Quote:
Originally Posted by Luce
Well, I can relate to some of what you wrote here. In terms of social life and friends, in teenage years we had 'an alter for every occasion'. Well, not literally, but it felt like that sometimes. We never fit in anywhere, but at the same time we fit in everywhere.
I think of high school life... we had a nerd who was besties with a disabled physics prodigy; a dropout who was friends with the 'losers'; a soft-spoken sensitive one who hung out with the high-achievers in the music department; a quiet lonely worker who excelled at school work; a delinquent who hung with the trouble makers and was always getting suspended and expelled... and the list goes on. Each alter was perfectly suited to their role, and accepted within their chosen peer group. Each group on its own was not a problem... the problems came when any group of friends overlapped with another one. In those instances we became very dissociative and switchy, which makes sense to me now. I need to note that at that time of life the alters had no awareness of each other at all.
But then I can also relate to what was written in the other thread, because later in life, when we became aware of our DID and developed co-consciousness, we experienced some of the problems associated with that. For instance (and this has happened many, many times) a switch might be triggered but because of coconsciousness we are aware it has happened - both the front one and the one that switched out are aware that the 'wrong' person is at the front. Both are also aware that if the one at the front is to speak or act in his or her typical way then the secret of DID may be revealed. In those instances we have sometimes had the front one deliberately 'act' like the original one to hide the switch, or we have been 'frozen' in some way while we fight to switch back. But we have definitely been caught off guard in ways that we have been fully aware of, and had to pretend or otherwise cover for the switch so as not to reveal / embarrass / shame ourselves.
I see them as two very different scenarios, based on the level of coconsciousness at the time. AL, since you have only ever had a very limited level of coconsciousness it makes perfect sense to me why you do not understand the challenges that come with it.
What are your thoughts?
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what do I think. i love it that you had both sides of this issue. I know many with many levels of co consciousness that have one or the other or both sides so my opinion is that co consciousness or lack there of wasnt the issue of why I am different than the other thread. and its not that I dont understand the challenges, its that I did not experience the challenges in the other thread. the poster said they only wanted replies from those that experienced their way of this issue in their starting post, since their thread was limited to only those that did have to use pretending I thought it would be nice to have a thread for those that did not have to use pretending. again its not that I dont understand that side of it, its just that because of the way my system was comprised I did not have to worry about that side of things, it had nothing to do with my limited co consciousness. even with those I was co conscious with there wasnt an issue of pretending due to the way my internal system was comprised where when ever I or the others encountered triggers or discomfort an alter that handled that problem took control.