Sarah116: Mine fight a lot and sometimes make each other go away (One just yelled at me for typing that they say that's untrue)I think sometimes they can make each other go away.

Are you referring to voices Sarah, or like Beautiful Pain do you actually see these people/characters/parts of yourself (however you define them to be)?

Fleur and Merlin are in charge they always seem to be the ones at the top. Hannah died sadly but she still visits with me from Heaven (my old psychiatrist killed he he's a jerk but I still forgive him even know it is hard). Emily and Kelsey visit with me a lot when I was at my old school.

Fleur, Merlin, Hannah, Emily, Kelsey, and the shrink friend. Gee, they all have pretty names... except for that shrink friend. And the ebola monsters. I can't imagine anything pretty about that.

When I was little they just appeared as imaginary friends something I would grow out of to other people.

The "characters" in my own experience were all based on real life people -- I don't know if that's the same as your experience or different from it. Initially, I thought of each of them as something separate from me. After a while though I began to understand the role of projection.

Probably the most significant projection took place between two male characters. Within Jungian terms both of them represented my animus, but it was as if my animus had split into two parts -- one character reflected back everything that was "good" about me, the other represented every fear or terror I had ever held -- the shadow animus, the demon. As you might expect, I liked the first one very much and I didn't like the other even one little bit!!!

It's helpful to emphasize that each of those characters were based on real life people and events. For example, I had had a very good male friend whom I cared about very much and whom I could tell anything to without shame. I had also encountered a male who had frightened me very much.

In this respect, my experience is very much like PTSD wherein an individual will be triggered by some common element between the present and the past. The man who frightened me triggered an unconscious memory of my birth father; the man I felt comfortable and safe with reminded me of the comfort and safety of other men I had known, including my very real life friend whom I had lost. Naturally, I hadn't figured any of that out when I entered that space -- I was just terribly frightened and in a whole lot of pain. By the time I exited that space however I understood why one man had represented so much that was "good" to me (and therefore, had been a significant loss) to me, while the other represented so much that was "bad" (which helped me understand why I had been so "irrationally" frightened of him).

There were no other human beings in this room with me when I went through that experience. It was just me and my projections -- each one a part of me, represented by a character that just so happened to fit rather neatly upon this model...<blockquote>The Hero: The role of the hero was of necessity, played by me.

The Mentor: Gallagher

The Threshold Guardian: "god"

The Herald: This was the "character" I didn't like.

Shapeshifter: Limh

Shadow: Skadi -- the name itself means "shadow". I didn't know that when I chose that name to represent that "person/character".

Trickster: Perhaps this was the experience itself which showed me that what I had believed to be true was not necessarily true at all.

Source: Archetypes on the Path</blockquote>
Understanding the role of projection in my experience was one of the most significant lessons of entering that space: As above, so below.

Anyway... I don't know if you could map out your "characters/voices" in the same manner but I share the exercise just in case it's useful to you (or perhaps others).