A Question

i dont get one thing that how a person speaks different languages or possesses different nationalities in DID? a person's mind must be familiar with that language whereas it is not necessarily a case .. ?

a person can have alter personalities, traits, attitudes and behaviors but how He can speak a language that he is not familiar with?

I think there is so much we have still to learn about the brain and it's functioning.
I believe that it can be so-- a person knowing a language only when that "part" is present.

like how does one explain one part having high blood pressure but not another part? or... one part is diabetic but not another?....
it's mind boggling.....

the brain....... so mysterious.....

My understanding is that being dissociated is like or a kin to being hypnotized. you are in a very relaxed state of mind but you are also acutely aware of everything going on around you. Similar to how a person under hypnosis can "pick up" the given hypnotic suggestions that their cigarette has a foul taste, that enables a person to stop smoking.

picture a 5 yr old that has just undergone extreme trauma so they dissociated/self hypnotized their self. they are now an alter. that alter picks up every minute detail of what is going on around them that a normal person may not notice.

Example they happen to be sitting in a room with a person speaking english when their normal language is spanish. Their normal self will now speak spanish but the alter that picked up english now speaks the english words and phrases that they heard spoken.

picture a teen ager who that morning has undergone extreme trauma before school. part of their school routine is going to a german class. their normal language is english but they go to the class while dissociated. the alter ends up speaking german while the normal awake self speaks english.

Picture a 10 year old watching tv after undergoing extreme trauma. they are dissociated. that alter who is highly in tune to everything notices the sign language in the corner of the screen and pick that up.

picture an 8 yr old who is dissociated with nothing to do but sit there being as quiet as can be and notices the book that is printed in english, french, spanish and german.

Babies and children pick up things faster than adults do sometimes they dont have to see or ear every minute detail in order to learn things. A child or baby can learn the stove is hot just by reaching out and touching it. they dont understand it they just know by how it made them feel. language is the same way babies and children can pick up an amazing amount of a spoken, written or signed language with a very little amount of exposure.

now take your own abilities to learn something on your own. Alters are just like you. they are parts of a person that take on lives of their own, Some have the ability to learn and teach their self new things. if they want to learn a new language they can.

this is how I learned to speak many different languages. Some I learned in school language classes, some I picked up from the tv, some I picked up while in foster care during my short time of one week in one, some I picked up sitting in a court room lobby by watching people around me waiting to go in and testify against the person that hurt me. Some my alters taught their selves. Children have amazing learning capabilities even when dissociated.

Hmm .. seems quite logical that our alters can pick up things from the surroundings which we ignore ..

but how can alters learn themselves w/o getting exposure to it? Quite confusing ..

I don't think they can. Language is aquired skill, it does not just appear in brain. Languages are made up, you cannot speak the language without learning the code.

/that much from linguistic perspective, I am not psychologist/

not meaning to go "off-topic" here but have you ever read about-- past lives regression?
there have been people that could speak other languages due to their past lives coming through to their present life...
it's controversial and not a popular belief in this current culture...
but.... anyway...
if you're interested you can PM me-- I know of some literature that you may find eye opening.

wishing you peace and understanding

fins

Exactly .. thats what i believe!

I heard about that but dont have much knowledge about it .. Actually i don't believe in this past life regression mainly because of lack of evidence about it .. But i would love to read more about it ... I will be grateful if you PM me the literature you have got ..
thank you

I do believe in past lifes and having glimpses from it...

but as somebody who worked hard to learn few foreign languages and studied linguistics, I don't believe that one can have the skill to speak a language without learning it (and as for past life experience on language skills... I would be interested it).

Another question related to this that I have always been curious about...
how can a female have a male alter and visa versa?

Talk with your treatment people about how your alters were formed/brought into being.

its the same process for having male alters in a female body or female alters within a male body (or any other type of alter) as it is with having same gender alters.

I would, but I'm not in therapy

I see. Well in general (I cant speak specifically for your system I can only give you a general idea) here the mental health community believe alters are created by children who have been through extreme trauma. It is believed the child feels in danger and uses their mental coping skills to escape when there is no physical escape possible. Children like some adult have very active imaginations and can create their own safety nets in what ever ways, themes, plots that they may need to survive. some children create their safety nets as animals, people or places that enables them to feel safe.

think about what makes you safe, children do the same thing when they feel they are in mortal danger.

children like you can come up with a wide variety and diversity of what gives them a sense of safety. sometimes its another person older or younger than their self sometimes its a male sometimes its female, sometimes its even an animation character they have seen in a movie or on television.

the more this coping skill is used the more real that creation becomes to the child, from their no one really knows what or how those mental safety nets end up taking on lives of their own but they do. At some point those creations start living their own separate lives from the child and continues living separate lives even after the child who created them is grown.

If you google the words DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Multiple Personality Disorder you will find a whole load of information about the disorder.

You might also contact someone in a mental health agency near you that can talk with you about this subject. they can tell you what the mental health communities near you understand and believe about this disorder. many different agencies, countries, states and other geographical locale believe many different theories about this disorder and its diverse problems/symptoms/ identities.

my experience of the original question is that my father spoke Finnish to us kids when we were very little. He left the house and area when i was three years old. i have a part that speaks Finnish but i cannot speak it at all....not even one word. its weird but its true. mostly i speak it in my sleep or early in the morning, he used to sing to us in Finnish at nighttime....kasva

cool .. Sounds logical to me .. It reminds me of Jungian concept of Archetypes ..Good explanation of different alters in one human being!

You are exposed to the finnish language and naturally whatever you learn in childhood it stores in your memory .. I was wondering about those, who never get any exposure to different language but in DID, can speak those languages .. Anyhow, above explanation by "amandalouise" has given me some clue!

For me, I dont speek or have been near any laugeges other then egalish, at least for a long period of time, but some alter can understand the language while I cant, or others cant..... It is weird that way. Not saying they can speek it, but understand it. It is stargne. SOmetimes it is like math, or engalish. while one can be really good at one thing another can have trubble with it. Alters are like diffrent parts of your brain in a sence of were they are all diffrent. Still there is a lot we dont know about the brain, but looking at this you can conect this to the person who was struck by lighting then knoew how to play the piano, something you just know....

~Lavender

Im not to sure why, but i have a male alter and im a woman... i dont know but i think that its quiet common.. because as my therapist says that my male alter holds qualities that i dont, ie super confident, funny, witty and attractive.

Does that help at all?

To the orginal poster i dont speak another language and neither does my alters.

I remember learning spanish in school and failed terribly at it I know very little. one time I remember watching another inside of me talking in spanish to mexicans and was an on going convo for hours and they all seemed to understand each other. Talk about weird but it did happen. Why how? don't know. Just because I do not pick it up does not mean a part of me did not. This is only place I can say this and know that someone may know what I mean.