What does it mean to have no main host?

Ok, I don't get it. I keep reading about main host and how it's unusual to have more than one alter out frequently.

It's completely different for me. Alters come in and out. I wouldn't say there's a main host although I believe I'm kind of the host. I don't have a name. But I don't have the most time in the body.

Yes there was a time where Beth and Karen were mostly cofronting in the body for three years. After that an equilibrium was, (before Patrick woke up the twins just before I joined this site him) Patrick, rose, Karen and Beth were time sharing for a few years. I forgot about other alters but just before the recent crisis and since then alters who have been fronting are Paul, Peter and No-one.

Recently Patrick has come back and Rose and Karen have popped in. Beth is writing books whenever she gets to be in the body. But still Peter and Paul and No-one are around more. Except the last few days it's been Patrick alot who seems focused on catching up with what he missed in 8 months absence.

I'm not out the most, I don't think. Alters pop in and out, time share. A minute to me is about 10seconds because that's relative to my amount of body time to put it to a scale.

It doesn't cause us particular problems. We meld in and out, pick up where previous person left off usually reasonably easily. It's been our whole life. It was alot more amnesiac ten years ago then now and unknown it was happening for the most part, for me anyway. But I didn't know and don't know any different of picking up where "I" left off even if I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing or anything else - living in the moment in its purest form is how I see it and cope.

What does it mean? ...that there isn't a main host and everything else I just wrote. Is this "not normal" or not DID, or should I work at being "the main host" I'm getting slight anxiety about it, like I'm weird, like when I realised I'm weird to have "other parts of myself" when I was a kid and found out others don't have "other parts of self" and started hiding it and then by late teens kind of forgot I had parts till late 20's. Am I weird again is basically what I'm asking? Sorry.

In another DID forum I read about several people also having no host, who wondered the same;
and asking if they are the only ones without a main host.

Seems like it is not the most common version, but definitely nothing to do with "weird".
If even I, who doesn't know many "multiples/systems/whichever name fits", saw it several times,
it must be more often in reality, than you would think

For me it seems like there are just different ways to adapt to the individual conditions.

Sarandipity wrote: Alters pop in and out, time share...

...It doesn't cause us particular problems. We meld in and out, pick up where previous person left off usually reasonably easily. It's been our whole life.

That's how it is for us also. We don't have memory loss in between, so it's fairly smooth. There's like a shell or surface so that we always look the same, even when different people are fronting.

Ok so it's not so weird. Thanks guys. I read it a few times and thought oh no I'm weird again even with other people with a disorder I'm weird. So you made me feel alot better. Thank you.

We don't have a host. We used to. We had a couple over the years, but when our DID crisis started, our last host couldn't take it & she disappeared completely.

So we just have a handful of alters who do the outside life stuff. Like work, chores, housework, etc.

Some of us do it better than others, or have different things we're better at than others, but we don't / can't just switch to let the best person do whatever's necessary. So whoever's fronting has to just do their best & get stuff done.

We do still have memory loss problems between alters, but its not as bad as it was 2 years ago. We compensate with lots of lists and notes and stuff, and a calendar app on our phone, so whoever's fronting at the moment can figure out what needs to be done. Usually.

team Amythyst

We don't usually say "we don't have a host" because it doesn't feel right even if it's valid. We certainly don't have just one host. Several of us regularly front and even for a few years after we knew we were DID we didn't realize that "our host" was actually more than one alter. I think those of us who front have for so long considered ourselves a single person and decided long ago that we need to function and appear as such in the world we've created for ourselves (job, self image) that calling us collectively "the host" kind of makes sense.

I'll say this. When we first started to ponder whether there was more than one of us making up "the host" it was as shocking and uncomfortable as the realization and acceptance that we had DID and weren't just one person.

Based on the theory of structural dissociation as described in The Haunted Self, having more than one host-like alter who participate in the regular life things is the norm rather than the exception. Not that I buy that theory wholesale but it states that what makes someone DID is having more than one "apparently normal personality" (ANP) as well as more than one part who hold trauma (emotional personality or EP). Of course, the theory is way more complex than that.

I don't want to spook anyone -- since the thought used to spook me -- but I suspect there are other posters who are sure there is just one main host -- the one who posts -- but in fact there are more than one. In the end it shouldn't matter but at one point I found the idea jarring, not the idea in the theory but the idea as applied to me.

I not understand words one host. DID in me be when upset I be dissociate. Whens I be dissociate my PCP, Psychiatrist an T alls tell me the alter that be that be one out.

liken this morn I gots real angry at phone man cause phone broke he not fix yet. I be dissociate thens whens I looked up man tells be not be so rude. sos I knowed it be angry alter.

whens I got anxious abouts phone I gots dissociate agains an whens I looked up phone man tells me everything bes ok. I knowed it be anxiety alter cause if it wernt he not tells be verything bes ok.

I gots a body an time I not be dissociate but whens I be dissociate it be alters liken I say up bove.

what you mean be host?
what you mean be one host?

TheGangsAllHere wrote:

Sarandipity wrote: Alters pop in and out, time share...

...It doesn't cause us particular problems. We meld in and out, pick up where previous person left off usually reasonably easily. It's been our whole life.

That's how it is for us also. We don't have memory loss in between, so it's fairly smooth. There's like a shell or surface so that we always look the same, even when different people are fronting.

Like so totally how we function. Even without a "trigger" to force us out... we just tend to come and go- we don't have like concrete control over our switching like some do. We DO have a host, Zor, who is out most of all, but like 30+ hours HE notices per week, it's us. That's like 3-4/4.5 hours a DAY of US being out in the 16 or so hours we're up and awake... so like yeah... Honestly, that's a little LOW a guess on his part, if you ask me... but like he's still more out than not, so he's so totally our "host" but like it's not a "host out 90% and barely others, as needed" like some systems

I guess it's been this way forever for us, too- but without being aware of it, and without really KNOWING it... most of our "outside" time got like translated to inner world stuff that doesn't always make sense to outside perspective and ppl.

{\Pixie/}

andiKirkwood wrote:I not understand words one host. DID in me be when upset I be dissociate. Whens I be dissociate my PCP, Psychiatrist an T alls tell me the alter that be that be one out.

liken this morn I gots real angry at phone man cause phone broke he not fix yet. I be dissociate thens whens I looked up man tells be not be so rude. sos I knowed it be angry alter.

whens I got anxious abouts phone I gots dissociate agains an whens I looked up phone man tells me everything bes ok. I knowed it be anxiety alter cause if it wernt he not tells be verything bes ok.

I gots a body an time I not be dissociate but whens I be dissociate it be alters liken I say up bove.

what you mean be host?
what you mean be one host?

I think your T is doing you a big disservice by not explaining the basics of DID to you. Structural dissociation, where there are dissociated identities (parts) is a completely different thing from dissociative experiences.

I feel like birdsong could do a better job of explaining this than I, but dissociative experiences are things like depersonalization and derealization, or "highway hypnosis." For whatever reason, you are temporarily separated from your current experience--either because your brain is trying to stimulate itself because of boredom, or because you're frightened, or overwhelmed. That's the common usage and meaning of dissociated.

Structural dissociation, when a person has dissociated parts, starts out at the beginning (when you're a baby or young child), as repeated episodes of dissociation, but because of chronic trauma, and chronic dissociation, the person doesn't form a single identity--instead, different aspects of them develop into their own identities.

So YOU are an alter just like all the rest of them, and you are all separated from each other by dissociative barriers. What you described up above, is SWITCHING from one alter to another, and not remembering what each other is doing or saying. The alter who is out the most is commonly referred to as the host. Some systems have one main host who takes care of most of their daily life, and other systems have several parts who frequently front.

Since there never was a time when all the alters were "together" as one identity, it is NOT something that just happens over time. The treatment involves helping you communicate with each other and cooperate in daily life--like sharing the memories of what you're each saying so you're not clueless about what you just said to the phone guy. It involves getting to know each other, and eventually sharing and processing past trauma so the barriers don't need to be there.

If you're the one who is usually in front, then you might consider yourself the host, and you might want to have a dialogue with the angry one or the anxious one so that you understand more about them. There might be more to them than just "anger" or "anxiety," and maybe you three can work together so there are fewer memory gaps for you.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:Structural dissociation, when a person has dissociated parts, starts out at the beginning (when you're a baby or young child), as repeated episodes of dissociation, but because of chronic trauma, and chronic dissociation, the person doesn't form a single identity--instead, different aspects of them develop into their own identities.

So YOU are an alter just like all the rest of them, and you are all separated from each other by dissociative barriers. What you described up above, is SWITCHING from one alter to another, and not remembering what each other is doing or saying. The alter who is out the most is commonly referred to as the host. Some systems have one main host who takes care of most of their daily life, and other systems have several parts who frequently front.

This is so wonderfully and plainly explained.