Little has a crush on me

Hello everyone! I’m new here and kinda stumbled on this place on accident but I’m super glad I did. A little back story, I’m a widow to a woman who had DID, she had 9 alters ranging from 4-37 and I myself have 4 however we haven’t been able to pinpoint their ages just yet. So I’m no stranger to alters and the workings of DID. I met this amazing woman a few months ago who didn’t know she had DID until we moved in together and I started seeing the blatant signs and different personalities popping out all the time. No big deal to me, I’m just helping her thru what I can.

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING⚠️

Here’s where the tricky part comes in. Only 3 of her alters have come out so far, we know there are more thanks to her little that is 10. Now we haven’t talked about any big trauma that happened yet simply because I’m just trying to get to know them and build up trust with them. Well, I just found out today that the little has a huge crush on me…and we’re not talking holding hands and writing love letter type crush. I don’t have the slightest clue what to do about it. In some ways she has grown with my partner and in others she has stayed little. In a lot of my partners “activities” she has been right under the surface already enjoying them. Now she apparently wants to be out and enjoy them with me. My partner doesn’t have a problem with it, she doesn’t care about me having relations with any of her alters, I just don’t know how I feel about it.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated…I’m super lost on this one…Thanks y’all!

*Nicki*

Alters who are "little" are not litteral children. However, they are parts of an adult brain who has not access to the full maturity of the whole person.

Some activities can be enjoyed with a Little such as, spending time together, going out to eat, watching movies, cuddling (in a safe way), playing board games or video games...

When a Little seeks out sexual activities it can be through a logic of trauma re-enacting and it must NOT be done. Even if it is not a trauma re-enactment it still is very cringe. When an adult DID person has switched to a Little alter, they are no longer able to properly assess the situation and react to it with the full maturity of an adult brain. Even though they are not a litteral child, they become a child-like adult with child-like reactions and emotions and maturity. They must be kept safe including from themself - though the best course of action is to encourage the adult alters to take care of the child alters and keep them safe.

There is no need to know about their trauma to interact with a DID person whoever it is important to know some basics to keep the relationship safe. References can be found in the ressources thread dissociative-identity/topic219302-10.html

It is important to talk with the adult alters to see why they would agree the child alter/s to take part into some activities with you, and comb through them one by one to see if it really is safe.

I myself interact often with my partner's child alters (mostly the main one though) because we share common interests. But I always pay attention to keep the interaction safe and not cross the limits: not acting like a parent to her, not acting like she was a fully functionnal adult, not under-estimating her abilities either, always redirecting her towards the adult alters for things I must not overstep to decide for her (i.e. allow my partner as a whole to keep his full autonomy). (Sorry about the pronouns confusion, main child alter is she/her and presently partner as a whole goes by he/him.)

I hope I helped you get a better understanding of the situation.

Jump in to add a bit more food for thoughts, coming from my own experiences.

For context, most of our sexual alters are young ones (4 to 17yo + only two adults over 20), and it has been really tricky to navigate. Our adult alters weren't aware of that part of our traumas when we started to be sexually active, and we ended up re-traumatizing our young alters + worsening our dissociative and, ultimately, our PTSD symptoms. Now, after a couple of years of therapy work on that matter, things are way better, and we're currently finding ways to handle that part of our life as a "whole" adult person.

So, my advices :

1) you and your partner need to be extra careful. You don't know how many alters were involved into traumatic events (not necessarily sexual) that could be triggered by intimacy. You need to go one step at the time. If anything seems off to one of you, you need to talk about it. It might be a sign of traumatic re-enactment, of an unknown alter being triggered, etc.

For example, when we started being sexually active, while our 2 adult alters were enjoying intimacy, we had a bunch of child alters triggered in the background, totally hidden by dissociation, and the only symptom noticeable was : no sensation at all under the waist. Every other parts of the body were "working", except that one. We totally overlooked it, as we had amnesia and were in denial about our traumas in this area + my ex took my lack of "responsiveness" as a challenge, like "I'll be the one who will make you feel something!". Turns out, the only thing she found that worked was the same thing our perpetrator used to abuse us. All of this just added more traumas to the already huge pile.

Don't do that mistake. Take your time and talk about it, talk about every aspect of it, before, during and after it. Talk about your concerns, their concerns, your feelings, their feelings, everything.


2) Make sure there's always the supervision of an adult alter who has the ability to stop everything if something isn't right. The body is adult, an adult has to be involved + as I said, you never know who could be triggered.


3) I would also add : intimacy has to be handled as a whole. The whole system needs to give you their consent. If one of them is unsure, then it's a "no", no matter how frustrating it is for the rest of the system.


4) This one isn't for you, but for your partner : if she wants to be involved into teen/adult stuffs, why does she still have the look of a 10yo? This is a question your partner system need to think about properly. Maybe it's nothing ; or maybe the answer might avoid further harm.

Also, alters often hold beliefs about sexual and relational stuffs that need to be addressed. A bunch of ours : "we have value only if we can be intimate", "it's something you need to do to prove to someone you really love them", "it's something you do when you're a good, normal person", "not being able to be intimate means you don't really love that person/you're should be ashamed/you're broken", and I could go on and on.



So yep, take your time, talk about it, find your own pace and don't rush things.

Not the OP, but this whole issue is very tricky for us as well.

Dwelt wrote:I would also add : intimacy has to be handled as a whole. The whole system needs to give you their consent. If one of them is unsure, then it's a "no", no matter how frustrating it is for the rest of the system.

How do the littles fit into this? We try to have them "go away" for any sexual activities that would be inappropriate for them. So it's never the whole system wholeheartedly agreeing to it. It's more like us trying to feel whether or not the littles have gotten enough of their needs met so they're willing to step back and let some grownup time happen. We would just stop (or not start) if it feels like anyone is upset or really not wanting it to happen. Is that kind of what you meant?

TheGangsAllHere wrote:How do the littles fit into this? We try to have them "go away" for any sexual activities that would be inappropriate for them. So it's never the whole system wholeheartedly agreeing to it. It's more like us trying to feel whether or not the littles have gotten enough of their needs met so they're willing to step back and let some grownup time happen. We would just stop (or not start) if it feels like anyone is upset or really not wanting it to happen. Is that kind of what you meant?

It fits in what I meant, yes. I was being very general in my answer, because they are a lot of scenarios possible.

If having them go away to not be conscious of the outside is the right way to handle this situation for a system, then yes, they have to be okay with it. If it upset them, it means the time isn't right, and it's a "no".

But there are systems like us, for whom having the littles who are sexual parts "go away" isn't an option. As they hold key elements to intimacy, they are automatically pushed to the front by our brain, no matter if we want it or not, no matter how well-prepared we are (even our gatekeeper can't do anything about that). So, if anything happens, everyone who will be involved in a way or another have to be okay with it.

Also, at the point we're currently at with our healing, with the basis of a global sense of identity we're building, we don't think making our littles go away would be a healthy thing to do. I mean, we now have the sense of being an adult as a whole. This past year, our littles have learned that being an adult isn't as scary as they thought, because we're not a child anymore, we're an adult, with the skills and abilities of an adult. They have learned to trust our adult parts more, and they discovered we're strong, we can say "no", we can protect ourselves, we can stand up for ourselves, we're in control of our life. At this point, most of them aren't little anymore, they are young teens and have started integrating with adult parts.

The only ones who are still very young are the parts holding sexual traumas, and we recently realized it might be because we were avoiding everything related to that, instead of learning how to build a healthy sexual intimacy. Now we're working on it, those young parts have started to be less afraid, and even if we're going veeeeery slowly, they have already started to grow up a bit too.

So yep, many scenarios possible. One thing they have in common is : everyone has to agree to what will happen.

Um I'm a little an I dont no sexy stuff eva nah nope. I got lot of bad grownup stuff what wasdoned when I was little in real life (like just after my 7th birthday) that's why I'm never gonna grow up so I don't have to look at the bad stuff cos it's gross an makes me feel bad what never stops. I don't even like holdin hands. We had anofer little here what was 10 an she had a big crush on SOtarka (she said I love you on like the second date eew girls) an at first it was just kisin stuff so it was ok she was a little but she wanted what the bigs had so the bigs and sotarka said she had to be at least 16 to have sexytine stuff. She all grows up an she 16 now except when she plays with Juke what is sotakas little then she is 10 again for a little while.

-- Wed Jul 27, 2022 7:02 am --

We should point out that 16 is the age of consent in our country.

i had a whole beautiful thing typed up here, and i accidentally clicked out, and now it's gone!

oh well, i'll try again.

in situations like this, it's *always* a case-by-case, alter-by-alter basis, in my opinion. i strongly disagree with the notion that no littles can consent ever, and based on my experiences with my system and other systems close to me, i prefer to treat my parts and other systems based on their alters boundaries/abilities/cognitive understanding/behavior/maturity/etc, and not how they subjectively identify in the inner world, age included. for example: i am the part that fronts the absolute most and handles the most of day-to-day life, including work, finances and many of our social relationships, both personal and professional. i identify as 16 in the inner world. my co-host, on the other hand, identifies as our body's age, but is wildly impulsive and disorganized. he also fronts far less than i do.

the thing about arguments saying that littles can't ever consent is that they completely fail to take into account systems like mine, where 2/3 of our co-hosts are between 14 and 16 years old. we have a lot of young parts in our system because a lot of our teenage trauma comes from infantilization/removal of autonomy and choice/massively overbearing parenting/dehumanization (unsure how to word the specific experiences i had), and we are desperately trying to get away from that by treating ourselves like adults, trying to let ourselves grow up, when we can.

so in this sense, my understanding is that it's less about how a part identifies, and rather based on other things. here are useful questions to ask:

1) are they using an intimate relationship to self harm, as a harmful coping mechanism, or as a manner of reenacting trauma?

2) are they are they using an intimate relationship as a way to please their partner, to avoid a (real or imagined) abandonment by that partner? or perhaps trying to use intimacy as a way to "fix" problems, such as having made a mistake or their partner being angry?

3) are they partaking in an intimate relationship because they feel like they have to in order to be "good", or some other reason telling them that they absolutely *have* to do this?

4) are they able to handle the emotional responsibility and labor of a relationship, such as the understanding of boundaries, the give and take, the communication, etc, without spiraling or becoming upset? can they understand their partner's boundaries and communicate their own? can they understand how/what to give and take in the relationship? can they communicate their problems effectively to work towards solutions for them? are they receptive to solutions at all, even?

5) are they able to stay in the present, and not too deep in past trauma for most of the time? are they able to avoid seeing the partner as an abuser or a savior from abuse that is no longer happening?

6) are they able to handle mature discussions, criticism, abstract and complex topics, all with more than a surface level understanding of what those things mean, even if the wording of the part's side of the discussion may be limited? as in, do they have the mental maturity to have adult discussions, even if the language that a child part uses is childish, limited or uses a lot of smaller words?

6) it's important to recognize that there are almost no sure-fire methods of keeping all alters out of the front completely while intimate relations are happening. of course, i'm sure you know this. it's also important to remember that some parts that are somewhat present for the activity may dislike or be neutral towards it, while others may actually enjoy it for whatever reason. all of these responses are okay, and natural for what the system has gone through and how the body reacts to intimacy like that.

7) all of these things apply to *all* alters within the system. not just littles, but all alters you can communicate with. obviously not all parts are receptive to communication, that's neither here nor there. but for the parts that you do know about and can communicate with, you need to be able to be sure that they can communicate their boundaries, their problems, and that they are not using a relationship or any form of intimacy to hurt themselves or reenact trauma. you should also be certain that they're present enough in the now, and not stuck in past dissociation and trauma as much as possible.

i don't care if a little in one system is in a relationship with an older part in another system as long as they've both gone over all of these things (and/or more if they can think of any) to make sure that both parties are in the headspace (no pun intended) to consent. in my opinion, the biggest sign that there is a problem in the relationship is when there is too much focus on the little's perceived age. when either party starts focusing too much on the fact that one part is a little, that is when it becomes a problem that could signify predatory behavior, and is definitely a sign that the relationship should stop.

however, at the end of the day, however you feel about the situation is not a "bad" one. if you're uncomfortable, you're uncomfortable, and you don't have to spend a lot of time justifying it. naturally, the other part might be upset, but it's not your responsibility to just be in a relationship with them just because. and similarly, if you're comfortable with it, you're comfortable. just as long as you analyze the part in question (and potentially yourself) and make sure that they're in the headspace to consent, and not pursuing the relationship if you've decided that they (or you) aren't.

take care, i hope you get it figured out safely.