Meet Numbbody - *trigger warning* Disturbing imagery

Numbbody came to us Tuesday night. He 'ate' the emotion of the other alters. He admitted he got a little out of control...fed too much...and made them go into a cob-weby suspended animation including my son and Alex (the first/most powerful alter who knows the system and who's going to come, etc)

He came after my husband had left and before I came home. I unexpectedly had to work for someone and so was about 30 minutes later and they were alone..my son and my two younger children. He was not 'obvious' to my other children while they were alone together.

he was more obvious to me. I suspected and confirmed this new alter within 5-10 minutes. he really pulled off mimicking my son fairly well. He says he's like a doppelganger - same age as my son, knows things (even my son's 'secret word' to let me know it's really him since sometimes others have tried to come out and pretend they are him)

He finally 'vomited' their emotions back up in a rainbow of color inside....and people came to. Each one was a little upset - the littles, esp, were scared after the fact...but not while it happened. They said they just didn't care.

He is numbness. Apathy. He takes their emotions and this is how he has solid form inside. After he expelled their feelings, he was heavy, hollow, numb....and had turned into a vapor. he cannot 'be' without taking from others. I told him it was not ok to take things from others without their permission or against their will..even if they can 'recover' from it or he thinks it won't hurt them.

I told him I believe he can develop his own emotions to sustain himself, but he says all he can put out there is 'grey' and he needs emotions/color. I want to work with him on pulling energy from the universe, or the heavens, or the earth...to get rooted and all....but not sure. I try to use imagery because all of the alters and the inside world is full of these images and metaphors and it makes sense....

but otherwise...anyone have an emotion-eater in their system?
How do you help them find a way to self-sustain?
Oh..the other thought was that his losing control. Isn't that true? You go to turn' off' one emotion and find it hard to keep any?

And...finally, what the heck? There has been so much positive stuff going on....and more 'stability' or predictability...Is it ever going to be safe to leave my other kids with their older brother? What if he had been violent?! It has really rocked our world. My other kids are kind of scared now. And I don't want to stop letting them be alone together while I take 20 mins to run and get milk from a store - that will just make his whole system feel untrustworthy...but I dunno...sketchy....

What if he had been violent?

Did he seem violent? Why does he scare you, and is it him or your own reaction that makes the other children scared now?
He doesn't sound particularly destructive to me, I might be wrong of course. It seems that he has been there for a long time, and he chose to surface now and tell that he needs the others. If he needs the others and their emotions, why are you telling him he should develop his own emotions?

All I'm saying is please don't judge this part only because he is different from the others in the way he connects with the rest of the system. He's seeking contact, I think it's a positive thing.

And yes, I have one part (I don't have DID but I do have parts) who is completely emotionless. He is more like a place, or a container than a person. I consider him a protector.

Anyway good luck to you in getting to know this new part of your son's.

Hello.

I will try to answer this as I am the closest to this "emotion eater" you describe. I do not forcefully take anyones emotions, but when their emotions or memories are too hard to bear - I end up with them instead. This may seem unfair for the outsider, but it is not. It creates a balance that makes the others able to function. I assume Numbbody does the same - he allows the others to go on when their emotions get too in the way or too distressing. I would not ask him to not do this. You have known him for bare minutes it seems from your text and you are already asking him to change. My best suggestion is meet him with thankfulness for taking an emotional brunt you may not even realize (odds are he has done this many, many years and through harder times as well) and instead of asking him to change, tell him you see that this has lots of qualities to it and that, while you might not understand, he has an important role in the system. When in the future they are working with a therapist, I would say working towards getting ones own emotions can be a focus, but I doubt it's a conscious choice of not having his own, and as such it will take work. For instance, I never know how I am doing (e.g when people ask How are you?) because it's difficult for me to sort out my own from the others. I can do it sometimes and with specific things, but otherwise I cannot. This will take a long time for me to achieve and I doubt I will ever completely separate from the others emotions as such because it was my job to hold what could no longer be held and I now hold memories of the other's that they no longer hold.

I hope this didn't seem too preachy or anything of the sort. I am not good at talking nor am I the most helpful in these situations. I just thought I would give a different perspective. My apologies if they were unwanted or written in an improper way.

Eliesa

Just a story from the other host

Okay when one of my alters grace used to be very suicidial and she was hitting her worst point.
We had an alter named Tabetha she was an empath internally and externally she used to nearly faint in crowds because she was rushed with peoples emotions...

But she noticed grace at her worst and internally it was alot worse for them both she could feel grace 24/7
so claureshia set up Tabetha to counsel her.. it was a horrid experience for the 2 because grace was pestered by her understanding of everything she felt over anything.

eventually something big happened grace had her final breakdown.
but Tabetha took all those negative emotions away from grace and she ended up getting some clarity.
unfortunely the load was such a burden it destroyed her empathic ability.
we all thought she had died it turns out she was in recovery and reappeared.

Tabetha by all technicalitys was just helping grace deal with heavy emotions and burdens.

We have something similar to an emotional eater. We've always called her an emotional blackout. A lot of people were very, very scared of her when they first met her. A lot of people ultimately end up disliking her. Having her not block everyone else out has been a huge, huge challenge with the T. She comes out and no one remembers anything. I don't know offhand if she realized what that was like for everyone else inside (we were able to give her some good examples when I got in trouble at work for not remembering certain things I'd agreed to). This was and still is something that we work with intensively with our T. It's not something that S3 does on purpose. Is it something that Numbbody does on purpose, or does it just happen because of his purpose?

Usually those that are able to mimic the host and are privy to host-only information are those who are not a threat to the body or other people (so alters who are only violent for protection but are otherwise ok, alters who are apathetic, alters who are not "seriously risky" if that makes sense).

Unless there has been a risk of a violent alter coming out with NO ONE inside or out being able to attempt any help or supervision of the situation, I wouldn't worry too much about it happening. Usually if a "risky" alter is going to come out and the system is unsure of how well it'll go with people around, such alters will surface when your son is alone, but such alters are also usually of no risk to the body, just to other people around them. Remember, a DID system responds to needs, and this includes the need for personal safety and the safety of those alters, including your son, cares about. This doesn't mean that things are perfect and that responses are successful every time, but it means that those trying to override the protection responses will have to fight to do it, and most of the times they probably won't succeed.

L.C. and Luna are emotion eaters when they're needed to be, but that's all. We've worked on controlling their apathy so that it stays with them, and that it can be turned "off" or "on" depending on what they want, need, etc. Feelings are often affected, as we learned, by the choice to care. If you don't care about anything around you or anything that you might feel, then of course there will be no emotions. If you allow yourself or at first even force yourself to care about things around you, then you can find yourself starting to care on your own, and that care will lead you into caring about how those things affect you which includes emotional responses they give you. Before you know it, you can find yourself caught up in feeling emotions. However, if you choose to not care about what you're feeling or what's causing your feelings, then you'll turn "off" your emotions and become apathetic, because if you don't care about your feelings or what's causing them, then it's easy to decide to not focus on them and thus not feel them anymore.

This is what L.C. wrote about it:
"For my sister Luna and I, it's like we have a light switch for emotions. We learned early on that caring is a choice. Feeling can be a choice because unless you care about what you're feeling, you can learn to ignore emotion and "turn it off" completely. Luna and I are extremely apathetic most of the time. But we're able to feel and care if we choose to. We believe one should have the ability to feel, but the choice to should be their's. Apathy has been useful for many situations, and it's not exactly negative. It's more...neutral. So it's not exactly a bad thing.

Empathy is important and useful, though. So is understanding feelings enough to understand where others come from. Otherwise, interactions can be difficult, though sometimes they are no matter what, so it could just be something to work on in general (Luna has social anxieties that make interactions difficult in general, so I also understand about that type of stuff).

If we are angry, we can choose to care about whatever's making us angry. If we choose to not care, then the anger disappears, and it usually helps us to handle the situation better. If we are sad, we can choose to care about whatever's making us sad. If we choose to care, then we can express our sadness, and it usually helps us to feel better overall. One can turn emotions off and on all by the choice to care about something or someone enough to allow yourself to be affected by it.

Relearning how to feel can be easy, or it can be hard. Sometimes the best way to help yourself feel again is to just not think about it once you get started. Such as, you could choose to put on a funny movie, and then you can choose to laugh and smile at that movie, but then let yourself get lost in the laughter and smiles. Focus on the funny. Get lost in the funny. And it's possible that while doing that, you'll allow the funny to help make you happy, and feel happy. Or you could choose a song that makes you feel happy and sing along to it. Let yourself get lost in the lyrics and maybe you'll find yourself feeling happy. Do this with any emotion. Songs that make you angry, movies that make you sad, activities that make you happy, etc. When you stop trying to feel something, you'll usually find yourself getting caught up in feeling something."


Another possibility could be that Numbbody has focused so hard on stopping on emotion that he's turned them all "off" and they won't be turned back on until he faces that emotion that he so strongly didn't want to feel. But time will tell if this is true or not. How to work on relearning how to feel shouldn't really change much, it just might take a bit more time and there might be some difficulties facing and accepting a certain emotion.


Try setting up safety plans with your son's system to help you all feel better. Is there a main protector or caretaker that can help supervise or agree to be co-conscious/co-hosting or even out themselves while your son is left alone with siblings and such? I doubt they'll be insulted- explain to them that it's good for people, families, and systems to have safety plans, and make it for all situations (if he's alone, if he's alone with siblings, if the situation is unsafe or becomes unsafe in some way, etc).
Explain that even if they have their own safety plan, you'd at least like to talk about what it is, because it'd help you to feel better. Explain that it's not because you don't trust them, but because you worry about them, just as every mother worries about their children.

We hope this is helpful to you and that you feel better about this situation soon.

~A mixture of us(?)

WOW guys - really - wow! Such good information! What a great new perspective you have given me - and an appreciation. I especially like 'is he doing this on purpose or because it IS his purpose". Dang.... and I do believe my knee-jerk reaction of "Someone took out Alex???" and fear that we just got Vitelle to stop saying she was going to kill my other children who live with us - is probably led to my reacting the way I did...

I think I did a disservice to Numbbody to 'judge' him and suggestso soon he should change. Never ever feel that your advice or perspective will hurt my feelings! I am just a Singleton and can only view things from my own perspective of 'ooh...if he did this without their consent, will they feel violated?" but really, everyone has been pretty nonchalant about it that I've talked to. I try to just ask "How do you feel about what happened" not lead with negative words like "Did you feel scared" and plant something they weren't feeling...

Anyway...this has been incredibly helpful. Not just for me on a personal level - but all of the education I get to understand better helps me to help THEM. Thank you for helping all the alters who may not be able to vocalize what they might need, or put into conscious thought/words that what I have done/thought/said might be hurting them. They can't defend themselves if they don't know how or don't want to offend me because I'm the caretaker...or allegiances towards me from others inside...

You guys are so special to me and I thank you for every time you share! I feel so much better equipped to not (preach at) Numbbody but to appreciate him for who he is and what he does...and go from there.

*deep sigh* I just feel like 'YES - THAT Makes SENSE..." it has given me much peace. Thank you!

You are very welcome.