Alter in love was a mystery to me

I don't know that this new voice is an alter. I don't have the sensation of a presence, like someone standing very close to me, the way I do most of the time with most of my alters. On the other hand, it is early days yet. Could this be an internal self helper (ISH)? Or something else? Many religions have a doctrine of spiritual guidance that involves asking questions and receiving answers. Time will tell.

It is indeed very distressing to feel such a strong attachment to someone I hardly know, who says he wants nothing to do with me. Usually I would not get attached and even if I were attached, usually when someone rejects me that's it, I am done with them. I just walk away. This one is so different, though. Even now I don't feel he has rejected me. He has said words to that effect but the feeling that came with them said something else. From the start, even before I was aware of my condition I had that uncanny feeling about him, that he was communicating in multiple channels messages that were mutually inconsistent.

The new development here is that Alter 2 has reversed himself about coming out. In the past he has been the most covert, preferring to exert passive influence on me or take over but without letting others know about the identity alteration. Well now it seems that he, just like Alter 5 before him, is feeling a lot of emotional pain about other people not knowing he exists.

For years now I have been talking about him to some others, and for a few months now I have been speaking for him in social conversations. I wonder what our friends are thinking, who have not been introduced. "Who is this guy Una knows?"

Well, I had a very exciting work meeting last week. A woman sitting across the conference table from me was speaking and in anger tried to suggest that I was a bench warmer who did not step up when work needed to be done. That may be her perception, but it just shows how little awareness she has of the work I do. In any event, as she was saying this she pushed up her sleeves in what I understood to be a "Well I get work done" gesture. Only, some insider watching this thought she was getting ready to attack me physically and reacted accordingly. Suddenly I felt an intense physical impulse to climb over the table and attack her first. Whoops! For a short time my full attention was on containing that alter and staying firmly seated in my chair. Dude, it's okay, you misunderstood. Stand down! Meanwhile some other insider was talking, telling the woman how in fact it was she who blew me off and (wow this is mortifying) sounding all butt-hurt about it too.

I think everyone in that meeting with me already knew I am a multiple. I have told several of them personally in the past, but they may not all remember or grasp what that means. Certainly they all got a good look at me switching during this meeting. The man sitting next to me told me afterward "So that's what it looks like. Definitely different body postures and behaviors." Yup.

One reason I am coming out to my colleagues is that I am acutely aware that I am not alone. I am not the only multiple in our community and it is likely that most of the others do not know yet that they themselves are multiples. Or if they do know, they may be experiencing feelings of intense shame about it and fear of discovery. So that's the up-side of my having such an embarrassing experience at work: others can see me do it and survive, even thrive. That gives them hope for themselves, if the subsequent talk about me is not too nasty.

was a wim i read the end of your thread, you so should post this as a seperate new thread.

You story hits lots of levels for lots of minorities who have coming our stories, its important they are heard.

p.s wish i was a fly on the walll

Una,

By reading many of your posts here, I've come to see the influence of your different selves through what you've written. And for me it's fascinating.

So, some of your coworkers notice there, and some of us notice those subtle changes here.

I don't see the situation you went through as embarrassing. I find it awesome that every part of you is always protecting of yourselves.

By the way, many of what you, and many others have shared here have given hope not only to those around you, but to my friend who has DID, and to me as well.

Thanks for sharing.

Sea

Una, your journey is incredible! Thanks for sharing it with us. A lot of the links you gave also helped me understand things better.

One of the things I found most fascinating in your case is that you developed alter-5 an introject quite recently based on that man. I had always assumed that all the personalities had to have existed since a very young age. Maybe he is somehow present in your past? Or perhaps introjects can form differently?

Clemency: Alters can be created at any point in time through-out your life, but the DID has to develop during early childhood. So in essence, the first alters will be created in early childhood and after that you carry that ability and can create alters when needed for the rest of your life. If, however, you don't develop DID during early childhood you will not be able to develop it later in life either

clemency wrote:One of the things I found most fascinating in your case is that you developed alter-5 an introject quite recently based on that man. I had always assumed that all the personalities had to have existed since a very young age. Maybe he is somehow present in your past?

I have wondered about that, of course. Early on in therapy after I learned about DID and so on I tried to find an historical link between his family and mine. I did not find one but I suppose it is possible. Alas, he is not willing to talk with me. At this point my best guess is there is no historical link. By her own account Alter 5's life history began in 2010 when I met this man.

Some alters in my system date from infancy or early childhood. One, Alter 3, dates from when I was 15 or so. Alter 5 dates from my 40's. There are reports in the psychotherapy literature of formation of new alters in adulthood, mostly in women around the time of childbirth. One reason I am aiming for full fusion is that I want to do all I can to ensure no more new alters are formed in my system. I figure if I am well integrated it will be that much harder to split off any fragments.

Alter 5's life history has been so very painful for her, me and the others in my system, my husband, my friends and support network, and even this man who just happened to meet us. I don't want any of us to have to go through an experience like that again.

We saw the man again recently. We/I don't long for him anymore. I remember longing for him, how overwhelming that feeling was, but now it is just a memory. My therapist was so excited to hear this, but for me it all just feels sad. It was all for nothing. All those tears, the fear and confusion, the frustrated longing and then the mourning... The mourning continues.

Una+ wrote:We saw the man again recently. We/I don't long for him anymore. I remember longing for him, how overwhelming that feeling was, but now it is just a memory. My therapist was so excited to hear this, but for me it all just feels sad. It was all for nothing[*]. All those tears, the fear and confusion, the frustrated longing and then the mourning... The mourning continues.

* I put them in bold

Hi Una,

I respect what you're feeling.

Looking from the out side, and from the distance, I don't believe it was all for nothing. If I'm not mistaken, it was because of what you felt for that man that you discovered your DID; and those tears, and fear, and confusion, helped to reach for those part of you that had not been listened to before. It also helped to integrate some of them, which led you to have a richer life, as you have mentioned it before.

I'm sorry that in order to gain a deeper knowledge of yourself you had to go through tears, and fear and confusion. But again, I don't feel it was for nothing. I've been a mostly silent witness to your journey.

I'm not trying to invalidate anything you're feeling, I'm just trying to give you an outsider perspective.

I, my self, have gone (and I'm still going) through the very same feelings you describe. I fell in love with someone who has DID, and things have been rough. However, I'm so much richer in so many ways, I've loved an incredible person, I've gotten to know my self in so many ways, I've received incredible support from the people I love. So even if nothing else happens with this person, his presence in my life, left me so much.

It was all for something in that it was part of my recovery process. But I wish the process had taken place decades earlier, the first time I tried to get help. Then I was told to just stuff it down and act like everything was okay. I realize that in the 1980's this was the standard practice of therapists who didn't know how else to treat DID, and even today many otherwise competent therapists still treat DID this way. But suppression is not healing.

It wasn't my "not me" longing for this man that gave me the big clue, but what else I observed. I saw and sensed him switching, and although I had not previously been aware of myself or anyone else doing that, somehow I identified with that about him. I also had the uncanny experience of somehow receiving multiple messages from him in separate channels. This was so far outside my experience and education up to then that I didn't even know it was possible. It all puzzled me for months before I found the technical literature about DID. Then it all made sense.

Seangel wrote:I, my self, have gone (and I'm still going) through the very same feelings you describe.

Yes, you do indeed know the peculiar mixture of joy and pain that is part of loving someone with DID who is not yet fully aware of their condition. You know the hope that they will wake up and seek help. Unfortunately we cannot fix them and I think it is healthier for us to treat them as we would treat anyone without DID. That means not making allowances for them, not protecting them from the natural consequences of their behavior, and not tolerating their hurtful behavior toward us.