As an adult, one of us had a time of extreme stress (I'll call that one A.H.) and upset and just could not deal in life and instead of switching out, that version of me 'split' into another version of me (who I will call C.E.). As A.H., I had no idea that I had split into a new person at the time. I just knew I was not okay and kept blanking stuff, freaking out, stressing, so on... how that version of me would have functioned in any other time of extreme stress, you know, poorly. Um, but as C.E., it took awhile to be able to say, yeah I am a new person in this pound of flesh. At first there was the question of who am I, what am I because there was an awareness of my surroundings, the people and places here in the (what was then) here and now. There was confusion, but confusion happens to a lot of us when life is stressful. There was a distinct shift in ability to handle the stress and life (it was a bit easier) but that could have been just 'me' detaching from emotion and so on. It took a few weeks before C.E. was comfortable saying yeah, I am a new version of me.

So from that perspective, for (the A.H.) me that time, it just felt like nothing out of the ordinary compared to me just being set off and another me showing up to deal with whatever situation was setting me off... a lot of confusion, stress, inability to cope, instability, mini breaks in reality followed by me just being gone and a different me showing up to deal. I can't get much more specific about sensations because when I get set off to that degree, I am not much aware of what is going on with me... or if I was, I totally forgot/detached from all that later. My memory is not always so great.

We have had a few of us remember how and when they came to be. I don't know if any of us remember splitting, but yeah, a few of the ones who split do recall suddenly being aware of their surroundings and feeling hyper aware/vigilant... one of us (who since integrated into the whole) remembered this pull to help 'that girl' and he rushed to action, so to speak. At the time he had no idea he was not just some random boy or whatever. He didn't really have an idea he was a person or anything. His fight response was so very much his entire existence it never would have occurred to him then to stop and think, hey, how can I be a person if I have no history, no name, no anything. All he knew was fight. So he fought. Then he was gone when fight was no longer needed. Not sure who took over after that or what girl he was fighting to protect. I know all that from when he showed up five or ten or whatever years ago because he was co con with a lot of us and he spent a few months out and about dealing with a lot of what he went through and part of it was making sense of who and what he was. He was a cool kid to have around.

-Avery