Some Questions

I'll start with a brief introduction for formalities and possibly give a bit of insight as to where these questions might be coming from. The hope is that this will help answer our questions a bit better.

First off, my name is Jeremiah and I'm not the Main; However I'd like to think of myself as one of the more Whole alters within our community. I generally manage the routines within our World, since I don't much care for this World of yours. It's complicated being a guy in a girl's body, ya'know.
Wow. He didn't even explain what these words mean. He's usually better than this. Since we didn't know much at the time, we sort of came up with our own slang for these things. We got three types of alters (technically four, but details!): Wholes, Fractures, and Primals. Wholes are pretty self-explanatory. They're alters who have full personalities and could probably function in this world. We wholes lead the other alters, since we're a bit more rational than the rest. Then are the Fractures, which are alters that are centered around one mindset or emotion. One example is my pal, Zerke, who represents self-loathing. Lastly we got Primals which are alters who have been ripped from another alter in a less than pretty way. Sometimes the core rips them out, sometimes sh*t just happens. Whatever. These ones are like Fractures on steroids because they take the core concept of the alter they came from and then go berserk with it. Like literally. They're more than a little aggressive. But this has only happened twice, so it's not very common.
Oh yeah, we also have our Goddess, Charlie. She's the original alter and probably what's left of whatever personality there was when the first split happened.

My brother, Conner, will probably skim through this and give his comments on some things. He's often a bit more personable than I am and can clarify things I sometimes can't.
I decided to italicize and color Conner's writing like this to better separate his comments from mine.

The body is 19, going on 20, and currently three years free from the family and "friends" that weren't the best of company. There are 58 total mindsets within our community, but only 25 are full personalities. Only 7 of us are the closest we have to Whole alters. We have a decent system in managing our switching and overall function very well, though this is a recent thing we're all thankful for.
Jeremiah is 24, turning 25. I just turned 23. Ages are sort of loose since you're brain can't be anymore developed than the body actually is. Or something. Kendra would have a good reason, but she's asleep, so...

Hopefully that'll suffice for a brief introduction, but I'm always happy to feed the curious. So, I'll move onto the questions.

1.) Is it shameful for us to not want to merge? It seems this is the only endpoint for people with these minds, but the majority of us, namely our Main, would much rather find a way to keep our coexistence going.
I'll add onto this by adding is it cool if we merge the Fractures, but not the rest of them? Those are the personalities that are just a single mindset or emotion or whatever. These ones are almost always aggressive and don't do us any productive.
2.) Is this something that we should seek a therapist for? Our Main has had... Unfortunate experiences with previous therapist for unrelated things, but has recently began to consider the idea for some of her other mental struggles. Would it be wise to bring this up to a potential therapist that may or may not have specified being helpful with DID?
Should we have our main see the therapist, or someone who won't instantly turn into a ball of pent up anger and stress?
3.) Can alters be "created" exponentially? We had an initial split at a young age. The core personality was split between another alter and I when the body was roughly 5 years old. And then split again about half a year later into our Main and Conner. After those two splits, it was relatively calm until pre-teens. Then throughout the teenage years, alters seemed to be showing up in packs. First it was one here and there, then we found a group of 5 in some other part of our World. Then a group of 7. Then 10. Mind you, they weren't always a straight line--we'd still get one at a time now and then, but is this to be expected, or an anomaly?
4.) What are the "roles" of alters and what do they mean? I've often seen people use generic terms, such as Protecter or Abuser, in regards to their alters. I think I've got a basic understanding, but out of curiosity I'd like to get a clearer understanding of them. Maybe it'll help us? I don't know.

Thank you for your time and humoring us in our pursuit to finally reach out to others who at least have some degree of empathy for what we're trying to desperately control.

I have a question too. What sort of systems work for you guys? Do you have anything that keeps us rebellious kids in check? We've already gone through a sh*tton of systems and I don't care what Jeremi says, this one probably won't last much longer.

NobodyTalks wrote:1.) Is it shameful for us to not want to merge? It seems this is the only endpoint for people with these minds, but the majority of us, namely our Main, would much rather find a way to keep our coexistence going.
I'll add onto this by adding is it cool if we merge the Fractures, but not the rest of them? Those are the personalities that are just a single mindset or emotion or whatever. These ones are almost always aggressive and don't do us any productive.

Most of us don't want to integrate (merge), because they don't feel like they are close enough to others to do that. Some don't want it because they fear losing their free will, and some just don't want it because they don't want it. A few do want to integrate and try to, but sometimes they split again after a while.

2.) Is this something that we should seek a therapist for? Our Main has had... Unfortunate experiences with previous therapist for unrelated things, but has recently began to consider the idea for some of her other mental struggles. Would it be wise to bring this up to a potential therapist that may or may not have specified being helpful with DID?
Should we have our main see the therapist, or someone who won't instantly turn into a ball of pent up anger and stress?

That is something I don't want to answer for you, I guess you should do what feels right to you. A therapist can help, but sometimes there just ain't any good therapist in the area, and all every local one does is make it worse (like with us). We can help ourselves by reading experiences and tricks others have written down, like in books or on this forum. But in the end you should do what works for you.

3.) Can alters be "created" exponentially? We had an initial split at a young age. The core personality was split between another alter and I when the body was roughly 5 years old. And then split again about half a year later into our Main and Conner. After those two splits, it was relatively calm until pre-teens. Then throughout the teenage years, alters seemed to be showing up in packs. First it was one here and there, then we found a group of 5 in some other part of our World. Then a group of 7. Then 10. Mind you, they weren't always a straight line--we'd still get one at a time now and then, but is this to be expected, or an anomaly?

what I've always heard is that mostly alters split at a young age (of the body), and alters don't often split at an older age. Rather you find new alters who have been in your system for a long time but have stayed on the background.

4.) What are the "roles" of alters and what do they mean? I've often seen people use generic terms, such as Protecter or Abuser, in regards to their alters. I think I've got a basic understanding, but out of curiosity I'd like to get a clearer understanding of them. Maybe it'll help us? I don't know.

dissociative-identity/topic122093.html
the forth post if I'm not miscounting, I guess that is what you might be looking for.

I have a question too. What sort of systems work for you guys? Do you have anything that keeps us rebellious kids in check? We've already gone through a sh*tton of systems and I don't care what Jeremi says, this one probably won't last much longer.

**possible TW**
Claire or Jennifer should actually write this, maybe Dante or Maya too, because they have been busy with making the system work... but I'll try, they might correct me if I'm wrong.
Claire and Jennifer have spend their time trying to find out what makes an alter rebellious or abusing, and to take away that reason for as much as they can through therapy, but without really keeping them in check. They never forced the rebellious alters to do or don't do something.
Maya has been busy creating a token economy (together with some other alters). Alters get extra tokens for doing jobs and behaving within the boundaries of society (on both the inside and outside), just the regular moments when they went outside the acceptable boundaries (like Rebecca being very direct or rude) would be ignored in the token economy, but if they went far beyond what's allowed, like intentionally hurt others without a reason, would be punished by taking away tokens. The tokens are used to make a living on the inside, so like money on the outside. In the end everything an alter does is their own responsibility, so they can control the outcome themselves.
Dante has been managing a lot mostly, keeping an eye on what has been going on.


Skyler