O boy/girl....this is going to take a bit...lol

To make this easy, I'm gonna do a lot of copy and paisting from an earlier post which you might have read. We have a researcher also that just has to know how everything works which has helped us out and gave us a bunch of skills and talents. Shim's (ungendered) ambitious thirst for the exact truth bleeds through when triggered and inspired.

First off, I'm not a professional, just affected and self taught through intense unsupervised study. I crave exact scientific knowledge...not the voodoo stuff.

This has been edited for content as we go...

About us: We are multiple, and have known forever, we're 47, but just came to grips with it out of denial, too. We are co-conscious (aware of each other-always have been (well we were but refused to acknowledge it till recent)) enough that we work in co-operation, that is we can talk, collaborate, and vote on life decisions to function as a singleton and switch seamlessly to keep the system hidden. We don't lose time, but we have missing memories. My days are bits and pieces and days are a jumble, we barely have no past it seems. Memories usually stay with the alter that experienced them, but we do some memory sharing to appear as a singleton (it's funny when an other can't remember the body's birthdate in public and no one says....lol).

Basically for us, the body is an empty shell and the alters are the filling that makes us a whole person (in my system). I don't know who "I" is....it's a loose term, when I think I know, "I" always changes. We are always linked by awareness, but always someone else. I'm so disconnected from the physical that the body does what the body does in gesture, walk, talk, speech, posture, likes, dislikes, thinking,...everything. It gets confusing. I can tell who is up by feel and the head voice of the next which becomes my next head voice when we switch. The next "I" is them. It's really so hard to describe because it's so illogical and impossible.

We are of 30+ named alters, plus hundreds more in the wings. Every alter has a job to do...like one for every life situation. We switch all day long, like I and others do the home and online stuff, all the skilled workers go to work, and some are people relation officers, some handle emotions, we have several that are sexual and of both genders, techies, drivers, cooks, some just are, partiers, no goods, etc. Right now, I'm like the Reporter reporting what we have learned. My head voice is strong and clinical sounding, like an instruction manual (actually it keeps changing as others jump in interrupting like I'm doing now! ).

I've been reading the technical stuff (theories...structural dissociation and neurobiology) on this condition, and let's see if I can get it close (someone will correct me if I get it wrong)...basically...a baby's brain isn't fully developed till about the age of 5 or so, (some say 7-8...depends on which country you live in...). Memory is stored in the different parts of the brain, like seeing, emotion, feeling, smelling, hearing areas.... Unprocessed early childhood trauma (like the mother/baby bond doesn't happen or is corrupted) prevents the baby's brain from becoming of one mind, naturally integrating (bringing all the parts together for the laying down of a complete memory [there are physical changes too with the hippocampus- books of studies written blah blah blah]).... and so the parts stay dissociated.

Some of these parts/states then can develop into full personalities (ANP- apparently normal part) while others are just containers holding bits of memory and emotions (EP-emotional parts- these are generally impulses and feelings or semi developed parts)). Some people experience amnesia where the parts are oblivious to the existence of other parts.

Due to the initial trauma, the brain stays dissociated, so that every subsequent trauma experienced is back logged, stuck,....much like a traffic jam. These other unprocessed traumas then develop into more parts. A person with lots of alters is considered to be poly-fragmented (me)...parts of parts to bits and pieces....hundreds to thousands.

There are many types of alters, some are gendered, littles, mids, protectors, persecutors, host, gatekeepers, apparently normal parts, emotional parts, animal parts, managers, nurturers, etc. They take on their roles as required or needed, some by choice, some by life, or some by assignment. Some are just containers to hold a bit of memory, some are to fulfill a job, and some are mains...living their own outward life dependent or independent of an other part...or influenced but unawares.

Integration is the process of bringing these memory parts (alters) together to form a linear complete memory (it's more complex then this sounds)...the alters then are no longer needed and are considered integrated when what they know become one with the main ego.

That's the basic layman's scientific mumbo jumbo theory that I've put together from reading according to my hole-y memory.

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My other parts are here to handle situations that "I" can't handle (I can't handle life)...something happens that causes me to dissociate (which is instantaneous), an other emerges to deal with the conflict, and after that, another presents...or its back to the first other.

We are always switching, some are triggered (a situation or event happens that requires an other part to handle that couldn't be handled by the other present) and some are scheduled- like it's time for so and so to emerge (like home time, work time, shopping time, explanation time, online time, kid time, couch time, school time, crying time, playing time, music time, party time...you name it, we have an alter for that ). We can also request an other to present. We are all equal, no one of us is boss of another...that's just plain rude.

My dissociation is quick that switching is seamless, sometimes a jolt, and sometimes an obvious body takeover. Very rarely do we trance out, but it does happen. I don't experience "blackouts", I'm aware...but some of the memories linger to fade away or are just taken away when switched. Memory is dreamlike and just flashbacks.

I can't see us integrating. Our host (the one out the most) alter is based on where we are in life. It's like we have no main, but plenty of hosts through the years. Depending on where you are located, "host" has different meanings.....for some it's the body itself, or it's the alter out the most...I prefer to think of it as the one out the most because the body is the body and the other way insinuates that we are all parasites....ewwww.

I used to think that all the voices in my head was like my thoughts, and I never noticed that we all had different voices. Everyone thinks we're super smart, but we got many smarts here, lol. I had a journal that I'd write in and an other would respond, like automatic handwriting. I then noticed that the words would pop into my head as I was writing them, so I just started talking to them. It's not like crowd noisy in my head because to talk, they have to step up.

In the short version, I'm like an android and all my others are software to function and do different life things. Without them, I'd (?) have a blank stare off into space.

I hope I helped...thus is my best uneducated guess.