Core person suicide??

*trigger warning*

We began to gain personalities when she was 5 years old. Through life there have been as many as 9 at one time. The original person decided to commit suicide nearly 10 years ago. As more blood was lost, she got weak and a couple of us took over and saved us. I ended up the main personality. I have been around since she was 13 years old. I have been living as the main person since the "suicide". She thinks she is dead. She lives in hell and all communication with her has been cut off. I went through some PTSD therapy and many of the alters became unnecessary because I was getting stronger and healthier. Since she died, I have been able to integrate all of the personalities. Now there is just me and the original person. I don't know how strange this is... Or what to do next. I don't know what to do about her being dead as far as trying to finish the integration.

Hello! Welcome to the DID Forum. Perhaps I can help you with your situation a little.

I don't have a "dead" alter myself but I have experienced fusions that have held and my system does have one alter who is very difficult for anyone to access. She is locked away behind a very strong amnesia wall. So I can relate directly to several aspects of your situation. I have also read a lot of the DID literature, in which "dead" alters like yours are reported. This situation is not uncommon.

There are some case reports and analyses about situations like this. One approach that has worked in some systems is to hold an "awakening" ceremony to return the "dead" alter to life/consciousness so that this alter can receive the needed safety, love, support, trauma processing, and other restorative experiences. After a period of recovery and orientation, perhaps lasting a few months, a standard fusion may occur. It sounds like you have mostly "cleared the deck" in your system and may now be ready to begin work with her.

If I recall correctly, the most information I have read about helping "dead" alters was in Colin Ross's book The Osiris Complex.

If she is the original person, is she an alter? She was the one who was born, not created. She has missed nearly 10 years. She is completely isolated. She doesn't see or hear anything other than what exists in her hell. She was comforted occasionally by another alter who could find her way in somehow. That alter is now gone. She has missed everything. I have bought property. I have been in the same job almost as long as she has been gone. I have two children. I am worried about her hate and anger. I don't know how to calm her even if I can get to her. I am worried about her reversing all the progress I have made in the last couple of years. I have worked hard to build a life and I have worked hard to discover all of the secrets that were buried in our collective mind. I am not even sure how to get to her anymore.

Ah, I see. This alter is a prisoner in the void. Some of us have an elaborate, comfortable inner world but it is a constructed world. For others of us, especially before diagnosis and treatment, the inner world is a void. This void is like a sensory deprivation tank. No light, no sound, no sensation, nothing. We know from experiments with people subjected to sensory deprivation, that in the absence of enough sensory input from the environment, the mind will hallucinate. And often the hallucinations will be terrifying. When in the void some alters sleep (or "die"); they are the fortunate ones, because they do not experience themselves as being in Hell. It is as if they are in a coma, and like someone in a coma they have the potential to awaken or be awakened. When they awaken their subjective experience is that they have lost a massive amount of time and they are now trapped in an utterly surreal horror situation: they are disembodied passengers in someone else's head (if they are able to perceive the outer world at all), or they are lost souls in torment.

When certain of my own insiders awakened in the void inside my head they screamed, screamed, screamed. And I heard them. What a living nightmare that was!

Your "original person" sounds a lot like my Alter 3. Alter 3 was asleep/dead/in stasis for 30 years and when she woke up she was horrified to discover she had lost so much of her life and was an alter in the mind of a middle aged woman with husband and kids. The husband was a stranger to her. That was such a huge adjustment! I described it while it happened in our very long thread, linked below in my signature.

Things were definitely easier when we had a nicely structured order. I am 39 years old and have a degree in general psychology. I have been around since 13. I managed to reduce us from 9 to two mostly by myself. I meet to talk with my pastor about twice a month. With my knowledge, his intuition, and a few books, we have managed to get pretty far. I also went through a PTSD therapy manual and got rid of that. I just don't know what to do with her. She thinks she is in hell because a pastor told her once when she was suicidal that it was murder and she would go to hell. I have seen the place where she is. It is a really sad and scary place. She is definitely out of her mind right now. Even when I push her out into the real world she just brings her hell with her and doesn't see or hear anything real around her.

Who Is running the system, can you communicate with the head alter?

How can the real core be dead dead! I mean really dead.....

I know what its like to have an alter that is never outside and does not know of the outside world or other alters!

Can you write something; a question and attempt to have the core answer it? Can you write to the core alter!

Im not sure past what Ive mentioned...

Yepitsme, have you ever read Frank Putnam's 1989 book Diagnosis and Treatment of Multiple Personality Disorder? I think it would be helpful to you. Also, why not try working with a clinical psychologist who has experience treating DID? This could save her years of suffering.

Hi, I read your post, and kept thinking about it, and got an idea. But then I re-read your post... and hum... I'm not sure whether it is good, 'coz of the fears you have. And is totally understandable.

I'm gonna share the idea I got, and I'm gonna comment on some parts of your post later.

I'm no health profesional. So consult it with an expert.

What if you try to put yourself in her place. See the things the way she sees them, feel them the way she feels them, so you understand her, so you feel like her; but you also show her however you feel about what happened.

So, you understand the pain she was going through, and maybe feel it (if it's bearable), and you tell her that you understand her reasons to do what she did (attempt suicide), because she wanted to put an end to all the suffering, and maybe thank her (if you feel you can thank her), for trying to put an end to that.

Then, you can reach for her or imagine her in a different "space" (heaven? Paradise?), as trying to pull her from the hell she lives in, trying to show her another "reality" for her. You can show her that she doesn't need to be in hell, 'coz she doesn't need to be punished. You may tell her, that that's why you are all a team, and that you took over, to ease her burden, to help her carrying it, so that it could be lighter for both of you, for all of you. Then, you can show her, other ways you have put end to the suffering, and maybe you could feel differently, now a peace full feeling that she may be able to feel as well.

After I re-read your post, thought that it could be dangerous 'coz you mentioned that even if you get to her, you wouldn't know how to calm her.

yepitsme wrote:She was comforted occasionally by another alter who could find her way in somehow. That alter is now gone. She has missed everything. I have bought property. I have been in the same job almost as long as she has been gone. I have two children. I am worried about her hate and anger. I don't know how to calm her even if I can get to her. I am worried about her reversing all the progress I have made in the last couple of years. I have worked hard to build a life and I have worked hard to discover all of the secrets that were buried in our collective mind. I am not even sure how to get to her anymore.

Humm... You could try channeling the energy of the alter that used to comfort her (as I understand they never leave, so his/her knowledge, his/her wisdom is with you and could be awesome to reach her in good terms), to get to her.

You could also consult the previous alter, or try to look for what this alter who comforted her would do to calm her if you get to her, so you could be prepared, like having tools to face her, and protect your self from her hate and anger.

As I've seen anger usually is a mask that covers another feeling, so maybe if you could understand what her feeling is (fear, sadness), you would be less worried when facing her.

yepitsme wrote:She thinks she is in hell because a pastor told her once when she was suicidal that it was murder and she would go to hell. I have seen the place where she is. It is a really sad and scary place. She is definitely out of her mind right now. Even when I push her out into the real world she just brings her hell with her and doesn't see or hear anything real around her.

What if you see/feel yourself as her protector? And instead of pushing her out, you go to where she is, and try showing her, a way out? Or imagine her in a different environment? You as her in a different setting?

Be careful though, the mind is so... complex. And I don't want you to get lost inside. This are just my thoughts, but I have no experience or knowledge about the human mind.

May I ask, what your purpose is in getting in contact with her?

I've spent some time in my head. What you might want to think about is the influence of different senses. It sounds like your insider is living in a visual hell, and since none of you can appear to her in there, she's probably got the strongest visualization skills of the bunch.

The easiest way to get to her would probably be with sounds. Whoever has the strongest communication skills, or whoever can both speak and see her clearly, I suggest you look into her world and start narrating exactly what you see, and exactly what she does.

A narrator is easy to slide in under her radar, so she'll hopefully accept it as part of her 'hell' without even realizing it. Once you're in, you can try to influence her visuals, but remember, you're using sounds. Don't try to imagine a phone in hell. Narrate something like "Suddenly, she heard a phone ringing. A phone? In hell? But there was. And it kept ringing." An actual phone sound effect might even help.

Hope you can get to her =/ sounds like a tough situation.

@ onmicell
I run what is left of the system. I am the only one left aside from the "dead" core. I can't communicate with her at all. She does not see or hear anything outside her "hell". Even when I can manage to get in there, I can't do anything but watch her and feel the massive pressure of the place she is in. She thinks she killed all of us along with herself.

@una
I will look up that book. I don't do well with people. I don't easily trust and tend to not speak truthfully to "professionals". I make myself look like I am doing as well as can be expected. I just don't feel right telling people what is really going on except my pastor that I meet with. He knows everything. It just seemed natural to tell him everything. I nearly asked the therapist who gave me the PTSD manual that I worked through but I just didn't.

@seangel
I can go in there but have no way to communicate with her. The place is horrible. I can't stay there long. I start to get sucked in to it. The alter who could reach her was a 7 year old girl who didn't speak or remember the abuse she was hiding. The core didn't communicate with her, she just knew the alter was there with her somehow. It lifted her loneliness just a bit to know someone was still there with her. That alter, though the process of letting go of her secret, aged and changes so that she was no longer that little girl before she integrated. So the girl the core was comforted by is literally gone. The core is pretty much angry and lost. She lived through several suicide attempts by either them not working or getting caught. She was very careful to make this one work. She knew there were secrets buried in our collective mind and she would save us the trouble of digging them all up. She was angry at the world and everything in it. I want to get in touch with her because that is the only to finish the integration and finally let go of her anger and lessen her fear. We have been split since she was 5. She figured out the DID thing in high school. We all basically lived separate lives through college. We really started communicating and working together about 3 years before she died. We continued on with life without her and I got pushed out as the one who got to run the life and deal with the outside world as well as manage the system. I have adapted to being in charge and I have brought us a long way. I would like to be able to finish the job and integrate the only two parts that are left into one.