Does everybody have an angry alter?

When I was a child - to cope with the stress - there was Ball and the Messenger who was sent by The Others. And when I was 14, I chanted a new me into existence and discarded the old.

None of these creations were mean to me, none were critical of me. In fact, the Messenger gave me tools that helped me greatly in adulthood.

Don't get me wrong...in adulthood, I have been very, very critical of myself and with the help of therapy and hard work got through that...but none of my childhood coping mechanisms were ever critical of me. Ball was never angry at me, the Messenger was never critical of me and the 14 year old me that I chanted out of existence never popped up to attack me.

So I am a little confused why parts - which were created in childhood to be protective - would be critical and angry towards the person who created them.

kittenspuppies wrote:So I am a little confused why parts - which were created in childhood to be protective - would be critical and angry towards the person who created them.

From what I have read / what I understand, parts like that believe that they can help spare the system from further abuse from outside, by being critical or abusive inside. Eg. if someone was frequently punished by their parents for something, then an alter might try to punish them first or preventatively, so that they wouldn't do the thing in the first place and therefore not get in trouble with the parents.

Another thing I've read suggests that children often assume they are to blame when bad things happen, and creating an alter that goes on 'punishing' them sort of self-fulfils that belief? I'm probably saying this all wrong, but that's the general idea.

As for the question if everyone has one, I do have an angry part (appropriately named Anger) but he is not angry with me, he's just angry. I have two 'persecuter' parts, one is a bully who wants me to self-harm, the other an introject who is verbally abusive and critical. I would not describe either as angry though.

-Violet (1)

I was the "angry against the other insiders" alter.

First, I'm the physical protector. Means I'm the one who pop out when the body is in danger, which means I took a lot of the abuses.
From the start, I wasn't designed to be a kind and loving person. I was the one designed for fighting only.

As the context evolved, my anger toward the outside began to be an issue. At this time, Daem was the only one in charge of the system, he was trying to hide us from Plume the best he can, and didn't know what to do with me, so he just locked me in a corner of the inner world. The other insiders were affraid of me too. I spend years alone before everyone started to have a better knowledge about what's going on with us, and before Plume tried to overcome her fear and convinced Daem to let me out.
This is why I was litterally furious against the whole world, outside and inside. Took me almost an entire year before calming down.

As Violet (1) said, there's also alters that are designed to punish the system before the abuser had a chance to do it, etc.

And we don't think everyone has an angry part. We know other systems who don't. We think it depends of how the system was created, and what happened after.

- Alexis

I'm not an 'angry' part. I'm a Protector. I can get pretty angry. But there's a reason. It used to p*ss me off that the others were so sloppy. I thought if we were perfect we could stop the bad stuff. Now I know that was never going to happen. I'm still safety oriented. But I only get angry when someone tries to hurt us.

We also have angry parts but they're not Protectors. They just hold anger to keep it from coming out. Showing anger was pretty dangerous growing up.

Colin

kittenspuppies wrote:So I am a little confused why parts - which were created in childhood to be protective - would be critical and angry towards the person who created them.

I don't think it usually works like that, one alter creating another. But let's assume it does. If someone creates me to protect them and I take the brunt of abuse or some other chaotic, lonely or otherwise unpleasant experience, I might not be too happy about that. Especially if they get to stay aloof and oblivious to the bad stuff. Or if I see them from inside bonding with the abusers while they're not abusing. Or if they reap all the benefits while I get none. Or if they ignore me and don't even know or believe that I exist.

Does the foot soldier get warm and fuzzy feelings about those who leave them to battle on the front lines?

Great responses from everyone.

We have a few who are, or have been, angry ones. One of the ways that our system historically has worked is that when a feeling is too intense for the insider who originally felt it, it overflows partially or completely into the emotional "lap" of at least one other system member. So we have often found that the system member who appeared to have a particular issue was really carrying it for someone else--deliberately, unintentionally, or a little of both.

We've done enough work so far that most of these secondary "feeling holders" have worked through the issue enough to hand it back to the original owner. However, it usually follows that the original owner feels the feelings more intensely than the secondary holders did, since the feeling is now back at its source.

MDs

I haven't met an angry one yet but I know one exists. I'm really nervous about them potentially talking to my T or p-doc.

In our system, Daniel, Matt, and Kyle hold anger or thoughts resulting from anger specifically. Anger was unsafe to express in childhood, unless it was consistent with the mother's anger.

Quato and Ulrich are cynical and angry. But if they weren't, people would have walked all over us our entire life.

Thank you for all the replies. It was Ball's purpose to hold my anger - and it was very important that I protect that anger. So there was anger but nothing I created in childhood directed that anger at me - not as a child and not as an adult. The purpose of my creations was to protect me.

I guess I wondered what went awry - what went wrong - that would cause some people's parts to become critical of them.

Did parts that were always remembered from childhood become critical or is it only parts that are discovered in adulthood that become critical (even if they are child parts). Does this question make sense?

If an alter or part was created at age six and you always remembered that part - did that part become critical of you? Or is it only parts that are discovered in adulthood (even if they have always been there)?

And I appreciate your feedback Johnny-Jack but I never said that an alter created other alters. And that never happened.

kittenspuppies wrote:So I am a little confused why parts - which were created in childhood to be protective - would be critical and angry towards the person who created them.

As I was reading this, I wondered who is "the person who created them"?

In DID, there's a group of alters but no unified person. So alters may get upset at or resent other alters. A common reason is that some suffered and others didn't or at least not as much. There are a lot of other reasons, of course. Other alters take on some of the behavior of abusers as protection initially.

To me, it's similar to some dysfunctional families where one member is identified as the scapegoat. They get treated worse, get less of the good stuff, don't get away with things that others do. Unfair. Kind of like how an alter who gets the bad stuff would become angry with one who gets off scott free.

I guess I wondered what went awry - what went wrong - that would cause some people's parts to become critical of them.

They had a different childhood and a different kind of abuse than you did. I think the assumption that something went awry is wrong. Parts are there to help a child survive, physically, emotionally, psychologically.

Parts who are critical of others can have survival value. Sort of like a thought in a non-multiple after they get fired might be "dummy, you knew better than to talk to the boss like that but you did it anyway!" Or "get out of this dark alley right now, you idiot."

I don't have any alters who we can label as persecutors either. They can be more challenging to work with but on the other hand, they're often the strongest alters in a system. So as they move towards collaboration, they can accelerate healing.