Quote:
Originally Posted by Callista
It is fascinating to me that you can have a baby alter even though self-awareness starts emerging at around 18 months or so. Perhaps you put those memories together into a person afterward?
Anyway, I don't have advice; I just think it is interesting. I zone out during autistic meltdowns, and occasionally I can't remember what happened because I was just too distressed to store memories; but I don't have DID. I wonder if perhaps I would have ended up as more than one of me, if instead of simply forgetting I had put the memories together into a personality.
Heh, sorry, don't mind me--just speculation from a curious mind. Take good care of your baby, though. Babies need lots of love, whether they are made of flesh and blood, or of the information in a person's brain.  |
maybe it will help you understand the "baby" concept if you knew here in the USA the term "baby" covers the ages between newborn and 4-5 yrs old. we have all kinds of terms to describe childhood like "baby" "infant" , "newborn" and toddler all cover the same span of a childs life, though infant does tend to be used most often to refer to children under a year, newborn for the first 3-4 months and toddler for those ages in which the child is about a yr to 3 (the walking or toddling yrs.)
people in the USA also use the term "baby" to describe the youngest member or the family no matter how old the person is. example my youngest brother is 22 but he is the baby of the family, meaning youngest and last born to the family.
here where I live and work we do use the term baby for the youngest alter in the system and alters that are between the ages of newborn to 5 yrs old.
there is such a thing as having an alter that is a baby under the age of a yr because sick as it may seem there are jerks out there that do abuse children under a yr old in the most horrendous ways. I have a case in which the baby is 6 months old. this little girl does show the signs of dissociation with spaacy unfocused eyes when she hears a males voice, does not respond to touch if the person doing the touching is a male. she totally shuts down (breathing rate, heart beat,...) at the presence of a male to where she is barely breathing and her whole posture goes limp as if she has switched into an alter unlike her normal self. I would not be surprised if someday in the future this girl is diagnosed DID.
babies this young may not be self aware meaning knowing their self in the mirror and knowing they are a human being but babies do know when they are being harmed, evidenced by their crying when in pain. they know when they are hungry, cold wet what ever and they have feelings just like other human beings do.
dissociation isnt something you do after you are "self aware" you are born with the ability to dissociate, we know this because babies can be calmed and space out with moving objects, they do show thinking and dissociative activities on EEG's. a 3 month old child will use their hands to reach for objects and space out with repetative objects...a new born can recognize and be afraid of loud noises, someone yelling at them harming them....
anyway my point is there is no set age in which a person can become dissociative identity disordered. the criteria is just that two or more alternate personalities take control.