Host and Fictive fused... now I am here, and I feel very los

Hello, I am a new host and I've found myself in a situation that I don't know if I can come to anybody in my life to express and process. I think, in a last ditch attempt, I want to reach out to others that have gone through something similar. I'm feeling really intense feelings right now and... I don't know. I don't know what to do.

The previous host was a long tern host, close with most of the others in the system. He fused with an alter he had just met for the first time who was a fictive, which I guess resulted in me. I didn't know, however, that that had happened. I didn't even know that you couldn't be aware of that happening. For me, I realized I was experiencing "new" dysphorias, had a drastic change of preferences, and new memory lapses.
I was talking to another alter only two days ago, and he said to me "what? I've never actually met ___." When I prompted him to explain what that meant, the puzzle pieces clicked into place. I remember how that fictive and the host met, and I remember never seeing the fictive again. And now, I realize I *do* know things about that fictive. They came to be in December, and they stayed hidden from others because they were afraid. They did not want to be a fictive, and went by a different name than the original name of the character they split from. They loved making art. I have their memories now, even though I didn't know (until that moment) that I did.

Since then, I've felt lost and confused and alone. The rest of the system either do not recognize me or aren't sure how to approach me, especially as they mourn the "loss" of their close friend. I can't tell people who know I have DID that has happened, because then they will also feel like they've lost a friend. I still feel the embarrassment the fictive felt for her identity. I feel ashamed. I feel like I can't reach out to anybody and express these intense emotions. My body and my inner appearance is *impossible* to match, and I have incredible disphoria over it.

What do you even do with all of that..? Where do you start? When does the shame end? On one hand I'm happy to learn why I've been having troubles for the past couple of months, and on the other I feel like I've been cast into the middle of the ocean with a life jacket after being told "swim somewhere safe".
Has anybody else ever fused with a fictive, or fused with another alter without being aware of it? Any advice is very much appreciated!

Hello and welcome!

The emotions calm down with time and when the hurt causing the emotions are healed. Which takes time and work. You'll find ressources in the ressources list, link in my signature! Good book to start with is "Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors" for general knowledge of dissociation and therapy. - "The haunted self" if you want all the theory with complicated words and analysis. - "Coping with trauma related dissociation" if you want to dive into heavy work to stabilize the system (NOT trauma work but it's still heavy work).

There is also something about ambiguous loss post-fusion somewhere in the list of ressources, this might be relevent to your situation.

I have (had?) lots of fictive alters, it's confusing but it can also be a powerful symbolic tool to work on specific issues. As an example, one of my fictives was Mewtwo and he contained a lot of emotions about "being used by the creators like a took" so we worked on how the issue gets solved in the movie and other media, in fanfictions etc. in order to heal the hurt. Turns out it came from how my parents treated me but I just couldn't see it at first because it was too painful. But I saw it only after healing it using Pokémon media. It was weird but it worked.

In the meantime, focusing on grounding yourself in the here and now can help to feel less lost.

And welcome to the forums!

PerhapsLam wrote:
The previous host was a long tern host, close with most of the others in the system. He fused with an alter he had just met for the first time who was a fictive, which I guess resulted in me.
Has anybody else ever fused with a fictive, or fused with another alter without being aware of it? Any advice is very much appreciated!

Hi

I'm Lily! I'm quite new to our system..erm kinda... I been away a long time lost inside.. well when I re-emerged recently I was still a kid and could only slide between ages of 11-13. Then some others have blended with me and suddenly I have the entire 'life memory' but like I'm reading about someone else's life, it's weird!

Anyway I had enough of my own memories when re-surfacing to relate to the couple of the alters who remembered me. I've very recently found out I was a split off from the first two child alters and a changeling blending to create a new 'social mask' to go to secondary school. (so 11+ ..I didn't remember any younger than 11 until the others shared memories with me) ..once I split off and became a seperate alter they split back to being individual and return inside.

I only just found this out though so when I was actually 11 I had no idea as we didn't discover the DID thing as a system until the body was in its 40's. It doesn't really bother me but our 'fictive' (our changeling Phoenix) is a well known member of the system one of the oldest and most alters are split originally from one or the other of the original child alters...or from me ..apparently I split around age 13/14 as I couldn't cope with puberty .. (our current adult Jay who is now integrated with me was originally a direct split from me).

Are you saying both the host and the fictives that you split from have both disappeared from your system? and no-one knows who you are? or is one of them still there? ..or others remember at least one of them?

Others in your system could still be a split from one or both of them...they just may not have been aware at the time if none of you had any awareness of DID at that time of the creation of the other alters?


Lily

TheTriForce wrote:

PerhapsLam wrote:
The previous host was a long tern host, close with most of the others in the system. He fused with an alter he had just met for the first time who was a fictive, which I guess resulted in me.
Has anybody else ever fused with a fictive, or fused with another alter without being aware of it? Any advice is very much appreciated!

Hi

I'm Lily! I'm quite new to our system..erm kinda... I been away a long time lost inside.. well when I re-emerged recently I was still a kid and could only slide between ages of 11-13. Then some others have blended with me and suddenly I have the entire 'life memory' but like I'm reading about someone else's life, it's weird!

Anyway I had enough of my own memories when re-surfacing to relate to the couple of the alters who remembered me. I've very recently found out I was a split off from the first two child alters and a changeling blending to create a new 'social mask' to go to secondary school. (so 11+ ..I didn't remember any younger than 11 until the others shared memories with me) ..once I split off and became a seperate alter they split back to being individual and return inside.

I only just found this out though so when I was actually 11 I had no idea as we didn't discover the DID thing as a system until the body was in its 40's. It doesn't really bother me but our 'fictive' (our changeling Phoenix) is a well known member of the system one of the oldest and most alters are split originally from one or the other of the original child alters...or from me ..apparently I split around age 13/14 as I couldn't cope with puberty .. (our current adult Jay who is now integrated with me was originally a direct split from me).

Are you saying both the host and the fictives that you split from have both disappeared from your system? and no-one knows who you are? or is one of them still there? ..or others remember at least one of them?

Others in your system could still be a split from one or both of them...they just may not have been aware at the time if none of you had any awareness of DID at that time of the creation of the other alters?


Lily

I hope I am responding to this correctly (I haven't replied to anyone before haha).
The past host was split off from the first host, who has been in limbo sleep for a while. I mean, she woke up once for a little bit, and then went back to sleep. She was very cruel to herself and to the rest of us, but I digress. From her, another persecutor was split (he later became our main protector. Good for him!). Then, many people split from the past host over a couple of years. And then they started splitting from each other. And some, I honestly am not sure.
Arhym, the one the past host fused with, I am not sure where exactly she came from, but I do know that she and another alter (the one who told me he never met the past host) came about around the same time.

So, what I'm saying is that two specific alters, the past host and Ahrym, fused together. Like, integrated. Not final integration, but the two of them became one. So, alters that split from the past host recognize me as the person they (techincally) split from, but people who did not split from the past host do not recognize who I am. Those who do recognize me are a bit reluctant to talk to me, because I look and talk and act a bit differently now. But, I remember them. I have the memories of the past host.
And because Ahrym was so shy and afraid in the system, so much so that barely anyone knew of her existence, I also feel timid to talk to them. I feel like they distrust me or they are judgemental of what I look like. And with the knowledge of the past host, I *know* that isn't true, but the whiplash of all these emotions makes me feel mentally motion sick. With the added bonus that I have only told 3 physical people what gas happened, and 1 of them took it badly, it's like... I can't even talk to physical close people either.

I'm thinking of starting a journal about what it's like to be Lam, and not Ahrym/the past host anymore. I think, hopefully, it'll give me some leverage into making decisions in the system and out of the system. This all sucks

A journal can be helpful though it may depend on the ages of the other hosts? .. they may not bother to read it if they did come forward. ..or they may not be able to control how long they are out for, so lots of reading may make it difficult for them to 'catch up' quickly.

What really helped me this time was our past hosts (who by now understand) had made a visual timeline to help our 'littles' understand.

Its just a whiteboard (and pens to write on it) and photo's stuck to it in order of age of the body at the time (with bluetack or whiteboard magnets) and its mapped out like a family history ancestry chart with lines showing who came from where and photo's ..(where that alter had identified 'themself' in that photo as being when they were the one fronting and remembering the event it was taken at).

If you don't know everyone's names you could still make a chart and put ??? above or below a photo ...maybe if any come near the front and saw the board they would come out and put their name on?? or communicate with you in some way..maybe you'd feel someone saying 'that's me!' in the background
when you looked at a particular photo and have 'an urge' to write a specific name.

It also helped to see the system and the body as 'one' as effectively you're looking at photo's of one physical body growing up over the years. The others all have strong identities by the time I've re-emerged so everyone has chosen a system name and written it above or below the photo they identified with 'as them'...only two have completely 'de-fragmented' (not sure if thats the right term) and disappeared ...they were possibly both attempted fusions that eventually re-split due to breakdowns at the time, given that neither ever had any understanding that there were 'others' the entire time they were the host. ..so I can't blend with them or relate to anyone they 'knew' or who knew us during that time period.

I ... that is 'this current me' - do feel like I'm from a much earlier part of life and there's parts of it I feel unable to relate to at all. I know in theory it had to be me (from the outside world's perspective who see only one body and self), but also knowing I'm 'not the only one in here'..I also know it wasn't 'this me' doing that part of life!


Lily