the brain states start to come together and their is fluid emotional changes among states. However with DID they states stay separated and do not come together. So the brain it self really never splits it simply does not fuse together. DID is a very young field and there are many theories, approaches and so forth. I can only go by what I see and witnessed from my son since birth and what I read to try to put the pieces together. And everyone is different I think that is why it is so hard to pinpoint things. I can look back since birth and realize that his states never fused. Studies have also shown that traumatic pregnancies the trauma can be passed on to the infant as well as 80% of children with mental health issues have some sort of traumatic birth. He had both, he almost died at birth and I really think between that, the pregnancy, and we found genetic issues that lowered his natural dopamine and serotonin levels set up a perfect storm. side note we found a genetic error in his MTHFR gene which has been linked to mental health issues.....

To what I can remember, my alter, Ithe, first came out when we were about 9, which is fairly late, but I can't remember much from any point before that due to my trauma (repressed memories, basically).

fmkeylock wrote:The little one would say that my son was telling him to say bad words. Then he would switch back to big Austin and be laughing, almost like his own little puppet.

Heh. Not almost like, exactly like. Now that he is adapting well to his own situation your son would probably deeply understand and appreciate the film Being John Malkovitch.

DID is a defense. It can be highly functional or dysfunctional, or somewhere in between. Coaching helps tremendously. Under high stress all people have "fallback" coping skills of some kind, and some of these skills are more functional than others. Alters popping out to execute these skills is not necessarily a bad thing and in certain circumstances can be a good thing. It's just that someone with DID has a peculiar internal collection of functional specialists, typically very compartmentalized and isolated from each other. I know I use this compartmentalization in my work and life to remain very calm and high functioning in high-stress situations. I experience it as a "flow" state: I am not aware of thinking and making hard decisions, I just do. Now I understand the thinking and decision-making was going on in another compartment outside my conscious awareness and I am working on participating more fully in that process. Two minds better than one, or rather whole mind better than part.

People in crisis sometimes describe being sustained by God. I experience being sustained by hidden parts of myself.

The DID research community doesn't have a concept of DID waxing and waning, no concept of acute DID like there is acute stress disorder; instead, there is florid DID vs covert DID or latent DID. The DID system is always there, always ready and able to react to triggers, even when it cannot be seen from the outside.

fmkeylock wrote:So from what you have said gives me a better idea of long term treatment/success.......It seems as with anything any one deals with it rears itself the hardest during crisis. So key is now to keep his states together as much as we can and handle stress/crisis as we have many years still for his brain to develop.

Some older readers may experience a moment of despair, reading this. Is it too late for them? Is their prognosis poor? Are their brains all done developing? No! Even those of us diagnosed in our 50's, 60's, 70's can be helped by therapy and improve our functioning. Prognosis: excellent. And treatment does not always involve unpacking and working through trauma. It is for each of us to develop our own treatment plan, to meet our own needs.

fmkeylock wrote:But would it not be wonderful if there was an official introduction for all.........

Yes, sure, and some systems have that. A ritual helps. Have you invited them to introduce themselves? Or made a system picture board? Say, on the fridge, like a school staff photo board?