I'm so confused *trigger warning*

The "You" in did are all of you, all parts in the body. I think, you, as in the one writing here has to come to terms with everything thats going on inside and all the feelings and actions of the other alters. That includes the "bad ones", they have a place and function in the system to.
Im not here to judge you, please dont judge yourself either.

Rive...

Oh, Rive...I understand.

First, keep in mind that even if something you do is you, not another alter, that doesn't mean you're bad or evil. Bad was done to you. It also doesn't mean alters are evil (though we are guilty of calling one ours "evil" and that is something we will need to work on as it's unfair).

LKinney has complex trauma and complex PTSD. I do not. LKinney carries the impact of our trauma. So how LKinney would act is not how I would act. That doesn't make LKinney evil or bad, it makes her a very traumatized person because she was hurt as a child.

We have very angry alters and some also have violent impulses and have acted on them. I don't have the answers for what that means, but I know I am not responsible for the actions of Black Tiger, but our system has to take responsibility for her. That does not, however, mean it's okay to cage her, which we currently do. We have an alter that all she does is put Black Tiger back in her cage if she gets out. So this works most of the time, but it also means Black Tiger is never made to feel okay, so this means Black Tiger can never be anything but this source of danger because we are failing her.

We work with very traumatized youth. It's very common for many to be very violent. Oddly, we are very good at working with these kids and not so good with our system, but we're new to accepting we have one and it's going to be a process. If we have a very angry student who punches another student, or a teacher, we do have to have consequences. But what you wouldn't do is yell at the student, tell them they are bad or evil, lock them away, not let them be part of the class. Such actions on our part would just re-enforce the behaviour: this child would continue to be violent and dangerous to others.

We worked very closely with a very angry boy last year in our class. He would have black out rage fits and was a danger to others. With one exception in gym, he never once had this issue in our classroom and now, as he's moved on to the next grade, he's a much happier looking young man, he comes to school every day, and he always comes up to us to talk to us in the hallway. Why? Because we made him feel safe (not just us, he worked with a number of great people). We let him know he was not bad, he was not evil. We taught him ways to understand when he was angry and things he could do. We taught him it was okay, in fact the act of the stronger person, to walk away rather than meet words with violence. We always made sure he knew we cared about him and were on his side, that what we did was to help him be the best him, not to hurt him.

People are not violent without cause. We have violent alters because violence was done to us as children. Our parents had this problem because violence was done to them as children. I don't know about my dad's father's reasons, but my mother's father was so traumatized by what happened to him in WWII. It's a cycle that passes on because we don't meet suffering with compassion enough, we meet it with punishment.

You are not a bad person, Rive, because of what happened to you as a child, or actions you did as a child. You were a child. But now you are an adult, and so now you have to find ways to manage. It sucks, and it's unfair. But it's also unfair to just blame one of the other alters and deny them the chance to be full people. That will not help you, them, or your system, not in the long run.

We do understand. Black Tiger has hurt those we love the most. LKinney has dealt with that poorly...no, all of us have dealt with that poorly, we are not good to Black Tiger. That is our responsibility - not to control her, but to help her. She's an animal alter, so we can't reason with her (I don't think), but you don't address a violent, angry, scared animal by being mean to it, by giving it more pain. You have to take care of it. We have to learn to care for Black Tiger, not cage her. That is the responsibility we have. No I alone, but all of us.

Rive wrote:So who is responsible for my actions? If people with DID don't have a core personality (I believe you)why does the law still incriminate them for things saying they know what they are doing?

We forgot to comment:

You noted you are in the US. The US is the single WORST society in the developed world in terms of jailing people in general due to your for-profit prison system. Your country also seriously lacks in any safety nets, let alone good ones (and most countries suck for good ones, especially when it comes to mental health). When the hospitals for people with mental illness were closed (which is good, just locking people up for being different is really wrong), nothing was put in place to support those that needed it. Many people with mental health issues in the US wind up in the prison system. That doesn't make it fair or just, it just makes your society barbaric.

There's a reason people with mental illness should be treated differently if they are a threat. We had a case here not that long ago where someone committed a horrific murder, but that person is now out because they were treated for the condition that caused them to do the violent act.

I have a pretty complicated opinion on forced treatment, striping people of their agency, but when one is actually a danger to society, I understand some level of personal freedom does have to be lost for the sake of the many. I don't like it, but I can understand the necessity, especially with how things currently are (as I certainly think we need to do better overall).

So if alter A commits a violent crime (victimless crimes shouldn't even enter into this; such an alter isn't a threat), I would never agree an entire system should be locked in a prison. However, the system might need to be placed in treatment until the system can learn to work together and help the violent alter so that alter can express themselves in other ways. Once that is possible, the system should be free to rejoin society; the system is no longer a threat because the alter isn't.

- Dax

It is extremely rare for an alter to commit a violent crime. That’s a myth promulgated by the media, and I think it feeds into a fear most of us have about our angry alters. It makes for a good movie plot, but it’s not what happens in real life.

DID occurs for our protection and survival, and successful systems are well-hidden. Alters are much more likely to be victims of crime because they can put themselves in risky situations that recreate some of their past trauma.

Ok, so why would my Psychologist that is a DID specialist say that my desires are from my alters because I don't want to do those things if everyone is responsible?

TheGangsAllHere wrote:It is extremely rare for an alter to commit a violent crime. That’s a myth promulgated by the media, and I think it feeds into a fear most of us have about our angry alters. It makes for a good movie plot, but it’s not what happens in real life.

DID occurs for our protection and survival, and successful systems are well-hidden. Alters are much more likely to be victims of crime because they can put themselves in risky situations that recreate some of their past trauma.

Agreed completely. And because of that fear of our angry alters, we treat them badly, which can make them worse. LKinney didn't accept many of us, but at one point she at least somewhat said she accepted Black Tiger and, guess what, Black Tiger hasn't violently acted out since then. A little goes a long way.

Rive wrote:Ok, so why would my Psychologist that is a DID specialist say that my desires are from my alters because I don't want to do those things if everyone is responsible?

Responsibility isn't the same thing as personally having the desire. I will use our system as an example:

- Quinn WANTS to hurt people (though she never has).
- Laura is the embodiment of empathy and compassion. She's literally incapable of harming others. She could NEVER do it. She feels everyone's pain, and I mean external people, not the system.

These two are as far apart from each other as possible. Now, Laura couldn't even talk to you T about a desire to hurt someone because that would be impossible for her to feel. I could talk about this though, but I would be talking about what Quinn wants, not what I want. As the host though, I do feel the others through passive influence, especially as I am new to this and when LKinney was host she pretended we were not here, so mostly we were just an influence. It would be correct for your T to tell me one of the alters feels the need to hurt people (Quinn), but I, Xena, the host, do not.

No one can control thoughts, desires, feelings. However, you can control ACTIONS. As the host, I must not act on Quinn's desires. Unfortunately LKinney and Black Tiger have switched before and Black Tiger has acted. The rest of us cannot just shrug this off because our system allowed this action. LKinney's methods of trying to keep Black Tiger locked up made Black Tiger worse: LKinney is responsible for how she treated Black Tiger - she tried to control her, lock her up, deny her - this was not okay. When, instead, LKinney decided to accept her anger as a part of her that was not evil or bad (though she didn't so much accept that she had alters), this made the angry alters feel somewhat validated. It helped. There as been no violence since. BUT, as a system, we still have to do much better by our angry alters because we've been really unfair to them, which has not made them any less angry.

Short of it: a desire, as in a thought, feeling, want, etc, is not a bad thing. It's not something you can control. It's important to reflect on it, but as no one can control these things, they are not evil. They are what they are. You cannot control it anymore than you can your bladder.

You CAN control your ACTIONS, personally, but you cannot control the actions of others. If you have an alter that reaches a point of taking a bad action, now you have to ask what you did or did not do that may have led to that result. It's not fair that we have to be responsible for our alters as we are not responsible for outside people in our lives in terms of their actions, but we share this body. We have to all be responsible for what it does because we don't have a choice otherwise.

That's how I see it anyway.

Don't focus so much on using society's methods of fault and punishment. As Dax said, that is so many levels of complicated and flawed and doesn't work to apply that to you as a person with DID. They don't even work to apply to anyone in most cases. There is no unflawed human system of crime and punishment - it is all flawed by default, by design, as they are methods of controlling populations by elites. And I am not going to let Dax go into a Michel Foucault lecture right now ( ), so I'll leave it there.

Ok thanks guys. One more question. How is what I am describing not a impulse control disorder?

Rive wrote:So who is responsible for my actions? If people with DID don't have a core personality (I believe you)why does the law still incriminate them for things saying they know what they are doing?

You are responsible for your actions. As a child I was lucky to learn kindness to animals. We had mice, my mother is terrified of them, we got a cat.

I would put the cat in my pram and push it around. Let the cat bite me to ribbons playing and she'd sit on my shoulder. My mother gave the cat away, same as anything I held dear, but she got more cats - because of mice. So I loved the cats but not in a way of her noticing.

I had a sister and I always felt she suffered more, I still do think that. She has alot more destructive behaviours than I do. I felt compassion and cared about her but again without showing it too much. We argued and fought like sisters do but my underlining way of being was to care for her.

*** TRIGGER WARNING: MENTION OF VIOLENCE ***

As an adult I have: set fire to something when I felt unsafe,punchedmaid - and a few other people, smashed up a pub, choked my mother, choked a woman who was like my mother (not to death), when someone threatened to terrorise me and my children I terrorised them instead, put a knife to someone's throat, had various fights, kinda kidnapped a couple of people, stole weapons from someone who upset my sister, got a gun for my friend when she was frightened of her ex but then she didn't want it she thought I was joking so I had to dispose of it, stole a few things (goods and services), - there's probably more stuff but I can't remember it all.

** END TRIGGER WARNING **

I as a whole person am responsible for those things. When I list them it sounds really bad I guess. It doesn't sound bad to me because I saw these types of things as sometimes necessary. To get by, to survive, to protect my family.

To other parts it's absolutely distressing. When I choked the woman who reminded me of my mother nobody in the system knew anything about it at all for three days. Then after I was let out of jail I showed them exactly what happened and even though they really despised the woman because of how she treated her children they still felt bad and guilty and like it was wrong. It wasn't wrong to me, if I'd choked her kid or killed her dog then yeah I'd feel really bad - animals and children are innocent - but I see it as I "just" choked her. As I said the others felt bad and if I hadn't had a friend at the time who was there and kept saying "no that woman is..." Then they probably would of gone and confessed. People were hugging them in the street because the woman was so badly disliked saying "I heard what you did" and they kept getting upset saying "I didn't do anything" Once it calmed down I had to tell them, seemed fair. After three days they got half the story (I punched her husband) and once the investigation period was over they got the other half (I choked the woman). They felt the guilt, I didn't. And they're still ashamed of that now even though the woman moved and pretty much the whole town is better for it.

So you are responsible. All parts are responsible. If I was a "whole" person, the sum of all my parts I'd punch people and then feel guilty and regret it and try to avoid doing it again. Which I do avoid people and situations where that might happen. If I don't like the look of someone even just a tiny bit, not general dislike, but if they look like the type of person I'd enjoy to punch then I avoid them because it's not worth the grief from other parts - they are anguished.

You as a whole person would want to hurt the cat and feel bad. Just because it's shut off in sections doesn't mean you get to be absolved of overall responsibility. All parts are you including dark parts and you have to accept it.

If I was a child or animal hurter I'd kill myself. That's the one and only thing I'd allow myself and every other part to kill myself over. I wouldn't want to be here and neither would any of them.

Paul

Because most of the time, you don't have trouble controlling the impulses. For intermittent explosive disorder, for example, you need to have aggressive outbursts that occur on average twice a week for three months and that are not better explained by another disorder. I don't get the impression that you have recurrent behavioral outbursts.

My impulses are circumstantial. Around kids and animals mainly. If I'm not around them I have no problems.