New Generalized Alter Type: A Diplomat ?

I am curious if this is unique...

I have a diplomat alter, an apparently normal part. They make peace with people on the outside, and perhaps they or something like them help keep peace on the inside.

In a way, it's like fronting with an inner-self-helper, but with little knowledge of the system.

Does anyone's system have a part that is mostly for external diplomacy?

[My Diplomat is much older than my ISH. As an exercise acceptance, I tried to to use the word "I" sparingly. Now, it then it reads like I might have more than one Diplomat.]

We like that term !

We don't have an ISH, but Daem and I are the paternal and maternal figures, and kind of the "diplomats", of the system.

He's the one who deal with external conflicts the most, setting boundaries with a very calm attitude, refusing to go into arguments. He drives my mom crazy, because arguing is a "language" she loves, but no one can argue with Daem if he doesn't want to. Also, he's very good at ending an "argument" with a status quo, with no power struggle.

I deal with external conflicts only when an emotional response (not necessarily anger) is more appropriate, as Daem's calm attitude while setting boundaries can be taken as cold and mean by some people.

He also deals a bit with internal conflicts, but only if they go out of hand. I'm the "main one" acting for inner peace, calming the others, helping them understand each other, making sure everyone knows what is happening, reassuring them, etc.

Hi @Dwelt,

I am just putting the concept out there, and relating my experience. It seems reasonable that the events that people experience that cause people to have dissociative issues are so individualized that people will be different.

I am glad that you have peace with your alters. We all need boundaries, and "coldness" might also be objectivity and one set by logic.

Thank you for replying.

I think so, yes. I have someone come out that is very helpful and smiles a lot and is always pleasant and gentle and keeps things cooled down and not stressful. I can feel into why she formed and that there is a fear that danger could strike at any time from people in the outside world, so she appeases them, does whatever is necessary to calm them down. To me it is due to years of being in intense fear, danger can arise at any moment, that she came about, to make things safer.

It makes a lot of sense to me that you and others would have one or more alters with the skills of a diplomat. They're important for navigating not just difficult situations but normal life events too.

Speaking and acting diplomatically as a chosen approach is common for our main host and our career has depended on that. We probably rely on it in lieu of approaches that are more confrontational but more successful. It arose from needs of dealing with crazy adults in childhood but also, the father was a politician for a time and had diplomatic skills that we observed and learned from.

We also have several alters each who attach to others or detach from others. Attachment is different from diplomacy but they feel somewhat related.

Hi! We do have Lucas, and although I think majority of things he does in the system is other type of stuff, when he does connect with outside world, he is a diplomat. He builds bridges back where other members of the system have burned them, or keeps connect there when it's about to break, giving time for others to sort out their feelings internally before needing to meet someone who caused difficult feelings again. And in many cases they can be sorted out internally without a need to escape from that person forever, others just need time-out to do it, and Lucas can be there for those outside people while others process, and give that time to them.

We'd need much more of him to have a social life, he certainly has closest to normal attachment style in the system (that I know of) and we also think it is a factor in all relationships. Sadly, he is away half of the year and our seasonal depression during winters could very well be just called Lack of Lucas. (Mostly because of other type of stuff he does and we don't and that's basically all typical depression symptom stuff to not care about some things, like self care and such, but also because.. for being, well, just being Lucas, just willing to be close with other people and happy and social and with loads of energy. He's basically like an energy booster when even close to outside.)

I wrote a long message and told about him before, but then never sent it. Felt stupid, and although I do praise other members of the system intentionally aloud a lot, and do think it's a good thing to do for every system, we just felt stupid. Why would anyone care? Now we came back here to help our little to write to Little's thread and remembered we were about to answers that we liked your message and diplomat is a word we didn't come up with ourselves but would have wanted to before. When we tried to tell all things he does, it would have been a great word to use after Lucas's name in our signature, when we still had more space in it to tell more about everyone.

We do see that, how there can be a typical role that is to take care of social balance outside and also balance things out inside, between us. I think we used a word balancer, although it isn't even a real word. He does lot of things to balance us, things we don't realize when he is there. That's the whole point of how to make peace between parts, that we don't realize he did something there and that's why we didn't have issues regardless of different opinions or something.

I was about to explain how I didn't answer because we felt worthless and then remembered how it feels if people don't seem to understand you or don't answer and decided to say something anyway, and got off topic of that off topic. We're bit of a mess, sorry. We decided to rather feel stupid than feel we left someone without an answer although we did think it was good thinking and did relate.

I should sign, but don't know who we are. We're too many right now to tell who it is. We're kind of switchy with many that are not that old yet.

Us

Yeah, we have someone who fills a similar position. They have more knowledge of the system than most, myself included, but that isn't saying a lot. Each alt has limited information of the system.