The different types of alters and how they developed - a personal experience

Hello everyone,

People with DID or OSDD-1 develop alters, defined personality parts, as a way to survive the trauma. These alters can have different characteristics and purposes, and they don't even have to be human. An anonymous writer worked on the following post over weeks to disclose to us, what their alters look like and what caused them to be created. Please leave your thoughts on the topic and your appreciation for the author in the comments.

Disclaimer and trigger warning: Please keep in mind that every system is different. This is a post about a personal experience and not about scientific definitions. If you have a trauma-related disorder yourself, please be aware that the descriptions of the alters and how they came to existence might be triggering.

The different types of alters and how they developed - a personal experience - anonymous

Alters, the direct definition is “An alternate personality, found in DID/OSDD systems”. From my own personal experience we have 59 Alters, they are all created for their own reasons. This can be pretty hard to live with, but I am very glad they have had my back all these years.

I hope, this is helpful to you in some way. 🙂

Animal alters:

We could not get ahold of any of our animal alters, so here’s what I know of them: They are here because of a time that we felt inhuman. Forced to feel less of a human, and more of an animal. We have two of these alters, and both we rarely see so we tried to give the best information on them.

Caregiver alters:

I’m our internal Caregiver, I am also created as an ideal fatherly figure, which i’m sure many of you can relate to. I was created in a time where we figured out our father was never going to actually be present in our life, so I am here to fill in for him. As a caregiver I also take care of the littles in the Innerworld, and will front when our host or other alters are having a rough time. I am not perfect, nor is anyone, but I am here for the purpose of taking care of us. (This was put together with our External caregiver also.) 🙂

Co-host:

I was created as the co-host in a time that we were really struggling, our host at the time could not manage the stress and fear they were experiencing (this was right after they discovered their DID). So I was created to help support them, and take a bit of the responsibilities they had to manage. I’ve been around for both the splits and integrations our hosts have had in the past years. I am also here to keep everyone together. I have my own responsibilities. I manage the innerworld when the host is not around, and I also manage the fronting space. So to sum it up, I am here to take care of the things our host cannot do, and will always be here to keep everyone together.

Demon alters:

As a Demon alter, I hold memories from when we were on the brink of death. In the innerworld I have my classic sewn in smile, that is unable to be broken. And even in the external world I have it. I also don't have the ability to breathe, or talk in the Innerworld. This is a reflection on a time that we were not allowed to speak up about what had been going on with us. Obviously I can breathe in the external world or it would end poorly. The smile represents the mask we had to put on for so long. And being unable to breathe reflects the situation that caused me to be created. So Demon alters exist, and we are very real. May seem scary but that is the point of us.

Escapism alters:

Escapism. Something one does when things are rough and they don’t want to deal with their reality. So they escape into hobbies, crafts, or for some people drugs (don’t do drugs people!). But in my case we escaped into dance to a point that an entire alter was created to deal with what had been going on for us. Therefore, in the innerworld I am a Ballet dancer. We actually haven’t taken ballet ever but it felt right so thats what our brain needed at the time. So now I am here. To sum it up Escapism alters are when someone escapes into something in their life to survive something.

Fictives:

I am a Fictive based off a character from a semi-popular Youtuber's created character Lanira, The Enchatress from CrazyCae. A fictive is the result of a person relating with a TV show character, a Movie character, ect. For us we related to this character Cae had made, therefore in the spot we were in (which was a really stressful time for us), our brain decided, yes we need her in our head. So now I'm around.

Hello all, My name is Archer. Before you ask, no, I am not an Archer haha. I am a fictive based off of Peter Pan, and Captain Hook. Yes both, I don’t have a hook hand I have a hook leg, I guess things got mixed up in my creation hahaa. I also don’t know why my name is Archer, it just fit, it could be cause my hook leg is in an arch (that's too far of an assumption i know hahah). But maybe one day I’ll know. Until then I will give a brief of why I’m here; We got really obsessed with Peter Pan, and The Never Growing old concept at around 11/12. So that may explain why I’m immortal in the innerworld. Anyways this is growing long, so hope I get to make a post like this another time, until then i guess!

Ghost alters:

We all know they saying, if you Say Bl00dy Mary 3 times, and throw water at the mirror, the ghost of Bl00dy Mary will come out. Well for us it was the opposite, we had an entire alter created off of Bl00dy Mary. Therefore that’s why I exist.

I think, I would be considered the closest to a Ghost alter we could get ahold of at the moment. Ghost alters are created when/if someone feels close to death, or they could be acually close to death. They are not human, nor alive In their head.

Host:

The host’s job is to be out in the body most of the time, approximately 50% of the time. With the role of the host you have many things you must do. As the host I know every single alters name, age, and role. I also have the ability to add and remove things in the innerworld. There’s many things I am able to do, yet many I cannot. I am in the body most of the time to focus on the external world, so I am barely in the innerworld due to my responsibilities. I am also the one who everyone knows us by, or at least anyone who doesn’t know about our DID haha. The host is most of the time the alter who does not know they have DID, and does not remember most of their childhood.

So to sum it up, I as the host manage most of our life externally, and be present in day-to-day life.

Littles:

This is input they gave to me, and I added some also.

Littles, alters under 10. They can be the essence of childlike innocence, or the complete opposite. Either way, they should be treated like a child, not an adult. It does not matter If they are in a 16 year old’s body, or a 46 year olds, treat them how old they are. They may have the knowledge of an adult but that is not supposed to happen, these are children… Especially out in public it can be very dangerous for littles to have control of the body, because even if they’re in an adults body, that doesn’t mean that they have the mentality. Some random person could come up to them and offer then candy, and in a childs eyes its like “Ooooh candy, I’m going to follow this person”. And lets just say you may not know where you’re going to be when you front next.. If a little fronts, ask them to get an adult in the system please! It can be unsafe sometimes as I said.

Our endless void alter:

Hello, my name is ScreAm, before you ask yes the capped A is supposed to be there. I as an endless void am like the comical relief in our system. I find myself funny, our host may disagree though haha. I don’t know much on why I am here, but I do know that I am a mix of a gray and black and a small bit of red. I consume things like buildings, and random things around the innerworld. I don’t know where the other side of my void goes, but it goes somewhere. I hope this was at least semi helpful, and if any of you have void/endless void alters, it would be nice to be meet you.

Protectors:

Emotional protector:

I’ll keep this short and simple don’t worry :) I was created to protect us emotionally from a toxic friendship we had a few years ago, I’m like any other protector, but front if an alter is crying, or I front to take care of an alter if we had a verbal fight, or even If someone had a rough day.

Sexual protector and Physical protector are the same:

I wish to stay annoymous, yet still tell my story. My two roles are, Sexual, and Physical Protector. With these two I’ll have two segments.

• Sexual Protector: In this I protect us from some sexual trauma we have, and in cases similar to that I front to keep us safe. Therefore I also know how to keep people in our Boundries and not afraid to tell people to knock it off when/if needed.
• Physical Protector: I rarely need to front to protect us physically, but in a situation that someone was trying to fight us physically I would front because I have the strength to.

So in general physical protectors protect you physically haha. Then the sexual protectors protect you from either sexual trauma, or things from the present.

Primary protector:

Hiya, my name is Harley Quinn. You can probably assume just by name I am based off of Harley Quinn from Batman. I am one of the more common alters to be created for a primary protector. I was created to be able to protect us from a young age. As the primary protector I handle a lot of situations that we don't feel safe, or if we think that we have spotted someone from our past. I am also one the alters who block flashbacks, and help the traumaholders from having past trauma that certain alters are not supposed to know about. To make a summary I am here to protect us in situations out of our control, or if we need to be protected from our past.

Protector in general:

I am one of our protectors, Harley covered most of what it means to be a protector, I just wanted to add that there is internal and external protectors, and both are just as important as the other.

Persecutors:

“Persecutors are massive, massive trauma holders. They hold so much trauma that they know that if the host or others in the system knew, that they wouldn’t be able to handle it. They then go around, harming the host and the system and maybe even the body, because they worry that, if you start feeling good about yourself, that you’ll end up uncovering that held trauma, so they hurt you to protect you from knowing. They’re misguided protectors.” (This was written with help from a good friend.)

Traumaholders:

I am one of our traumaholders. The role of a traumaholder is to hold a ton of trauma and keep it from affecting everyone. This could be childhood trauma, teen year trauma, or even adult life trauma. Traumaholders are most of the time created to be very strong people to hold the things the child is going through. We are also known to be a bit more harsh and closed off, due to what we hold. Yet remember, none of us will cause you any harm, and are no less dangerous than your adverage person.

(Different traumaholder than above). I’m one of our other traumaholders. Although <insert name> covered most of it above, I just wanted to add that just because most Traumaholders are untrusting, does not mean they don’t care.

Outro:

We are all here for a reason. No alter is any less worthy of life here than another. Same goes to you, if you have any of these alters, don’t make them feel bad for who they are, you are valid no matter who you are. And you don’t deserve whatever happened to you to cause this disorder, no matter if it feels like you do or not. Thank you for reading.