heres something for you to try. think about your worse, most horrific traumatic filled event that you can remember. now think about whether it would be fun for you to go through that traumatic event all over again complete with feeling the emotions and physical aspects of that memory all over again as if it was happening right now in the present moment... that will tell you whether piecing together traumatic events is fun.

for me it was not fun, it was scary, and physically/ mentally painful and sometimes resulted in hospitalizations due to suicide and self injury because re experiencing it to piece it all together was just as traumatic as when it happened.

Luce.... yes sometimes alters fantasize and pretend and imagine. what my own treatment providers and I did was not to worry about if what they were talking about was real. even in ones fantasy there are elements that are real. a person doesnt just imagine out of the blue with no material to make that fantasy. the material for things that are not real are elements of our lives...

non triggering example a person can not imagine petting a deer if in their real life they have no knowledge of what a deer is, how it feels to pet something furry, have no knowledge of what the colors brown and white spots are.. those elements in the fantasy had to come from somewhere in reality...watching a tv show, actually petting animals, using crayons...even our emotions in a fantasy has elements of reality in them. a person who is scared my have a memory of a monster. the monster may not be real but the emotion of being scared no matter what made them scared enough to fantasize a monster.

so my therapist and I went on the premise that it doesnt matter whether what the alters were telling\sharing with her was real or fantasy. it may have felt and seemed unreal and couldnt have happened in our minds, what was important was that the alters felt those things were real. what was important was the fact that the alters were sharing that stuff, what they shared showed us they needed something...that something could be just to be heard, or comforted, other than that we let time take its course and if something was in fact real it became apparent in time.

my suggestion luce is just give it time. if what your alters are telling you is real not their building a fantasy you will discover that at some point. whats important is that ...are.... now sharing\ letting you and your therapist in to their thoughts, their memories, their feelings. great idea on the video. my therapist used\uses video too.