Clones out front

Does anyone have any alters who basically feel like clones or duplicates with little reason for being separate. We seem to have some clone alters spending/wasting time in front and mostly at night. Do you have ways of testing who's out front? If so, what are they?

If you're conscious but watching, how do you become less passive when what's happening seems just like something you'd do but meanwhile there's a sense of disagreement about whether to do it at all. Or you get bored, agitated, or frustrated. With the stalemate. This suggests different alters, we've discovered tem before just like this, based on minor differences.

My post seems more vague than I remember wanting to write.

What I'm really wondering is Have you have discovered alters who are more or less clones of other alters in your system -- or alters with only small differences in likes, habits, interests?

We suspect that there are more of us who front, but they do so in a way that seems so similar to someone else and they themselves don't seem to feel like they're anyone new rather than just being one of the named and known alters.

We don't have exactly this but we can't tell if Blue Sarey and Green Sarey are the same person or not. They are basically when Sarey is sad and when she's happy but they *feel* very different. Our T thought Blue Sarey was a new alter the first time she met her, not just Sarey being sad.
Heather

Johnny-Jack, as far as I can tell my system has a lot of these. For example, our most-time-out identity is made up of several similar alters. But even while we're increasing in co-presence and other-awareness, we are still opaque to one another many times, and it's hard to know just how similar we are versus we are watching someone and ascribing thoughts to them that are our own thoughts. We have thought that maybe in the future it will turn out that they are less similar than we've assumed. What a mess it is, though!

Johnny-Jack wrote:What I'm really wondering is Have you have discovered alters who are more or less clones of other alters in your system -- or alters with only small differences in likes, habits, interests?

Definitely. In our system we call the two of us who are typing right now, James and Dylan, "the twins". We're basically the same person. Our only difference in looks in the inner world is that James wears glasses. We have generally the same likes and dislikes and interests. We also have very similar mannerisms.

How our system (and even the two of us) tell each other apart is by looking at how we're sitting or standing. We both have ADD so we often fidget and move around to keep ourselves focused. When we're sitting we almost always bounce one leg up and down. The only difference is that James almost always bounces his leg while sitting cross-legged, while Dylan will sit with both feet planted on the ground. When standing, Dylan will frantically tap his fingers against our leg, meanwhile James likes to push his hands in and our of our pockets. Also, Dylan has a slight twitch in only our left eye, while James has a twitch that affects both eyes. They're really small details, but we often have trouble figuring out who's fronting, so we've gotten good at using tiny habits and ticks to differentiate the alters.

-The Twins

there are some in our system who are different ages but seem to be similar in characteristic. i first thought they were all the same but changed ages but recently (since two of the three were active the last few weeks) have realized they are not the same. it still is confusing because of how similar they feel.

i tend to get confused also at times because it can seem like i am not myself, but none of the others i know of seem to be around either, so it can feel like there are some kind of 'false' parts that mimic me or traits of me (but that i can still kind of recognize as not being me). it's hard to explain because it can be so subtle, and i am not sure what is happening.

We're not sure clones is quite the right word, but we're learning in therapy and out that there are other alters we haven't distinguished yet doing things in our spare time. That's basically most of the time we're not doing adult things or interacting with people.

We had a memory return of sitting at our desk around age 12 in a state of catatonia, nobody wanting to front. Not the only time that happened. I had a memory of someone (me, John?) having some awareness that there were "so many people" (alters) and being confused, overwhelmed, and frozen, wanting to go away. The father died suddenly when we were 12 and the mother went into a deep depression for a couple years. So all abuse stopped but so did almost all parental guidance.

I guess we literally didn't know what to do with ourselves. We began to isolate from friends and had to find ways to fill the time on our own. We're in the process of identifying who came and what they each focused on. So far we have Mick, Hoyt, possibly a Glen and others yet unknown. The sense I've long had of a juvenile attitude at night and on weekends is starting to make sense. I as an alter may be just enough involved that their activities feel like me, even if sometimes I want to yell at "myself" to stop wasting time and do things we need to do for our life. But I can't stop anything because I'm not in charge and the proof that I must want to do this stuff is that I keep doing it.

It's like we've had many alters right there in plain sight, spending time in the body, even daily. We just thought it was one of us. It appears they might have too. And of course, I know I have DID but once again I'm wondering if maybe I'm making up this part of the DID, imagining it.

It makes sense that juveniles or those who may be older but are emotionally juvenile aren't going to be moved by arguments that we'll be dead tired at our job if we don't stop and get to sleep now. They aren't the ones who ever have to deal with tomorrow morning. I guess they all get to sleep in. Hrrrm, not fair, this is going to change.

DID alters aren't handed identity papers when they arrive, with name and job description. A unique flag* isn't hoisted whenever a specific alter fronts or is co-present. But, dang it, things sure would be easier if this were the way it worked.

* Of course, one of them is interested in flags.

We the host seem to be clone-like and this has perplexed me for some time. I am called Front, and I am a program designed to get along, placate, submit. But I am not always the same Front nor am I any of the others. This sensation of cloning is caused by a double-bind in our history. I cannot be present because of the assaults of verbal abuse. Nor can I go deaf, because the tyrant might test to see if I am paying attention. So I make more of me and we take turns paying attention. That way we can be tuned out as much as possible while appearing to be present.

myce wrote:But I am not always the same Front nor am I any of the others.

This resonates a lot for us. There seems to be a lot of different people/alters fronting. Sometimes, if we're lucky, the one in control of the body will say he doesn't feel like he's John, who may be roughly equivalent in role to who myce identifies as Front. Lucky because it makes it clear that something is off, so it's a place to start looking at.

For quite a while we've been wondering if there are several of us sharing most of the non-work time somehow. We didn't have much evidence for this, mostly a sense. I, John, the host usually out at home, am always aware what we're doing in our free time and have been for decades. So it's not an issue of lost time. The body moves and acts like I do, does things that I'm usually not opposed to, like reading, watching TV, writing things, studying languages, and doing other geeky but not especially bizarre stuff, like making lists (often), studying tarot cards, or drawing maps of made-up lands (rarely).

If I get too bored, frustrated, or even angry with what we're been doing, eventually I'll switch out front. At that point my assessment isn't "whew, I took control from another alter," it's "oh, okay, I was just wasting time, now I'm deciding to do something useful."

A couple years ago we identified Mick, a kid who, we've discovered, keeps us busy when we're on the verge of (someone's) anxiety. When he was out, it felt like me doing things, even if I could be really frustrated watching myself "waste so much time." But a couple times he's "accidentally" become detached from me and it was clear he himself is just 13. In fact, he gave his name as Mxyzptlk, not exactly what an adult would choose. So somehow Mick was joined to me, John, using my knowledge and sharing my physical behavior.

It didn't do any good to ask him what was going on, he was just as perplexed as me. My therapist kept suggesting that he or somebody knew what was happening, but that made things worse. Some of us felt guilty that we must know but weren't talking.

Recently we discovered a new teen Hoyt but we only could pick up that he spent time in the body in some of our free time and was kind of a country boy.

Yesterday a young fellow showed up in therapy who didn't know his own name and probably doesn't have one (yet). He described being one of a group, with Hoyt, who were like a "bunch of shuffling cards." He described them like the walking cards in Alice in Wonderland. He was thinking of the cartoon, though I'm told our cards aren't that many, another dozen at most? But gosh, we're already over 60 alters and that's more than a standard 52-card deck so I'm not sure why that film is equally cute and scary to me. He described Mick as like a "wild card," for when things get really bad (fears, triggers inside?).

I'm calling them the "time fillers" since I used to refer to this hypothetical group as "time wasters." Their job seems to be to keep us busy so John or others don't have time to ponder and try to figure things out. This would have been protective when we were a kid, when figuring things out (parents' behavior, missing time, etc.) was impossible and made us feel crazy.

As this young new guy yesterday is trying to figure out how they seem older, he says it's like they put John on like a sweater. It's his explanation for how they manage to seem like they're me. I found that thought kind of creepy and still do a bit but I'll get over it. Anyway, it's descriptive enough. These "card" alters tap into John's behavior and knowledge and keep us busy. We had some success separating John last night and his choices were more adult and productive than usual.

This is more like our blog posts but we're updating this thread in case somebody now or in the future has a similar type of identify confusion or host-clones situation.