The Hive System

I am pretty sure that every part in every system has a reason to exist, because otherwise they wouldn’t have formed. I don’t think the brain goes “Okay, I’m just gonna dissociate from this part of self for fun”. Some parts may seem to have no specific role / reason to exist though.

For example, we have a part who literally does nothing but feel bad, nap, snack and watch anime all day long. At first one may think “Well, okay. Why did your brain create him? What does he do to help you survive?” but there is a reason why he is the way he is. He gives us a break when we are overwhelmed. He also carries and deals with difficult emotions. At first sight it may look like he “doesn’t have a purpose” but his role is very important and we value him.

It’s also possible to simply not know the reason why a part exists. We have plenty of parts like this and it’s perfectly fine not to have it all figured out yet. Getting to know your system really well takes a loooot of time.

So no, I don’t think we have parts without a specific task / role / reason to exist, but we sure have many parts with unusual purposes that don’t neatly fit labels such protector, persecutor, gatekeeper, caretaker etc. and there are also a looot of parts whose roles we haven’t figured out yet. But there is one reason to exist that aaalll the parts in the world have in common: We needed them to survive.

And their existence is important.