On my blog entry entitled Unmet Needs after Child Abuse: Age Twelve to Eighteen, a reader posted the following comment:
Though I only remember that time vaguely, I’ve read my journal entries from when I was younger and I know that somewhere around 12-14 years of age I struggled with my identity. I actually wrote in my diary that “I don’t know who I am.” I spent so much time pretending that I was someone else, because I simply didn’t know how to live as myself. Some were TV, or film, or book characters, some were characters I invented myself (and later turned out to be alters). I changed personas constantly, if only inside my head, and by pretending to be someone else I could get through each day. This led to years of internal chaos and depression, because I realized that I had no idea who I really was.
Sometimes I still feel like only a fragment of a person. Like I’m not entirely real. Maybe I’m not. – Midge
I can relate to this comment so deeply. In fact, before I integrated my host personality into my core, I used to be plagued by nightmares that I had doll skin. I would push a pin through my leg and discover that I was as hollow inside as a doll is. I would wake up trembling after those nightmares.
People with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) typically create a “host personality” who has no memory of any of the abuse. The host is created to be the innocent one who can interact with the world as if none of the abuse ever happened because, as far as the host personality is concerned, it didn’t. Having a host personality also gives an abused child the illusion of having a part of herself that was spared the abuse.
Most DID patients who enter into therapy do so from the perspective of the host personality. The host personality becomes terrified as the amnestic barriers begin to melt, bringing some of the memories of abuse into the host personality’s awareness. The host personality comes to realize just how much of her life she has “missed” as she is forced to recognize that huge chunks of her past are missing from her memory bank.
The host personality feels small because it is small compared to the rest of your spirit. Most of your spirit is fully aware of all of the abuses that you suffered. The realization that “you” are merely an alter part is absolutely terrifying for DID patients. It sure was for me.
The good news is that, while the host personality is a part of who you are, she is a very small part of you. Who you are is the sum total of all of your parts and more. When you choose to integrate your host personality back into your core, you stop losing time. (Huge, huge perk!!) You also realize that you survived the abuse and that you are okay. You don’t need to keep a part of yourself separate and pretend like the abuse never happened. You can have full awareness of all that you endured as a child and still be okay – even more than okay.
Becoming aware that you, as the host personality, are just a tiny part of a large spirit is a huge step toward integration and healing. Who you are is so much deeper and richer than you ever imagined.
Related Topics:
- How to Integrate Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Host Personality
- Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Alter Parts
- Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): Types of Alter Parts
- Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Switching
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
Blooming Lotus 
Thanks, Faith.
This helps me understand who I am, or how much more more of me there is.
I wish my therapist understood this. Even though she’s supposedly an expert on trauma and DID, she seems to feel that I am the “real” person and all the others are merely alters that I created to protect myself. Sometimes she says something like, “What can all of you guys inside do to help Midge?” or “You need to stop switching so Midge can get things done,” or something similar that indicates it’s their responsibility to help and protect me. Whereas I understood pretty quickly that I’m just an alter like the others, and we all have equal rights.
When she says things like that, she uses the body’s name, even though I told her that everyone inside calls me by my own unique name, which is different from the body’s name. Just like each alter has their own name, so do I. That more than anything points to the fact that I’m an alter. And the fact that I know the original personality is deep inside, sleeping and very well protected. If she’s in there, that means I’m not her!
Actually, you are a part of her. However, you are correct that you are not her.
My parents called me “Annie” when I was a kid. Annie went to sleep when I was 6 or 7. I woke up one day and did not know who I was because “I” was a brand new alter part — the host personality. I took another name (the body’s first name on the birth certificate), and that became the host personality’s name.
People still call me by my host personality’s name, but she isn’t “me.” She has integrated now. I actually relate much more to the name “Faith” than I do to my given name. If I ever move away, I will tell people that my name is Faith.
Take care,
– Faith
Ive had some rediculous names in the past, like jam sponge, beans, and rice pudding – all food for some reason 🙂
All the nicknames i was given ive been happy with and they used to change once a year – when i believe i re-invented.
I hated been called by my proper first name.
Im at a stage now where everything is whirling around, and im waiting it to settle to see who i am. Its driving me nuts.
Similar dreams, very recurrent but not totally nightmares. In my dream I have a small insignificant scratch, a tiny laceration I find on my skin of face, hand, or arm and as I direct myself to “look: at this opening it greatly widens and within I see only levers, wires, pulleys and empty space. I am aghast and nauseated-On awakening I am in wonderment because I know about my DID with my T.
As much as I have read about how to communicate with parts and attempt communication to explore my alters so I can move on-that doesn’t occur with direction or clarity. Very frustating to be in my 5th decade and so unknown to myself. I’m not loosing time. I am on 24/7 raising kids,feeling very empty but working in my profession being “out front”.
I could take heart if I had some tool or method to have this integrated-knowing of self. I just feel my aging, empty and lost in space but functional.
This makes a lot of sense. I am polyfragmented, and well, have 7 different systems. For many years I thought I was both the host and the core. But I felt split and then there were parts. It is very complex – my systems, but in my systems there are a few hosts, a few decoys, and well, the person they call “gayle”. the core system is the 7th system. The first system is the body system… in my systems. the body consists of functions necessary to the body, but also different personalities, such as “brains” which is a male with glasses (i’m biologically a female). But I never had a therapist tell me that I was a host, a mere alter, although i always felt that way. There was Gail the clueless host decoy, and then there was me, Gayle, the host that takes on the birthname originally given to me and spelt as such, that remembers a few things, but not much. We both are innocent, not knowing much, but didn’t realize what you wrote here that we were both mere alters, when our system was in arguments while in therapy for DID that kept saying we were just alters, there’s a real Gayle, but no one would ever get to her or that system called the Core System as they named it. Before the systems were so named, they were called “lands” in our internal world. Though Gail nor I, Gayle never knew about them. Heck, I didn’t even know Gail existed, but I did sense a separate split in me alone. Years later I found out I had alters and was DID. The core person is integrating with me somehow whilst I’m not in therapy at the moment because I cannot afford it, but I do know that the core person is integrating with me somehow… and I feel innocent, as if I’m exploring life for the first time. It feels great. The effects of the trauma as I know it (from learning from the alters inside I had a priviledge to meet and get to know during the course of my treatment)… and accepted their trauma as my own. Meanwhile, I’m still struggling without having funding for therapy, to self-heal via means of integration. I think it was a majority decision to integrate, but it is difficult without professional help. We did learn to work as a system together and they knew I was the one to come out. Not sure what all that means, but from what I hear, every person with DID has different systems, different alters, and there’s no set rule on who is what. Some systems don’t have hosts, while others do. And some have 1 system, and others have more than one system. Some are polyfragmented, some are not. I believe that integration and the process thereof depends on each individual person with DID and how their system(s) are made up coupled with their decision to want to integrate or not. Either way, I feel integration can be open for definition based on individual needs of the person, since each person with DID is so different. Yet I cannot negate the fact that there are many similarities amongst all those with DID and the process of healing for the effects are trauma are similar to those with PTSD, just the added DID treatment that is separate from PTSD is critical and much needed, and I believe that is why it is important for someone to seek help for DID-specific therapy, because so many have went years with the emphasis on the PTSD effects, that the healing for DID somehow gets lost. In my case I went 10 years in therapy for PTSD effects before I was diagnosed with DID, and then it made sense why certain things were not working and a lot of other relief as to why I was misdiagnosed or things seemed to be getting worse. It makes total sense and your blog helps a great deal!
Been thinking about this.
I think ive defined who i am in the past by dis-agreeing with other people and purposely being different. Because i didnt want to get lost in other peoples identitys id make sure i wasnt like anyone else. In the end id run out of people not to be!! – I guess this is very similar to mirroring other people, the difference being that i didnt want to admit i was doing that (denial???), so the only thing left was being different.
This story of who *I* am is very confusing. I’ve changed my name legally several times over the course of my life. The last name change was right after the first abuse memories because my legal first name was related to my f*ther’s name. So I had a new name but didn’t feel like that name. I asked other to call me the name of one of my main alters (Annie).
In my case, the new first name was the healing entity. She had the consciousness of life and healing went into her…now me. It was awhile before I grew into the name. Now that I’m mostly healed, although I don’t know if I’m completely integrated because of having had several big integrations, I’ve been gravitating toward Grace, which I love.
I know Grace is the name I was meant to be as a healed being. I don’t know how to transition in the real world from not using the first legal name. I’m 56 and still evolving into names. But whereas I once was the first name, parts of my once shattered core joined me on the outside. We function as one. And that became Grace. It’s interesting to me that there is a mythological (?) history of the five graces…muses?
I had the life and known memory. I remained me and the others joined *my* life and my career. I guess that’s as close as I can explain. Hence, “identity” confusion. Always evolving as a being. And I am called a different name inside too. My SO calls me that name and so his family does. I like that I can be several names at once.
Faith –
I’m confused. Once you fully recover from DID, do you still have alter parts? Can you fully recover from DID? About how many alter parts do people with DID have? Sorry if I seem ignorant, but I don’t have DID and I’m curious what it’s like.
I have read that full recovery is possible. I have integrated my host personality into my core, as well as most of my parts, so I am not technically DID anymore. Per the DSM IV, you have to lose time in order to have DID, so I don’t “qualify” for that label any longer. So, in that respect, I have “healed from DID.”
My experience has been that I still have different part that hold the memories of traumas that I have not yet recovered. When they surface, I remain copresent, so I am never “out of control.”
As for the number of alter parts, that varies. An alter part can be a personality fragment, which is more one-dimension, or much larger, which is more three-dimensional. For example, the host personality is an alter part, not just a fragment.
Most of mine were fragments, and I had roughly a thousand. I believe Sybil had something like 16 parts, but I think all of hers were personalities. It depends upon how the child fragmented. In my experience, it is easier to integrate fragments than personalities, so having 16 personalities might be more challenging to heal than 1000 fragments.
It really doesn’t matter how many parts a person has. All are parts of one spirit, and all integrate as you “melt” the amnestic barrier through self-love.
Take care,
– Faith
Thanks for the explanation, Faith! Have a happy Thanksgiving!
Hi,
My son has D.I.D. His personalities are those of his life growing up. For example, he is Sam at the infant stage, he is Sam at 5, he is Sam at 10 and then there is Joe who symbolizes the rage and anger. Thanks to medication this personality was very dangerous to the point of harming himself and other people. The 10 year old Sam in the Dominent personality, he comes out to protect my 32 year old son who I am assuming is the host. Question, Do the Alters know who the host is? Do they know they are fragmented? How do you explain to the alters that they are a part of this person. Remember I am talking to a 10 year old…how do I make them understand this? I understand DID, My son is getting there, but he has to learn to not be a victim and to be a survivor…I think this is holding him back to moving foward…
Thanks to any help or suggestions you can give. Yes he is seeing a doctor, Yes the doctor has helped him, but I think it is my son who needs to push a bit more to help himself…..
Hi, Dianne.
Welcome to my blog!
Keep in mind that all of the parts are one spirit. At the base, they are all interconnected.
Only your son has the ability to heal himself, and he will do this by learning how to love and accept each alter part as “me.” Even the scary parts are really just the most wounded parts of him. Learning to love those parts is incredibly healing.
I strong recommend that you read the book Safe Passage to Healing by Chrystine Oksana:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0595201008?ie=UTF8&tag=bloolotu-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0595201008
That book is the best resource that I have found to explain the role of each alter part in a DID system.
As for talking to the alter parts, you need to love them, too. They are as much a part of your son as the host personality is. Whenever they emerge, tell them that you love them and that they are safe. Reassure them that their abusers will never harm them again. You are there to protect them.
Healing from DID is a long road, but it is also a worthwhile and profound journey. Healing really is as simple as loving and accepting each part as “me” and then dealing with the emotions. Unfortunately, simple is not the same thing as easy.
Take care,
– Faith
Thank you so much Faith. I do say I love them as they are of different stages of my son’s life. I do tell them that they are safe…so I am doing good. I have learned to handel DID to a point that I know what to expect. I will get that book…and I will tell my son what you have said. When he was first diagnosed 6 years ago, I was told patience, and time…I truly believe this…
I am glad I found this site, it wil help me help him….
Take care, and Bless you for your help
Dianne
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Hi can anyone help me understand what is going on. I have just started theropy because I so called had a reaction to some tablets to give up smoking, I changed into this mean horrible person and I could feel myself in the background saying no don’t do that or say that, This is not you saying this, it was very scarey. After that other things started to happen, I started having flashbacks about horrible stuff that I just could not make up. I have seen abuse, torture, and satanic things. Which are to horrible to even say.
I have also been laying in bed with my husband and little people come out to talk to him, they tell him names like Karen, peekaboo, the story teller, and the angry one. But as they are saying what they are saying I can hear them and I remember what they are saying to me and my husband, It is so scarey. I have lost all concept of time. as it just doesn’t matter anymore. and my head is so busy it never stops, I will see myself in a mirror and will say horrible things to the person I see.
Please help I need to know what is going on inside me?
Anyone?
Hi, Kelly.
I strongly encourage you to find a qualified therapist with experience in working with people with DID and/or people who have suffered from severe child abuse. I see many red flags for DID. You don’t want to try to heal this without therapy. The good news is that you **can** heal from this.
– Faith
when i was about 17 i dubbed it “the 7 minute syndrome” because it felt like every 7 minutes i was someone else. after about 21 i started falling apart. within 4 years i was in florida with a new therapist that one day said she had a hunch what was wrong and told me about mpd. i was like, yea, sure lady… she persisted and found an intensive outpatient program that met 4 hours a night, 3 nights a week with skilled therapists and a whole program devoted to mpd ppl. i was the only male for the 7 months I was part of the program but learned a huge bunch about what was wrong and why i had been acting so bizarrely all my life. it was the first tme i felt at home, even with all females, i was sort of “adopted” as im a small and shy creature and eventually the others allowed me in. in time it got really bad and i had to stop therapy. after 4 years away i am slowly starting back in t see how much further i can get towards having a healthy life with healthy choices. within i have 7 different beings in varying states of maturity. the main alter has become a big prt of the core and i have taken his name to use in daily life. the name my body was called is and will always be someone i dont want to be or be thought of, having been lucky enough to have a II after my legal name, i want nothing but to be as far away from that name and man i was named after as i can get. without legal action it will remain as my legal name, but not the name i think of myself as being. someday i wish to have a funeral for that name. that person. i am not him.
I started getting memories back when I was twenty six and now I am 45 and getting more memories back., I can’t afford therapy and my insurance doesn’t cover it and it’s depressing when people say you can’t get better without it. I refuse to listen though. I think you CAN get better without therapy.
As for my core vs. host personality I feel my host personality is my real one. She is the one who grew up and went to school and had boyfriends and learned to drive etc. She is the one who read ALL those books on a million different subjects and had all those hobbies and developed all those interests, and those opinions.
No matter how many parts I discover my host person will ALWAYS be me.
Hi, Catherine.
I agree that healing is possible without a therapist and would never tell another survivor that he or she is a lost cause because of the inability to afford therapy. I, personally, found my therapist to be immensely helpful as a guide, but I did most of the healing work outside of his presence. For me, the work happened between the sessions, and he was like a coach who would redirect me as needed if I got stuck.
I found lots of help through reading quality self-healing books. A particularly good one for people with DID is “Safe Passage to Healing” by Chrystine Oksana. It is written for ritual abuse survivors, but the chapters on DID would be helpful even without a ritual abuse history.
I don’t think you have to choose between the host or core being the “real you.” All of them are the “real you.” As long as you are moving toward self-love and self-acceptance, you are moving toward yourself. :0)
I wish you well along your healing journey! :0)
~ Faith
Hello, 🙂
I hope this isn’t weird that I just spent the past hour reading this whole post and taking snippets of some of the things that you wrote Faith, for my speech for my Speech class. I am doing a speech on DID, and I found this blog by searching up more information about it. So I just wanted to let you know that I will probably mention a couple sentences of things that you wrote on here, and will be back to read more even after my speech is over.
My major is psychology and to me DID is the disorder I most want to understand, because it is still one of the most misunderstood disorders.
Also, I wanted to ask a question. In one of my psychology classes I asked my professor if all the different personalities have different physiological aspects because I’ve read that they did, and she said that she heard about someone with DID not being allergic to something, but once they became a different personality, they would break out with hives because that personality happened to be allergic to it. Also she said that there have been cases where someone may have bad eyesight and have to wear glasses however when they become another personality, they no longer have to wear glasses because they have good eyesight, but when they transition back, their eyesight goes bad again. Is this true? Perhaps if you have not experienced this yourself, but maybe your therapist may have told you, or perhaps you’ve done more research than I have.
Sorry if any of the things that I wrote sounded ignorant, I just don’t know well enough about the disorder to be able to speak about it as if I do. I speak about what I know so far.
Thank you. 🙂