Alters without a disorder

I'm sorry if the title is misleading and I'm also sorry if I put this in the wrong forum. I'm new here, so please forgive me!

I'm not diagnosed with any dissociative disorders, and I'm pretty sure I don't have one, but I do have alters that I am very aware of.

I have these personalities that I realize come out a lot. They're different from my normal behaviors. I gave them each names and they each have their different purpose. One is named S. He is a sociopath but his purpose is to protect me from people who try to harm me. His coldness and apathy towards others helps me to avoid feeling pain. Then there is A who is promiscuous and is very confident in herself. When I need confidence she usually comes forward and takes control but she often degrades the way I think and act. I often have conversations with these personalities. And they argue back and forth between each other about who gets to take control. Then there is U who is basically the one who latches on to my low self esteem and uses that to make me feel awful about myself. He prides himself about "speaking the truth". I'm sorry if this sounds fake but it is something that I experience and I was wondering if this is normal?

BTW - I do have other personalities springing about but they just come and go. S and A are the most common ones that roam around my head.

Hey Kurteous, Welcome to PC

"it is something that I experience and I was wondering if this is normal?"

Well, if we ignore the whole "what is normal?" debate, all thats left is your description - which ticks a lot of boxes for DID. What makes you think you don't have a dissociative disorder, when your alters are so defined?

I am bipolar and get a lot of times that or a altered ego comes through and then the one for low esteam and the agresive one and lastly the one that questions every ting I do and think. So what you experions can not be good for you and you should seak profecianal help

for some people yes it is normal for others no it is not. there are many different normal, medical and mental problems where a person can have alternate personalities....

a few examples of alternate personalities recognized in my own location...

normal types....imaginary friends. parts of selves, internal critics that have slightly more separation from the mind other wise known in some locations as introjects.

psychosis type alters....these are alters that are part of mental disorders that have can present in having hallucinations and delusions....such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder,....can be imaginary friend like or introjective like (friendly or abusive\critical\judgemental)

medication induced type alters...this type of alter in my location are grouped in with psychosis, the difference is they come from medications being the wrong dosage, use of drugs and alcohol.

dissociative type alters...alters that are trigger related take control when handling triggers, not imaginary friends, these alters are a very special kind, they have their own jobs, purposes reasons for being and affect a persons whole life not just one area of a persons life, mental disorders with this type of alternate personalities are DID and OSDD

we can not tell you whether this is normal or not for you, we can tell you if we have had any alternate personalities... I have had one or more of all the above types at one point or another. treatment varied according to what type of alter and cause.

to find out what types of alters your own location has and what is normal, mental and medical situations they categorize them in you will need to contact your own treatment providers.

Welcome...

I don't think I have DID because I haven't experienced any severe trauma in my life. I've had a peaceful childhood. The only thing that I guess isn't considered normal is that I didn't have very much friends growing up. I've had only one friend from 3rd-5th grade and 6th-8th grade I pretty much was all alone. I'm in 9th grade now, (I know I'm so young!) and I don't have anyone. I find it so hard to interact socially. And I feel as if I have no one in my family I can talk to about this. I don't believe they are very accepting of the idea of mental illness. I'm kind of wondering if it's possible for alters to spawn from loneliness. I usually have S there to keep me company and reassure me and even A can help out at times. They kind of help to block out the pain I feel from not being able to connect with people my age. Even if I do have DID, wouldn't I be too young to get diagnosed with it?

I also relate a lot to BPD so that's another reason why I don't think I have DID. I don't think it's likely to have both BPD and DID. Heh, I can't even become diagnosed with BPD either.

It just seems weird to think that I may have DID. Especially since other people have it to such an intense degree and I feel like I just have alters to help cure my pain from loneliness.

Thanks for this post it was really helpful. I do still have imaginary friends but it's because I think I have this thing called Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder. I tend to sit there and talk to myself for hours just lost in my thoughts. I'm not sure if this ties into a possible DID diagnosis at all. I also don't believe this is a part of psychosis type alters. I don't believe the Daydreaming is that extreme. I do experience dissociative type alters.

Recently I've been having a lot of mental breakdowns. I'm not sure if it's a new alter or not because I've never been like this before but when I become hysterical during one of my breakdowns I will enter this state where I feel like I almost lose sense of reality. It almost doesn't feel real. I feel like nothing can harm me and I feel invincible. When I reach this point in my breakdown I'll start giggling and singing but then burst into tears again. But then I'll start laughing again even if I don't think anything is funny. During these states I end up harming myself and I always consider just ending it all together. It's like I'm on this natural high. Like I'm high on the adrenaline of anger and I can't focus or think straight and everything just seems so fake that I have this idea that if I killed myself I would be just fine. I'm sorry if none of this makes sense. My thoughts and personalities are just all over the place.

Also to add on to the original post, I didn't mention this, but sometimes I don't realize when the alters take control because they do it silently and other times they ask me permission to take control and I can allow them to. S is good for blocking out feelings of guilt and sadness. S is my favorite. The only issue with him is that he can get very dark thoughts.

Heh, thank you!

Things like disassociation, splitting and so on tend to be on a continuum. At the end of the day, they are all simply coping mechanisms, and can be used differently and to different degrees in different people and in different situations for the same person.

A major theme in my integration work was owning emotions, thoughts and so on that were very uncomfortable to own as my own. It felt more comfortable to think of them as being "that alter's" thoughts or feelings, not mine. A big hurdle was embracing that every thought, feeling, memory and so on in my mind, was mine.

This was because one major purpose of my alters was in owning thoughts and feelings that were "unacceptable" for me to have as a child, in addition to unbearable feelings and experiences. They didn't just hold onto things that happened to me, but they also held onto things that made me feel ashamed or afraid of what would happen if people knew that I felt that emotion or had that thought.

Because of this, to me it makes sense that a person might split-off parts of themselves that induce feelings of shame or fear. "S" stands out to me in this regard, in particular.