New System Questions

Recently diagnosed in the last few months, we are hoping someone may have some insight.

We have apparently been switching for pretty much our whole lives but it wasn't super obvious to anyone. A lot of symptoms were overlooked and misdiagnosis happened on more than a couple occasions a long while back. Fast forward and during a stressful point in time this year, voila alts. It sure explains a lot but with the new alt switching into execuyive mode and all this activity comes a lot of questions. The biggest one on the list is can it get more overt? Our system has been covert since first split, with some notable exceptions we weren't aware of until recently. Now that the alts are out for field days and flirting with my SO, I am concerned about things becoming more overt before being able to manage the system better.

Is it possible switching overtly will be more prevalent?

I assume no one can know for sure but even anecdotal stories may give some insight.

Ty Kaliope

We have a fairly cooperative system, at least in terms of not wanting anyone to know about us, so everyone is careful, and since finding out about each other, we have only been more overt in what we perceive to be safe situations (that hasn't always turned out to be the case--which was upsetting when it happened).

So we've been a little more overt at home, making it more obvious to the husband sometimes.

I think, as with everything, communication is the key. It sounds like you're managing taking turns and making yourselves known to your SO, so maybe there's just a fear of loss of control. If anything happened that you were uncomfortable with, you could have a discussion about it. It's not really for you to "manage" the system. You're all in this together.

theres can and theres will. probably anything can happen. but that doesn't mean it will.

we went from like 100% stealth to frickin florid when our did crisis began. we're not as bad now i think but tbh i'm shocked none of our customers or work contacts know.

since i wound up fronting most of the time i hafta pretend to be a responsible mature grownup for work stuff, then everyone else pretends to be me pretending to be responsible for work stuff. but the more stress we're under the harder it is to pretend.

sometimes it all falls apart & we can barely type or spell or w/e and dont have the energy to worry about it. sometimes we sign the wrong name to emails too when we re stressed. but nobodys ever questioned it lol. idk. i think people just ignore what they dont understand or something?

like Gang says, communication is really good but sometimes its really hard to do. but if you've been like super stealth in the past then you all know how to do that already so theres a good chance it'll stay that way? Ithink?

like we dont go switching in public unless its safe to do so & even then its not a big theatrical thing, sometimes even we dont even notice it happens.

viola

Thank you all so much.

I want from being absent-minded, forgetful, and day-dreamy to popping outside my body and watching four alts have an emotional moment and rolodex through over the course of a few minutes. I thought I was going mad. Within a few days, I would fall asleep with my head in my SOs lap, doze off and wake to find out my SO and my youngest alt had been watching cartoons, snuggling, and laughing. What few details I remember of it were grey at best. So the progression over a couple months has been a bit startling. I just wanted to check in and make sure I wouldn't front in the future and find out I sold my cat or something else less desirable.

Thank you.

TheGangsAllHere wrote:It's not really for you to "manage" the system. You're all in this together.

Great point and one I will try to remember.

I am trying to build communication and hopefully learn more about all of us and when we switch, triggers, details. It can be startling at times. These things are definitely different than managing. More like adjusting to it, perhaps.

Whew I think I'm enough me, to use black ink.

Sometimes, Kalliope, I read something you've written, and think for a moment, did I write that?

like you, absent-minded out the wazzoo, and so daydreamy as we were growing up it's just I can't even express how bad we were.

And now suddenly this- and it seems to be getting worse. Starting to notice more about ourselves.

Although I haven't progressed to waking up and finding I've been watching cartoons as a Little! Not yet, but I have noticed the Little I know of, wanting to be awfully 'snuggly' with our partner. Seems to be a reassurance thing.

I've... known about 'others' for a few years, but it was still a fairly quiet thing, until suddenly 2020 came along and everything seems to have blown up in our face. And, like you, suddenly it feels a cascade of disassociation and who the heck is fronting? and please don't sell your cat! And I will try not to sell any of mine...

Like you, Kalli- can I call you that?- I am also wondering if this is going to be a permanent paradigm shift- the sheer switchiness of the last... few weeks- with no apparent end in sight. It's driving the Main to think himself purely mad.

Daggone. Time for a color change. See? THAT! Suddenly I'm out again- and I could have swore I'd handed it off to Steph.

It's driving the Main to think himself purely mad.

Someone tell me we're not the only ones to realise in mid freaking paragraph, that we've switched.

Amythyst wrote:we went from like 100% stealth to frickin florid when our did crisis began. we're not as bad now i think but tbh i'm shocked none of our customers or work contacts know.

since i wound up fronting most of the time i hafta pretend to be a responsible mature grownup for work stuff, then everyone else pretends to be me pretending to be responsible for work stuff. but the more stress we're under the harder it is to pretend.

What about you, Kalli? I am feeling a bit like Viola, here. With all this switchiness, the Main is beginning to wonder, if he's going to remain the Main, much longer- I'm wondering the same- I'm... older than you, Viola, but still, I am the wrong gender, and I sure don't want to be the Main. Feels as if it's happening, though.

And poor little Sabrina- Lord have mercy, her having to try to be a grownup. She's 14- I seem to remember you're a teen? No wait- a cat girl! I remember- Sabrina thinks that's pretty cool. Gosh I think you're the same age as her?

Anyway, that just can't work, if anyone else becomes the Main, I reckon it better be me, but I sure don't want that.

But to get back on topic (I'm sorry I don't intend to hijack), minus being for-sure DID (we're going to hang onto calling ourselves OSDD until we have our nose shoved in a pile of DID and be told that's what we are), minus anything official, I feel as if we're similarly placed, Kalli. We chugged along, quietly, then all of a sudden, I'm out, Sabbie's out- after a few years of quietly being around and aware, suddenly it's like we can't stay 'in' any longer, we discovered our Little only last week or so. I empathise with you. It's a bit overwhelming for us all. Even when parts of us want to be out, we're not used to it. All of a sudden it's like omg how do we HIDE it? Even scarier, what if one of us gets really and truly stuck out front?

If I think of any way to help, I'll let you know if we find something that seems to work- for now, I seem to be the coordinator, or whatever passes for that. In a pinch, I can at least get the Little to go back in, and sometimes I can sweetalk Sabbie into backing off fronting, when it's absolutely necessary. Is there anyone in your system, that seems to have trust of everyone else, to... get them to 'unswitch' when needed? I have a feeling, I'm going to need to be more of that, for us- and that might be what gets us to not feeling so mixed up and unsettled. If there's one of you that seems to have a knack for herding cats, see if they can help out with the feelings of too much overt switching. I know I'm going to try, for our Main's sake. He's getting really scared, and I need to come up with a way to help him feel more calm, and not feel as if we're out of control.

How does others feel with alters and alcohol consumption? Cause this alter likes to drink

##stephanie##