@amandalouise

>>>>"Rainy was only out during times when there were rain storms or other storms, or depressive times, Thelma was only out to handle my dating/ intimacy issues, red was only out during times when I was triggered into anger...."

My reply to the above: It sounds like you had a very protective system. All those parts of you are parts of you, and it sounds like your integration has shown your strength in being able to identify them, why they were there, and what those parts (and you) went through. I'm sorry you went through the pain of past traumas, but I'm glad you were able to integrate.

>>>>>"the only internal world I had was what my treatment providers called using my imagination, daydreaming. which is different than having an internal dissociated world. But I can imagine it must be hard to have not one internal world but 7 different lands internally. a friend of mine only has one and she tells me that its so hard sometimes to keep whats what on that internal world straight. in her internal world its one land with four "countries" she gets triggered and has these dissociative symptoms and her dissociating automatically puts her in an indian reservation frame of mind, she has these other dissociative symptoms and lands in the woods, has other dissociative symptoms and lands on a mountain summit, and had completely different dissociative symptoms and lands on a ferry crossing a lake. but its all one land so to speak. seven truly amazing that you are able to have 7."

My reply to the above: Yes, it's a little tough for me to have seven different lands within one internal world. - sorry for the confusion (it's not 7 different internal worlds, but 7 lands within just one internal world; all 7 lands connect, but there were gatekeepers at the outskirts of each land - but after integration, no need for gatekeepers anymore - yay).

I'm sorry to hear about your friend's triggers. I can understand how she has a different land within her inner world to house her different alters who helped her when specific things in the real world were scary or harmful.

In my inner world, there's a meadow, a forest, a darker forest, a maze/labyrinth, a core center for the baby, an underground, and the "body" (which is more like an inner world than my physical body). They all housed certain alters for specific reasons. When I integrated with a few, the inner world grew lonely at first and then brighter later. It was strange, but a good strange. It housed all of our memories - before I was able to know them and after I got to know them. After fusion and integration with them, I could see why they felt the need to go back inside to their safe place when another alter took over for them - all without me knowing it (at first). Needless to say, I had dealt with so many traumas and so many different kinds - especially growing up in an unconventional military family with a WWII "veteran" from the merchant marines (my father) and his wife (my mother) who was Japanese. It was hard being a mixed race when my father would have his own sorts of flashbacks and then hurt my mom, and then hurt us kids, and then say negative things about Japanese people. My father is white. To experience racism from my own father was hard, but to not know who I was or what I represented as a mixed race, was even harder. And my poor mom, who didn't realize she was neglecting us when she didn't just leave or when she couldn't fight him back. It was like we were all entrapped, but my mom was strong enough to persevere somehow. My mom doesn't want to admit it or talk about it, and neither does my sister. My other family members from my dad's side, whom I met years after my father had passed away, when I was in my 20s and 30s, had experienced some of the same things - and we didn't grow up together (they're much older). If only they recognized him as a veteran, and the harms that happened to both him and then to us, maybe the VA could had helped him and, by extension, us. But research back then was not there for the things he had went through, and then the things we had went through.

I still don't know all of it. Just what the alters had told me or what bits and pieces of flashbulb memories I can recall before I dissociated.

I think there were a number of alters to handled a number of different traumas. I don't know them all, but I know enough.