Gate keeper

Anyone have stories to share about "gate keeper" parts? Or any "gate keepers" want to share their experience?

My "gate keeper" is different from my protector parts, dunno if that is always the case.

Anyway, my "gate keeper" is starting to let 2 people pass. The "gate keeper" has NEVER let anyone pass.

Sorry we have titles rather than names... It helps us stay safe with a not so safe person that we can't keep out of our life right now. He learned to use our names to manipulate us into doing what he wanted.

here gatekeepers are called protector alters.

I had many different protector alters. in fact I consider all my alters to be protector alters. they protected me from all kinds of things and kept me out of trouble or took on punishments abuse on my behalf to protect me.

my alters all had names and definite purposes/jobs to protect me.

each of my alters that had emotional job designations protected me from those that caused me to feel or elicit emotions. example someone like a teacher / authority figure was diciplining /lecturing me I would be protected from that person and that persons desired emotion ie dont cry or get something to cry for there fore those that protected me from authority figures that could prevent my feeling pain and emotions.

this kind of thing is true through out my whole system everyone was designed with a definite job /purpose of what emotion/ situation/ person / place or thing that was allowed to come through to me or kept away from me.

For me the difference between "gate keeper" and "protector" is that the gate keeper decides who gets to know me how well. It is a rather proactive job. My protector parts react to an event/trigger...
Most of my parts were created to protect the core and could, as such, be called protectors. Although I have functional parts created to excel in a specific area. Because we don't use names we have to come up with other discriptive ways to know who is who.
That and we are all obsessed with language and how it is used.

I have a gatekeeper.....but I call it the "Operator". It's more like a process though, I think....it's kind of hard to explain.

My Operator is, I think, definitely an alter, but not human. More like a computer system. It decides which alter gets to handle certain situations, helps determine which alter steps up in times of stress, and as far as I know, allows "Us" to put on one main front for others, like when we're at work or out in society. It allows others to see us as "one" as opposed to as "many" so to protect us and not scare others. It is very helpful at work. My co-workers see that I am Ely, a Nurse, and that I am capable of caring for my patients and thinking critically and on my feet. They see that I am smart and able to function in my professional role. They don't see below the surface where both Lydia and Ruby (our worker parts) function together and often pass information between the two, and they don't see Crystal, our Spiritual part, who's job it is to hold on to the difficult emotions we come across during times of crisis at work, if a patient gets real sick and needs to go to ICU, or if they pass away. Crystal holds those emotions for us so we can continue to function and deal with the emotions at a later time. But our co-workers....they just see "Ely"

I hope this made sense. I've always struggled on how to describe our "gatekeeper". The Operator differs from our protecters because our protectors are individual parts who have minds of their own, if you will. One holds memories of physical abuse and her motto is usually "FIGHT!!"; other protectors are cynical and don't believe anything anyone says to us so they keep people out.

Okay...we'll stop now. We don't want to confuse anyone.

I was tracking!
Yes, your Operator is very much what I am talking about. The only difference is my gate keeper decides both who goes out from our system but also how far into our world outsiders get. It is also what I refer to as a function part... They are here to serve a specific purpose but aren't really a personality... My protectors on the other hand have personality to spare .

I didn't even really know it was there until this past week. Everything seemed really random as far as who I trusted and who I didn't and who on the outside knew who on the inside. Now I have something new to understand. I am SO much more complicated inside than I realized!!!

So far my gate keeper just opens and closes gates, screens and curtains. I haven't been able to talk to them. So... I look for help understanding here.

Yeah, I haven't been able to talk to my Operator either. It just kind of functions on it's own....like an indestructible robot.

This was a very good question though. I don't hear many people talk about their gatekeepers or operators.

i thank you deeply for using the word "gatekeeper" instead of "alter". this is why i did not know i had d.i.d. i KNEW there were "parts" separate from the one (and as i understand this, the "one" is called the "core"?), but i thought they had to have a proper "name" such as Mary or Alice or Sue. this brain is so segmented that there is no way we can form any rhyme or reason to the co-existence of them all.

they are different entities that co-exist with the "mother" who watches over all, unless "mother" goes away and the "littles" (more like immature little entities--one says "lily" but how do we know?) are left to cry and be afraid and not know what to do.

there is one tho that does have a name, "Bonnie" although when that first was made known, there was another name below that one and i suspect it was something like "gatekeeper". she is almost asexual, very firm and matter of fact and totally fearless, and is just "there" when the one cannot be present, or even when the one is, but she's there at the times when drastic measures need to be put in place to protect the body, or to let it rest.

the gatekeeper was set up to deal with the world, to allow the one to work, to function, to deal with others in the world. the gatekeeper does not pay the bills, but allows the one to be protected enough to do this, for example. the gatekeeper is like a wall, built out of extreme necessity to put up boundaries when the old ones lay in tattered ruins.

there are also sentinels, who stand watch and report to the gatekeeper, ever hypervigilant for obvious reasons. there are also rooms with "windows" to view the world through many eyes, sometimes they are the one's eyes foremost.

everything has to be filtered by the gatekeeper, but "mother" has a lot of free reign to allow certain "safe" places to be visited, people that are safe to talk to, etc.

last week, due to devastatingly negative intervention from family, the gatekeeper was overrun by unknown soldiers hidden inside, who took to arms and blasted down the wall to get at those who would try to enter and destroy all of us. it was a blood bath. the one was almost lost.

now "everyone", the gatekeeper, the sentinels, the mother, the one as she can, the others as they can, are painstakingly helping rebuild the wall. the soldiers have thankfully retreated to the darkness within, but now the one knows they are there and the weak ones, we, are all very afraid. but "mother" is trying to sooth with lullaby's, words of assurance, and rocking us all in loving arms once again.

i have to ask a big favor. please please don't make me call things alters, or the system, or the core, it sounds so cold. gatekeeper sounds "safe", "mother" sounds protective and loving, and saying the "one" gives us hope that one day we will all be just that...one.

i don't know what else to say. i can't call these entities alters because "they" are, to the one's thinking, all a part of the one, formed to protect the one, and live within the one. this is just the way it is. it is not "by the book", but what is in life?

(((((DancingAlone)))))

I'm sorry you had such a devastating time this last week and I'm glad you're able to be here to share with us.

I'm not sure there is one right way or "normal" way to be DID. It definitely doesn't seem to go by the book. In my opinion, DID is a disorder that reaches different levels of the brain...sub-consciously, and just as no one person has the same mind as the next, no one person with DID will experience it exactly the same. There are guidelines that have been put in place by the professionals that enable them to diagnose the disorder, but it is a very personal disorder that no one experiences in the same manner.

Most in our system are aware of each other, but some do not communicate with others. Another role of our Operator....protecting certain parts from more dangerous parts by blocking internal communication. I've always had a strange time with the word "Alter". For some reason, it just sounds too........ummm....crazy? So we don't use it too often. We prefer to call ourselves parts, because we are all part of the (incomplete) whole.

I use lots of different words to talk about those within depending on who is out. The words I choose IMO are not right or wrong they just are. I don't think anyone should define the words for another persons experience... especially with something like DID. It is a process of our creative mind and is not always rational, linear or make sense.

My gate keeper is rather amorphous right now. They have long flowing robes but I can't tell if they are dark scary robes like the grim reaper or if they are bright colorful clothes like a fairy. I think it is female but I am not sure. It is just a gray shadow.

It is showing me that it believes it is time to let T in. T doesn't work with parts though so it gets complicated. Some parts are offended and angry others feel rejected and sad. Most parts don't care. Ts favorite part (yup, wont work with parts but does have a favorite) is happy but protective... she isn't too keen on sharing "her T".

Oddly I am not anxious as I would usually be. Although a little concerned as to what this newness may bring. This gate has never been opened before... Not to anyone (I am not even sure I have been allowed past this gate consciously before). Every time I have brought someone this close the gates are shut tight and the gate keeper just stands in our way Or things get all blurry and I can't find my way in.

Someone else wants out, time to switch... gunna be one of those days... lots of switching, like a little kid playing with the lights.