Memory and joining?

I wondering if it’s possible I am a result of 2 or more alters joining? As I’ve read that can create ‘a new alter’?

I seem to have memories over various decades, some feel like ‘my memories’ and I feel something when remembering them, others I remember but with no feeling as if watching someone else’s memories but no memory of whose memories they are?

I know I was unaware of this for most of my life and if others were fronting they all used the legal name, none had separate names or I didn’t know of them and we were not online then so no online nicknames or anything and no-one called us by anything other than the legal name.

The last 8 years are the most patchy memory wise. I wondered if two or more could have joined and I was the resulting ‘new alter’? If I have their memories of ‘life’ would I not have memories of them also?

To understand what is going on you need to understand what dissociation makes to the brain.

Alters are not complete separate persons. They are more like "identity boxes" in which memories, abilities, etc. can be "filed" more or less fully.

When something is filed inside an alter, this alter sees this content as "mine, me, my memories, my emotions, my existence" and everything else is "not me".

Memories can be partially filed inside an alter: this alter can remember the memories but not as "me, mine".

The more the alters integrate the more files they share. Meaning that the same memory, emotion etc. can be seen as "mine, me, my life, my memory" by more than one alter. The point of view will be different of course but this item will be fully shared.

Different identities can share "files", but they can also fuse together (if they fully share their files first AND want to fuse - if they don"t want to, it will not work) or the brain can decide to re-arrenge all the files between pre-existing identities and/or create new ones if needed (through fusion or by creating someone new).

You are the only one who can know if you are a pre-existing "identity box" who recieved "shared files", how many, who they come from, or if you are a completely new "identity box" because it made more sense that way.

Remember, I might use metaphors like "boxes" and "files", but you still exist and are still real! Clouds are real even though they can gain or loose water and change shape. Same for the alters in a system. They are all real no matter how many time they shange shape and gain/loose content and rearrange themselves.

So ..if my system decided to ‘create someone new’ could it also select which memories you had and believed were ‘yours’?

Could I believe I was a past alter if the system believed that alters beliefs and memories would be of the most use now? ….but still be ‘a newer version’ of that alter cos other alters memories had been added in too? Or other alters had joined with those memories to create a new one that had all their combined skills and memories??

Eg say if the system had decided 4 alters should blend who were unable to process anything new…. Is it just luck which become the strongest personality traits or memories of the new one? Or does it depend on who identified with the body or life the most amongst the ones blending? Or who had the most real life experience?

That's where it is a bit tricky to grasp: whatever memories feel like they are yours, are yours. After all, you live in the brain that experienced said memories.

It's a very abstract and complicated concept to grasp, I grant you.

If you have memories that used to belong to another alter, then they are your memories now, congratulations! And yes, every identity in a system can become "newer versions" of themselves as they gain new abilities, share memories, experience new things... They can become "newer" because they get "updates" or because they are two or more alters joined together.

What personality traits show up in the end in the fused identity... I have no clue why some become more dominant than others. My informed guess would be that there is a good reason why the brain decided "that's who we are now", but what the reason is... brain mystery, to my knowledge.

If anyone has a better clue than me, be my guest!