#did core

i don't get people who say they randomly gained conciousness at 6 or whatever other age .

our earliest memory was when we were 1 year and about 2 - 3 months old . we never experienced "gaining conciousness" the way other people did.

is this like a cdd thing or what ?

Many people use the term host differently. Some people confuse the term host with original. Most people use the term host to mean the part or parts of the system who front most frequently. Some systems have more than one host. Sometimes the host changes. Some systems change hosts regularly. 

My system avoids using the term host because it causes distress and animosity among us. We noticed that debates about who was the host caused tension. We have an awareness of who fronts most frequently, but we don’t consider ourselves the “hosts”. 

Core and Original mean essentially the same thing. The concept of a core is that it is the part of self that developed and solidified before the other parts existed. 

Not all systems have a core or original. When trauma begins very early, there is no chance for a core sense of self to develop and several parts develop simultaneously. If trauma began later, the core may be the identity that was beginning to develop and take shape before the trauma began. 

It’s important to understand that whether a system has a core/original or not, all parts of a system are dissociated part. All parts are alters. A system is not made up of an original “real” person and their alters. Even the core, original, and host are considered dissociated parts or alters. 

No, our system doesn’t have a “core” or original but we used to think that we did. 

When we first learned about DID we were told about the old theory of DID, which was that there was a “core” or original identity. 

At that time we had one part of our system who used our legal name who also fronted a lot of the time, so it made sense to her and to all of us that she was our original identity. 

In reality, she’s just another alter. She fronted a lot of the time because we were still living at home with our family and her role in our system was to be a normal loving daughter to them. When we moved away from home and went low contact with our family, she disappeared and we freaked out. We thought our core had disappeared! 

Like a lot of DID systems who experienced trauma from a very young age, we never integrated enough to establish a core. Our system is run by a group of ANPs (Apparently Normal Parts) and we have many EPs (Emotional Parts) but we don’t believe that any one of us is the core or original.