Hey there, I really hope this doesn't come across rude or anything but I saw your message in the 19 mill boss project and I got curious. I read about your system on the system page but i still don't quite understand how it works. If you're comfortable do you mind talking about it? You don't have to go into detail, I understand it might be too personal but just the general stuff, like how does it work? I've honestly never heard of DID before and it really interested me.
Hi Anon,
Don’t worry, you weren’t being rude at all! Nothing wrong with curiosity. I assume you’re referring to Clara’s message in @allthingsmusicofficial ‘s video?
DID is a dissociative disorder that forms from repeated childhood trauma. During this time, the sense of consciousness is prone to dissociating, and parts can become dissociated from one another, as a way of protecting the vulnerable child. These parts then can form into alternative personalities, or alters.
DID is a complex condition, and works differently from system to system, so it’s hard to say how it functions, because of the differences. From a general point of view, different alters can take control of the body, known as fronting, or can be aware of the surrounding, but not interact with it, known as co-consciousness (some systems use the term co-fronting), or be completely unaware. This can cause amnesia between alters, which leads to unexplained memory gaps. Many systems can work towards co-consciousness and finding ways around the amnesia, for example, keeping a notebook or leaving notes in places that the system is likely to visit (for example, on the fridge, on a cork board, on a work desk, etc.). The way it was described to me is to imaging that the body is the car, and the alters are all the people in the car. You can be in the driver’s seat, where you’re controlling what’s going on, you could be in the front passenger seat, where you can clearly see what is going on, but are not in control of the car, you could be in the back seat, where you can sort of see what’s going on, but can’t figure out specifics, or you could be in the boot, where you have no idea what is going on. Like the viewpoints in the car, co-consciousness can work at different levels, from being completely aware and communicating, or from barely being able to interpret the situation.
Alters can Switch for different reasons, sometimes they are brought forward by a trigger, such as the person being in a situation that alters can handle, or even that they found something cool and want to check it out. Again, this varies from system to system. Alters can have specific roles, to help the system function more smoothly, some alters are better at handling certain situation than others in the system. Some systems are small, some are much larger, some alters are vastly different, while others are similar, and some systems have inner worlds (where alters can appear when they are not co-conscious), some don’t, some have large inner world, some are small, some are like fantasy realms, while others are more realistic. This all varies from system to system.
Does that cover what you were curious about? Feel free to drop another ask at any time, and we’ll answer when we can. There are some YouTube channels that explain DID in more depth, I mainly watched MultiplicityAndMe ( @multiplicityandme / @multiplicityandwe )and The Labyrinth System ( @thelabyrinthsystem ) they’ve done some pretty cool videos.
Best wishes,Oliver-Joseph.
