Alter in love was a mystery to me

I hadn't seen this topic before and read the first few pages before realising that it was dated a long time ago. What an interesting story you tell Una and I'm so pleased to hear the things that have changed in positive ways for you.

In an early post you said a couple of things, one was that you hoped someone would read and recognise what you had written about, and the other was about projective identification which I definitely understand but have also had the experience of being the subject of other people's projective identifcation. Not that i assume all the others in those experiences were DID but I do think 'normal' life means people are in denial of big things about themself and I seem to hoover them up.

Anyway, back to following your invitation to resonant experience, I definitely have had troubling 'fallings in love' with people I don't actually know for most of my life. A lot of them would be pulled inside me and become part of my fantasy world with which I sustained myself emotionally. However, I had a jolt very like how you described in your recent post. I had been in therapy for a year or so when my therapist recommended me for acupuncture with someone who was also a psychotherapist in the same discipline. I fell hopelessly in love with him and in the process of getting to know him a bit and then doing further therapy it became apparent that I had someone I came to call 'the girl in the dark room' who seems to share some of the sensory deprivation you describe. Meeting him was like meeting an external person who matched my inner fantasy nourishment figure/lover in the outisde world for the first time. It was truly like an awakening and from that moment on my 'fantasy world' was pretty much broken. I could never enter it in the same way again. And that was when the _real_ therapy started.

Having opened that door on love, opened my heart or whatever, I was able to say goodbye to him (because he insisted and not for want of me begging for him to stay in my life) and my attachment eventually switched to my therapist that I still see now, upteen years onwards.

I'll leave the projective identification topic aside for now. Somehow revisiting those events (of 1998) to write about them has left me rather tired. And sad, because the man is dead now and somehow that still hurts badly.

Eirlys, what an interesting story! What has become of your girl in the dark room?

Una+ wrote:Eirlys, what an interesting story! What has become of your girl in the dark room?

She became the focus of therapy to the exclusion of most other things for a while in a very tumultuous time indeed. She was the first other 'person' I had encountered within myself consciously that had such a defined and very different (to who I thought I was) personality. If one had met her as a child in the outside world she might have been diagnosed with reactive detachment disorder and some degree of autism. However she is the vital spark to my life these days. She communicates very little in words but is vibrantly connected with nature, seasons, landscapes and uses imagery connected with those to help me locate and understand her. She is still exceptionally hard work to relate with and to live with because it is her needs that keep me very quiet, socially isolated and without the ability to work in the outside world any more. She gets overstimulated very easily and every excursion into the outside world tends to need a massive downtime to process and get calm from.

I would not be without her When she goes missing, for instance if she's been traumatised by the activities of someone else within me, then I have to seek her out because without her I find life isn't worth living.

She blends with you then, so that you feel her feelings, experience what she experiences?

My girl in the void is the 5th alter identified so far in my system. For many months I thought the one in love with this man was Alter 1, until I began to communicate with Alter 1 and realized Alter 1's role is to sense the feelings of others. Alter 1's own feelings about the man were distinctly different. And then Alter 1 integrated with me but the longing for this man continued.

Una+ wrote:She blends with you then, so that you feel her feelings, experience what she experiences?

I think it depends on who 'I' am if that makes sense. Sometimes I'm separate and trying to make sense of what she's trying to show me or what noises I'm hearing her make, what actions she wants my body to make. Other times the emotions feel so intense I feel like I've been posessed almost. Those are hard times but I've begun to learn how to pull myself back from them so I'm more caretaking than desperate and frantic.

Hard for me to answer about the period where I was in contact with the guy who 'released' her because back then I had no idea about anything much of my own inner processes or how they differed from 'normal' so to speak.

Eirlys, was she the only part who was activated by him?

In my case, the whole system was activated and different parts had radically different points of view. I had no clue what was happening other than that obviously something was very, very wrong with me. My internal conflict was enormous.

Una+ wrote:Eirlys, was she the only part who was activated by him?

I don't think so, it felt like 'me' who was head over heels and the fact that I had a long term monogamous relationship was the conflict I experienced most (plus he was clearly unavailable!) but as I say, I had no understanding of being more than one, I classed everything as 'me' at the time. I didn't understand why life was such a confusing mess but had pretty much zero insight into the ways I acted and swung this way and that. Yet possibly one of my most telling 'symptoms' was with this guy as I remember him looking really irritated with me when he said 'you get a lot of nose bleeds don't you' and I said 'no'. Because at the time he asked me, I was having no memory of the nose bleeds which I've actually had since childhood and which specifically are connected to this other girl in me. They are one of her cries for help. But obviously the day he was asking me, I was forgetting and denying that other side of my life completely. I felt so stupid some time later on, when memory came back to me and I realised he must think me a faker or liar or something for saying I had nosebleeds then changing my story.

Now I understand the whole "in love" crush/infatuation/love obsession thing, but at the time I had no clue. It was a new experience for me. I felt nothing like it with any of my boyfriends or my husband. My longing for this man were not a great source of conflict. I knew not to beat myself up for having feelings and was (am) secure in my marriage. The conflict was in that simultaneously I experienced him as both a love object and a perpetrator. Other alters were activated too, and I was experiencing their various unprocessed traumas in the form of flashbacks.

In retrospect I am grateful to him for his unknowing role in my awakening and for being wise enough to stay clear.

I only just noticed that at some time Carpediem46 went back and blanked most of her posts in this thread. She hasn't posted on this site in a few months either. I hope she and her system are doing well.

Hm. I probably should identify the alters in my system as I now know them.

Alter 1: Empathetic, preverbal male infant. He has my baby name. He has been active and exerting passive influence during most of my adult life, especially while online. Originally he seemed to be a demon, then a defensive killer, then a guard dog. He was the second alter to integrate with me, spontaneously. Before integration he channeled the affects of Alter 5.

Alter 2: Aggressive adult (?) male. He has a name but prefers I do not reveal it. He has been active and blending with me most of my adult life, especially when dealing with strangers. He is why I endorse feelings of identity alteration and sexual identity confusion. He has on several occasions taken possession of my body together with Alter 1. Once he took sole possession to speak to my therapist. Several times he has told me what to say. Other than that he speaks to me infrequently.

Alter 3: Teen Girl. She had been in stasis since I was age 15 but was pushed forward by others as a "test subject" to see how I would respond. She was distraught to discover she had just lost 30 years of her life, and I was distraught to realize I had lost her and didn't even know it. Except... I still have her favorite dress and shoes. She was the first to integrate with me, spontaneously. At the time I (we) didn't know integration was possible; we just wanted each other. Even now that we are integrated I still feel her grief.

Alter 4: I know almost nothing about her except that when she takes executive control I (and all others?) lose time. She has spoken to me only once.

Alter 5. Girl in the void. She is the one who was in love with the man who activated my system.

There may be others. Of course.