How does your significant other handle your alters?

I'm just wondering. Maybe I can get some ideas on how to best handle my husband's. Also what about your kids? Do they know? Thanks

I myself can't offer good advice, since I don't even want an SO, lol. Although I think someone inside does...ugh she drives me off the wall.

Could you be more specific? Handle which kinds of alters? Angry ones? child ones? teen ones? other ones? I would say just treat them like you would anybody else who is acting that way. If you were around someone with explosive anger, it would be good to distance yourself emotionally(and perhaps physically) for the time so that they have little for their anger to feed on. Your maintaining your calm is key. And personally, I would treat child alters/different age alters, like the ages that they are. Treat the 5 year old like a 5 year old. Offer a snack or playing with toys or a kids movie.

Hope this helps

Could you be more specific?


The only alter my husband has as far as we're both aware of so far, is violent and angry at not being in control. I would say that he presents as the protector, as he once tried to kill my husband in an attempt to protect him from the pain in his life. I'm terrified by him, because he's attempted to harm me a couple times. My husband is dead set against even discussing anything having to do with his DID, so I don't have much to work with. But I'm just curious how other people in your life act when an altre presents. And how open you are about the other

I have one friend who really accepts me when I start acting little. Best friend I have in the whole world right now. He actually encourages me to bring my stuffed Timber wolfie with me into the grocery store when we go shopping, if I want to. I get very irrational/child-like/crying type angry when i get in that state. At that point, he just acts as if he's talking to an angry child.

He doesn't know/think of these as alters though. Just different aspects of my personality. As I do at times...

When he gets angry and violent, I would try to just let him be angry, since it's probably a defense mechanism/a useful tool to hide the pain the alter is experiencing. If you keep your cool, you might make a break through, and find out where that pain is coming from.

What are your thoughts trying to get to know him? Like asking him if he's willing to discuss what happened to him

I'm non-DID, and pretty average, and my girlfriend has DID. The alters are a real test of my commitment, and they're strenuous on me, too. Both of her alters love me, but only one really trusts me. One is willing to have the type of intimate and caring relationship we would normally have at this point, whereas the other one is too scared. I know who is out, but I have to watch out for a switch. Her being tired is one of the key points. She only switches when she's asleep (she has switched without falling asleep first, but there have only been 3 times in her life when that has happened), so I'll usually make sure nothing is happening that the other alter wouldn't like (anything sexual). They both have different personalities (duh!), so I'll be ready to deal with that personality before it comes out.

Sometimes I get caught unguarded, and there have been some scary moments, but I guess I've expected that to happen some time or another.

My system is very covert and my diagnosis is recent. I married late, and neither my husband nor my previous long term boyfriend were aware that I sometimes lost time with them. I did report to both of them episodes of lost time with other people, but neither SO was concerned enough to investigate.

For the most part I do not lose time; instead, I experience passive influence, blending. I am usually emotionally very stable and calm, except when I am not. This is a common pattern in DID: a strong, functional host typically will have very little intrapsychic conflict about anything, feel only moderate emotions, and be abnormally stable. Such a person is a pleasure to live with. But on occasion the same person will totally flip out. On those rare occasions when I would flip out, both husband and boyfriend would accurately perceive that I was in a moment of irrational, severe emotionality, and would simply wait calmly for the moment to pass.

Now that we are aware of my DID and I am beginning to access and integrate the dissociated parts of myself, my husband and I are enjoying a tremendous quantity of new relationship energy. We are getting re-acquainted, falling in love all over again.

Una+ wrote:Now that we are aware of my DID and I am beginning to access and integrate the dissociated parts of myself, my husband and I are enjoying a tremendous quantity of new relationship energy. We are getting re-acquainted, falling in love all over again.

This made me smile

-- Sun Oct 16, 2011 7:07 pm --

DIDWife wrote:Also what about your kids? Do they know? Thanks

I don't have any kids... but... the book i have just finished reading by Kim Noble, she speaks about having a kid. Her kid grew up knowing about the alters because she would attend therapy appointments with "kim" and saw the alters out and how the therapist spoke/behaved with them. She grew up comfortable around the alters who had total amnesia between each other, but did have the emotional problem of having to shift who she called mum when one alter left the dominant position for another one.

Bourbon

Una+ wrote:This is a common pattern in DID: a strong, functional host typically will have very little intrapsychic conflict about anything, feel only moderate emotions, and be abnormally stable. Such a person is a pleasure to live with. But on occasion the same person will totally flip out. On those rare occasions when I would flip out, both husband and boyfriend would accurately perceive that I was in a moment of irrational, severe emotionality, and would simply wait calmly for the moment to pass.

Now that we are aware of my DID and I am beginning to access and integrate the dissociated parts of myself, my husband and I are enjoying a tremendous quantity of new relationship energy. We are getting re-acquainted, falling in love all over again.

My husband is very similar to what you've described. He handles my emotional outbursts very well, and is generally unfazed by most things. He even says he has no emotion, which isn't true, his emotions just aren't as extreme as a "normal" person. While this makes him very agreeable, and pleasant most of the time, the opposite is also true. It's hard for me as a pretty emotional woman to deal with someone with so little emotion. I want an opinion! I want a reaction! Some jealousy! Something. He also has the tendency to flip out. I need to work on learning when to leave him to calm down. I'm a fixer and a nurturer by nature, so I always tend to stay so we can talk, when the better course is probably to give him some space.

I love that you and your husband are going through this process together. Someday I really hope to do the same.

Thank you all for your insight. I really appreciate the thoughts. I know how I'd treat a rational alter, even if it was a little, but the angry/violent one is still a little difficult for me to come up with a strategy for.

DIDWife wrote:the angry/violent one is still a little difficult for me to come up with a strategy for.

You can talk to the whole system through the host. Talk to him but hold in your mind the idea that you are talking to all of him. And tell all of him that being angry is okay and you can be with him when he is angry but you will not accept violence in any form. Whatever any part may say, no part of him actually wants to be left alone, so often this is enough. In case he becomes violent despite this, decide now how best to respond. It could be moving away from him, leaving the room, going into the bathroom, going outside, calling 911. Look to your own safety first, consequences for him second.

DIDWife wrote:I love that you and your husband are going through this process together. Someday I really hope to do the same.

Believe it or not, you have already begun, and you're doing great.