no integration is not creating thousands of questions inside. the act of questioning inside is called thinking. every human being thinks (unless of course they have brain injury and are at the moment in a coma)

in general integration is something every human being does every day.. the definition of integration is processing or putting together things and information...

examples of normal every day integration...when someone mixes two alcoholic drinks they are integrating those two ingredients into one drink.

another example of normal integration making a post here on psych central. to make a post someone is combining the use of a computer, use of the internet, use of a website, use of the websites capabilities of posting, a key board, letters to make words, words to make sentences, sentences to make paragraphs, then they use the websites capabilities to submit reply so that their post shows up on the website forum boards.

integration of DID alternate personalities is just combining many things...therapy for stabilizing your present every day life through the use of a therapist, medications if needed, learning about yourself and your problems, learning how to manage your problems with out using your dissociation skills, learning grounding and other therapeutic techniques that can help you manage and have a better life,....this in technical terms is called trauma therapy. in some cases once a person's life is stable and they have all the tools needed to not dissociate another trauma related therapy is added which is working on the deeper trauma related things like discussing and working out what traumatic events happened to cause a person to become DID to begin with this is not a necessary component because many people with DID do not have access to their trauma memories, those memories have been dissociated and stored with in the alters. not having these memories is called dissociative amnesia and no or limited co consciousness with in the host (in this case Im talking about body born person) and the alters (between each other or the host) those that have co consciousness are able to work on their trauma related memories, those who do not have co consciousness are not able to work on those trauma memories until .....after ....the alters have integrated.

what I have described in reference to integration of alters is the natural process. once a person diagnosed with DID is stable and able to handle their problems and life with out dissociation they are able to do all the things the alters jobs, purposes, reasons for being created were, as a result the alters just naturally combine with the person in which they reside (meaning everything they were ..their memories, their emotions, their mannerisms, habits...everything mixes in with that of the person they reside with in which means they are all one whole person again.)

what happens with the other diagnosis's well though therapy, meds and such the other diagnosis are taken care of at the same time.

a persons diagnosis naturally changes over time because the physical body does not stay the same, even in normal people the physical body matures, they learn how to handle their anxiety, depression and such. its the same with mental disorders no matter which mental disorder a person has, on one psychiatric evaluation they may show up as having anxiety but the next one no anxiety disorder because they have been in therapy and learned how to take care of that.

with DID a person and their alters are in treatment for many many years some as long as 20-30 years. thats 20-30 years of learning how to take care of all those problems when integration happens usually most of those problems no longer exist because they have been in treatment for so many years.

Im integrated, my mental disorders are less now because a great many of them were taken care of over the many years I have been in therapy.

also periodically diagnostic change (which just happened in 2013 here in america) so many people who had some mental disorders well their diagnosis have changed or no longer a mental disorder and their symptoms fit other medical mental and normal diagnosis's.

Im not sure what you mean how close a person has to be compared to a singleton.

here in america you either meet the diagnostic criteria or you dont. If you dont meet the diagnostic criteria then treatment providers can not legally call you DID here in America. doing so is called possibly creating false mental disorders in someone and thats grounds for losing their treatment provider credentials. you can see what the diagnostic criteria are for having DID with in my link at the bottom of my post.

everyone's internal system of alters may be comprised differently (what their alters jobs, purpose, reasons for being created are, for example ) but for diagnosis purposes this is what treatment providers here in america go by, as to whether someone has DID or not.

other locations may have other standards and diagnostics.