Alter help please- Trigger warning

Trigger warning- big trigger warning

My inner world is very developed. I have been working in the basement of the house to make things safer and to bring the littles out of their cells. They haven't been brought out of the basement yet, but are becoming more comfortable in leaving their doors open and communicating and playing with each other.

I'm having an issue with one and need some advice.

Trigger warning... This little's room is empty with the exception of a rope. She hung herself from it. She appears to be about 7 or 8. I talk to her but get no response. She appears to be dead. That is until you touch her.

I've tried to cut her down. As soon as you touch her or the rope, she bursts into flames. I know the flames aren't real and can't hurt me logically, but as soon as I touch her and the flames come I jump back. A minute or two later the flames go away and she just dangles there.

I've asked Arabella for help since she is almost always on fire. Arabella won't even enter her room. None of the others know her and none of the littles will go in her room.

Azel's only bit of advice is "patience" and to keep coming around to talk to her. It's been weeks. She is unresponsive.

Her eyes are black as night and it seems her body is part way decomposed. She doesn't move when she bursts into flames..... End trigger

I'm really at a loss at what to do. I know most people that post here don't have a very developed inner world, but perhaps there is someone here that can offer some advice.

I just want to help her. When we move the littles out of the basement, I don't want to have to leave her behind.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I wouldn't want to leave her behind either. She sounds nice, but in a state of despair.

Although you say at one point she is unresponsive, I would take the flames on the rope as a response and an opening for communication. I understand how logically the flames can't hurt you, but one has this natural instinct to jump back, I do that too when it comes to some situations inside, then I'm like, face palm.

I know with some inside that are young we have to modify communication in accordance to their age/abilities. Perhaps with her, is there a way to work a yes/no response but with the flames? Or have a candle, one for yes, another for no, and see if she is willing to communicate more with fire? IDK. But it sucks to see the little ones in such pain.

***** maybe a trigger *****

I'm a alter who got myself killed inside us when I was nine by another guy here. It wasn't real i know that now. but it felt real then. I was around thinking I was dead but still I heard the rest of the guys talking and it sounded like I maybe just thought I was dead. Fact is, alters can't die for real. It feels like it though and you sure believe it. I guess I'd treat her like she wasn't dead even if she don't get it. Maybe get a extinguisher ready before the flames? So I heard them talking inside about me not being dead. That's what made me believe it. Poor little kid. I bet she's hurting a lot because of all that. My 2 cents anyway.

Borg wrote:Although you say at one point she is unresponsive, I would take the flames on the rope as a response and an opening for communication. I understand how logically the flames can't hurt you, but one has this natural instinct to jump back, I do that too when it comes to some situations inside, then I'm like, face palm.

I know with some inside that are young we have to modify communication in accordance to their age/abilities. Perhaps with her, is there a way to work a yes/no response but with the flames? Or have a candle, one for yes, another for no, and see if she is willing to communicate more with fire? IDK. But it sucks to see the little ones in such pain.

It's weird because I talk to her as if she is alive and then touch her dangling foot and there are flames everywhere. Jill came in when I was in there, cried like she was dead and touched her- no flames. So Jill treats her as if she is dead and nothing happens. I treat her like she is alive and can hear me and it results in flames. I swore she looked at me the other day though. Hard to tell since her eyes are all black, but I could have sworn there was eye movement.

I'm a alter who got myself killed inside us when I was nine by another guy here. It wasn't real i know that now. but it felt real then. I was around thinking I was dead but still I heard the rest of the guys talking and it sounded like I maybe just thought I was dead. Fact is, alters can't die for real. It feels like it though and you sure believe it. I guess I'd treat her like she wasn't dead even if she don't get it. Maybe get a extinguisher ready before the flames? So I heard them talking inside about me not being dead. That's what made me believe it. Poor little kid. I bet she's hurting a lot because of all that. My 2 cents anyway.

Thank you. I've never dealt with "dead" others before so your insight is certainly helpful. She believes she's dead. Maybe I just need to convince her otherwise.

There is some hint that she has a sister or brother. I can't figure out who it would be, but they are from the same split. She fought and was killed or killed herself. The other didn't fight and was used. I'm thinking if I can find her other half, I could get her to heal enough to want to get down. It's worth a shot, but no one knows anything about her except for the one the littles call "Crone". Crone's information on this other is limited. She was hung from the rope soon after she was created. Nothing more.

Thanks for your help JJ and Borg. I'll give it some thought and see what I can come up with.

Tylas here is a smart lady and she recommends using magic a lot for your people inside. We can't because it don't work for us, it's like a trigger or something. But maybe a formal ritual. You said you had a inner world you spent a lot a work on. There's a book John read called A Man's Recovery from Traumatic Childhood Abuse: The Insiders. He had people that kept getting burned and he had to deal with that. They was more ego states than alters he just told me, but they all had names. He like put balm and stuff on their wounds. The author has a phd so he's pretty smart too.

Has magic worked before? This might be a good opportunity to see what rules govern your inner world. If "magic" works, that'd be great, no?

I have one with black eyes as well, it's so hard to see where she is looking. She doesn't talk either, but she'll make sad faces, and scream like a banshee, sorta wailing, depends on if she's mad or sad. Um, but in my system, no response is a response. It's weird but works.

Using "magic" to bring her back is tempting but Doc is against it. Doc told me she needs to know that she was never dead, just tricked. If we use "magic" to bring her back, it will reinforce the thought that she has been dead all along.

We do use other types of inner world "magic" though. We put glass bubbles around others that are dangerous so they can't hurt anyone. Things like that work and just make them feel safer.

For now, I'm going to work to convince her she never died. If she's not ready by the time we move everyone I'll try "magic".

Thanks!

I doubt she is dead. It sounds like she is programmed to me. There is lots of stuff in our system like this. We find it helpful to sometimes think around it logically. So this is an idea I thought of for you:

Take a bucket of water into the room with you. If this isn't enough water to stop the flames, take a fire hose that is connected to an unending water source that you have under the house (like bore water). Take a steel box for her to stand on and ask her to reach up and undo the knot, she may know how it is tied. If she doesn't know how to undo the knot, give her a knife so that she can cut the rope herself. This is obviously assuming she is alive but I think she is.

Anyway, give it a shot and let me know how it goes, especially with the water bit. I'm sure this is solvable. It's just going to take trying some things a bit different to work out what this situation requires to get her freed.

I just have a thought for you too. If she appears to be dead when you look at her, maybe try turning away from her or shutting your eyes when you try to communicate with her so that you are not looking at her. She may be programmed to look dead when you are looking at her but she might be able to act alive if you are not looking at her. I doubt she would have chosen for herself to be dead and on fire, I think someone else (outside the body) might have chosen that for her. I think you just need to find a flaw in their logic, what they didn't think of and you will be able to get her down.

I got her down!

I went up to her, held out my hand, and said "if you are dead, your spirit can leave your body and no one can hurt you anymore. Step out of your body and take my hand. I have something to show you." She did. I showed her that our body was still alive and showed her Seed, our core.

She thought they were both dead and so she was dead. After a catch up on basic things, I took her back to her room and she "climbed back in her body." When she was back in, she started gasping because she couldn't breathe. I put a chair under her feet and told her to untie the noose. She did.

Since then she has been resting and interacting with some of the other basement littles. Much to my surprise, just after she had climbed down from the chair, Six, another little, came into the room. She said she knew her and was so happy she was back. They have been inseparable since.

She has shared with me some memories. Turns out she was not hung there by her own hand. "The White Rabbit" put her there after he killed our body. It is SRA related and is the same ritual my father tried to reenact a few years later. Things are making sense.

She is a protector. The one she protected was put into the Kitty group.

So things are going well. It is all hard to take, but it is progress, though scary progress.

Thank you all for your suggestions. I'm glad I was able to prove to her she wasn't dead.