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Is it normal to have multiple systems with DID?
Yes, these are called subsystems, and are separate internal groups within one larger system. These systems may exist to manage different types of trauma, and maybe unaware of other subsystems, and their experiences. Â Subsystems can also be alters who have their own alters.Â
Oz
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The label can be adaptive but we can also adapt to the label. Even unconsciously, we can end up figuring out how we’re ‘supposed’ to be with DID. Via social contagion, we can start to take on the traits and characteristics of other people we meet or know with DID and in contravention of clinical advice (for example, again, the ISSTD Guidelines), we can end up with increasingly elaborated and increasingly dissociated parts of our personality. It is a powerful thing to be amongst people who fully accept and understand why you have parts. And sometimes, after living so long in hiding with a suffocating fear of stigma and discrimination, the result can be that we over-compensate and we become more dissociative. For people who would otherwise be strangers, it is all we have in common: unconscious group pressures can end up inviting us to exaggerate our dissociativeness to fit in. Having parts, and displaying parts, can become a kind of membership card by which we prove that we belong to the group. This can redirect us from the safe expression of parts within the privacy of the home or the safety of a therapy session and towards an ‘alter-centric’ way of relating to others. The label starts to dictate to us.
At other times I have observed the development of a kind of competitiveness among people with dissociative disorders, as exists in every other domain in life. It is not overt or spoken, but a kind of hierarchy based on perceived degrees of traumatisation or dissociation can develop: ‘I’ve got more parts than you’, ‘I have mind control-based DID, not just ‘normal’ DID’. I would always argue that our subjective experience of trauma is what counts rather than tally points from some external ‘scoring system’; and I would also argue that for many of us the rejection and abuse from our mothers is harder to bear than even the most terrifying of organised or ritualised abuse. Sometimes claims of polyfragmentation and ongoing abuse and victimisation can become a kind of ‘badge of honour’: it can be an earnest, unconscious demonstration proving that we cannot recover, rather than the tragic reality of overwhelming suffering that will take a lot of hard work and dedication to overcome.
The net result for many people that I talk to is that they end up feeling as if they are not ‘proper DID’. Measured objectively against diagnostic criteria, they tick the boxes; even their phenomenological experience extensively matches that of most other people’s. But the lingering, murky doubt remains that they are not ‘DID enough’ compared to others. This is where Richard Kluft’s statistic comes in though, where only 6% of people with DID manifest it obviously in an ongoing way. It is therefore logical to assume that if we base our perception of DID on the 6% who shout the loudest (or display their parts the most overtly) then we will be misrepresenting DID, not as the ‘disorder of hiddenness’ that it really is, but as the cockeyed media representation of The United States of Tara. So the label can be adaptive, but not if we then adapt to the label and feel that we have to be more ‘obviously’ DID than we are. By hiding our symptoms, we are actually being consistent with the vast majority, the 94%.
Carolyn Spring
Similarly to astral travel, can an alter travel from one system into another? I think one of my alters was "implanted" from a handler this way....
No.  An alter cannot travel into another person’s system from another person’s system.
Hi,I want to add if anyone tells you that an alter can travel from their system to yours they are dangerous to be around.As for a handler moving an alter from one system to another’s that can’t be done either. They can manipulate you to believe it can be done and work to create a duplicate alter in your system to try and match the other alter. The alters may have a lot of programmed similarities but they aren’t system hopping.I won’t go into detail. It’s a scary feeling to think that one alter can move to another person’s system. Again, it’s not possible.Ozzie
An alter may exert its influence without ever seizing executive control. For example, if this alter is the persecutor, the patient may experience inward conflict without this alter ever presenting to the outside world. It makes itself known to the patient through threats and insults, which are heard as command hallucinations. Or the persecutor can take over the domain of motor control, perhaps telling the patient to drive off a cliff, but still has never presented to the onlooker. The personality in charge at the time will describe the experience as imposed rather than willed, which can be quite confusing and disconcerting, particularly to the individual who has no idea of his or her multiplicity.
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My partner has DID. Lately, an alter started fronting that claimed to be and acted exactly like my girlfriend, but due to an odd feeling I had, I didn't believe them. (And my feeling was right.) I also told them I know they are not her but they continued to act like this. Another alter told me this guy/girl had the color "brown" and is called "Syl". What does he or she want...?
Hi,
Have you asked Syl what they want/need?  Sometimes alters pretend they are another person because they want or need something.  Other times it’s because they want to take over the alter they are impersonating role.
Sometimes saying you know it’s them is good. For example if they are trying to undermine you, the situation, or the alter they are impersonating.  It’s also good to say you know who it is if they are doing something dangerous, or could cause harm to the relationship.
On the other hand saying you know who it is if they aren’t doing anything besides acting like the alter can cause harm.  They may become defensive and angry, go into hiding, become aggressive towards other parts and you, work harder to not be discovered etc. Â
There is a very valid reason Syl is doing what they are doing. Â While you may not agree with the reason it is a valid reason to them. Â
Brown is the color for hidden/incognito alters.
Ozzie
