Alter in love was a mystery to me

mow59 wrote:Is someone who causes switching good for recovery or does it hamper it?

I think this is a question about your own situation. As I recall your stepdaughter has DID. Is she switching a lot with someone in particular? Is this someone healthy, and able to be "the same" for all the alters? Do you see evidence of lessening amnesia from one alter to the next? Do they all seem to be following what is going on?

My therapist and a colleague confidante who has interacted with many DID patients in the past both say my facade is solid, that I have excellent continuity of presentation despite the switching. But stopping to ask "What just happened?" sometimes reveals telling gaps (discontinuities) in my subjective experience of a conversation. I just hate that! But it is what it is. At least now I know it is happening and what it is, and I am getting help so that eventually this will stop happening.

Contacts with Alter 5's love object accelerate my recovery in the sense that they generate conflict in my system and rather than fighting or denying or distancing we work it out. We being my system; this man is not involved. I sometimes imagine I am a family therapist working with a family that is dealing collectively with a difficult situation that has them "split" (in the ordinary sense; see link below). Clinical psychologists sometimes describe the serious problem of hospital staff splitting over certain patients. For example, some staff accept a patient's DID but others insist DID is bogus and the patient is malingering. Well, my DID system is massively splitting over multiple issues concerning this other man.

In another thread (DID Forum: blacking out) I described recovery from DID as similar to being pregnant. Well, in a very real and important sense this man is the father of my new self that I am in the process of creating.

Wikipedia: Splitting (psychology)

Johnny, as usual your post calls for hours of reflection.

Johnny wrote:Since your alters aren't you, it can't in my thinking be construed as some form of "cheating" because one or more of the others aren't in a committed relationship with your husband. Some of them may not even have met him.

At first neither Alter 3 nor Alter 5 (the one who was infatuated with this man) were aware of my husband. But I (my system, my married self) made Alter 5 in response to the man. The thing is, I have not in any way crossed the boundaries of my marriage or my own boundaries. It is okay, not forbidden, for either of us to fall in love and to be open about it. Before we married we discussed such possibilities explicitly and defined boundaries to suit ourselves.

Johnny wrote:I have had a few platonic emotional affairs with married women. If I had known for sure my body is actually straight, I might have been more careful. I could always see it as just an intense friendship but I knew it also felt confusingly romantic and sexual somewhere inside.

A love relationship becomes an emotional affair when there is secrecy and the relationship is being used by one or both parties to avoid or compensate for problems in another relationship. If my relationship with this other man is not an emotional affair for me but is one for him, what then?

A love relationship becomes an emotional affair when there is secrecy and the relationship is being used by one or both parties to avoid or compensate for problems in another relationship.

Okay, then I've definitely had that before, yep.

If my relationship with this other man is not an emotional affair for me but is one for him, what then?

First of all, I think it probably has been that for one of you. So compassion for that alter? They don't have your experience, aren't your age, don't have the relationships or support system in place you do, look at the world completely differently, in short, they're not you. So that alter will not have the depth of perspective or life experience that you, as the host does, probably not even close.

Aaron came when the body was 44 so he is that age. At first, I found him intelligent and his judgment about big issues was good. I wanted to start letting him take over in certain situations. However, I found over time that he doesn't understand or know things in the same way I do. And he's a full adult. He can't access the historical and procedural knowledge as quickly I can so isn't as able to respond as well in real time. Given more time in the body and more time using the mind, perhaps he could.

The younger the alter, the more limited they are in being able to handle situations rationally. Within my system, they tend to get emotionally overwhelmed pretty quickly. All get frustrated that they can't handle what they know from watching that I'm able to handle. So someone is talking to the body as they would to the adult we appear to be and the alter is just stymied as to how to respond. Their emotional attachment to our recent T was much greater than mine because emotionally they're wired quite differently. I would think this would be the case with almost anyone, especially a romantic object.

Also, many hosts tend to begin with and hold a certain emotional distance in our interactions and our connections, save, perhaps with our immediate family and children. I know I do. This doesn't preclude the tendency to create connections that are much more intense and lack healthy boundaries. In fact, I think the emotional distance with most people and the intense emotional closeness with a chosen few is absolutely related. These aren't laws of DID, just tendencies I notice.

Alter 5 is back, and still saying "I love him" over and over again but now the feelings that well up with those words are mostly grief and shame, not so much longing. My own feelings are mostly compassion for her and anger and disgust toward the man she loves for being so blind, so rigid, so judgmental and intolerant, so hurtful to someone who loves him. Although his words were for the most part civil the information they conveyed was deeply wounding.

I wish I could reach her, and comfort her. I wish I could give her the body so she could feel herself being held and consoled in my husband's arms, as I am. But I don't know how!

Una, this is really fundamental stuff. Alter 5's awareness of the situation, his reaction, your interpretations, have caused her to have to evolve and it sounds like a very unhappy place. She's growing. As for allowing her into the body, I think I'll start another thread about this because I realize others have asked about this at times. For those of us who have discovered "cooperative switching", maybe things we stumbled upon could point to possibilities for others.

Johnny-Jack wrote:Una, this is really fundamental stuff. Alter 5's awareness of the situation, his reaction, your interpretations, have caused her to have to evolve and it sounds like a very unhappy place. She's growing.

Yes. The irony is I can understand and accept where the other man is coming from, that he feels threatened, and why. And perhaps there will be a shift in the relationship. He spoke those hurtful words in May. Since then I think he has received the information that I am a multiple and he has been interacting with more than one alter and due to my losing time he and I are not on the same page. Perhaps this information will make some difference to him. Perhaps some day we will be able to discuss it.

John wrote:As for allowing her into the body, I think I'll start another thread about this because I realize others have asked about this at times. For those of us who have discovered "cooperative switching", maybe things we stumbled upon could point to possibilities for others.

Thanks! I expect that is going to be a great thread (link below). I have posted before, here and there on the DID Forum, about the limited experience I do have of switching. Once I calm down a bit and have time to think, I will organize my thoughts to contribute to the thread.

DID Forum: cooperative switching: how did you get there?

Una wrote:In another thread (DID Forum: blacking out) I described recovery from DID as similar to being pregnant. Well, in a very real and important sense this man is the father of my new self that I am in the process of creating.

Okay... I am not sure I want to do this but for well over a year now I have resisted the urge to share something very personal, and an event this week has caused the urge to surge. Maybe it is time to stop resisting. So here goes. This is a painful post to write, perhaps also to read, but hopefully not triggering for anyone.

Yesterday morning Alter 5 shared a fantasy with me. (Other people have pointed out to me that Tuesdays tend to be big days for me; I don't know why.) I think she dreamed it. She dreamed of being with the man she loves in person, meaning she moves out of the dissociative void into the body, out in front, and is able to talk to him directly. (She has never done this, never even taken full executive control although now and then she does talk through me to tell my husband and therapist she loves this man.) Anyway, back to her fantasy. They are standing in a parking lot between our vehicles. He is leaving, and angry, but he stops to listen. She tells him who she is and that she loves him but she cannot live like this and she needs to integrate with me. And when that happens she/we will be different and likely will not feel the same way about him anymore. Integration will happen soon, so this is goodbye forever. And in her fantasy he understands and weeps and hugs her, and in that moment she and I/we integrate.

This is so emotionally painful for me, I cannot begin to put in words how it feels other than it is a messy mixture of grief and love and compassion and rage.

Clearly her fantasy is a variation on a profound dream I had back in January 2011, a few days after my first therapy session and months before I had any idea that I am a multiple or knew anything about dissociated identities. That dream was as follows.

I am aware that I am dreaming. I am in my therapist's office, alternately in my body and out of body watching myself, along with the T and the other man. The other man does not want to be there. There is tension between us. We argue (I cannot hear and do not know what we argue about) and the arguing escalates to wrestling on the floor, both of us crying. And then suddenly I experience myself in my body and in some way I am dissolving and merging with/into something. Something in me or around me, not the other man. I am not experiencing an orgasm, only the sensation of complete dissolution of self that sometimes comes with an orgasm.

At that moment I woke from the dream to find myself in my bed next to my sleeping husband. My body was hot and sweating heavily and I was panting. With shock I realized my body was in the last stage of labor. To any woman who has given birth or miscarried without anesthesia, the physical sensations are unmistakable. There is intense stretching and contraction of the round ligaments of the uterus, massive dilation of the cervix, and long and very powerful rhythmic contractions of the uterus itself. And a feeling of turning inside out. All extremely painful. Pressing my hand on my lower abdomen I could feel all this going on inside. But of course there was no baby. The labor took about 10 minutes to finish (all my labors were fast) and incredibly my writhing and panting and moaning loudly into my pillow did not wake my husband. When it was finished I woke him and told him what had just happened to me. I told him I did not understand why but I knew ultimately it did not have much to do with the other man but was something happening in me. My clothing and the bedding were wet so we changed them, then we went back to sleep. The rest of that day I was emotionally raw and physically sore and exhausted, just like after my other labors.

I am so very glad that even before we married I told my husband about my strange experiences of being possessed, of hearing voices, of losing time. And that when things got weird with the other man I told my husband all about that too, and entered therapy. Perhaps due to these earlier disclosures, he has been able to hear me tell about each of these dreams without upset. He is so calm and steady about all of this, he amazes me.

Whew. That's heavy. On a lighter note, this situation reminds me of a silly song, I'm My Own Grandpa. Naturally, there is a Wikipedia article about it.

Wikipedia: I'm My Own Grandpa

I lost time yesterday while driving. It was just a few minutes, but very upsetting. I am definitely phobic about losing time. I was driving toward the library to return some books <poof> and driving away. At least I noticed. And then I noticed I was letting down milk. I had to go home for dry clothes. Did I return the books? I don't know! They were not in my vehicle, and not at home.

Apparently Alter 5's dream last week, and the feelings of intense attachment to her other man, are connected with a sustained surge in oxytocin. Oxytocin induces lactation, and the milk ejection reflex also is triggered by oxytocin.

Wikipedia: Oxytocin
Wikipedia: Lactation

What disturbs me most is that there was no interpersonal trigger for this lost time. I was alone, and thinking about my errands. It feels like someone inside just thought it was a good time to try taking executive control. It was not provoked by a horny guy coming onto me or a threat situation of any kind. As far as I know. Gaah.

A few days ago I had an experience of an overwhelming compulsion to do something, complete with a voice commanding me to do it. I did not do it, did not even seriously consider doing it. It is not my nature to do something just because I am commanded to do it. Perhaps it is a good thing that I am agnostic, because this sort of experience often is interpreted as hearing the voice of God. My T has suggested I look into the Hearing Voices Network, and in reading about command "hallucinations" I also came across writing by and about Julian Jaynes. These sources helped to put this new scary experience into a larger context, and somewhat normalize it.

In my previous post I reported losing time for no apparent reason, so I assume this is the work of an alter who is testing how to take executive control. Put these two experiences together, and I could be in big trouble. I hope not.

Wikipedia: Hearing Voices Network
Wikipedia: Julian Jaynes