Absorbing Personalities From Others

There is something going on on the show The United States Of Tara and I just wondered if it ever happens to anyone with DID in real life. She developed an alter of someone she had heard of and read about.

Is that possible? To develop an alter for a relative or acquaintance or known stranger even? A celebrity? How does that work?

And when you assume the personality of someone who already exists you have to assume a lot of details that aren't true. Do these alters ever feel like they are lying? Or, do all of the details become truth to them?

This is called soulbonding. It is most common in those who do not consider themselves to be trauma-based/D.I.D. though there certainly are trauma-based groups with soulbonds.

I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, and some of our very best friends have system members who fit that definition. However, it's important to note that most soulbonds are not carbon-copies of the individual their name comes from. Our friends have a system member who is a soulbond from an anime but aside from his name and appearance, he is nothing like the original character.

We don't have any soulbonds so we can't answer from personal experience about if they feel they are lying, but most multiples, despite their origins, feel like they're making it all up at times.

-Mik

Thanks for that explanation. Something about the new-agey sound of "soulbonding" made me recall an incident that I once attributed to psychic phenomena. Now I don't even believe in psychic stuff. Anyway, in college I sat behind a young lady (Im male) in one of my classes and I started to feel like I was connected with her in that I was thinking her thoughts and feeling her feelings. I must have admired her because we soon became fast friends after that. Lately, I've wondered if I am DID to some degree and it occurs to me that maybe I was coconscious of a soulbond of her back then. Wow! In writing that, it jogged back memories of how I used to sometimes slip into patterns of speech that were like a carbon copy of how she would talk. I could feel myself doing it, but it was never a deliberate effort. Maybe that is just something that can happen between friends- who knows. Fun to remember and wonder anyway.

Last summer, I had a psychotic break and was labeled bipolar. I don't feel very bipolar. Anyway, I developed a number of delusions. Most of it was just conversations with people that never happened. One of it was a family member scornfully telling me that I better not tell the Drs that I heard voices and I definitely better not tell that I heard her voice. This was one of the weirdest delusions because I didn't feel like I was hearing voices. This same person also told me in a (delusional conversation) "don't dissociate." THis was before my interest in these boards, or DID, so it was really an odd thing to have a delusion about. Maybe I'm reaching, but I just began to wonder if I have a soulbond of this family member and what if it might be the soulbond that was advising me back then because she didn't want to be found out. Its weird- this member of my family is a PHD and for a time I was going back to school to study a very similar field. Then I just stopped going because I lost faith that it would lead anywhere. Boy, if I had a soulbond of this person, that sure sheds new light on my academic endeavors.

Soulbonds come from fictional sources. Movies, books, comics, cartoons, etc. I would chalk up this voice being a family member to a delusion.

-Mikaela

There is something going on on the show The United States Of Tara and I just wondered if it ever happens to anyone with DID in real life. She developed an alter of someone she had heard of and read about.

Is that possible? To develop an alter for a relative or acquaintance or known stranger even? A celebrity? How does that work?

Celebrity ones I have are really interesting. Can anyone else relate? I would rename everyone else known strangers or relatively speaking. Nice try..Find out there jobs not there memories.. United States of Tara is what I will watch haven't seen the movie

And when you assume the personality of someone who already exists you have to assume a lot of details that aren't true. Do these alters ever feel like they are lying? Or, do all of the details become truth to them?

Assume the personality of someone who already exists you might want to find out there jobs in your system.. For relatives : You might display there mannerisms or gestures facial and other wise limbs arm legs stance etc...Separate their memories, memories of that person....Like I mentioned change their name....What is being said is it like they live or with you when they come up. The relative sounding ones?

Is a soulbond the same thing as an introject? We're somewhat familiar with those, even read a transcript where a therapist was trying to convince a patient's alter he wasn't literally the same person as his abusive father.

In the mapped bit of our system, we do have one person who believes he's based on someone outside. But I don't know if he realized he was separate from the original before or after meeting the hostesses and consulting Crystal's hosting database. It must have been rather jarring to outside people when he was visiting the body: The best-known hostesses are these mousy young women/girls, and then here comes this brusque, ice-cold professional with mannerisms befitting his advanced age. I'm not sure if he hid the difference as well as he intended. ^_^;

There's another person--namely myself--who has patterned his looks and eventually his name after a fictional character, but this was a purposeful decision I made long after my formation. I think that's something I've always done over the years, borrowing from this character and that character to serve alternately as a muse to the host-du-jour and a persecutor to the inside alters. I've changed jobs since then, thank Heavens, but I don't remember what if anything I'm "supposed" to look like, so now I'm sort of a clone of some bloke the others made googly eyes at in a movie trailer. Even I feel like this is a bit silly, but I don't know how better to present myself right now. :/

Oh! One other thing: We once stumbled on a religious website that was talking about inheriting alters from ancestors who died without integrating, or something, but I've no way of knowing if that's a real possible thing. Metaphysics is a deep rabbit hole and no one lives long enough to check everything with their own eyes.

I know I do this from time to time, but I'm not sure if it's actually a matter of new alters being created. My guess is that it's not.

For me it's more like..

The starting point is that I have a very confused sense of self, or I have no sense of self. Those are my only two states of existence, really. And because all of the things and pieces that make me who I am, are things that can come and go (and do, all the time), as well as change, beneath the surface: I think I've grown so used to that constant experience that it feels totally normal to me.

So when I go through everyday life, without much of a sense of self, and experiencing other parts basically talking and acting right through me all the time, I think there's a sort of underlying 'ability' there that has been learned over time. Or something.

Occasionally if for whatever reason (usually I won't even be sure) I take a fancy to an outside person, it's like on some subconscious level I try to apply them to myself. It's like I think to myself that I'd like to be them, so I do it. Typically it feels very relaxing and comfortable for a little while, like for a little while I experience having a strong sense of self and identity, even if it's superficial. Of course it doesn't hold up very long.

But again I don't think this a matter of new alters being created, since I'm fully conscious for all of it and recognize in retrospect what happened, can remember all of it, etc.

Introjects are a different story.

I don't know if it is possible to develop an alter with the characterists of someone who heard or read about. Most reality TV shows are scripted which is why I'm skeptical about her having developed this alter. She could just be acting for the camera. The way most reality TV shows work is they find people that they know won't get along so there can be drama on it which is usually what keeps people coming back to watch it.

I don't have D.I.D. but I do have some experience with soulbonding. I'm a writer and so that's how I discovered the effect. It was years later before I first heard the term soulbonding.

I have a connection to my own book "characters" but also very strong bonds with persons I've met through TV shows, and books written by others. In rare cases I've heard their actual voices, but mostly we transmit emotions to communicate.

I also notice that my way of talking, gestures, facial appearance and such change depending on who I feel connected to. I admit it does seem possible to create an alter or soulbond from the inspiration of a media character, but in my case personally, it's more of connecting to the one and only actual person from the media. Like you read a book and were given their phone number, so now you can contact them.

When it comes to taking on the personality of someone in the world around you, I've noticed that I begin to "connect" to some of my closer friends if I happen to think about them or something reminds me of them. The feeling is very similar to what happens with persons from media, but it isn't as strong when it comes to people in the world around me.