Alter bleeding versus switching

I guess what I'm asking is how would I know what is a psychopathic part of me versus what is an alter that has psychopathic tendencies?

I think I'm a psychopath sometimes. I know I'm not. Not fully one anyway. I know Paul and the twins and the overlord have these tendancies.

I read alot about it, took online quizes. Read this whole book about psychopaths incase I am one. I think sometimes how I am - my actions are like a psychopath but I'm not overall a psychopath.

For example this woman who likes to upset people when they're low or down walked by when I was just out of hospital. She stalks people to the point of suicide, one woman actually did kill themselves but like I said she always picks on people who are already low. She assumed I was because of hospital I guess. So I walked to try to miss her but she went out of her way to make sure I saw her. She said "are you ok" a part of me thought "I don't have time for this" because she would start being there every day - it's what she does. And they looked her dead in the eye and aggressively said "yeah, I'm ok. Are YOU ok?" And she scurried off and didn't bother me again. So I don't see it as necessarily bad to have those parts, I see it as a defence switch now. I used to see it as a massive problem and beat myself up about it.

How to tell? Ummmm time, questions and getting to know yourself and your parts better. Lapis Lazuli

If I did switch to a psychopathic alter and did those things. I would have lost time and not remembered I had right? I remember it all its just that the bad wins sometimes. I remember the struggle with wanting to and not wanting to.

Rive wrote:If I did switch to a psychopathic alter and did those things. I would have lost time and not remembered I had right? I remember it all its just that the bad wins sometimes. I remember the struggle with wanting to and not wanting to.

No, because alters can take over without lost time. Or they can partially take over, or you can feel their feelings when they're not in front. There are no rules about it--it can feel many different ways. Also, all alters exist to help the system. You're certainly not going to encourage communication and trust if you refer to them as "psychopathic."

But they do bad things. Also how do I know what is a bad tendency in myself to do things and what's an alters tendency to do bad things?

andiKirkwood wrote:

Rive wrote:What is the difference between alter bleeding (where an alters emotions bleed through to you) versus switching.

I aint never heard it put that way before. my T just calls it being co conscious. it would scare the bejezz out of us if she said alters bleed. bad enough we really did bleed when we got hurt too young.

We have experienced that, and I get the term... IDK we've used it, but one of us might have. It is a sensation some of us are familiar with- Zor most notably, sensing or getting "a hint" of something one of us are feeling.

It IS a sign of co-consciousness, a very very minimal experience of it. Pixie and I are co-conscious and have been since forever, almost immediately from when we first met, actually. But the things you mention are how I first began to have those sorts of connections with Kaleb, some time during our "dating" before we married inside. We are not "co-conscious" like Pixie and I are, but we have a LOT of awareness of each other, even when not together in the same place inside (like when I'm at home and he's at work or something).

Kitten

Thanks guys I wish there was a surefire way to know what was me and what was an alter.

Well, there isn't. And you are an alter also--not any better or more important than they are. You're all parts of one system.

How can I get better or begin to understand myself if I dont know what behaviors come from me Or an alter its impossible.

For behaviors or thoughts that were or are highly uncharacteristic of you, my guess is that they belong to one or more alters. I mean, that's what you'd expect with DID, right?

I had always recalled with confusion and shame an incident when I was young that I took as me doing it. The behavior seemed completely contrary to my normal self. I described it in this post but basically one of us, Dan, put a small dog into a barrel in our garage for what we now recall as two days. I sort of remembered a range of feelings about the dog -- the anger was most vivid -- but overall it never made any sense.

Thank god I also remembered freeing the dog, giving him food and water, and petting him before he went scampering off. Otherwise I probably would have assumed I had psychopathic tendencies somewhere.

What was going on in our life, abuse of Jack by the father, caused his rage at that to split off into another alter, Dan. The rage wasn't directed at the father, which would have been accurate, but at other alters for continually "putting ourselves in danger." As a parallel, Dan was angry at the dog for obliviously walking up to us, up to potential "danger" (our anger? the dog didn't know us). Of course, there was no way to escaping the father's abuse, but it was hard for Dan, at age 9 holding a large part of our rage, to understand that, to accept that we were so helpless.

As we grew up and into adulthood, Dan's rage would flood into us when circumstances were an echo of past events or helplessness. In other words, events could trigger his rage. He couldn't switch in because our gatekeeper would always push another alter forward. Still, we've felt a wave of rage and bad thoughts a few times and were ashamed we "went there," that is, to the extreme. The host fronting had enough presence to realize the emotional reaction was completely out of proportion to the reality.

There were other behaviors that seemed completely uncharacteristic of "me" (in fact, of any of our hosts) and basically I had no explanation until I realized, oh, I (we) have DID and these behaviors were by different parts of me/us. Now it makes sense.

Does any of this click for you all?