BEFORE you knew you were DID ...

did anyone else have hosts up front with absolutely no knowledge they 'had others'? ..so they genuinely had no idea what people were talking about if they accused them of lying/changing their mind?

or have one that constantly worried people thought they were fake but couldn't pinpoint why? ..but felt it was a bit more than having a 'work self' or 'home self'?

What was the moment that 'you' or one of your alters relaised there were 'others inside'?

Is it common to have one who knew but chose to remain secret and deliberately didn't let the ANP host know they existed?

I'm trying to work out who knew first in our system. I know Kit often slipped out without letting Maddie know but I have a feeling she wasn't the first and it went back much further.

eg when Thea was at university I would 'suddenly find myself' in the middle of dark room with flashing lights surrounded by people drinking and dancing.(I later learned this was called a 'nightclub' and it had happened because Thea had drunk a certain amount of alcohol which triggered the switch). but I couldn't control when I came out and only came out under those circumstances. Then suddenly I never came out again for years until recently and now it seems everyone knows there 'are others'.

Jody

Hello.

I, Jada, was the host when I found out about the DID in 2016. The body was 26 at the time. Really, I was only 16 mentally, but I did not know it until later. I only found out because my alters wanted me to know they existed. I don't know if there were those who wanted me to remain ignorant, but the people who wanted me to know certainly won out!

You want to know the whole story? Here it goes:
I joined Psych Forums for the depression section (hence the defiant username), but looked at the DID section for entertainment. (Sad, but true.) As I read what people posted here, however, I kept seeing people say things that resonated with me. I don't recall exactly what those things were, but as I read on, I got the strong impression that I could have DID. I, however, was completely unaware of any "day-to-day amnesia". That was the one thing keeping me from accepting the self-diagnosis. So, my alters tricked me and gave me some anmesia: I was washing clothes and had just got to a stopping point when a voice in my head said quite strongly, "I'm not doing any more laundry today." I accepted the voice as my own thought and stopped doing laundry. Or so I thought! Days later, Mom asked me when I was going to move my laundry into the dryer. What?! I didn't remember putting any clothes in the washing machine! So, there it was: the straw that broke the camel's back. I had to admit in that moment that I had DID.

So, no, I don't know of any alters who wanted to keep the DID a secret. Undoubtedly, there had to be some, because my system was HUGE back then (like, hundreds to thousands of alters). The people who wanted me to know got their wish, and down the Rabbit Hole I went! I've been down here for almost five years now. What a trip it's been, but I love it.

- Jada



Actually, people in this system still don't want us to know they exist and are hiding to this day. We know because a lot of parts of the trauma are still missing.

- Imre

Non of our alters knew we were did
Our protector knew she wasn't the first in the body but thought she was like an imaginary friend for a child who was suicidal it was her job to be superman and save them from killing themselves.

One of our littles thought they were possessed (their trauma is ritual based SA)


Most of us though just thought we had appalling memories and were prone to impulse phases. Like we would wake up and go that's weird I hate high clothes why am I wearing this?

It took therapy for us to find out. The then host was seeing a t for depression when Our protector talked to the therapist one day and didn't recognize the legal name. Was like o thank ###$ we are in therapy I've been trying to stop this boy from killing him self for years. Therapist was like what little boy???? Hmmm maybe there is more than 2 of you.

Our 'secrecy 'is because the 'child host' was told not to tell anyone about our 'imaginery friends' and we were made to heavily suppress autistic behaviours to 'appear normal', because people wouldn't understand.

The Host's mother knew there was 'something different' about 'our mind' but didn't know what back in those days. (70's) Sadly she had passed long before the bodies re-confirmed diagnosis (of Autism) although it was suspected in early childhood then discounted because child host appeared to be 'catching up' and growing up (it was just a different host better able to comply). The child host had no understanding of this at the time though.

In childhood they were many but it was seen as 'imagination'. in late teens the first full time host took over to go away (in RL) for residential college. She remained main host until the bodies late twenties when she suffered a breakdown.

The awareness of' each other' for us didn't come until the bodies 40's when bereavement led to another breakdown. until then no-one had access to each other memories if another 'slipped out' up front. the main ANP always believed themselves to be a singleton.

Now some of us are communicating better and the bodies memory files are filling to create its full life, there are still some gaps. Everyone (we know about) has sworn that they have accounted for every time they 'slipped out' and added it to the memory file.

The changelings individually only come out to do single tasks when the host was struggling to focus, the host would remember it as 'going into autopilot". Changelings don't have their own identities and can't take over the body completely (a 'human' host has to be up front first). They are more like a fragment, doing a simple job then going back inside with the exception of Phoenix. This still doesn't account for all 'missing time'.

-- Fri Jun 18, 2021 4:06 pm --

Eliseahorse wrote: Like we would wake up and go that's weird I hate high clothes why am I wearing this?

.

I'm curious...what are 'high clothes'?

We had no idea. Which is crazy because now Its completely obvious to me and us that we are lying or changing our opinion on a whim but...before our DID crisis we just thought we were wishy washy people with fading opinions that changed easily. We always justified the differences as us being " flakey" not actual different alters.

Now I know to respect the differences between us and who likes what etc. Its hard because we are still trying to figure it all out and map.

Sorry auto corect... Or possibly a little sneekingbout to swap words round.... It's their favourite game makes us look like we have a non sweary version of touretts....

Should say goth clothes. lol

Our wardrobe flipflops between goth/punk, lumberjack, and flowerpower girly girl.

Eliseahorse wrote:Sorry auto corect... Or possibly a little sneekingbout to swap words round.... It's their favourite game makes us look like we have a non sweary version of touretts....

Should say goth clothes. lol

Our wardrobe flipflops between goth/punk, lumberjack, and flowerpower girly girl.

oh right..lol! I was wondering maybe they mean like really skimpy clothes like mini shorts/skirts really high up the legs and their first language isn't english and it was some quirky google translation!

Interesting wardrobe!!! Not much in ours as we've been housebound for so long and slip on clothes were the easiest for us to dress ourselves in.

In our younger days it was more 'quirky', there was 'sporty tomboy', hippie girl (long flowery skirts and Doc Martens), 'professional lady' - suits (for work) and at one time we used to go line dancing with our dad so there was cowboy shirts, hats and boots in there too!! ...collectively they covered Susan, Thea, Kit, and a few early alters who only made a few appearances in the teens then vanished.

As I tended to be 'triggered' up front usually half way through an evening (of Thea been out drinking) I never got to choose clothes myself or do my own hair/make-up..well..the body's..which often didn't actually match 'mine' (on the inside!)

Jody

We always had DID traits: amnesia, things that felt like "habits" when we did them but turned out we did things differently from time to time (due to switches...), never knew for sure who we were what as our age or our name or gender or even species, felt like we had some "connexion with spirits in our head" or that we could "turn into other people"...

We learnt about the otherkin community (people who have DDOS/DID symptoms but believe it to be something spiritual or not-dissociative psychological thing) so we spent a lot of time here. But in some spaces, the more we tried to talk about how we experienced our otherkin stuff to be linked to trauma, how we made interesting parallels between our spiritual experiences and our present, physical life... The more people started to push us away. Rationalizing things as cryptomnesia or symbolic stuff is difficult to hear for people who are in denial, or people who do not realize that trauma can be "hidden" into what is culturally acceptable. (Or simply because our societys have a lot of psychophobia going on...)

More or less one year after we managed to completely extract ourselves from traumatic environments, our social mask "exploded" and it was as if light had be turned on inside our head for the first time. For the first time, we were able to fully, honestly, start looking each-others in the eyes.

We realized that, yes, the traumas we remember on-and-off really, really forked us up badly. Worse than we thought.

Turning the light on (metaphorically) was seen as a new step towards recovery. Now that we have the proper psychological name for what we are (DID instead of otherkin) we have the proper keywords to look up for ressources to get better (instead of looking for otherkin ressources who are all about self-inquiry but not too deep as to realize you are DID-in-denial-of-trauma and more about finding spiritual explanations or just figure out your "kintype/s" ((non-body alternating identity/ies)) ((non-host alters)) ).

So, let's get this recovery thing going!

__
Zami and the G/Hosts.

ArbreMonde wrote:We always had DID traits: amnesia, things that felt like "habits" when we did them but turned out we did things differently from time to time (due to switches...), never knew for sure who we were what as our age or our name or gender or even species, felt like we had some "connexion with spirits in our head" or that we could "turn into other people"...

We learnt about the otherkin community (people who have DDOS/DID symptoms but believe it to be something spiritual or not-dissociative psychological thing) so we spent a lot of time here. But in some spaces, the more we tried to talk about how we experienced our otherkin stuff to be linked to trauma, how we made interesting parallels between our spiritual experiences and our present, physical life... The more people started to push us away. Rationalizing things as cryptomnesia or symbolic stuff is difficult to hear for people who are in denial, or people who do not realize that trauma can be "hidden" into what is culturally acceptable. (Or simply because our societys have a lot of psychophobia going on...)

More or less one year after we managed to completely extract ourselves from traumatic environments, our social mask "exploded" and it was as if light had be turned on inside our head for the first time. For the first time, we were able to fully, honestly, start looking each-others in the eyes.

We realized that, yes, the traumas we remember on-and-off really, really forked us up badly. Worse than we thought.

Turning the light on (metaphorically) was seen as a new step towards recovery. Now that we have the proper psychological name for what we are (DID instead of otherkin) we have the proper keywords to look up for ressources to get better (instead of looking for otherkin ressources who are all about self-inquiry but not too deep as to realize you are DID-in-denial-of-trauma and more about finding spiritual explanations or just figure out your "kintype/s" ((non-body alternating identity/ies)) ((non-host alters)) ).

So, let's get this recovery thing going!

__
Zami and the G/Hosts.

Only Phoenix in our system ever believed they could turn into something else, though it is mostly animals.It's possible they were behind the human ones that appeared a time or two then vanished like a more experimental stage through puberty. They don't identify with a specific gender they say its so they can more easily transform into anything regardless of the gender of the animal/person. Phoenix has been with us since way back and was Little Susie's first 'imaginary friend' and is still her life long companion in the inner world.

According to Phoenix there's a tribe of changelings in a forest very deep in the inner world and that's where they originally came from. I've no idea where this concept came from as according to past stories told by the parents they didn't own a TV when Susie was a child (neither did her grandparents).

At what stage did you realise you/Zami was Quilin?

I have been in the body since before the body hit teens. I remember because I was a tomboy and hated that I was 'becoming a lady' and all that came with that! I didn't come out into the body again for many years later

Kit

Kit@KitMcDaydream wrote:At what stage did you realise you/Zami was Quilin?

It was a long process. It started as a bunch of fragments introjected from different animals, unicorns, other mythical creatures... And since they were all having similar functions, they kinda clustered together into "Zami". Though we had a long period of trying to figure out what species "Zami" was since they were shifting between all of them before they gradually started to mix together in a more coherent form.

The result really looks like the chinese qilin so it's easier to say "Zami is a qilin" than to say "Zami is a bunch of fragments of animals, real and mythological, in a trenchcoat, meaning they kinda look like a chinese qilin in the end".

(PS: qilin does not have an U in it, it's a chinese word I think Wikipedia allows you to listen to the pronounciation too )
__
Urielles.