Hopefully this is okay to ask, but I was diagnosed with DID Ages ago, and im only really starting to come out of denial now (long story). Ive looked so many places online- and ive even tried reading a few books, but every resource seems to skip the beginning part. They talk about mapping your system, and listing your alters- as if i have any idea on who they are or what theyre like. People talk about it like its so second nature that its making me feel insane. A part of it could be autism and me taking things too literally- but i have no clue on how to communicate with people who arent around. Agh. Im just asking for advice i guess, im struggling to find anything.
I understand the struggle, these things just take time and unfortunately it's not exactly a concrete process. People really don't talk about these kinds of problems even though they should, because what you've described here really isn't uncommon at all.
The problem with DID is that is essentially hides in plain sight; alters are switching out and influencing you all the time, the disorder just makes it very difficult to realize when it's happening.
Even outside of amnesia and denial, you can be looking directly at your own symptoms and still not see them. DID brains are hardwired toward not processing things because our personality structures are built around dissociating away from our experiences.
So even when you're experiencing symptoms in the moment and are actively aware of that experience, you still might not realize what you're experiencing is the activity of other alters. It just doesn't "click".
As for how to learn things about your alters, it's most commonly done through pretty meticulous symptom tracking. I'd recommend keeping some kind of journal that you aim to update at least once a day (it's easiest to do this with an app that you can set notifications for).
Keep note of when you lose time, feel dissociated or notice differences in your thoughts or behaviour. Over enough time you'll start to be able to see patterns, i.e. that certain events, activities or emotions tend to trigger certain symptoms. From there you can start to form an outline of your parts, for example you might notice that you tend to hear a childlike internal monologue in response to a certain trigger, suggesting you might have a child part that holds that kind of trauma.
You can hypothesize about the kinds of parts you might have based on what you know about your trauma history and PTSD symptoms, too. Trauma has to be compartmentalized somewhere, if you have amnesia or strong dissociation for a particular part of your trauma history you can generally assume that there's another part that holds it. If you have vague memories of how you've acted in the past when that trauma is triggered (or someone's told you) you can start to guess what that part's personality may be like.
Obviously this can be quite difficult to do with amnesia and dissociation. But in general, it's just a matter of trying to consistently pay attention to your symptoms and the patterns that show up when you do.
In the beginning stages of DID treatment, it's normal for suspected alters to be discussed based on singular traits that have been noticed. For example, "the one who I hear crying sometimes", "the one who throws aways my possessions" or "the one who yelled at my friend". Over time you might realize some of these are the same alter.
With communication specifically, it's a good idea to have a shared journal or leave notes around that explicitly invite other parts to write things. You could write a letter or something to them first as well. After that, it's kind of just a waiting game to find something you don't remember writing that might have clues that allow you to figure things out about your alters.
You might find the following links useful from DIS-SOS:
Befriending Dissociated Parts: First Steps
Reducing Amnesia: Developing Co-Consciousness
Mapping for DID/OSDD Systems
And these videos from the CTAD clinic on YouTube:
A method for building internal dialogues for Dissociative Identity Disorder DID and OSDD
Why do some alters not communicate? Questions about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)
Why is my internal communication (in OSDD or DID) not working?
Obviously, the ideal solution would be to work through this with a professional, but hopefully some of this was helpful regardless of whether or not that's something you can access at the moment.
