What does this mean?

Hello, I am back with another question.

Last night, I suddenly had a bunch of flashbacks or memories, I'm not really sure what it was, but I remembered a ton of memories that alter had been holding, and it was kind of distressing. However, in a recent development, my system decided that I am our "protector" now, and that I'm "strong enough" to protect everyone. I have a suspicion that because of this, that alter thought I could handle those memories, but I also have noticed that alter seems to be "gone", similar to how it felt with other fused alters in the past. I'm a bit confused because I thought I needed to process the memories before the alter fused. I'm not sure what this means now that I remember things that another alter used to hold. Does anyone know what this means? Thank you for your help.

It means that you know have access to memories that were restricted to another alter before that. It means you have now a direct connexion to the what the alter contains instead of needing this alter to tell you what memories they hold.

It also means that said alter have a lot of trust in you and I think it's nice.

Oh! That makes sense. Thank you. I'm still fairly new to some of this, but I'm glad that it seems my alters are finally ready to start trusting me now. Progress!

One more question: If I have their memories now, does that mean they are gone now?

Not at all! Memories being shared does NOT mean the alters are gone! They might become less active but they still exist.

Sharing all memories, abilities, ressources, healing the trauma... is called integration and it does NOT mean the alters are "gone"! They are just better connected and it's less exhausting for the brain compared to being dissociated with very separate memories etc.

An article explaining the differences between the cooperation between the alters and the state of "functional multiplicity" (when everything is integrated but the alters are not fused)

Thank you very much for your help! The article is very informative.

ArbreMonde wrote:Not at all! Memories being shared does NOT mean the alters are gone! They might become less active but they still exist.

Sharing all memories, abilities, ressources, healing the trauma... is called integration and it does NOT mean the alters are "gone"! They are just better connected and it's less exhausting for the brain compared to being dissociated with very separate memories etc.

An article explaining the differences between the cooperation between the alters and the state of "functional multiplicity" (when everything is integrated but the alters are not fused)

We also seem to be getting better at sharing the memories and skills between us so I feel like the whole life and the body is mine too though there are still chunks of memory missing. We're not sure if thats due to brain fog, the strokes or the dissociation from being seperate and holding memories seperately for years. Maybe a combination of all factors?

Lily