Can you CHOOSE to be/stay 'multiple'?

I've been reading on 'Multiplicity' more and trying to understand where 'I' came from (compared to where some of the others in our system come from) and have come across posts from people online who:

* believe you can choose to be multiple,
* are a mix (recognising some of theirs were born from trauma but others they chose to create)
* believe they created theirs accidentally before being aware of the condition or existence of stuff like
Tulpa and spent years believing they had imaginary friends or believed it was just something
like Maladaptive Daydreaming due to lack of knowledge of DID).


I understand how severe early trauma can create multiple alters in a child I get that, but my question is once a person has reached adulthood and then understands all the information, goes through therapy etc ...can they still CHOOSE to remain multiple? ...or will the therapy process automatically mean the other parts will integrate as the person starts to see their 'others' as 'past versions of them'? ..what if not all your alters are 'versions of you'? Would they remain separate?

I think basically I'm asking can you be 'recovered' from your original trauma but still choose to keep your alters and 'inner world' alive?

From everything we've read, you can stay a multiple without having to fuse. We've also begun to wonder if there is a big difference between a neurodivergent system and a neurotypical one as our system actually isn't sure it could operate as a single personality. An example of that is that we actually rely on different parts to do vital tasks. An example is that I struggle with driving because of the information overload, but Leila can drive with relative ease. Leila still has her own personality and has occasionally co-fronted at home where she loves to sit and draw. All of us have relatively similar personalities, kind of like close siblings, but we have so many different was of seeing the world too.

But, yeah, from what we've seen and read, full on fusion is not a necessary step to complete healing, and in fact, some systems have chosen not to integrate and psychologists have found that not pushing fusion as the end goal, but rather healing, has been helpful to many systems.

I hope that helped,
Vi

I understand how severe early trauma can create multiple alters in a child I get that, but my question is once a person has reached adulthood and then understands all the information, goes through therapy etc ...can they still CHOOSE to remain multiple? ...or will the therapy process automatically mean the other parts will integrate as the person starts to see their 'others' as 'past versions of them'? ..what if not all your alters are 'versions of you'? Would they remain separate?

I think basically I'm asking can you be 'recovered' from your original trauma but still choose to keep your alters and 'inner world' alive?

That's what functional multiplicity is about. Staying multiple while having healed your traumas.

My alters weren't all versions of our host(s). Some were so different, we never thought they could integrate and merge with each other. But here we are, years later, only 2 identities remaining from the 15 we were originally. Every alters we had is still here, only on a different form.

And that's why functional multiplicity is different from DID. Daem and Lexie could merge if we wanted to. We share everything: memories, behaviors, feelings, etc. The ONLY difference is how we choose to relate to them. When Lexie handle conflict with a calm and confidence, she's connected to what we see as Daem's ability to stay calm and regulate himself. Truth is: it's not just Lexie, WE ARE calm and regulated, because we both have access to that ability.

When we remember a memory that was previously shattered between alters, we all have access to the information, feelings, images, etc. of the memory. We know it happened to all of us. For the sake of clarity and understanding, we might choose to talk about it from the POV of one part in particular, to focus on one aspect of it, because that's how we're used to talking about our memories, but we still feel like it happened to all of us. To me.

The way we relate to our resources, memories, etc. is a little bit of a choice, a little bit of a habit, and a little bit of a "it's easier for us to work that way". It's easier to regulate our emotions and behaviors if we understand them as coming from different parts of us.

But in our daily life, we're not really separated. We work as one. I am both Lexie and Daem. I'm the result of us working together. We don't spend hours talking to decide if we should do this or that. We know. I know. As we're still separate to some extent, our sense of identity can slide anywhere along the "Lexie / Lexie&Daem / Daem" axis, but without memory or ability loss, without DP/DR, without any kind of dissociated feeling. It's a shift, not a switch. It's like changing the theme/wallpaper of a phone : the phone is still the same, what's inside is still the same, the only thing that change is "the vibe" of the phone (if that makes sense?).

And it's actually a pretty nice and comfy feeling. It's my mind shifting the way it accesses my resources and behaviors, so I can stay present, aware, and in control of the situation, in control of how I'll respond to that situation, and think about how I'll be the most efficient to meet my needs and goals, according to my values.

About the inner world, we don't need it anymore. I mean, it's still there, but it's empty. We don't live "in our head" like before. We live in our body, in the present time. We still visualize each other from time to time, but it's out of habit rather than a thing we need to do to communicate.

So yeah, healing doesn't mean you'll have to totally merge all of your alters. The nice part about healing from DID is that your brain can be so used to understand your identity that way, that you can stay separate without being dissociated.

ViTheta wrote: We've also begun to wonder if there is a big difference between a neurodivergent system and a neurotypical one


Vi

Yeah it helps, I also wonder about the differences between a ND & ND system? Kit's theory for autistic systems anyway (not sure about other forms of Neurodiversity) and the way the brain works..so many things in everyday life are overstimulating and/or perceived as traumatic, situations which maybe wouldn't be considered so by a NT person (even taking a specific trauma into consideration) that the many parts are needed to stay seperate so one at least one part can function even if others can't. eg our system having 'social mask alters' to 'deal with people' as 'Bobby' is unable to cope with that at all.

Dwelt wrote: I am both Lexie and Daem. I'm the result of us working together. We don't spend hours talking to decide if we should do this or that. We know. I know. As we're still separate to some extent, our sense of identity can slide anywhere along the "Lexie / Lexie&Daem / Daem" axis, but without memory or ability loss, without DP/DR, without any kind of dissociated feeling. It's a shift, not a switch. It's like changing the theme/wallpaper of a phone : the phone is still the same, what's inside is still the same, the only thing that change is "the vibe" of the phone (if that makes sense?).

The nice part about healing from DID is that your brain can be so used to understand your identity that way, that you can stay separate without being dissociated.

I sometimes wonder if I am a combination of more than one past alter! I mean I appeared quite late ..post-stroke with memories of being 14 and some vague memories of college life and then some of university life (mid twenties) but then nothing until I found myself 'here' again. There are several years between 14 and college and also then between leaving college and university.

But now also Yuna and I work in the way you mention with the slider..sometimes 'more me' others 'more her' ..Kate/Juno mirror us ...when I'm in adult mode dealing with outside life stuff she is Kate, when Yuna is more present, she is Juno.

Only Yuna experiences 'simultaneous control' with Juno...we think that maybe stroke related she was one present through feeling of one side being weaker and see's that as 'Juno's side'

Bobby/Kit always 'switch out' though...either we're out or they're out.The others if they do come forwards tend stay in the background...I'm aware of their presence and they experience an activity 'through me' and share the memory of us having done that together.

TheTriForce wrote:Kit's theory for autistic systems anyway (not sure about other forms of Neurodiversity) and the way the brain works..so many things in everyday life are overstimulating and/or perceived as traumatic, situations which maybe wouldn't be considered so by a NT person (even taking a specific trauma into consideration) that the many parts are needed to stay seperate so one at least one part can function even if others can't. eg our system having 'social mask alters' to 'deal with people' as 'Bobby' is unable to cope with that at all.

Sensory overload is traumatic and leads to dissociation. Meltdowns and shutdowns are dissociative events in the brain and they are traumatic to experience.

How the system organizes depends on the situations faced by the person. If someone needs to mask a lot in social situation they can develop an alter specialized in social masking.

Regarding tulpae: a lot of it is either a spiritual version of the "Inner Family System" thing, or a way to give a face/name to an already dissociated part of the brain, or both.

just reporting some of the things I have read about...
it is not so rare for parts to spontaneously integrate during or right after trauma processing. From what I have seen it might depend a bit on the technique used, but it wasn't within the conscious control of the system if it happened or not.
Similarly, when there is plenty of integrative capacity some people report that the dissociative barriers just thin out all by themselves. they end up in more and more situations where they cannot distinguish between parts anymore. this too can happen even when the system chose integrated functioning/functional multiplicity.
so, from the case examples (Kluft/Nijenhuis and others I can't remember) it looks like not everyone really has that kind of control. For some it is spontaneous and involuntary. but based on theory, it would need a decent amount of integrative capacity to happen.

@TriForce: I noticed that you often loose track of your threads and the precious informations they contain, so you end up creating new threads and the information gets lost even more It is not convenient for you at all!

So I gathered all your threads for you. You might want to save the links on your computer so you can go back to them more easily instead of loosing them again.

About DID and comorbidities (autism, ADHD, fatigue, ageing...)

dissociative-identity/topic222245.html
dissociative-identity/topic221827.html
dissociative-identity/topic221776.html
dissociative-identity/topic220989.html
dissociative-identity/topic220426.html
dissociative-identity/topic220237.html

Additional info: dissociative-identity/topic221496.html

About the different identities in DID (animal alters, child alters...) and the Innerworld

dissociative-identity/topic222136.html
dissociative-identity/topic221658.html
dissociative-identity/topic221259.html
dissociative-identity/topic220727.html
dissociative-identity/topic220542.html
dissociative-identity/topic220532.html
dissociative-identity/topic220287.html
dissociative-identity/topic220019.html

About splitting, fusion, integration, dormancy, switches...

dissociative-identity/topic222096.html
dissociative-identity/topic221995.html
dissociative-identity/topic221923.html
dissociative-identity/topic221739.html
dissociative-identity/topic221402.html
dissociative-identity/topic221241.html
dissociative-identity/topic221137.html
dissociative-identity/topic220957.html
dissociative-identity/topic220817.html
dissociative-identity/topic220740.html
dissociative-identity/topic220368.html

ooh! Jeez! sorry I didn't realise we had posted on same subject so much!

Memory has been a struggle, especially newer memories We tend to focus on making sure we've remembered to walk or feed the dog, order food, prescriptions etc ... then remember that we wanted to ask something but completely forget that we maybe already did! ..sorry!

This week we were wondering what time food shopping was going to come only to check and find we'd forgot to do it!

Still I don't think we'd have survived as well post stroke as a singleton as some of us still had memories intact when we did eventually manage to find everyone and get communication working again.

I figured it was a memory issue so I gathered them all. This way you can save them on your computer