Age regression of alters?

Could a medical incident like we believe we had trigger age regression in some alters? I think we know who ‘lost guy’ is now but what’s confused us was his appearance (from a time before we had known them in real life) as well as behaving completely different personality-wise due to his memory loss?

‘Maya’ (the lost girl) also seemed surprised the children were so young ..they are currently both presenting at toddler age around 3-5 years old (it’s hard to say as they haven’t’ said much)

Some alters may have originated out of a traumatic medical event, so it would make sense if that alter were triggered by a similar medical event.

Age regression is a known phenomenon in DID and stress may certainly trigger this. Some of my adopted son's alters appear to slide among various young ages. If you think about it, age regression would be an accurate description for what happens when any adult alter switches to a younger alter.

Alters can present as older than they are, especially during non-stressful times. For us, some alters can lock onto a vague "adultness" so that they can act, talk and appear to think like adults. But if they're stressed or triggered and that adultness gets detached, they appear and sound their alter age.

Sometimes a young alter routinely pretends to be an adult or at least older. Stress can cause them to lose that pretense.

There's another phenomenon where a young alter is able to connect to certain procedural memory, which is knowing how to do something. This can make them seem older than they are. Soon after our young alters awakened and joined us, most were able to turn on/off lights or do some complex tasks they didn't learn themselves.

We've sometimes assumed a younger alter is the same one as an older alter, just regressed, when it's actually a different young alter switching in. In our system, these two alters are more connected than another two random alters. So when our Carter first visited, he felt just like me -- John, the host -- regressing to a younger age. That was because I happened to have replaced him as host when we were six so we share a deep connection -- I was sort of formed out of him. His emotions still feel more like "me" than some others and can overwhelm me more than the emotions of others.

Sometimes we've just misguessed an alter's age, typically assuming they're older than they are.

Thanks.. we only have 1 adult male and 1 child male.

We had a medical incident that resulted in memory damage to some alters and we found they don’t remember who they are. The problem is we didn’t either at the time. (we have FND and have had episodes of stroke-like symptoms or sometimes it’s just memory or blackout).

This particular episode resulted mainly in disruption of communication and memory and has left us with severe brain fog, DA and fatigue.

The adult male in particular was older he wasn’t an age-slider but was the accurate age considering the age of the littles and saw the youngest littlest as his kids. After this event he seems to have gone to an age before they would have actually been born so didn’t think he had kids and didn’t know his name. The littles have regressed by 2-4yrs.

Maybe they will go back to previous ages if their memories recover?

The age of an alter can be a symbol of someting. Examples that I have seen in myself or friends:

- the age of the body when the main memories of the alter were formed (an alter containing memories from age 8 will feel like age 8 etc)
- the age of their emotions (an emotionally immature alter will feel younger than a more mature one even if they have the same memories and abilities)
- the age of their abilities (the more abilities an alter have the older they'll be)
- the age of the character or person they are an introject of
- the age of their subjective feeling of autonomy (an anxious alter who does not feel autonomous will feel younger)
- similarly, something to do with how wounded/vulnerable they feel: more vulnerable means younger
- or something about how society asks us to perform adulthood: alters who do not conform to this expected "adult behavior" can feel younger because they are more playful, have more spontaneity...

It's only a list of examples to help you think about your own alters. You answer might be completely outside of the list, or a combination of different examples.

Hope this helps!

Those 3 ‘insiders’ are the only ones that seem to have aged down, specifically due to trauma of the incident. so far they have stayed the younger ages.

Maya appears to be a split from Ellie and Ellie is not a ‘version of me’ past host, but does seem to play a role with fronting in face-to-face social situations. They can both age-slide.

Mila appears to be a companion or guardian-type and has no other splits from her. Age seems to be irrelevant to her.

Mila tells me when she had gone deep inside to suppress the ‘angry alter’ that it was not a complete one just a fragment and there are 3 main ‘core fragments’ within, that ‘this me’ appears to be made from. ..so ‘Ezri-me’ seems to be the result of a fusion of core fragment parts. We term the ‘core’ as the base personality not influenced by social expectation or demands. Eg the ones over the years that always only came out when home alone. As a result I can feel different ages when it’s ‘just me’ or different ages again when either Ellie or Mila are co-hosting with me.

It’s possible the dormant one may split further when they woke up I guess? But for now they seem to be ‘fast asleep’ with no signs of awakening soon.