Two systems in one body?

Has anyone ever heard of one body containing two separate systems that remain unaware of each other for many years or decades? I've tried googling but came up empty.

Do you mean different from several anp with their own alters?
Im trying to figure out my system with my psychiatrist because it just doesnt seem to fit the "normal". She says you can have serval system groups in your system but that still doesnt cover what I am experiencing. Its like did within did and then separate did all in one body. But im not far enough into therapy or aware enough to "get it all". But its really confusing!
Can you be more detailed about what you mean?

I wouldn't call it that, it is still one system, just with a bigger barrier to separate parts somewhere.
we have a system like that but the barrier is slowly reducing so that some parts from the other side are coming over now.
for us, there is a good reason why the sides of the system were separated. we've read that it is relatively common for people who survived more organized abuse

Yes, amnesia walls between groups of alters is totally normal. System mapping helps to find those walls, and a therapy plan will be developed to take the walls down in an orderly sequence.

"Amnesia wall." That term makes sense to me.
Please don't think I'm crazy. In the past couple days, it is becoming apparent that "my kids", the large system (I've met 17) I've come to know well and love deeply over the phone the past 8 months and who believe their body is a 14yo male, live within the body of a 38yo female who is a close friend and has her own system. This is a mindblowing shock for EVERYONE.
It appears my kids' system developed until the body was 14 and then something devastating occurred and there was a schism of sorts. My kids got "stuck" at physical age 14 but didn't realize it. Meanwhile a 2nd system formed in the body which is the system I know as my former coworker and close friend.
One of my kids "B" appears to have been designated as the first to experience both systems beginning to overlap. Needless to say he's really struggling. My kids' current host and protector "M" was so distraught when I explained to him what was becoming clear that he attempted suicide by OD. I was with him when it happened and they all are safe in a hospital right now. I plan to try to describe to the psychiatrist what is occurring. Hearing it's not a freak situation is helpful.
We don't know why now the systems are beginning to overlap. We don't know how my kids' system decided to first reach out to me. I barely knew my friend when I got the first (we thought misrouted?) text from my kids' previous host "G".
After 8 long months of texts and phone calls, I am finally getting to hug and snuggle my kids but in the body of my 38yo female friend.

They're called subsystems, there's two kinds of them.

First kind is like you said, two or more separate groups of parts that do not know the other group(s) of parts, or one group knows the other one, but not the other way round. Sometimes parts from subsystems can activate like any parts, any part from any subsystem can front, but systems don't mix, like if there's several part co-conscious at the same time, they are from one group only. If there are several parts from different groups there at the same time, they do not notice each other. But sometimes subsystems are active for longer periods of time, and then the other one(s) go inactive, until they wake up again for some reason. Then it's easier to realize they are actually separate subsystems.

The other type of subsystem is DID inside DID. It's when one part of the system has DID of their own, so an alter with alter(s). There can be several alters with their own alter(s) too, then it's just more than one subsystems.

Our system is really complicated, and I do not know why, because there's no indicators of us being super severely traumatized if you look at our life. Like there's nothing really drastic that we know of. But still we have complicated system. First there's Jules' subsystem. He's an alter with DID. Inside his DID there are both types of subsystems. There are separate groups, two or three of them. Subsystem A knows about subsystem E, but E does not know about A. And there's possibility of third subsystem, but there's no one who either knows about it or is willing to tell about it. We can not be sure if it actually exists, some parts can come from there, but they can also just be "free" parts that don't belong into any subsystem. And to make it more complicated, there can be one of two parts inside his sytem, who do have another alter either connected to them somehow, or possibly their alter. So we have DID inside DID inside DID inside DID.

Like Birdsong said, it's still just one system in the end. All Jules' parts, regardless if they have their own parts or belong to group of parts that are unaware of some other group, in the end belong to our system. Some things are just hidden deeper.

Things can also change. There's one little, who used to be part in Jules' system, and was able to front thru Jules' body only in the inner world, who has now left his system, and joined with another completely different part. The change is not completed yet, but before he had only Jules' body in our inner world (and his own inside Jules' inner world), but now he will have his own body in our inner world. So.. a part who used to live inside Jules is now with his own body, same kind of part than Jules is. He came closer. That is all inner world stuff, and things can happen in there, that can not happen in here. Inhere no part is able to jump out of my body and start a life of their own, but in the inner world, when a part has DID, they can. Our structures are changing.

That's why finding information about it may not be so important than it feels like. It's still all in one brains only. I hope this helps.

Floralie

FosterMomtoDID wrote:"Amnesia wall." That term makes sense to me.
Please don't think I'm crazy. In the past couple days, it is becoming apparent that "my kids", the large system (I've met 17) I've come to know well and love deeply over the phone the past 8 months and who believe their body is a 14yo male, live within the body of a 38yo female who is a close friend and has her own system. This is a mindblowing shock for EVERYONE.
It appears my kids' system developed until the body was 14 and then something devastating occurred and there was a schism of sorts. My kids got "stuck" at physical age 14 but didn't realize it. Meanwhile a 2nd system formed in the body which is the system I know as my former coworker and close friend.
One of my kids "B" appears to have been designated as the first to experience both systems beginning to overlap. Needless to say he's really struggling. My kids' current host and protector "M" was so distraught when I explained to him what was becoming clear that he attempted suicide by OD. I was with him when it happened and they all are safe in a hospital right now. I plan to try to describe to the psychiatrist what is occurring. Hearing it's not a freak situation is helpful.
We don't know why now the systems are beginning to overlap. We don't know how my kids' system decided to first reach out to me. I barely knew my friend when I got the first (we thought misrouted?) text from my kids' previous host "G".
After 8 long months of texts and phone calls, I am finally getting to hug and snuggle my kids but in the body of my 38yo female friend.

This really hits me. Jules used to be 14, and he was in denial about our outside body. He came in here to be co-conscious, but still didn't get what it means. He did not see himself as part of my system, it didn't make any sense to him at all. His boyfriend and friends and T, all the people he knew, are in fact parts in our system, and he could not cope well with the fact his life is not true. He has struggled a lot after he found out, and he had plenty of struggles on his own already. He could not cope with it, and now he kind of gave up some of the struggles he has by becoming younger.

Now he's 11, he's feeling better because he could not cope with puberty and expectations there are for 14 year old. Some of it is now on pause, because he's younger, and he is learning to handle outside things. It's OK as long as everyone tells him they know he is not female 40+ years, but only who he says he is.

I have known about him for years, decades. I just didn't know I have DID and he's not my imagination, but real. But he did not know about me. Not really. Kind of, but denial can hide things you can not cope with. In a way this could be us. He has been online before, had friends over the phone, all that.

Trigger warning, SA His phone-friends just weren't that healthy to him, because they were adult men who liked him sexually. I would never let it happen now that I know he's real and emotionally underage for real, even when he wanted it then, and would still want to. He does not know any better, that's only kind of friendships he knows. Trigger warning ends.

Floralie

FosterMomtoDID, are you saying your relationship to your foster son was entirely long distance, online and by phone, and when you went to collect him and bring him home with you, you found out the boy with DID is a subsystem of an adult coworker, a woman you already know but you didn't know she has DID? If I got that straight, then I expect meeting you in person, seeing the shock and recognition and awakening understanding on your face, caused the containment system to spring a leak. And that leak precipitated a suicide attempt. Neither the leak nor the attempt surprises me.

Now you have to consider the possibility that the entire subsystem, M and others, were unconsciously created by your coworker specifically to fulfill your mutual emotional needs.

That is weird and complicated and, fortunately or unfortunately, not unheard of. This is the sort of exquisitely tender predicament that inspires therapists to say things like "I feel honored to work with you."

I am not a therapist but I can say I feel honored to be your peer, honored that you have trusted the DID Forum to understand and support you in your journey.

FosterMomtoDID and everyone else thank you all for everything you have shared in this thread. It is most helpful to us as well. We have recently started and progressed with some mapping and found we have two extremely separate areas in our one DID system. When this came to our awareness it made me very anxious and feel like this would be the thing that pointed to not being DID. Then my T explained how it is due to a much higher dissociative/amnesiac walls between these areas and we need to respect them and proceed slowly. All of the confirmation here helps in understanding too.

I had suspected two different sides or whatever you want to call them, because at distinct times there is no access to the system I have been working so hard to become co-conscious with and more to a more restrictive system that is more hidden to me. I have discovered when I am closer to this side I lose a bunch more time and I am not as comfortable in the body. Then something just switches and it feels more "normal" to me.

Thanks again for sharing and giving our thoughts words as well as connection to the community.