Alter in love was a mystery to me

Really sorry to hear the stress is building to possible hospitalization or something close. On the other hand, significant and positive shifts sometimes result from crises. Will you look at EMDR or hypnotism or do you think more intensive psychotherapy could push through the wall? Are you and/or others ready for any bad news that may be linked to her? I have to keep asking myself that question and I wish the answer were always yes, but the truth for me is both yes and no. It's daunting to move from a cherished if not rock solid stability to something that may well be instability that would last for an unknown period of time. For myself, my fear is that my job would be at stake. We're thinking of you.

agree - sorry to hear you're having a hard time. On the other hand, a hospital stay could be good, if it gives you an opportunity to take time for yourself without having to think of any responsibilities.

Hoper you're better soon.

Sometimes a change of therapy input kick starts us up again after things have stalled. I hope you can break through that amnesic barrier as you want to. Good luck Una.

There isn't any sort of DID crisis going on here, just life stress. I am coping well and I don't need a respite. That's not what a hospital stay would be for. It would be for doing intensive technical work that I cannot do with the resources available to me locally.

I really, really want to reach Alter 4, and help her. She could be holding key information in addition to trauma. It sure feels that way. I know she was around in 1984, but she could have been around for many years before that. I know a little about some of her experiences from 1984 and after, and all of those experiences would have been aversive for me. I suspect they were for her as well. Despite two years of therapy, I have not managed to break through the wall to reach her on a cognitive level.

I have not posted much recently about Alter 5, the one in love with someone I (we) hardly know. There is not much to report. She has been very quiet for a few months now, ever since February when she cried and said she was sorry (what about exactly I still don't know). For more than a year now, most mornings as I wake up I hear her say "I love him" and usually this comes with a flood of emotion: longing. Well, this morning there was the usual "I love him" but no flooding. I felt so incredibly light and free and peaceful.

Checking in with Alter 5 now, I can feel her longing. She still longs for him but she (we? I?) seem to have made some advance in our communication such that now we can relate verbally without all the attendant emotions. I hope this continues.

My current therapist was not covered by my insurance, but my insurance has coverage for out-of-network providers. I pay out of pocket and file a claim, then the insurance company sends me a reimbursement. After a few months of this would you believe the insurance company called my therapist to sign her up as a provider? They have some nice perks for her. I think she is thrilled!

I feel like I am on the insurance company's A-list. They never hassle me about anything. Whatever services I want, whatever provider I see or have any member of my family see, the insurance company just pays the bills, no questions asked.

Wow - that must be a relief. I'd imagine being reimbursed all the time was a bit of a slow way of doing it. Great news, for both you and your T!

For weeks now, each morning as I wake up and begin thinking over my plans for the day, I hear a small voice in my head say "I love you". No emotional flooding, just the voice. It interrupts my thoughts. I think the voice is Alter 5 and I suspect she is experiencing my thoughts as rather noisy. On the whole I am glad that she is not saying "I love him" but I also feel a little sad...

Now that I think about it, if Alter 5 has become able to experience my thoughts, then she and I have made a huge step forward toward fusion.

I was right, Alter 5 and I were approaching fusion. We seem to have achieved it.

In recent therapy sessions T and I talked about how Alter 5 has been moving closer to me, her "I love you"s and "I'm so sorry", and what might follow if/when we fuse. Would I be overwhelmed with and no longer able to contain the longing for Alter 5's love object, her other man? Would we act out her longing, her anger, her grief? Or would we just forget about him and move on?

One night last week I was unable to sleep and Alter 5 and I had a very long and emotional pillow talk. Then we hugged and I experienced a sense of deep peace and comfort and fell asleep. Now in hindsight it seems that is when we fused; things are different now.

It really does seem, even now >3 years after I first met the man and >1.5 years after she was first able to share her story with me, that she is a new introject, a product of projective identification from him into me the moment we met in 2010. That night last week she was crying about not being able to "return" to him, about how he still does not know she exists, and how if he knew he probably would be frightened and want nothing to do with her. Not accept her. Not love her for herself. And even if he did know and want her, I found no evidence in the psychology literature that projective identification can ever be reversed. It seems an introject is only ever a copy, an image, of some part of the projecting person's psyche. (Among some religious groups, however, there is a belief in spirit attachments, and that in some cases the spirits can be made to return to where they come from or at least "go away". I have avoided this approach because on the whole it seems quite hostile, even destructive to the "spirit", and often does not succeed.)

Alter 5's man might not embrace her, yet even now I believe he does love the collective me. He certainly has not said so, and yet the part of me who was formerly Alter 1, the empathic part, is quite sure of this. He loves me and thinks he "should not" love me, and so he is in a painful bind.

All the same, for days now I have been feeling an almost constant low grade longing and grief. It is not overwhelming, but it is always there. It does not come and go as it did before, when it was all Alter 5's emotion and my contact with her fluctuated. There is also a curious feeling of consolation and even hope, as if now that part of me who was Alter 5 is able to experience for herself my gut feeling that on some level her other man is aware of her and does love her.

I am feeling very mixed up and crying a lot. This too shall pass. Integration including fusion is a long process, not an instant in time. There is a lot of reflecting and processing and other work still to be done.

Wow. I'm happy to read you have reached some peace with Alter 5, and it makes sense the way you write about this man. Scarlet is still pining for her ex lover but he does not love or respect Scarlet. However, I do know he has love and respect for us on a much deeper level that matters far more than the relationship that he and Scarlet had.
This sounds like good progress and gives us hope too.