alters controlling pain?

hello, this is my first post, and my only history with forum-making was on neopets, haha. so forgive me for any errors.

I'm fairly new to this whole "fragmented" thing. to figuring out whats "wrong" with me, I mean. only recently did I stop to think and realize, "hey, maybe this experience isn't quite normal?"

communication between me and the others arent very good. almost nonexistent. i unfortunately spent all of my life repressing and hating those parts of me, without knowing how much i was hurting the other parts. so therefore a lot of them don't like me, and i understand that, i understand why. i would be hurt too. and it hurts to see them that way.
I'm trying to get better, to be better, but that's so extremely hard...

but enough about that, for now. that topic could incite a whole new post, rather than hijacking this one.

yesterday was not a good day for me, emotionally or physically. many things happened that were out of my control, and i didn't handle it very well.
i am good at, and i pride myself in my abilities to take care of myself despite everything. yesterday i couldn't even do that, due to these issues. i cannot stress enough how unusual that is for me. if i cant do anything, i know i can always at least care for my physical body. or rather that's how it used to be.
i woke up in the late night, early morning. i have chronic pain, diagnosed. but i was hurting in a strange way yesterday, the tips of my fingers and toes aching and numb. in the night that had spread to my hands.

i laid in bed for a while, until a voice in my head spoke. mid-conversation, not directed at me. it was loud and vivid enough that i could visualize her, and i instinctively reacted, desperate as i am to establish connections with the other sides of me.
someone else appeared, their focus on me. this has only ever happened one or two other times, but i didn't know this newly appeared person, or the other for that matter.

they spoke, and i couldn't understand them. i listened for a while, but everything was jumbled murmuring and gibberish. i tried to visualize their words, but even the words became scrambled.
i tried to stay curious. i got this inherent sense, or feeling, that just came to mind from them.
"I give you pain."
i asked them what their name was. they just meowed. funnily enough, that was the most clear thing id heard from them.

i want to ask how common or usual an experience like this is, and if alters controlling some "pain" function is possible, in this way. i know they cant possibly control all of my pain, but i wouldn't be surprised.
has anyone else had something similar? i would love to hear your stories.

take care

Rather than "giving the pain", some alters can contain the pain. So most of the time you do not feel the pain because they feel the pain for you. They can start connecting with you and share the pain with you if they want to.

Numbness can also be a symptom of e.g. depersonnalization.

It is less common for some alters to voluntarily create a pain out of nowhere. They always have a good reason to do so - even if the logic behind it is kinda weird. The deep reason behind it all is always self preservation and protection once you get to the root of it, but there can be layers and layers of weird logic before you reach this core.

Do not hesitate to have a look at the ressources list (link in my signature) especially the articles about maladapted protectors (persecutors, shadowy personnalities...) and the series of articles about communication, cooperation, and difficult behaviors on the website "Troubles dissociatifs documentation" (the link in the list of ressources is the automatic translation into english so fear not whom enters here without knowledge of french language!)

hello, thank you! ill take a look at the resources list. i had before, and read a couple books, so Im aware that alters are here to help me despite this.

its rather interesting and hard to wrap my head around it, but what you say makes sense. it doesn't help that the alter i met and i had a very obvious communication barrier.
but i will try to keep a positive spin on things. i appreciate the reply ^.^

thank you!

Hey! The previous responder said most of it, but I'll see what I can add.
Some alters have the role or partial role of emotion holding, like trauma holding. It doesn't necessarily have to be pain, for instance Passion's job is to hold general strong emotions, whether they are fear, rage, joy, or anything other. One thing that these can sometimes do is share or absorb the feeling with another alter. This might feel like the alter is making you feel pain. Everything I just said can apply to physichal sensations, memories, or thoughts.
Some alters have the role of persecutor, or protector turned sour. Basically, their job is to keep the whole safe and sometimes this means breaking relationships or causing damage.
Tw for brief suicidal ideation mention in next paragraph
Some alters can be suicidal and cause damage to the body without the consent of the system.

I have heard from multiple systems in my life (now that I'm thinking about it my ten closest friends are members of did systems, huh) that some alters can change pain for the rest of the system or the body.

Hope this helps!
(disclaimer: I do a lot of research on did but I'm not a professional and I don't know everything.)

-Love from Passion (She/They), Logic (couldn't care less), and Dark (She/Her)

When the communication is at zero or close to zero, it can only get better with time

Pain can also be transmuted into something else. When we get tattooed our ex persecutor absorbs 90% of it and converts it to a tickling sensation. With hilarious result, we realy struggled not to giggled throughout our sternum tattoo because on of our fems had to front for it big beafy guys looking at us as if we were some kind of masochist. As soon as we were home and the ex persecutor was able to front we needed to take a pain killer cause that baby burnt.

Also, one thing to be aware of is : what an alter understand or say isn't always what is happening in reality.

Like if one alter is containing pain, then you happen to feel it anyway, it might be reassuring for them to think they are giving you that pain, rather than your brain just connected you to it randomly. It gives an explanation to what's happening, and allows the alter to feel more in control of something that can't really be controlled.

I knew someone with a lot of synesthesia (different senses linked together, it can lead to a lot of pseudo-hallucination phenomenons) and DID, some of their alters deeply believed they were the ones in control of the hallucinations experienced by the host. It was less scary to think they were controlling that, than admitting they didn't know what was going on with their brain. After some time working on communication, and after discovering synesthesia, they realized they weren't.

And myself, I had a persecutory alter who liked to claim some of our flashbacks as his doing, but I discovered that most of the time, it wasn't. We only remember one time when he purposefully trigger another alter. The rest of the time, it was due to the way our brain function. When he was triggered, the rise in anxiety in the body would trigger another alter close to the front, and the persecutory alter never had control over that (but he would never have admitted it).

thank you all so much. everything about it is strange and odd to me, and it makes me question what even is real. but its comforting to hear so many things that make sense, in the twisted way this works.

and I don't know. the more I think about it, and the more Ive been communicating or "feeling" the presence of my alters, the more i get confused on who or what i am. i feel like a conduit for their thoughts, sometimes i am so terribly empty and sometimes i am full of feelings and thoughts i can hardly place as "mine"

its a strange thing. yesterday one of the alters fronted, and i can barely remember that. it felt like i was sleeping like a cat would, with their eyes half-open, wary of danger but resting.
he left a video for me, that said, "this is for you, to tell you that this is real."
and i don't know. part of me knows it has to be true and yet its hard to shake away the denial.

its scary, but its so relieving to see others relate to what I've been going through. progress is slow, and it feels like i take a big step forward and then get nudged back regardless of what i do.

I'm hopeful, but scared. but i can get through this.

Denial is strong when we are dissociated. I stopped being in denial after I completely healed my dissociation. Oh the irony...

hello everyone!! i am back in the forum, the one I posted specifically.
things have slowed down for me a lot. not in a bad way, necessarily. things are more manageable. its probably just the slowness of the beginning of the year but I'm trying to keep positive.

I've been researching a lot in my own time, and I plan on finding a psychiatrist or therapist or something. hopefully a psych because I feel as though 90% of my issues come from me internally. I don't think a therapist would even know where to start with me; hence my last, horrible experience with one...

im quite certain, or at least I hope, that there are 2 other parts of me that function alongside me. its hard. if they arent there, then I don't know whats going on with me. but im fairly certain... fairly. its difficult.
i was really confused for a while, but I think I understand a bit more now.

I've been miserable half the time. i lost my main friend group because of all this, that I cant be the same all the time. i thought they understood that, and maybe they did, they just couldn't handle it.
I understand. i don't blame them, really. but I still miss them.
i keep hearing crying in my head, im not sure if its related to that but when it happens, the thoughts come up...

it used to be that I would hear uncaring, hateful anger. such meanness that is shown to everyone and everything, including myself, feelings that made no sense. i think that's one of the other parts of me. they don't get so angry anymore, after I've been communicating. now its just the sadness that leaks through... i don't know where its coming from.

i felt very safe with my friends. now I feel alone and unsafe. its hard to try and be stronger, to see the positive side of things. but im trying.

i hope everyone else is doing well, also. things can get hard sometimes but I hope and believe that we will get through it, one way or another.