how have you met your alters?

We blogged about meeting our newest alter Scott a week ago and it got us thinking about how we've met everyone.

Especially for newbies who know or sense they haven't met everyone in their system, I'm wondering if a thread could help that shares how we've discovered or met alters who weren't previously known by our systems or by the host(s).

Maybe half our alters have been associated with searching we did in therapy or on our own. We start wondering about a particular behavior, attitude, memory, block or fear and consider whether we might have someone associated with this. Within days, sometimes hours, we feel someone's presence. Most of our alters have been found by them stepping in and taking over the body, usually in a relatively safe place, so at home or while out walking.

Very interesting Johnny Jack. Thanks for sharing.

I discovered most of mine in one hit/over a week or so when I first realized I had DID.

I had been seeing my GP for server dissassociation. Thought I was going crazy. GP asked me to put together a timeline of my history, I realized I had amnesia for my entire childhood.. In trying to remember just basic facts (who my friends were, where I was living, when my siblings were born etc) I started experiencing switching.. Or I noticed switching for the first time. Serve DP/DR symptoms had me acting like a Looney.

I started drawing pictures of what it felt like on the inside.. Of my 'imaginary friends' I had as a kid.. I tried linking attitude changes to specific States. I showed my T my pictures & got the DID diagnosis.. It snowballed from there.. I had people popping up left right & center. Ended up in hospital..

I started coming on here & getting advice from other members. Started journaling. Stated watching myself from a place of fear & then acceptance. Slowly I got to know my other states.

I know there are some I haven'again yet. Georgie our gate keeper won't let me talk to the littles born before her. She guards them like a fierce protector. The littles tell Georgie all their secrets & she decides what to do for them. I'm glad they have her but I wish they'd let us adults help too. Georgie is only 8 so it's a big responsibility for her.

I know in time as she learns to trust us, we will be able to start working together.

Some of my alters like Miche, Fae & Stac. I don't think I have ever spoken to.. But I know they are there.. They've introduced themselves then hid again..

I assume there are more I'm yet to meet because I still experience blackouts & behavior I can account for

well I guess the first thing I really remember was the first time I really lived on my own and had my own safe place behind a locked door....I remembering finding evidence....evidence that felt like a giant F.U. to my face but...it scared me....but that wasn't really meeting. just getting messages.

then I can remember handwriting in my notebooks. and that was freaky too. in particular....the writing of a five year old that said...."i died. but my body kept living."

and then I remember THE DAY. the day I was drinking coffee in my morning chair. I was 33 years old. (33! wtf?) and I told myself to go look in the front cover of a notebook and saw the first roll call.

but really meeting? I guess that happens in sleep or that nebulous brain wave state between sleeping and waking. or other hypnotic times like the shower or writing. but never ever when the kid is around. most often sleep/dreaming though. that is how I met the Littles who needed....care. that is how I get the messages from the inside when I am not bickering with myself in my head.

I made a special project. it is a photo album on my phone. everybody picked a picture that looked like them and we put the names on and put it in an album just for us. I looked recently and there were 4-5 new pictures without names. I don't know when they were added so I think I have not met everybody yet.

plus the dreams. mostly it is a sleep thing with exceptions for Marga and aelen. the first time amy talked to me was in the shower.

it is really real isn't it? and we have to work to get better. it is so much work. it makes me feel like I am being choked. I don't want to talk about it anymore.

I was seized by a state of madness called love. I had to be with him. I was happily in love but I couldn't calm my temper. I couldn't stop picking fights and then being sorry. It intensified. I would wake up angry and talking to myself about him where he could hear it. I heard a thought that said, "If he threatens to leave me one more time, I'm ending the relationship."

I had no idea the significance of that thought. I argued with it, denied it.

I was going crazy, so I consulted the internet. One key piece of information about amnesia made me realize that I was dissociating. Shield identified herself to me in my thoughts. Soon the others did too. I was in love and I didn't realize this relationship was so triggering that it caused alters to come out and take control. Even Tdae, who I thought had disappeared long ago. I always knew there were others, I just didn't know...

At one point Shield identified herself to my ex. He demanded, "Where is myce?! I want to talk to myce!" She replied, "Myce is not here. She is under our protection." That is the only time she ever came out overtly like that. He called me crazy and moved out while I was at work. LOL! There was a lot of mental abuse in that relationship, and I didn't even realize it. Shield drove him away.

The very first alter I met revealed himself to me in the bathroom mirror at school (kindergarten or first grade.) I felt his presence behind me and smiled.
Okay, now cut to the next "first" time an alter was co-present with me. That would be Sven, only a few years ago, while I was waiting to be dropped off to home.

Others have revealed themselves subtly to me, through stories I can't get out of my head, or phrases and thoughts given to me in the middle of the night. It has mostly been an archival effort—looking through the words I've written and thoughts I've kept having and connecting them to names, faces, and actions. And like BeccaBee, I have had people talk to me between sleep and wakefulness. (The most recent was a loud "Hey," very close to my ear, that left a ringing feeling until I went back to sleep d: ) Other times people talk to me are the shower and car rides.

We aren't nearly as co-present as I'd like us to be. And I know there are a few more alters that I have yet to meet (if not many more.) But good things take time—can't rush recovery or selves-discovery.

Sarey and I (Heather) first appeared to Host (Claire) in therapy around ten years ago (body age 30). By this point we had been in the mental health system for six years though there were many warning signs in childhood. We didn't appear to Claire so much as we appeared to our therapist and Claire was not totally amnesic. Terrin was just recently named when we realized that the one we call Claire now, is a different person from she who hosted 2000-2010. That was Terrin.
Heather

Nice idea !

I somehow always knew Daemon, but I discovered Cassandra, Nathan and Alexis only a year ago, when I finally start to wonder if we were more than two, and get an answer. I was totaly in denial, thinking I ws making all of this, hoping that if I don't pay attention, they will go. But they don't.
Few months later, Alix was showing up, and again few months later, Cassandra brought back Varegh from the black world around our inner world.
Nico was always there too, but he was hiding by pretending being the others. Now he still do it, but he's more and more himself, even if he still avoid all of us.

For nearly 30 years I had no idea, just thought I was just really weird and disturbed...

Then I wound up in a botched hypnosis treatment that deeply traumatized me but I also got a view into the inner world and saw the people. They were in disguise though, not showing their real faces because they were afraid of the hypnotist (for good reason)

When that was over, I was like "Ok that must have been just some weird hypno tricks, those people weren't real" and thought that was the last I'd see of them.

I was wrong! Two years later I got REALLY ill but all my physical exams, incl. lots of bloodwork, sleep apnea tests, even goddamn tests for genetic errors etc ALL came back showing I should have felt fantastic. But I felt terrible! Pain all over, sleepy all the time, hot and cold, twitches... and when I started shouting words in public places, words that sounded like someone was trying to say "ring the alarm!" but it came out wrong, I sat down with myself and said, "I am not ok. WHAT IS THIS". I had the feeling of impending doom hanging over me, like if I soon don't understand, something bad would happen.

Then I just so happened upon a blog that described the same. This person was diagnosed with DID.

I quickly counted 1+1 from the hypnosis experience and this text, then took a moment to say, "Okay, you guys are there, I am so sorry for ignoring you".
I cried and cried, and all my symptoms went away within the next 2 days. Then my psychiatrist confirmed my self dx.
I first started going in by thinking of falling to meet my alters, seeing who comes to see me, also remembering the people from the hypnosis and asking if they were still there. Some were, some weren't. That's how it started for me. I started building co-awareness and have come a long way.

Some alters still show up in weird bodily symptoms, some will insist on writing something that doesn't sound like anyone I know. I mostly only get micro amnesia but sometimes I do misplace my belongings REALLY weird and find stuff I honestly didn't know I had. My handwriting has also changed rapidly, many times during a page, ever since the age of.... what, 12? Could've been earlier too but I remember being frustrated that I couldn't make my written letters look nice because the start, middle and end of the page always looked different.

i always knew some of them. in childhood before i knew what they were, there were a few who were around. it kept changing as i got older. in my teen years to early 20s, there were more. no idea 'how' i met them because they always kind of were just there somehow.

then they all went quiet for a long time. when things became active again, some that i knew from before were around while others stayed inactive, and new ones appeared too.

i have had many dreams about them though too. at least two of the younger ones who i didn't know much about appeared in dreams where i was able to learn a bit more about them. it was really neat.

it didn't take therapy or anyone else telling me about them to know they existed as i always just knew. it also took a long time for me to talk about them in therapy because i was still unsure if i'd be believed (though the current therapist somehow already knew from the beginning) or it was what the situation was. i always thought because i knew about them that it somehow meant i made it up so couldn't really have DID because i always read how so many never know. but i also know that now, they still hide from me as well as information. they were created to hide things which makes sense as to why they would hide from me at times too still.

Oh my this really hurts to think about. Find it difficult to put any linear pattern in this because when I became conscious of say Ruth although I thought I had just met her it felt that also another bit of me had known her for years - it was less of a shock 'seeing' her than it was acknowledging that there was all this religious stuff that had a lot of hold on us. That was about 20 years ago. But then there is Little Mie - she has been around so long and looking back I can now see when she was present even when the body was a child. I can see the threads of both M and W although W didn't have a name until 2004. Sean has been about since the body was around 13 and there has been an ongoing internal battle because Sean is a boy and we couldn't accept that. We do now and that has been helpful. It has been a bit like seeing people come out of a fog then they emerge and we go 'I knew it was you all along'.

First time really conscious of overt 'switching' was about 9 years ago when being interviewed by a psychiatrist on a home visit. It is a clear memory. The psych asked perhaps some 'paper exercises would help?' to which I heard Antionette reply 'paper exercises!?' in a very angry voice to be followed several minutes later by a little jumping up and down saying 'I want to play with crayons'.

Worrying thing for me at the moment is we have just discovered Morgan. She was hovering about for a bit in the background and suddenly a few weeks ago bang - she was there and taking charge. It is really difficult to cope with all this, I just want it to stop. Sometimes I feel like a hydra - you feel like you have got to grips with things and suddenly someone else pops up and has to be balanced into the status quo. I know we are struggling because of a tsunami of stress about 12 months ago, I hope things will settle down like they have done in the past but I keep thinking this is it now, we have been blasted apart and things will never be the same again. That scares me. Sorry team just letting off a bit of steam. We wouldn't be holding together at all if it wasn't for us all. Sorry for going on.