Question about inner worlds

I have been going through the process for an autism assessment. Part one was fine. Part two involved a lot of questions about my history, which was maybe more triggery than I thought. But then maybe not really unexpected given it meant explaining past trauma in a fairly brief form. Maybe should have gone in armed with my written out history, but didn't.

The therapist doing the assessment is sending me some extra questionnaires to fill in, and before I left, they gave me a copy of the Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation. I've been trying to read through it, but find myself dissociating heavily every time I try. Overtaken by fuzziness. Whenever I try to speak about my dissociation in a therapy environment, I usually find myself feeling "blocked" from speaking about it or writing it down. Where I just can't- it's not a thing of being too upset, just something or maybe someone is stopping me. Feels more like someone and like it's just not allowed.

My question is- does everyone have an inner world and do alters always communicate out loud? I feel the presence of an upset small child take over at times. I am aware of it happening but can't really influence except to take back over after a few minutes. I sometimes dissociate that it even happened, so unless I wrote it down somewhere that it did, I often don't remember it happening. I suppose though, that's how the amnesia bit works. Which then makes me question how often it's really happening. But if I'm not feeling the child's presence, she's just seemingly non-existent, leaving me questioning if it was real. Or am I just unaware?

Inner worlds are not guaranteed and they are not perminent. When we were most recently made aware of our system we had nothing except "the void" we built the inner world with help of our T. However some of our longer serving alters remember a previous inner world that existed before our architect retired to the void. For us at least the presence of an inner world is heavily reliant on one system member, when they are inactive we loose 90% and a number of us are left drifting in the void.

Our partner system has a semiperminent inner world. They can use the imigary of an inner world built on memories of safe places to leave messages for other alters but they never meet each other. Eg. They can go to a house from when they were 10 and leave a note on the fridge for the 10 year old alter to read but the house is empty.
When they try to communicate with each other they need a 3rd person perspective because it runs along the lines of 1 alter will start talking their opinion out loud then a switch will happen and the opinion will change. If they don't have it recorded then they don't know what has been said by the other they just know that it feels like they are disagreeing with themselves or they feel ambiguous about something. They will often say something along the lines of "I should be more excited/disappointed about xyz what was I saying a few moments ago?"

Our inner world is as vast as you can imagine it so it depends on the alter and whether they’ve lived inside all or most of their lives or whether they were an external host that only tended to be out to attend school or work etc. they were simply considered ‘social masks’ (before we knew any DID related terminology) and often highly concerned about fitting in with the outside world so wouldn’t speak of them/others or remember it whilst hosting they would often believe if they just in their bedroom drawing, watching TV or sleeping when they weren’t fronting although they never experienced it as a switch..they would have memories of doing those things sent to them (via passive influence probably whoever the Gatekeeper was back then)

There is a hub that has the houses where everyone sleeps/lives when they’re not out front and then there’s the holodecks (disguised as a barn to fit in with surroundings). This came about from one or more us being Trekkies and meant they could keep the central hub the same for those that didn’t like change (or ones too young for more ‘scary adventures’) but allow those that wanted an adventure based on something they’d seen on TV to be able to visit a holodeck to recreate it.

This way the inside world didn’t become too big to be maintained because the ‘program’ is switched off when the insider has finished visiting it. Their experience is also not shared with the one up front so they could focus on what they needed to be doing in the outside world at the time.

Somewhere along the line one of us created an imaginary being who was a shapeshifter who could be whatever they needed them to be, this allowed all alters to be able to create one for themself if they wanted to. In the early days each shapeshifter was loyal to their creator only but as we began to learn of each other they could then communicate with any alter who was at the front or inside. Some are still very loyal to the alter they see as their original creator though. If one alter goes dormant often their companion will go to sleep with them or occasionally come out to collect updates then return to blend with their creator to update them.

We have found though we still tend to be at the mercy of what each companion see’s as important to what information is retained when they awake and return to the front!

So ‘Mila’ who lived inside as my spirit wolf protecting the part of me she loved and knew the best still see’s all human alters as part of the same host so felt individual names were ‘irrelevant’ and never saved that information when collecting information to transfer to me so ‘I’ awoke with no memory of what we previously called ourselves! ..and knew only our legal name. (which we don’t use on forums)!
Although we created new forum names the three of us who found ourselves at the front…Mila and I also also have our own ‘merged name’ (based on our real names so I can’t say on here) which we tend to use as our character name in video games when we play together as one.

It took me a lot of time and effort to become aware of my alters, to visualize an innerworld. Not everybody has an innerworld. Not all alters communicate "out loud". Not all dissociated parts are alters.

At the very least you have a part of yourself who is aware that you dissociate, and who tries to protect you from this awareness for reasons. (Examples: fear of being known, fear of appearing vulnerable, phobia of specific specialized doctors...)

Thanks to all of you for sharing. I keep trying to ignore it and trying to brush it off inbetween times. But the fact it came out so strongly as a result of trying to fill in that paperwork is making me think I can't keep brushing it off or calling it my imagination. It will come up in the report that goes to my therapist. I guess it's trying to find a way to communicate it when ready.

Just to add a few things:

Inner worlds are a metaphor used by the brain to makes sense of what's going on inside. Some people don't need it. Some people don't visualize things at all. For example, some people have everything happening in their body, and is understood through their body and emotions, so the brain doesn't need to create an inner world.

During the last year before we fully integrated, we stopped using our inner world. We didn't need it anymore, we were really "into our body". Also, I know someone who didn't have an inner world for years, because the communication between their alters wasn't developed enough + their dissociation levels were too high. At some point in their healing journey, it resolved and they suddenly gained a very complex inner world.

So nope, there's no rule or norm around the inner worlds.

In a lot of diagnosis or assessment tools, they forgot to say that "articulate, verbal thought that doesn't belong to me, like an inner chat that isn't mine" is voices. A lot of people think of "voices" as an external hallucination, but the truth is, there's almost no difference between inner and outer voices. Some specialists even believe that outer voices are projected outside by the brain because it doesn't understand they are inside.

Also, people often focus on voices because that's the most common thing reported, but I know a lot of people with complex DD who never heard voices (in or out). Instead, they have all sorts of "not me" sensations, like emotions coming out of nowhere, as if they were feeling someone else's feelings, or tactile hallucination when their parts come close or interact with them.

I had auditive hallucination out loud only twice. All my voices were inner voices, it started when I was 5-6yo, and it seemed normal to me. Same with the tactile hallucinations. It was a bit weirder, but had always been there, so...

But at first, we didn't really use words. It was rare. Our communication was more like sharing "the concept". For example, instead of saying "the black cat", we would have shared the mental image of a black cat, the feeling of its fur, everything that, for us, represent a black cat. At some point in our healing, we had to force ourselves to use words inside, because we were so used to communicate without words that it became hard and frustrating to talk to outside people.

Hope you'll figure this out!

We have full on conversations with each other when there’s more than 2 of us up front! . kinda telepathically like we know each others thoughts without having to say them aloud. .. Ellie is bigger on social chitchat than me but we like to watch quiz shows together and I know whether it’s my answer or hers. She knows stuff I don’t and see’s things from a different perspective.

I think I’ve always had a vivid imagination though and think visually. I have memories from past hosts (who now seem to just be fragments) though that had no awareness of others or communication with others at all maybe it changes depending which part of the ‘DID journey’ you’re in? ..or whether other conditions influence it? ..seem to be a lot of people with DID also with Autism and/or ADHD!

Shadowlands wrote:seem to be a lot of people with DID also with Autism and/or ADHD!

Being neurodivergent causes to have a sensitivity to develop dissociative disorders for many reasons : the brain is more sensitive to everything and gets easily overwhelmed, the brain tends to use dissociation more in order to manage the overwhelm, it's more diffcult to form a safe attachment (and disorganized attachment style in early childhood is the most common precursor to DID), neurodivergent people get bullied and/or abused more than their neurotypical peers, etc.

Thanks all.

ArbreMonde wrote:Being neurodivergent causes to have a sensitivity to develop dissociative disorders for many reasons : the brain is more sensitive to everything and gets easily overwhelmed, the brain tends to use dissociation more in order to manage the overwhelm, it's more diffcult to form a safe attachment (and disorganized attachment style in early childhood is the most common precursor to DID), neurodivergent people get bullied and/or abused more than their neurotypical peers, etc.

Has been suggested that my dissociation issues have been caused less by clearly obvious trauma events- I have multiple "smaller" traumas, and more by the differences caused by the autism side of things and they way I experience the world. Which seems to make sense. I've not discounted the idea that there's things I don't know about, but at this point, have to accept there's no one big trauma item there.

Maybe this isn't what you meant, but DID isn't caused by "one big event." It's caused by ongoing or repetitive trauma that feels inescapable and overwhelming.

It is often caused by "less clearly obvious" trauma events, that might not even be recognized by the person as having been traumatic, since it was just their "normal" childhood.