About autism and dissociative disorders

I [KIT] am trying to map our system from the beginning of time (well.. this bodies time!!)

'Bobby' was definitely the first child with some 'sense of self' with a developing understanding that they were different and needed to learn to behave in a specific way to 'fit in as normal'. They answered to the name of the body as it was back then, but did not have a developed sense regarding whether they were boy or girl. As they experienced growing up mainly within the Inner world with their changelings (who have no specific gender) they have chosen gender neutral pronouns and have finally decided they prefer the name' Bobby' as their 'chosen name'

I believe the 'changelings' came from Bobby's imagination possibly seen on an early sci-fi TV series. This is validated by the fact that all the changelings see Bobby as 'the original child' and see themselves their Guardians. (as if they were a 'royal' child)

Little Susie seems to have started life as Bobby's 'child social mask' for play school and then school up to a certain age. LS never seems to age beyond 7/8 years old. I'm not sure why? Over the years her personality and sense of self developed more fully and she now appears to be a full seperate child alter. She identifies with the original name possibly as she was the one who had to put her hand up in class when teacher called children's names out for registar. Though she chooses the shortened family nickname rather than full (original ..its been legally changed since) christian name.


Phoenix would help both Bobby & Susie and both could 'see' (in the inner world) and talk to/communicate with Phoenix. They are changeling also gender neutral) so has never taken full control of the body. The bond between those three seems to suggest they were the original 3 to work together from the earliest years.

I am still piecing together the years between 10-15yrs old. Teen S (Now 'Yuna') is often 15 so may have been around also since beginning of puberty, I know 'Sioux' was present for some of the teens as a 'social mask' from who she remembers as 'friends'.

it's possible Teen S/Yuna split off from 'little Susie' if she decided she didn't want to be any older? I [Kit] was a direct split off from Bobby who couldn't cope with the autism unit after Thea's persona 'dissolved'. This happened after understanding our difficulties understanding people was due to auditory processing from Autism rather than being severely deaf. (Thea had been a 'culturally-deaf' sign language user who only came out in presence of other deaf sign language users or interpreters).


so me [Kit], Teen S, little Susie and Bobby appear to be 'the core personalities' who have remained throughout life but hidden behind other 'social masks' to be able to achieve college, university, work etc which 'Thea' & 'Maddie' took care of. They seem to have had no knowledge of the inner world and none of us could communicate with them directly although we could 'switch out' or 'watch from the back' and influence their subconscious thoughts. As they lived with others though and were often busy we very rarely got chance unless they returned home for the weekend or holidays..which would automatically trigger a switch.

We didn't really come out and stay out regularly again until 'Maddie' became housebound and could no longer work and social commitments became less. First just myself then the others starting to join me once 'Maddie' had been returned to the inside unable to cope and we had full control of the life. Then because social appointments were so few and far between one of us 'insiders' would act as host rather than the system assigning another social mask with no awareness of us all to take care of all daily life. Maybe 'myself' is then made up of 4 core parts? ... with some past 'social masks', and 'the changelings' who have played imaginary playmates for our littles to 'comforting spiritual forms' for older adults?

'Jay' appears to have had a 'secondary host' role in 'Thea's era' so has some memory of sign language (though hasn't used it for years) but also curiously has memories of playing a piano and knows how to read music! I'm not sure if she was originally split from one of 'the core' members or evolved somehow via other sources! She appears to have no trauma memories


I wonder how you others on the spectrum organises itself over the lifetime to 'get through life'? and if you know of your alters origins???


Kit

Dwelt wrote:
About that, if the child really feel safe at home but has gone through enough traumas outside, I think it would lead to the same kind of DID I've read about in some case studies (people are supposed to be NT).

one was about a child who had medical trauma and felt that their parents weren't able to protect him from it. He had one ANP going on with normal life and totally amnesic of the trauma and didn't know they had other parts, and two EPs. One EP was really angry about what happened.

I can imagine that, with more difficulties surrounding their sense of self, someone with autism/ADHD would have more than a few alters to deal with that.


Anyway, I can't wait for Reuben to publish her paper, I hope there will be some answers!

I know (though no adult alters have any memory of before 7/8 years old) from stories told to us by parents that we were very ill for most of the first 7 years due to medical complications at birth (that are thought to have caused the autism). Only Bobby and Little Susie consistently appear below the age of 7 when we had to visit hospital weekly for blood tests. Bobby remembers having to be pinned down and hates all physical contact, at an age they had no understanding of why this was being done to them. Little Susie evolved to be a completely passive 'social mask' originally and just sit there 'like a good girl' until they had finished doing whatever was necessary.

We also experienced a fractured skull, childhood epilepsy, (and phenobarbitone no longer used on babies/children) and 2 incidents of near (accidental) drowning within those years so quite a bit of medical trauma!

I know Bobby initially represented us at our most autistic as a young child who found everything outside their bedroom (safe space) terrifying! They remained non-verbal for years and originally only ever came near the front when we were back in the original bedroom visiting home. Bobby only started coming forwards in this house when home alone in the last 5 years of living here. (Although we suspect they may have appeared briefly in the autism unit triggered by other severely autistic people kicking off).

I (Kit) also have a deep mistrust of medical professionals too and memories of 'medical trauma' in later life. I 'm sure I've have seen early life 'medical trauma' mentioned before as a possible cause of DID on some pages

Warning, things might get a little triggery in this post.

Part of our initial difficulty with acknowledging having DID is the fact that our childhood was relatively safe. No out-and-out abuse from my parents; however, before Mother passed, she acknowledged that she engaged in attempts to force us to behave neurotypically. She would punish us every time we exhibited autistic behaviours. Add to that, Father was largely absent and did not really know how to cope with us in part because we exhibited feminine behaviours early on and everyone around us assuming we'd end up being gay. As we tend to joke, they were right and wrong at the same time.

Adding to the problems was the fact that the 'original' three (Vi, Beth and Bri) were all girls. When we moved at the age of six, all of the girl toys we had (Mother wanted us to grow up gender-neutral) disappeared and we had to start masking our gender. This lead to the creation of what became Marcus. After the move we fell prey to sexual abuse by a friend and two others. There were also a couple of near-death incidents involving choking and an incorrect prescription which caused major problems. Then there was the bullying and an abusive teacher.

We suspect that, had the external abuse not occurred, we would have been fine and Vi, Beth and Bri would have fused without issue. We're still mapping things out, and trying to get everyone to communicate properly. We know that at age five there were three but at age six there were five and by age eight there were seven with two of us seeming to stem from abuses suffered over that two year period.

The only time Vi remembers from that two year period was the bedroom, which was a safe place. Bri remembers doing homework and the classrooms (but only second grade. Third grade is a scary place). Beth doesn't talk about things regarding this time.

This all gets to the original point and question regarding masks.
Thank you for reading this,
Octavia.

I wonder how you others on the spectrum organises itself over the lifetime to 'get through life'? and if you know of your alters origins???

We don't have a core because our traumas began at birth, and abuse started at 2yo. We never had a chance to form anything looking like a core.

From memories and stories, we had at least 3 parts until we started going to school. Then, the abuses started being more intense, we developed more and more parts, and we organized ourselves between school-life and home-life ; until school also became a source of stress because of intense and violent bulling, around 11yo.

At school, we very quickly started to use dissociation to tone down the impulsivity and hyperactivity, to handle being bored (it's physically painful for us to not be *at least* mentally stimulated), to stay calm and quiet. Like, I was 6yo when I discovered (while being bored) how staring at a white wall for too long while dissociating could create visual hallucinations...

For a time, we had our previous host in control, with her people-pleasing behaviors + another part to deal with school. Around 17yo, we developed a new part while trying to be more social. He might have started as a mask, before the dissociation and needs to learn NT behaviors that weren't instinctive to us separated him more - not to mention the fact most of our parts were socially anxious back then.

Somehow, we ended up with 7 alters to deal with social interactions : some for school, some for work, some at home, with family, and some with friends. Some were able to be co-conscious, some were not - that's one way we knew they weren't just masks.

Also, once we were 100% safe from abuse, around 16yo, our dissociative barriers started to get more thin. At 19yo, our previous host started to realize something wasn't right with her "imaginary friend". At 20yo, we knew we have DID. Then, our previous host and older alters tried to learn how to take care of us, but couldn't integrate what they've been learning, and that's how I progressively formed, until I became the new host.

Since August 2021, we started to integrate more and more, and most of the social alters have integrated / are integrating with me - and now I have to deal with impulsivity and hyperactivity coming back from behind the dissociation

Dwelt wrote:
Like, I was 6yo when I discovered (while being bored) how staring at a white wall for too long while dissociating could create visual hallucinations...

Bobby once wrote a poem about the moment Phoenix appeared...I wonder if this was how they visualised the changelings! I'm pretty sure we didn't have a TV back then. (early 70's) and Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix didn't exist back then even in book form!

I seem to remember a story that we didn't even have a telephone and grandparents paid for phone and landline when parents needed to ring for ambulance due to seizures, so we have absolutely no idea where the concept of a being that could change shape came to Bobby or how they developed as a tribe with sentience within us! As someone who believes in logic and science it frustrates me I cannot explain the existence of some members of our own system!!

Changelings and phoenixes are part of european folklore since centuries or millenia. I would not be surprised to learn that you read a book or fairy tale about them at some point, do not remember reading it, but remember the phoenix or changeling.

It could also be that the WORD "phoenix" or "changeling" was learnt later in life, but the concept behind it was present in your system before you knew the word.

After all, Zami was a qilin way before I knew the name for it. They just so happened to be at the same time a unicorn, a dragon, and many other beasts. Put them together in a blender, press the button, and voilà, you just need to learn the name "qilin" to put a label on this beast.

Pucca...they are a kind of shape-shifting fae which could act as tricksters. They would often help those who needed them and hurt those who were mean. Fae lore is rife with shape-shifting beings, and those are rooted heavily in Celtic mythology.

In fact, the whole idea of why my protectors are all fae may be rooted in a similar mythological and folklore structure.

On a side note...in fae lore, a changeling is a child of the fae left in a crib and effectively swapped out for a healthy and normal child. The fae would sneak into an unguarded nursery and steal away a child leaving one of their own who would act in an unnatural manner.

Sorry I can't remember how to put quotes from different people into the same one post!! ..but that's
Interesting @ViTheta ..I didn't know about the Fae...is that a celtic word for Fairies???

I guess this is the most possible explanation v@ArbeMonde

"I would not be surprised to learn that you read a book or fairy tale about them at some point, do not remember reading it, but remember the phoenix or changeling.

It could also be that the WORD "phoenix" or "changeling" was learnt later in life, but the concept behind it was present in your system before you knew the word"


Little Susie is telling me " We had a big book of stories Mummy used to read to us and point to the words as she was reading when we were well enough to sit up on her knee"


Her first memories of playschool was she was extremely shy and only whispered and they had to teach her how to play with the other children but she could read words best in the class. My guess would be that we were often too ill to play properly so family would read to us.

LS tells me she remembers 'Thumbelina' which I think is Hans Christian Anderson? ..and also 'The Magic Faraway Tree' and 'The Enchanted Woods' ...Bobby remembers having the Famous Five Collection and identifying with the tomboy 'George' and their dog Timmy was Bobby's favourite!

'Black Beauty' is a favourite of both Little Susie and Teen S so they were obviously present together some times at a certain age. LS says Bobby used to play the theme tune on their little keyboard for her cos she loved the music and Bobby could reproduce all the theme tunes from the TV programs on the keyboard (though they couldn't read music) so they were definitely both at least 7/8 before we even had a black/white TV. LS remembers getting her swing and our sibling being a baby which was def 1975. Some of us remember sibling at toddler age but not us at that age...which places them at 'coming out' around the age of at least 8/9?

Jay has revealed she has had a song stuck in her head for years but couldn't remember what it was, she just vaguely remembers been at an 'upside down' house (kitchen was upstairs and bedrooms downstairs) with host and their father visiting a guy who played a song on an electronic organ, then we took it home... This was our first electronic organ parents bought us to learn music for school exams which means Jay was first around at age 14...which really surprised me as I thought she had been 'created for helping Thea cope with university' much later in our life!

Juno tells us the song was "Annie's Song" and it was the first song 'her daughter' learned to play on it properly (ie learning to read the music too and play chords etc)

Now I'm wondering if 'Jay' consists of fragments of past parts that maybe only came forwards once or twice over different era's given that she has memories from before the body first experienced hearing loss (late teens) AND life at university after (mid-late 20's). She also recognised 'Jody' instantly - who (in our system) is a fictive based on our best friend from 'deaf college' who passed away during a brain surgery years ago. ..which places Jay at also being present and fronting for at least some of the time in the late 80's.


[JAY] No-one had separate names back then anyone who was sent forward was just expected to continue 'playing the host' insiders just got selected and sent to the front to 'play host' for a shift. The one's who performed best got selected most often. The one's who made outside world people question sudden 'odd behaviour' were not sent again but given a role in the inner world. There was a lot of pressure back then 'to appear normal' as host was expected to get enough qualifications to move onto being 'capable of work'


[KIT..again..] so..there we are...another piece of the puzzle!!! ...How big is this puzzle??? ....kinda feels like we thought we had started on a 500 piece puzzle only to find half way through its a 5,000 piece puzzle that's gonna take forever to complete!!

Fae and fairies are basically the same thing.

The origins of the modern fairies etc. are diverse, celtic and germanic in origins with some greco-roman thrown in the mix for good measure.

Some influences include:

- the sidh: ancient celtic divinities who moved "under the hill" (Hobbits, anyone?), akin to the germanic elves - they evolved into Leprechauns, among other things - they also share a common ground with the Brownies and other house-protecting spirits
- germanic elves and dwarves: spirits of nature and ancient divinities who moved in hidden places (rocks, mountains, underhill...) when christianity arrived
- the Fata, or three Fates (hence the french word Fée and the english Fairy): divinities of fate
- the enchanteresses like Circée (for the magic wand)
- the goddess Diana
- greek and roman spirits of nature like Faunus, Pan, nymphs... (some also evolved into the christian Devil)
- other elemental spirits like Paracelsus' undine, gnome, sylphid and salamander


Changelings and the like are found in many cultures, they describe disabled children (mostly autistic children) as being stolen away by a supernatural being and replaced by the spawn of the supernatural being, an old supernatural being, or an animated rock/piece of wood/etc.


The english Wikipedia articles about fairies and changelings are very nice for some in-depth explanations and further references.

I never thought of looking on Wiki for the history of changelings!! ..will have to do that later!