Fake Memories

Is it normal for alters to believe and have memories of living a different life? like, some have memories that are older than my age. is this possible?

Hi Garrett,

It is possible. Many people here in the forum have alters that are older than the body itself, and also younger: child alters.

It is also normal for alters to believe and have memories of living a different life. I would think that is actually very common, because many alters live a "different" kind life than the host, have different preferences and thus like different stuff. And if there's amnesia, well, they do remember a living a different life than the host.

On the other hand if you're referring to living a different life as if in things that never happened. I've seen that too. I don't how common that is, but it happens. Some alters believe they were born in a different city, had a different family as they grew up, study in places they've never been to. However, I do think there's an explanation for why they believe that is their life. It's not out of nowhere.

By the way, wanted to say that I like a lot your user name. It reminds me of a character in a novel who would stand for what he believed in, who wouldn't let any rule his life. He was a nomad.

Take Care Garrett.

Sea

I must agree to the fact that they create false memories.
I am not diagnosed with DID yet, and I hope I find an answer soon. I have fake memories of being in cold places with snow. They do not look like the places I have been to. They look so real: I can hear the voices of the people, the sensations, everything.
Then again, I do not know whether it is an alter or just my overactive imagination as I was labeled schizophrenic-bipolar...

I wish the therapists had the answers at hand for me.

The fake memories such as them living a different life is normal for some alters. I know one of mine believes that he lived a totally different life than I have. So, it may be uncommon, it may be common, it really depends on the alter and how they came to be. Well, at least that is what I believe. While it is suspected, I do not have DID, but that is just what I perceive to be true.

-Rachael

Yes, i do have an alter who thinks they had completely different experiences than me. Different countries, schools, life, everything.

I don't have what I consider fake memories but I do have imagined constructions that didn't happen. "Fake memories" sounds too similar to the false memory controversy where some wanted to deny that people could suppress such bad memories. Also many of what I have aren't memories per se, like my memory of the first time I saw a peacock (an impressive bird!), but images, snippets, mental snapshots of places, vistas, or scenarios that matched with an alter's identity.

Jack was created as a hillbilly at the moment he arrived, so I think over time he needed to imagine how he got there, how it came to be that a hillbilly boy would be living in a small midwestern town, what did being a hillbilly mean.

When the daily reality of a child's life is horrible, a rich imagination may be the only escape. So I'd suggest that the words fake memories carry too harsh a value judgment. You probably didn't mean it that way, but words have connotations.

I'm recalling how Jack reacted when I challenged his story of growing up in Appalachia and moving to our town. Not well. And some events which I initially doubted, because they sounded too folksy and cliche, like drinking lemonade on an old woman's porch and telling her colorful tales of his childhood he knew she didn't believe (but was still entertained by), I now feel pretty sure did happen.

I don't like the words 'fake memories'. It's like our first T who said we were not really a teenaged boy. We were really a grown man. He said we were just faking. I said I REALLY AM a teenaged boy and he was FAKING being a therapist.

I have learned though that sometimes things happen inside that don't happen outside and so our memory gets off. And sometimes we do things when Host isn't around so it's in our memories but not in his. Also if Host sees a really powerful movie we could get confused about the pictures we see in our heads because some of us don't see the theater. I had to explain Saving Private Ryan over and over until everybody got it that Germans were not going to shoot us. That was really really important. Host has friends that are German.

Iain

All memories are real even if the events that take place in them are not identical with what objectively happened. The woman who gave birth to Our body has been deceased for a very long time but Gray still has very real memories of a life time growing up with a Mother that the rest of us have never met. The memories are elaborate, recurring and he has strong emotions attached to them. They are real.

IainEtc wrote:I don't like the words 'fake memories'. It's like our first T who said we were not really a teenaged boy. We were really a grown man. He said we were just faking. I said I REALLY AM a teenaged boy and he was FAKING being a therapist.

That's an awesome answer!! hahahaha Neat, as you would say.

I think I can understand what the therapists are trying to do, because of what they are taught. But from my experience, I think that some of them don't get to know and understand how does DID work in the person they are working with, and how the person, thus each alter, feels in this regard. And for me, understanding doesn't mean for them to promote dissociation, but it does mean to understand that each alter of the person they are working with, feels separate.

IainEtc wrote:I have learned though that sometimes things happen inside that don't happen outside and so our memory gets off. And sometimes we do things when Host isn't around so it's in our memories but not in his.

Thanks for sharing this.

IainEtc wrote:Also if Host sees a really powerful movie we could get confused about the pictures we see in our heads because some of us don't see the theater. I had to explain Saving Private Ryan over and over until everybody got it that Germans were not going to shoot us. That was really really important. Host has friends that are German.

Iain

Have you tried having a Big Cinema Inside, so when it's a movie, you would all see it there and know that it's not real?

Sea

Have you tried having a Big Cinema Inside, so when it's a movie, you would all see it there and know that it's not real?

Cool idea! I can do that. It would really help us a lot!

Thanks Sea.