alters holding memories...??

Hello all,

Okay so I've been struggling a bit. Was triggered a bit by something that happened earlier and was feeling all over the place. But anyways that's not what I'm here to write about.... sidetracked already!

So I guess I'm a bit confused. They say that alters "hold" memories for us. But if that's true, then wouldn't those memories emerge when alters come out? I have a very co-conscious system, and so I'm mostly aware when someone else is out. But I've never become aware of any new memory. Actually I take that back. There have been instances when I have remembered things, but that was mostly from someone (on the outside, usually from my family) saying something that triggers the memory. If the alters in my system have memories that I'm not aware of, why don't I become aware of them when they are out front. I can hear their thoughts and I can feel their emotions. Couldn't I remember their memories too?

The whole thing just confuses the heck out of me. I'm really new to the DID diagnosis, and I'm still trying to understand all of it.

Okay so today- I won't get into previously mentioned trigger, but I was triggered by something. Then my angry/mean part came out and drove us home. I was in the background, and I didn't have any control over the body. I'm noticing with some alters I have a certain level of control/co-consciousness but with other alters, usually since they are so dominant, I'm usually more in the observer mode/co-presence (?). Then at some point my very terrified three year old came out, and was even scared of my partner and didn't want her coming too close to us. And then later on at some point, an angry fragment part came out and was angry for a while (I was very happy when I came to the realization that this part was a fragment. I always thought something wasn't quite right, but now it all makes sense). But I'm wondering... while the angry/mean one was out, or the terrified three year old, since I have access to their thoughts and feelings, wouldn't I also have access to their memories? Because the truth is, I have no idea why the three year old is completely overtaken with fear, or why the angry one is so angry. I wish I knew. I've tried talking to them but the three year old doesn't answer me and the angry one just speaks in generalities. I want to listen and understand, but I feel like I'm not doing a very good job. Any thoughts...?

hey! while i'm no expert to all this, i wanted to let you know its not that your not listening right or doing something wrong, its just that the system wont tell you!

Mine wont tell me ANYTHING! until its decided that i need to know something(right now they've decided that its best to give me tiny pieces at a time)... then and only then am i shown or 'remember' something. Though its usually the result of a trigger and comes to me in the form of a flashback coming from the triggered alter... Its like they cant block it from me and it spills over and i see it...

Sometimes with new memories i have an image in my head that i cant get out and its the alter's reactions/feelings that i feel that tells me its all actually real and did happen. Feelings like nervousness, my stomach dropping, needing to SH or cry...stuff like that.

The reason you dont know about their memories is because its being blocked by the alters. They magically (i dont know how because im not an alter hehe) manage to keep that stuff to themselves and not let on in any way whats happened... Though, i should point out, that in times of severe stress or triggers they do struggle and some of mine loose their ability to shield me from the flashbacks and memories and thats when i get overwhelmed with emotions and flashbacks...

My ISH is telling me that 'bigs' (adult alters) can often take the trauma memories and affects away from the younger or struggling ones inside and ease their load some... She also says "its all done with dissociative walls." what ever that means! lol Like your angry one, my ISH LOVES to speak in code! lol

Hope this helps some!
Keep talking, your not doing anything wrong, Clearly, your system believes keeping truths from you is just for your own safety. As it is for their own, too. It takes alot on the part of the individual to be able to share their story. And particularly for the little ones, this is a difficult and very scary prospect. Give them some time, love and understanding and i'm sure you will begin to learn about your past. Best of luck to you!

Hey its Jay,
Yes we do hold memories but that doesn't mean I want to remember them everytime I'm here..
There are a few things I've told, but some things I'd rather not bring up. Sometimes I talk to John because I know he won't tell anyone else and I don't know if Aneisha is ready for these things. Grey tries to keep everything quiet. He doesn't like freak outs. So we can only disclose things a little at a time.

Thanks for sharing both of you. That definitely helps. The confusing thing for me is that I don't really get 'flashbacks' I get body memories. I read that a body memory is basically a flashback but the trauma happened preverbally. I think a lot of my trauma that caused my DID happened before age 2 or 3 although I'm totally just speculating here. Because there is no visual that goes along with the body memories, I don't have any more clarity afterward than I did before. Also, I did have some very traumatic things happen after age 3 (primarily preteen and teen) but they seem like isolated events (few and far between) which I can remember but I have no emotions or feelings attached to them. My therapist things I may have created alters or fragments to carry the feelings associated with those events, because they were too overwhelming. So the truth is, I really don't know if any of my alters do hold any memories - and when I say memories here I'm referring to the memory in its entirety.

My alters aren't keeping any memories from me, yet I still can't get to anything other than what I've already learned from flashbacks or uncoverings that happened during journaling. We all figured out it's our gatekeeper, blocking 24/7. Two alters, even when they're just walking or sitting calmly, cannot retrieve their own memories of almost anything. So they know they're being actively blocked. We're pretty sure this is because we're so co-conscious and cooperative and emotionally close and trusting now that if they were to think of any specifics, the others -- especially me the host -- would know them in an instant. In fact, there's such a wide variety of abuse that all the alters may be at risk if we were to learn everything at once.

The first night Jack was out, he had to keep me from probing his memory for the bad details, but the memories were still his at that point, we think. But now, he has no access whatsoever. My own memories are very cardboard cutout-y too.

Our flashbacks sometimes include powerful emotions, but lately they're just body memories without much context and I have to guess what I'm being given. Sometimes the strong emotions I have are in response to understanding in the present of what happened in the past, the sadness of it all. Some flashbacks without emotion have happened after age 6. I think it just depends on what I'm being given. I've had some flashbacks which are CLEARLY truncated, mini-versions of the actual event.

We don't have access to full memories of many events, just sort of the emotionless outline, sometimes the thoughts one of us was thinking during or after the abuse. My alters do own many memories. They've told me what they did and what happened. I recall the facts of my abuse not owned by anyone alter but little more. So none of us alters are in control of accessing any abuse memories right now. I know what happened in many cases, I just have very few incidents where I gained a more complete re-experience of what happened. The few fullblown flashbacks have been horrific and exhausting, so I can't say I'm always necessarily looking forward to them. We're assuming that's coming at some point.

Sound sort of similar to the situation Johann/HIM and Johnny have.

The first week of Johann and I dating we decided to sit down and tell each other about our lives up until the point we met each other (and we met two years ago, so there was a lot of catching up to do). Talking through the years from early childhood, when we reached eight years old Johann explained that his father had died and he had seen it, but could not elaborate further and when I tried to ask why he couldn't remember, he broke down on me. At the time, seeing someone older than me (twenty-three then) fall to pieces crying in my arms seemed kind of unheard of and I didn't quite understand it.

Well, a few weeks later after my first discovering Johnny, the gate-keeper of Johann's mind, I decided to ask Johnny what happened that night. Johnny was slightly less vague about the situation, telling me that their dad (and it was never 'Johann's dad' it was either 'our dad' or 'my dad') had had an angina attack one night while their mother was at work and that no one else had been around, so Johann had run out into the snow (in bare feet) to go call 911, but that never solved anything.

This told me a little more than Johann's story did, but still wasn't the whole thing. If I asked Johnny to elaborate, he sort of shrugged and said he didn't remember the rest, probably due to the head injury the physical body has from a car crash when Johann was a teenager. In reality, at a later date, Johnny told me he was blocking that memory from reaching the other alters so that no one would ever think about it again or have flashbacks, specifically because two of them (Johann and Chibi) were hypersensitive to it.

The whole memory itself was not fully explained to me until the core personality, HIM, came to light. After sort of talking with each of the personalities in Johann's mind, we determined that HIM was the original personality - that's why he had no name (that wasn't the only reason, there was plenty of logical that went into why, but that's neither here nor there). When HIM discovered he was the real Johann, the Johann who had been in control for so long was absorbed into him, and when asked, told me exactly what happened that night down to the last detail as though it had happened recently. When asked why Johnny hadn't told me this, or why the others had only told me fragments of that night, HIM admitted that Johnny wasn't blocking that memory from everyone HIM himself was because he was hardly ever in possession, to be honest, we thought he had just disappeared forever until he showed up again one morning. Yet the strange thing was, despite being the original personality that the trauma happened to, HIM seemed the most willing to talk about it calmly without becoming hysterical over it. (The other personalities were the aftermath of the trauma, thus they weren't there to experience it, they were more like placeholders for it without realizing it)

So from what I gather, alters can hold memories, or even all hold different fragments of the same memory so that that memory cannot be replayed unless everyone puts their fragments together. (In Johann's case, putting together the fragments was impossible because HIM was holding the majority of them and we didn't even know he was still here or that he was the core personality who experienced it, we just thought the body's head injury was messing with their memory like it does their short-term memory on a daily basis).

That's very interesting john what you're saying about your alters not having access to their own memories. That might be the case for us too although I'm not sure. I, like you, have a very co-conscious system and I imagine it would be hard for one to know something and for me not to know. I didn't realize it was possible for some alters to not have access to their own memories. But if that's the case for me, would that mean I would need to have an alter or part - like a gatekeeper - who is controlling those things? I don't have a part like that, at least not that I'm aware of.

-- Tue Jun 28, 2011 5:25 pm --

MK91- thank you, that helps. It's an interesting observation you made about how parts can each hold an aspect of a trauma but not the whole thing. The difference between my system and johann's, it sounds like, is that I usually have total awareness when my alters are out. Sometimes I am just watching and don't know what they're thinking and feeling, other times its almost like we're two people blended into one. Either way, I can usually talk to whoever is there. Sometimes they will talk back and sometimes they won't. I've never had an entire conversation with someone that I don't remember having. There have been times when someone has told me I said something that I don't remember saying, but I've never had a whole conversation that was outside my awareness (i have never 'lost time', at least that I'm aware of, so I'm pretty sure this is true). That's probably why its hard for me to grasp other alters having memories that I can't access, because I feel like we're all very co-conscious with one another. I don't know if this makes any sense.

Anyways, I'm so glad you're on here. It's truly a testament to how much you love your boyfriend. And your sharing is very helpful and insightful to us too!

I'm so fuzzed I can barely think. But gatekeeper is messing with us all big time because of what we said above, very slow thinking, typing. We re-read so he blitzes the brain. He squishes memory and remembering, doing it now. Proves it's true.

The difference between my system and johann's, it sounds like, is that I usually have total awareness when my alters are out. Sometimes I am just watching and don't know what they're thinking and feeling, other times its almost like we're two people blended into one.

On the contrary, Johann (HIM, rather) knows exactly who is out and when. Despite it being a four way consciousness, HIM has 'the final override should anything go wrong' as he likes to put it. I might be talking to Johnny one minute, but say Johann's boss were to call his cellphone - needless to say, HIM wouldn't let Johnny answer the phone, he'd take over and answer it himself. Because for some guy with an angry southern-accented voice to answer his cellphone would kind of be a little weird for his boss who has no idea his employee has DID (or lets the 'kids' drive the shuttlebuses full of passengers if he's too tired to do it himself ~_~).

That being said, despite knowing who is in possession and when to take over, HIM doesn't know at a given time what another alter is feeling or thinking. He can't read their minds, he can only see their facial expressions or watch the way they react to things. But sometimes, when Johann is really tired, he'll start talking to me, and a sentence will come out have in the physical body's regular voice and normal accent, and half-way through his tone with get lower and they will be a southern twang. Or other times he'll start talking to me in the body's regular vocal tone with a southern accent, and I'll look at him confusedly and go, "Wait...am I talking to HIM or Johnny?" and in response I'll just get, "Both.". I don't know how it works, it isn't like they're fused together or anything, they're both just...there at the same time.

Either way, I can usually talk to whoever is there. Sometimes they will talk back and sometimes they won't. I've never had an entire conversation with someone that I don't remember having. There have been times when someone has told me I said something that I don't remember saying, but I've never had a whole conversation that was outside my awareness (i have never 'lost time', at least that I'm aware of, so I'm pretty sure this is true).

The alters of Johann's mind have had conversations in front of me before, unless they feel the conversation is private, wherein they'll shut the physical body's eyes and have a mental conversation with each other until they reach a conclusion about something. Or one person will be in possession and someone will just lean over their shoulder and chime in (usually Kiddo makes a sexual innuendo out of half the things HIM and Johnny say to me in the middle of a serious conversation). Or even when we're driving, HIM and I will be talking and he'll be paying no attention to the road, and out of nowhere Johnny will go, "There's a pothole in the road there, watch out." (which sometimes scares the crap out of me because I'm like, "Where did you come from??" haha)
As far as I know, the only reason any of them would forget having a conversation is because of the head trauma from the car crash Johann was in when he was seventeen. Other than that, everyone is completely conscious of each other just not able to read each other's minds (Johnny likes to joke that he's psychic, though because 9.9 times out of 10 he's right about things, though).

Wow, it does sound like our systems are a lot more similar than I thought! I apologize for assuming that his system was less of a conscious system. It actually sounds quite similar to mine.

In actuality, when I thought about it, I'm only able to hear certain alters thoughts. And now that I think about it even more, it might not even be their thoughts at all that I'm hearing, but rather what they are telling me. Basically, I often have conversations with my alters when someone else is out and I'm watching (I rarely have conversations with alters when I'm out... not sure why). I can ask questions and if they feel like answering me they answer back. The more shut down ones though don't talk to me at all, nor do I have any idea what they are thinking. For some reason, I "hear" the angry ones more, maybe because they are angry and want me to know?? There are times when it's two alters - me and someone else - out at the same time, or one is present right behind the other one (like on ones "shoulders" so to speak), and I think I've observed two alters who are separate from myself out at the same time. (Not positive on that one though.) So the time where you asked him which person you were talking to, and he said "both" makes total sense to me. (although I don't think I would have the guts to admit that to anyone! well, maybe my therapist.) Also, there are times when I have no idea who is out, and I have to look in the mirror to see what facial expression I'm making. So yeah I can totally relate to that too. I also sometimes ask whoever's out to write something, and sometimes I can figure out who it is depending on the handwriting. I still haven't perfected that one yet - actually have a long way to go! I have so many different handwritings, and so, matching a handwriting to an alter is not an easy task. Sometimes it's obvious by what they wrote, other times not so much. And it seems I have more types of handwriting than I do alters, so maybe there are alters that I don't know about??? Not sure. I'm honestly just getting a handle on this whole DID thing as it is (I was just diagnosed a couple months ago!).

Oh also, I should clarify something. When I say I know how the alter is "feeling", it's primarily based on how the body is feeling. So for example, I have one very young part who is absolutely terrified of anything and everything. I can tell this because of how the body feels when she takes over. It's like, I would imagine, how a rabbit's body might feel right before it's about to be pounced on by a predator. Pure terror, held very tightly in the body. I don't know if that makes sense.

It's also funny that he calls himself the final override. I guess I am that person/thing lol. Even though I don't "feel" in control all the time/most of the time, when it comes down to it and the situation calls for a grown up who sounds like me and acts like me, I'm there. That's happened to me a lot actually. I'm sad or crying or screaming etc etc etc (one of my alters i mean) and then my boss calls and I jump in and answer it very calmly. I always couldn't figure out how the heck that worked, or how I was such a freak to be able to switch my emotions on and off like that, but now it all makes sense - I have DID!

One difference though is that I never have conversations with myself/my alters out loud. Even when I'm alone I don't. They are always on the inside. I don't know why.