LOL this answer shocked you huh. Yes if there is no matching alter or as I call them memory pieces that piece of memory is stored by itself to be match in future abuse situations.

Know the feeling Zorah. I didn't understand the concept either until one day I was telling SKR that I give up picking up the letter blocks and legos because they keep ending up out anyway. She laughed. and we continued to talk and watching my cat bat around all these mixed shapes of lego blocks I suddenly thought of something -

I am like a box of lego blocks - I have many memory pieces (alters) and legos come in various sized sets and shapes. some have 9 pieces, some have 15 pieces, some have 50 pieces some 100, some have 700 and some have 1000. and they come in scuares, rectangles, triangles ovals, people, circles and so on. At that point SKR and I had 5 names and each one was different from the other because they each contained their own information (memory content)

Then I looked at SKR and said- too bad I didn't have purple legos for mary and pink ones for this one and blue ones for that one and so on and so on down through the the names of my pieces of memories (alters)

now using this lego concept to explain how alters can remember things at different ages even though they are the age that they were created -.

"mary's" lego block color would be purple because that is the color I liked when I was the age of that memory piece.

So I take a purple lego for every memory that is stored as "Mary" and stack the lego blocks on top of each other. Lets pick a number - 3 "mary" is the memory of three situations that got separated so there are three purple lego blocks in one stack

Using the same idea -

Mary has 3 purple lego blocks (memorys)
Katherine has 3 yellow lego blocks (memorys)
Darlene has 3 blue lego blocks (memory)

One of marys "jobs" (memory content) is talking in meetings
Katherines "job" (memory content) is keeping notes
Darlenes "job" (memory content) is numbers and math skills

Situation CRB court hearing.
At the court hearing I listen as everyone(the lawyers, DHS, therapists, me, sons foster parents, and so on) on the case tell about their part of the case and what they are doing for my child, any problems he is having and so on. I also give a report on my side of the case - that included explaining any changes to my therapy and medication, whether or not I had contact with my child and the DHS caseworker in the past 6 months and so on

Its a very short half hour meeting but I get nervious and stressed out, feel cornered and closed in and so on like I did when My abuser would corner me and the result is I dissociate.

So Im siitting there in the meeting and dissociate my brain matches what goes on in the meeting with my memory pieces (alters)

When the discussion turns to anything with numbers - dates, times places and so on I would switch into the "Darlene" memories.

When its my turn to give my report I switch into the Mary memories and I read the words on my written report that match the already stored "mary' memory content to those in the meeting.

When someone else is talking and I need to keep notes on what they are saying I switch into the "katherine" memories.

Its all one situation - CRB meeting
But I have switched into 3 different memory pieces (Alters) during that one meeting.

Those parts of the meeting that I switched into the "mary" memorys become a part of the "Mary" memories. Mary was created when I was 16. I am now in my 40's.

the "mary" memory piece age is 16 but because I switched into "mary" my memory of talking during the CRB at age 40 plus is stored as a "mary" memory.

Now Mary has 4 purple lego blocks - 4 memories that will get matched to and acted out when I switch into "Mary".

For each memory that matches "Mary" you add another purple lego block.

The same works for all my other memory pieces add a new lego block every time a memory is stored as that memory piece (alter)

And if a situation matches more than one memory piece (alter) that situation will be divided up and the matching pieces will be stored as the matching memory piece (alter).

reedited -

Thought I would come back and add something because a friend is here with me and she read my post and asked me a question and I didn't want to lead anyone to believe the wrong thing here like what she was just asking me.

This process of storing matching memories does not mean the "alter" is "learning new things" as in a biological person learns for example how to read and write or for example like in my blog use a cell phone when a cell phone was not invented when that memory was created.

What this means is matching things match with the same - Squares with squares, triangles with triangles, and so on

if it doesn't match somehow with the memory piece (alter) it is automatically stored as a different memory piece (atler).