Hi again. my previous post has been removed because even with the warnings in the post and the trigger icon it was too graphic still for the message boards so Lets see if I can condense that leaving out all the graphics -

when a child is being abused and they have no way to physically run away from their abuser. so they start daydreaming that the abuse is happening to someone else. Someone that they have contact with in thier life at that time. after they imagine the abuse is happening to someone else they continue daydreaming until they have daydreamed things for each of their five senses and emotions so that they are no longer mentally aware of what is physically happening. What the child is aware of is what they are daydreaming. in this case it was a daydream of listening to musical clouds on a warm sunny day with a breeze and eating an ice cream cone.

The daydreaming is called being dissociated. every human being has the ability to do this.

while the child is dissociated and not aware of the abuse that is happening The brain continues keeping the child physically going. its still recoding all the physical stuff going on - the abuse, heart rate, breathing rate, physical reaction. These physical and emotional memories are stored in the unconscious level of thinking so that the child is not aware of what is happening.

after the abuse is over the child and abuser go on with their day. But the next time the child is unconsciously reminded of what happened the child reacts with discomfort and upset so the child thinks about their daydream instead of what is happening to make them uncomfortable and upset.

While the child is daydreaming the boy matches what is upsetting the child to the memories that are stored at the unconscious level of thinking and automatically acts out those matching memories.

This happens every time the child gets upset about anything from the moment that the abuse situation has been stored in pieces according to the five senses and emotions in the unconscious level of thinking.

The child is now considered as having Dissociative Identity Disorder.

The unconsciously stored memories that are being acted out are called by many different names. A persons personality is what and how they percieve things from their five senses and emotions so one of the names used to describe the memories is Alternate Personalities (alters for short), the word fragments is also used as a way to describe how much memory of the situation is stored in that piece of memory. In recent years the terms "parts" and "memory pieces" have been in use so that DID'ers understand that they are not being possessed by spirits and flesh and blood people. That the alters are parts of then - memories of themselves at various ages and the abuse situations that they went though stored in pieces according to the five senses (sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, touch,) and emotions.