Taking over life

I’m not sure at this point whether this will end up being a one off post or a journal page.

It’s beginning of the working week and the previous host has not been re-triggered to the front to take care of stuff. What is even more unsettling is that we were previously two teams and none of the others that were in fronting team are present either!

I’ve been inside a long time so am really unsure what to do…

Found the mobile down side of sofa flat… charged it up …For now I just told someone who messaged past host ..I’ll refer to them as PH for now … that I seem to have that bug that’s going round and have been told to rest in bed. It seems family are away on their hols they had sent a text with date of return so think I’ve got a week to try and work out more.

House is a tip so will try tidy and see if can find any notebooks or diaries or something that might give me some clues. I do have another head mate at front with me..asked if they wanted to take turns but they said they don’t identify with the body and it would make us more confused but offered to remain in background and take the role of Gatekeeper to stop other more confused ones getting out to the front and making things worse.

They’ve gone to assign the third most able of Shadowlands Team as Caretaker of the others I was previously head of, so they don’t start panicking.

Any tips? If PH doesn’t return how do I take over a life I wasn’t previously present for?

Well if PH does not return for now, you can always ask inside of anyone has any clues of how the life is organized usually.

Looking for notebooks, to-do lists, journals... also helps. It's really helpful to have some kind of bullet journal or similar kind of notebook to keep track of all that happens, the to-dos, the main events of life...

Grounding exercises help too.

Also without "taking turn" with the others, you can try to "co-pilot" so they can share their knowledge and abilities with you without the discomfort of fronting. It is very helpful when some abilities come from alters who are really uncomfortable with the body. This way you can do the thing without the discomfort of body dysphoria. It can take some trial-and-error to manage it, but the more you do it the easier it gets.

Hang in there! You can do the thing! One step at a time, you can figure things out! It's confusing at first but it gets better with time.

ArbreMonde wrote:
Also without "taking turn" with the others, you can try to "co-pilot" so they can share their knowledge and abilities with you without the discomfort of fronting. It is very helpful when some abilities come from alters who are really uncomfortable with the body. This way you can do the thing without the discomfort of body dysphoria. It can take some trial-and-error to manage it, but the more you do it the easier it gets.

Hang in there! You can do the thing! One step at a time, you can figure things out! It's confusing at first but it gets better with time.

Thanks…Appreciate the support ..can’t really tell anyone as I don’t know who knows and who doesn’t. how do we do this co-pilot thing without GK blending with me to share experience of being in the body?

Trial and error.

There are some visualisation techniques that can help but regarding what you will visualise will really deend on how your system functions.

Examples (but do not hesitate to come up with your own ideas!)
- GK puts their hand on your shoulder to guide you
- GK uses a radio transmitter or walkie-talkie to tell you what to do
- GK pilots you from the inside like a giant mecha suit
- GK uses a crystal ball or magical mirror to communicate with you
- you both use a magical spell or Sci-Fi guizmo to have a telepathic connexion
- GK puts their knowldge and abilities in a magical locket and gives it to you to wear

Do not hesitate to go crazy with what you visualize. Anything goes, including stuff from your favourite movie or TV show

Ok so I’m still here out front!

I have managed to piece together a bit more information. Going from photo’s found where I felt ‘that was me’ I was last the main host around 8 years ago. I do not remember knowing of other me’s at the time.

The one I am calling GK it seems was not the Gatekeeper outside the entire time while I was inside all those years. CT has also mostly lived in the Shadowlands with myself and GK. We apparently lived there many years ‘forgotten about’ and seem to have a deep bond between us.

It seems severe depression caused my descent into the Shadowlands I don’t remember much and it’s kind of scary to think I went to bed one night and woke up 8 years later! CT it seems has been a devoted caretaker to me on the inside and has never hosted for the Outer Wilds Team. They have been able to do a temporary blend with me and share the years we spent together on the outside before I disappeared to the Shadowlands.

It seems at the time of going inside I did not know of the other personalities but I seem to have a vague memory of being told. GK said that was them telling me but it was after I had already been inside years as I had just slept for many years and the other team hadn’t worked it out either until several years after I had disappeared inside.

Anyway I guess I can’t avoid the outside world forever as the others seem not be returning. ..and bills are arriving and food running out… I found some cash in the house so decided I’d like to cook their favourite meal for CT and GK to thank them for their loyalty so we’re going to venture into the outer wilds for real today! GK says visiting places I previously used to go might help more memories return eg remembering visiting the supermarket, the smells and sounds etc.

I guess I may just as well enjoy the time as if I’m getting a free holiday as I have no idea whether the others are going to return and snatch life back again at some point!

So later on yesterday a family member unexpectedly visited…this would have (according to GK) usually triggered a different ‘version of me’ to the front. …it didn’t.

I guess this means they’ve gone dormant if the things that would have usually triggered them out to the front no longer do?

Or maybe it’s because I was never connected to the others in the past? GK tells me I had always been disconnected from the inside so I could function more efficiently in the ‘outer wilds’ as the full time host …and the next one after me chose to leave me disconnected on the inside so my depression didn’t impact their ability to function when they took over. Maybe this is the reason I’m not getting the message to switch?

CT has come to the front with us, they said the Shadowlands area where we were is empty. No-one else has appeared there in place of us. CT thinks maybe there is a different area where we were never allowed or invited in the past and that’s why we can’t find them.

Their decision to leave me isolated seems to have come back and ‘bit them in the bum’ so to speak because I’m now at the front and consequently have no way to communicate with them! ..or to even know who I am trying to find or communicate with!

So I guess I’ll just focus on the outside life and try and decide what to do next. It appears I have an opportunity to reclaim my life here!

When an alter goes dormant it is because they are no longer needed. It does NOT mean that their abilities and memories are lost, it means they are shared with other alters who can use them too and sometimes use them better. Because e.g. the other alters can combine said ressources with other ressources/abilities for better results. Remember that dormant alters can come back again whenever needed, if only as a voice telling you that you're doing an amazing job and that you're becoming more and more awesome every day.

Example:
Alter A contains "being angry" but they are unable to feel anything else and they can only express the anger as "yelling and shouting". After a given time, Alter B *also* gets the ability "being angry" but Alter B manages to combine "being angry" with "talking in an assertive way" and "setting boundaries" so the results are better at staying safe than "yelling and shouting". Alter B can either say stop and walk away OR yell and shout depending on the situation, which makes it easier to manage complex social situations.

The more diverese abilities can be combined together, the easier it is to manage complex situations. But it takes a lot of energy and a high level of connexion between the parts/alters. So it's okay if you notice that when the system as a whole gets tired, it becomes more difficult to do some things or modulate the overall behaviors and emotional responses. It gets better with time and as the connexions become stronger.

Ok so between the three of us that find ourselves out front now..we could have all the skills of the other team between us? ..but we don’t have their ‘identities’?

Does that mean they have integrated inside us or just ..erm.. ‘made a copy’ of their skills to pass on to us?

We will start making a record of what we feel our different skills are individually and when working together.

"integration" means "creating a neurological connexion". It means that the ressources / abilities are connected to more than one alter.

So it means that every alter who is able to, let's say, cook pasta without help from other alters, has "integrated" the "cooking pasta" ability.

Abilities are not copied-pasted: the human brain is a lazy organ, it's easier to, like, "give the password" to many alters rather than copy-paste the full "programm" many times. So, another way of seeing "integration" it is "having the password for this or that".

When the ability (or memory or whatever) is not completely integrated, another alter can "type the password for you" (= be co-conscious, temporarily blend to share their ability...) but you still need their help for that. Sometimes when the ressource is not fully integrated some alters can remain "on the back burner" and use "passive influence" and blending to share their abilities without fully fronting. It's a bit as if they were reminding you the password each time you need it untill you fully remember it.

When a system is fully integrated, every alter has all the passwords for everything but they are still separate identities.

I hope the password metaphor helps!

ArbreMonde wrote:
When the ability (or memory or whatever) is not completely integrated, another alter can "type the password for you" (= be co-conscious, temporarily blend to share their ability...) but you still need their help for that. Sometimes when the ressource is not fully integrated some alters can remain "on the back burner" and use "passive influence" and blending to share their abilities without fully fronting. It's a bit as if they were reminding you the password each time you need it untill you fully remember it.

When a system is fully integrated, every alter has all the passwords for everything but they are still separate identities.

I hope the password metaphor helps!

Yes!!! We all remembered the same word simultaneously! … ‘safeguard’. … searched device and it brings up a locked file…title is title of a child’s story book weirdly but it’s possible the password is in the book. gonna see if we can find it to buy.

We realise we still haven’t blended fully as 3…we’ve done two of us at once and one remaining in the background for a short time which gave me some memories back.

We’ve worked out we can do ‘automatic typing’ Where I stay in control of the body but find myself typing the thoughts of the other two, we also have telepathic ability (with each other only).

GK believes they think they know what the last Guardian or Gatekeeper did in case anything went wrong.

GK types “I’m not sure what they were trying to do or whether some kind of trauma happened that none of us 3 have access to…. but …in case anything went wrong I think they had split memories/skills between different alters so the entire system isn’t revealed unless the entire system is able to reach the front! Like a safeguard …so if one found themself locked out front they would only identify as a single personality and have no memory of being a system until another was able to join them… those 2 blending would unlock the memory of ‘being plural’..though they still may feel like they were ‘one person with a invisible/imaginary friend’ but the instinct to keep this a secret to the outside world would be also be triggered along with an instinct on where to find the answers. We just need to find the right triggers to unlock the passwords! thank you ArbreMonde!”


host back <<. We can’t find anything that looks like a traditional journal where PH’s talked about a system etc but GK now believes they are possibly written as stories so if anyone else had a nosy on our device they would just think they were fictional stories..there’s a file called ‘Creative Writing Club’ which is also locked but we haven’t worked out what that is or where the password could be yet.

Also I need to find a better nickname than `host’ if we’re going to stick around!

P.s every time I try to use a smiley I get an error message come up??